So I want to open by saying that this isn't about trying to choose stats for a vehicle, and is more on the thought experiment side of things.

So in my campaign, the PCs failed to stop one of the antagonist factions from stealing plans to a heavy starfighter. It was specifically stated to be a more beefy vessel, with a crew of 2-3... but then, recently, I realized a stumbling point. I'm not sure what role such a fighter would have, or even what the crew would be needed for. Almost every example of similar fighters in SW, exist that way for a rear turret, and that was something I didn't want to do here.

Typically, you have your one-man high speed interceptors (A-wing, TIE Interceptor, Scyk), your all around fighters (X-wing, and some others), your fighter-bomber types (Y-wing, Tie Bomber)... and then you jump up to gunboats (Skipray, Firespray, Lancer). It's almost unheard of to find a non-gunner multi-crew, before the light freighters.

I suppose this is a cautionary tale, of adding content that you've planned, rather than trying to make it retroactively, but if anyone can think of uses for a craft fitting these conditions, I'd love to hear them.

"It was specifically stated to be a more beefy vessel, with a crew of 2-3."

By whom? By you/the GM? What did you have in mind when you specifically stated that? Could it be an experimental craft?

It could be a support craft, with a pilot and a support crew of 1-2 using experimental sensors, shield projectors (onto friendly ships) and comms/jamming suites, and a hyperdrive. Think of the Raptor from BSG.

21 minutes ago, panpolyqueergeek said:

"It was specifically stated to be a more beefy vessel, with a crew of 2-3."

By whom? By you/the GM? What did you have in mind when you specifically stated that? Could it be an experimental craft?

This is a game I'm running, yes. At the time, I didn't think too hard on it. I wrote it off as something to ponder later, with vague impressions of WWII planes and F-14s in my mind.

Then I came to realize that hyperdrive and automation takes out most of the need for multiple crew members on fighters in SW. Long distance fighters tend to travel their operational limit in a rather short time due to hyperspace travel, and even then, it's basically on autopilot. Bombadeers don't really seem to be a thing on anything within Silhouette 3.

The EA-6B is a 4-seater aircraft based on the A-6 airframe (normally a 2-seater with pilot and navigator/bombadier). The first seat is the pilot, and the other 3 are the ECM officers managing the various ECM and ECCM systems aboard the aircraft.

So, there's an example of a greater than 2-seater frame.

2 minutes ago, Enjeryuu said:

This is a game I'm running, yes. At the time, I didn't think too hard on it. I wrote it off as something to ponder later, with vague impressions of WWII planes and F-14s in my mind.

Then I came to realize that hyperdrive and automation takes out most of the need for multiple crew members on fighters in SW. Long distance fighters tend to travel their operational limit in a rather short time due to hyperspace travel, and even then, it's basically on autopilot. Bombadeers don't really seem to be a thing on anything within Silhouette 3.

There isn't much automation in Star Wars. Droids and "hacking" would make that very dangerous. That's part of why ships have such large crews.

It could be a bomber like the MG-100 StarFortress SF-17 of SW:The Last Jedi fame. If not a prototype of that exact ship.

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

According to this article it has a Crew of 5 which would actually make it pretty decent as a AOR pc-group ship.

It could also be useful to have a few escort fighter to a ship like this, if the PC's are trying to bring it down.

Also, it's manufactured by Slayn & Korpil, so that's another excuse to use the Verpine, and who doesn't love those bugs?

Arc-170 was a heavy fighter with a 2+ compliment. Granted, one was a turret gunner. But, you could always take a page from the modern worlds attack helicopters that use two people. One is the pilot while another is the gunner. Or from the last starfighter where it was a pilot/gunner and the navigator/engineer.

They specifically said they didn't want the additional crew to be gunner. Nav/Engineer works, but why would you have a crew member do that when astromechs usually fill that role? Cost efficiency, maybe?

The second crew member could do electronic warfare tasks: jamming, slice enemy systems, spoof missiles...

The third crew member could take co-pilot tasks not involved in piloting: boost shields, scanning, calculate jumps to hyperspace, navigation, give indications to the pilot about danger and enemy positions (giving him blue dices as the assist maneuver...)

Althought hyperspace jump calculations can be done by an astromech unit, there are dessigners that don't rely in astromechaninc droids, like Siennar.

For example, the Gunstar from the movie "The Last Starfighter" is a 1 pilot, 1 crew starfighter.

The Vulture or the Cobra MKIV from the Elite Dangerous videogame is also a 1 pilot, 1 crew starfighter size ship.

You can add a third crew member, if you see fit.

These two are only examples of not gunner, not co-pilot crew members.

If it's meant to be a fighter-bomber then a seat for a gunner that isn't a rear turret is an option - they're the payload specialist handling the missiles/torpedoes, probably seated right behind the pilot.

The E-warfare approach works if the fighter is meant to be a support craft or for the use of a wing leader (it's helpful to have someone else handling all that while you fly the thing), or possibly if the idea is that these things will be used specifically for a jamming assault (where shutting down enemy comms and disrupting capital ship systems is crucial - maybe you want to capture the ship rather than destroy it and that's what these things are designed to do).

Those could even be combined - an experimental heavy fighter that's built around being a missile boat rather than a laser platform, with a pilot, payload specialist, and E-warfare specialist.

Rebels had a two-seater version of the B-Wing, with the second crew member in charge of a BFG.

Like others have alluded to. I'd go EWAR heavy. So the pilot handles the ship and fights the "laser weapons". Then give it enough comms jammers/ECM/Chaff/Advanced Sensors that you need 1-2 more operators. 1 of which also doubles as Astrogation specialist and the other doubles as Engineer/Shield operator.

Maybe give it guided ordanace packages as well. That sort of stuff is always best handled by a weapons operator.

I suppose a weapons operator is different from a turret gunner, so that's something to consider. I've mostly been trying to avoid gunners, because a) I want to use this in a fighter role, and b) I want to encourage dogfighting. Any time things have a turret to cover their blind spots, things basically break down to "I shoot it", and that isn't any fun for either side. Turrets are great for players to have, bad for enemies (at least on the fighter scale).

7 hours ago, Enjeryuu said:

I suppose a weapons operator is different from a turret gunner, so that's something to consider. I've mostly been trying to avoid gunners, because a) I want to use this in a fighter role, and b) I want to encourage dogfighting. Any time things have a turret to cover their blind spots, things basically break down to "I shoot it", and that isn't any fun for either side. Turrets are great for players to have, bad for enemies (at least on the fighter scale).

Except that this isn't X-wing, the tactical board game. This is a narrative RPG, so facing and what weapons can be brought to bear is more about actions taken and skill roles than miniatures on a board with measuring sticks. Turrets just make it easier to have at least one weapon that might be used, heheh.

I think you could have a Pilot, A Flight Engineer, and a Weapons Officer. The ship can be bigger but still nimble (Millennium Falcon) so the dogfighting is intact. The Flight Engineer is responsible for the defensive actions like shields and maybe damage control. Having dedicated damage control controlled by a crew member could be necessary because of power resources and expenditure of repair resources/droids. The Weapons officer is responsible for the big weapons of the ship that have to be locked and launched or have power maintenance requirements, and also target tracking as in your F-14 example. The Weapons Officer is tracking all the targets and delivering options to the Pilot.

20 hours ago, Kallabecca said:

Except that this isn't X-wing, the tactical board game. This is a narrative RPG, so facing and what weapons can be brought to bear is more about actions taken and skill roles than miniatures on a board with measuring sticks. Turrets just make it easier to have at least one weapon that might be used, heheh.

It isn't a matter of it being a tactical board game or not. People don't like to describe things like pulling up on the six of the enemy fighter and lining up the shot, when they know that being behind the enemy puts them right in front of the enemies guns (ie: rear turret).

Why not use something like an H wing (1 pilot, 2 weapons systems operators) or a gunship like the Skipray Blastboat

FA-18F SuperHornet (2 seater) could be an example to emulate. Maybe cross that with the EA-6B Prowler for a ship crew compliment of: Pilot, Co-pilot/Weapons Operator (payload specialist), Radio Operator/ECM/Navigator, Engineer.

Would this satisfy the crew requirement and get the absolute most out the starship.

Big side of Sil 3 or small side of Sil4? If you go Sil 3, add astromech socket and base it off the HWK-290, Aka'jor Class Shuttle or the KST-100 and go crazy. If you go Sil 4, Oversize external weapons for Turbolasers!

YMMV, MTFBWY

It's an experimental craft, right?

If it's got better than average stats it could be because a new avionics system where all the kinks aren't worked out yet. Maybe it's got really good handling, but upgrades the difficulty once or twice on all pilot checks. Normally that would be pretty crippling, but it's quite easily mitigated by a copilot taking the copilot action. So the ship is basically designed that way to try these new systems out and try to make them work. You could also simply give it setback dice if there's no copilot.

A third crew member could be a weapons/electronics officer handling missiles and/or other ship systems like shields, sensors or just fixing strain. While such things can normally be handled by an astromech, perhaps the designers didn't trust droids much for whatever reason; maybe droids aren't seen as flexible enough or aren't trusted with starfighter scale weaponry by whoever built it.

Another option is range. Sure, starfighters can quite often manage a week or more so without refueling, but what about the crew? If designed with enough space so that a crew member can slide out of his seat and get some sleep in a small bunk and take a possibly uncomfortable bathroom break while another two remain ready at their stations, you could actually put such range to very good use. Even with just a week's worth of consumables, it's still a three days plus, with what is usually a first rate hyper drive, strike radius with a crew that would be reasonably rested and fit for duty. Of course, with that much hyperspace travel, it might be a good idea to bring a dedicated astrogator.

Lastly, consider a gunner. Sure, a fighter that can fire at all angles might feel a bit boring, but if you take a closer look at something like the ARC-170 (which I have, when building a cheap model kit of it), the rear gunner doesn't seem to have that much of an firing arc besides a fairly narrow cone straight backwards, nor does his guns seem all that big and powerful. If the rear gun is something like a light blaster cannon or an autoblaster, and strictly limited to rear arc, it would still be a quite useful weapon, but not something that would end any dogfight then and there. After all, it would struggle to take out even a light starfighter in a single attack and it's still got blind spots.

The Arc 170 has a crew of 3 plus an astromech.