Hi all,

Just wondering. I have been searching the rulebooks and it seems that apart from not tearing a ship apart, ION cannons don't seem to have any advantage.

Do they (Ion Cannons) ignore shields? It says their range is longer in the description...but it does not seem so, unless I made a mistake reading the stats.

Thanks for any inputs/corrections/comments.

Ion cannons are identical to other vehicle weapons with the exception that they have the "ion" weapon quality. To see what that means, look at the Item Quality section in the Equipment chapter of any of the core rule books.

Essentially all it means is that it does strain rather than damage (in the case of vehicles, System Strain rather than Hull Damage).

The advantage of an ion cannon on a ship is that most ships have fewer points of strain than hull damage, meaning that you'll disable them quicker. Also, if your goal is to capture a ship then if you disable it with ion cannons and take it over, it's much easier to get it back in working order. It's great for pirates or for someone in the military looking to capture a ship. You could argue that the 7 damage from a Heavy Ion Cannon is a plus as well, except that it has Slow Firing which counteracts that a bit.

The biggest downside to an ion cannon is that it takes 4 Advantage for a crit compared to the 3 from lasers, but again you're usually not trying to blow someone up with an ion cannon so it's not that much of a problem.

Ion cannons functionality and capability has been in dispute over the years, mostly because the only one we see in the films is the giant Hoth defense cannon, and they never really say what it does. So the thing's been open to interpretation and was essentially allowed to do whatever the early authors and game devs wanted them too. They ignored shields in WEG, didn't in X-wing, had longer range in... something else.

In the FFG system they do not ignore shields and don't have especially good range, but they inflict system strain on a target instead of Hull Trauma, and since most vehicles have less SS than HT, they have their uses.

Narratively an old standby that could still apply is since Ion cannons are "nonlethal" independent and civilian ships that had them would tend to suffer less scrutiny from authorities and have an easier time with weapon loadout permits. But that's just a GM story thing...

They ignore shields in WEG, are practically worthless against a target that still has shields in Saga and are affected by shields but have a much, much higher chance of doing damage against shielded targets in FFG.

In FFG's system, they tend to have shorter range and require a higher silhouette when compared with lasers. That said, one of the first things I do with all my ships is install Ions... It's a lot easier to explain yourself to the authorities if you didn't actually -kill- anyone or -destroy- anything... Plus, properly handled, they tend to be self-replicating as captures ships tend to pile up and, well, one has to do -something- with them [bYe m0r ION!]...

One thing. In this system shields are a setback die to the dice pool so at best they cancel a success. They cause a hit to more likely be a miss. So there is no real need to ignore shields. And hitting system strain is going to chew through a usually much smaller number.

ION cannons don't seem to have any advantage.

But they do: Prize money is better.

And, the big ships, at least, have got much lower systems than hull. It's easier to repair, granted, but they go down much faster.

ION cannons don't seem to have any advantage.

But they do: Prize money is better.

And, the big ships, at least, have got much lower systems than hull. It's easier to repair, granted, but they go down much faster.

If you consider that you can use damage control for hull only once per encounter, while you can damage control each turn for system strain … I am not buying into it. But I have a 6 dice mechanic on my ship … well her signature ship, so your milage may differ ;-)

ION cannons don't seem to have any advantage.

But they do: Prize money is better.

And, the big ships, at least, have got much lower systems than hull. It's easier to repair, granted, but they go down much faster.

If you consider that you can use damage control for hull only once per encounter, while you can damage control each turn for system strain … I am not buying into it. But I have a 6 dice mechanic on my ship … well her signature ship, so your milage may differ ;-)

"I'm talking about the big Corellian ships now", Not the "piece of junk" you're calling a ship. There's a difference of 85 between hull and systems for the SD; and her repair team is more like 6 minions (YYYGG); that's an average 3 successes per round.

My piece of junk is a CEC VCX-100 has hand has V-Wings and A-Wings in its fighter bay and the astromech is rolling YYYYYY

It is just 32 HT to 28 SS. You milage may vary °_^

Though on small ships which do not take as many hits thanks to double evasive maneuvers, signature 0, 4 defense and all the other fighter pilot shenanigans SS is usually regenerated fast as well IF you do not get one-shotted, especially on those ships which come with an astromech socket for the action economy to do every other turn the damage control.

That is the pc ship. Consider what happens to a less staunchly crewed NPC ship.

One thing. In this system shields are a setback die to the dice pool so at best they cancel a success. They cause a hit to more likely be a miss. So there is no real need to ignore shields. And hitting system strain is going to chew through a usually much smaller number.

Just be aware that every crew member (or team of crew minions) that pulls damage control can potentially remove 1 point of System Strain per turn. On larger ships, it becomes laughably easy to wipe away SS faster than ion cannons can inflict it.

That's assuming that you have a GM that chooses to roll a mechanics check for every mechanic minion group on that capital ship. "Awwww,only 3 more SS to send that SD adrift. ....oh, wait, I forgot. ...it has 100 minion groups of mechanics. ....let me just roll these real quick."

That's assuming that you have a GM that chooses to roll a mechanics check for every mechanic minion group on that capital ship. "Awwww,only 3 more SS to send that SD adrift. ....oh, wait, I forgot. ...it has 100 minion groups of mechanics. ....let me just roll these real quick."

Dice roller program can be set to give those results with a click.

That's assuming that you have a GM that chooses to roll a mechanics check for every mechanic minion group on that capital ship. "Awwww,only 3 more SS to send that SD adrift. ....oh, wait, I forgot. ...it has 100 minion groups of mechanics. ....let me just roll these real quick."

Dice roller program can be set to give those results with a click.

One thing. In this system shields are a setback die to the dice pool so at best they cancel a success. They cause a hit to more likely be a miss. So there is no real need to ignore shields. And hitting system strain is going to chew through a usually much smaller number.

Just be aware that every crew member (or team of crew minions) that pulls damage control can potentially remove 1 point of System Strain per turn. On larger ships, it becomes laughably easy to wipe away SS faster than ion cannons can inflict it.

It is one SS per success. It was not very good formulated in the first edition, but got cleared up in the second print run of EotE, clearly stating "Using this action any Player Character who makes a successful Mechanic check recovers one point of system strain per success." (EotE, p.233 "Damage Control")

While hordes of NPCs can certainly help to recover SS on Capital ships, I fail to see how they would be unable to make multiple mechanics checks to repair HT as well.... Therefore, at my table, I've always run it so that, for Capital Ships, anyway, no HT or SS on NPC-crewed capital ships can be repaired -during- fighting. It simplifies things and allows the PCs to do heroic things while the NPC crew is trying to get their ship operational again. It's just the only way I can come up with, within most of the scope of RAW, for there to be interesting fights between capital ships. Though the Mass Combat rules have helped out a lot in that respect as well, since they were published.

While hordes of NPCs can certainly help to recover SS on Capital ships, I fail to see how they would be unable to make multiple mechanics checks to repair HT as well.... Therefore, at my table, I've always run it so that, for Capital Ships, anyway, no HT or SS on NPC-crewed capital ships can be repaired -during- fighting. It simplifies things and allows the PCs to do heroic things while the NPC crew is trying to get their ship operational again. It's just the only way I can come up with, within most of the scope of RAW, for there to be interesting fights between capital ships. Though the Mass Combat rules have helped out a lot in that respect as well, since they were published.

Because damage control is once per encounter for HT. What hordes of NPCs can try to fix are critical hits iirc.

While hordes of NPCs can certainly help to recover SS on Capital ships, I fail to see how they would be unable to make multiple mechanics checks to repair HT as well....

This is why I said above that if you really want to capture a ship you'd better use something like ion cannons because otherwise it's going to be very difficult to get it functioning again. You may have to "tow" it somewhere with a different ship if it has its hull damaged to the point of impairment. Also, ships of Silhouette 3 or lower usually just explode when their hull trauma is reduced to 0.