Also do any UK players know where to get the dice? All the online retailers seem to be out of stock at the moment.

A couple thoughts:

-Shields: These add black dice to defense rolls, not soak. So they make it harder for enemies to land a hit in the first place. A TIE attacking a YT-1300 with standard shield configuration would have a difficulty of two purple dice and one black die to hit, and of it scores a hit it would be doing it's damage against a soak of 3, so if it scores at least one success it will do 4+ damage (6 base damage + 1 or more successes - 3 soak).

-Minion Groups: In my opinion, minion groups are basically good for two things - streamlining fights and making PCs appear more badass. In most cases, grouping 3-4 TIEs together as one minion group makes them easier to fight than if they were all fighting separately. That's because, even though they have a higher chance to hit, they are taking a lot fewer shots, which probably means less damage overall. Similarly, they have one pool of HP, which means the PCs only have to break through their soak once and then can potentially take out multiple TIEs. Typically, when I am preparing a space battle, I want the PCs to be fighting 2-3 ships or minin groups, so I'll group the TIEs or whatever craft they are fighting into groups accordingly. So if I want a relatively straight forward fight against 4 TIEs, I might have two groups of two.

-Strain: Unless enemies are doing ion damage and specifically trying to disable the ship (ion damage does staring damage), it's typically only going to take strain when the PCs take extra maneuvers in combat (two strain to take an extra maneuver) or things like push the limit. You may also consider applying staring if they roll disadvantages on pilot checks or in any other check where you could see some misstep causing stress to the ship.

Cheers for the response, cleared everything up!

in my games I tend to run TIE's in wings (groups of 2) typically as minions led by a rival. So out of 4 ships, one wing will be strictly minions, one will be a rival/minion pair acting on the same initiative. Keeps combat from bogging down, and maintains the cinematic feel of the dogfights in the movies.

Also, TIE's guns are Linked. You do treat the shots seperately, but 2 "buckets" and the target suffers a repeat attack. Soak is applied twice, but bonus "splats" add to both hits. En masse they can tear some ships up.

I have a question about space combat.

My friends and I played the beginner box for the first time last night. To us, the TIE fighters at the end seemed way OP. Here's how we did it (and I'll point out the mistake I think I may have been making)

TIE fighter fires, and gets a hit...which is minimum 7 damage. Doublle that due to 'linked' for 14 damage. 14 damage minus 3 soak is 11.

Basically, the ship can only take 1 shot before being destroyed on the second hit. If they were up against 4 TIEs (it was only 2 TIEs last night because they were only 3 PCs), it doesnt seem like they'd ever stand a chance. Is this right?

The only mistake I think we were making was taking soak only once on a linked blast instead of 2, but still. That means they're down in 3 shots tops.

On a related note, we were applying a black die due to the Fang's shields, and applying red/yellow upgrade dice due to maneuvers and whatnot, but those things only affect chance to hit. When they hit, they hit hard. Just seemed OP for a beginner quest.

Not 100% on this, but pretty sure that linked fire is going to be affected by soak on both doses of damage.

Keep in mind that the TIEs are minions, so they work in pairs. If you only had 2 TIEs, then they only had 1 attack a round.

You should have an engineer making repairs which allows you to last a bit longer.

The TIEs can only take a hit or 2 before going boom...in fact I think 3 hits will take out a minion group of 2 TIEs. Less if you roll well.

And lastly, you aren't really supposed to stay and fight the TIEs. The intent of the enounter is to install the part to the ship, make the astrogation roll and survive a couple rounds till you jump away to safety.

On a related note, we were applying a black die due to the Fang's shields, and applying red/yellow upgrade dice due to maneuvers and whatnot, but those things only affect chance to hit. When they hit, they hit hard. Just seemed OP for a beginner quest.

Affecting chance to hit is the main way after armor/soak to affect overall damage, since it drops the chance for success and the extent to which which success is... successful. Having run the Beginner's Box... I am apparently the only GM who did not have any concerns with it, because my party obliterated the enemy TIEs in two turns and got hit... maybe once.

I have a question about space combat.

My friends and I played the beginner box for the first time last night. To us, the TIE fighters at the end seemed way OP. Here's how we did it (and I'll point out the mistake I think I may have been making)

TIE fighter fires, and gets a hit...which is minimum 7 damage. Doublle that due to 'linked' for 14 damage. 14 damage minus 3 soak is 11.

Basically, the ship can only take 1 shot before being destroyed on the second hit. If they were up against 4 TIEs (it was only 2 TIEs last night because they were only 3 PCs), it doesnt seem like they'd ever stand a chance. Is this right?

The only mistake I think we were making was taking soak only once on a linked blast instead of 2, but still. That means they're down in 3 shots tops.

On a related note, we were applying a black die due to the Fang's shields, and applying red/yellow upgrade dice due to maneuvers and whatnot, but those things only affect chance to hit. When they hit, they hit hard. Just seemed OP for a beginner quest.

were you only activating the linked quality with 2 advantage or just hitting them for double damage each shot?

I have a question about space combat.

My friends and I played the beginner box for the first time last night. To us, the TIE fighters at the end seemed way OP. Here's how we did it (and I'll point out the mistake I think I may have been making)

TIE fighter fires, and gets a hit...which is minimum 7 damage. Doublle that due to 'linked' for 14 damage. 14 damage minus 3 soak is 11.

Basically, the ship can only take 1 shot before being destroyed on the second hit. If they were up against 4 TIEs (it was only 2 TIEs last night because they were only 3 PCs), it doesnt seem like they'd ever stand a chance. Is this right?

The only mistake I think we were making was taking soak only once on a linked blast instead of 2, but still. That means they're down in 3 shots tops.

On a related note, we were applying a black die due to the Fang's shields, and applying red/yellow upgrade dice due to maneuvers and whatnot, but those things only affect chance to hit. When they hit, they hit hard. Just seemed OP for a beginner quest.

were you only activating the linked quality with 2 advantage or just hitting them for double damage each shot?

Luckily, the TIEs kept missing, so ultimately the players survived just fine, however my intention was going to be double damage was every shot. The beginner adventure book didn't address (that I saw) that it required 2 advantage for the second hit. If that's the case, then I can see this fight being more balanced.

Not 100% on this, but pretty sure that linked fire is going to be affected by soak on both doses of damage.

Keep in mind that the TIEs are minions, so they work in pairs. If you only had 2 TIEs, then they only had 1 attack a round.

You should have an engineer making repairs which allows you to last a bit longer.

The TIEs can only take a hit or 2 before going boom...in fact I think 3 hits will take out a minion group of 2 TIEs. Less if you roll well.

And lastly, you aren't really supposed to stay and fight the TIEs. The intent of the enounter is to install the part to the ship, make the astrogation roll and survive a couple rounds till you jump away to safety.

As for not staying around to fight the TIEs, the book says the HMRI takes 6 rounds to warm up...the fight was over before that. It's not hard to hit the TIEs, but if both squads of TIEs hit with linked lasers, the Fang can be taken down in one round, the way we were playing. And yeah, I was only making 1 attack with the TIE minion squad.

So, looks like the mistakes we were making were using only 3 soak instead of 6 on a linked blast, and activating linked on every shot instead of 2 advantage. I can definitely see this helping the Fang surivive at least one or two additional shots.

Affecting chance to hit is the main way after armor/soak to affect overall damage, since it drops the chance for success and the extent to which which success is... successful. Having run the Beginner's Box... I am apparently the only GM who did not have any concerns with it, because my party obliterated the enemy TIEs in two turns and got hit... maybe once.

I also made the mistake of not Soaking the second hit by Linked, which meant the PCs escaped with 1 Hull point left.

What makes minions dangerous is those yellow dice. Three minions = not-quite 1/6 chance of a Triumph. With new PCs I'm leery of making minion groups too large.

there is some odd wording between Beginner and Core. If link gets triggered are the two shots soaked separately or as one total?

Soaked separately

If you're playing the full game rather than the Beginner, don't forget the Boost Shields action. An extra black die on the TIE attacks can really help.