I may be missing something here, but I see that the mechanics make a point of stating the fire arcs on ship weapons. I perhaps get why this would be helpful if you were utilising maps every encounter, but as I understand it, the range band rules work as an abstraction, as something you could easily track on note paper without maps if desired. We see this is suggested by ships always using their chosen defence side, and the way this works with a ship engineer being able to redirect shields to a particular part of the ship, thus stacking the effect in one place.

So, for me this leaves some disparity between the mechanics and there being weapon firing arcs. I don't know what it's for.

Let's look at an example that confuses me: If my party's YT1300 (360 degree fire arc) is in battle with some TIEs (frontal fire arc), and the TIES are in close range, they fly and But do they never fly past and need to turn to get back into the fight? In other words, surely their guns aren't always facing their target?

But this example gets crazier still for me when I replace the YT1300 with an X-Wing or any forward fire arc ship. How do I explain that one away? Imagine a single TIE versus X-Wing.

If the TIE is hitting the X-Wing every turn, yet the X-Wing is also hitting the TIE every turn, both with frontal arc weapons, are we to suggest that they are always flying at one another, never able to pass, as if trapped in some combat event horizon?

Like, on a space map, with my ship tokens, literally where do I place those TIEs?

Is this something I'm missing? Or is this just the mechanic's abstraction that I'm trying to make sense of, but no sense can be made? (Though I argue that it would be natural to try - as my beginner box comes with tokens which require placing...)

What you're missing is that it's not a map-and-counters kind of situation. When you maneuver, you declare which facing of yours is in which of theirs. Narratively.

Perhaps the two are front to front, and making quick passes by each other.

Or, perhaps you want to put them off the rear shield because the forward one just got fried by his triumph.

As a house rule... Faster ship (current speed) gets to pick which of its arcs bear.

Or, you could use counters on the table, and a range stick, and, like, actually go minis-style on it.

I am also curious to the answer on this as that is the same question I have had.

Nevermind. Ninja'd

My understanding is this: in combat, the attacker gets to declare which fire arc he can use, and the defender chooses which defensive zone is targeted. Both ships are weaving and zooming about, trying to get their weapons lined up and keep their best defensive area in the path of their opponent's weapons.

However, if you have Gained the Advantage, you get to choose which of your opponent's defensive zones you target (and by extension which of their firing arcs you're in).

So, our X-Wing has the advantage over the TIE Fighter. Like always, he chooses his own firing arc when he attacks and chooses 'forward' (obviously), but since he has advantage he also chooses his targets defensive zone and firing arc: he chooses aft, meaning the TIE can't shoot him until he loses either advantage, or his mind and declares he's in his opponents forward arc.

The other factor here is the size of the ship(s) involved. Those that are Silhouette 4 or lower have only two facings (fore and aft), while those that are Silhouette 5 or larger have four (fore, aft, port, and starboard). Usually, turrets are 360 degrees, and can handle any of those four facings.

Oh, and then you get ventral versus dorsal. So, a dorsal turret might not be able to fire on a ventral target, regardless of the respective facings.

And things can get even weirder when you mix the two sizes, like when you have smaller fighters that are attacking a larger battleship.

So, yeah. Weirdness can abound.

I treat it like a tactical strategy game or a miniature game. If you are chasing the Ties, then they can't fire at you until they turn and fire. If they are charging at you, you can't just say "oh I'm turned and they are firing at my rear instead of my front" you actually have to maneuver your ship like that.

Its crucial to remember a couple of things:

1. A round is long (roughly 1 min, could be 30 sec, could be 5 min), and a roll to hit isn't just 1 pull of the trigger

2. Vehicle Speed doesn't automatically equal moving from A to B, that the Fly/Drive maneuver. speed just affects the rate at which distance is covered

3. Gain the Advantage, Stay on Target are used to control your opponent and the ways you interact.

4. if you don't use the Fly/Drive maneuver that doesn't mean your standing still. Your dogfighting, circling each other, using nearby terrain etc.

5. Speed also affects a lot of Piloting check difficulties, there is a reason for having an Astromec copilot in a star fighter!

So during a single round of straight up combat the pilot of each vehicle is trying to get a good shot, whilst also presenting the best side to the enemy when they have to.

Personally i find table top space simulators (X-Wing, Armada) to be lacking in the 3rd dimension. I like this RPG system because you can get a lot more creative.

Gain the Advantages does not have any effect on which weapons the enemy can fire back with. It only allows the attacker to choose the defensive zone at the moment he attacks. When the target gets it's turn to attack, it is assumed there is maneuvering that allows it to bring whatever weapons to bear it wishes. This is all because a turn is a nebulous amount of time that allows everybody to do their thing.

Sorry, havent had a space battle yet...

So you cant use superior piloting skill/and or ship speed and maneuverability to stay on a guy's six and keep him from returning fire?

It's nebulous. The rules suggest opposed Piloting checks but don't actually require them. Gain the Advantage is very specific about what it does, and restricting the target's ability to return fire is not something it does.

If a speed 4 ship can gain the advantage on a speed 3 freighter (which cannot roll to gain the advantage, so it can't defend against this action) and having taken superior positions could restrict the other ship target ability, then it would be GAME OVER for the freighter.

In the first game I GMed, I thought that once you GtA, you where on the target's tail in their dead zone. After realizing that my players couldn't shoot that Tie Fighter anymore, and had no way to remove the GtA, then they were completely defenseless and would eventually blow up After reading the GtA description a few times, we noticed that it never stated that it prevented the target ship from shooting back, even with front facing guns.

Like many said before, a round is on average a minute long, so the ships arc and turn to get the best shot in and shoot each other a few times, with the hopes of landing a good blow. When one ship GtA, then he ignores the penalties from his own Evasive Maneuvers and his target's Evasive Maneuvers. So if both ships would do Evasive Maneuvers, the GtA ship would roll PP to shoot his target, while the target ship would roll RR to hit (ignoring other factors like shields or terrain or talents or size). This is where the Master Pilot talent really shines when you can both GtA and shoot at your target and do Evasive Maneuvers (for a cost of 4 strain).

On the original topic, ship speed doesn't do much except when changing range bands or trying to do GtA. In the case of a Chase, speed is a meh! factor since you move up or down the range band to your target if you succeed and if he fails his check. So going slower will usually increase the odds of catching up which is kinda dumb

Since we like minis and maps, we house ruled space combat ranged bands into hexes and that speed would equal the number of hex the ship could travel in one move. Same goes for chases, where if both ships succeed their piloting check, the faster ship could still catch up with the slower ship. I don't have the ranged band conversions on hand, but it worked pretty well.

Kudos!

Sorry, havent had a space battle yet...

So you cant use superior piloting skill/and or ship speed and maneuverability to stay on a guy's six and keep him from returning fire?

You can. With talents. The Pilot specialization has a 25 XP talent called Brilliant Evasion. Once per encounter, you pick another starship/vehicle, make an opposed Piloting check, and if you succeed they can't attack your starship/vehicle for a number of rounds equal to your agility.

If you also have that same target under the effects of the This One is Mine Ace signature ability, they can't attack anyone, as that ability forces them to only be able to attack you.

In this system, to be truly amazing at space combat, you need talents. Desperately. Agility 6/7 and a Piloting skill of 5/6 (with cybernetics) can only get you so far. Talents can be used to removed setbacks on Piloting checks for terrain, critical hit results, and gaining the advantage. Talents can increase your defense to protect you from their shots. Talents can lower your silhouette to alter the base difficulty to shoot your ship. Talents can give you fancy maneuvers that others simply cannot perform. Never underestimate the Master Pilot talent, that lets you suffer 2 strain to perform any starship action as a maneuver, once per round. This is how you can gain the advantage and shoot someone in the same round.

After talents, or in line with, are modifications. Nightshadow Coating, ECM Suites, Advanced Targeting Arrays, Shield Boosters, all of these do so much more for a starship's capabilities than raw skill and characteristics. I know most starfighters are limited to a single hard point, but there are some with two or three.

Then there is the Rigger specialization, for when you want to turn any ship into a much cooler version of itself.

Unlike land battles, where a character with a good agility and a good ranged(heavy) can pick up a heavy blaster rifle and win the day, space combat needs characters with abilities to truly shine.

Yes talents are awesome, unfortunately they are spread across a dozen or more supplements. Takes a photographic memory to even remember a specific one exists, much less call it up when working on a Nemisis character or what have you.

Try using these as aids. They have all the talent trees and signature abilities in one three nice places.

That's cool but you still have to thumb through 90+ pages of different trees to scan the talents. One would think FFG would put out a master index, a simple list with each talent alphabetically listed and the trees they are associated with.

Of course they don't have an index for ships, weapons, armor, gear, droids or anything else. There are some folks that have provided some great fan documents to try and address this but seriously, come on FFG.

If you want a good Pilot, use Pilot. It has everything you need and it is on one page.

In the case of a Chase, speed is a meh! factor since you move up or down the range band to your target if you succeed and if he fails his check. So going slower will usually increase the odds of catching up which is kinda dumb

Keep in mind during a chase that the winner of the competitive check, if travelling faster than the loser, gets to open or close the distance by an additional number of range bands equal to the difference in speed. While going faster does increase the chance of losing the competitive check, the gamble can pay off when you win.

Gain the Advantages does not have any effect on which weapons the enemy can fire back with.

A guy I play with got Dev feedback stating otherwise. Need to get him to kick that over to the Dev answered Qs....

Sorry, havent had a space battle yet...

So you cant use superior piloting skill/and or ship speed and maneuverability to stay on a guy's six and keep him from returning fire?

You can. With talents. The Pilot specialization has a 25 XP talent called Brilliant Evasion. Once per encounter, you pick another starship/vehicle, make an opposed Piloting check, and if you succeed they can't attack your starship/vehicle for a number of rounds equal to your agility.

If you also have that same target under the effects of the This One is Mine Ace signature ability, they can't attack anyone, as that ability forces them to only be able to attack you.

In this system, to be truly amazing at space combat, you need talents. Desperately. Agility 6/7 and a Piloting skill of 5/6 (with cybernetics) can only get you so far. Talents can be used to removed setbacks on Piloting checks for terrain, critical hit results, and gaining the advantage. Talents can increase your defense to protect you from their shots. Talents can lower your silhouette to alter the base difficulty to shoot your ship. Talents can give you fancy maneuvers that others simply cannot perform. Never underestimate the Master Pilot talent, that lets you suffer 2 strain to perform any starship action as a maneuver, once per round. This is how you can gain the advantage and shoot someone in the same round.

After talents, or in line with, are modifications. Nightshadow Coating, ECM Suites, Advanced Targeting Arrays, Shield Boosters, all of these do so much more for a starship's capabilities than raw skill and characteristics. I know most starfighters are limited to a single hard point, but there are some with two or three.

Then there is the Rigger specialization, for when you want to turn any ship into a much cooler version of itself.

Unlike land battles, where a character with a good agility and a good ranged(heavy) can pick up a heavy blaster rifle and win the day, space combat needs characters with abilities to truly shine.

Question! How have you ruled ECM Suites (or seen them ruled)? My players have expressed an interest in them, but I find the "notify all ships in 100 km" thing to be a major draw back. I'm of the opinion that alerting all possible ships (pirates, bounty hunters, local security, imperials...) within 100 km is not gonna end well for them. They seem to be of the opinion that it won't matter, because even if they alert an enemy "the enemy won't know where we are". I tried pointing out that a ship's sensors could still find them, but they weren't convinced. So I'm interested to hear how others have used them...

I dont have this problem to much.

If there are 1v1 dogfights, i imagine them circling each other making passes. But there have been many times where i say f**k it and just pump rear shields, go as fast as i can.

Yes, ECM Suites let anyone know your ship is there, but they make it difficult to for other ship's sensors to lock onto you. They won't hide your ship from sensors, they just make the enemies' sensors' jobs more difficult. Hiding from sensors is what Nightshadow Coating is for.

In my group, the ECM Suite will typically be left off until combat seems inevitable. Once combat is about to occur or has begun, the on switch gets flipped (often as part of narrative right before initiative is rolled, as space combat has rarely been a complete surprise, or otherwise as a maneuver).

It's not something that should be left on all the time. That would cause issues, like you stated.

To summarise responses thus far:

So, it sounds like there is no official solution, with everyone left to figure it out for themselves.

Though one poster mentioned a dev response his friend had suggesting the fire arcs might work a different way. If so, that would be one FAQ that is incredibly overdue.

And as one poster points out, the devs tell us that ventral and dorsal turrets cannot see each others targets from above or below respectively, yet again, there are no mechanics in place to reflect how to do this anyway...

Would a good fix be for Stay On Target to also allow an opposed piloting check to dictate fire arcs, but at a strain cost?

Or what about if we came up with a brand new ship manoeuvre with opposed piloting to do it? Something like 'Stay On His Six'. An opposed piloting check, which if passed debuffs the other craft with the 'Can't Shake Him' effect, meaning winner chooses what arc he is in until his next turn. Maybe to discourage it being overused, attach a pilot strain element?

To make something else up - Maybe the other ship can try a 'Shake Him Off' manoeuvre (opposed piloting test) for equal pilot AND ship strain? The strain taken could add boosts or upgrades (whichever is more balanced) to break 'Stay On His Six', adding that bead of sweat, race to control your adrenaline element to dogfights.

The above two suggestions would have to account for speed too of course. If anyone sees sense in that idea, do feel free to elaborate and finish it on here, as I'm too inexperienced at the game to do so.

EDIT - And I've asked the devs too.

As I mentioned, I have no experience in the space combat rules at all, yet, but this seems like another obvious oversight. Ive got my house rule folder open and waiting.

Honestly, I don't care. If combat is abstract and rounds are a minute long, a ship has plenty to twist and turn about as they please. Unnecessary complications make combat take longer and make things more uninteresting.

The only time I think this will matter is if the ship isn't moving.

Funny, I see it just the opposite as perhaps the FIRST thing my players would ask about in a battle.

GM: "Two Tie Fighters approach from about 3oclock, medium range at full speed."

Player: "Ill let them come on then attempt to get the leader's six."

GM: "Ok but why?"

Player: "Well Im gonna set up a good kill shot and keep at least one of them from gunning me."

GM: "It doesn't matter, even behind him he can shoot."

Player: "What? The Tie has rear guns?"

GM: "No but he can turn and shoot at you."

Player: "That's what Im trying to prevent! Im gonna get on his tail. I can do that right, with a Pilot roll or something?"

GM: "Well you pick which side you want to fire at sure but he can just turn and do the same."

Player:" ???