Good points but the gunner's extra successes matter and they don't for the pilot.

Not to mention the triumphs.

Plus the gunner is going to be granting crazy boost dice to other gunner/pilot and setback dice to hitting the ship. Or maybe I'm supposed to let the pilot rolls use Table 2-1 also? That seems like it would make a strong pilot make a huge difference.

usgrandprix said:

bingo.

The problem I see is that Gain the Advantage is the only action that requires a Pilot skill roll and it just does not come up enough.

The biggest advantage the YT has is 2 manuevers without giving up any attacks. This happens regardless of the pilot's skill and becasue the gunners are doing the attacks.

So I see the best decisions the YT can make are:

1. Spend one manuever on Move to Short range and one manuever on Evasive Action. This is probably the best option. If you move from Close to Short the TIEs automatically have to waste their manuver on Move becasue of the range of their guns. So they are never taking Evasive Action or Aim or, most importantly with superior number, Stay on Target. They are single pilot and often minion so they rarely get a second manuever if they want to attack. Good gunners (taking Aim) can then concentrate on taking out the TIEs and even when missing using their advantage to grant the pilot manuevers to get out of range of the TIEs completely. So the gunnuer skill is getting the ship away from the TIEs and the Skilled Jockey PC pilot is not.

or

2. Take Evasive Action twice (no skill required). This almost forces some/all TIEs into wasting a round taking Gain the Advantage to have a good shot at hitting the next round. They are not guaranteed to do this either. But the YT's pilot skill does not matter because the difficulty of the skilll check for the TIEs to Gain the Advantage is not opposed by the skill of the pilot. But this is clearly not the better option unless the Gunners get lucky and grant mauneves to the pilot, which would mean the TIEs cannot use Evasive Action.

In neither of these two options does the YT's pilot skill come into play so any pilot can do this. It's all about Gunnery.

As to the YT Pilots skill not mattering in your example:

If the YT pilot manages to "Gain the Advantage" first, then he raises the difficulty for the Tie fighters by one… only a good pilot will reliably gain the advantage first.

If they instead manage to "Gain Advantage" then the Pilot will likely want to cancel that, which is a whopping 4 difficulty dice thanks to the speed of the tie fighters and them having the Advantage. Plus Setback dice, if it isn't a "skilled jockey" at the helm.

And if taking two evasive maneuvres by spending some strain actually stacks (don't remember right now), then there is even more incentive for wanting to "Gain Advantage" reliably as now we are usually talking about 3 upgrades to the difficulty that want to be cancelled.

I ran a session on Monday where the heroes headed to orbit and were chased by cloakshape fighters through the skyscrapers of Nar Shadaa and because of the traffic/buildings I implemented a piloting roll as per the rules for terrain in the beta book (page number escaped me) and I think that this needs to be taken into account when performing starship/vehicle maneuvres. Because whilst a maneuvre might not need a roll, avoiding incoming traffic and obstacles certainly will.

Also, has anyone seen a crib sheet for starship maneuvres/actions as its a real pain flipping through the book and errata for this as its not used that often?

I did think that maneuvre/actions cards might be a good idea for this but i don't have the time/skill to put something like this together?

Try this one. https://dl.dropbox.com/u/9077657/SW-EotE-Reference-Sheets.pdf

I do have that one and whilst it summarises the rules for the action quite well, it doesn't easily explain what the special maneuvres or actions do, so it left to the GM to explain it each time. My players would like a simple reference so that they can have a look at the menu of maneuvres and actions and get ready for thier next slot.

I think the following are the ones that need to go on a quick reference sheet.

Evasive Maneuvers (Silhouette 1-4, Speed 3+), Stay On Target (Silhouette 1-4, Speed 3+), Punch It (Silhouette 1-4).Gain the Advantage (Pilot Only, Size 1-4, Speed 4+),

And now that I have seen that this only includes 4 specific options, I might take a stab at putting something together.

So, the pilot can use the same maneuvers twice on a turn? Can you also use evasive maneuvers and gain the advantage at the same time?

Also, with "Staying on Target" do you upgrade all the ability dice or just upgrade one ability die? It does not specifiy in the rulebook

Dustin said:

all that pilot school just to have effect on ONE dice of the pool... x)

- upgrade a difficulty dice when my gunner shoot as well as when we are shot by our enemy

- offer a green dice to my enemy as well as my gunner

That's not enough cinematic... where is the pilot dodge fighting action from saga ?