I've been kicking around an idea for a setting for a few months now.

Skies on Fire: Aerial warfare in an alternate world roughly at the same tech level as modern earth. Basically think movies like Top Gun, or games like Afterburner or Ace Combat. The game will focus mainly on war stories and the occasionally gray morality soldiers face in a prolonged and bitter war.

Obviously vehicle rules will be needed for this. I don't mind building the aircraft from scratch and so forth, but having to do that and hammer in some vehicle to vehicle combat rules is more than most anyone has time for...

Here's some info from Reddit.

10 hours ago, verdantsf said:

Here's some info from Reddit.

In other words, it still sucks From the 10:1 damage ratio, to the clunky maneuvers and actions, to the glass-cannons, to "shields as setback"...it's just a terrible system.

1 hour ago, whafrog said:

In other words, it still sucks From the 10:1 damage ratio, to the clunky maneuvers and actions, to the glass-cannons, to "shields as setback"...it's just a terrible system.

Do you have a link to any better ones that were done for Star Wars? I'm told they're out there. Ostensibly if the vehicle system didn't change much from SW to Genesys, then any houseruled version should also work well for both.

35 minutes ago, Dragonshadow said:

Do you have a link to any better ones that were done for Star Wars?

I liked Emperor Norton's modifications, but it doesn't solve everything (like the 10:1 issue):

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/182940-starship-house-rules/

41 minutes ago, Dragonshadow said:

Ostensibly if the vehicle system didn't change much from SW to Genesys, then any houseruled version should also work well for both.

True, there is that

Well, tomatos and pitchforks abound.

Guess I got to houserule stuff if I want to use this for a modern day jetfighter campaign.

On 11/28/2017 at 2:39 AM, guest356800 said:

I've been kicking around an idea for a setting for a few months now.

Skies on Fire: Aerial warfare in an alternate world roughly at the same tech level as modern earth. Basically think movies like Top Gun, or games like Afterburner or Ace Combat. The game will focus mainly on war stories and the occasionally gray morality soldiers face in a prolonged and bitter war.

Obviously vehicle rules will be needed for this. I don't mind building the aircraft from scratch and so forth, but having to do that and hammer in some vehicle to vehicle combat rules is more than most anyone has time for...

Funny, was also thinking about doing something like that.

2 hours ago, whafrog said:

In other words, it still sucks From the 10:1 damage ratio, to the clunky maneuvers and actions, to the glass-cannons, to "shields as setback"...it's just a terrible system.

I dunno if I'd call it terrible, but at least we won't have canon examples that glaringly violate the rules!

As for houserules, here is a download link that adds Emperor Norton's rules with a new Dogfighting maneuver that uses opposed piloting rolls and where shields actually take some damage instead of just tossing setback.

Then again, in a modern day fighter scenario, maybe setback for "shields" works out.

Anyway: Starfighters of the Adumar Houserules

As for the damage ratio: I'd put it at 5:1.

I gave up running dogfights, so the only time there is space combat in my games is if there is a chase. I've tweaked those myself, and added a "Never tell me the odds" option. This is resolved like a chase, but the acting character decides what the difficulty is, and the effects are more lethal. So if you're Han Solo, and you decide to lose some TIEs in an asteroid field, you get to decide how far to push it. You might set the difficulty at RRRP and watch those TIEs careen into asteroids, only to have the GM spend a Despair to have you fly into the gullet of a space eel...

3 minutes ago, whafrog said:

I gave up running dogfights, so the only time there is space combat in my games is if there is a chase. I've tweaked those myself, and added a "Never tell me the odds" option. This is resolved like a chase, but the acting character decides what the difficulty is, and the effects are more lethal. So if you're Han Solo, and you decide to lose some TIEs in an asteroid field, you get to decide how far to push it. You might set the difficulty at RRRP and watch those TIEs careen into asteroids, only to have the GM spend a Despair to have you fly into the gullet of a space eel...

That's pretty cool for the chase sequences, I'd use that myself.

But yeah, I haven't given up completely on dogfights in Star Wars FFG yet, since I've tried out Emperor Norton's and the Starfighters of the Adumar Houserules and both work out.

Now for me, it's just a matter of do I want more rolls to happen, which could slow down the game but make it interesting if two equally skilled pilots try to dogfight each other, or not.

Otherwise, if I want to run dogfights...I guess it's time to switch over to another system, like Warbirds or something.

Are those vehicle rules at least sufficent for mech combat or do they suck as well for that purpose?

17 minutes ago, DarthDude said:

Are those vehicle rules at least sufficent for mech combat or do they suck as well for that purpose?

I would think the normal rules would also be bad, since the problem is that there's a lot of emphasis on getting initiative with the rules, while having little defense in return.

Fights become a case of rocket tag in which the first one to gain initiative usually wins the fight.

Technically, a PC doesn't just die when their vehicle is knocked out, but it's really annoying for players, even ones that know what they're doing and have put points into being a good pilot, because a couple of bad initiative rolls means a good part of them are likely to be out of the fight in short order. Well, unless you're into really gritty combat where the PCs have backups or have ways to keep the PCs going after their vehicle is knocked out. Then it's totally fine for that.

20 minutes ago, DarthDude said:

Are those vehicle rules at least sufficent for mech combat or do they suck as well for that purpose?

I am rather baffled by peoples apparent interest in trying to turn the Narrative Dice System in a Tactical System. Since its not designed to be even remotely tactical, such as required by DnD & Battletech, its seems to me that trying to make it so is in complete opposition of Genesys' purpose and, IMHO, appeal. Don't get me wrong, Battletech is great but it needs a tactical rule system to shine (or a hack of such magnitude as to make the NDS unrecognizable).

12 minutes ago, satkaz said:

I would think the normal rules would also be bad, since the problem is that there's a lot of emphasis on getting initiative with the rules, while having little defense in return.

Fights become a case of rocket tag in which the first one to gain initiative usually wins the fight.

Technically, a PC doesn't just die when their vehicle is knocked out, but it's really annoying for players, even ones that know what they're doing and have put points into being a good pilot, because a couple of bad initiative rolls means a good part of them are likely to be out of the fight in short order. Well, unless you're into really gritty combat where the PCs have backups or have ways to keep the PCs going after their vehicle is knocked out. Then it's totally fine for that.

Actually 2D20 Conan has a very nice approach to this. The PCs usually always have the initiative unless the GM decides that an NPC should start first for dramatical purposes. But the GM would have to pay for this with Doom points. In Genesys terms probably story points.

23 minutes ago, DarthDude said:

Are those vehicle rules at least sufficent for mech combat or do they suck as well for that purpose?

We had a lot of fun with Mechwarrior back in the day. The biggest issue is the attrition rate, so as a general rule you'd need to beef up the Hull points and Armour compared to what is available in EotE, otherwise your Mad Cats will be taking down flocks of Ravens. Also, I would think for the best results you'd want the mechs to have their own scale. If I recall, the scale of mechs ran from 10 tons to 100 tons, but if you converted directly they'd all fit into Silhouette 3-5, which probably doesn't capture the flavour. I recall it being a big deal going up against an Atlas (especially if tricked out with Clan heat sinks and gauss guns), but a direct conversion would make an Atlas the same size as a Mad Cat. A special "mech scale" might be a starting point.

1 minute ago, whafrog said:

We had a lot of fun with Mechwarrior back in the day. The biggest issue is the attrition rate, so as a general rule you'd need to beef up the Hull points and Armour compared to what is available in EotE, otherwise your Mad Cats will be taking down flocks of Ravens. Also, I would think for the best results you'd want the mechs to have their own scale. If I recall, the scale of mechs ran from 10 tons to 100 tons, but if you converted directly they'd all fit into Silhouette 3-5, which probably doesn't capture the flavour. I recall it being a big deal going up against an Atlas (especially if tricked out with Clan heat sinks and gauss guns), but a direct conversion would make an Atlas the same size as a Mad Cat. A special "mech scale" might be a starting point.

Modding vehicle components could do the job but of what I read there is no modding of vehicles in the CRB.

36 minutes ago, lyinggod said:

I am rather baffled by peoples apparent interest in trying to turn the Narrative Dice System in a Tactical System. Since its not designed to be even remotely tactical, such as required by DnD & Battletech, its seems to me that trying to make it so is in complete opposition of Genesys' purpose and, IMHO, appeal. Don't get me wrong, Battletech is great but it needs a tactical rule system to shine (or a hack of such magnitude as to make the NDS unrecognizable).

For me, I'm not trying to make it Battletech, I'm going for more of the Japanese mech shows like Macross, Gundam, and VOTOMS here. And this system makes more sense to those kinds of shows rather than a tactical one to me.

I'm just not fond of the system being so reliant on the fact that "first one to win initiative wins the encounter".

35 minutes ago, whafrog said:

The biggest issue is the attrition rate, so as a general rule you'd need to beef up the Hull points and Armour compared to what is available in EotE, otherwise your Mad Cats will be taking down flocks of Ravens.

I remember beefing up was another form of houserule I saw for Star Wars.

It went like this:

All ships: Increase HT by a percentage equal to 20 + (10 x Silhouette), increase SS by a percentage equal to 15 + (8 x Silhouette).

Starfighters: Add a number of Setbacks equal to Piloting + 1/2 of Handling (rounded up) in addition to shields. If there are more than 5 setbacks, start adding difficulty die.

Shields: Opposed check of sorts where there are "regular shields" (green dice) and "capital shields" (yellow dice). Roll a number of dice equal to the shield value in an area, and each success cancels 1 point of damage. Triumphs either raise critical value of the weapon that is being used by the attacker by 1 for that attack OR, if it has Breach, reduce the quality by 2 for every Triumph.

-I still have problems with the third one, mainly what does someone do with just advantages for the shield roll, since only capital ships would generally get Triumph.

Honestly I have never understood that hate for Ship combat in Star Wars it always felt pretty similar to ground combat for my group and they have enjoyed the way I have ran it for some time. As far as making Mechs of different sizes my suggestion is you can always use a different scaling with your game. Sil 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 can be different sizes for different settings. I always felt that way because it isnt a set size but a rough "about yay big" and since what is "Really big" and what is "really small" is dependent on setting I feel you can just adjust that stuff. Basically I feel vehicles are just as adjustable as ground things, and in a fantasy world I would likely NOT have the vehicles be x10, in one of the adventure books for Age of Rebellion it suggested that the armor on the AT-ST was 10x soak but that the HT was just flat the same thing as wounds it was weird but it allowed things like Rocket Launchers to do significant damage to them. Also since I use minion rules with ships A LOT simply getting a crit with a weapon that does basically .1 point of damage is enough to just straight kill it. If they put a grenade in the cockpit of something I have that thing blow up because cinematic.

23 minutes ago, tunewalker said:

Honestly I have never understood that hate for Ship combat in Star Wars it always felt pretty similar to ground combat for my group and they have enjoyed the way I have ran it for some time. As far as making Mechs of different sizes my suggestion is you can always use a different scaling with your game. Sil 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 can be different sizes for different settings. I always felt that way because it isnt a set size but a rough "about yay big" and since what is "Really big" and what is "really small" is dependent on setting I feel you can just adjust that stuff. Basically I feel vehicles are just as adjustable as ground things, and in a fantasy world I would likely NOT have the vehicles be x10, in one of the adventure books for Age of Rebellion it suggested that the armor on the AT-ST was 10x soak but that the HT was just flat the same thing as wounds it was weird but it allowed things like Rocket Launchers to do significant damage to them. Also since I use minion rules with ships A LOT simply getting a crit with a weapon that does basically .1 point of damage is enough to just straight kill it. If they put a grenade in the cockpit of something I have that thing blow up because cinematic.

Well, if it works for you, great. I've tried it with multiple groups myself, and it's always brought a lot of pain for both sides, so...I guess we have different groups.

Honestly Mecha stuff feels like something which would be best done with its own system. No stock vehicle system is going to do a particularly spectacular job of running mechs, they need a lot of custom rules.

Would it be cheeky to plug Battle Century G here? It's the best mech system I've run into, well worth checking out.

4 minutes ago, Tom Cruise said:

Honestly Mecha stuff feels like something which would be best done with its own system. No stock vehicle system is going to do a particularly spectacular job of running mechs, they need a lot of custom rules.

Would it be cheeky to plug Battle Century G here? It's the best mech system I've run into, well worth checking out.

Eh, Battle Century G works well if you're trying to do Super Robot Wars on a TRPG, I find. For other kinds of mech stuff, it takes just as much work to make BCG/Z work with it as it would on Genesys.

10 hours ago, whafrog said:

In other words, it still sucks From the 10:1 damage ratio, to the clunky maneuvers and actions, to the glass-cannons, to "shields as setback"...it's just a terrible system.

There are differences. I am not reading reddit, but for instance.

No more comparing silhouettes for attack Difficulty, it's base is range, with the additional modifier for size difference just like in personal combat.

The limit of cap ship Maneuvers is gone.

I'm still browsing, it's mostly the same but there are definitely changes.

The brand new "Strategic" Range band.

The movement in ship combat in regards to changing range bands is a simple chart as opposed to that mathematical haiku in the Star Wars books.

They also ditched that stupid close/short verbiage from SW and the bands are the same names in personal and planetary ranges. Just the suggestion on increased distances with the two is mentioned.

A few new maneuvers and actions to be found, which I'll list. Not sure how big of a change they'll make to the system overall, though. It looks like some (like Evasive Maneuvers) were changed, though I'd have to compare each one.