So since I started playing this game, the rules regarding ship ramming and overlapping drove me crazy. It seemed completely asinine to me that a little CR90 in the core game could sit in front of a VSD and completely stop its movement with each ship only taking a single face down damage card each activation, until it was blasted out of space.

As I have played through all the ships and waves, the rules regarding ramming and ships overlapping has only bothered me more. Conceptually it seems ludicrous that a corvette with rieekan can sit in the path of an ISD or MC80 and lock down its movement for 2 turns. The worst in my opinion is locking down the MC80, which is especially vulnerable to this tactic with fast moving corvettes.

Here are my thoughts:

Revision One - Make the damage penalty correspond with the size of the ship. For example, if a small ship runs into a big ship, the big ship takes one damage and the small ship takes 2 with one of those being a face-up. If a medium ship rams a small ship or vice versa the medium ship takes one damage and the small ship takes 2 face-down. And same scenario for a big ship and medium ship ramming.

Revision Two - Apply the damage but the small ship is actually displaced by the large ship, much like squadrons. This would only apply if the size difference is 2 (i.e. small and large ship).

Granted the first revision does not stop the Rieekan block scenario, but in either scenario a player with a small ship would think twice before suicide blocking a big ship... possibly. Thoughts?

This topic has been brought up before and discussed at length, if you are interested in checking it out:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/202568-ramming-and-blocking-does-it-need-to-be-changed/?hl=ramming

I personally agree with those that say the hull point abstraction already does a lot of what you're suggesting, where a CR90 loses 25% of its hull in a collision, where a VSD only loses 12.5%

I think ramming/overlapping is fine the way it is. Big ships already have the advantage of extra hull, shields, engineering, and squadron values. I don't think they need more.

I agree with Caldias in that I feel it's fine the way it is. If you want to house rule it amongst similarly-minded individuals that's fine. Have fun however you want to have fun. The only way FFG would ever change the overlapping rules is if they were fundamentally broken somehow (as in the rules couldn't cover tabletop situations in some circumstances or were abusable somehow in a way that damages the game) or if they were extremely unpopular. To my knowledge, neither of these is true.

I think they work in the context of the game i'm sure they tried several different versions of this rule and this was the one that worked the best. Probably with the least amount of shenanigans. I do agree that it makes the big ships more vulnerable than it feels that they maybe should especially the mc80. But it is what it is.

Generally if a ship rams a larger one, it's pretty much resigned itself to die the next activation. It's a hail mary, and essentially a 35++ point missile (for a cr90).
I think it's fine flavour-wise too, considering the frickin Executor got pwned by an A-Wing.

I believe it's fine the way it is. If you're running an MC80 and have a problem getting blocked by fast movers, adapt your tactics to counter it. Take a couple B-Wings along and position them to hammer the blocking ship, along with your own ship batteries. Or if you don't like B-Wings, put Engine Techs on that MC80 hog and make her more maneuverable. Either outfly the fast mover (it can be done) or ram it, then Engine Tech and blast it out of your way. Spam engineering commands after to recover. That's just a couple examples. Don't get wrapped up in trying to change the rules because something is difficult. Come up with better tactics to defeat it.

Its fine as it's just a game mechanic that works well. If you are trying to be realistic something the mass of a CR90 hitting something the mass of a ISD at "space ship speeds" would just leave.... Well very little.

I never liked the ramming rules ether, and like the idea of bigger ships doing more damage to smaller ones and displacing them, the whole stopping movement is just very wrong for so many reasons,

this is the only real problem I have with an other wise very well made set of rules.

I like the ramming rules. Or maybe like is too strong a word. Understand is probably better. And I've yet to see an even remotely appealing alternative.

They work. Most of us like them enough to tolerate them. Get used to it or play house only?

Those of us from Xwing also realize that while it might not be elegant, bumping and ramming actually have balance issue connotations: The allow for other ways for small ships to leverage themselves against large ships.

Flavor wise, yes, its kind of weird.

In the other thread I linked, some have easily explained it as an abstraction, where ships are taking "stress" damage for steering hard to avoid a collision. It makes sense that way, and also works quite well mechanically as is.

If there was to be any modification to ramming rules, I'd rather see them in upgrades, like a defensive retrofit that lets you exhaust the card to avoid a card from ramming, or an offensive retrofit that deals a face up for ramming after exhausting. No idea if that would be broken or not, haven't playtested, but I would much rather see new things introduced that change the game rather than retconning the rules.

If you don't want to be rammed/pinned down, bring stuff that can kill the thing ramming/pinning down your ship.

Corvette title: Ram's head. When performing a maneuver, if you come in base contact with another ship, that ship receives a face-up damage card instead in place of the normal effect.

The ramming rules are fine. The different hull values mean that smaller ships are almost always taking more damage. Further, the ability of small ships to stop larger ships prevents Large ships from having an over-sized (heh) affect on the maneuvering game. If a large ship could bully its way through, then large fast ships like the ISD would cause massive problems.

I have the feeling that if you start revising ramming rules, you'll have to readdess the whole mechanic of movement so that it's simultaneous and not U-go-I-Go for activation.

I think it works. And I can believe in spunky little corvettes using all their engine power to keep ISDs from moving, yet still trading shots until the CR-90 pops.

I think the easiest change (if there was one) would be to allow the players to decide if there is a collision. If both agree there is no collision then you move the pieces as described and no one takes damage. If either or both want a collision then there is damage to both. This would accommodate the ability to maneuver in the the third dimension as well as on all 3 axis without adding cumbersome rules additions. It'd go like this:

Scenario 1-

Player 1: Looks like I'll be overlapping so I'll back it up to the first notch. I want to avoid collision.

Player 2: Sounds good to me, I'll avoid also.

Neither ship takes damage

Scenario 2-

Player1: Looks like I'm going to overlap you as my 1 HP remaining corvette can't avoid hitting your healthy ISD. I'd like to avoid collision.

Player 2: AWWWWW HELL NAH!!!

Player 1: :-(

Both ships take 1 damage thereby destroying said corvette (or maybe sad corvette depending on which player you are).