I was watching Rogue One for the 3rd time since it came out on digital HD this weekend and it reminded me of a game I played way back during wave 2.



At the time, my friend and I were still learning the mechanics. It was a fairly standard case of 2 Imperial classes against a bunch of less effective ships, and I was beating him pretty hard. About round 4 or so, he activated his nebulon into cover behind my activated star destroyer believing that the obstruction ruling either stacked per obstruction/hull zone or, I guess, cancelled the attack entirely. This was obviously incorrect and when he read the obstruction ruling he was fairly heated over it. Time has passed and we both kinda just moved on, no worries. Until I remembered this game a couple of days ago. That friend and I also play an Age of Rebellion game together and the concept of silhouette has come up a few times before. As I remember this game I can't help but find it odd there's not a silhouette function for the obstruction rules.





Wouldn't it make more sense if you lost more dice the larger the obstruction's silhouette?

Or perhaps lost dice as difference between the obstruction's silhouette and the target ship's silhouette?

You can hide a nebulon behind a star destroyer. It wouldn't make much sense for me to be able to shoot down that nebulon as pictured, yet the rules allow for it with barely a laser lost.


Thoughts?

Because it is a 3d projection on a 2d surface. the smaller ships could be above or below the horizontal plane of the larger ships. They have to get their line of sight for their guns too you know.

I think FFG did it this way for balance. Doing a scale of obstruction, like lose 1 for small, 2 for medium, and 3 for large would prevent small ships from attacking anything that a large ship obstructs. I bet some people will say "ERMAHGERD MY SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF IS BROKEN AND IT'S UNTHEMATIC, PLZ NERF" but that's just a part of the game. Space is 3D and the game is 2D, so who's to say you can't shoot over or under but can't shoot all your guns?

A hiding mechanic would benefit MSU significantly as well. HA an MC30 behind an ISD and now it's hidden behind the ISD silhouette? Sucks for that Imp player since nothing can shoot it now, or have a significantly reduced shot. Plus there would be no way for the ISD to shake the MC30.

The problem is we already have a system in place, and changing it abruptly would cause a lot of imbalance. If it happened at the start, it would be different.

12 minutes ago, Marinealver said:

Because it is a 3d projection on a 2d surface. the smaller ships could be above or below the horizontal plane of the larger ships. They have to get their line of sight for their guns too you know.

This was basically how we explained it when it happened.

8 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

The problem is we already have a system in place, and changing it abruptly would cause a lot of imbalance. If it happened at the start, it would be different.

Naaaah nothing like that, I was just curious. FFG has the silhouette system already, just seemed weird they didn't reuse it at all. Makes sense in terms of balancing though. If a akbar neb/mc30/corvette could hold the silhouette they could really tear things up quick.

When a game is designed, the Level of Detail of the ruleset (from full simulation to full abstraction) is picked based on any number of reasons, including mass-market appeal, manufacturing concerns, ease of balancing, suitability for competitive play, etc.

For Armada, FFG chose a LoD that is just shy of modifying actions (attack, ramming, etc) based on base size. They didn't "reuse" the silhoutte system because it simply does not fit within their design sweet spot. There's absolutely no reason why you can't add "advanced" rules in your games that are closer to your design sweet spot.

For most ships. Losing 1 dice is a big deal and means you shoot the closer target. ISDs and mc80s can shoot around targets easier.