Ok so, was reading the thread about Order 66 podcast, and saw how several people don't like the "rocket tag" concept of space combat. Now, to be honest, I've not done any space combat in my game, as my players haven't made pilot characters, and I frankly find player level stuff more interesting to run, not to mention easier.

But, if the name is actually, specifically referring to rockets being the problem, and it not just being a catchy phrase, couldn't you just have rockets be too clunky to chase small silhouette ships? I can only think of one example, from the prequel trilogy no less, where missiles were used on the starfighter scale. In the original trilogy, the only time they used a missile was against the Death Star, a cap ship.

So, for those more familiar with space combat, would house ruling "Torpedoes are cap ship only weapons, fighter combat is blaster only" fix the problem?

Seems to me that would help mitigate the "rocket tag" aspect of the combat, without having to do any major revamping of the combat rules. Basically, "If your silhouette is small enough to do acrobatic maneuvers, you are too small to try and hit with a rocket"

Thoughts?

Personally I think the problem people have with ship combat is to actually shine and really make use of it fully you need PCs heavily invested in Pilot trees and you need a GM to craft a battlespace/setting with lots of elements of Stellar Phenomena rules being used. The Chase rules need to be employed fairly often as well in ship combat. In addition you need plenty of opportunities for all the other checks that can be rolled in combat to be used, like Slicing the Enemy, etc.

Even with all that, the rules are always going to fall short of the tactical simulator level or style of play that I think a lot of people want when they hear ship combat.

Rocket tag refers to he who usually gets the first shot in wins. Can be done with any of your weapons not specifically rockets or torpedoes.

Rocket tag refers to he who usually gets the first shot in wins. Can be done with any of your weapons not specifically rockets or torpedoes.

Ah, ok, see I wasn't sure if there was a significant difference in power scale for blasters vs torpedoes.

Personally I think the problem people have with ship combat is to actually shine and really make use of it fully you need PCs heavily invested in Pilot trees and you need a GM to craft a battlespace/setting with lots of elements of Stellar Phenomena rules being used. The Chase rules need to be employed fairly often as well in ship combat. In addition you need plenty of opportunities for all the other checks that can be rolled in combat to be used, like Slicing the Enemy, etc.

Even with all that, the rules are always going to fall short of the tactical simulator level or style of play that I think a lot of people want when they hear ship combat.

Sure, but I don't see people complaining about the other elements of a stellar combat scenario. I mean sure, maybe somebody is, but it seems it's mostly the "it's a one shot contest" kind of thing, is the biggest hurdle for players. I remember hearing people talking about the rocket tag issue previously, but didn't really notice it as being the primary problem for the combat.

So, if the rocket tag is the primary problem for most players, what can be done to house rule it? Maybe just give them more armor/soak so they can withstand another hit or two? Scale down the damage of the weapons to accomplish the same thing? Thoughts?

People have complained about more or less everything about ship combat imo and experience here on the forums.

The bottom line is PCs are better at personal combat entry level than they are at ship combat. The Talents that really begin to make up ground and address a lot of the crunchy stuff people want or feel are lacking are further down in the Pilot trees.

I don't have a fix other than ship combat relevance, or satisfaction, or whatever, is something GMs and their groups and tables will have to build towards and recognize that when they start playing.

I've come up with the same issues. Being an Ace in an AoR game, I wanted to focus on snubfighter combat, which we then found to be exactly rocket tag. Having sat with my GM, we came up with ways to mitigate the dangers such as piloting checks to break apart fighter groups to make encounters easier. One thing that really helped was us house ruling that Tricky Target could be ranked.

With investment to get both hits of Tricky Target in Pilot and Driver (If you only ran for those two talents in both specs, would be about 100+ xp) and getting the Electronic Countermeasures Suite (effectively a 3rd rank of Tricky Target), I am basically playing a Sil 0 ship.

A basic pool with no environment factors (and there should be plenty), the enemy shooting at my character's Y-Wing would be 4 purples and 2 setback (Forward Shunted Shields). Evasive maneuvers gets you 1 red and 3 purples, the two defensive driving talents nets you the max 4 setback.

We thought it was a fair ruling considering the entire talent set up sits at right around 150-200 xp for basic survival when a soldier could become a god with that much invested into ground combat talents.

Edit: Spelling

Rocket tag refers to he who usually gets the first shot in wins. Can be done with any of your weapons not specifically rockets or torpedoes.

Any situation where your weapons can do as much damage in a single shot as would be required to take you completely out of combat, that’s the problem in a nutshell.

Even some Sil4 ships can be one-shotted, and if the shooter can get lots of Linked on that weapon, even Sil4 ships with decent Hull Threshold could still be one-shotted.

Rocket tag refers to he who usually gets the first shot in wins. Can be done with any of your weapons not specifically rockets or torpedoes.

Any situation where your weapons can do as much damage in a single shot as would be required to take you completely out of combat, that’s the problem in a nutshell.

Even some Sil4 ships can be one-shotted, and if the shooter can get lots of Linked on that weapon, even Sil4 ships with decent Hull Threshold could still be one-shotted.

And yet, that is exactly all it takes in modern warfare. 1 missile going off near enough to you and your ship is gone.

Rocket tag refers to he who usually gets the first shot in wins. Can be done with any of your weapons not specifically rockets or torpedoes.

Any situation where your weapons can do as much damage in a single shot as would be required to take you completely out of combat, that’s the problem in a nutshell.

Even some Sil4 ships can be one-shotted, and if the shooter can get lots of Linked on that weapon, even Sil4 ships with decent Hull Threshold could still be one-shotted.

And yet, that is exactly all it takes in modern warfare. 1 missile going off near enough to you and your ship is gone.

True, but this isn't real life, this is Star Wars, where we have space ships that make noise in a vacuum. Where the ships move as if there is air resistance. It's not 100% accurate. If you are a plot important character, the shot that blew up your buddy in 1 hit, is just a glancing hit, that only damages your ship. Plot Armor applies to your vehicle too. So having a game, where you are playing as "The Hero", and you are just as squishy as the "extras", does pull you out of the narrative feel that is Star Wars.

Squad&Squadron rules change things a lot too.

Has anybody run anything using Emperor Norton's house rules? I've always wanted to try them but haven't been a position to do so yet.

I briefly pondered giving my PC's a squad of old fighters but quickly wrote it off as a terrible idea. None of them are particularly awesome pilots (a couple have 1 rank). I decided it was just going to quickly kill everybody, even going up against mooks. I ultimately gave them a reasonably well armored freighter.....which they ended up blowing up anyway.

I really like Emperor Norton's house rules, though I've only used them a little. I do make one change. Rather than using Shields as the vehicle form of Reflect, I go with GM Chris's rule to use Pilot+Handling. I do this for two reasons. First, it requires less fiddling with the rules. Second, it rewards the Pilot skill, and gives a TIE fighter ace a chance. Quick, zippy ships with good pilots will mitigate a lot of damage, but they'll run out of Strain quickly. Bigger, tougher ships will mitigate a lot less, but they have the Armor, Hull, Strain and Shields to deal with it over a longer period.

The best solution I've found for "rocket-tag" starfighter combat is to give the PCs a squadron of NPCs - in my experience the squadron rules found in the AoR GM kit make starfighter combat much more survivable. Starfighters with gunner positions are also useful (like the Y-Wing) as it tends to give the PCs ship a better action economy over other fighters.

I've not really had too much trouble when the PCs are on one larger ship. I usually keep the additional starship combat actions table handy so if people are at a loss of what to do I can encourage them to try something. The only trouble is if the ship does take a beating it's usually expensive to repair, but that's when I can offer them Obligation in exchange.

Has anyone ever used difference in current speed to set the combat check difficulty instead of difference in silhouette? Or at least to modify the dice pool in some way?

1. Firing vessel is 2 or more faster than target is Easy(1D)
2. Firing vessel is +1/0/-1 of target is Average(2D)
3. Firing vessel is 2 Slower than target is Hard(3D)
4. Firing vessel is 3 Slower than target is Daunting(4D)
5. Firing vessel is 4 or more Slower than target is Formidable(5D)

This should bring more variation to star fighter combat, where getting the jump is important, and full throttle becomes a defensive action. It would also make the faster fighters (X-Wing, Tie) superior to their slower cheaper counterparts, making GM encounter design more flexible.

To make the combat more drawn out and survivable you could instead stick to the normal difficulty system, but use speed difference to determine a number of setback to add to the combat check:

snip for space

Any ideas or comments?

I like that idea, as it does actually vary up the combat. I'm not sure how effective it would be to prevent the 1 shot pop aspect of combat though? I mean the weapons are still doing the same amount of damage, so a hit is still likely to blow you up. I like the speed system though, but I am curious, is it possible, with your standard kind of snub fighters, to have a speed difference of 4+?