Vehicle speed changes as part of the Fly/Drive maneuver

By player266669, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

Bit of design theory here…

I wonder if at any point, the design team at FFG contemplated folding the Accelerate/Decelerate maneuver into the Fly/Drive maneuver. As written now, you can get into a weird situation where one starship is heading toward another, and it uses its turn to carry out two accelerate maneuvers. In this scenario, the starship is now going a lot faster, but contrary to what one would expect, it doesn’t actually move any closer to its target because the pilot didn't use Fly/Drive to change range bands.

An alternate way to design vehicle speed changes might have been to allow a single free speed adjustment of 1 (either up or down), as part of the Fly/Drive maneuver. Perhaps you could then optionally suffer starship strain to make that a 2-speed adjustment instead or just 1.

When you think about it, making a vehicle go faster or slower usually just involves pulling a throttle lever or pressing a gas or brake pedal. It's an action so trivial it hardly seems worthy of costing a maneuver.

Now, I caveat all of this with the understanding that this stuff is largely an abstraction, and I realize that. I'm just putting the subject out there for discussion and consideration because I like design craft.

I actually think it makes sense as it is. Just because you are pressing the pedal, most vehicles dont respond immediately, and it takes time to rev up. I could see this being especially true of large starships. You can floor it all you want, but the machine itself has to respond, which could take a second or two.

Edited by Hida77

I actually think it makes sense as it is. Just because you are pressing the pedal, most vehicles dont respond immediately, and it takes time to rev up. I could see this being especially true of large starships. You can floor it all you want, but the machine itself has to respond, which could take a second or two.

Sure, but couldn't this revving up and acceleration be happening at the same time the vehicle is moving?