are there any rulings on using protect to protect a starship and not a player?

Generally? No. In fact, I don't see a problem with that at all. However, what are you Protecting it from? Protect is a personal-scale power, so unless you are a Force goddess, vehicle-scale weapon damage is just going to cut right through like it's nothing.

I mean, a Willpower 6 character with a maxed out tree who generates 6 Force points (that's a lot; an average result for Force rating 9!) AND gets a whopping 8 Successes on the Discipline check will block 30 personal-scale damage. That's 3 vehicle-scale, which is less than the base damage of basically every vehicle-scale weapon in the game.

I suppose you're effective, in some senses of the term, if you can reliably generate 10 Protection, but at that point, isn't their something better you could be doing with your action and high Force rating?

Now, of course, if you're trying to Protect a vehicle from some yahoos on the ground shooting it with personal-scale ordnance, this issue is a moot point . Protect away!

yeah that's whati was thinking but a player of mine asked so thought i'd check.

I would say no.

In previous games, Protect was Absorb/Dissipate Energy, using the Force to. . . well, absorb and/or dissipate energy directed at the Force-User. First appeared proper in the novel I, Jedi, where Corran Horn, who's Jedi Bloodline was notoriously weak at telekinesis, was very good with this power (and could use energy he absorbed from this power to fuel telekinesis, the only time he could use it). It's a purely personal power, affecting only the body of the Force-User themselves. Even that ability to Protect others, I would say, would be more about drawing that energy attack to you, not applying a shield around their body or something.

But, that's just me.

Manipulate is a better power for keeping a damaged vehicle going.

Manipulate is 90% "keeping a damaged vehicle going."

Kind of annoying, actually, when I just want my Jedi to be able to boost their Mechanics checks for building lightsabers

12 hours ago, Absol197 said:

Generally? No. In fact, I don't see a problem with that at all. However, what are you Protecting it from? Protect is a personal-scale power, so unless you are a Force goddess, vehicle-scale weapon damage is just going to cut right through like it's nothing.

I mean, a Willpower 6 character with a maxed out tree who generates 6 Force points (that's a lot; an average result for Force rating 9!) AND gets a whopping 8 Successes on the Discipline check will block 30 personal-scale damage. That's 3 vehicle-scale, which is less than the base damage of basically every vehicle-scale weapon in the game.

I suppose you're effective, in some senses of the term, if you can reliably generate 10 Protection, but at that point, isn't their something better you could be doing with your action and high Force rating?

Now, of course, if you're trying to Protect a vehicle from some yahoos on the ground shooting it with personal-scale ordnance, this issue is a moot point . Protect away!

Reducing the incoming damage by 3 is actually huge, because that would be additive to armor.
The thing with armor/soak and even defense is that the more you stack on each other, the more effective it becomes. Even just reliable increase the vehicle armor by one can be quite significant. Imagine a C-ROC which has armor 7 instead of the base armor of 5. (1 from protect and one from the armor upgrade installed)

And then there is the mastery upgrade which allows to reflect the damage. Well, our group ships armor is already at 7 without any force upgrades, I really need to talk to our adviser about the protect/unleash power, reflecting all TIE-Fighter shots back at them sounds like a very fun ability.

1 minute ago, SEApocalypse said:

Reducing the incoming damage by 3 is actually huge, because that would be additive to armor.
The thing with armor/soak and even defense is that the more you stack on each other, the more effective it becomes. Even just reliable increase the vehicle armor by one can be quite significant. Imagine a C-ROC which with armor 7 instead of the base armor of 5. (1 from protect and one from the armor upgrade installed)

And then there is the mastery upgrade which allows to reflect the damage. Well, our group ships armor is already at 7 without any force upgrades, I really need to talk to our adviser about the protect/unleash power, reflecting all TIE-Fighter shots back at them sounds like a very fun ability.

And is exactly why I wouldn't allow it, as a GM.

But if you like that kind of over-the-top Force use, yes, it would be awesome!

I'd say that a PC could use Protect against vehicle-scale damage to defend a ship, provided they're standing outside of it. However, bear in mind that the damage reduction from Protect would only kick in after the vehicle damage is multiplied by 10, not before (it's a similar situation to trying to use Reflect against vehicle-scale damage). So more likely than not, using Protect isn't going to have much of an effect, and at best might stop a point of vehicle damage.

45 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

I'd say that a PC could use Protect against vehicle-scale damage to defend a ship, provided they're standing outside of it. However, bear in mind that the damage reduction from Protect would only kick in after the vehicle damage is multiplied by 10, not before (it's a similar situation to trying to use Reflect against vehicle-scale damage). So more likely than not, using Protect isn't going to have much of an effect, and at best might stop a point of vehicle damage.

Hence you are better committing a dice to Manipulate to increase the HT by 3.

2 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

Hence you are better committing a dice to Manipulate to increase the HT by 3.

Hmmm. A guy with his lightsaber drawn standing on top of a 75 meter long light-cruiser and reflecting incoming TIE-Fighter shots back at them. Or getting 3 extra HTT. Hard choices.
Even if I just absorb 1 damage per turn 3 turns in a row … it looks mechanically not too bad. Besides, if we apply the same logic we do when shooting with personal scale weapons onto vehicles, even absorbing 1 point of personal scale damage should reduce the incoming damage. You need to reach the full 10 points personal scale of damage to deal damage to a vehicle, so reducing a laser cannon shot from 50 damage to 49 should do the same thing. With a force rating of 3 it becomes now common enough to reduce the vehicle damage by one on each incoming it, effectively increasing armor by 1. A lot better than just 3 extra hull trauma threshold.

Now Erik still has a point. Force wielders standing on top of a space shield, reflecting and shielding the ship might be to much Pulp for some people in their Star Wars setting. The taste of the group seems more important than some mechanical benefit. If the group wants to have crazy force power stunts than this sounds awesome. If they like it a little more grounded than this would be silly.

7 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

Hmmm. A guy with his lightsaber drawn standing on top of a 75 meter long light-cruiser and reflecting incoming TIE-Fighter shots back at them. Or getting 3 extra HTT. Hard choices.
Even if I just absorb 1 damage per turn 3 turns in a row … it looks mechanically not to bad. Besides, if we apply the same logic we do when shooting with personal scale weapons onto vehicles, even absorbing 1 point of personal scale damage should reduce the incoming damage. You need to reach the full 10 points personal scale of damage to deal damage to a vehicle, so reducing a laser cannon shot from 50 damage to 49 should do the same thing. With a force rating of 3 it becomes now common enough to reduce the vehicle damage by one on each incoming it, effectively increasing armor by 1. A lot better than just 3 extra hull trauma threshold.

Now Erik still has a point. Force wielders standing on top of a space shield, reflecting and shielding the ship might be to much Pulp for some people in their Star Wars setting. The taste of the group seems more important than some mechanical benefit. If the group wants to have crazy force power stunts than this sounds awesome. If they like it a little more grounded than this would be silly.

That was the meme I had in mind when writing it.
Well, this and a dozen or so rebel episodes.

4 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

And then there is the mastery upgrade which allows to reflect the damage. Well, our group ships armor is already at 7 without any force upgrades, I really need to talk to our adviser about the protect/unleash power, reflecting all TIE-Fighter shots back at them sounds like a very fun ability.

This is easy to miss, but the Protect mastery only reflects damage if its reduced to 0 before soak. I.e. if the reduction from Protect cancels the entire attack. So I doubt very much that anyone would be reflecting the damage of a light laser cannon .

Hmmm. Another case of "read the full description".

Just when I was almost sold on this idea. . .