Ok guys, I have a doozy of a problem, so much so that I even made an account and joined this forum (not that there's anything wrong with that).

So, my players have come into a large quantity of phrik (don't ask me how), enough that they want to use it to construct their own starfighters out of it. We have been playing a long while, and they are a group of great means at this point, plus they have a pretty large quantity of the material, so I say sure. I have two problems, however:

I have no idea how to even go about the construction of a custom ship mechanically. What would they need? What would the roll be? How would I go about stating the **** thing? Would I even be the one to stat it, or should my players? I don't even know where to begin here.

My other problem problem is that I know a ship made out of phrik would naturally have cortosis, but how would that work on a ship? Breach numbers get much higher with ship combat, so would cortosis still ignore all of it? Does that mean that if they were hit with a Star Destroyer's heavy turbolaser, the comparatively little starfighter would still ignore all of the ranks in breach?

Any help you guys could give would be greatly appreciated.

1) Shipbuilding is in the Engineer book due out like any day now. If it's like other crafting rules, the players with have to acquire materials (vaguely defined as just a rarity and credit amount unless the gm wants to do more like make it part of a quest or story element) then roll difficulty based on a scope/scale/complexity of a template that defines the base stats. Advantage/Threat will allow the application of upgrades.

So like you have a template (provided by the book) that will say how much material cost is, a mechanics difficulty, and build time. The vehicle will, by default, be slightly worse than a comparable off the shelf option. So like a "light starfighter" template would resemble a TIE but be slower and less maneuverable. Then you roll and can use the results to add speed, or weapons, or shields, and so on. Idea being a garbage result will leave you happy to not be walking. A hot roll will leave you with a super fighter.

2) I wouldn't stress allowing a Cortosis starfighter. Most Starfighters have such weak hulls, being able to ignore breach won't do much. Heavy weapons with breach are usually mounted on ships so large targeting fighters is silly. So that leaves personal weapons that can typically only crit-kill a fighter. Again, kinda specific encounter, so no huge deal. Missiles and torpedoes are the only issue, but since they are usually powerful enough to splash a player in one roll that not so bad.

All other weapons, like lasers and Quadlasers...not going to be affected by Cortosis, so the players will still be vulnerable to the most common threat available, so as a GM you won't be that limited.

From my understanding Cortosis is already a component in the alloy used for starship armour (I think I read it in Star Wars - A New Dawn) in any case that would be one of the reasons it's not widely available in personal armour.

Also Cortosis/Buskar etc. are supposed to be very brittle, like titanium which is why it's generally alloyed, so solid unalloyed plates wouldn't be very effective as they would shatter.

Simply make it an attachment that eats a hard point, and perhaps you could make it heavy. Let it have cortosis at the cost of a point of handling, and perhaps some strain.

46 minutes ago, FuriousGreg said:

From my understanding Cortosis is already a component in the alloy used for starship armour (I think I read it in Star Wars - A New Dawn) in any case that would be one of the reasons it's not widely available in personal armour.

Also Cortosis/Buskar etc. are supposed to be very brittle, like titanium which is why it's generally alloyed, so solid unalloyed plates wouldn't be very effective as they would shatter.

Cortosis is brittle but Beskar is not.

38 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Cortosis is brittle but Beskar is not.

Yea cortosis’s to reflect breach and block lightsaber type things is a result of its ability to disrupt and absorb energy fields where as beskar is just too hard to cut or penetrate, I understand where the confusion comes from since brittle is something attributed to hardness but beskar seems to overcome that by being supernaturallybhard while also flexible enough to not be brittle.

16 minutes ago, Norr-Saba said:

Yea cortosis’s to reflect breach and block lightsaber type things is a result of its ability to disrupt and absorb energy fields where as beskar is just too hard to cut or penetrate, I understand where the confusion comes from since brittle is something attributed to hardness but beskar seems to overcome that by being supernaturallybhard while also flexible enough to not be brittle.

Yep. Beskar is an extremely strong and durable material.

Thanks guys, you've been a big help.

2 hours ago, FuriousGreg said:

Also Cortosis/Buskar etc. are supposed to be very brittle, like titanium which is why it's generally alloyed, so solid unalloyed plates wouldn't be very effective as they would shatter.

But doesn't that also depend on what source you read? I know it is described as both brittle and highly malleable in I, Jedi (which, aren't those two things mutually exclusive?), but in Darth Bane: Path of Destruction cortosis is described as extremely dense, and difficult to mine.

5 minutes ago, Vidarr Avenger said:

But doesn't that also depend on what source you read? I know it is described as both brittle and highly malleable in I, Jedi (which, aren't those two things mutually exclusive?), but in Darth Bane: Path of Destruction cortosis is described as extremely dense, and difficult to mine.

Welcome to Star Wars, where everything is made up, and the continuity doesn't matter!

So engineer book... the prophetess absol has previously estimated the last week of February or first week of March for the engineer book "fully operational" to be available in stores. The cortos is quality ignores 1 point of breach. I see no problems letting the starfighter take 1 point less of damage per attack. In the mean time Starfighter construction let them pick a starfighter in the books and resin it, maybe add a gunners station or a hard point and the phrik alloy and call it a day.

5 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

The cortos is quality ignores 1 point of breach.

Are you sure? The FaD and EotE core books both say that the Cortosis quality makes "armor immune to the Pierce and Breach qualities."

22 minutes ago, Vidarr Avenger said:

Are you sure? The FaD and EotE core books both say that the Cortosis quality makes "armor immune to the Pierce and Breach qualities."

you're right I was confusing the wording on Cortosis and breach. But I don't think it's a bad house rule (which I've been unknowingly using).

Cortosis is an outdated armor material for starships, meaning the stuff is most likely impacting armor in a negative way these days. Most likely it just doesn't stack up pretty well to armor values beyond 1 or 2.

[QUOTE= http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Phrik/Legends ]

Phrik, while in its smelting stage, was highly malleable, and could be combined with a number of other ores, alloys, and compounds to imbue the phrik's properties with others.

[/QUOTE]

does anyone know what the legends source for that statement is (i.e. where wookieepedia got it from?)

Being an engineer in real life, I'm curious how it could be applicable... for example what would be the effect if it was combined with havod alloy

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Havod

point of havod alloy is it's crimson red and redoing the hull of a CEC consular class cruiser in red metal instead of something with red paint.

yeah I think about combining fictional metals in star wars... I know it's unusual but I already said I'm and engineer so it comes with the territory

Thing is there's a Brilliant star ship engineer character loosely based off my own life that I would want to play once "fully operational" (the engineer book) and based on the back story I already had, where he had consulted for a lot of the big corporations including Rendilli

[QUOTE= http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Phrik/Legends ]

The Galactic Empire recognized the strategic value of phrik and nationalized all phrik mining operations as it became aware of them. However, many small-scale mining facilities remained unknown to the Empire and continued to process the ore for other clients, including local governments, Rebel organizations, and crime syndicates, most notably Rendili . ^[1]

^[/QUOTE]

where it's conceivable he could get paid in phrik for services rendered.

I'm looking to use the starship crafting rules to "re-engineer and rebuild" a consular cruiser (and rengineer the salon pod into a hyperspace capable dropship/shuttle) where in game terms re-engineering is just appearance fluff for the ship produced by the crafting rules.

So this wookieepedia page

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Phrik_metal_mine

Says

Quote

The metals mined here are used all over the galaxy. From armor to structural siding, phrik metal is used everywhere. Chief Administrator droid, F-TO

Structural siding sounds like it could be used as starship armor, as a reference look up the aka'jor shuttle on wookieepedia and in friends like these to give an idea of mandalorian iron (a fairly similar though heavier and I would guess not quite as tough metal as Phrik, until I was reading on Wookieepedia I had always thought that mandalorian iron was the "top gun" as it were. But mandalorian iron just takes less damage from a lightsaber rather than "no" damage in a croise (if you cross blades and try to push the others away long enough I would expect pitting and scaring on a mandalorian iron sword vs. A lightsaber but phrik doesn't appear to have that problem.

According to the Beskar (aka Mandalorian Iron) article, Beskar is indeed "nearly indestructible" , (their words), and, depending upon the alloy, can be quite light in weight. The most a lightsaber will do to Beskar is scratch it, and even then, only slightly. Thus, I'd say that Beskar and Phrik are about on par with each other.

Edit: someone already said this lol (Yknow I looked this up during the day and Phrik already seems pretty indestructible without cortosis, considering a Phrik container survived the destruction of alderan by the death star without any noticibke effect. )

its interesting that starwars would have so many metals that are immune to energy based attacks, especially since energy based attacks are the most common in the game.

I had never heard about Phrik before today, except I think reading about it briefly when it was mentioned in the old republic comics as one of the metals used in an alloy that camper made, but I’ve had a lot of thoughts about how to distinguish cortosis and beskar narratively.

They both provide similar effect, with the difference being in that cortosis does it by absorbing and disrupting the flow of energy, with mention in one comic that a character with a cortosis synth skin was able to absorb blaster bolts shot at him and redirect them as a kind of faux force lightning, (however it is nearly impossible to mine, and extremely brittle if used in anything other than a mesh overlay, regardless of how hard it is to find)

beskar is simply hard enough that it can reflect all forms of energy bolts directed at it, however we saw in the rebels animated that it is vulnerable to super heating which could result in the wearer being discintigrated even when the armor survives. (Also it is only found on planets in or near the mandalor sector and is incapable of being properly smelted by a few mandalorian iron workers who are taught the right resins to add during the process, otherwise rendering it useless)

Since a phrik container survived a blast from the Death Star with its contents intact, it would seem to also be as impervious as beskar but without the risk of overheating. (The downside here is that it is extremely rare with almost all of it being seized by the empire)

on mobile right now but I’m going to write down my thoughts on implementing these all narratively when I get to a lab top.

Here's one more for the list impervium

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Impervium/Legends

An entry on phrik said it was almost as tough as impervium

There's also whatever the sun crusher was made out of, but the writing was so awful I don't consider it a worthy contender.

50 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

Here's one more for the list impervium

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Impervium/Legends

An entry on phrik said it was almost as tough as impervium

Omg what a terrible name lol, and it’s canon because it was in one of the movies this is great, so the canon indestructibles are cortosis, beskar, and Impervium? Is phrik also canon?

Most are not canon currently as far as i know. Since the Canon wipe.

1 hour ago, Norr-Saba said:

Omg what a terrible name lol, and it’s canon because it was in one of the movies this is great, so the canon indestructibles are cortosis, beskar, and Impervium? Is phrik also canon?

Phrik was used to make one of Palpatines sabers and magnaguard electrostaffs. So could still be cannon.

7 hours ago, Daeglan said:

Most are not canon currently as far as i know. Since the Canon wipe.

Cortosis and beskar were reintroduced in the rebels cartoon and are canon again and the Impervium was apparently directly mentioned in revenge of the sith

Hey at least there's one that I'm pretty sure is not cannon: "songsteel"

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Songsteel