Hi, I got a question about the multitude of vehicle weapons on a vehicle.

Take for example the AT-ST. It has three weapons but only one gunner.

• Port-mounted light blaster cannon
• Chin-mounted twin heavy blaster cannons
• Starboard-mounted concussion grenade launcher

The heavy blaster cannon does more damage, has Linked 1, and no Slow-firing, so why would the gunner ever bother with using the lighter weapon? What is the design thought behind this? Same thing with the AT-AT (also has only one gunner in crew).

29 minutes ago, SSB_Shadow said:

Hi, I got a question about the multitude of vehicle weapons on a vehicle.

Take for example the AT-ST. It has three weapons but only one gunner.

• Port-mounted light blaster cannon
• Chin-mounted twin heavy blaster cannons
• Starboard-mounted concussion grenade launcher

The heavy blaster cannon does more damage, has Linked 1, and no Slow-firing, so why would the gunner ever bother with using the lighter weapon? What is the design thought behind this? Same thing with the AT-AT (also has only one gunner in crew).

The pilot can take an action to fire a weapon. The main point is just that that's what the vehicle was typically armed with.

If I were statting the AT-ST, I'd probably have given it an auto-blaster instead of a light blaster cannon to give it an anti-vehicle weapon (linked) and an anti-infantry weapon (auto-fire).

1 hour ago, SSB_Shadow said:

Hi, I got a question about the multitude of vehicle weapons on a vehicle.

Take for example the AT-ST. It has three weapons but only one gunner.

• Port-mounted light blaster cannon
• Chin-mounted twin heavy blaster cannons
• Starboard-mounted concussion grenade launcher

I've imagined the port and starboard weapons were the gunner's. He could switch between the area effect of the grenade launcher or the more precise blaster cannon. The driver had the heavy blaster cannon for his use.

4 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

If I were statting the AT-ST, I'd probably have given it an auto-blaster instead of a light blaster cannon to give it an anti-vehicle weapon (linked) and an anti-infantry weapon (auto-fire).

I do that and I also replace the grenade launcher with a concussion missile launcher (Limited Ammo 3) for taking out hardened targets at greater ranges than the blasters. Now it's sensibly armed with 3 weapons each with a different primary purpose.

17 hours ago, SSB_Shadow said:

Hi, I got a question about the multitude of vehicle weapons on a vehicle.

Take for example the AT-ST. It has three weapons but only one gunner.

• Port-mounted light blaster cannon
• Chin-mounted twin heavy blaster cannons
• Starboard-mounted concussion grenade launcher

The heavy blaster cannon does more damage, has Linked 1, and no Slow-firing, so why would the gunner ever bother with using the lighter weapon? What is the design thought behind this? Same thing with the AT-AT (also has only one gunner in crew).

Because that's it's canon loadout and crew: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/All_Terrain_Scout_Transport . A lot of the weird vehicle profile stuff is just down to canon.

They should definitely have reworked it to be more actually useful, though. One issue I'd have with the suggestion of giving the anti-infantry weapon autofire is that autofire needs an increase in difficulty and two advantage to activate, which given the +1 difficulty boost from firing at targets 2 silhouette smaller, means it attacks personal-scale targets at difficulty 4. An Imperial Armour Corps Crewman is pretty unlikely to hit anyone doing that- they'd be far better off firing the heavy blaster cannon instead (and could get multiple hits with extra advantage from it being Linked anyway). What the system really needs is a weapon quality called "Point Defence" which treats the vehicle silhouette as being 1 smaller when firing. That effect is in a sidebar for capital ships (p267 of the EotE core) but nowhere else, weirdly.

That would make a non-autofiring autoblaster difficulty 2, and you don't exactly need multiple hits with it, as given it deals 30 personal-scale damage it's wiping a PC or entire minion group with a single one.

The only thing that would really make the grenade launcher worthwhile would be if you used a 5x personal to vehicle scale multiplier instead of 10x. Then it would out-damage the other weapons against tightly-packed minion groups. Otherwise its only benefit is the ability to trigger Blast on a miss.

1 hour ago, Talkie Toaster said:

An Imperial Armour Corps Crewman is pretty unlikely to hit anyone doing that- they'd be far better off firing the heavy blaster cannon instead (and could get multiple hits with extra advantage from it being Linked anyway).

Autofire allows the hits from one attack roll to be spread to multiple targets while Linked does not. You're not wrong that it would take a very good roll to do so with Autofire, but it is impossible without it.

3 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

Autofire allows the hits from one attack roll to be spread to multiple targets while Linked does not. You're not wrong that it would take a very good roll to do so with Autofire, but it is impossible without it.

True! I guess there's also no point triggering Linked against a personal-scale target either, as only a Rancor or Krayt Dragon can take even one hit from a heavy blaster cannon.

5 hours ago, Talkie Toaster said:

Because that's it's canon loadout and crew: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/All_Terrain_Scout_Transport . A lot of the weird vehicle profile stuff is just down to canon.

They should definitely have reworked it to be more actually useful, though. One issue I'd have with the suggestion of giving the anti-infantry weapon autofire is that autofire needs an increase in difficulty and two advantage to activate, which given the +1 difficulty boost from firing at targets 2 silhouette smaller, means it attacks personal-scale targets at difficulty 4. An Imperial Armour Corps Crewman is pretty unlikely to hit anyone doing that- they'd be far better off firing the heavy blaster cannon instead (and could get multiple hits with extra advantage from it being Linked anyway). What the system really needs is a weapon quality called "Point Defence" which treats the vehicle silhouette as being 1 smaller when firing. That effect is in a sidebar for capital ships (p267 of the EotE core) but nowhere else, weirdly.

That would make a non-autofiring autoblaster difficulty 2, and you don't exactly need multiple hits with it, as given it deals 30 personal-scale damage it's wiping a PC or entire minion group with a single one.

The only thing that would really make the grenade launcher worthwhile would be if you used a 5x personal to vehicle scale multiplier instead of 10x. Then it would out-damage the other weapons against tightly-packed minion groups. Otherwise its only benefit is the ability to trigger Blast on a miss.

This wasn't why I answered the way I did, but I actually houseruled vehicle-mounted weapons to target based on a preferred minimum targeting silhouette rather than based on the firing vehicle, and on the speed or range of the target.

Auto-Blasters have a preferred silhouette of 2, so they are the most effective non-AOE planetary-scale starship/vehicle weapon.

For my houserules, when targeting infantry, difficulty is based on range (personal-scale, past Extreme is Close range at Formidable) or is Average, whichever is higher. Then you upgrade by the weapon/target silhouette difference (or vice versa, if the other is higher).
So targeting infantry at Medium range with Auto-Fire would be Average, upgraded once, +1 Difficulty for Auto-Fire.

In the RAW, it'd be a Daunting check at any range.

I rebalanced how personal-scale and vehicles interact in ranges and targeting difficulties so that you can more easily use the two together in a manner reflecting what we see on screen (and to nerf super-sonic AT-ATs).

Note: Fixed weapons use the vehicle's silhouette. If they are guided, articulated, or turreted, they use the weapon's targeting silhouette.