Hello,

I had a reflexion about dogfights in starfighters, I am not very familiar with such crafts as my players are owning a silhouette 4 ship. But thinking about it for futur scenarii I finally came to this conclusion : in a dogfight versus a TIE, either you fight against a minion pilot or Darth Vador, you have the same chance to kill him...

Both of them will perform an evasive maneuver, and Vador will succeed in taking the advantage but finally the difficulty to hit them in dogfight is the same, 2 purples dice with one upgraded due to the vasive maneuver....

So Vador or minion, there is nothing we can do to reflect the fact that Vador is one of the most skilled pilot in the galaxy...

Is that strange that a skilled pilot like Vador within a +3 handling starship can't evade ennemy fire better than newbie pilot in a slow B-wing ???

Did I miss something ? thanks a lot for your contribution!

Adversary still applies, so the check would be upgraded many more times, also Vader doesn't fly a standard Tie Fighter.

I had to make custom stats for a TIE Advanced so my Inquisitor could fly in style.

As presented in the X-wing miniature game, they are as nimble as a TIE-Fighter but with the durability, shields, and hyperdrive of an X-wing.

They use concussion missiles instead of proton torpedoes. I also gave them 1 open hardpoint as they are less spartan than a typical TIE.

I meant for my players to have a challenging encounter when they fled the imperial facility they were being kept as prisoners in...

And then they stole it...

And then they stole it...

Lol! Of course they did.

Adversary will work but not for the players! So the same question would apply if a player with 1000 xp fly a stolen standard TIE against a minion slow Bwing :/

Talents is where PC's will be victorious there.

Talents is where PC's will be victorious there.

Brilliant Evasion !

Plus the minion pilot can never use strain to get an extra manoeuvre, which gives the player a big advantage.

Starship ability is a union of stats, attachments, mods, pilot skill and talents, the environment, the encounter, and wise action/maneuver usage.

So a Top Ace Uber BBEG like Vader probably will have a very nice craft and support it with plenty of talents like intuitive evasion, defensive driving, and of course Adversary. So simply shooting at Vader in open space could easily see a base difficulty of something like RRRBlkBlkBlk. Still beatable, but it's very likely you'll see some negative feedback from the dice regardless of if you hit or miss.

Add on extra setback from terrain and conditions, and upgrades on maneuvers, and it gets worse.

Additionally, Vader isn't a chump, so presumably the GM worked out good maneuver and action sequencing, to ensue that either you will have difficulty even getting an opportunity to shoot Vader, or Vader will otherwise always be in the best possible conditions even when at a disadvantage.

Don't forget about spending Advantage/Threat and Triumph/Despair, and by extension, using pilot checks. Look at the available actions and maneuvers. A single fighter isn't that hard to hit, and cannot take much of a hit, but you can significantly increase your survival by performing actions and spending Advantage/Threat and Triumph/Despair.

A pair of Advantage on your Gain the Advantage check can mean a Setback die on your opponent's next Pilot or Gunnery Check.

A pair of Advantage/Threat can mean a free Maneuver (A second Pilot-Only does still inflict 2 System Strain).

A Threat on your opponent's check can mean a loss of speed or the build up of System Strain.

Letting System Strain build up can be deadly, especially when everyone is making the most of their Maneuvers (Second Maneuvers, Increase Power, etc.). Speed should not be discounted either. Speed affects the difficulty of Gain the Advantage, where a speed advantage will mean easier Checks which can mean more successes (Each time you successfully GtA you increase your opponent's difficulty one step) and potentially earn you more Advantage/Triumph. If you're in danger, a high speed can quickly move you out of a starfighter's sensor range potentially giving you a chance to escape, hide, or recover, depending on the variables of battle. . . or start a chase scene!

With enough Triumph or Despair, vital ship components can be disabled or destroyed, shifting the course of the battle.

This is where a pilot's skill points really pay off. More skill maximizes Success/Advantage/Triumph while minimizing Failure/Threat/Despair, all of which will mold the battlefield and hopefully give a talented pilot the resources they need to survive.

Edit: Here is a small selection of options:

Spending Advantage/Triumph

• 2 Advantage: 1 Boost on next Pilot/Gunnery Check

• 2 Advantage: 1 Setback on opponent’s next Pilot/Gunnery Check.

• 3 Advantage: Free 2nd Maneuver.

• 1 Triumph: Disable ship component of choice.

• 2 Triumph: Destroy ship component of Choice.

Spending Threat/Despair

• 1 Threat: Ship Speed slowed by 1

• 1 Threat: Lose benefits of prior Maneuver.

• 1+ Threat: Suffers 1 System Strain per Threat.

• 2 Threat: Opponent gets 1 free Maneuver.

• 2 Threat: 1 Boost on opponent’s next Pilot/Gunnery Check.

• 2 Threat: 1 Setback on next Pilot/Gunnery Check.

• 3 Threat: Initiative slot moves to the bottom of the Initiative Order for rest of Encounter.

• 3 Threat: Decrease Difficulty of opponent’s next action once.

• 1 Despair: Component Disabled.

• 1 Despair: Minor Collision.

• 1 Despair and Failure: Major Collision.

Excellent Thanks Crimson for the detailed post

Very explicit, you all gave me lots of information, I needed the big picture to start with some starfighter encounters, and I think I got it now

Some folks have house rules that give some interesting defensive options. One I like is based on Parry and Reflect from Force and Destiny. When a ship takes a hit, the pilot and the ship both suffer 3 strain, and the pilot reduces the damage by his piloting skill plus the ship's handling. So if you have Piloting 3 and you're flying a TIE Fighter (handling 3), you can reduce the damage by 6 points, which is a lot for that little tin can. Of course, if you did that 3 times, you would exceed your System Strain, and your ship would shut down. If you did it in a big clunky ship, you wouldn't reduce the damage as much, but you could probably do it many more times, and hopefully you have a mechanic helping recover System Strain.

The other one I like is just a way to spend Advantage on a successful Gain the Advantage roll. If you spend 2 advantage, you lock yourself into one of the firing arcs of the opposing ship. You can only attack that arc, but they can only attack you with weapons that face that arc. So if you're in a TIE, and you roll really well to Gain the Advantage on an enemy X-Wing, you can choose to lock yourself into his rear arc, and he can't even attack until he breaks that GtA. He can, of course, beef up his rear deflectors, but I would say it's well worth it.

Talents is where PC's will be victorious there.

Brilliant Evasion !

Plus the minion pilot can never use strain to get an extra maneuver, which gives the player a big advantage.

I let my minion groups suffer strain to gain additional maneuvers to make them more challenging! It also makes them a little easier to kill for the guy that isn't the Double bladed lightsaber Ataru Striker jedi doing 30 damage each turn.

Minions have it rough enough what with the crits killing members of each group off instantly. They should deserve to get a few stings in.

The Grand Falloon this is a nice idea but would you allow anyone to do this or do you need to buy that talent somewhere?

Sorry double post but I can't edit..

Do you have the option to male two times the evasive maneuver? Upgrading 2 dices for 2 system strain is fair no?

Hello,

I had a reflexion about dogfights in starfighters, I am not very familiar with such crafts as my players are owning a silhouette 4 ship. But thinking about it for futur scenarii I finally came to this conclusion : in a dogfight versus a TIE, either you fight against a minion pilot or Darth Vador, you have the same chance to kill him...

Both of them will perform an evasive maneuver, and Vador will succeed in taking the advantage but finally the difficulty to hit them in dogfight is the same, 2 purples dice with one upgraded due to the vasive maneuver....

So Vador or minion, there is nothing we can do to reflect the fact that Vador is one of the most skilled pilot in the galaxy...

Is that strange that a skilled pilot like Vador within a +3 handling starship can't evade ennemy fire better than newbie pilot in a slow B-wing ???

Did I miss something ? thanks a lot for your contribution!

Vader procs either his intuitive evasion, a force talent from he starfighter ace specialisation or has just a higher adversary rank or both. Vader has enough force dice to commit 2 to intuitiv evasion, upgrading attacks 2 additional times, add two maneuvers for evasive maneuvers and its 4 upgrades, add adversary in the double digits and trying to shoot him becomes suicide. ;-(

Luckily Corillian Send Off ignores his adversary ranks and goes for a flat cool check against his wingman. ;-)

You could add stuff like tricky target, and a mod or two to reduce the silhouette of vader's TIE Advanced x1 to zero, increasing the difficulty of the shot too .... now where are we 5 dice + 8 upgrades instead of 3 dice and two upgrades when shooting from a light freighter against a minion or vader? ;-)

And I did not even got started on all the piloting talents you could give him. Master Pilot for double actions, a lot more strain to work with, mechanic 5 for sure helps with the strain recovery,especially if you have two or more actions per turn. Nemesis rules suggest to give strong nemesis characters two initiative slots, which should give someone like Vader 4 actions per round.

Furthermore Vader will generate triumphs or advantages to use against his adversaries from his actions. A triumph is enough to get a free GtA, increasing the action economy of Vader's ship dramatically, which should be able to trigger "Form on Me" from the squadron commander tree and transfer the same action economy to Vader's whole Squadron. Imagine the nightmare for a freighter pilot with a blind spot in his fire-arcs when a whole squadron of TIEs, led by Darth Vader gain all the advantage and sit in that Blindspot. Speaking of squadrons, Vader can use the squadron rules from AoR GM screen to give himself minions as meat shield which take hits for him and allows the squadron leader to make checks for his whole squadron i.e. Vader could sneak up onto a convoy with 11 minions of death squad and roll the stealth check for all of them, bring them into position and disband the close formation to allow all individual members to operate own their own after they are in position.

The options for skilled pilots are immense and one of the most fun options is to force enemy crafts into collisions with the environment. All it takes are two triumphs, trivial for hotshots and not too rare for 5y or better pilots like Vader. Speaking of Triumphs, "Cost 1 Triumph If leading a squad or squadron, the minion allies may make a free, immediate attack. …" (AOR GMK p29) Again a bonus for skilled pilots who lead a squadron, gaining an extra attack with up to 5 dice from minions flying in a squadron with a leader.

And I still just scratched the surface as I ignored most talent options, which really are the bread and butter for the space combat, all ace specs are full of really, really good talents, even force talents in case of the warrior: starfighter ace spec.

Talents is where PC's will be victorious there.

Brilliant Evasion !

Plus the minion pilot can never use strain to get an extra maneuver, which gives the player a big advantage.

I let my minion groups suffer strain to gain additional maneuvers to make them more challenging! It also makes them a little easier to kill for the guy that isn't the Double bladed lightsaber Ataru Striker jedi doing 30 damage each turn.

Minions have it rough enough what with the crits killing members of each group off instantly. They should deserve to get a few stings in.

Minion groups are not a thing in starfighter combat, you have either independ vehicles which are not bound by minion rules (the piloting minions are) or squadron in formations, which work very different to minion groups and rely on the high skilled squadron leaders as they use the skills of their leader and only get a free extra attacked based on minion amount of minion stats when the leader spends a triumph on that.

A TIE-Fighter is never a minion, even when piloted by a minion. Still, no strain for minion pilots.

Sorry double post but I can't edit..

Do you have the option to male two times the evasive maneuver? Upgrading 2 dices for 2 system strain is fair no?

Yes, completely fair IF the pilot has the ability to do two maneuvers, and don't forget that not only the vehicle gets strain, but the pilot as well. Double Evasive should be pretty standard when you are not in a safe position against all enemies. Combine with GtA on your own target for maximum effect.

The other one I like is just a way to spend Advantage on a successful Gain the Advantage roll. If you spend 2 advantage, you lock yourself into one of the firing arcs of the opposing ship. You can only attack that arc, but they can only attack you with weapons that face that arc. So if you're in a TIE, and you roll really well to Gain the Advantage on an enemy X-Wing, you can choose to lock yourself into his rear arc, and he can't even attack until he breaks that GtA. He can, of course, beef up his rear deflectors, but I would say it's well worth it.

That is not a house rule, that is how GtA works. No need to spend advantages on it either, and a very good reason to have the hotshot spec to clear those GtA with a simple maneuver, because it becomes real trouble with multiple hostiles have GtA on you.

Also something I don't know if it has been mentioned:

While not clear in the book, we got a Q&A clarifying that GtA works both ways. So if you GtA a TIE fighter and say you're targeting it's rear Arc, it can only shoot at you from weapons in that rear arc unless it does something to disrupt the GtA like counter GtAing, an opposed piloting check, or one of those GtA cancelling talent things.

This is one of those things where you might get a different answer forma different Dev... but it does make GtA more relevant in system while also upping the survivability of the craft with the A. "I can't shake him, I can't shake him!" It also makes the fighters with a turreted or rear facing weapon system make more sense.

Also something I don't know if it has been mentioned:

While not clear in the book, we got a Q&A clarifying that GtA works both ways. So if you GtA a TIE fighter and say you're targeting it's rear Arc, it can only shoot at you from weapons in that rear arc unless it does something to disrupt the GtA like counter GtAing, an opposed piloting check, or one of those GtA cancelling talent things.

This is one of those things where you might get a different answer forma different Dev... but it does make GtA more relevant in system while also upping the survivability of the craft with the A. "I can't shake him, I can't shake him!" It also makes the fighters with a turreted or rear facing weapon system make more sense.

Huh. The book definitely doesn't word it that way at all. The way the book words it, you just don't suffer any trouble from Evasive Maneuvers, and you get to choose which firing arc you're shooting at. While those are both pretty handy, spending an Action for those benefits seems kinda underwhelming. Good to know they actually did intend it that way.

Thing is, you get to choose which arc you are shooting as fighter anyway without GtA already. The Advantage really lies within denying an opposing fighter pilot the same choose. Creates the real "I can't shake him" feeling and makes Pilot skill the most important factor in fighter combat. If you can't break GtA you are more or less dead in most fighters, with the starfighter and Y-Wings as exceptions. Though Y-Wings with their dedicated gunner and astromech are someone what in a league of their own anyway. If you have PCs in all 3 positions that ship might the most deadly one in the whole system.

So a Top Ace Uber BBEG like Vader probably will have a very nice craft and support it with plenty of talents like intuitive evasion, defensive driving, and of course Adversary. So simply shooting at Vader in open space could easily see a base difficulty of something like RRRBlkBlkBlk. Still beatable, but it's very likely you'll see some negative feedback from the dice regardless of if you hit or miss.

And of course, lets assume you hit him. That means that later in the round (or the top of the next), HE gets to shoot YOU - and that is going to suck . . .

Is that strange that a skilled pilot like Vador within a +3 handling starship can't evade ennemy fire better than newbie pilot in a slow B-wing ???

Yup! There's a set of outstanding houserules floating around by Emperor Norton that address that issue, I'd suggest grabbing those and adjusting them as needed.

Talents is where PC's will be victorious there.

The amount of Defensive Driving needed to actually make a skilled PC significantly less likely to die like a dog is generally beyond even 1500+ XP characters. There's what? Three, four ranks they can get, dipping into as many specializations? What good will that do against an Ace with four yellow dice to throw?

And regarding Brilliant Evasion, that only works against a single target, and it makes you unable to even be targeted. So, either you're facing more than 1 enemy and the same problem (Ace pilot has very little in the way of Not Dying) or you're facing 1 enemy and the problem is that the player is now literally invulnerable.

Thing is, you get to choose which arc you are shooting as fighter anyway without GtA already. The Advantage really lies within denying an opposing fighter pilot the same choose. Creates the real "I can't shake him" feeling and makes Pilot skill the most important factor in fighter combat. If you can't break GtA you are more or less dead in most fighters, with the starfighter and Y-Wings as exceptions. Though Y-Wings with their dedicated gunner and astromech are someone what in a league of their own anyway. If you have PCs in all 3 positions that ship might the most deadly one in the whole system.

Without GtA the defender chooses which arc the hits land in. With GtA against unshielded craft this isn't really a thing, against shields you may find yourself in a situation like having to choose to take the rear arc and 2 setbacks from shields (plus anything else that modifies difficulty) or not setback, but accepting the other guy has a shot at you.

The amount of Defensive Driving needed to actually make a skilled PC significantly less likely to die like a dog is generally beyond even 1500+ XP characters. There's what? Three, four ranks they can get, dipping into as many specializations? What good will that do against an Ace with four yellow dice to throw?

And regarding Brilliant Evasion, that only works against a single target, and it makes you unable to even be targeted. So, either you're facing more than 1 enemy and the same problem (Ace pilot has very little in the way of Not Dying) or you're facing 1 enemy and the problem is that the player is now literally invulnerable.

That is a misconception. You need only tricky target once and add on top of that two mods or one mod which reduce your silhouette to zero against enemy attacks (one is enough for hapan Miy'til starfighter) and btw tricky target is not ranked anyway, so you only can take it once. Defensive driven at the other hand is ranked, but rather limited of use as defense for vehicles is capped at 4 and there are much easier and cheaper ways to raise your defense against incoming attacks to 4.

Speaking of brilliant evasion, you can use it against a target which you are not controlling via GtA or shutdown a expert gunner or ace that way, you have as well access to signature abilities which shut down every other ship, while you shutdown your target via brilliant evasion. Furthermore, unless the enemy has GtA on you, you pick your defense zone, which means if you can turn your speed up to 11 5 or 6 that the pilot checks are nearly impossible for bad pilots to get GtA on you. That it is trivial to get defense 4 in one zone I already mentioned.

Lastly, if you are an ace, you should have a squadron to back you up if you go against larger numbers of enemies. If you don't have that luxury and are outnumbered heavily than running away and using the case rules together with the environment and the occasional collusion via corillian send off or just triumphs from your piloting checks are a solid way to reduce your enemies or at least reducing incoming fire. Anything which has significant range is bigger than a star fighter and has a hard time to hit you in a fighter anyway, so if you can keep your distance you are mostly fine as well. A 5Y Ace:Hotshot is freaking dangerous to follow into an asteroid field or nebula even if you are in an imperial star destroyer and he the hotshot is flying just a modified YT-1300.

How you fly, what you can engage and what not is all about your pilot skill, your allies and own vehicle. You don't run into the enemies when outmatched on the ground either.

You can combine all those tools rather easy into giant defensive options, I would say it is a lot easier to become a hard target in space combat than it is in personal combat, as you can layer on layer on layer your defenses, lure opposing forces via the chase rules as well to force them either to split up or disengage from you, while your wingman picks them apart from behind. Vehicle combat is a real beauty.

Thing is, you get to choose which arc you are shooting as fighter anyway without GtA already. The Advantage really lies within denying an opposing fighter pilot the same choose. Creates the real "I can't shake him" feeling and makes Pilot skill the most important factor in fighter combat. If you can't break GtA you are more or less dead in most fighters, with the starfighter and Y-Wings as exceptions. Though Y-Wings with their dedicated gunner and astromech are someone what in a league of their own anyway. If you have PCs in all 3 positions that ship might the most deadly one in the whole system.

Without GtA the defender chooses which arc the hits land in. With GtA against unshielded craft this isn't really a thing, against shields you may find yourself in a situation like having to choose to take the rear arc and 2 setbacks from shields (plus anything else that modifies difficulty) or not setback, but accepting the other guy has a shot at you.

Yeah, I was referring to defense zone selection against 'capital' ships with sil 5 or above. Was not very clear about that, sorry about that.

If none of the pilot use Gain the Advantage, I think I read somewhere a pilot can use a Fly/Drive maneuver to position his ship, I mean he chooses wich firing arc is directed to the target. He can't select the ennemy firing arc as the defender always chooses where the hit land.

So, tell me if I am correct : I play first, I use the Fly/Drive maneuver to position my front arc toward the ennemy, with my action I launch a missile. Good. My ennemy chooses the missile to land on his rear arc, ok. His turn now, He uses the Fly/Drive maneuver to position his ship (front arc) towards me and shoot, I choose my rear arc cause I have 2 defense.

So until we perform a new Fly/Drive maneuver me and my ennmy are both tied to use front arc weapons ?

As with GtA, if I try GtA on him and succeed, I can choose my front arc, and his rear arc. Now the situation is frozen that way until he manages to gain the advantage on me. No other solution??

Not precisely sure if this is RAW, but I never bother with using Fly/Drive to turn the desired arc towards the opposing ship in straightforward combat. With GtA I allow the one holding the advantage to choose which of his target's fire arcs he wants to be in (typically the rear, since most ships don't have a lot of weaponry there) but other than that I just assume that this type of positioning is a part of the manoeuvring of a space fight.