Hello Testers,

This thread is stickied for the purpose of posting feedback and comments concerning the equipment mechanics. Thanks, everyone!

I'm confused about the cost to activate a weapon quality. There seems to be conflicting information in the text, unless I am misunderstanding it.

Pg 105
Weapon Qualities, 2nd paragraph, 2nd sentence

"Active qualities must be triggered by the user, often by spending [Adv] to activate the effect."

Pg 105
Weapon Qualities, 3rd paragraph, 3rd sentence

"Qualities require [Adv][Adv] to activate unless otherwise stated in their description."

So does it normally cost 1 Advantage symbol to activate a quality, or 2?

I don't know if I am missing it, but in the section on Encumbrance on page 103, it mentions that armor's value is treated differently when worn. But I can't seem to find the place where it details the difference.

Venthrac said:

It almost reads like the first reference simply to the type of resource, and then the second is the actual cost. But I agree that it could use some tweaking for clarification.

I think you have it exactly right, Ink. I re-read it later and when viewed that way, it makes perfect sense. It's not always easy to know when a single instance of the Advantage icon is intended to mean the general resource, or a literal cost of exact of exactly 1 Advantage.

The Defensive quality requires a maneuver to activate.

This means that it will render talents like Improved Side Step pratically useless (there are already very few options to increase defense).

Maybe it could be activated with 2 Advantages (like other qualities) OR 1 Maneuver.

Two advantages can also generate an second maneuver IIRC. This does sort of allow a player to activeae it when that is an option but also lets them give up their initial maneuver to be sure that its active.

cetiken said:

Yes, but this manuevers too counts against the "no more than 2 maneuvers during your turn" rule.

So if I use Improved Side Step (or similar), I won't be able to use the Deflect quality of a weapon.

LukeZZ said:

As promised I did some more Dice Math relevant to this discussion.

Beta Star Wars EotE, page 125, Talent Forearm Grip:

Modification Options: Innate Talent (Snap Shot)

Apparently there is no such thing as a "Snap Shot" Talent.

I couldn't find one. Maybe its an artifact from an early iteration of the ruleset?

OB-1 said:

I found that Snapshot is instead a weapon quality (page 107).

So instead of "I nnate Talent (Snap Shot) Mod " the text in page 125 should read " Weapon Quality (Snapshot) Mod ".

Star Wars Beta: EotE, Page 115, Table 5-8 Gear:

Bacta (liter) cost: 20 Enc: 1 Rarity:1

Bacta (full tank) cost: 4.000 Enc:12 Rarity:1

How many liters a bacta full tank holds, how much is spent in each use/month and how much is the maintenance costs of a bacta tank?

I know some player groups will want one of these things in their ship.

Hey OB-1. you should put these comments in the proofreading forums as well. That's the place to report errors in the text.

I find Jetpacks to be a bit confusing w/ regard to how (or if) they affect combat. Do they even get used in combat? If so, do they use the vehicle combat rules and maneuver options? Do they use planetary range band measurement? Are they just for non-combat related travel and exploration?

Maybe I'm missing something or just not familiar enough with the vehicle rules.

Venthrac said:

Venthrac,

That same observation is there in the proofreading forum already, as I later found out.

Nevertheless, I've found useful to put it in here too, as it directly answered the question posed in my previous post.

Anyway, thanks for the heads up.

For the knockdown quality (pg 106), it doesn't specify what the rating does. I'm assuming it's the number of rounds it applies, but it doesn't explicitly state that anywhere.

SergeantVau said:

I'm inclined to think that the numerical value is how many points of Advantage need to be spent to activate that quality, as given in the description citing "unless it says otherwise, costs two Advantage to activate this quality," but the only two weapons that have the Knockdown quality (bowcasters and bolas/nets) both list "Knockdown 3," so they're not much help.

I agree, this could use some clarification.

Donovan Morningfire said:

+1 to the explanation and agreement on clarification.

Though, Unarmed Attacks have the Knockdown quality, and I don't think it has anything after it? Just Knockdown? I can't check my book just this second though.

Inksplat said:

Just checked the description on page 137, and it just says unarmed attacks have the Knockdown quality, with no number given.

Seems kinda odd that a weapon (bolas and nets) that are largely intended to take someone to the ground have a harder time doing so than just a regular punch.

Donovan Morningfire said:

Well, there's the Grappling Sidebar that says Unarmed is meant to also represent grappling and wrestling as well. That, and the bowcaster + bola are ranged. Aaaand the bola has the awesome ability to completely lock someone down. So, one less advantage cost isn't too bad a tradeoff for having to get in close, i think.

Especially since its more useful to knockdown a melee threat than a ranged one anyway. Knocking down a melee opponent down means he can't advance on you. Knocking a ranged opponent down..well, he can still shoot at you just fine.

Upgrades and Modifications - One thing that always comes up is - How long does it take to install an attachment (or mod), what is the base difficulty for installing an attachment, and is the listed cost for someone else to install it or for the player to install it themselves?

I would suggest that the install time is a set amount per hard point (modified by silhouette for starships), base difficulty is again based on hard points required, and that the cost is for buying a new component with the player installing it, double the cost to get a skilled mechanic to install it and reduce the cost based on used parts?

What do you think?

I would recomend the install time for modifications be 'one downtime'.

Honestly, the time reqired to modify equipment has never been an issue for me, unless there's some plot reason why the characters are trying to do it on the fly (in which case it becomes based on checks). Otherwise they just do it between missions/adventures. As for cost, I tend to assume the cost of installation is included in the price of the item.

On page 104 under "Lifting and Carrying Excessive Encumbrance" it states:

"If a character needs to lift an object greater than his encumbrance threshold, such as an ally who has fallen off a gantry or ledge, he must make a Brawn test. The difficulty is Simple if the object's Encumbrance value is less than or equal to the character's encumbrance threshold."

I feel this shouldn't have this second sentence as it seems to be unnecessary since it's qualifier of the object having an Encumbrance less than his threshold would mean that no test is necessary anyway.

Also, it should probably say "…needs to lift an object with an Encumbrance value greater than…".

Also the sentence following this section should probably have "…, up to a maximum of, difficulty of Daunting." changed to "…, up to a maximum difficulty of Daunting."

Quicksilver said:

Gm caveat is all well and good, I am pretty adept at hand waving downtime but sometimes my players are travelling from a to b or staying at b for a few hours/days and would like to work on things while waiting and I would like some rough guidelines on when to say, "Yes you can install the new hyperdrive in a day whilst in dock" or "no it will take more than a few hours in hyperspace to sort out that attachment mod". Having rough guidelines not only helps me be consistent but it helps me to know when a player wants to rush an install, which is always good to play out.

For me the cost, has to either be for installing it yourself (and then charge extra for having an expert do it) or for getting someone else to install it, and if its the later my players (which are invariably short of cash) will want to know how much a spare part would cost that they could install themselves. Again rough guidelines would help with this.

Perhaps a sidebar saying that the cost for items includes installation, however a PC could half this cost by installing it themselves and further reduce this by using spare parts, the price cannot be reduced to less than 25% of base cost?

The hard part with installation times and costs is how variable they are depending on both the modification and the item being modified. To take the classic example of Starship Modification; Corrillian ships were famous for being quick and easy to modify, as they had plenty of spare room, slack in the wires, slide-off panels and robust system that could handle slap-shod upgrading. Kuati ships, in comparison, were finely tuned they were notoriously difficult to upgrade with non-standard parts given their virtually inaccessible components (at least without a full dockyard to disassemble the thing) tight fit parts and the Kuati legal team shutting down knock off producers. (note: the firespray was designed to be maintained at less advanced facilities then typical Kuati designs) This doesn't even cover what the person is trying to install, just what they're installing it on.

In general though, I think calling installation half the cost is overly generous. I wouldn't give more than a 10%-25% discount depending on the complexity of the job. Any more than that and I think you'd have to really consider how much reward your giving your players, as it's going to go much farther then 'normal'.

Spare parts are great for repairs, but they're useless for upgrading as the whole idea is to add new different parts, not spares of the old ones. Now if they found, say 50% of the parts needed for an upgrade, then that's ~50% off the cost, but it only helps if they're going for that upgrade. Otherwise we're just talking standard sized nuts and washers, which are negligible.

Time is even more variable. Applying a Blastech scope upgrade kit to your Blastech Rifle might be as simple as screwing it on and sighting it, taking a total of half an hour to do slowly and "right". Adding an accelerated hyperdrive motivator could mean a week in the mechanics bay has you completely disassemble the back half of your ship. Whatever mathematical guideline you use, I'd approximate it with Cost x Size, with good tools dropping to 75% time, and poor (or no) tools doubling or tripling the time.