Hi all,

I’m looking for help or suggestions for a major space battle that I’ve got coming up in my next session, a bit of background…

My players are currently on a planet controlled by 4 major corporations that is located in a region of space that is in the process of being annexed by The Empire. The players have been involved with a local Resistance cell and have done and had agreed to steal a number of prototype fighter bombers from one of the corporations on world. The plan was that once they had access to the hanger where the ships are stored they were to call in the group of Resistance Pilots (who had arrived via a different ship and were waiting for their signal to move) who would take the ships and rendezvous with the Resistance’s Kandosii Dreadnaught (see Fractalsponge.net) that would jump into the system when required.

As they were due to start their heist, having made their preparations, The Empire arrive in force to take control of the planet bringing a small fleet (including 3 Star Destroyers, 2 Interdictors and a Corvette controlled by their Nemesis ISB Agent) into the system to complete the task. The Corporations controlling the world scramble their defence forces in attempt to stop the invasion. As the Imperial Drop Ships and Tie Fighters enter the atmosphere & begin their attack my players decide that the heist is now waaaaaay too risky and run for their ship to try & get off world.

Chaos ensues on the streets of the city as it’s residents attempt to flee to shelters and the Drop Ships reach the surface. After a few run ins in the streets with Stormtroopers supported by AT STs the players make it back to their ship, inform the Resistance Pilots that the mission is aborted & take off. Which is where we left it last session.

So, I want this to be a tough session, the planet is facing a sizeable invasion force and I want the players to feel this… and this is where any help or suggestions would be really appreciated. I’ve already come up with a few encounters that I want to include (see below) but I always struggle with the terrain side of space battles.

My encounters so far are:

Whilst still in the atmosphere…

The freighter carrying the Resistance Pilots sends a distress call stating that it is being attacked by a wing of Ties that it can’t shake, the players will need to reach the freighter, involving a chase through the tightly packed towers of the city to get the Ties of the freighters back and allow them to escape the atmosphere.

Once in space…

The Empire is stopping any shipping trying to leave the system, as they break atmosphere a large freighter is destroyed directly ahead of them by turbolaser fire from one of the Star Destroyers causing them to avoid spiralling debris from the explosion.

Their Nemesis ISB Agent (having already told the players that they need to leave the region or be destroyed the next time he comes across them) takes to his Tie Phantom and attack the players ship supported by a wing of Ties.

The ship containing the Resistance Pilots is badly damaged trying to escape, it’s hyperdrive is knocked offline & it calls in the Kandosii Dreadnaught to pick it up. Unfortunately the Interdictors then prevent the Kandosii from jumping out of the system. The players will then need to attack the Interdictor (supported by fighters from the Kandosii) and take out it’s gravity well generator in order to allow them to make their escape.

Anything that anyone can add to this, obstacles / terrain / extra encounters etc would really be appreciated.

Many thanks in advance

And that isn't enough?

Since I have no idea what happened beyond what you described I'd have asked if there are any smugglers present as their escape efforts would help keep most of the imperial forces busy and I'd assume the PCs won't be the only ones trying to disable that Interdictor!

I'd recommend not throwing that nemesis at them until after they make their run against the Interdictor because otherwise that is going to be too much unless you gave them the chance of backup which from what you described isn't the case!

So have they burned any help they could have called upon in this system?

How are the Corporates coping?

And that isn't enough?

When I read this back I did think it was fairly challenging

I want the battle to pretty much fill our 3(ish) hour session, so do u think this is enough for that amount of time?

Like the idea of other smugglers in the system, it is a busy industrial system so this is more than viable... I'm now seeing a joint attack on the Indictor by my players & a number of smuggling ships who are all trying to get away. I've actually got a smuggler NPC rival that they've run afoul of a couple of times in the past... Might be nice to have them join forces for this

Any help that they might have had is ground based so yeah, other than the support Kandosii they're pretty much on their own.

As for the Corporates... They're putting up a valiant defence but ultimately getting ripped apart.

Cheers Copperbell

Nice!

Heh no chance one of the Corporates have a warship or two of their own to help fight their way out?

They do have a few warships of frigate size.... Unfortunately these are what ate getting ripped apart by the Star Destroyers

Don't forget that the Phantom has a gunner and a cloaking device. Decide if decloaking and cloaking is pilot only or if the co-pilot can initiate this to decloak and shoot while the pilot spends his action to re-cloak. Personally I tend to assume that decloaking is something the co-pilot can do as well, makes the ship as scary as it should be.

Debris from the space battle and in general the battle itself allows to use the environmental effects from fly casual, which change the options for spending threats and advantages significantly.

Lastly, 3 hours of space battle is boring and unrealistic if the PCs are just trying to break the blockade. Having the interdictor cruisers as part of the planetary blockade is pointless too, gravity wells cover a lot of space, but they don't cover a whole planet, they are actually pretty insignificant compared to the planetary mass shadow. Now placing those two interdictors on the only two hyperspace lanes leading out of the system and blocking entrance and exit of the system would be something different.

Which means you split the imperial forces into something like a strike force against the planet which consist of 1 to 3 ISDs and support ships and two fleets assisting the interdictors to control the traffik of the system.

This creates another interesting situation as the players now can not leave the system without dealing directly with the interdictor fleets and are basically trapped in the system. A system which most certainly has at least some smaller space stations, maybe some asteroid miners, smuggler hangouts, etc … and usually smugglers know different hyperspace routes outside of the common, well known routes which are blockaded by the empire right now. There is for example this one route which leads true a nebula in real space instead of flying around it, dangerous, but a lot less dangerous than dealing with a whole imperial fleet … just better stay away from those Neebray Manta whose breeding ground is in that Nebula and don't piss of the local smuggler syndicate either which would like to keep that trade route a secret from the imperials … and better hope that Phantom is not tracking you into that Nebula as you never would know what hit you … stealth checks can be done in spaceships too and the nebulae could totally interfere with the sensors and make the perception checks to notice the cloaked phantom interesting too as you can hand out setback dice and boost dice based on the turbulences and currents of the nebula.

Enjoy your session.

Now your 3 hour session is not just one giant encounter but split in 3 or 4, not all combat ones.

placing those two interdictors on the only two hyperspace lanes leading out of the system and blocking entrance and exit of the system would be something different.

Which means you split the imperial forces into something like a strike force against the planet which consist of 1 to 3 ISDs and support ships and two fleets assisting the interdictors to control the traffik of the system.

This is what I had planned Mainly with a view to getting the scout character to feverishly start plotting risky untested routes out of the system.

However... I was forgetting all about the rest of the system (which isn't something they've explored yet... They've only ever gone straight to the main world). This gives me loads of options! Maybe they're forced to crash land on a desolate planet in system then need to hold off Imperial troops long enough to get the ship space worthy! Or... They hide in the nebula & a cat & mouse search occurs (in a Hunt for Red October kinda way) whilst attacks are launched to try & disable one of the Interdictors.

Awesome stuff SEApocalypse, really got me thinking now!!

I use a spreadsheet for massive space battles. I break 'ships into 5 sections: command, crew, helm, engineering, and weapons. I then assign a value between 1 and 5 to each section to represent overall Ability. Each section also has 5 Strain, except command which has 6. To Upgrade the Ability of a section, that section spends 1 Strain. No Ability may be Upgraded more than twice for any Action, but the second Upgrade must be "purchased" by the command section spending 1 Strain.

As a simplified example: An ISD ((Venator-class) chases the PCs' freighter into a debris field. Avoiding the debris requires a Piloting (Space) check. Assuming the helm is trained to "movie" standards, that section has an Ability of 2 and 2 Ranks in skill, so basic pool is 2 Proficiency. They don't want the freighter to gain ground, so they spend 1 Strain to Upgrade to 2 Proficiency and 1 Ability. The crew section can Assist, adding 1 Boost. The Chase is resolved using Competitive checks...

Aaaaand it's time for me to clock in, so I'll add more later this evening.

Huh so will there be any of those giant space mantas in the nebula?

Just imagining the TIE Phantom's cloak might not work so well inside the nebula maybe even cause those mantas to come looking for it especially if the pilot does the imperial thing of aggravating them by shooting!

So the Corporate warships WILL be making themselves useful by keeping those star destroyers focused on them not the PCs!

You are aware there are other ways to jump out of the system and those interdictors can only cover a limited area of the star system?

Nothing says your PCs can't plot a course away from both and once out of their range jump out of the system?!

Two hyperspace routes by that I assume a trade route not necessarily a smuggler's route!

So what directions are those smugglers heading?

For me I'd have all that fighting going on and then maybe get them to spend a destiny point to realise the Interdictors can't cover the entire system and as long as they're busy fighting everyone dumb enough to fly straight past them and within their firing range maybe that nemesis is the only one who realises your PCs aren't heading towards either and he has to make an extra effort to catch up since they have a less direct route out of the system?

IN the group that I'm playing in, we could turn that plan into 3 separate sessions, (but that's another story/issue).

I think you have a solid plan, but I agree with Copperbell. You should save the Nemesis encounter for last.

A thought about the Intedictor, according to AoR a single Inderdictor is able to shut down an entire Solar system. Also per AoR, the Inderdictors are "rare" and a significant battle fleet will have only 1. You may want to swap out the other Interdictor for a couple of Vindicators. (Not that the PC's will be engaged with them necessarily).

Interdictors are also RARE and VALUABLE. It may be very feasible and likely that if the Interdictor starts taking extensive damage, the Interdictor Captain may drop the interdiction field and flee the system. So the defenders won't need to destroy this asset, just produce sufficient threat to chase it off. Like say 6 Y-Wing fighters from the Kandosii Dreadnought.

Ooo, I just thought of another possible encounter involving the Interdictor. The Y-Wings deploy but their escorts are engaged by TIE/ln's. The Kandosii contacts the PC's on their ship and informs them that another group of TIE's are on an intercept course on the Y-Wings and the PC's need to stop the TIE's! Once the Tie fighters are dispatched, the Interdictor Captain bugs out to protect his ship from the 48 Photons bound to end his day . . .

Here's another potential encounter: As they are escaping the upper atmo, they notice that a nearby passenger hauler is being attacked by a handful of TIE's. The captain is panicked and frantic and his ship is "unarmed." Do the PC's swoop in to save the doomed ship, or do they use it as a distraction to make their escape?

As for terrain, I'm more of a realist and space really doesn't have terrain . . . For instance, if you were flying through a real nebula you wouldn't know it. Most pictures of nebula are actually color "corrected" because otherwise they look like the rest of space.

Most life sustaining planets will have a moon, or two or seven. They're not going to be "close" by our standards but in a Star Wars battlefield may be more accessible. (For instance, traveling from one moon to another "local" moon takes us days, where in Star Wars it may only take hours). A strategically placed moon may be helpful to a band of fleeing PC's.

I'm not a fan of the Star Wars "asteroid" fields because they're too thick. If you were to fly through the Sol Asteroid belt (Ceres) you would be LUCKY to see a single asteroid on your journey through the ring.

However, does this planet have a ring? A planetary ring would more resemble as "Star Wars asteroid field," Imagine chunks of ice the from the size of a basketball to a VW beetle with the proximity of the "Star Wars Asteroid Field" and you're spot on. Strategically, a ring will be treated as a physical barrier that only a fool would try to fly through! (ahem, by "fool" I also include the typical PC's).

The last bit of advice for involving a PC group in ANY massive battle is to focus on their local experience. You may interject "This just in; what is happening elsewhere!" updates but focus on what the PC's see and do.

You are aware there are other ways to jump out of the system and those interdictors can only cover a limited area of the star system?

Nothing says your PCs can't plot a course away from both and once out of their range jump out of the system?!

Actually, interdictors can cover the whole system. Hyperspace routes are thin bands of cartographed space. The interdictors can wait just 2 light years outside of the star system, block the hyperspace route. You can try to ran past them in normal space, but that means dealing with the whole fleet to leave the mass shadow from the interdictor. What the interdictors can not do is cover every possible micro jump within the system, that is indeed too much space to cover and systems themselves are usually very well cartographed too, so there are plenty of potential routes. Routes over lightyears at the other hand are usually like highways with a few points to jump onto them. They can be blocked quite effective with just one interdictor fleet or even just by tractoring a few asteroids into the route. For that very reason space whales, mantas, etc are not very popular among spacers, because those randomly interrupt hyperspace routes when they cross them and can lead to deadly accidents. ( Star Wars Rebels Season 2 Episode 13 - The Call )

@Mark Caliber You are absolutely right that star wars space is absolutely unrealistic, nebulae in star wars are often thick soups which you might only see in a stellar nurseries and even it would be quite different to those cloudy nebulas from star wars. Nontheless ignoring pressure for the most part, having super dense stellar formations, atmospheres on asteroids, space slugs and Oswaft (another type of sentient space manta), etc … in the end star wars is space fantasy and that is something which makes part of the charm of star wars. And btw, iirc even the saturn rings would be trivial to pass through with something like an X-Wing. They are dense and chaotic to make it really dangerous to pass through.

Interesting I assumed they created a gravity well causing any ship in hyperspace to be forcibly returned to normal space but it's limited to the same range as a gas Giant's gravity well would be?

Is it as powerful as a black hole because just because there are well used or well known travel routes there are also secret ones kept that way often by smugglers and others wanting an escape route should those regular routes are blockaded?

Are you planning to play out the battle with the mass combat rules, or is it just going to be the backdrop for some skirmishes involving the PCs?

Interesting I assumed they created a gravity well causing any ship in hyperspace to be forcibly returned to normal space but it's limited to the same range as a gas Giant's gravity well would be?

Is it as powerful as a black hole because just because there are well used or well known travel routes there are also secret ones kept that way often by smugglers and others wanting an escape route should those regular routes are blockaded?

Sounds like this is a misunderstanding. You need indeed one interdictor per hyperspace route. But a lot of systems have just one route coming in and going it … that is official ones, secret smuggling routes or military secrets are indeed not uncommon even when they often lead to obstacles in normal space, making interesting, but dangerous trips in normal space between jumps.

I even mentioned smuggling routes to avoid the interdictors in my original post.

But there is one thing for sure, smuggling routes are usually trade secrets and they are not part of your usual navigational data, furthermore establishing new routes is not an easy task and furthermore is a long term task you can only make micro jumps, scan the area and do another micro jump, etc … so blocking the one road out of town usually indeed blocks the whole system.

The only cannon I have for the Interdictor comes from AoR which states that an Interdictor can shut down hyperspace travel for a whole star system.

We also know that Interdictors create artificial gravity wells, which cause passing ships to drop out of hyperspace.

Okay, I really don't know the pseudo science behind the Interdictor so what follows is mostly my opinion, for what it's worth.

First, (and well established among most Sci-Fi sources) Hyperspace travel correlates directly with real space locations. (Star Wars confirms this notion too).

What makes Hyperspace travel effective is that the distances traveled are (either) shorter in hyperspace, or can be traversed faster.

Star Wars makes it clear that objects in real space have an impact on the related location in hyperspace. Interacting with the gravity of a real-space object will knock you out of hyperspace and put you into real relation to the object in real-space.

(eg: if you fly too close to an asteroid in hyperspace, you will drop out of hyper and THEN collide with the asteroid).

Now to get to my pure opinion (In My Star Wars Universe=IMSWU). Linear travel through hyperspace is impossible. So when a crew "plots a course" they are programming a route for the ship to travel as it takes its trip. During the trip, the vessel will literally be maneuvering constantly as it travels from its point of embarkation to its point of destination.

In the game rules this makes the Astrogation roll really important as those Triumphs and Advantages mean that your character has found a much more direct or efficient route for this specific run. (Yeah, I made the Kessel run in only 12 parsecs)!

On to the Interdictor.

We know that the Interdictor is a ship which creates an artificial gravity well.

It is my understanding that the spherical diameter of this field can be expanded or shrunk as desired by the crew. AoR say's "Up to a full solar system." Tactically it would be reasonable that an Interdictor would NOT want to shut down an entire system, especially if its intended target were in close proximity.

However in an epic space battle where the Empire was trying to capture a whole planet, that Interdictor would likely be set for a section of space that would include the planet and possibly a sufficient buffer to keep interlopers from interfering.

And because the Interdictor is creating a field centered on its generators, it would be impossible to initiate hyperspace travel within that field (even for a micro trip).

THAT is my understanding of the Interdictor Class Heavy Cruiser.

Also note that MY only experience with Interdictors comes from the PC Computer game "Tie Fighter." I haven't seen Interdictors in any other sources (yet).

I use a spreadsheet for massive space battles. I break 'ships into 5 sections: command, crew, helm, engineering, and weapons. I then assign a value between 1 and 5 to each section to represent overall Ability. Each section also has 5 Strain, except command which has 6. To Upgrade the Ability of a section, that section spends 1 Strain. No Ability may be Upgraded more than twice for any Action, but the second Upgrade must be "purchased" by the command section spending 1 Strain.

As a simplified example: An ISD ((Venator-class) chases the PCs' freighter into a debris field. Avoiding the debris requires a Piloting (Space) check. Assuming the helm is trained to "movie" standards, that section has an Ability of 2 and 2 Ranks in skill, so basic pool is 2 Proficiency. They don't want the freighter to gain ground, so they spend 1 Strain to Upgrade to 2 Proficiency and 1 Ability. The crew section can Assist, adding 1 Boost. The Chase is resolved using Competitive checks...

Aaaaand it's time for me to clock in, so I'll add more later this evening.

For massive space engagements, like we saw in Episode III, weapon fire comes from every direction imaginable, thus the base difficulty for ALL combat checks is Average when shooting up to the range limit of the weapon (a Long range weapon shooting at target at Long range makes an Average check), with the Difficulty being reduced 1x for each range band the target is closer, to a Minimum difficulty of Easy. Increase the Difficulty of combat checks 1x for each range band the target is beyond the weapon's maximum. Silhouette differences add Bosst/Setback as normal. Weapon damage is increased if the target is closer to, or reduced if further away as follows...

Long range weapon fires at target at Long range: +/-0

Long range weapon fires at target at Medium range: +1

Long range weapon fires at target at Close range: +2

Long range weapon fires at target at Extreme Range: -1

Targets Beyond Extreme range cannot be targeted.

PC 'ships also use this alteration. Shields, Armor, Hull Trauma Thresholds, and System Strain Thresholds of PC 'ships are used as normal, Adversary/NPC 'ships are done a bit differently.

Instead of Adversary/NPC shields adding setback to combat checks, they reduce damage inflicted. Use the highest value (ie: a 2 - - 1 reduces damage inflicted -2), and is cumulative with Armor reduction. This will in some cases mean less than (normal) minimum damage is inflicted. That's fine. System Strain Thresholds are not used; performing a second 'ship Maneuver will instead reduce engineering section Strain -1, and any involuntary System Strain is removed from the remaining Strain of section(s) of choice (ie: a critical hit result inflicts 2 System Strain, the controlling player(s) choose which sections suffer it). As Damage Control: Restore System Strain may only be performed once per encounter, this alteration remains somewhat balanced. Any Strain restored is added to sections of the controlling player(s) choice. If all sections have been reduced to zero Strain the crew is exhausted and their 'ship becomes immobile. It may still perform 'ship Actions and Maneuvers that exclude movement. This allows heroic courses of action such as the boarding of enemy ships for rescues or hijacking.

Note: These "house rules" are intended for use with capital-class 'ships (Sil 5+), but can also be applied to smaller 'ships, such as freighters. If a Sil 4 'ship is in play it only has three sections: command, crew, and engineering. Fighters and such are treated as Minion squadrons (as normal).

Gah, thumbs are cramping.

I'll be back with more. Stay tuned.

BTW Rebels Season 2 has an episode with an Interdictor Prototype.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Stealth_Strike

Are you planning to play out the battle with the mass combat rules, or is it just going to be the backdrop for some skirmishes involving the PCs?

The main part of the battle is going to be the backdrop... I kind of want to focus on getting my players to panic considering the overwhelming odds that they're facing! The build up to this invasion has been going on for some time with my players (narrowly in some cases) avoiding going up against The Empire head on.

So the Corporate warships WILL be making themselves useful by keeping those star destroyers focused on them not the PCs!

Yes they will, although they are vastly outgunned... But it'll add tension (hopefully) as the players see these taken apart by the Star Destroyers. I plan to only use the Star Destroyers for "terrain" really & to force a couple of pilot rolls to dodge incoming turbolaser fire... I intend the main threat to come from the wings of Tie Fighters they release

Some great responses here guys... It's really got me thinking, so many, many thanks

Since the battle is mainly just background, Stay on Target covers massive battles as a terrain feature. Give it a look and make an encounter with it in mind.

I was actually looking at that last night... And you're right it's got some good stuff in there!