Based on a reading of the rules it appears that you can add multiple linked weapons to a single hard point on a ship or vehicle.

As an example, my PCs used a hard point on their YT-1300 to add a Twin Proton Torpedo Launcher (Linked 1).

They recently acquired a Y-Wing and want to know if they can add the two Proton Torpedo Launchers in it to the YT-1300 using the same hard point to make it Linked 3.

It appears they can based on the "two or more weapons always cost one hard point" rule.

Any thoughts?

Also they want to know with a Linked Proton Torpedo Launcher can they fire only 1 torpedo to conserve ammo (I ruled yes, but of course then they can't activate Linked). Thoughts?

They also want to know if they do this could they fire 1 torpedo from the launcher every round since it is Slow-Firing 1? Is it just the tube that fired that is then slow-firing or does the entire system "overheat" regardless of how many tubes it has?

Depending on the answers to this I would assume a Linked 3 Proton Torpedo Launcher could fire every round as Linked 1 (two torpedos per round) or only every other round whether it launched one or four.

Thanks for any comments!

Finarin

Regarding the first question, I guess they can add as many torpedo launchers as they want as long as they have the money. Although at some point you might want to step in if it gets silly. I'm not sure how much it would help them to do so; Linked 8 sounds nice, but you'd need an awful lot of Advantage to pull it off. Still, it's their money.

Sure, a Linked 1 launcher can fire only one torpedo; all you need to do it NOT trigger the Linked quality.

Nope. Slow-Firing means only one shot every two rounds, whether you activate Linked or not. It's still a single weapon system on a single hard point. The same would apply if they had Linked 8 and fired off all 8 shots in round one - they'd still have to wait for round 3 to fire again. If you want to fire a torpedo each round you'd need two separate launchers on two separate hard points.

They also want to know if they do this could they fire 1 torpedo from the launcher every round since it is Slow-Firing 1? Is it just the tube that fired that is then slow-firing or does the entire system "overheat" regardless of how many tubes it has?

The developers have set out rules for these weapons to balance them. As a rule of thumb I like to think that if something that seems logical skirts the limitations imposed by a rule (slow-firing) its probably going to break the balance the developers put in place. It may seem logical or sensible but we didn't notice because the imbalance may be subtle or because we haven't had 1000x space combats to iron it out. So if it ever skirts a rule, I would enforce the rule.

Also remember that if the players pull something like that so can the Nemesis and I can bet you dollars to donuts that the PCs probably wouldn't be too happy with Proton Torpedoes coming at them every turn.

Sam Stewart has said himself that, to cut down on bookkeeping and keep GMs sane, if you are going to the trouble of counting torpedoes/missiles/ordinance then you either count every shot made as 2 fired and say the 2nd shot only hits when linked is active. Or you count them as usual and don't bother subtracting a 2nd shot when you manage to active linked.

The route you go depends on the generosity of the GM. Neither way is write or wrong. Count every shot fired plus its Linked rating, you still can only fire as often as Slow Firing allows. And if you count every shot fired singularly, you still have to buy more ordinance later.

Proton Torpedos are very hard to aquire. Even for the rebel alliance. We had a proton torpedo launcher at our ship in the last campaign we played and we used it only once to blast a powerful sith lord. We had the weapon system for about 10 or more game sessions but never used it to conserve ammunition. So i would balance this problem with the availability of torpedos. Torpedos are expensive, they are rare and i don't think that it is possible to reload a torpedo system mid fight. So if the players want to waste their ammo this way - just let them.

Thanks everybody, that's all very helpful!

I'll take your advice and go with no matter how many torpedoes they fire it can only shoot every other round and allow them to conserve the expensive and rare torpedoes by firing smaller salvos when desired.

As they are PCs, I wouldn't worry too much about the game balance on such subtle details. Personally my group and I prefer "makes sense" to "perfectly obeys the rules".

If they want to be able to do something like this then clearly they will enjoy it so go for it. Say they can declare in advance how many tubes are firing, so if they fire 2 tubes they can only activate up to Linked 1, but the next turn they have another 2 tubes they can fire immediately. Given how expensive these things are it will balance out quite quickly. If you're worried about the power it gives them, add an extra TIE to the encounter.

If they don't care about the cost and use ti a lot, you can always limit their supply more than just monetarily, maybe there'll be a whole new mission come out of it where they have to find a new supply of torpedoes.

Obviously the "you're the GM, rule it any way you like" goes without saying.