As far as I am aware, there are no rules for crashing with atmospheric vehicles. A good example of what I'm talking about is from "Landing at Point Rain" where Obi-Wan's gunship is shot down.
My proposal is as follows:
- Use the rules for falling. If a character is strapped in, they do not make a check, instead they are reliant on the pilot's Piloting check (using the same difficulty as Falling, with Boost and Setback for handling), but also reduce strain/damage by 5/7 and crit by 15.
- If a character is not strapped in (i.e. passenger compartment of the LAAT/i) they make an Athletics/Coordination check to lower damage, and yes, Triumph still reduces the fall by one slot.
- Determine Falling range band using the table for falling, but with these modifications : 1st slot is Speeds 1 and 2, 2nd slot is Speeds 3 and 4, 3rd slot is Speed 5 and up.
- Increase speed by 1 for every range band past Medium.
- Additionally, on the Piloting check, 3 Advantage is not spent, but indicates (so it still reduces strain) that the pilot lowered the Speed by 1, and a Triumph can be used to change your slot by one (i.e. 2nd slot down to 1st slot).
- Upon crashing, the vehicle has made a Major Collision and makes a crit roll with +10 for every speed past 1 it was going when it crashed.
Justifications:
- If you are strapped in, you aren't going to be able to save yourself, but you have the advantage of a safety harness and so are less likely to be hurt (good example, the ambassador Jar-Jar murdered in the [crashing] Nu-class shuttle on Florrum).
- I'm basically just pulling this one straight from the rules, so what's to justify?
- The distance you fall is about how fast you're going when you hit the ground (and how fast you stop, but that's somewhat irrelevant), so it makes sense to judge it based on speed.
- As you fall, you pick up speed until you hit terminal velocity, which I account for by the 5+ on the table, since the consequences for going that speed are pretty high already, it doesn't make much sense to increase it even more (unless you just want to rule them dead).
- I'm not sure about the "indicates" vs. "spent" on this one, but one argument for it is that lower speed reduces the crit roll by 10, so you don't have to choose between reducing 3 strain or reducing the vehicles crit roll (since it is possible that reducing speed by one doesn't reduce your slot).
- Basically the Major Collision rules, but since you are smacking into the ground as opposed to bumping into something that will move (thereby slowing your stopping speed), I think it makes sense to add to the crit roll based on the speed you're going.