Next time my group plays, they'll be heading to a system wherein they will encounter a Vindicator class heavy cruiser. It will be in their way, and they just might feel squirrely enough to try to run past it, or heaven forbid, try to fight it. I have not yet had the opportunity to run a ship combat with capital ships at all. I have some questions, especially about this ship in particular. (Vindicator is listed in the AoR CRB on page 280.)

1) If a weapon is listed as dorsal mounted, it cannot fire to the ventral side, correct? And the opposite with ventral mounted weapons. Example: a Vindicators have five dorsal mounted medium turbolasers, fire arc: forward. So any target in the forward arc, above the main deck is a valid target. Targets in the forward arc, below the main deck, are not valid targets.

2) Weapon firing arcs start at the center line of the ship. So if a weapon has a fire arc of starboard and does not mention ventral or dorsal, it can cover everything extending out from the center line to the furthest reach of its range, both ventral and dorsal. Example: Vindicators have five starboard quad turbolaser batteries. They can fire above and below main deck, from the center line, extending out starboard to their maximum range.

3) Weapons can be grouped and act like minions. Each group would have its own initiative, or is there just one initiative for the whole ship? And who rolls that, the captain? Example: A Vindicator has six forward, eight port, eight starboard, and eight aft point defense laser cannons. Each one of those is its own minion group? The skill and characteristic involved would be from Imperial gunnery stats. So, Imperial gunners have a 2 Agility and they have the Gunnery skill. The dice pool for the six forward point defense laser cannons firing as a minion group would be GGGYY.

4) An Imperial class star destroyer (Silhouette 8) can put a CR90 blockade runner (Silhouette 5) in its ventral belly hangar. Can a Vindicator (Silhouette 7) fit a YT-1300 (Silhouette 4) in its ventral belly hangar? I'd think so.

5) A ship can only benefit from one Pilot Only action per round. However, additional actions in a round can be taken by other crewmembers. A Vindicator has 2500 crew. It has dedicated comms stations, defense stations, sensors stations, and so forth, not to mention, apparently 58 gunnery stations. How many actions might be appropriate in a capital ship's turn? There are five PCs on their ship; they can take five separate actions in a round.

5) My players aren't going to make it, are they...

Great questions! Im interested in seeing some of the responses to these.

1. Yes. Note that the relative position of ships is determined by both GM and Players actions via narrative, especially when it comes to capital ship used as terrain while two groups of starfighters dogfight.

2. Yes. although logic dictates in the example that such weapons are mounted on the face's edge, and not somewhere further on the hull, which would otherwise be dorsal or ventral facing only. In some cases I would examine it for typo and look up the image of the vessel to understand where the weapon is mounted.

3. Assuming groups of gunners on the deck sit by each weapon or weapon group, and have a superior receiving orders and commanding, I would roll for the whole deck's initiative and then roll for attack for each minion group separately. Assembling a better pool would be using upgrades or boost from commander, gear, on-board systems and support like droids or other actions (Fire Discipline, Squad rules, etc).

4. Hanger bay ruling is hard to spot, its in the starship attachment section. You total the silhouette sizes of the vehicles parked in the hanger bay. A silhouette 7 can carry a total of 60, so about 15 YT's ...

5. In my previous uses of capital ships in combat (without and with mass combat rules) I took note of some officers on-board that I wanted to participate, they would be commanding on minions and rivals sitting in designated decks, but they would eventually represent the same roles and action you can do on a smaller ship, but they have the advantage of having command over others.

For example, if your officer failed to direct his minion group to preform a successful Jamming action, another team on the deck might try to preform it right after, maybe even an upstart rival trying to impress his superior.

5b. With a good leader, and cool bridge interaction, anything is possible... Consider making the Captain or Bridge Adviser an NPC.

There's a couple of great actions from Genesys that are worth including as well:

Blanket Barrage is an anti-starfighter action where all of the guns of a single type in the same fire arc are putting up a field of fire to deter attacks from smaller ships. It causes enemy starfighter attacks in range in that arc to have to upgrade the difficulty of their attacks and they can take automatic damage while doing so.

Concentrated Barrage is similarly a shot with all weapons of a single type in the same fire arc, but you make one attack and then can add the number of weapons of that type to the total damage. It can only be done against ships of Silhoutte 5 or more

This post deals only with the PCs trying to fight it. If they sneak past/try to run, make sure you plan your chase!

Assuming it comes down to a serious confrontation, realize it will likely be a major encounter, dominate the session, and be dangerous for the PCs. There are a couple episodes of the Order 66 podcast you can listen to which I’ll be basing my suggestions on (the main two are back to back episodes in the 40s, the main one is called “Capital Interest” I think).

For your specific questions:

1) I would think you’re correct. On one of the Vindicator’s turns it can do the Fly maneuver to change its pitch or roll and allow the dorsal batteries to hit things which were previously on the ventral side, so it seems like a non-issue.

2) Generally correct, but Fire Arcs are actually described as from the center point of a ship, not the centerline. So the Fire Arc: Forward is the 45 degrees to the right and left of the centerline, with port and starboard being the next 90 degrees, and aft being the 45 degrees on each side of the rear centerline.

3) See above for initiative slots (I would have the Captain (or whoever’s on watch) roll initiative). Each of the fire arcs of point defense cannons –can- be its own minion group, but only if you want them to. If you use the blanket barrage action then they all fire in one action (just not at a specific target). I agree with your dice pool.

4) I would absolutely say a Sil 7 can pull in a Sil 4. Please note RusakRakesh is only partially correct. The rule he cites is only for additional hanger bays added as attachments; a ship (especially one as large as Sil 7) can house as much as the GM says/its stat block determines. Case in point is a Vindicator carries 2 squadrons of fighters (72 sil in total), well above the 60 limit set by the retrofitted hanger bay.

5) It’s up to the GM to determine how many initiative slots to actually give a ship (derived from the “Capital Ship Combat” paragraph). Giving a ship too many will bog the game down, giving too few and the larger ship’s power and versatility won’t be given credit. I’d give the Vindicator 3 actions; one rolled initiative and the others at the end of the round (like bonus nemesis actions) so 1-2 actions can be weapons and 1-2 actions can be support (typically 1 Concentrated Barrage, 1 Blanket Barrage, and a wildcard). Keep things simple and don’t use the extra action table unless the ship is somehow elite or special. These actions plus the 2 (or more) you’ll probably have from fighters should give you action parity with the PCs.

“6”) If they’re only in a Sil 4 freighter they’re not (and you probably won’t need to use a bunch of this). If they have a few smaller or another silhouette 7 warship(s) then they will probably pull out a win.

Something to keep in mind is that your player's YT wont survive more than a couple of hits from the SD but it's pretty hard for a ship that size to hit a little freighter so they have a chance. Their biggest worry should be the tractor beams because once they are hit by one of those they're now prisoners of the Empire (which is a cool adventure in itself). The other things to worry about will be the TIEs because thats whats likely to arrive long before they are in range of the SD and although their firepower is less than the Turbo Lasers and Cannons they will hit way more often.

Once the Player's get past the fighters remember the SD will be able to fire it's Cannons beginning at Medium range, and if in a chase, even though a ship that size accelerates slow it can go pretty fast once it does. I almost TPK'd with only a light cruiser because I underestimated how dangerous a capital ship is. So make sure you are ready to live with the results of encounter, my suggestion is if they try to go head to head or don't immediately try and out run it, or just fail too, have an "Escape the Empire" scenario ready to go

This is how I'm planning/expecting it to go.

The PCs will warp into the system. The Vindicator will see them at Long range before they see the Victory at Medium range. The ship will hail them and ask what their business is here. This is a fine opportunity for the PCs to leave or run some social checks.

If the PCs give the Vindicator any guff or acts suspiciously, some TIEs (a minion group of three) that are already on patrol duty will be dispatched. The Vindicator does have some weapons that reach out to Long range, but they won't fire on the PCs just yet. There could be a chase scene here.

If the PCs engage with the TIEs, the Vindicator will dispatch a TIE ace with a couple TIE wingman flying in attack formation (squadron rules from the AoR GM screen booklet). The Vindicator will not be moving out of position in orbit of the planet just yet. there could be a chase scene here.

If the PCs continue to be hostile or non-compliant or suspicious, The Vindicator will move to intercept. It will hurt their ship, even if it takes a couple tries. It will capture them with the tractor beams and pull it in. The PCs will be questioned. They will be detained.

I don't think it will get that far though. I will definitely describe how difficult it might be to beat a heavy cruiser and 24 TIEs with their average YT-1300. They're coming to this uninhabited world looking for something they're not even sure is here. I suspect, they'll leave quickly once they see the Imperials are already here. They might try to run past them to the planet, but that's not really a promising plan. They might try to move further away into an asteroid belt or something and wait it out, but that's likely going to get a search party of TIEs looking for them.

Sounds like you have a good plan!

The Vindicator is a bit of overkill, I think. A VT-49 Decimator , a Raider -class corvette, or maybe a CR-92 Assassin- class corvette would be still quite capable of defending itself from Rebel aggression, but not indicate such a high level of Imperial interest in the system.

Speaking for myself, if I jumped into a system and saw a heavy cruiser with a full complement of TIEs I'd think there was something important that they were there to monitor and protect. That's OK, and could certainly lead to shenanigans, but I wouldn't put the PCs in a position where they might have to fight a capital ship from a freighter. Anything corvette-sized and larger is best served as a terrain piece for the starfighter-scale PCs. Starship combat is deadly enough without having to eat a turbolaser blast.

I don't need details but why are the cruisers there? If they are blockading/controlling a particular planet or base they will be stationed close to it and unless the Player's ship enters from a star lane the Player's will see the SD long before they are spotted. The scanners on a capital ship are good but a small ship entering at the edge of a system will likely get missed, at least initially. If your players remember to shut off their transponder and power down or get a planet or rock between them and the SD they can remain hidden for a while. Either way you should roll to see if they are spotted right away, add a few Setbacks and periodically roll again removing a Setback at a time.
I wouldn't swap it out with a smaller ship though unless you really do want to kill or capture the PCs because, ironically, a smaller capital ship or corvette is actually way more dangerous mechanically than the larger ships because they have a much higher probability to hit with their weapons.

1 hour ago, SFC Snuffy said:

The Vindicator is a bit of overkill, I think. A VT-49 Decimator , a Raider -class corvette, or maybe a CR-92 Assassin- class corvette would be still quite capable of defending itself from Rebel aggression, but not indicate such a high level of Imperial interest in the system.

I actually don't want them to fight, except maybe the TIE fighters. So a VT-49 or Raider is probably not a good idea. The players might actually see that as a tempting challenge. So, the Vindicator is overkill if they were to engage it; it is there as a big, looming threat. If they threaten it, they'll get tractored inside for questioning, and that's probably an adventure they don't want to have. I absolutely do want them to be curious why there is, apparently, such a high level of Imperial interest in this system, especially since they've been to this world before and have only found ancient ruins of a failed colonization effort.

12 minutes ago, FuriousGreg said:

I don't need details but why are the cruisers there? If they are blockading/controlling a particular planet or base they will be stationed close to it and unless the Player's ship enters from a star lane the Player's will see the SD long before they are spotted. The scanners on a capital ship are good but a small ship entering at the edge of a system will likely get missed, at least initially. If your players remember to shut off their transponder and power down or get a planet or rock between them and the SD they can remain hidden for a while. Either way you should roll to see if they are spotted right away, add a few Setbacks and periodically roll again removing a Setback at a time.

The Vindicator is there for an investigation mission. Somebody higher up has dispatched the heavy cruiser to check out what could be an important archaeological site, the aforementioned ancient colonization effort. There's something special going on there that has the interest of a few people particularly piqued. Ironically, what the PCs are going back to look for isn't in the ruins at all; they need to search elsewhere.

That's a great point about the heavy cruiser having better sensor range but possibly not spotting the PCs' vessel before the PCs spot them. When they enter the system, they'll be at Long range from the Vindicator. that's within the Vindicator's sensor range, but I'll roll a Perception check to see if they spot the PCs coming in. At Medium range, which is the PCs' sensor range, the PCs will spot the heavy cruiser automatically, and I'll make another roll with a bonus for the cruiser to spot them if the previous roll failed. At Short range, the Vindicator will spot them for sure.