19 hours ago, OddballE8 said:

It's basically a matter of cost for the Empire.

They see their troops as disposable, thus they want the cheapest equipment possible (that's still effective enough to be useful, of course).

It's like how there have been many prototype vehicles developed for the US (or for most other nations, for that matter) military that were improvements over what they currently used, but the benefits were not considered enough to outweigh the cost.

Basically using the BARC speeder would have cost the empire a lot more than to switch to the 74-Z, for doing much the same job in the end. Do you really need heavy armour on a fast moving speeder bike where the pilot is exposed anyway? Not according to the Empire, at least...

It feels like that should be the case, but the numbers and mechanics don't back it up well. It's not like the TIE/ln (which I think FFG did a better job than most game developers on, possibly the most logically representation of the TIE by anyone to date) that can fit a certain box where it makes sense in-game alongside a narrative doctrinal shift that can actually be compared to real world doctrinal arguments.

The BARC is 3x tougher than the 74 by HT... ok, that works, no argument here.

It's armor is more like that of an armored car... I dunno. I get that it's a combat vehicle, but as a recon/scout vehicle armor isn't required. And as an open-topped vehicle that makes it weirder. The vehicle is basically able to shrug off most small arms fire and fragmentation where the driver is exposed and can be hit by both those things... why bother? Both from a narrative and mechanical perspective its really odd and not consistent with existing statted speederbikes.

It's cannons are capable of threatening dedicated armored vehicles and obliterating entire minion groups in one shot. Sorry, this is where it really starts to not make sense both narrative and mechanically. If the BARC were supposed to be like that silly scooter with a recoilless rifle the French had in WWII, then on... but it's not, it a recon bike. ROTC already established that scout bikes are armed in Star Wars so ok, but I don't see how light blaster cannons make sense as that weapon other than just a hasty comparison of Wookieepedia to table 7-1 with no actual thought to game functions.

It can take a sidecar with a repeating blaster... This was in the toon and narratively makes it comparable to WWII German bikes that mounted a machine gun on a sidecar.. ok that alone is fine. But mechanically it's silly, as the light blaster cannons can already do that job better almost all the time.

It's got the speed an handling as the 74z.... yeah no, either they're both light, or this one should have been slower/less maneuverable.

It's cost and rarity are insane for a bike. This does work, but only in reference to the power level of this thing as statted, and can certainly explain the shift to the 74z, but that's kinda it... Scale the BARC down to be more on-par with other bikes and you can drop both these down to something more reasonable while still making it pricey compared to the later option.

But I think the BARC is just the worst offender. While we've had oddballs in the past (hut floater with an auto-blaster when a repeater would have probably made more sense) this kinda stuff is becoming a bit more common. The AT-AP's cannon in Knights of Fate was so good it made turbolasers obsolete, but when restatted in the Clone War books it's scaled down to Personal which also doesn't really work. The TX-160 is so good it makes AT-ATs questionable.The HMP's armor is 4 making it immune to missile tubes without some really hefty Talents involved when we see them taken down by RPS-6's several times on screen. You could say that all those character had at least Heavy Hitter, but giving the gunship's Armor 2 or 3 would have just as easily fixed it while keeping in line with the craft's function and ability.

So yeah... comparing the ARC-170 to the TIE/LN works, as it's a shift from big complex, expensive, multi-crew, multi-mission craft, to a small, cheap, quick, single seater, narrow mission profile craft that can still be described as "better" than many of it's contemporaries. The ARC-170 vs. TIE/ln represents the star wars fighter equivalent of the real world argument over a cruiser vs. a flotilla of corvettes. But explaining some of these other things is a lot harder.

13 minutes ago, Ghostofman said:

It's armor is more like that of an armored car... I dunno. I get that it's a combat vehicle, but as a recon/scout vehicle armor isn't required. And as an open-topped vehicle that makes it weirder. The vehicle is basically able to shrug off most small arms fire and fragmentation where the driver is exposed and can be hit by both those things... why bother? Both from a narrative and mechanical perspective its really odd and not consistent with existing statted speederbikes.

It's cannons are capable of threatening dedicated armored vehicles and obliterating entire minion groups in one shot. Sorry, this is where it really starts to not make sense both narrative and mechanically. If the BARC were supposed to be like that silly scooter with a recoilless rifle the French had in WWII, then on... but it's not, it a recon bike. ROTC already established that scout bikes are armed in Star Wars so ok, but I don't see how light blaster cannons make sense as that weapon other than just a hasty comparison of Wookieepedia to table 7-1 with no actual thought to game functions.

It can take a sidecar with a repeating blaster... This was in the toon and narratively makes it comparable to WWII German bikes that mounted a machine gun on a sidecar.. ok that alone is fine. But mechanically it's silly, as the light blaster cannons can already do that job better almost all the time.

It's got the speed an handling as the 74z.... yeah no, either they're both light, or this one should have been slower/less maneuverable.

It's cost and rarity are insane for a bike. This does work, but only in reference to the power level of this thing as statted, and can certainly explain the shift to the 74z, but that's kinda it... Scale the BARC down to be more on-par with other bikes and you can drop both these down to something more reasonable while still making it pricey compared to the later option.

But I think the BARC is just the worst offender. While we've had oddballs in the past (hut floater with an auto-blaster when a repeater would have probably made more sense) this kinda stuff is becoming a bit more common. The AT-AP's cannon in Knights of Fate was so good it made turbolasers obsolete, but when restatted in the Clone War books it's scaled down to Personal which also doesn't really work. The TX-160 is so good it makes AT-ATs questionable.The HMP's armor is 4 making it immune to missile tubes without some really hefty Talents involved when we see them taken down by RPS-6's several times on screen. You could say that all those character had at least Heavy Hitter, but giving the gunship's Armor 2 or 3 would have just as easily fixed it while keeping in line with the craft's function and ability.

I'd keep the armor to 1, but drop the WT to 4, allowing it to be one-shot by light blaster cannons. As for the armament, I'd say 4 LRBs, probably linked 1, if for no other reason than that we see them alternate rather than all firing simultaneously. Then for the sidecar, probably another LRB, because no way is that thing an HRB.

I think putting the AT-AP's cannon to personal scale was a mistake, because there's no way that they intended for it to do less damage than a blaster rifle, albeit with Breach 4. That just isn't a thing. I'd switch it to Planetary scale and change the range to Short, which matches up with the AT-TE.

I guess the GM let the PCs and major NPCs use called shot on the HMP to ignore some armor? I'm not really a fan of Missile Tubes I've gotta admit. They seem pretty weak. Giving them Breach 2 seems like it would accomplish a lot.

24 minutes ago, Ghostofman said:

It feels like that should be the case, but the numbers and mechanics don't back it up well. It's not like the TIE/ln (which I think FFG did a better job than most game developers on, possibly the most logically representation of the TIE by anyone to date) that can fit a certain box where it makes sense in-game alongside a narrative doctrinal shift that can actually be compared to real world doctrinal arguments.

The BARC is 3x tougher than the 74 by HT... ok, that works, no argument here.

It's armor is more like that of an armored car... I dunno. I get that it's a combat vehicle, but as a recon/scout vehicle armor isn't required. And as an open-topped vehicle that makes it weirder. The vehicle is basically able to shrug off most small arms fire and fragmentation where the driver is exposed and can be hit by both those things... why bother? Both from a narrative and mechanical perspective its really odd and not consistent with existing statted speederbikes.

It's cannons are capable of threatening dedicated armored vehicles and obliterating entire minion groups in one shot. Sorry, this is where it really starts to not make sense both narrative and mechanically. If the BARC were supposed to be like that silly scooter with a recoilless rifle the French had in WWII, then on... but it's not, it a recon bike. ROTC already established that scout bikes are armed in Star Wars so ok, but I don't see how light blaster cannons make sense as that weapon other than just a hasty comparison of Wookieepedia to table 7-1 with no actual thought to game functions.

It can take a sidecar with a repeating blaster... This was in the toon and narratively makes it comparable to WWII German bikes that mounted a machine gun on a sidecar.. ok that alone is fine. But mechanically it's silly, as the light blaster cannons can already do that job better almost all the time.

It's got the speed an handling as the 74z.... yeah no, either they're both light, or this one should have been slower/less maneuverable.

It's cost and rarity are insane for a bike. This does work, but only in reference to the power level of this thing as statted, and can certainly explain the shift to the 74z, but that's kinda it... Scale the BARC down to be more on-par with other bikes and you can drop both these down to something more reasonable while still making it pricey compared to the later option.

But I think the BARC is just the worst offender. While we've had oddballs in the past (hut floater with an auto-blaster when a repeater would have probably made more sense) this kinda stuff is becoming a bit more common. The AT-AP's cannon in Knights of Fate was so good it made turbolasers obsolete, but when restatted in the Clone War books it's scaled down to Personal which also doesn't really work. The TX-160 is so good it makes AT-ATs questionable.The HMP's armor is 4 making it immune to missile tubes without some really hefty Talents involved when we see them taken down by RPS-6's several times on screen. You could say that all those character had at least Heavy Hitter, but giving the gunship's Armor 2 or 3 would have just as easily fixed it while keeping in line with the craft's function and ability.

So yeah... comparing the ARC-170 to the TIE/LN works, as it's a shift from big complex, expensive, multi-crew, multi-mission craft, to a small, cheap, quick, single seater, narrow mission profile craft that can still be described as "better" than many of it's contemporaries. The ARC-170 vs. TIE/ln represents the star wars fighter equivalent of the real world argument over a cruiser vs. a flotilla of corvettes. But explaining some of these other things is a lot harder.

I disagree. The comparison is and reasoning work for both examples.

The BARC speeder isn’t just “recon”. It’s Force recon . In other words, they are user for both basic reconnaissance as well as direct action.

31 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I'd keep the armor to 1, but drop the WT to 4, allowing it to be one-shot by light blaster cannons. As for the armament, I'd say 4 LRBs, probably linked 1, if for no other reason than that we see them alternate rather than all firing simultaneously. Then for the sidecar, probably another LRB, because no way is that thing an HRB.

I think putting the AT-AP's cannon to personal scale was a mistake, because there's no way that they intended for it to do less damage than a blaster rifle, albeit with Breach 4. That just isn't a thing. I'd switch it to Planetary scale and change the range to Short, which matches up with the AT-TE.

I guess the GM let the PCs and major NPCs use called shot on the HMP to ignore some armor? I'm not really a fan of Missile Tubes I've gotta admit. They seem pretty weak. Giving them Breach 2 seems like it would accomplish a lot.

I actually went with a weapon similar to a heavy blaster rifle on the BARC so both the sidecar and 74z carried "better" weapons thus justifying both easily. Originally I didn't change the Armor, but after playing it, I will for the future. At Armor 1 it's really hard for common NPCs to damage a BARC even with a blaster rifle/carbine and I didn't really want to have to have a special droid with a missile launcher in every patrol just to handle BARCs.

My head-canon on it is the BARCs worked just fine for scout/recon and the sidecar made it a respectable mobile repeater platform, but after-actions and doctrine analysis found that in mobile combat the bikes did better running long strafing runs over trying to be a mobile gun platform. So the shift to the lighter 74z with a repeating blaster makes logical sense as the Empire shifted to a Many Small Units style doctrinal concept. Essentially once gotten under control the shift from BARCs to 74z's is the same as the shift from ARC's to TIEs for the exact same reasons.

I was thinking more something like allowing the AT-PT to direct fire out to something like Short or Medium, but anything beyond that would be indirect and require some kind of spotter or other method of getting target data.

Real world discussion being 1) That would make it like the US Army's Future Combat Systems mounted fighting vehicle (not a tank because it didn't have heavy enough armor). It was supposed to have a direct-fire cannon comparable to a tank's, but also could load long-range indirect fire rounds and perform artillery-like fire missions. and 2) Naval Integrate Fire Control -Counter-Air where the Navy has found it can hit targets further away provided there's a spotting aircraft to send back targeting data, because even though the missiles have the range, the ship can't detect things after a certain distance because the PLANET starts getting in the way.

I've been considering switching to a 5:1 ratio but have decided against it.

First of all, personal weapons vs vehicles seems like it works decently. Armor 1 means that it's roughly proof against blaster pistols, but rifles can still cause damage (crits). Armor 2 is fairly proof against personal scale weapons.

That said, I'm letting people use the aim maneuver to bypass this, using common sense. Open topped speeder or speeder bike? Aim maneuver to hit the driver. In an open topped speeder like Lukes, I'd consider adding a setback die for cover, at least compared to the bike. Targeting a stationary vehicle like Poe's X-wing, a landed Millennium Falcon with personal scale blasters, I'm not even sure I would treat as a combat check. More like a skill check using mechanics or knowledge warfare to find a vulnerable spot. Difficulty dependent on the ships armor, what weapon you're using and what type of vehicle it is; a tank is built to have as few unarmoured areas as possible, while starships seemingly need to keep their engines uncovered. Common sense. I'd also let people use the aim maneuver to target a less armored area, like a TIEs windshield to reduce it's effective armor value for that hit. Again, if it's covered in armor, setback dice will be added. Reducing the armor by how much? Decided on a cases by case basis

Secondly, I figured that the damage output vs personal scale didn't really matter whether it was 5:1 or 10:1. An autoblaster still does a minimum of 20 damage for every hit at 5:1, which is generally enough to take most people out of the fight, and it just goes up from there. It's easier to just resign yourself to the idea that vehicle scale weapons will toast pretty much anything personal scale it hits. Should players use such weapons to hunt Krayt Dragons or Rancors, I might consider it, but since they haven't, and since 20mm cannons would probably do a decent job of killing elephants, I'm fine with it. I've also considered a 5:1 rating combined with successes only adding personal scale damage against personal scale targets, but that also only adds complexity without solving much. Vehicle weapons would still be one-shot weapons against almost any personal scale target. I'd consider mitigating their effect against minions groups though.

Oh yeah, I'm letting reflect subtract damage before converting it to personal scale, so there's that.