Only changing relative positions to each other or other combatants require a fly/drive manauver

GtA locks in your targets arc to shoot at, which means you are in that quadrant in relation to that ship. It means you can fire on that arc and deny your opponents ability to turn away in time to present you a different arc.

I am not so sure if it locks your nose at the same time to his shots. You might be still able to pull away in time and choose a different arc for this shots to hit.

Keep in mind a round is a lot of time and there is a lot of movement happening even without Fly/Drive, gaining shots, evading fire, starting attack runs against capitals and turning away afterwards. (here the attacking fighter can pick his attack vector without GtA). I would assume that GtA allows to do the same against other fighters and if those fighters don't have a blind shot on the chosen arc, you can still choose your own arc, though I don't have the exact quote from the devs in mind, but I am very positive still that your nose is not locked in, just just stay on the enemies tail, but not necessary sniffing it all the time.

It would be rather unrealisic too, as you need to think and plan ahead your course to stay in control and keep your advantage, having that kind of advantage is more than just staying behind your target, but managing your own flight vector, distance and speed in a way that your target can not successful break out, which usually allows you to do control which sides you present to your target. Only exception to this would be your aft section, which is kind of hard to use against turret ships while maintaining a position behind … unless your target ship is flying significant slower (i.E speed zero) than you and for that see the rules when firing on sil 5+ ships.

So I guess for convenience reasons I would require GtA to lock in arcs which face each other. Does not need to be the nose, in a turret ship it might be more convenient to keep do strafing run and present the opponent port or starboard, but at least in a star wars setting I would rule out a aft-aft config for GtA. What you btw certainly can do is fly ahead of an opponent ship and present your aft to their fore or keep going to one of their sides with your aft (in which case you are in the fore-port or fore-starboard sector of their arc. As GM I would actually give setback dice for that GtA option, but still allow it. ^-^

Hope this makes sense and does not overcomplicate things for you. And now please excuse me, I need to get my hotas out and go for a round of TIE-Fighter to bring order to the galaxy.

(Shame we have no shield hp to actually do shield energy management and switch up sides with additional GtA actions to deplete several shield arcs and increase your shield buffer that way … I guess they need to stop somewhere before the whole game becomes an awkward space combat sim tabletop. °_^ )

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.

You're thinking of an Opposed Piloting check Action (in the skills chapter), which does work as a kind of poor man's GtA. So that can be used to override the facing/arc component of GtA, but not the other bits. Mostly this will be used when talking about craft that can't GtA for reasons like say speed or something, but there's always a possible reason to use it when you can GtA...

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 quite.

Ok, so when dealing with Sil 4 and smaller except when using things that specifically apply to arcing, you don't count arcs. So on your turn to shoot at your enemy you don't need to spend a maneuver to fly/Drive or anything else to line up your shot, you just roll to shoot, it's assumed that lining up the shot is part of that roll as your fighters fly about. In this instance the attacker can use whatever weapon seems appropriate and the defender selects the arc being hit.

Next. You GtA him. You now select which arc you want to target, as well as negating Evasive action. The Defender may now only use weapons in the arc you're targeting to fire at you.

If he chooses to counter GtA, it's at an increased difficulty. If he chooses to make an opposed piloting check, he can switch the arc selection back to him, but doesn't' negate anything else related to GtA. In both cases this check is an action, so in the case of a one-man fighter they (usually) can't make this check AND shoot in the same turn.

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.

Well, first off is the fact that Tricky Target is a skill buried way down in a Talent tree and quite a few starfighters get only a single hardpoint. Special talents and mods should be used to enhance something you want to be good at, not required for basic survival. And even if you accept that Aces should HAVE to invest in a very specific Talent/mod combo just to achieve basic survivability, what happens if you happen to want to start off with the Hotshot Ace career and fly an X-Wing (basically, be Luke Skywalker)? Now you have no access to Tricky Target AND your starfighter only has 1 mod slot. Should you be doomed for having the audacity not to pick the 'right' Ace career and ship combo?

That's not even taking into account that even after you spend all that XP and hardpoints, you're still only boosting the difficulty by two purple dice. Against those 4 yellows I mentioned earlier, that takes the chances of a successful shot from a whopping 85% to a 'mere' 67%. But hey, at least most starfighters can survive a single shot, so it's not the end of the world, right? Well, actually, there's a 30% chance of a Triumph in that roll as well, meaning they can activate Linked (which pretty much all starfighters have as a matter of course). Boom goes your fighter.

Overall, if someone is shooting at you while you are in a starfighter, you have a ridiculously small chance of survival. Unlike ground combat, you have limited ways of increasing your defense pool, and almost none at all for increasing your soak. Your "wound threshold" is completely static regardless of your skill (whereas ground combat types increase both their wound threshold AND their defense/soak rating with XP). This is further complicated by the fact that starship weapons start at "Kill most fighters in 2 hits" and go up from there. It's sort of like starting characters and pistols, only no stats will increase your survivability (like Brawn) and you won't ever get any equivalent of Toughened or Durable. And also unlike ground combat, you don't get multiple hardpoints on your weapons AND your armor to spend.

Finally, the idea of using ablative NPCs as cannon fodder is abhorrent to me and to the rest of my players. It goes against the "limited resources" feel of the Alliance, and really leaves a sour taste for us. In any combat where the PCs are fighting with NPC minions, the minions are always off in their own group. We don't create nameless redshirts to die in our place, they die enough as it is! Instead, we prefer to use a system where our skilled pilots are actually skilled pilots, who don't crash and burn the second a few TIES come their way.

So, TL;DR:

1. Achieving some semblance of survivability in a starfighter requires a very specific combination of mods and Talents that only exist in certain trees, sacrificing things you're rather be doing for something you must do.

2. Even this sacrifice only goes so far and the odds of death in any given shot are ridiculously high, rendering things like Gain the Advantage fairly moot

3. This is not in line with the ground combat portion of the game, where you can spend XP and credits to make your character much more survivable in various ways that are not available to a starfighter pilot.

4. Using NPC minions as cannon fodder to increase your own survivability works, but feels less like Luke at the Death Star and more like Zapp Brannigan.

How to houserule this so that Aces get to be as useful and survivable in the sky as combat characters are on the ground is another debate that I won't go into, but starfighter combat IS super deadly, and the game as-is offers very little in the way of remedying that. It's not nearly as bad once you go around in a light freighter, which is what the game was designed for, but anything smaller requires some changes to the base rules if you don't want to be constantly rolling new characters.

Where are your shooters with four yellows coming from? That's a high agility pool with high skills. No enemy in Edge of Empire has that much, even at Nemesis level.

1. Achieving some semblance of survivability in a starfighter requires a very specific combination of mods and Talents that only exist in certain trees, sacrificing things you're rather be doing for something you must do.

Starfighters are glass cannons.

2. Even this sacrifice only goes so far and the odds of death in any given shot are ridiculously high, rendering things like Gain the Advantage fairly moot

Starfighters are glass cannons.

3. This is not in line with the ground combat portion of the game, where you can spend XP and credits to make your character much more survivable in various ways that are not available to a starfighter pilot.

Just because starfighters can be easily taken out with regards to their Hull Threshold or System Strain Threshold, doesn’t necessarily mean that they just go “BOOM” and you get to generate a new character.

Sure, that might happen for NPCs on both sides of the battle, but for a PC, they’re just taken out of combat and they can get repairs later.

4. Using NPC minions as cannon fodder to increase your own survivability works, but feels less like Luke at the Death Star and more like Zapp Brannigan.

Luke didn’t intentionally use all his compatriots as cannon fodder, so that he could make the final run on the Death Star.

But mechanically, that is how it worked out. Luke was a PC, everyone else in an X-Wing or Y-Wing was an NPC.

How to houserule this so that Aces get to be as useful and survivable in the sky as combat characters are on the ground is another debate that I won't go into, but starfighter combat IS super deadly, and the game as-is offers very little in the way of remedying that. It's not nearly as bad once you go around in a light freighter, which is what the game was designed for, but anything smaller requires some changes to the base rules if you don't want to be constantly rolling new characters.

I disagree. You just have to be willing to get a lot of ships shot out from underneath you. The ships may die, but your characters live on.

Where are your shooters with four yellows coming from? That's a high agility pool with high skills. No enemy in Edge of Empire has that much, even at Nemesis level.

Could be a single enemy rival with 4 agility, 2 ranks Gunnery, and 2 ranks True Aim. Or, it could be a swarm of 4 minions with 3 agility and a flipped destiny point. If you think that the 2 extra yellow dice make that much difference, it doesn't. Two yellow and 2 green (no True aim, basically using the book statline for an Ace rival pilot) means 80% success rate vs 2 purple, and 60% against four purple. That's sill better than even odds of taking an incredibly damaging hit, and you had to spend a lot of resources and make a lot of sacrifices in how your character developed to get to that point.

Starfighters are glass cannons.

They are, and this is represented fairly (with the exception of shields, for which i use Emperor Nortons houserules). What is not represented fairly is the incredible agility of starfighters and the role that plays in their survival. The idea that an X-wing is as easy to hit as an Y-wing is ludicrous. We have this Handling score that somehow makes piloting checks easier, but has no effect on how easy it is for someone to hit the fighter. This is the hole that makes starfighters less agile glass cannons and more just...deathtraps.

Just because starfighters can be easily taken out with regards to their Hull Threshold or System Strain Threshold, doesn’t necessarily mean that they just go “BOOM” and you get to generate a new character.

We do a roll to eject which carries a significant chance for death because continually having fighters shot out from under you is not only tiring, but strains suspension of disbelief. It also means that you get captured a lot, since hit-and-runs are the order of the day, and floating home means floating right into an Imperial hangar bay. It's fun doing an impromptu prison break session the first two times, less so the fifth. Especially if the enemy rolled better for initiative and took you out before you got a chance to do anything, which is a common occurrence in the base game.

Luke didn’t intentionally use all his compatriots as cannon fodder, so that he could make the final run on the Death Star.

Of course not, but I'm not talking about characters at this point, I'm talking about players. My players tend to treat NPCs like people, so the idea of injecting NPCs to sacrifice to the dice gods purely so the player characters can live another day makes them a little queasy. I go out of my way to humanize the NPCs they interact with, so I guess you can blame me for that one. In any case, this is not an option. NPCs can and will die in combat, but we don't turn them into another form of "hit points" for the players.

Where are your shooters with four yellows coming from? That's a high agility pool with high skills. No enemy in Edge of Empire has that much, even at Nemesis level.

Could be a single enemy rival with 4 agility, 2 ranks Gunnery, and 2 ranks True Aim. Or, it could be a swarm of 4 minions with 3 agility and a flipped destiny point. If you think that the 2 extra yellow dice make that much difference, it doesn't. Two yellow and 2 green (no True aim, basically using the book statline for an Ace rival pilot) means 80% success rate vs 2 purple, and 60% against four purple. That's sill better than even odds of taking an incredibly damaging hit, and you had to spend a lot of resources and make a lot of sacrifices in how your character developed to get to that point.

I guess at this stage you are talking high xp players facing powerful opponents. I'll certainly grant you that there are less ways to combat high dice pools at that level.

2 Ranks of True Aim is a lot, it only exists on three specialisations, and three of those occurrences are bottom of the tree talents. Again, way above any examples in the Edge of Empire core rulebook.

As a Rival, they cannot suffer strain, so cannot use second manouvers in a turn.

I guess the thing in my head, is if you know that these opponents are too strong for your players, why use them? If you have a specialist pilot in the team, I can understand throwing an ace at them occasionally, but I hope they'd have invested in some tricks for dealing with it (eg, lets fly into that asteroid field, gain the advantage, etc). If you haven't, then I probably wouldn't. This is a narrative system rather than a competition.

Luke didn’t intentionally use all his compatriots as cannon fodder, so that he could make the final run on the Death Star.

But mechanically, that is how it worked out. Luke was a PC, everyone else in an X-Wing or Y-Wing was an NPC.

How to houserule this so that Aces get to be as useful and survivable in the sky as combat characters are on the ground is another debate that I won't go into, but starfighter combat IS super deadly, and the game as-is offers very little in the way of remedying that. It's not nearly as bad once you go around in a light freighter, which is what the game was designed for, but anything smaller requires some changes to the base rules if you don't want to be constantly rolling new characters.

I disagree. You just have to be willing to get a lot of ships shot out from underneath you. The ships may die, but your characters live on.

Have to disagree on the "Luke is the only PC", R2-D2 is clearly an PC as well, clone war veteran and 2000+ xp in the game. They deleted only C3POs memory after the clone wars. My official crazy-talk star wars theory is that R2-D2 took control of the fire-controls and actually fired the final shot against the death star. "Luke use the force", yeah right.

Besides in the first arc from Rogue squadron comics Tycho's X-Wing gets shot down right away, Wedges whole flight dies right before the Battle of Yavin (explains as well why the squadrons were incomplete at the battle of yavin) and the whole trend does not get better. And we speak here from the #1 squadron in the galaxy. They still constantly lose shops and sometimes pilots too.

Where are your shooters with four yellows coming from? That's a high agility pool with high skills. No enemy in Edge of Empire has that much, even at Nemesis level.

Could be a single enemy rival with 4 agility, 2 ranks Gunnery, and 2 ranks True Aim. Or, it could be a swarm of 4 minions with 3 agility and a flipped destiny point. If you think that the 2 extra yellow dice make that much difference, it doesn't. Two yellow and 2 green (no True aim, basically using the book statline for an Ace rival pilot) means 80% success rate vs 2 purple, and 60% against four purple. That's sill better than even odds of taking an incredibly damaging hit, and you had to spend a lot of resources and make a lot of sacrifices in how your character developed to get to that point.

Have to agree that 4 Yellows are not much. A decently modded droid gunner brain with a agility 4 character does the trick already. Though your dice pool from my example is wrong. A sil 3 fighter against a sil 0 target is getting a daunting check. This check is further upgrades 2 times for two evasion maneuvers, adds normally 4 setbacks from the shields (boost shields action or the astromech action "watch your back" + angle deflector maneuver, trivial to have defense 4 in at least one zone).

There is as well a solid chance to get an triumph on your own GtA action before that to increase the difficulty for the incoming shot for that guy behind you. So we are talking here about a final dice pool of CCCDSSSSPPPP, nope, not the best chance to hit and very unlikely to create advantage while actually hitting (nature of the dice mechanics).

Still risky, but you are flying here in a situation in which you are literally outnumbered as you are chasing one target while getting chased by another 4 fighters (the minion group) and even destiny is against you. By all means this should be a problematic situation without a wingman to scratch your back.

Now a wingman could easily scratch your back before the swarm of angry TIEs can shoot while you stay on target (not the maneuver), but naturally you could as well just keep your advantage on target (and thus eliminate return fire) and instead do a quick barrel roll to let your chasing pass you and annihilate the threat of the group. Depending if you did decided for a safe double evasive or not your pool is should be something like this PPPPCD or PPPPDDBB, now that is a solid chance to destroy 2 or 3 of those TIE-Fighters in one turn. You only need 2 success to increase your damage 8 with an X-Wing, which gives you the option to kill one TIE per link activation, potentially killing the whole group in one shot and proceeding to your original target.

This is btw again a case which makes action efficient teams great. If your astromech can be your gunner because he is a PC or even better, your Y-Wing actually has a gunner … trivial. If not than master pilot is a lot of helpful.

Speaking of helpful. Good timing to trigger brilliant evason and kill your original target or the target behind your wingman, effectively giving you control over two targets, while destroying a third in one turn.

And yes, everyone not an ace IS cannon fodder in space combat. About 90% of all air victories were achieved by about 3% of the pilots in ww2. (roughly from memory)

SEApocalypse I would love to read or hear (if you do a game podcast) of a space battle from your games. Especially a squadron of star fighters. The thing is Benjan Meruna makes a lot of sense with this game needing some help for space combat. But I like where you're going with those examples in your posts. I know this game is geared more to the offensive side. Heck I have a force user PC who can build up a defense of RRPP+4BL. And still get hit half the time by a meager lonely stormtrooper.

I guess what I'm asking for is some tips for my pilot to go head on against multiple opponents. My character has the Starfighter Ace spec with most of the good Talents selected. But I want him to branch out to other non-pilot spec and still feel like a boss in a snub-fighter.

I guess what I'm asking for is some tips for my pilot to go head on against multiple opponents. My character has the Starfighter Ace spec with most of the good Talents selected. But I want him to branch out to other non-pilot spec and still feel like a boss in a snub-fighter.

My approach the rules is mostly from a "practical" perspective from space combat sims, which ironically are the base for the whole Rogue Squadron series which is the backbone of space combat at least for the EU/Legends and RPGs. I look at the rules with the expectation that they can mimic that experience and surprisingly enough they rules in this system are abstract enough to actually just that.

My own character is a Verpine Hotshot and for some time I actually considered to branch out into ataru striker to make the best out of my 5 agility, but after looking closer at the rules I realized that aces can spend 1000xp with ease and still feel like each point is a good investment, so I forgot about that idea. And that is with me having a crazy astromech as copilot, which really, really helps as mentioned in my examples, the power of crew should never be underestimated.

And no back to your question about going against multiple opponents: In general you simply don't. If you are outnumbered by a decent shot the situation becomes uncontrollable mayhem, "brilliant evasion" and the signature talents "This one is Mine" and "Unmatched Survivability" can help a lot to get such an encounter into something more controllable, but they have their limits. Survivability of main characters can be boosted significantly by using minions as meat shield, which is a general theme of the RPG on ground combat as well and reflects the events of the movie as well. I think I gave already some of the best tips for survival in my posts before, I think I have not mentioned so far that clever support from the PCs to each other can be a source for another upgrade for shots against you. A triumph allows to upgrade the next incoming shot against an allied character, so initiative order is important, you can use a copilot or gta action to give a friend some support boost that way the survivability of the whole party.

Again this is an example which works best on ships that have a crew bigger than one and again it is an example which lose effectivity fast when you are outnumbered.

So as rule of thumb I would say you can go up against twice as much fighters than your side has IF you outmatching them by skill heavily and roll at least 4 proficiency dice on your checks. GtA allows you to control one, Master Pilot or having a gunner on board allows you to shoot another before it can down you. I am counting minion groups here has "single fighter" and I am assuming pretty skill opposition. Anything beyond that needs to separate first and dealt individually with, which can be done for example which letting them chase you first to spread them out into different range bands and then engage smaller groups.

Last tip: Things like Aim, taking cover or even stealth works in starfighters as well. It's more than just rolling dice and the environment can be used to your advantage. "Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately three thousand, seven hundred twenty to one."

Excellent posts here we learn a lot thanks.

Maybe what we should do is creating a small encounter, one of you assuming the role of the GM and 2 others playing a Xwing pilot. Just a small encounter for exemple purpose, like the 2 XWings againt 6 TIEs (2 minions group)

I can fly a Xwing

Oooooh I like that idea. Seeing that encounter play out would be great.

Thanks for all the advise SEApocalypse. I'm going to reread the space combat rules and use your strategies for my character. I'm sure it will increase his survivability and much cooler encounters.

One last thing, we just got a x-wing. What mod would you put on it?

**** phone making me double post.

You could give it at least an interesting location.

Balmorra Run is an old smugglers route near Naboo which leads through the Kaliida Nebula. Quite a beautiful and deadly scenery to run into an patrol while on the way to the nearby medical station which needs fighter escort for a ongoing evacuation. Oh and did I mentioned that it is a nesting ground for a breed of giant Neebray Mantas? ;-)

One last thing, we just got a x-wing. What mod would you put on it?

Depends. Weapons are clearly sufficient, it comes with an astromech socket, which can help a lot, even when usually Y-Wings are easier to use with their additional gunner which allows for a … uhm more diverse selection in crew. What the X-Wing lacks a little are hardpoints, personally I like the old clone war ships in general more than the 'modern' X-Wing. (V-Wing, Deltas, V-Wings)

What kind of missions you expect to fly in it?

For Recon Missions the Whisper Engine is a nice addition, the ECM-Suit unfortunately can not combined with the nightshadow coating for that sweet silhouette 0 target profile. (lack of hardpoints)

Another really interesting, but as well super expensive and rare option would be the pseudo cloaking device. If you can control the range and keep them out of close range you get a whole upgrade for all shots against you, plus handing out two extra setback dice against your attackers when properly fine tuned. And it still helps you with getting quite in and out it increases the difficulty all computer checks to detect your ship on sensors by two. Perfect for reconnaissance missions. even when personally I prefer the A-Wing for that, simply as the longer sensor range means that you can avoid most fighter patrols as you detect them before they have you on their sensors, avoiding that computer check all together.

If you spend a lot of time grounded a slave circuit can be worth it too, calling your X-Wing into a gunfight is like calling the cavalry in. Planetary scale weapons are downright unfair in personal scale combat.

As ship attachment can be adjusted easily prior mission, you could customize your fighter based on the mission at hand.

Default for all ships should be droid brains. Astrogation, Gunner, Autopilot, does not matter, whatever your weakness in your skillset is, this little handy addition can compensate for it just fine as long as your characteristics give it room to work with. They all take zero hardpoints and really, really help. My Ace is completely reliant on his fire-control-systems as his gunnery skill is rank 1, thanks to that little droid brain it rolls still 4 yellow and 2 greens.

Where are your shooters with four yellows coming from? That's a high agility pool with high skills. No enemy in Edge of Empire has that much, even at Nemesis level.

Could be a single enemy rival with 4 agility, 2 ranks Gunnery, and 2 ranks True Aim. Or, it could be a swarm of 4 minions with 3 agility and a flipped destiny point. If you think that the 2 extra yellow dice make that much difference, it doesn't. Two yellow and 2 green (no True aim, basically using the book statline for an Ace rival pilot) means 80% success rate vs 2 purple, and 60% against four purple. That's sill better than even odds of taking an incredibly damaging hit, and you had to spend a lot of resources and make a lot of sacrifices in how your character developed to get to that point.

And yes, everyone not an ace IS cannon fodder in space combat. About 90% of all air victories were achieved by about 3% of the pilots in ww2. (roughly from memory)

I agree with this, a Marauder in an X-wing should have a bad time. But it's my fervent belief that anyone who has talents from the Ace career (or Squadron Leader, or Pilot from Smugger, or any other piloting spec) should be included in that Ace consideration. They might not be as dangerous or as skilled as their more seasoned peers, but they should still be able to bypass the 'fodder' stage. Players should never be fodder in Star Wars, there's other RPGs that are better suited for such a concept(FFG's own Only War is a favorite).

I'm all for doing a bit of a simulation. There's an online die roller that I've seen some of the PbP games use that we could use.