So I've been thinking about new ships in recent times, and a thought occurred to me. It's widely accepted that the Eclipse is the craziest, stupidest, but kind of fairly awesome idea in Star Wars, even in a galaxy of mad vanity projects. That said, is it too crazy and stupid, or is it possible for it to be integrated into the game? It would likely be the largest object short of the Death Star to appear, but would it feasibly work at the table? Has anyone ever tried it?

I haven't brought anything that big into my games, but I treat everything as big as a Star Destroyer as scenery. My group may have a freighter or a couple fighters, and because of that, can't seriously threaten big capital ships (Despite what RAW may say). They may take out certain guns, or the engines, but the ship isn't seriously hurt. Now I have been debating running a game with the players in charge of a capital ship, then I may have to work with stats.

WEG actually did it...

That said the stats are as silly as can be expected. When you've got hundreds of gun barrels to a side, how useful it is in game terms is... Questionable...

So... Can you stat it? Sure. Is there much point? Not really, the thing would work just as well as a narrative tool with no stats..

I'm with Ghostofman; I don't see much point in statting it. The players, even if in control of an MC80 Cruiser, are unlikely to be able to affect it substantially by anything other than an Arvel Crynyd-style suicide run ( We remember Green Leader! ) . At that point, it's essentially a volcano, earthquake, tidal wave, Tarrasque, or other force-of-Nature-Personified.

Much like Yoda, the Emperor, or Darth Vader, there's little use in assigning statistics as they'll always be precisely as skilled as the story dictates. Characters - and warships - of this magnitude are little more than story elements. If you really wanted to do it, it's certainly possible but the bookkeeping alone is going to bog your game down horrendously. Add to that the fact that you're walking a very fine line between "strong enough to do it justice" and "easy enough that the PCs have a slim chance of success." Err too far in one direction or the other and your PCs won't thank you for it.

I'd say that ships with heavy proton torpedoes could probably inflict a lot of damage on it. That doesn't mean that they would survive long in return.

I didn't even know about this thing and had to look up the Eclipse . . .

Oh my. Where did this . . . 'thing' get introduced? Where did it come from?

1 hour ago, Mark Caliber said:

I didn't even know about this thing and had to look up the Eclipse . . .

Oh my. Where did this . . . 'thing' get introduced? Where did it come from?

Dark Empire. The really stupid post-Endor crapsack that only now is beginning to look good in comparison to TFA's craptastic timeline of alternative facts.

Ah, totally missed that. I'm trying to get a grasp of this thing on Wookeipedia . . .

But in short, sure you could stat it out . . .

Dig up a copy of Dark Empire sometime. It's a classic example of "when good ideas are buried under a pile of dirty toilets covered in LSD and a hatred of you and everything you stand for."

Seriously though, it has a lot of bits and pieces that are now classic Star Wars EU. E-wings, Mobquet Transports, Ganks. I think it was even one of, if not the, first appearance of Nar Shadda.

And it's super weapons were a nice departure from the norm. The World Devistators were a nice twist on planet destroyer weapons, and the galaxy gun, while over-the-top in scope and scale, was conceptually kinda neat.

Sadly the overarching story was pretty derpy. "Oh no, we have to defeat the Emperor... Again....And again....And again..." And for every cool thing there were a dozen mind farts on paper. (The falcon gets a lightning gun from an old as dirt cyber steampunk Jedi king who looks like a midget stuck in a floating carburator, Boba Fett drives like a blind old lady, Han Solos robot Butler, R2-D2 is a member of Echo Mirage, Solos Ex is fugly and her new boyfriend has a serious case of space herpes... I can keep going... )

Finally the artwork was this bizarre psychedelic water color thing that lacked definition and detail. So it didn't really look very Star Wars...

The D6 Dark Empire book is available on D6 Holocron.

The Eclipse... the Empires answer to The Emporers shrinking genitals

13 minutes ago, kinnison said:

The Eclipse... the Empires answer to The Emporers shrinking genitals

The Eclipse is actually a more mobile and cost-effective platform for a superlaser than the Death Stars were. Sure, it didn't destroy planets outright, but reducing them to lifeless husks is just as effective for most purposes.

Whatever haters. I really liked the idea that the emperor wouldn't be so hard to get rid of. I liked that his death unleashed all sorts of darkside weirdness. The world devastators are awesome! The fact we see some retribution for rebellion work makes it feel real. Shut nix and the space Barn is something that i really liked. Also like going bad, sort of... Well I really bought it, and the comic style made him look tired, haunted I liked it as a great contrast to his chipper movie persona.

The Eclipse isn't that hard to make stats for really, it's not substantially larger than the Assertor-class which we already have stats for, and the only special weapon system it has is the axial superlaser - and you know what? The Assertor was supposed to have one of those as well, according to its designer, FFG just omitted it. As well as two thirds of its other weapons. Go figure.

Silhouette 9, Speed 2, Handling -4

Defense 4/3/3/2, Armor 13

HTT 220, SST 120

Hull Type/Class: Dreadnought/ Eclipse -class

Manufacturer: Kuat Drive Yards

Hyperdrive: Primary: Class 2, Backup: Class 6

Navicomputer: Yes

Sensor Range: Long

Crew: 708,470 officers, pilots and enlisted crew

Starfighter Complement: 696 starfighters (600 TIE Interceptors, 96 TIE Bombers)

Vehicle Complement: Numerous shuttles, landing craft, gunboats, assault craft, landing barges, ground combat vehicles, and AT-series walkers.

Encumbrance Capacity: 6,000,000 (no idea how to calculate this)

Passenger Capacity: 150,000 troops

Consumables: Ten years

Cost/Rarity: Not in your pricerange (R)/10

Customization Hardpoints: 2

Weapons:

1 axial superlaser (Fire Arc Forward; Damage ???; Crit ???; Range [Extreme]; Breach ???, Slow-Firing 11) (Basically this weapon is a one-hit, one kill anti-ship weapon or planetary shield buster. You sit in front of this thing, you get atomized)

150 forward, 125 port, 125 starboard and 100 aft quad heavy turbolaser batteries (Fire Arc Forward, Port, Starboard or Aft; Damage 11; Critical 3; Range [Long]; Breach 4, Linked 3, Slow-Firing 2)

25 forward, 25 port, and 25 starboard quad battleship ion cannons (Fire Arc Forward, Port or Starboard; Damage 9; Critical 4; Range [Medium]; Breach 3, Ion, Linked 3, Slow-Firing 2)

100 forward, 75 port, 75 starboard and 25 aft twin heavy laser cannons (Fire Arc Forward, Port, Starboard or Aft; Damage 6; Critical 3; Range [Short]; Linked 1)

55 forward, 20 port, 20 starboard and 5 aft heavy tractor beam emitters (Fire Arc Forward, Port, Starboard or Aft; Damage --; Critical --; Range >[Short]; Tractor 6)

(The Dark Empire Sourcebook says "500 Turbolaser batteries", and gives them a huge damage code; I'm assuming they're quad heavy turbolasers. It also says 550 heavy laser cannons, I've opted for 225 twin mounts instead. You may decide on singles and double the listed number if you want. I also only incremented the HTT and SST by a small number as it's not really a linear scale.)

Well that answers that then...

But thanks for the thoughts on this, all were interesting. There are certainly a lot of perspectives on the Eclipse as a presence in-game. Perhaps it does make sense for it to solely appear as a narrative device, but it's also interesting to see it as it really would be. The question is now - what would it take to take it down?

4 minutes ago, ColonelCommissar said:

Well that answers that then...

But thanks for the thoughts on this, all were interesting. There are certainly a lot of perspectives on the Eclipse as a presence in-game. Perhaps it does make sense for it to solely appear as a narrative device, but it's also interesting to see it as it really would be. The question is now - what would it take to take it down?

At the level of health and armor I gave it, around 100 hits with heavy turbolasers would do the trick. 70 if they they're double success rolls. This was balanced for Assertor as printed in LBE, I made a different version that's based on actually counting the guns on the original model which is vastly more powerful, and if I was balancing it against *that*, I'd give it 900 HTT and 160 SST or something similar.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that like the Assertor, it has Massive 3: All weapons fired against this ship count as having a Critical rating 3 higher than the printed value (so basically Critical 6 for any laser or turbolaser, Critical 7 for Ion cannons and missiles).

The breach rating for the super laser should just be listed as Yes. If you wander in front of the bloody thing, welcome to the debris field.

On 3/15/2017 at 3:15 PM, Ghostofman said:

WEG actually did it...

That said the stats are as silly as can be expected. When you've got hundreds of gun barrels to a side, how useful it is in game terms is... Questionable...

So... Can you stat it? Sure. Is there much point? Not really, the thing would work just as well as a narrative tool with no stats..

I will say the way this system runs cap ships you could actually run one Should be easy to do based on the other cap ships.

I don't like the implications of thread at all. Not one bit.

Here's how you should stat it...

Players: "We attack the Eclipse!"

GM: "Do you have another Eclipse on your side? Or a Death Star?"

Players: "No."

GM: "You Die."

Players: "But we have pluck and heroism and an armada."

GM: "You die full of your own heroic virtue."

Players: "But..."

GM: "Axial Super-Laser...you die"

2 hours ago, sonovabith said:

I don't like the implications of thread at all. Not one bit.

Other than some slight concerns about the meta power-creep in the game of that could ensue from having stats for this, I don't know why you'd be concerned ?

1 hour ago, ColonelCommissar said:

Other than some slight concerns about the meta power-creep in the game of that could ensue from having stats for this, I don't know why you'd be concerned ?

I guess the words "super laser" just make me a little jittery.

Well considering that one of the eclipses got sliced in order for it to be destroyed.... You put over in front of one of my characters, he will try and get aboard and slice it.

You only die if you are in front of it... Dont be in front of it...

Assuming it's not accompanied by a support fleet and you can handle the obscene number of fighters, just sit behind the bugger and pound the engines.