My group recently did a bit of capital ship combat and ran into an issue we keep having with it. Namely: acceleration and movement is weird.

Capital ships only get a single Pilot Only maneuver a turn. They can either accelerate or move. What this means is that if your ship starts at 0 speed, it makes more sense to spend 2 turns accelerating to speed 2 on the spot, *then* move- rather than to accelerate, move, accelerate... which sort of conjures the image of Sonic spinning up on the spot then shooting off. Not really the most sensible thing for a Star Destroyer.

You can get around this by using the Chase rules, as they essentially give everyone a free Fly/Drive maneuver, but it only really works when you don't have multiple different ships moving in different directions and sort of suggests that the system is a bit borked anyway. Is there a consensus on how to fix this?

The obvious one is, I guess, giving everyone a free Fly/Drive maneuver and letting them take a second that can be to accelerate, but then every scrub TIE fighter can both fly & use evasive maneuvers every round (when previously that would have required suffering system strain & pilot strain), and players can no longer accelerate and evade without moving. Probably not a big deal?

Yeah, lots of things with shipboard combat are a little weird. This one is just a little more weird than many others.

I don’t know of any solutions to this problem, but I’ll be interested to see what the other comments are.

Thanks!

My first though was that does capital ship have only one pilot? If I remember correctly, Sam Steward was in one Order 66 podcast episode (episode 25?) and they spoke about capital ship may have more than one pilot, i.e. more maneuvers. Or my memory totally fails me. IMO, at least in narrative sense, it would make sense that capital ships can do more than just hedgehog around.

Because combat with capital ships is what it is, I probably won't use them much. Or when I use them, I'll use them more as terrain features. But then again, I'm quite a limited GM when it comes to star ships combat.

I'm also interested about what others have to say about this.

So, part of why I love Star Wars is star ship battles. Especially carrier-based ones, making Star Destroyers (and especially their Clone Wars ancestors) really interesting. The problem with doing any of that in game is that, well... the vehicle rules are weird. They're possibly the only thing from keeping the AoR beginner box from being my favorite of the bunch, for example.

An important thing to remember - and something the game goes out of its way to stress - is that, as a narrative system, it's abstract. Vehicle combat is even more abstract (some might say absurdly so, but that could be a bit harsh ) Lots of things are happening that there aren't rules to cover. For example, that capital ship going speed 1? It's moving, just not anywhere important. If you don't take a Fly/Drive Maneuver, it doesn't just sit still. It has a speed of 1, after all - it doesn't represent the max speed it can go with one maneuver, it's actual velocity.

I know, I know, strange. Annoying, even. Definitely very theater-of-the-mind-y. So... how does that work? Well, the only way I've been able to wrap my head around it is this: the Fly/Drive Maneuver covers taking time to do something significant. After all, you spend the whole round doing it. It might cover plotting a course, doing something fancy, diverting power to get a leg up on someone in terms of a temporary speed boost... I don't know. You use it to change facings, change range bands, and effect the game mechanics. Otherwise, the space battle is assumed to be drifting, or swirling, or some other dynamic adjective that implies little change to the mechanical status quo.

Of course... you kind of have to stretch the imagination a bit to make this hand-waving work, but most of those situations arise in a chase. In a regular battle, how are a Speed 3 freighter and a Speed 1 capital ship not losing each-other? Presumably, the freighter is doing loops, circles, etc. to evade fire and keep the capital ship in its sights; it's only a complex question when the freighter says it wants to angle away and gain distance... at which point, it would need to take a Fly Maneuver to do so. Why does it need a Fly Maneuver when it seems all it would take is an incidental to shift the stick? My thinking is that the pilot has to focus on dodging incoming fire (mostly blind, as they're presumably facing away from the capital ship) and still gain distance (different from an Evasive Maneuvers check where the pilot puts all their efforts into just dodging and gains no distance, making the evasion more effective by way of the Upgrade).

I'll admit, this thinking takes lots and lots and sometimes lots of practice. And it still doesn't always work; you might have to adjust rules some, enforce a mandatory Fly/Drive Maneuver based on the scene, or pepper in adjustments to taste in order to get the narrative and the rules to mesh. It still seems the golden rule is to remember that, in personal combat, narrative and rules go hand in hand, but in vehicle combat the rules only come into question when the status quo needs to be significantly altered.

I don't have my rulebook handy, but I don't think the description of pilot actions implies that while acceleration is taking place a ship is motionless. Acceleration is movement. Those two rounds of accelerating to speed 2 are spent speeding up in a direction. I've just thought of it as going straight and speeding up. Otherwise the pilot can use their action to maneuver into a certain position.

I like some things about starship combat in this game and hate others. I love how every character has something to do during combat, but having accelerate and move be different maneuvers seems counterintuitive to me. If you're accelerating, then you're moving, right? I've been thinking about making the same change that the op has and am very interested in hearing from people with more experience in this system and if it would unbalance stuff I'm unaware of.

How many battles do you have stardestroyers sitting around at zero speed?

My house rules:

1) The Fly/Drive maneuver can only be performed once per turn for any Silhouette of vessel. This prevents lower Speed ships outrunning higher Speed ships just because they are smaller. Ships smaller than Silhouette 5 can still make a second pilot-only maneuver, but it has to be something other than Fly/Drive (like Accelerate/Decelerate, Evasive Maneuvers, or Stay on Target).

2) Performing a Fly/Drive maneuver allows the ship to increase or decrease Speed by 1 prior to resolving the movement of the Fly/Drive maneuver. A second pilot-only maneuver can be used for Accelerate/Decelerate only if a Fly/Drive maneuver has been performed in the same turn.

There's no rule that says ships start encounters at zero speed. Unless you're just lifting off or in a drydock I see no reason for ships to start an encounter at less than max without a reason to do so like asteroids, debris, etc where stellar terrain is an issue right from go.

Something just hit me, something I should have previously considered. Some of the larger capitol ships should take up multiple range bands. Like Star destroyers, if the tip of the wedge is facing you at short range, the rest of it should be at medium range. Though, that kind of complicates things further and I can see why that's not a rule.

Planetary scale is bigger. An SD fits in close. Plus it's the distance between targets.

Don't start Ships at speed 0?

I've never read a rule that ships by default start an encounter at zero speed. Seems like if they're in space when it begins there should be some sort of explanation as to why.

There's no rule that says ships start encounters at zero speed. Unless you're just lifting off or in a drydock I see no reason for ships to start an encounter at less than max without a reason to do so like asteroids, debris, etc where stellar terrain is an issue right from go.

• Rebel fleet jumps in on Imperial fleet hanging in orbit over planet
• Imperial fleet jumps in on Rebel base
• Peace negotiations between two fleets standing off from each other break down

My house rules:

1) The Fly/Drive maneuver can only be performed once per turn for any Silhouette of vessel. This prevents lower Speed ships outrunning higher Speed ships just because they are smaller. Ships smaller than Silhouette 5 can still make a second pilot-only maneuver, but it has to be something other than Fly/Drive (like Accelerate/Decelerate, Evasive Maneuvers, or Stay on Target).

2) Performing a Fly/Drive maneuver allows the ship to increase or decrease Speed by 1 prior to resolving the movement of the Fly/Drive maneuver. A second pilot-only maneuver can be used for Accelerate/Decelerate only if a Fly/Drive maneuver has been performed in the same turn.

When you're in orbit, you're moving.

Every post hyperspace jump I saw, they're moving.

I did say it needs to be explained, but there is no rule that says default speed is zero at encounters start.

When you're in orbit, you're moving.

Every post hyperspace jump I saw, they're moving.

I did say it needs to be explained, but there is no rule that says default speed is zero at encounters start.

This has been my thought too. Unless there is a strong narrative reason ships are always moving. So by default ships start encounters at some speed greater than zero, unless you want to make getting up to speed a part of the challenge of the encounter.

When you're in orbit, you're moving.

Every post hyperspace jump I saw, they're moving.

I did say it needs to be explained, but there is no rule that says default speed is zero at encounters start.

Even if you never have ships at speed 0, if their starting speed is anything but their maximum speed, then you still get this problem. In that case, the solution is functionally 'remove the acceleration rules, capital ships are always considered travelling at their maximum speed'.

(Except for in chases, where acceleration is handled well...)

See I don't see the problem though, it would be odd for a SD to not be moving at all, and it has weapons with long range. I mean hitting targets is based on silhouette and not range, so I don't see how needing to change range bands quickly is much of an issue when you can shoot across the typical 'battlefield'.

If you look at naval history, a stationary ship is a dead ship. The only times a ship IRL would be stationary is when they are at port or on a position on a gun line bombarding a land target. At any other time, the ship will be moving at least 5% speed.

If you look at actual naval battles, they will be moving at some degree or another.

I think the dev were probably aiming for a mechanical expression of the plodding sort of movement we see from cap ships in the movies.

So LET the cap ships take a second pilot only maneuver for system strain equal to their silhouette -2, with the restriction that they can take only 1 move maneuver per turn

Force & Destiny Core Book, pg. 237, section Capital Ship Combat:

"Similar to combat in small craft, capital ships can only perform one starship maneuver and one starship action (or two starship maneuvers) during their pilot's turn."

So, the generalized issue of 1 maneuver in larger ships (sil > 5) is for non-capital class ships. Like a single pilot in a huge ass ore hauler.

I've never read a rule that ships by default start an encounter at zero speed. Seems like if they're in space when it begins there should be some sort of explanation as to why.

In Order 66 podcast DEVs recommended that it might be a good solution to always start encounters with ships moving at half speed. This is not official ruling of course, but supports your view.

See I don't see the problem though, it would be odd for a SD to not be moving at all, and it has weapons with long range. I mean hitting targets is based on silhouette and not range, so I don't see how needing to change range bands quickly is much of an issue when you can shoot across the typical 'battlefield'.

'Ships start at 1/2 speed' would avoid the issue but it's a bit unsatisfying compared to the 'fly/drive lets you adjust your speed' change. It's like saying "This chair is uncomfortable so just don't sit on it". Great, but why have an uncomfortable chair in the first place.

Force & Destiny Core Book, pg. 237, section Capital Ship Combat:

"Similar to combat in small craft, capital ships can only perform one starship maneuver and one starship action (or two starship maneuvers) during their pilot's turn."

So, the generalized issue of 1 maneuver in larger ships (sil > 5) is for non-capital class ships. Like a single pilot in a huge ass ore hauler.

A starship or vehicle with silhouette 5 or higher can

only benefit from one Pilot Only maneuver in a round.

As others have stated, accelerate/decelerate is the pilot putting time and effort into safely changing the ship's speed. While this is happening, the ship maintains its relative positioning towards everything else around it. In other words it has moved, but not enough for it to make a difference to anyone who cares. In yet more words, while accelerating from speed zero to speed one a ship in space might travel a few kilometers, but even moving a few kilometers means it is still Close range to its starting location (so it effectively hasn't moved at all in game terms.)

The only time I could see what you say being a concern is when a ship begins in personal range bands (such as when taking off with opponents on the landing pad) because the range bands are so small. In this case I'd probably simply put the ship at Long range after the maneuver (since we see blaster rifles bolts reaching escaping ships several times in the movies).