1 hour ago, Talkie Toaster said:

...4 defence, with both the attacker and the target performing evasive manoeuvres? Yes, that *is* unlikely. Not least because the minion group probably won't be performing Evasive Manoeuvres because they can't suffer strain and will almost certainly need to spend their free manoeuvre actually moving.

Actually just the target doing evasive maneuvers, twice. And not that unlikely once in combat either because there is little reason to use a Move maneuver once you are in range.
Still good catch on the 15% triumphs. Totally did not know that a triumph can be spend on the linked quality. This would significantly change the chances, basically tripling the chance to get oneshotted.

It becomes doesn't change significantly either if you just reach defense 3 and only use evasive ones so that you can move in yourself. Especially as this means that you can GtA and/or shoot yourself first too. It does not even change much if you are a sitting duck, don't evade and just have the shields aligned … well it changes dramatically, but not in a way that really matters 0.1% chance vs 0.02% chance.

Here the math from the calc.

++++RESULTS for Dice Pool: APPDCSSS++++
Total Chance of Success: 40.22%
Total Chance of Advantage: 29.67%
Total Chance of Threat: 49.31%
Total Chance of Failure Symbol: 37.52%
Total Chance of Reaching Target (SSSAA): 0.02%
Total Triumph Chance: 15.97%
Total Despair Chance: 8.33%
+++++++++++++++

It actually even lower than my guess, because each succes result means in most cases no advantage result. Each threat result usually does not show a failure result and this high success results tend to be low advantage results.

Here the base line with just 3 TIE-Minions against a basically defenseless X-Wing with just aligned shields:

++++RESULTS for Dice Pool: APPDDSS++++
Total Chance of Success: 53.75%
Total Chance of Advantage: 33.49%
Total Chance of Threat: 43.87%
Total Chance of Failure Symbol: 24.92%
Total Chance of Reaching Target (SSSAA): 0.1%
Total Triumph Chance: 15.97%
+++++++++++++++

So even in your case this happens once in thousand attacks with reasonable flight groups of 3 ships. You still can do down easy enough from just several hits, but the one-shot potential is … rather low in the more sturdy fighters like the X-Wing. Y-Wings are in this regard even better because of the action efficiency between gunner, astromech and pilot.

Reading Helper for the dice pool:
(B)oost
(S)etback
(A)bility
(D)Difficulty
(P)roficency
(C)hallenge


Edit:

One fundamental principle of the dice system is that it has tendencies to go towards success with threat and failure with advantages, because the two axis in the dice system are not independent from each. other.

11 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

This sounds incredibly stupid to me, but play styles vary. If my group decided to all go EVA against enemy ships, they would all die horribly. It's really not that hard for even the lightest planetary weapon to wipe out personal scale targets, and most personal scale weapons cannot hit a target at planetary Close Range (which is often outside of personal Extreme Range). You obviously go for a super over-the-top fantasy version of the game, but that wouldn't work for me.

I love Force Awakens, but I agree with you that having characters go EVA in a space fight is silly and not at all Star Wars.

I haven't played much space combat yet, but I've been thinking about ways to potentially tinker with the rules if I find the same problems everyone else has.

(1) Give trained pilots a Reflect-like ability. Maybe something like: Spend system strain (or pilot strain) equal to your Silhouette to reduce damage from one attack by (Pilot ranks + Handling) or (Pilot ranks + Current speed)

(2) Remove the "maximum defense 4 per zone" rule.

(3) Allow the pilot to take Wound damage to reduce damage to the ship (this fits my preferred interpretation of WT as--as one poster put it--"ablative plot armor"). Maybe limit the amount of WT that can be spent this way in a turn to the pilot's ranks in Pilot, or (Pilot ranks +Handling).

Here is the thing... there are lots of things with in the rules already to deal with the deadliness. But it seems people keep ignoring those. Like the Squad rules. If you are running a squadron add minions to the player group. that is what those rules are for. And you do like the Rebels did in Episode 4. a group of fighters goes to do the mission while the others run fighter screen. Sounds like a perfect job for minions on the players side. If you run rebels dumb. Of course you are going to kill your players. You guys seem to keep ignoring them even though they have been pointed out multiple times. And you still need to have an objective. one does not need to kill all the minions in a combat. Watch some WWII bomber movies. Like Dam busters. Also the dirty secret of air patrols is in order to be effective you need to spread them out. Otherwise they just get flown around. This also means that in most situations you are going to run in to a very small patrol. That patrol will call for help. Which is why you need to get in and get out. The Rebels operate the way they do for a reason. Throw 3 fighters at them. Or one lone patrol like the Falcon encountered. Ramp up the difficulty slowly. Just like in personal scale combat. the variables on what a party can handle vary wildly for group to group.

Squadron rules are good for Nemesis and important Npc, not for players. Each Rebel is way more valuable than a TIE pilot, who is just canon fodder, unlimited. Rebels are few, they are more skilled and it would be a shame to use them as squad member, killing one of them each time your player should be hit. The Rebel starfighters are even more rare and valuable, they shouldn't pop on each hit their squad leader suffer. That's why I never use squad rules for Rebels

And I forgot the +1 size of the squadron.. a Nebulon-B shooting at you with his quad laser canons would require only an average check instead of a daunting check, 2 purples instead of 4, your wing mates will just disappear in a few seconds.

Same scenario for a lot of ships equipped with anti fighter defense weapons, like the Gozanti for exemple, 2 purples instead of 3.

1 hour ago, Rosco74 said:

Squadron rules are good for Nemesis and important Npc, not for players. Each Rebel is way more valuable than a TIE pilot, who is just canon fodder, unlimited. Rebels are few, they are more skilled and it would be a shame to use them as squad member, killing one of them each time your player should be hit. The Rebel starfighters are even more rare and valuable, they shouldn't pop on each hit their squad leader suffer. That's why I never use squad rules for Rebels

Keith Kappel would disagree with you. He specifically made them for PC's too. At least that is what he told me when I talked to him about them.

And you also forgot that there are many pilot talents that make you a harder target. So the difficulty may be decreased or it might be increased or upgraded depending on the pilots abilities. Also why are you shooting at the PCs with a nebulon B. people wonder why their pcs are dying and here they are doing things that dont really happen in the movies. Also just because one solution is not valid in a specific situation does not mean their is a problem. Other than maybe the GM is building illogical encounters.

When I play Edge games, most of the time it makes almost zero sense for my players to have a squadron of NPCs accompanying their freighter.

6 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

When I play Edge games, most of the time it makes almost zero sense for my players to have a squadron of NPCs accompanying their freighter.

And gee we have suggested stuff for those situations as well. Which brings me back to my conclusion you just want to complain. As there are a ton of options.

Rebels use the hit and run tactic, but if their goal is to destroy the Nebulon-B escorting a convoy the commander need to capture, the Rebels will use their B-Wings and Y-Wings for this task, most of the time. At a larger scale, if the frigate is known to have herself an escort of TIEs, then the Rebels will bring A-Wings and X-Wings to escort and protect the bombers from the TIEs... but nonetheless in my games, fighters are commonly seen attacking capital ships of size 5 or 6.

That was just my feelings, my players won't waste precious Rebel starfighters to shield every hit they suffer. Ok, the downside is that you as a GM needs to manage those Npc Rebel pilots flying on their own. Or'sometimes, each PC manage one of them on top'of their own character.

7 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

And gee we have suggested stuff for those situations as well. Which brings me back to my conclusion you just want to complain. As there are a ton of options.

You have offered nothing. Your generalities are useless. Welcome to my Ignore list.

The suadron rules are a bit odd... why would every hit automatically equal a killed ship?

If I were to use squadrons, I would just create the squadron as a minion group (with an armor rating and a HT) and allow the commander to redirect hits from the leader's ship to the squadron.

So a medium laser cannon hit would not kill an X-wing squadmate on that way of approaching things.

14 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

You have offered nothing. Your generalities are useless. Welcome to my Ignore list .

Well it is not like you have given us any specifics. So how exactly are we supposed to give you more than generalities?

1 minute ago, DaverWattra said:

The suadron rules are a bit odd... why would every hit automatically equal a killed ship?

If I were to use squadrons, I would just create the squadron as a minion group (with an armor rating and a HT) and allow the commander to redirect hits from the leader's ship to the squadron.

So a medium laser cannon hit would not kill an X-wing squadmate on that way of approaching things.

game balance.

Just now, Daeglan said:

game balance.

Could you say more?

1 minute ago, Rosco74 said:

Rebels use the hit and run tactic, but if their goal is to destroy the Nebulon-B escorting a convoy the commander need to capture, the Rebels will use their B-Wings and Y-Wings for this task, most of the time. At a larger scale, if the frigate is known to have herself an escort of TIEs, then the Rebels will bring A-Wings and X-Wings to escort and protect the bombers from the TIEs... but nonetheless in my games, fighters are commonly seen attacking capital ships of size 5 or 6.

That was just my feelings, my players won't waste precious Rebel starfighters to shield every hit they suffer. Ok, the downside is that you as a GM needs to manage those Npc Rebel pilots flying on their own. Or'sometimes, each PC manage one of them on top'of their own character.

Just have the players decide on squadron tactics and let the gm decide whether the outcome for the good of the players decisions and the good of the story rather than get bogged down in a slow and laborious turn by turn of npc move i couldn't imagine something more torturous for players.

keeping combat fast. If you run it normally combat is gonna be a slog. Which is not fun. good example is how D&D after a while takes over an hour to run combat.

1 minute ago, Daeglan said:

keeping combat fast. If you run it normally combat is gonna be a slog. Which is not fun. good example is how D&D after a while takes over an hour to run combat.

It's not a slog to keep track of damage to a minion group. You just subtract armor from damage and make a note of the hull trauma. How does that slow down combat any more than saying a ship is killed with each hit?

2 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

keeping combat fast. If you run it normally combat is gonna be a slog. Which is not fun. good example is how D&D after a while takes over an hour to run combat.

Totally totally agree. I use narration as much as i can except on what the players do. No npc die rolls. No capital ship combat unless directed at the pcs. Keep it slick and streamlined. I use D6 system which emulated the Star Wars system for me perfectly. But with the minutia orientated cluster bomb that FFGs system is, it is just a cruise into frustration doing a turn by turn by the end players are bored senseless unless its related directly to them. Narrate it:)

Depends, if the players like that, they are all starfighter pilots and scenario are just space missions, actually like the video game Xwing vs Tie fighter, I talked and learned a lot from a guy on this forum who was running a campaign like that. He made his own home rules wich are patching a lot of holes in the basic rules, especially the dumb sensor ranges rules and ranges.

But as said that was just my feeling and my contrbution no offense

Edit : Splad, I suppose we are not playing with the same kind of players, you are more a story teller than a GM. Actually you could run a full session without rolling a single die... ok why not, but my players want a fair game with dice rolls, because it's the base of rpgs since the very first one. Why you even need a character sheet and CrB?

6 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

keeping combat fast. If you run it normally combat is gonna be a slog. Which is not fun. good example is how D&D after a while takes over an hour to run combat.

Or maybe you were responding to splad?

Yeah. Now imaging doing that for 6 pcs and 6 npcs. All with minion groups attached...It will start to bog down pretty quick as every shot involves doing math.

3 minutes ago, DaverWattra said:

It's not a slog to keep track of damage to a minion group. You just subtract armor from damage and make a note of the hull trauma. How does that slow down combat any more than saying a ship is killed with each hit?

I feel it is most important for the greater good of the story to keep a flow on peripheral story and orate and spin the yarn of the battle.

2 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Yeah. Now imaging doing that for 6 pcs and 6 npcs. All with minion groups attached...It will start to bog down pretty quick as every shot involves doing math.

Seems like easy arithmetic to me, the same as the arithmetic one does whenever someone gets hit in combat.

Anyway, this isn't really a game balance issue. I don't think there's any balance reason not to go with my modification of the squadron rules.

1 minute ago, Daeglan said:

Yeah. Now imaging doing that for 6 pcs and 6 npcs. All with minion groups attached...It will start to bog down pretty quick as every shot involves doing math.

precisely as a gm i would have already have alternative plays in my head of the outcome of the battle let the players actions or inactions determing which of the possibility plays worked out at those critical junctures. Maybe that is part of the problem with rpging if it become to die orientated than story orientated especially on the scenery around the players.