8 hours ago, 2P51 said:

What they would do is place the ISDs in the point positions on the cube around a world to create interlocking fields of fire with their big guns. The TIEs would be deployed in a rotating 8 hours shift schedules with for instance 192 in the air, or 1/3, 192 on alert, and 192 down for rest, maintenance etc. The TIE assets would be used to plug the planetary poles, which are just outside the range of the ISDs big guns, and to act as interception of anyone running the formation. Shuttles would alse be deployed in orbital locations with Stormtrooper boarding parties. Some of the 77,000 Stormtroopers carried by 8 ISDs could be deployed planetside with various anti ship guns/missiles in any potential gap locations as well.

Don't forget about seeding orbital minefields to focus traffic through the chokepoints formed by the blockading ships.

Yay, lotsa stuff they could do to assert control. Mostly I was just trying to highlight the resources an individual ISD has.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover that a ship intended to suppress entire colonies comes standard with both the capacity to store, and the ability to deploy, an orbital minefield.

One thing you can do, to highlight your skills as a writer of dramatic moments, is have the players fly directly at the ISD. The "combat" actualls ends up being a series of astromech droids, deployed to the hull, succeeding in a variety of random-difficulty mechanics checks.

If you can have the PC flying the ship state the extraordinarily obvious at every moment, then it should herald a brave new era in storytelling and people will be deeply impressed at your high-stakes repairs and CGI at the expense of plot or character .

Mechanically speaking, how would one play out a blockade with sensors, range, and speed?

I'm not sure what you're asking? Specific dice rolls?

"There is a star destoryer in orbit, if it sees any minor movement it will send ties and move to intercept, starting a chase. Any major movement and it will open up with it's turbo batteries; heck, it might fire one or two anyway to see if it can get lucky! XD"

Really the only chance is to fly around a Star Destoryer usually, which means it's usually a chase. Trying to repel a star destroyer with brute force rarely ends well, unless your position has been fortified enough to not only blow one out of orbit, but to take it's full return fire in the meantime.

That being said; a lot of imperials are just doing their job and won't necessarily be malcious, if they hit and blow a ship to pieces with a turbolaser they won't be able to track the criminals to their source. So unless the players are being really aggressive with the ties, it's more of a huge hindering obsitcale then death incarnate.

Yes - I guess I did mean the rolls. I'm just curious how one would administer this scene from the GM's perspective.

- Players blast off, make a sensors check

- ISD already has made a sensors check (longer range)

- Players try to run the blockade (doing what?)

- ISD tries to intercept / dispatches TIE fighters

- Speed checks / chase mechanics

- PCs sufficiently far from gravity well (range band? # of turns) and can jump to hyperspace

56 minutes ago, Aurin said:

Yes - I guess I did mean the rolls. I'm just curious how one would administer this scene from the GM's perspective.

- Players blast off, make a sensors check

- ISD already has made a sensors check (longer range)

- Players try to run the blockade (doing what?)

- ISD tries to intercept / dispatches TIE fighters

- Speed checks / chase mechanics

- PCs sufficiently far from gravity well (range band? # of turns) and can jump to hyperspace

Sure, sounds good to me. In regards to what they're doing that would be the infamous getting coordinates from the navicomputer of course. It's really a matter of do you want there to be any shooting or not.

Getting back to the original post...How would I handle characters escaping a blockade?
First off, if the players got some lucky dice rolls, then they would get away. I might describe it as the players breaking atmo, and noticing a Star Destroyer swinging around to intercept them....maybe a few TIE fighters taking some long-range potshots as the players ship makes the jump, but if the dice say the players got away, then the players got away.

Kind of.

What I wouldn't tell the players is that the Star Destroyer managed to get an IFF lock on them, and uploaded the ships pulse beacon ID to the holonet...specifically, alerting that a freighter of such-and-such description with a this-and-that IFF ID was tagged fleeing the system as the blockade went into effect. If spotted, immediately detain ship for inspection and crew for interrogation.
They may have 'gotten away', but they didn't 'get away'.

Without reading the whole topic, just a reminder which hopefully was mentioned already:

Orbital speed 5 is faster than atmospheric speed 5. So you can always justify TIE-Fighters from orbit intercepting players still in atmosphere. This helps tremendously with keeping up tension with a blockade and it applies to the ISD as well, which can get into firing position this way rather easily IF they want.

Now sensor range might protect ships from getting scanned from orbit, and hiding in sensor shadows especially when flying very low and hiding in canyons or behind mountains might help as well. Welcome to difficult terrain and piloting checks or even just downright stealth checks.

Good Topic and I like what I have read, but could someone write down 2 extended senarios of how to GM this,

Lets say one earthlike planet with a smaller blockade (easier to get past)

And one eartlike planet with a full lockdown (really hard to survive or get past)

I think FFG hasmade a misstake to not include some real examples for lost GMs (as I am) to use and modify as needed,

I'm not good enough at the moment on the system to fully understand how to run this so these 2 examples would really help me grasp the points and difficulties.

Cheers

The SD approach the planet, using his long range sensors, the operators scan the planet for settlements. Due to the atmosphere the sensors range is reduced by one, but a medium range is still "orbital distance". They are still using only passive scans. Operators succeed in a Medium Perception check to notice the mining outpost. This outpost is using a power generator plus lots of electronics like sensors, comms aray etc so it is considered as broadcasting low emissions wich grant 2 blue dice to the check. They spot the mining outpost and maneuver to get in orbit just above. As GM you don't need to roll the dice as you story suppose they succeed but that would be my mechanic approach.

When the light freighter take off, the SD sensors are still passively scanning the surface from orbit. This time I would roll the Medium Perception or Vigilance check for the sensors operators. 2 purple dice. I would grant a blue die because there is a lot of operators monitoring the sensor screens. Then depending on the speed of the light freighter, I would consider they are broadcasting low emissions (Speed 4+?, sensors active?) and add 2 more blue dice. Success mean the operators notice a light freighter taking off, more success would give them more intel. The officer then dispatch a TIE squadron towards them at interception speed.

You could add some side narrative idea your players could exploit, like making a nice description of a thunderstorm approaching their location while they ready their freighter. If they are smart they could use it to hide from the SD sensors for a better escape chance... or it could lead to a nice chase with the TIE in the thunderstorm to escape the interception ect

EDIT: I am using the rules given by Sturn here ( https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxzdHVybnNzdHVmZnxneDoyYzkxZjIxZDVhODdhMzhk ) for better sensor rules, they are a good add-on for this kind of encounter

I just finished running Beyond the Rim, and the end of that was a very effective blockade situation. The Imperials only had two Patrol craft, and two groups of TIE Fighters on site. The Imperial ships aren't slow, and traveling in space is easier than in atmo, so they were able to block the best course of egress.

Long story short, it was going to take a number of rounds to get clear of the gravity well, and they decided the best tactical option was to punch through the ships in the way. They took a SEVERE beating (and only managed to avoid having to abandon their ship completely due to some quick thinking and lucky rolls), but it resulted in one of the most tense and epic parts to their adventure.

On 15/07/2017 at 4:02 PM, OddballE8 said:

Especially if that blockade is small.

I had an introductory adventure today, where the players started on a very remote ice planet with just a few mining colonies and less than 2000 inhabitants in total.

The empire shows up and proclaims the colonies under Imperial occupation because the mining company has colluded with the rebellion.
So the players steal a light freighter (guess the class! ) and try to escape.

The problem was that it was pretty easy to escape.

The planet wasn't supposed to have any ships (the freighter was a hidden escape plan for the local crime boss), so the empire didn't go in all that strong. They showed up with a Star Destroyer orbiting above the main colony (where the players were) and stared sending out TIE's to the colonies themselves.

But the players were airborne and on the way before the TIE's had reached them (a few lucky rolls from the players), so when I asked them how they planned to escape the Star Destroyer, they just said "we'll fly the other way", more or less.

And since the Star Destroyer wouldn't set after one lone light freighter, all that happened was that some TIE's started pursuit, but due to another lucky roll, the players managed to jump away before they got close.

So, while a lot of this was due to lucky rolls, I still wonder how you would handle an Imperial blockade consisting of one Star Destroyer and it's complement of TIE's and other ships?

For future reference, of course.

Call in an Interdictor next time?

8 hours ago, Archangelion said:

Call in an Interdictor next time?

An Interdictor for a small remote mining colony which only has one ship coming in every month and no (at least no expected) private ships at all?
That seems a bit much.