Hello all! Long time GM here but very slow poster. I have a question for fellow GM's and Players:

In the expanded universe is very common to see fighters using ion cannons to great effect against capital ships. Most of the "bomber" tipes have them (y-wings, b-wings).

However with 5 or 6 base damage, they would have a very dificult time even piercing the armor of most siluette 6 or 7 ships, and even if they do they would useally do 2 or 3 strain damage. Even with a much lower SS than HT, using ion weapons feels a lot like a waste. You would even have more luck using regular lasers canon and hope for critical hits (3 advantages vs 4).

Im thinking that maybe ion weapons should get breach or do more damage.

Any one else has these issue or i'm missing something.

You are missing something...sort of.

Yes, the EU said a lot of thing....a lot of awful, awful things... but that's not really the issue here, just something that skewing your perspective. Some EU authors needed ion cannons to be amazing for their story, some did not. So that's all that is. Lucasfilm didn't (and probably still doesn't) give a rats about the technical details of how the technology works, so there was never any reason to sort that out and ensure any kind of consistency.

The issue that you are missing is this is a game system. Ion cannons, by doing ion damage, disable and don't destroy their targets. So, if you make ion cannons "better" then lasers, you'll by extension have to deal with the fallout of that decision. Namely, the players will probably try to devise a way to capture and use/sell everything.

This isn't the first time a game system has tweaked something for the sake of game balance over "accuracy/canon." In WEG's version ion cannons ignored shields. In X-wing/TIE fighter Ion cannons (and really no weapons for that matter) could penetrate shields you had to drop them first, in Battlefront the ion cannons were machine guns that fired laser bullets...

So, it's your game, if you want to add breach or something go right ahead... Just make sure you've covered the angles as best you can and that you have a contingency if a player finds a loophole you didn't consider.

You are missing something...sort of.

Yes, the EU said a lot of thing....a lot of awful, awful things... but that's not really the issue here, just something that skewing your perspective. Some EU authors needed ion cannons to be amazing for their story, some did not. So that's all that is. Lucasfilm didn't (and probably still doesn't) give a rats about the technical details of how the technology works, so there was never any reason to sort that out and ensure any kind of consistency.

The issue that you are missing is this is a game system. Ion cannons, by doing ion damage, disable and don't destroy their targets. So, if you make ion cannons "better" then lasers, you'll by extension have to deal with the fallout of that decision. Namely, the players will probably try to devise a way to capture and use/sell everything.

This isn't the first time a game system has tweaked something for the sake of game balance over "accuracy/canon." In WEG's version ion cannons ignored shields. In X-wing/TIE fighter Ion cannons (and really no weapons for that matter) could penetrate shields you had to drop them first, in Battlefront the ion cannons were machine guns that fired laser bullets...

So, it's your game, if you want to add breach or something go right ahead... Just make sure you've covered the angles as best you can and that you have a contingency if a player finds a loophole you didn't consider.

This.

And in Saga non-planetary Ion cannons were almost useless against capital ships unless you scored crits because first you divided the damage result by 2 and compared that to the target's shield rating. Then if it beat the shield rating you multiplied the damage that was left by 2 and the ion effect only triggered if that beat the target's damage threshold.

I know the EU authrs had a lot ...freedom.

The issue with Ion Cannons is that only canon one in Echo Base, and was a planetary scale and could temporarily disable an ISD. So is more of a plot device.

I know the EU authrs had a lot ...freedom.

The issue with Ion Cannons is that only canon one in Echo Base, and was a planetary scale and could temporarily disable an ISD. So is more of a plot device.

Yeah, that thing would be it's own vehicle and weapon. I statted it up once as a joke to test API settings before game session start in Roll20 (and annoy the GM...ok, mostly to annoy the GM)

The issue with Ion Cannons is that only canon one in Echo Base, and was a planetary scale and could temporarily disable an ISD.

Not entirely correct. A Jawa uses a personal-scale ion rifle to disable R2 in ANH. There are instances of ion cannon use in The Clone Wars, such as by the Malevolence, although that ship's ion cannons also were plot devices (as was the v-150 on Hoth). Since all canon appearances of ion weapons are used as overwhelming plot devices, we have no canon info on how such weapons work when scaled down to a comparable size with regular lasers (such as the ion cannon turrets on Y-wings) and used against shielded targets. I don't recall ever seeing, in canon, a Y-wing using its ion cannon.

My players had absolutely no problem shutting down a VSD nor an Interdictor. In fact, it was almost TOO easy. Crits only require a hit, not actually doing damage... Then again, they were in 2-seat+Astromech Y-Wings....

Pilot does stay on target, Astromech does the slice enemy action, Gunner aims and shoots. Everyone but gunner dumps extra <a> into blue dice, and gunner has stat 4 skill 3... rolling 4 yellow, at least 2 blue, and the enemy has two black to hit...

Even if you don't get past the armor, you still usually have enough to trigger a crit.

I know the EU authrs had a lot ...freedom.

The issue with Ion Cannons is that only canon one in Echo Base, and was a planetary scale and could temporarily disable an ISD. So is more of a plot device.

It was a crit but not a ST exceeded.... and a high roll.

My players had absolutely no problem shutting down a VSD nor an Interdictor. In fact, it was almost TOO easy. Crits only require a hit, not actually doing damage... Then again, they were in 2-seat+Astromech Y-Wings....

Pilot does stay on target, Astromech does the slice enemy action, Gunner aims and shoots. Everyone but gunner dumps extra <a> into blue dice, and gunner has stat 4 skill 3... rolling 4 yellow, at least 2 blue, and the enemy has two black to hit...

Even if you don't get past the armor, you still usually have enough to trigger a crit.

This is incorrect. In order to score a critical hit you need to do damage above the vessel's armour rating.