We have a high XP campaign we've been running (no problems at nearly 500 earned xp btw) and our Smuggler Pilot has just acquired a custom made jet pack (crafted by our technician).

She has completed virtually the entire Pilot tree and we're wondering how to translate some of her abilities and the rules for vehicle combat to apply to her jet pack.

She's also considering cross-specing into Ace: Driver so since I'm opening the Jet pack can of worms I'm going to ask about that as well.

We're pretty clear on Supreme Full Throttle, Skilled Jockey, Tricky Target, and Master Pilot (which doesn't apply since the jet pack use Piloting (Planetary)). Ace Driver is even better with Natural Driver, Fine Tuning, Master Driver, etc.

Here are the things we're wondering about:

Defensive Driving: does she gain the defense boost whenever she's in flight? Does this apply to personal scale attacks or only vehicles that are firing at her?

Brilliant Evasion: indicates it can only be used against an opponent's vehicle, but should that include passengers aboard that vehicle firing at personal scale with non-vehicle weapons?

Master Driver: Would this allow her to make two personal combat checks while flying with her jet pack? (the other use would seem to be to take a combat action and a damage control action to regain system strain).

Can she use the standard suite of vehicle actions and maneuvers when in personal scale combat?

Evasive Maneuvers: Would this upgrade the difficulty of her personal weapon attacks as well as any personal scale attacks aimed at her?

Stay on Target: Could this work at personal scale (ie. a strafing run that is clearly telegraphed to the target but gives her a clear shot from a higher position)?

It's very straightforward if she's being engaged by an air speeder or a star fighter, it's when she's not interacting with other vehicles that it gets a little weird.

How would you handle take off and landing?

My thought is that the accelerate or punch it maneuvers include take off as she now has a vehicle speed above 0 and so is in flight.

Landing would require dropping the speed back to 0 (either by decelerate or full stop maneuvers).

Thanks everyone, and if you have experience with jet packs and care to share any stories of things I haven't considered but should I would love to hear them!

Finarin

I'd say the talents only applied to other vehicles, as they are meant to, and not personal scale fire from the ground (or troops on the deck of a vehicle)...otherwise you overpower her talents and take away from specialists who have the personal scale equivalents. Master Driver is the only talent in your list that may have some traction as being usable at any time.

Would someone with Dodge strapping on a jet pack get to use dodge vs vehicles in a dogfight?

I disagree with Ferretfur,

The Jetpack is a vehicle which uses the Pilot (Planetary) so any talents that affect or tap into that skill set would apply to the Jet Pack.

And personal attacks are attacks just like vehicle attacks are attacks (but 10 times stronger). So (unless specifically stated otherwise in the talent) and attack is an attack, is an attack!

Yeah, you're jetpack pilot is going to Rock! Just think upon all the fun Jango had with Obi-wan in . . . that one prequel where they went toe to toe. (Attack of the Clones?) Have fun!

Part of the issue there is that many talents were written before the advent of the jet pack, so it was never an issue at that time (so unlikely to have any statement to the contrary).

Though also i can see the comparison to a speeder bike where the pilot is exposed, but the game and talents expect you to be using them against other speeders in chase sequences.

I guess it comes down to going with the likely intention and theme of the talents over the exact wording of the time. Also depends if you want to allow a character that overshadows everyone else as their talents now apply to any combat (not just shining in vehicle combat, when other shine in person to person combat).

5 minutes ago, Mark Caliber said:

Y eah, you're jetpack pilot is going to Rock! Just think upon all the fun Jango had with Obi-wan in . . . that one prequel where they went toe to toe. (Attack of the Clones?) Have fun!

Not to put too fine a point on it, but we had someone try to do something very similar in our game and it kinda sucked. Don't get me wrong, there is a certain coolness factor, but the build never did what they wanted it to do. The main issue is that in personal scale combat most of those great flying talents are wasted and in vehicle combat it's almost impossible to do any damage to vehicles with personal scale weapons. Also, while devilishly hard to hit, given the crazy damage vehicle scale weapons do to personal targets, a lucky hit is usually disastrous. The GM kept having to make up special rules and provisions as to how the Player could interact with the enemy vehicles in a meaningful way and eventually they just opted to buy a tricked out fighter.

So ya, don't be surprised if he doesn't "Rock" as much as you like and if you're the GM be prepared to come up with some rules to help the guy out.

9 minutes ago, Ferretfur said:

Part of the issue there is that many talents were written before the advent of the jet pack, so it was never an issue at that time (so unlikely to have any statement to the contrary).

Though also i can see the comparison to a speeder bike where the pilot is exposed, but the game and talents expect you to be using them against other speeders in chase sequences.

I guess it comes down to going with the likely intention and theme of the talents over the exact wording of the time. Also depends if you want to allow a character that overshadows everyone else as their talents now apply to any combat (not just shining in vehicle combat, when other shine in person to person combat).

The jetpack is part of the E-CRB, literally the first thing they published. And it would be silly anyway not to allow defensive driving or evasive maneuvers to apply against personal scale weapons. Sure the guy with a missile tube you fires at your V-Wing will be happy, but I doubt any player would be happy when his vehicle maneuvers, talents, etc become obsolete against heavy personal scale weaponry.

@SladeWeston It is a way to make you at least somewhat less of a prime target and get some mobility. A sniper rifle and extreme range or some fly by and dropping grenades should help the pilot to contribute to an outdoor fight a lot more than he would be able in close range with an automatic rifle and no ranged-heavy skill. It is not the only possible option, nor does the jetpack makes you invisible or brings you to the same level as an dedicated combat character, but it helps in some areas. It not meant to "rock" imho, except against melee combat. ;-)

11 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

The jetpack is part of the E-CRB, literally the first thing they published. And it would be silly anyway not to allow defensive driving or evasive maneuvers to apply against personal scale weapons. Sure the guy with a missile tube you fires at your V-Wing will be happy, but I doubt any player would be happy when his vehicle maneuvers, talents, etc become obsolete against heavy personal scale weaponry.

True, but i think this has come with the "build your own" options of Special Mods and the Armour Option i believe is in No Disintegrations (though cant confirm due to no stock being in the UK).

I'd agree that the talents should apply to vehicle scale weapons, as even fired from the ground they are still technically vehicle combat, i'd just be less inclined to say they apply to personal scale weaponry (as this is something that can normally be ignored when in your ship). The pilot gets a missile on his HUD from a portable launcher, he gets to do all his evasion tactics, or he wants to evade that anti-aircraft turret...that is all fine.

Yet when it comes to a guy firing a rifle from a rooftop and hoping for a lucky shot, just not so convinced all the talents would apply.

Missiles tubes and most other personal gunnery weapons are NOT vehicle scale. They are personal scale, but usually come with breach 1 or 2 and damage high enough to do some damage to vehicles. Usually around 20 damage.

The drop suit from No Disintegrations is just a more fancy jetpack which lets you sacrifice decent armor values and hardpoints for the ability to fly better while the rocket boots are a good way to hide your flight ability. And just having more options for personal flight is hardly an arguments that the talents were not design for, heck, Stay on Target, the ace career book adds even more pilot talent options and does not try to adjust anything to jetpacks or jump boots. Quite to opposite, it adds a talent to synergies extremely well with jetpacks and plays perfect homage to the flamboyant character of hotshots: Showboat. Triumphs for 2 strain on successful checks, despair on failures. Hilarity either way.

6 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

Missiles tubes and most other personal gunnery weapons are NOT vehicle scale. They are personal scale, but usually come with breach 1 or 2 and damage high enough to do some damage to vehicles. Usually around 20 damage.

They are designed as anti-vehicle weapons though, that is more where i was coming from. You will mostly use them as part of vehicle combat (generally being overkill and expensive against people, even in armour).

You are mostly likely correct in the strict written definition of the rules and talents that they could mostly apply to a guy in a jetpack, but i'd argue that they go against the theme and sense of the specializations.

Ace and Hot Shot are meant to be Top Gun fighter jocks, not jet pack bandits.

The Pilot is meant to be all about starships, evading those imperial patrols and jumping out of the system.

Driver is meant to be about high speed chases with speeders (or possibly on animals) and the quick get away (or shutdown).

I do not think any had whizzing around in a jet pack, evading volleys of ant-aircraft fire and bombing ground positions, as a serious consideration for the class spec.

I just wouldnt consider the jet pack on the same playing field for function and ability as speeders or starships as a vehicle to even be able to pull off most talents.

But that is just my view of theme and common sense sometimes coming before hard rule lawyering. Of course, there are folks that'd love the whole jet pack super combat jock and that is fine too.

44 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

@SladeWeston It is a way to make you at least somewhat less of a prime target and get some mobility. A sniper rifle and extreme range or some fly by and dropping grenades should help the pilot to contribute to an outdoor fight a lot more than he would be able in close range with an automatic rifle and no ranged-heavy skill. It is not the only possible option, nor does the jetpack makes you invisible or brings you to the same level as an dedicated combat character, but it helps in some areas. It not meant to "rock" imho, except against melee combat. ;-)

Of course. I only mean to caution that if the player is expecting to be some sort of man sized jet fighter, then it doesn't play out well. If all they are looking for is some added mobility then yes, jetpacks are awesome. Of course, there is no reason to take any special talents if all they want is to fly to the top of a nearby building and snipe.

Canon seems to disagree with that assessment, considering that rebels as a lot of jetpack air combat and seems to continue that trend °_^

Those packs are really fast, and when equipped with missiles or heavy weapons become a threat to ships as well.

Check out "Imperial Super Commandos" or "Legay of Mandalore" or "Shades of Reason", etc so many examples for high speed vehicle chases with jetpacks, some against larger vehicles, some against other jetpack users.

Sadly, while canon seems to suggest otherwise, FFG has yet to give use rules that allow a jetpack pilot to be anything other than an inconvenience to a vehicle with even a single point of armor.

27 minutes ago, SladeWeston said:

Of course. I only mean to caution that if the player is expecting to be some sort of man sized jet fighter, then it doesn't play out well. If all they are looking for is some added mobility then yes, jetpacks are awesome. Of course, there is no reason to take any special talents if all they want is to fly to the top of a nearby building and snipe.

Showboat is amazing is you skip the building part and just snipe way from extreme range and 500m above the targets. Gives you such a nice perspective over the battle ground as well ... well or not depending on the arrangements of the buildings and other obstacles in the area. *g*

And defensive driving helps at least a little if you are not the sniper type, but instead circle around the area and fire with short to medium weapons.

21 minutes ago, SladeWeston said:

Sadly, while canon seems to suggest otherwise, FFG has yet to give use rules that allow a jetpack pilot to be anything other than an inconvenience to a vehicle with even a single point of armor.

Plasma Rifles`? T7 Ion Disrupters. The daring move to attach explosives to the hull? A low encumbrance missile tube attached to your armor, micro-missile launcher with breach 1 to crit them away?

And I am not saying that jetpacks would be good for this, they just barely work for that purpose. There are some heavy weapons with up to breach 1 or 2, that kind of weapon which is enough to at least have a decent chance to crit other vehicles unless they are heavy armored.

7 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

Canon seems to disagree with that assessment, considering that rebels as a lot of jetpack air combat and seems to continue that trend °_^

Those packs are really fast, and when equipped with missiles or heavy weapons become a threat to ships as well.

Check out "Imperial Super Commandos" or "Legay of Mandalore" or "Shades of Reason", etc so many examples for high speed vehicle chases with jetpacks, some against larger vehicles, some against other jetpack users.

Must be more in Season 2 than Season 1 of Rebels i guess, as i have only seen season 1 and while there was jetpack use, they mostly use speeders or ships for all the action.

I base canon more on just the movies, as it is generally more convenient and less likely to change, and Boba Fetts jet pack didn't seem to be all that great. Yes, there are the scenes with Jango Fett, but would being a fighter jock have assisted him against Obi?

As a jet pack does not have all the extra control systems, fancy extras or even the aerodynamics of speeders and starships, that is partly why i cant see many talents being usable, as the pack (and person) would struggle to even cope with many of them.

Now as a means to travel quickly without having an actual vehicle or a way to quickly get to a top of a building, then the jetpack is certainly of great use, or even to hover over an area and shoot from above, just watch out for incoming fire.

Just now, SEApocalypse said:

Showboat is amazing is you skip the build part and just snape way from extreme range and 500m above the targets. Gives you such a nice perspective over the battle ground as well ... well or not depending on the arrangements of the buildings and other obstacles in the area. *g*

And defensive driving helps at least a little if you are not the sniper type, but instead circle around the area and fire with short to medium weapons.

Sniping from an unstable platform (setback dice) at extreme range while taking strain and spending a maneuver seems like a lot for a single triumph. Although I guess maybe not too much for the coolness factor.

16 hours ago, FinarinPanjoro said:

Defensive Driving: does she gain the defense boost whenever she's in flight? Does this apply to personal scale attacks or only vehicles that are firing at her?

Brilliant Evasion: indicates it can only be used against an opponent's vehicle, but should that include passengers aboard that vehicle firing at personal scale with non-vehicle weapons?

Master Driver: Would this allow her to make two personal combat checks while flying with her jet pack? (the other use would seem to be to take a combat action and a damage control action to regain system strain).

Can she use the standard suite of vehicle actions and maneuvers when in personal scale combat?

Evasive Maneuvers: Would this upgrade the difficulty of her personal weapon attacks as well as any personal scale attacks aimed at her?

Stay on Target: Could this work at personal scale (ie. a strafing run that is clearly telegraphed to the target but gives her a clear shot from a higher position)?

It's very straightforward if she's being engaged by an air speeder or a star fighter, it's when she's not interacting with other vehicles that it gets a little weird.

How would you handle take off and landing?

My thought is that the accelerate or punch it maneuvers include take off as she now has a vehicle speed above 0 and so is in flight.

Landing would require dropping the speed back to 0 (either by decelerate or full stop maneuvers).

Thanks everyone, and if you have experience with jet packs and care to share any stories of things I haven't considered but should I would love to hear them!

Finarin

I'd allow Talents to apply against vehicles and people as they make sense and what is specifically written. So in the case of Brilliant Evasion and Defensive Driving they are used against vehicles and vehicle mounted weapons. They wouldn't apply to passengers firing their own blaster pistols, etc. However, I would heap Setbacks on NPCs and PCs alike for trying to fire at airborne targets from moving platforms regardless. To me Defensive Driving and Brilliant Evasion represent the juking that goes on with an experienced pilot taking advantage of the firing arc restrictions of an opposing vehicle. Something a dude or dudette doesn't suffer just hanging outside a convertible speeder.

Master Driver is very clear, yes I'd allow two attack rolls. There is nothing written to draw any other conclusion imo.

I wouldn't allow vehicle actions and maneuvers for her, that's as much about getting things for essentially nothing as it is about keeping it as simple as possible.

I wouldn't bother with take off landing stuff because there's not take off/landing rolls for a missile, which is all you really are.

One thing I think people always lose sight of in these jetpack discussions, is just because you can go vehicle speed 2 or whatever, or that you can move X distance in personal/vehicle scale, doesn't mean you should, or that doing so isn't completely suicidal. A Ferrari can easily go faster than a police car mechanically at the top end, on busy city streets that could end up being a very bad thing if you push it.

It isn't real hard for a GM to simply craft their combat encounters to add challenge for a jetpack user.

Most people seem to be recommending keeping things generally separate between personal and ship/vehicle, even when in mixed scenarios.

That seems like it will be confusing and inconsistent to my player. If she's maneuvering as a vehicle why can't she take vehicular maneuvers?

The KISS principle suggests to me that all of it should just apply to everyone, personal scale or not. If she's flying evasively in a jet pack, she should be hard to hit for anyone shooting at her, but also it should be harder for her to hit, etc. Defense scales way slower than offense so I tend to let any defensive advantage apply. I don't feel like this is diminishing the value of things like Dodge because she can only use vehicular maneuvers in places where she has enough room to fly and as 2P51 mentions she may have to make piloting checks to avoid collisions if the space is adequate, but cluttered or tight.

If a starfighter were strafing ground targets and decided to use evasive maneuvers to avoid Missile tube fire from enemies on the ground I'd let it apply (and upgrade the difficulty of his attacks against the ground targets as well). Likewise if it wanted to Stay on Target for a ground strafing run I'd also let that apply (and the long straight approach would make him more vulnerable to return fire from the ground, vehicle mounted or not).

Consider how confusing this could be: she's flying next to a vehicle with mounted weapons. She takes evasive maneuvers- it applies to the light blaster cannon on the vehicle, but does it apply to the tripod mounted light repeating blaster on the deck manned by a rival? What about the guy standing next to the LRB shooting with his blaster pistol? Her armor based defense would apply to the blaster pistol (and the LRB?) but not to the light blaster cannon (though her evasive maneuvers, defensive driving, and possibly brilliant evasion would, which don't apply to the pistol or the LRB?)

There's a lot of dice pool variations being used to simulate the same thing here (shooting at the PC).

One caveat though, I would not let her stack evasive maneuvers with something like Dodge. She could use both, but would only get the greater defensive bonus (so she'd have to have 2 ranks in Dodge for it to be worthwhile if she was already evasively maneuvering).

For me, I think the issue is that you generally don’t want to mix Personal and Vehicle scale activities — either Actions, Maneuvers, or Incidentals. And, IMO, it is dependent on what Speed they are going.

So, if someone is using a flying jetpack and they are effectively a Silhouette 2 vehicle, then I would allow them to take vehicle-scale defensive actions, maneuvers, or incidentals, but not much in the way of personal-scale actions, maneuvers, or incidentals.

Now, obviously you have to use some common sense here, so they should be able to shoot a personal scale weapon while acting as a Silhouette 2 vehicle, but unless they were going Speed 0, I think I’d give them a lot of extra setbacks and upgrades.

Likewise, I wouldn’t allow them to apply personal-scale defensive actions or maneuvers while operating as a Silhouette 2 vehicle, again unless they were going Speed 0. Of course, they could apply vehicle-scale defensive actions while operating as a Silhouette 2 vehicle, so long as they were going Speed 1 or higher.

All IMO, of course.

On 2/27/2017 at 8:50 AM, Ferretfur said:

They are designed as anti-vehicle weapons though, that is more where i was coming from. You will mostly use them as part of vehicle combat (generally being overkill and expensive against people, even in armour).

7 hours ago, bradknowles said:

For me, I think the issue is that you generally don’t want to mix Personal and Vehicle scale activities — either Actions, Maneuvers, or Incidentals. And, IMO, it is dependent on what Speed they are going.

So, if someone is using a flying jetpack and they are effectively a Silhouette 2 vehicle, then I would allow them to take vehicle-scale defensive actions, maneuvers, or incidentals, but not much in the way of personal-scale actions, maneuvers, or incidentals.

Now, obviously you have to use some common sense here, so they should be able to shoot a personal scale weapon while acting as a Silhouette 2 vehicle, but unless they were going Speed 0, I think I’d give them a lot of extra setbacks and upgrades.

Likewise, I wouldn’t allow them to apply personal-scale defensive actions or maneuvers while operating as a Silhouette 2 vehicle, again unless they were going Speed 0. Of course, they could apply vehicle-scale defensive actions while operating as a Silhouette 2 vehicle, so long as they were going Speed 1 or higher.

All IMO, of course.

As I am one of those who uses aim and assist all the time when flying a sil 5 freighter, I can't say that I would be happy to be restricted to only vehicle maneuvers. Not in a freighter, not in a fighter and especially not when using my gunnery weapons when using a jetpack. But hey, I am the guy who brings quad-medium laser turrets to a lightsaber duell and is totally ok with that too.

Now for the KISS principle, technical it would be simpler to limit personal scale to personal scale maneuvers and limit vehicle scale maneuvers to vehicle scale combat, but the rules make this actually complicated and explicity mentioned that all sensible actions from personal scale can be used in vehicle combat. This translate in case of a jetpack using move (personal scale) to hover from a to b instead of needing three maneuvers to accelerate, move and decelerate. If you want to move on vehicle scale, you need to use the vehicle scale maneuvers. (Hovering at speed 0 from one parking lot into another for example sounds perfectly reasonable even in a freighter with a personal scale maneuver). So the rules are intentional not KISS, but make it plausible instead.

Now for the talents and my interpretations of them (do whatever you want with that):

Defensive driving is the ability to fly or drive in away which makes avoiding fire easy by considering vectors, weapons, reacting time, flight time of the projectiles, etc and flying in away which makes it hard to nail you down. This sounds like something which is totally legit to use when flying with a jetpack. Keyword here is flying, not just hovering, but traveling with at least speed 1, which means the talent is void when hovering in tight corridors of an imperial base or when just hovering up a few meters without using the accelerate maneuver.

Showboat is this desire of hotshots to shine, to stand out, to do the flashy thing instead of the reasonable thing. So if your hotshot against better knowledge really wants to fly not hover in that imperial complex with the tight corridors, sure, let him make his piloting check for difficult terrain with four upgrades and 6 setback dice and if the pilot is confident in his abilities he can than indeed use showboat on his attack against that minion group and do it the most flashy possible, but certainly flying at high speed does not make the task any easier and justifies to hand out a hand full of setback dice … and sure, you that piloting check earned you the right to use evasive maneuver as second maneuver, after all taking strain over strain over stain and passing out after three rounds of combat is what hotshots are all about. You get my drift, unless you are actual piloting the thing with at least speed 1, the talent again applies not, and flying with speed 1 can make a lot of things challenging to do.

Brilliant evasion is the ability to fly in a pattern which is so hard to track that it makes shooting virtually impossible. You doge arcs, move early enough that shots never would hit you, hide behind obstacles, outfly out opponent, etc all this and much more for a rather short amount of time and with so much focus spend into your flying that you can not pull this off constantly. It's a gift, talent, skill and eye for detail all combined into one action. This should apply to gunners on a tank just as much as it should apply to a guy with a sniper rifle trying to shoot from a open, moving speeder. And for sure you can not use this when just hovering with speed zero, again flying with speed 1 should be required to count as flying.

Master Driver is imho the really unclear one, at least for me. The talent represents your ability to multi-task when controlling a ship or vehicle, enter a new target in your nav system AND driving of the freeway at the same time. Shooting your vehicle guns AND gaining the advantage or shooting your Missiles AND Lasers at the same time. Sneaking up from the flank onto this tank, right out of its vision and firing your main guns at it, etc all kinds of vehicle actions, it not meant to allow you to shoot your personal weapons twice as often in a round, etc. I am sure you get my drift. So that is the one talent I would limited a little, I would only allow one personal scale action and allow for one vehicle action, like making a pilot check, applying damage control to your jetpack, making your field commander action to coordinate, etc imho this talent would be active even when hovering …

… but as you are a fan of KISS, just let them have it, it's not a major thing and it certainly easier to allow every action instead of deciding what valid vehicle actions are. Limit it again instead just to flying with speed 1 at least. If you feel that pilot keeps shooting too often twice because of that, just demand more often pilot checks and let your player use on of his actions for that.

Evasive Maneuvers, Stay on Target, vehicle scale maneuvers in general are something I would definitely allow, but again only if you are going with vehicle speeds and thus speed 1 at least. And again, don't be shy to hand out plenty of setback dice or/or apply difficulty terrain and demand oot piloting checks or sometimes even a regular action on piloting checks. Doing evasive maneuvers 1,000 feet above the ground in clear sky while flying in circles at high-speed cost just one maneuver, doing it in a light wood warrants a piloting check for difficult terrain and doing it in the corridors of the death star … well, hotshot if you really want this, turn that destiny point and roll your impossible check with an appropriate number of upgrades … don't blame the GM when you hit a wall nor ask for stimpacks, because hitting a wall at that speed is like hitting the ground when falling from extreme range. So those maneuvers can sometimes be easily just use and at other times they come at a great, great risky. But this is basically the same for larger vehicles as well as flying into the death star with a YT-1300 was certainly not any easy piloting check either. Still once you overcome that piloting check, you should be allowed to profit from your well deserved maneuvers.

TLDR : So, that's my perspective on the subject, which boils basically down, you can apply all those talents, but only when you are actually flying at speed 1 or more.

This comes from a Hotshot/Pilot player who is currently using ultra-low altitude jump boots in the same way (+ a dropsuit starting next session). Terrain certainly matters with our GM and she most certainly does not make it easy for me to use my personal flight for more than just hovering over stairs instead of walking them, but at the same time I am allowed to use my talents.

One last thing to note: We use the houserule that personal defense is capped at 4, but different sources of defense stack up to 4. So defensive driving can not become any issue. If you play the defense rules by raw, it gets complicated as the rules what stacks and what not are odd and someone might argue that defensive driving is your only applicable source for defense when flying a jetpack.

5 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

As I am one of those who uses aim and assist all the time when flying a sil 5 freighter, I can't say that I would be happy to be restricted to only vehicle maneuvers. Not in a freighter, not in a fighter and especially not when using my gunnery weapons when using a jetpack.

Oh, absolutely agreed — any maneuvers that you can do in both personal-scale and vehicle-scale combat should not be impacted by the kind of suggestion I was making. You should be able to use Aim anywhere.

The big thing I was trying to do was to avoid mixing personal-scale and vehicle-scale maneuvers, like trying to do a Dodge when you’re traveling at vehicle-scale speed.

50 minutes ago, bradknowles said:

Oh, absolutely agreed — any maneuvers that you can do in both personal-scale and vehicle-scale combat should not be impacted by the kind of suggestion I was making. You should be able to use Aim anywhere.

The big thing I was trying to do was to avoid mixing personal-scale and vehicle-scale maneuvers, like trying to do a Dodge when you’re traveling at vehicle-scale speed.

Oh absolutely, imho either evasive maneuvers or dodge, either speed 1 flying as vehicle or speed zero hovering on personal scale, but not both at the same time. I did not even think someone would try to apply stuff like dodge which does does not work on vehicles without the slightest shimmer of a doubt.

On 2/27/2017 at 6:46 AM, Ferretfur said:

Part of the issue there is that many talents were written before the advent of the jet pack, so it was never an issue at that time (so unlikely to have any statement to the contrary).

Though also i can see the comparison to a speeder bike where the pilot is exposed, but the game and talents expect you to be using them against other speeders in chase sequences.

I guess it comes down to going with the likely intention and theme of the talents over the exact wording of the time. Also depends if you want to allow a character that overshadows everyone else as their talents now apply to any combat (not just shining in vehicle combat, when other shine in person to person combat).

Seeing as how the Jetpack is in the Core Edge book I am not seeing how the jet pack could have come after...well any of the talents.

4 hours ago, Daeglan said:

Seeing as how the Jetpack is in the Core Edge book I am not seeing how the jet pack could have come after...well any of the talents.

Already covered this.

11 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

As I am one of those who uses aim and assist all the time when flying a sil 5 freighter, I can't say that I would be happy to be restricted to only vehicle maneuvers. Not in a freighter, not in a fighter and especially not when using my gunnery weapons when using a jetpack. But hey, I am the guy who brings quad-medium laser turrets to a lightsaber duell and is totally ok with that too.

Now for the KISS principle, technical it would be simpler to limit personal scale to personal scale maneuvers and limit vehicle scale maneuvers to vehicle scale combat, but the rules make this actually complicated and explicity mentioned that all sensible actions from personal scale can be used in vehicle combat. This translate in case of a jetpack using move (personal scale) to hover from a to b instead of needing three maneuvers to accelerate, move and decelerate. If you want to move on vehicle scale, you need to use the vehicle scale maneuvers. (Hovering at speed 0 from one parking lot into another for example sounds perfectly reasonable even in a freighter with a personal scale maneuver). So the rules are intentional not KISS, but make it plausible instead.

Now for the talents and my interpretations of them (do whatever you want with that):

Defensive driving is the ability to fly or drive in away which makes avoiding fire easy by considering vectors, weapons, reacting time, flight time of the projectiles, etc and flying in away which makes it hard to nail you down. This sounds like something which is totally legit to use when flying with a jetpack. Keyword here is flying, not just hovering, but traveling with at least speed 1, which means the talent is void when hovering in tight corridors of an imperial base or when just hovering up a few meters without using the accelerate maneuver.

Showboat is this desire of hotshots to shine, to stand out, to do the flashy thing instead of the reasonable thing. So if your hotshot against better knowledge really wants to fly not hover in that imperial complex with the tight corridors, sure, let him make his piloting check for difficult terrain with four upgrades and 6 setback dice and if the pilot is confident in his abilities he can than indeed use showboat on his attack against that minion group and do it the most flashy possible, but certainly flying at high speed does not make the task any easier and justifies to hand out a hand full of setback dice … and sure, you that piloting check earned you the right to use evasive maneuver as second maneuver, after all taking strain over strain over stain and passing out after three rounds of combat is what hotshots are all about. You get my drift, unless you are actual piloting the thing with at least speed 1, the talent again applies not, and flying with speed 1 can make a lot of things challenging to do.

Brilliant evasion is the ability to fly in a pattern which is so hard to track that it makes shooting virtually impossible. You doge arcs, move early enough that shots never would hit you, hide behind obstacles, outfly out opponent, etc all this and much more for a rather short amount of time and with so much focus spend into your flying that you can not pull this off constantly. It's a gift, talent, skill and eye for detail all combined into one action. This should apply to gunners on a tank just as much as it should apply to a guy with a sniper rifle trying to shoot from a open, moving speeder. And for sure you can not use this when just hovering with speed zero, again flying with speed 1 should be required to count as flying.

Master Driver is imho the really unclear one, at least for me. The talent represents your ability to multi-task when controlling a ship or vehicle, enter a new target in your nav system AND driving of the freeway at the same time. Shooting your vehicle guns AND gaining the advantage or shooting your Missiles AND Lasers at the same time. Sneaking up from the flank onto this tank, right out of its vision and firing your main guns at it, etc all kinds of vehicle actions, it not meant to allow you to shoot your personal weapons twice as often in a round, etc. I am sure you get my drift. So that is the one talent I would limited a little, I would only allow one personal scale action and allow for one vehicle action, like making a pilot check, applying damage control to your jetpack, making your field commander action to coordinate, etc imho this talent would be active even when hovering …

… but as you are a fan of KISS, just let them have it, it's not a major thing and it certainly easier to allow every action instead of deciding what valid vehicle actions are. Limit it again instead just to flying with speed 1 at least. If you feel that pilot keeps shooting too often twice because of that, just demand more often pilot checks and let your player use on of his actions for that.

Evasive Maneuvers, Stay on Target, vehicle scale maneuvers in general are something I would definitely allow, but again only if you are going with vehicle speeds and thus speed 1 at least. And again, don't be shy to hand out plenty of setback dice or/or apply difficulty terrain and demand oot piloting checks or sometimes even a regular action on piloting checks. Doing evasive maneuvers 1,000 feet above the ground in clear sky while flying in circles at high-speed cost just one maneuver, doing it in a light wood warrants a piloting check for difficult terrain and doing it in the corridors of the death star … well, hotshot if you really want this, turn that destiny point and roll your impossible check with an appropriate number of upgrades … don't blame the GM when you hit a wall nor ask for stimpacks, because hitting a wall at that speed is like hitting the ground when falling from extreme range. So those maneuvers can sometimes be easily just use and at other times they come at a great, great risky. But this is basically the same for larger vehicles as well as flying into the death star with a YT-1300 was certainly not any easy piloting check either. Still once you overcome that piloting check, you should be allowed to profit from your well deserved maneuvers.

TLDR : So, that's my perspective on the subject, which boils basically down, you can apply all those talents, but only when you are actually flying at speed 1 or more.

This comes from a Hotshot/Pilot player who is currently using ultra-low altitude jump boots in the same way (+ a dropsuit starting next session). Terrain certainly matters with our GM and she most certainly does not make it easy for me to use my personal flight for more than just hovering over stairs instead of walking them, but at the same time I am allowed to use my talents.

One last thing to note: We use the houserule that personal defense is capped at 4, but different sources of defense stack up to 4. So defensive driving can not become any issue. If you play the defense rules by raw, it gets complicated as the rules what stacks and what not are odd and someone might argue that defensive driving is your only applicable source for defense when flying a jetpack.

I have to say a lot of what you have said here makes a lot of sense...with the need of vehicle Speed 1 to qualify.

You do need to remember that Brilliant Evasion is limited to a single opponent, so would be fairly wasteful against a group of soldiers as you could only choose one of them...of course if one of them has a missile launcher, i guess that would be a good choice.