Hey Everyone. First time posting. I played my first mission as the GM and organized an Airspeeder drive by and following chase sequence. The problem here was the limited rules regarding this interaction. The Airspeeder didn't have weapons so I was trusting the heros to shoot with their weapons while being fired upon. The Airspeeders however have so much soak and I didn't know how best to use the astronomical size nature of the speeders in personal combat. Seems the guns couldn't make a dent. What am I missing? How could I make more to do for the characters who aren't driving and how could I make it more cinematic for everyone?

Make sure you're running the numbers right. Airspeeders, the civilian "flying car" kind, have a Armor (and by extension Soak) of 0. At vehicle scale that means to kick in 1 HT you need to apply 10 points of personal scale damage. So a Blaster rifle or Carbine will have no problem kicking in 1 HT per hit. Even a Heavy Pistol can get the job done if you get a decent roll. This also means Crits will work too.

If your players didn't have access to rifles/carbines/heavy pistols, or you were using an airspeeder with an armor rating... there's your problem. Just make a mental note and when designing your next speeder encounter make sure the tools to cause damage are included.

Or you have the mechanic in the party notice a Bad Motivator on the other speeder.

You can also aim at the passenger of a vehicle by taking an Aim manoeuvre and suffering 2 Setback dice on the dice roll. This may give passengers more to do with less weapons.

Let the players use a Heavy Blaster Rifle with Autofire and see how quickly airspeeders blow up Don't forget the size difference too to reduce the difficulty.

You can also aim at the passenger of a vehicle by taking an Aim manoeuvre and suffering 2 Setback dice on the dice roll. This may give passengers more to do with less weapons.

Can you give me a page reference for that? - I was looking for something like this but couldn't see it in the books.

You can also aim at the passenger of a vehicle by taking an Aim manoeuvre and suffering 2 Setback dice on the dice roll. This may give passengers more to do with less weapons.

Can you give me a page reference for that? - I was looking for something like this but couldn't see it in the books.

EotE page 201 Aim Section 2nd Bullet

Would targeting an NPC on a speeder count as "Target a specific item carried by the target, or a specific part of the target."? I would imagine the target is the NPC, not the speeder.

That is a question that creates quite a bit of debate.

Things to consider when using these rules: When no boost or setback dice are added to a roll, it is average conditions. This means that there would be no advantage to the shooter, or penalties. Now translate that to firing from a moving vehicle, at another vehicle, with wind whipping past you, and you are trying to hit a small target on a bigger target. I can see the following setback being offered here:

1) Firing from a vehicle +1 Setback dice

2) Different speeds of vehicles +1 Setback dice

3) Environmental conditions +1 Setback dice

4) Cover from the vehicle itself +1 Setback dice

As a GM, you could rule that the character can only target the ship. When it comes to firing at vehicles, I tend to use the Silhouette Comparison Chart which means the difficulty would drop by one. Now if the GM only allows you to fire at the ship, you could declare that you are aiming at the component which means you would spend 1 maneuver to get 2 setback dice to the shot, or 1 setback dice if you aim twice.

What most people I have seen take into consideration though is the cover that the vehicle provides and don't modify the difficulty based on the size of the vehicle:

Jetpack - No cover

Speeder Bike - Standard Cover (+1 Setback)

Open Top Speeder - Improved Cover (+2 Setback)

Closed Top Speeder - Total Cover (Unable to target - except perhaps with a Triumph)