So, I'm not in front of my books, is mostly the issue, but this has, honestly, been a little issue for me, in Star Wars, for several editions of that RPG. In this game, what determines how many shots a ship takes, each round? Or, how many shots can a capital ship take at you? If you were on the Millennium Falcon, I suppose two people could be on turrets, and I assume the pilot is on missiles. Something much bigger, though? If you are running from a Star Destroyer, I assume that many of its weapons are in batteries, but how many batteries can fire on you, as you flee, and what's the likelihood you'll live? Other editions seemed to make me feel like it too one shot, maybe just a few, and with a big penalty to hit considerably smaller targets, which seems dumb, based on the size of crew, number of guns/batteries, etc, but no one wants to dodge 10 battery volleys of turbolaser fire, every turn, any one of which could really screw up your day; even Wedge Antilles has to occasionally roll crumby, once dice get figured into the example. How does this all work in this game? Thanks much, and have a good one.

Capital ship guns are probably crewed by minions, so you can form minion groups out of however many guns you want in each group. So the number of shots depends on how you slice up the minion groups.

Not sure about the rest, I haven't run anything with large ships yet...the combat is too lethal IMHO.

The Age of Rebellion core rulebook has some actions specifically for silhouette 5+ ships that involve firing all weapons of the same type within certain firing arcs (Blanket Barrage, Overwhelming Barrage, etc.). That might help in some situations, although none of them specifically apply to the case of a light freighter fleeing from a larger ship. I remember hearing that Lead by Example has more of that type of action to bulk up capital ship combat and might have some more guidelines for this type of situation. The potential problem with making the batteries minion groups is that with ten guns in each on a star destroyer, that's a lot of Gunnery upgrades. Maybe modify Blanket Barrage for chase situations where the other ship might suffer a hit if the pilot rolls two threat on the Piloting check.

The Age of Rebellion core rulebook has some actions specifically for silhouette 5+ ships that involve firing all weapons of the same type within certain firing arcs (Blanket Barrage, Overwhelming Barrage, etc.). That might help in some situations, although none of them specifically apply to the case of a light freighter fleeing from a larger ship. I remember hearing that Lead by Example has more of that type of action to bulk up capital ship combat and might have some more guidelines for this type of situation. The potential problem with making the batteries minion groups is that with ten guns in each on a star destroyer, that's a lot of Gunnery upgrades. Maybe modify Blanket Barrage for chase situations where the other ship might suffer a hit if the pilot rolls two threat on the Piloting check.

And rightfully so, because those ISD guns are deadly as hell and the ship is feared for a reason. You should be highly encouraged to use those evasive maneuvers as often as you can, power up your shields are much as you can and be in general really, really hard to hit, maybe even literally impossible to hit. And besides, ISDs are Sil 8, so they have a formidable task before them to even hit a light freighter. You kind of need those minion groups to have a decent chance to hit something. As ISDs have tons of guns they are still scary, which is good.

And rightfully so, because those ISD guns are deadly as hell and the ship is feared for a reason. You should be highly encouraged to use those evasive maneuvers as often as you can, power up your shields are much as you can and be in general really, really hard to hit, maybe even literally impossible to hit. And besides, ISDs are Sil 8, so they have a formidable task before them to even hit a light freighter. You kind of need those minion groups to have a decent chance to hit something. As ISDs have tons of guns they are still scary, which is good.

Right, I'm just pointing out that with a 3G2Y dice pool (assuming the gunner minions have 2 Agi), Formidable difficulty isn't all that formidable. Even with a couple of setback for Evasive Maneuvers (assuming they can even afford to devote a maneuver to that instead of booking out of there as fast as possible) and shields, they will hit more often than not and have the potential to hit hard (11+ damage), though thankfully they aren't likely to score a crit without rolling a Triumph. And that's just one battery. If you actually want your group to have a chance of escaping/surviving, then they're going to need something to hide behind or a reason why the ISD can't bring its full firepower to bear.

Each battery of however many guns can count as one minion. Instead of trying to figure how many gunners each turbolaser has. Say it has 10 batteries in the forward arc. Split them up into 3 minion groups. 2 groups of 3 minions and 1 group of 4 minions. Assuming Agility 2 that would be 2 attacks at YY and 1 attack at YYG. If you want to be an evil GM you group them all up into one minion group of 10 and roll a crazy amount of dice. As mentioned earlier, AoR has some rules for it, and Stay on Target has some rules that might help out too, different ways to spend advantage/threat in large battles, such as a grazing hit by a stray turbolaser, shrapnel, etc.

Evasive Maneuvers do not give setback dice, they upgrade difficulty dice. In a chase you do not need maneuvers to move, you take your action for that and role piloting, meaning you can double evasive. So its 2 reds, 3 purples.

You have defensive driving and your crew realigns your shields and boost your shields and hopefully reaches the defense cap of 4. Which means it is now 2 reds, 3 purples ,4 blacks and 3 greens and 2 yellows. As mentioned each battery is one minion, you can gain 3 minion groups of 10 indeed IF your pilot was careful enough and spotted the ISD at long-range aready. If you are unlucky enough to get to medium you are indeed in pretty serious trouble as an Imperial I has 10 dorsal heavy turbo laser batteries with front arc AND 10 forward light turbolaser batteries AND and 20 ion cannon turrets with forward arc (10 star, 10 port).

But did I say 2 reds? Pray for a good initiative roll (or spend destiny to go safe), in a large battle spend two advantages for "tuck and roll" and its 3 reds or 5, depending on how good the pilot and co-pilot roll. Or it raises to impossible for 7 Advantages from the combined co-pilot and piloting checks. In a Nebula 2 advantages do the same, now hiding in the nebula instead. Weaving between the asteroids is again just 2 advantages for one upgrade for all gunnery checks. Better be cool and roll your pilot checks before the minions shoot. In open terrain you are still in big trouble, though letting and ISD get so close to you in open terrain begs the question what your sensor officer was doing instead of scanning the area.

Still if you ever get into close you are within tractor range as well, which has 10 heavy beam emitters, you are basically dead or captured.

So yeah, ISDs are very, very dangerous if you go alone and are not a star fighter ace or pilot. If you are a skilled pilot/squadron leader THIS would be absolutely the time to trigger brilliant evasion and get the **** out. Which means roll your astrogation check and get asap to your hyperlane to jump away from that big and nasty bully.

Oh and speaking of dangerous, an ISD has 72 fighters as well, a full wing of TIE/LN, TIE/SA, maybe a few gunboats, etc. And at least the TIE-Fighters are usually faster or equal in speed than anything a player group is using. So the case becomes a lot more interesting after the characters start running from the ISDs because you are now running from several squadrons of TIE-Fighter Minions and usually at least a few aces, usually as squad or wing commanders. Unlike the ISD they might have a chance to stay on the tails of the characters longer than that brilliant evasion lasts.

Oh and just for fun I did assemble that dice pool with 2 reds, 2 yellow, 3 purple and greens and 4 setback. To my surprised the 3rd laser battery did hit some asteroids and caused a major collision of fragments of that rock with the isd. Took down the shields. The 5 shot rolled two triumphs and a despair, ending up with another collision and another crit and send the ISD spinning. The crew is not able to shoot for the rest of the turn, the shot did not hit either leaving not many options outside of upgrading the next shot twice, which happens in turn 2.
Turn two, starts for my little Verpine with 2 Triumphs for the competitive check which ends the case anyway.


Try number two to destroy our group freighter
Turn One.
Fourth shot actually hits with 3 success, 8 threats and 1 despair. That is 12 damage from the ion cannon battery. Our little R2 unit can repairs this mostly and ironically finds a way to give our engine a temporary boost to get away from the ISD with double triumph.Hurray for astromechs, and it was not even lucky as his chances to roll at least on triumph are 40%, hurray for astromechs in their signature vehicles ;-)

Try three, let's do it in a nebula, as with all I assume a starting speed of 3.
This one ends basically while the R2 unit plot a course,which achieves 3 advantages to lose the ISDs in the nebula.

Try four as well in the nebula.
The pilot checks of the PC are ok, but not spectacular. What is spectacular is the double despair on the failed first gunnery check. The minions hit a explosive pocket gas cloud in the nebula. The ISD loses all power and the engines damaged critical hit. Furthermore it is drifting into a debris cloud and suffering 2 minor collisions …the first collision his damages the engines further, and thanks to having already taken two crits the 3rd one is as well a critical to the engines, leaving the whole ISD clearly dead in the water. At this point firing our missile launcher seems like mercy taking ironically the engines down. Man,even in just a test rounds my crits are funny, but odd.

Last try in an very chaotic and dense asteroid field. (+3 Setback)
My copilot plots a course right through a donouthole, but he freighter is colliding instead and is send tailspinning from the collision. The ISD downgrades all gunnery checks twice this time, which results in one single hit for 10 damage in the whole turn and a major collision with some asteroid for the imperator, doing a component his, naturally on the engine again, which allows the freighter to stop the spinning and get away at the beginning of the next round.

I am actually surprised, not only that a lot roles were indeed close, but as well how deadly those red dice can be, in other words how offensive evasive flying can be. Furthermore are setback dice really good to prevent successes. Attachments or mods to reduce the silhouette to 4 in combat sound like a must have for silhouette 5 ships to gain access to evasive maneuvers. Those maneuvers are brutal to follow and are indeed a great danger for attackers. Despair is really ugly in combat, even when you have tons of hull trauma and system strain.

edit: Though I can not find a single one, which is indeed quite the disadvantage for those sil 5 ships. Better stay sil 4 if you know you might get chased by stuff with tons of batteries.

Interesting a double post which shows ups several minutes later and was posted several minutes earlier. Ah, well.

So we're basically in agreement. A group with an upgraded vehicle, a highly skilled pilot (and mechanic), and some stellar terrain to use has a decent shot of getting away from an ISD. A less experienced group in a stock freighter in open space is probably screwed.

One question, though: On try two, how is your Astromech keeping up with the system strain? You've got an ion battery hit on top of 2 system strain per turn for double pilot maneuvers, and Damage Control is once per turn, one system strain per use, unless you have ranks in the Fine Tuning talent. Is the Astromech another PC?

So we're basically in agreement. A group with an upgraded vehicle, a highly skilled pilot (and mechanic), and some stellar terrain to use has a decent shot of getting away from an ISD. A less experienced group in a stock freighter in open space is probably screwed.

One question, though: On try two, how is your Astromech keeping up with the system strain? You've got an ion battery hit on top of 2 system strain per turn for double pilot maneuvers, and Damage Control is once per turn, one system strain per use, unless you have ranks in the Fine Tuning talent. Is the Astromech another PC?

Astromech is another PC and the freighter is actually his signature vehicle, which I admittedly downsized to sil 4 for this test, as our VCX-100 is not going to use evasive maneuvers. If my group runs into the same situations we are properly not getting as easily away.

And damage control is not one system strain per use, it is one system strain or hull trauma per success. They forget to write this properly in AoR, but in Edge on p.233 you can check for yourself. Furthermore theoretical another character could do another damage control action in the same turn, which was not needed in this case as the roll was quite good and most of the system strain was gone in one role.

edit: Hull trauma can only recovered once per encounter via damage control, so better make it count and let the mechanical, maniacal genius do it.

Ah, got it. My Edge core book doesn't say that (I must have an older copy), but F&D says one point per success. My mistake.

Ah, got it. My Edge core book doesn't say that (I must have an older copy), but F&D says one point per success. My mistake.

Great news, so there is editing and errata between the reprints. Glad to hear that, and well, it is an easy mistake to make. I was at first under the impression myself, because my AoR does not say this either. It just tells me that I reduce HT per success and does not say anything about extra successes for system strain, which was enough to encourage me to do a search on that and starting to write my own summary of vehicle combat to actually get an idea about the system.

Another 10 reprints or so and someone will be able to understand vehicle combat in one read … nah, still FFG doing the writing. Not going to understand all the systems in one go without asking the devs about it

Other stuff that is really hidden: Defensive zones are capped at maximum of 4, which makes the ram attachment kind of silly (I bet that one stacks, need still to ask Sam about it) and the astromech action "Watch my back" is a lot weaker than you would expect, gain at advantage allows you to stay in arc of your choice, which means that a ship with no weapons in that arc can not shoot at you, which makes TIE/IN deadly as hell against fighters because they have an easy time to gain that advantage with their speed of 6. (ISDs and aft arcs for example if you are going for an attack run.)

I am looking really forward to AoR 2.0, stay compatible to 1.0, just update the text for clarity and faq stuff. ;-)

I think the ram attachment and Watch Your Back are still pretty nice even with the 4 defense cap. Most fighters have, at most, 1 point of shielding, and not every character who's going to be flying a starfighter even has one of the three trees that has Defensive Driving in it. Gain the Advantage making it difficult for the target to shoot back at you also helps out the A-Wing a lot, considering that ship will fall apart if you even cough at it (this probably isn't the place to rehash all that, though).

Depends on the number of gunners and guns that can fire.