I am contemplating making a modification (House ruled), for putting an External hardpoint on certain ships (mostly Ties that normally can't carry missiles or torps).
What cost would you say it should be? What effects should it have? Reduction in agility? Moving some speed maneuvers up from being non stressed to stressed??
A chief mechanic I think should be baked in with external hardpoints is the potential to loose them. Maybe every time you take a Ship header crit card, you roll to see if your hardpoint gets blown off. Or tie it to a specific crit like Direct Hit to remove the hardpoint.
I'd just make it a 2-point modification. That's about the price difference between a TIE/fo and a M3-A Scyk, and those are rather close ships except for the hardpoint. Maybe increase the cost more at higher initiatives. 2 points at Init 1-2, 3 points at Init 3-4, 4 points at Init 5-6.
I don't think it'd really need extra drawbacks, depending on context. IIRC, from seeing your username around the forums, you seem like you homebrew campaign stuff? In which case, 2 points or the mild scaling should be fine. In a more competitive context, maybe higher drawbacks would be appropriate, but fairly casually, cheap seems fine.
Also, I'd selectively house-rule various pilot abilities to not work with missiles or torpedoes. Like, Pure Sabacc shouldn't be throwing 5-dice Proton Torpedoes.
7 minutes ago, SabineKey said:A chief mechanic I think should be baked in with external hardpoints is the potential to loose them. Maybe every time you take a Ship header crit card, you roll to see if your hardpoint gets blown off. Or tie it to a specific crit like Direct Hit to remove the hardpoint.
Or this. This would be cool.
Maybe even a chance for the hardpoint explode. Roll once (hit or crit) to see if you lose it. If you lose it, roll a second time (crit only) to see if it explodes and deals a critical damage to your ship.
For 1.0 what @SabineKey suggests seems the best fit, if you're stepping into 2.0 with this 3-4 points or a single step difficulty increase to turns coupled with it costing 2 points works.
4 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:Or this. This would be cool.
Maybe even a chance for the hardpoint explode. Roll once (hit or crit) to see if you lose it. If you lose it, roll a second time (crit only) to see if it explodes and deals a critical damage to your ship.
Yeah, I thought about that. Had flashbacks to some of my early experiences with Battletech (bless you, Gauss rifle). You could really go in-depth based on what was equipped in the hard point, but that may be making things too complicated.
Well if you want heavy hardpoints it could effect the dial when loaded with a weapon over X amount of points.
8 hours ago, SabineKey said:A chief mechanic I think should be baked in with external hardpoints is the potential to loose them. Maybe every time you take a Ship header crit card, you roll to see if your hardpoint gets blown off. Or tie it to a specific crit like Direct Hit to remove the hardpoint.
As someone who's dad was An AF mechanic, i agree, there SHOULD be a system to see if the hardpoint gets blown off if you got hit. I was thinking
"Ships that have an external hard point roll, one red (attack) die, every time they take a hull hit. If the result is a Critical hit, the hard point gets blown off/damaged. If this happens, roll a 2nd time. On a critical, the missile on the hard point blows up dealing its normal damage to the ship carrying it.
8 hours ago, theBitterFig said:I'd just make it a 2-point modification. That's about the price difference between a TIE/fo and a M3-A Scyk, and those are rather close ships except for the hardpoint. Maybe increase the cost more at higher initiatives. 2 points at Init 1-2, 3 points at Init 3-4, 4 points at Init 5-6.
I don't think it'd really need extra drawbacks, depending on context. IIRC, from seeing your username around the forums, you seem like you homebrew campaign stuff? In which case, 2 points or the mild scaling should be fine. In a more competitive context, maybe higher drawbacks would be appropriate, but fairly casually, cheap seems fine.
Also, I'd selectively house-rule various pilot abilities to not work with missiles or torpedoes. Like, Pure Sabacc shouldn't be throwing 5-dice Proton Torpedoes.
I was thinking for a drawback "while the missile is attached, a ship that performs a 3 speed turn maneuver has it considered a red (Stressed) maneuver".