You guys still going?

15 hours ago, GroggyGolem said:

Or, adopt the maneuver from Genesys that reduces hull trauma/crits by taking system strain and factor the system strain in as your shield's HP.

That's actually not bad.

Do you just disregard what's supposed to happen in Edge when a ship's system strain is exceeded if you are using those as shield hit points? (I'm not familiar with Genesys, other than I know it's a generic gaming system also by FFG)

If you wouldn't mind, could you elaborate on how that would work? Take a random hit from a ship weapon of say 10 points and show how that might get distributed to HT/SS? (or however you want to explain it. I'd just like a graphic example of what you mean so I could see how it would work.)

1 hour ago, Typherian said:

That's actually not bad.

Do you just disregard what's supposed to happen in Edge when a ship's system strain is exceeded if you are using those as shield hit points? (I'm not familiar with Genesys, other than I know it's a generic gaming system also by FFG)

If you wouldn't mind, could you elaborate on how that would work? Take a random hit from a ship weapon of say 10 points and show how that might get distributed to HT/SS? (or however you want to explain it. I'd just like a graphic example of what you mean so I could see how it would work.)

I don't disregard the system strain threshold, it provides a limit to how many times you can reduce damage/crits in this way and gives all the more reason to have a good engineer on your freighter.

The gist of the maneuver is it is a Pilot only maneuver but works for any silhouette at any speed. Narratively you brace for impact (which happens to be the name of the maneuver). Mechanically, you take a maneuver and until the beginning of the Pilot's next turn, whenever the vehicle is dealt damage, the vehicle can suffer system strain up to it's silhouette to reduce the damage it suffers, to a minimum of 0.

In addition if your vehicle were to take a crit, you can again suffer system strain up to it's silhouette to reduce the crit by 10 multiplied by the vehicle's silhouette, minimum 0 (if result is reduced to 0, no crit is taken).

So an example for each instance. this is using a silhouette 3 tie fighter and the silhouette 4 yt-1300 with a hull upgrade but no other modifications.

Round 1:

TIE Pilot got the initiative, so he Braces for Impact and shoots at the Millennium Falcon, misses.

Han also Braces for Impact and then shoots at the TIE Pilot, scores 1 success, bringing the incoming damage to 7. The TIE Pilot gets to choose at this point to use the effects of Brace for Impact and if he does, his vehicle suffers up to 3 system strain and can reduce the damage by 3. The remaining damage (4) then subtracts the armor value of the TIE (2) and the end result is that the TIE Pilot's ship suffers 2 hull trauma.

Round 2:

TIE Pilot fires at Han, scoring 4 success, 1 triumph. That's 10 damage and a potential crit coming at Han if the damage at least matches his vehicle's armor value. Han has the falcon reduce the incoming damage by 4 and the Falcon takes 4 system strain, then subtracs the armor of the Falcon (4) from the damage (6) and still ends up with 2 hull trauma (this assumes the armor on the Falcon is 4). The triumph can then be spent to crit, so the TIE Pilot rolls and gets 31. Han decides to use the effects of Brace for Impact again and has the Falcon suffer 4 system strain so that the crit is reduced to 0. Then Han mutters something about the shields holding for now and yells for Chewie to work on the hyperdrive so they can make a quick escape.

Han spends this turn Bracing for Impact again and makes a successful Piloting check to head into the nearby asteroid field for cover. 3-PO droidsplains the chances of successfully navigating said asteroid field.

Round 3...

14 minutes ago, GroggyGolem said:

I don't disregard the system strain threshold, it provides a limit to how many times you can reduce damage/crits in this way and gives all the more reason to have a good engineer on your freighter.

The gist of the maneuver is it is a Pilot only maneuver but works for any silhouette at any speed. Narratively you brace for impact (which happens to be the name of the maneuver). Mechanically, you take a maneuver and until the beginning of the Pilot's next turn, whenever the vehicle is dealt damage, the vehicle can suffer system strain up to it's silhouette to reduce the damage it suffers, to a minimum of 0.

In addition if your vehicle were to take a crit, you can again suffer system strain up to it's silhouette to reduce the crit by 10 multiplied by the vehicle's silhouette, minimum 0 (if result is reduced to 0, no crit is taken).

So an example for each instance. this is using a silhouette 3 tie fighter and the silhouette 4 yt-1300 with a hull upgrade but no other modifications.

Round 1:

TIE Pilot got the initiative, so he Braces for Impact and shoots at the Millennium Falcon, misses.

Han also Braces for Impact and then shoots at the TIE Pilot, scores 1 success, bringing the incoming damage to 7. The TIE Pilot gets to choose at this point to use the effects of Brace for Impact and if he does, his vehicle suffers up to 3 system strain and can reduce the damage by 3. The remaining damage (4) then subtracts the armor value of the TIE (2) and the end result is that the TIE Pilot's ship suffers 2 hull trauma.

Round 2:

TIE Pilot fires at Han, scoring 4 success, 1 triumph. That's 10 damage and a potential crit coming at Han if the damage at least matches his vehicle's armor value. Han has the falcon reduce the incoming damage by 4 and the Falcon takes 4 system strain, then subtracs the armor of the Falcon from the damage and still ends up with 2 hull trauma (this assumes the armor on the Falcon is 4). The triumph can then be spent to crit, so the TIE Pilot rolls and gets 31. Han decides to use the effects of Brace for Impact again and has the Falcon suffer 4 system strain so that the crit is reduced to 0. Then Han mutters something about the shields holding for now and yells for Chewie to work on the hyperdrive so they can make a quick escape.

Han spends this turn Bracing for Impact again and makes a successful Piloting check to head into the nearby asteroid field for cover. 3-PO droidsplains the chances of successfully navigating said asteroid field.

Round 3...

Great explanation!

This is pretty close to what I had in mind when I made the OP. (I was thinking there needed to be a set of "shield hit points" of a to be determined amount that took damage before getting into the armor soak and hull trauma part. I just always thought of shields working that way, and later in my life it seemed to be reinforced by the way Star Wars video games did shields. /shrug) (and I'm still not a trekkie so I've not been influenced by shields in that IP, but I saw people mention that's how Trek shields work)

Anyway, nice explanation and a system worthy of thought. Thanks for sharing.

3 minutes ago, Typherian said:

Thanks for sharing.

No problem, glad I could be of help.

4 minutes ago, Typherian said:

...a system worthy of thought.

Yep, I use the Genesys rules for vehicles in my star wars games, as they are superior and flow better than the weird sonic the hedgehog thing that happens with the star wars vehicle rules.

I also use their social encounter rules too, as the ones in Star Wars, even with a supplement that focused on social encounters, somehow they are still too vague.

I've always taken Star Wars shields to operate more like "deflectors." Ergo, an angled energy field or field of charged particles that serve to redirect rather than absorb incoming fire. As such, range and angle of attack vis-a-vis the deflectors would be critical, as would the intensity of the field vs. the strength of the attack. Big ships simply generate much more powerful fields at a greater distance from the hull than small ships, which would redirect or dissipate larger blasts from more angles (unless you are a small ship inside the field).

A more common scenario would be the Faclon vs. a tie fighter. The tie-fighter will be jockeying for a direct shot with an angle of attack that can score a hit rather than being deflected. Whoever is flying the Falcon is making the opposite effort: keep them firing at the area the deflectors are angled until you can work a firing solution for your turret.

Its a similar, but not identical, principle to the front armor of modern battle tanks. They are angled so as to deflect the majority of the blast away from the crew compartment when struck. Several nations have programs to take this to a science fiction level. The US, UK, and Israel all have "force field" development programs for tanks. The general principle is a supercapacitor energizes the armor material with an electromagnetic charge that, if the discharge is timed correctly, repels the incoming fire and reduces or eliminates the force the armor has to absorb.

4 hours ago, Vondy said:

I've always taken Star Wars shields to operate more like "deflectors." Ergo, an angled energy field or field of charged particles that serve to redirect rather than absorb incoming fire. As such, range and angle of attack vis-a-vis the deflectors would be critical, as would the intensity of the field vs. the strength of the attack. Big ships simply generate much more powerful fields at a greater distance from the hull than small ships, which would redirect or dissipate larger blasts from more angles (unless you are a small ship inside the field).

A more common scenario would be the Faclon vs. a tie fighter. The tie-fighter will be jockeying for a direct shot with an angle of attack that can score a hit rather than being deflected. Whoever is flying the Falcon is making the opposite effort: keep them firing at the area the deflectors are angled until you can work a firing solution for your turret.

Its a similar, but not identical, principle to the front armor of modern battle tanks. They are angled so as to deflect the majority of the blast away from the crew compartment when struck. Several nations have programs to take this to a science fiction level. The US, UK, and Israel all have "force field" development programs for tanks. The general principle is a supercapacitor energizes the armor material with an electromagnetic charge that, if the discharge is timed correctly, repels the incoming fire and reduces or eliminates the force the armor has to absorb.

And this would allow for there to be fine details of shield usage that help with the film illustrations... Maybe objects can pass through shields under the right circumstances? So when you see capital ships engaging each other at point-blank range it's because they are trying to get the opponents shield to overlap their guns? Also why fighters like to sweep in close to big ships?

And there seems to be more than one kind of shield. Deflectors on fighters. The exhaust port was called out as having Ray-shields that for some reason required the use of proton torpedoes. Planetary shields that need to bypassed. Bubble shields that seem quite good and just absorbing almost anything that hits it...

3 hours ago, Ghostofman said:

And this would allow for there to be fine details of shield usage that help with the film illustrations... Maybe objects can pass through shields under the right circumstances? So when you see capital ships engaging each other at point-blank range it's because they are trying to get the opponents shield to overlap their guns? Also why fighters like to sweep in close to big ships?

3 hours ago, Ghostofman said:

And there seems to be more than one kind of shield. Deflectors on fighters. The exhaust port was called out as having Ray-shields that for some reason required the use of proton torpedoes. Planetary shields that need to bypassed. Bubble shields that seem quite good and just absorbing almost anything that hits it...

I think those would be fair interpretations and a fairly consistent way of applying it.

Its obvious they designed this game to where its easy for offense to be king and defense to struggle unless you go all in on it. Even then Offense is still much better in every area of the game whether its range combat, melee combat, space combat.

The game is supposed to be fast and cinematic. The average combat encounter shouldn't last more than 4 or 5 rounds, but if you add an extra layer of Shield Threshold, that'll extend out the combat with any ship that has shields. One such ship might not add more than 1 round to the combat, but if you have 4 or 5? Yeesh, I don't want to be at that table.