I just had my group fend off 6 fighters that were far more powerful than them. They had to do it for 4 rounds, then the pilot had to "PUNCH IT CHEWIE!!!" And they were gone. I was pretty sure they wouldn't die, but they lost over half their health on a brand new ship (well new to them) and they only got one of the fighters. That is really demoralizing. But now they have something to keep them hungry. The damage will be what a large part of their money from the adventure gets spent on.

And they took 3 concussion missile hits. the guided quality was neat but it didn't really help the fighters too much. I felt the combat was plenty survivable.

I honestly think this illustrates part of the problem.

EotE being the first, put a lot of emphasis on multi-crew Freighters as the player option. While true, it's also not universal. So while the Starfighters relative weakness makes sense form a certain point of view, it also seems a poor decision since each one can be HTed pretty easy especially considering how common the Linked quality is.

There's a lot of details to work out, but the point is the system building in the early days looked really closely at one way to play, and not the other....

The squadron rules came out at the same time as the Age core rulebook where taking fighters is a thing. Using the squadron rules I think helps a lot. Remember in the X-wing books a lot of nobodies bit the big one while the heroes survived.

Ill compile a list of things in the system that can keep a small ship flying, not all of them are available to everyone which is how we get to this discussion:

AoR GM Screen: Squad & Squadron rules are the simplest and definitely recommended. honestly this is such a no brainer i really wish they had chosen something else to put in the GM screen and had these in the the core book. They basically make the AoR GM a must buy for everyone no matter the system they run.

A Mechanic: or more importantly someone who has ranks in Solid Repairs. so far there are 4 Ranks in Mechanic, 1 in Outlaw Tech, 2 in Starfighter Ace and 3 in Artisan. It increases the maximum number of Hull Trauma you can repair in an encounter from Success's to Success's+Ranks (edited). So a Mechanic can repair 5 Hull Trauma once in an encounter(with only a single Success), more than some Starfighter actually have! If the mechanic is also working on their Signature Vehicle (Modder or Rigger) they decrease the difficulty of the check by 1. It can basically make a fighter keep going much longer than it should.

A Rigger: +1 Armour for no other cost is awesome. add to that +2 Handling, +1HT, +2 SS, and Massive 1 (increase crit rating of weapons attacking it by 1) its a seriously beefy way to improve small craft. As the signature vehicle gets bigger the numbers are far less important and almost a waste, so sticking to small craft is best.

A Multi seater craft: In the pilot can focus on Evasive Manoeuvres, Gain the Advantage and Stay on Target it makes a huge difference. anyone with a half decent (3 green is plenty) Gunnery pool in the copilot seat will benefit from all that piloting while being able to focus on aiming and shooting... add in an Astromec for repairs and actual copiloting actions and you can start to realise why the Y-Wing was the ship FFG chose as the starting squadron for AoR.

A Commander: Anyone with Field Commander can make a huge difference to a squadron based combat, those extra manoeuvres and actions can have a massive effect.

Vehicle Modifications: there are a lot, although not many for Handling. most have positives and negatives, but they can make a difference.

Ill compile a list of things in the system that can keep a small ship flying, not all of them are available to everyone which is how we get to this discussion:

AoR GM Screen: Squad & Squadron rules are the simplest and definitely recommended. honestly this is such a no brainer i really wish they had chosen something else to put in the GM screen and had these in the the core book. They basically make the AoR GM a must buy for everyone no matter the system they run.

A Mechanic: or more importantly someone who has ranks in Solid Repairs. so far there are 4 Ranks in Mechanic, 1 in Outlaw Tech, 2 in Starfighter Ace and 3 in Artisan. It increases the maximum number of Hull Trauma you can repair in an encounter from 1 to 1+Ranks. So a Mechanic can repair 5 Hull Trauma once in an encounter, more than some Starfighter actually have! If the mechanic is also working on their Signature Vehicle (Modder or Rigger) they decrease the difficulty of the check by 1. It can basically make a fighter keep going much longer than it should.

A Rigger: +1 Armour for no other cost is awesome. add to that +2 Handling, +1HT, +2 SS, and Massive 1 (increase crit rating of weapons attacking it by 1) its a seriously beefy way to improve small craft. As the signature vehicle gets bigger the numbers are far less important and almost a waste, so sticking to small craft is best.

A Multi seater craft: In the pilot can focus on Evasive Manoeuvres, Gain the Advantage and Stay on Target it makes a huge difference. anyone with a half decent (3 green is plenty) Gunnery pool in the copilot seat will benefit from all that piloting while being able to focus on aiming and shooting... add in an Astromec for repairs and actual copiloting actions and you can start to realise why the Y-Wing was the ship FFG chose as the starting squadron for AoR.

A Commander: Anyone with Field Commander can make a huge difference to a squadron based combat, those extra manoeuvres and actions can have a massive effect.

Vehicle Modifications: there are a lot, although not many for Handling. most have positives and negatives, but they can make a difference.

Astromech rules in Stay on Target. You could also have the players run their astromech droids as a pc that operates on their characters initiative. as Astromechs have maneuvers and actions they can employ as a player.

Dogfight terrain rules in Stay On target.

Fly Casual has expanded rules on astrogation.

There is also all those ranks in Defensive Driving and the Intuitive Evasion talent. A Defence of 4 with upgraded attacks against you will have a significant impact on your survivability.

A Mechanic: or more importantly someone who has ranks in Solid Repairs. so far there are 4 Ranks in Mechanic, 1 in Outlaw Tech, 2 in Starfighter Ace and 3 in Artisan. It increases the maximum number of Hull Trauma you can repair in an encounter from 1 to 1+Ranks. So a Mechanic can repair 5 Hull Trauma once in an encounter, more than some Starfighter actually have! If the mechanic is also working on their Signature Vehicle (Modder or Rigger) they decrease the difficulty of the check by 1. It can basically make a fighter keep going much longer than it should.

Don't forget that per the errata that should be one per success, not one. So from Successes to Successes + Ranks in Solid Repairs.

Thanks, I still forgot even though it's printed in AoR and FaD.

Someone made an Incidental that has a similar effect to Parry/Reflect; suffer 3 system strain to reduce HT suffered by 2 + ranks in Piloting. At lest I think that was the idea.

But in general any rule that allows you to reduce the amount of HT suffered will have the desired effect

Does this not make you nearly invincible in a one on one dogfight? This should be usually absorb 6 or 7 damage and 3 system strain should usually be one or even just a half damage control action …

How about this as a way of making ships more survivable:

When you're hit in vehicle combat, you may make a (difficulty Average?) Pilot roll (modified as usual by Handling). For every success, you may turn one point of hull damage from the attack into a point of strain for the pilot (not strain to the ship). Probably disallow minion pilots from using this rule.

Just throwing this out there... does it sound like it would work?

Should be strain to the ship, it represents using an action for even harder evasive maneuvers. It imo a fine, but a little frustrating pilot action. It will drag out combat a lot. And it should be not average, but speed+sil/2, like pilot checks for difficult terrain, because the faster you fly and the bigger your sil, the harder it should become.

Still, I want to repeat, this will drag out combat a lot and will create plenty of stalemates in which neither side is able to do damage to the other side.

If you just want to have slightly longer battles you could just half the damage of vehicle weapons (now x5 personal damage) while doubling HT (now x20 personal scale). Using increased scale means you don't need to modify any talents, but it makes applying damage a little more complicated as you first reduce damage by armor and than reduce ht for every 4 damage left by one.

I am not a fan of this idea other, but it certainly will increase space combat times a lot. Well, maybe not that much as you just go for crits in such a scenario and kill a ship in roughly the same time. ;-)

The others have already made a fine point about how the system provides tons of tools and talents to survive a dog fight and how encounter design is important. It is really a shame that all those infos are so spread out.

I made a thread just like this about a year ago or so, and since then, the only thing I've come up with is:

1. Double up armor ratings for the ships.

This means the ships are far less 1-shot squishy, without being overly tough.

2. Halve the damage of ship weapons.

Same result, different approach.

I personally prefer the armor method, as it's the easiest to implement in my opinion, and doesn't make anyone feel like their guns are now "nerfed". Their weapons are just as deadly, just everyone (including them), are not as easy to pop to vacuum.

I made a thread just like this about a year ago or so, and since then, the only thing I've come up with is:

1. Double up armor ratings for the ships.

This means the ships are far less 1-shot squishy, without being overly tough.

2. Halve the damage of ship weapons.

Same result, different approach.

I personally prefer the armor method, as it's the easiest to implement in my opinion, and doesn't make anyone feel like their guns are now "nerfed". Their weapons are just as deadly, just everyone (including them), are not as easy to pop to vacuum.

You could very easily get to the point where a Medium Laser Cannon would have a hard time doing significant damage to a freighter with Armor 4 (it would take 3 successes just to do one point of damage). Is this really what you want to see?

I made a thread just like this about a year ago or so, and since then, the only thing I've come up with is:

1. Double up armor ratings for the ships.

This means the ships are far less 1-shot squishy, without being overly tough.

2. Halve the damage of ship weapons.

Same result, different approach.

I personally prefer the armor method, as it's the easiest to implement in my opinion, and doesn't make anyone feel like their guns are now "nerfed". Their weapons are just as deadly, just everyone (including them), are not as easy to pop to vacuum.

Hmm...

Your average hit with a laser cannon does 6 base damage + maybe 1-3 successes.

With most fighters having armour 3/HT 10, that's 4-5 damage/hit so 1-2 hits to kill. (Too lethal)

With fighters having armour 6/HT 10 , that's 1-3 damage/hit so ~5 hits to kill. (Okay!)

With most freighters having armour 4/HT 20, that's 3-4 damage/hit so 5-6 hits to kill. (Okay!)

With freighters having armour 8/HT 20, that's ~1 damage/hit so 20 hits to kill! (Waaaay out!)

Your average hit with a medium turbolaser does 10 damage breach 2 + maybe 1-3 successes.

With most freighters having armour 4/HT 20, that's 10-11 damage/hit so 2 hits to kill. (Too lethal)

With freighters having armour 8/HT 20 , that's 5-7 damage/hit so 3 hits to kill. (Okayish)

With most cruisers having armour 6/HT 50, that's 8 damage/hit so 6-7 hits to kill. (Okayish. Most cruisers will have >1 weapon battery...)

With cruisers having armour 12/HT 50, that's ~2 damage/hit so 25 hits to kill! (Waaaay out!)

I think we might have better luck stating that once a ship has reached its Hull Trauma threshold it is not destroyed but instead left inoperable, drifting, and derelict. Just like a PC doesn't die when their Wound Threshold is exceeded, the PC's ship could have the same courtesy. Or the Nemesis they're fighting....

I think we might have better luck stating that once a ship has reached its Hull Trauma threshold it is not destroyed but instead left inoperable, drifting, and derelict. Just like a PC doesn't die when their Wound Threshold is exceeded, the PC's ship could have the same courtesy. Or the Nemesis they're fighting....

They already say this, but it doesn't matter all that much as a floating ship with a dead stick and no ability to do anything is often jarring to the narrative. Sometimes it might be better to just let it explode.

I think we might have better luck stating that once a ship has reached its Hull Trauma threshold it is not destroyed but instead left inoperable, drifting, and derelict. Just like a PC doesn't die when their Wound Threshold is exceeded, the PC's ship could have the same courtesy. Or the Nemesis they're fighting....

They already say this, but it doesn't matter all that much as a floating ship with a dead stick and no ability to do anything is often jarring to the narrative. Sometimes it might be better to just let it explode.

I dunno, I had this very scenario come up and it fueled a great story. Of course I wasn't expecting bad roll after bad roll from the PCs and having their ship blow up didn't really suit the unfolding story. So I had the TIEs that blasted them disengage to chase an active target, leaving them listing helplessly while they frantically tried to restore power and patch the hull. As they do, a salvager had been hanging nearby to try to score -- and wouldn't you know it, it was one of the friends they'd made on a previous encounter in the same system (thanks Light Side Point!) I won't normally go twinkishly out of my way to pull fat from the fire, but everything lined up very nicely here.

That's just one example; it's really up to the table to narrate the results as befits the story. If getting all blowed up isn't where the table wants to go, then don't go there.

I made a thread just like this about a year ago or so, and since then, the only thing I've come up with is:

1. Double up armor ratings for the ships.

This means the ships are far less 1-shot squishy, without being overly tough.

2. Halve the damage of ship weapons.

Same result, different approach.

I personally prefer the armor method, as it's the easiest to implement in my opinion, and doesn't make anyone feel like their guns are now "nerfed". Their weapons are just as deadly, just everyone (including them), are not as easy to pop to vacuum.

Hmm...

Your average hit with a laser cannon does 6 base damage + maybe 1-3 successes.

With most fighters having armour 3/HT 10, that's 4-5 damage/hit so 1-2 hits to kill. (Too lethal)

With fighters having armour 6/HT 10 , that's 1-3 damage/hit so ~5 hits to kill. (Okay!)

With most freighters having armour 4/HT 20, that's 3-4 damage/hit so 5-6 hits to kill. (Okay!)

With freighters having armour 8/HT 20, that's ~1 damage/hit so 20 hits to kill! (Waaaay out!)

Your average hit with a medium turbolaser does 10 damage breach 2 + maybe 1-3 successes.

With most freighters having armour 4/HT 20, that's 10-11 damage/hit so 2 hits to kill. (Too lethal)

With freighters having armour 8/HT 20 , that's 5-7 damage/hit so 3 hits to kill. (Okayish)

With most cruisers having armour 6/HT 50, that's 8 damage/hit so 6-7 hits to kill. (Okayish. Most cruisers will have >1 weapon battery...)

With cruisers having armour 12/HT 50, that's ~2 damage/hit so 25 hits to kill! (Waaaay out!)

It'll only get worse with larger ships. You only want to bump armour up by 1-3 points to get the survivability into the sweet spot.

Ok, maybe doubling was the wrong term. Perhaps just adding a base +10 to the hull value, or armor, or whatever. So that even with a good shot, they can at least eat 1 hit and not pop, since that seems to be what everyone is upset about. I might have mixed up my values, as I really don't read much about space combat, and my apologies on that. Instead, just give the hull value to fighters +10, for the "survive at least one hit" reason I just mentioned. I mean, if PC's can go down in 2-3 good hits, and everyone thinks that's ok, I don't see anything wrong with nudging ships (snub fighters specifically) up to a similar range.

I made a thread just like this about a year ago or so, and since then, the only thing I've come up with is:

1. Double up armor ratings for the ships.

This means the ships are far less 1-shot squishy, without being overly tough.

2. Halve the damage of ship weapons.

Same result, different approach.

I personally prefer the armor method, as it's the easiest to implement in my opinion, and doesn't make anyone feel like their guns are now "nerfed". Their weapons are just as deadly, just everyone (including them), are not as easy to pop to vacuum.

Hmm...

Your average hit with a laser cannon does 6 base damage + maybe 1-3 successes.

With most fighters having armour 3/HT 10, that's 4-5 damage/hit so 1-2 hits to kill. (Too lethal)

With fighters having armour 6/HT 10 , that's 1-3 damage/hit so ~5 hits to kill. (Okay!)

With most freighters having armour 4/HT 20, that's 3-4 damage/hit so 5-6 hits to kill. (Okay!)

With freighters having armour 8/HT 20, that's ~1 damage/hit so 20 hits to kill! (Waaaay out!)

Your average hit with a medium turbolaser does 10 damage breach 2 + maybe 1-3 successes.

With most freighters having armour 4/HT 20, that's 10-11 damage/hit so 2 hits to kill. (Too lethal)

With freighters having armour 8/HT 20 , that's 5-7 damage/hit so 3 hits to kill. (Okayish)

With most cruisers having armour 6/HT 50, that's 8 damage/hit so 6-7 hits to kill. (Okayish. Most cruisers will have >1 weapon battery...)

With cruisers having armour 12/HT 50, that's ~2 damage/hit so 25 hits to kill! (Waaaay out!)

It'll only get worse with larger ships. You only want to bump armour up by 1-3 points to get the survivability into the sweet spot.

And how does linked figure into this?

I think we might have better luck stating that once a ship has reached its Hull Trauma threshold it is not destroyed but instead left inoperable, drifting, and derelict. Just like a PC doesn't die when their Wound Threshold is exceeded, the PC's ship could have the same courtesy. Or the Nemesis they're fighting....

That is Rules As Written. And has been mentioned a few times.

I wouldn't count on a revamp of the rules. I did some playtesting last night with the crew and details CLASSIFIED, but all of the stuff available for ships and to PCs in regards to ships needs to used to get to that survivability level some are wanting. You make changes to just the craft once PCs advance you end up with balance issues.

I wouldn't count on a revamp of the rules. I did some playtesting last night with the crew and details CLASSIFIED, but all of the stuff available for ships and to PCs in regards to ships needs to used to get to that survivability level some are wanting. You make changes to just the craft once PCs advance you end up with balance issues.

The last sentence here is unclear.

I think the trick to it is the rules are a bit spread out and need to be consolidated.

I think we might have better luck stating that once a ship has reached its Hull Trauma threshold it is not destroyed but instead left inoperable, drifting, and derelict. Just like a PC doesn't die when their Wound Threshold is exceeded, the PC's ship could have the same courtesy. Or the Nemesis they're fighting....

That is Rules As Written. And has been mentioned a few times.

Yet we still seem to find ways to make this clunky and unmanageable by bolting on rules where they really don't seem to be needed. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I wouldn't count on a revamp of the rules. I did some playtesting last night with the crew and details CLASSIFIED, but all of the stuff available for ships and to PCs in regards to ships needs to used to get to that survivability level some are wanting. You make changes to just the craft once PCs advance you end up with balance issues.

The last sentence here is unclear.

I think the trick to it is the rules are a bit spread out and need to be consolidated.

If you raise the Armor on craft overall in a system where survivability is expanded via character advancement, once PCs advance you end up with invulnerable craft.

That's why I suggested bumping up survivability via tweaking the existing Talents because if you do it in a blanket fashion to the vehicles, those Talents still exist and will harden those vehicles on top of what was already added.

I made a thread just like this about a year ago or so, and since then, the only thing I've come up with is:

1. Double up armor ratings for the ships.

This means the ships are far less 1-shot squishy, without being overly tough.

2. Halve the damage of ship weapons.

Same result, different approach.

I personally prefer the armor method, as it's the easiest to implement in my opinion, and doesn't make anyone feel like their guns are now "nerfed". Their weapons are just as deadly, just everyone (including them), are not as easy to pop to vacuum.

Hmm...

Your average hit with a laser cannon does 6 base damage + maybe 1-3 successes.

With most fighters having armour 3/HT 10, that's 4-5 damage/hit so 1-2 hits to kill. (Too lethal)

With fighters having armour 6/HT 10 , that's 1-3 damage/hit so ~5 hits to kill. (Okay!)

With most freighters having armour 4/HT 20, that's 3-4 damage/hit so 5-6 hits to kill. (Okay!)

With freighters having armour 8/HT 20, that's ~1 damage/hit so 20 hits to kill! (Waaaay out!)

Your average hit with a medium turbolaser does 10 damage breach 2 + maybe 1-3 successes.

With most freighters having armour 4/HT 20, that's 10-11 damage/hit so 2 hits to kill. (Too lethal)

With freighters having armour 8/HT 20 , that's 5-7 damage/hit so 3 hits to kill. (Okayish)

With most cruisers having armour 6/HT 50, that's 8 damage/hit so 6-7 hits to kill. (Okayish. Most cruisers will have >1 weapon battery...)

With cruisers having armour 12/HT 50, that's ~2 damage/hit so 25 hits to kill! (Waaaay out!)

It'll only get worse with larger ships. You only want to bump armour up by 1-3 points to get the survivability into the sweet spot.

That is something which you can achieve with attachments and talents already, Actually you do increase with talents and ship choice your defense values a lot more than just 3 points of armor would provide. ;-)

So that even with a good shot, they can at least eat 1 hit and not pop, since that seems to be what everyone is upset about.

Heck, if that's really the goal -- why not just add a flat category of "grave damage" after HT's been exceeded, wherein the next hit will be catastrophic? Or, for a parallel to gear repair, the second hit after max?

Not systemic, but with a ruleset so heavily invested in abstracts, I don't know if it would have to be.

Edit: Treat this a little like Adversary, in that it's for PCs and important NPCs. That way, a good shot can still take down a token bad guy or John D.

We have adopted the Reflect + Handling + Ranks in Piloting house rule for star ships. And it has had a positive effect on making space combat a bit more survivable. The group still feels something more should be done, but that this is a move in the right direction. Keep in mind, that only my adversary and nemesis pilots use this (minions get vaped) and I use a lot of space rough terrain and squadron rules in space combats.

I agree with the thought of not adding in new rules/systems/charts and use already existing elements when/where practical.

So that even with a good shot, they can at least eat 1 hit and not pop, since that seems to be what everyone is upset about.

Heck, if that's really the goal -- why not just add a flat category of "grave damage" after HT's been exceeded, wherein the next hit will be catastrophic? Or, for a parallel to gear repair, the second hit after max?

Not systemic, but with a ruleset so heavily invested in abstracts, I don't know if it would have to be.

Edit: Treat this a little like Adversary, in that it's for PCs and important NPCs. That way, a good shot can still take down a token bad guy or John D.

That already exists. That is RAW. you do not go pop on exceeding HT. Only when the crit says you explode which is around 140, Not sure why people keep repeating this fix. As it is not a fix it is how the rules work now.

The biggest problem with the survivability of vehicle combat is people are not actually reading the rules all the way through.