So we are about to start an Age of Rebellion campain and we have a restriction on starting careers - we can only take one each of Ace, Soldier, Spy and Engineer.

I kind of like the Ace (Gunner), but after reading the rules about space combat there are quite a few stuff I don't understand. Like how to drive the ship and shoot at the same time?

My best talent, True Aim requires aiming. Most piloting stuff require maneuers to use. So I have to take 2 strain per turn in every round of combat?

A lot of ships have turret weapons and I am not sure if I can even use them if I am in the cockpit driving

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Am I missing something here? It looks to me that having seperate pilot and gunner is a much better solution for every ship.

Having 2 players doing things does indeed make your ship more effective, but not absolutely necessary.

Recall that you always have at least a maneuver and an action. For your maneuver, you could Fly/Drive, then with your action take a shot. You could indeed take 2 strain to give yourself another maneuver to aim in order to be more effective, but that's not strictly necessary.

Alternatively you don't necessarily need to use your maneuver to do an actual piloting maneuver, you can do any other one and still have an action to shoot.

Regarding turret weapons, if I were GMing I would not allow the pilot to fire the turret gun, but that would be up to the GM and whether they allowed "slaved turrets" or some such.

I would recommend listening to episode 25 of the Order 66 podcast for more info. Skip the beginning bits, but the meat of the show is good.

http://podbay.fm/show/276381727/e/1390888740?autostart=1

Get a gunnery Droid brain. It's a zero hard point attachment in special modifications. It can fire the guns for you.

5 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

Get a gunnery Droid brain. It's a zero hard point attachment in special modifications. It can fire the guns for you.

Well that would be a solution if I were the pilot looking for a gunner. But I am the GUNNER that needs a pilot

The final solution appears to be to get one of the other Human characters with 3 Agi pick one skill rank in Pilot (Space).

On 18/05/2017 at 11:48 PM, Snickett said:

Having 2 players doing things does indeed make your ship more effective, but not absolutely necessary.

Recall that you always have at least a maneuver and an action. For your maneuver, you could Fly/Drive, then with your action take a shot. You could indeed take 2 strain to give yourself another maneuver to aim in order to be more effective, but that's not strictly necessary.

Alternatively you don't necessarily need to use your maneuver to do an actual piloting maneuver, you can do any other one and still have an action to shoot.

Regarding turret weapons, if I were GMing I would not allow the pilot to fire the turret gun, but that would be up to the GM and whether they allowed "slaved turrets" or some such.

I would recommend listening to episode 25 of the Order 66 podcast for more info. Skip the beginning bits, but the meat of the show is good.

http://podbay.fm/show/276381727/e/1390888740?autostart=1

Thanks for the link. I did listen and it cleared some things for me. Regardless, having a seperate gunner and pilot will boost the combat power of the ship immensly.

I do have one question though. When I shoot the guns and score advantages do I use them to recover ship strain, personal strain or either/both?

Get a pilot droid brain to fly the ship. =)

Or, if you have some extra cash, a full up droid to pilot it.

2 hours ago, Azmodael said:

Well that would be a solution if I were the pilot looking for a gunner. But I am the GUNNER that needs a pilot

The final solution appears to be to get one of the other Human characters with 3 Agi pick one skill rank in Pilot (Space).

Thanks for the link. I did listen and it cleared some things for me. Regardless, having a seperate gunner and pilot will boost the combat power of the ship immensly.

I do have one question though. When I shoot the guns and score advantages do I use them to recover ship strain, personal strain or either/both?

There are pilot Droid brains, astrogation Droid brains, and gunnery droid brains, all are zero hp, they as a base provide 2 ranks in the relevant skill and no ability meaning they rol 2 green, but you can mod them to up to 4 ranks/green dice. You can have the Droid brains assist you on the check which uses your attribute and there skill (or have them do it by themselves only green dice)

6 hours ago, Azmodael said:

I do have one question though. When I shoot the guns and score advantages do I use them to recover ship strain, personal strain or either/both?

You can use the advantage to recover personal strain only. To recover ship strain, you need to perform the Damage Control action.

A handy dandy ship action sheet can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3DdrJIlZ2ZNa3h3bE4tLV9UbTA/view

I'd recommend taking a look at the Master Pilot talent in the Pilot tree. That might be worth something to a Gunner.

Nice sheet btw, though I think it has one house rule in it:

Jump to Hyperspace Jump to Hyperspace ump to Hyperspace [ Astrogation ( +) ]

On a success, the ship jumps to hyperspace in a number of rounds equal to its Silhouette, reduced by 1 round per success.

On 21.5.2017 at 3:37 PM, EliasWindrider said:

Get a gunnery Droid brain. It's a zero hard point attachment in special modifications. It can fire the guns for you.

It works the other way around too, especially as gunner: Take the autopilot droid brain and do the shooting yourself.

Either way, aces tend to burn a lot of strain, two maneuvers per turn, every turn is pretty standard, except when you take two actions instead. Which is one of the reasons hotshots are so great, because they can take on top the strain from the double piloting actions via high-g maneuvers themselves, which keeps the ship going, while their non-essential advantages go all back to strain recovery.

Furthermore, highly recommend to get a g-suit to reduce the strain taken for pilot only maneuvers by one. That one is from endless vigil and is worn basically under your pilot suit.
Rarity 3, one hardpoint, encumbrance 2, price 2000 credits, soak 1, defense 0,