According to the movement rules, slow ships can't close from long or extreme range. You need to be going at speed 5+ to move from long to close or vice versa.

Capital ships have long range sensors and weapons, but if they engage at said range, they can't get closer to each other to unleash their fighters. Also, the Interdictor cruiser causes a gravity well out to extreme range. How can any ship escape, since it's not possible to attain extreme range?

-EF

One of the Devs, I believe Sam Stewart, was talking about this on one of the Order 66 Podcasts (ep15?) recently. I believe he said that once the ship moves one range, then it recalculates. I.e. A ship at long range moves to Medium Range. The next round the distance counts as Medium Range. Move from there.

One of the Devs, I believe Sam Stewart, was talking about this on one of the Order 66 Podcasts (ep15?) recently. I believe he said that once the ship moves one range, then it recalculates. I.e. A ship at long range moves to Medium Range. The next round the distance counts as Medium Range. Move from there.

Exactly. You calculate the Range Bands to get from Point A to Point B at the start of each of your turns in a given round.

So while it might take a while (multiple rounds), eventually a Speed 1 or 2 ship will get to a spot that was Long or Extreme Range when it started moving.

This way, it's possible for a group of Rebels in a small transport or a squadron of snubfighters to get away from a larger Imperial ship such as your average Imperial-class Star Destroyer, but still have to contend with the swarm of TIE fighters that such a ship carries.

One of the Devs, I believe Sam Stewart, was talking about this on one of the Order 66 Podcasts (ep15?) recently. I believe he said that once the ship moves one range, then it recalculates. I.e. A ship at long range moves to Medium Range. The next round the distance counts as Medium Range. Move from there.

But you can't change from long to medium, is my point. And besides, when trying to get away from something, the range doesn't recalculate. If I'm at medium range from the Interdictor this round, I'm still at medium range the next round. My range hasn't changed. And I still can't go from medium range to long range.

I think it's an oversight, but who knows.

-EF

Yeah, but I mean you ARE moving. If you are going at speed 5 and spend a bunch of turns moving as fast as you can, the GM will eventually let you break the boundary because you ARE moving.

Think of it this way: the slowest ships require 2 manoeuvres to move from close to short range. Now, if the target is at long range, they have now crossed one range band, so they are now one range band closer, i.e. medium range. The next turn they can once more spend two manoeuvres (unless they are silhouette 5+ of course, which can only perform 1 pilot [only] manoeuvre per round, at which point it takes a lot longer) to cross one more range band. By the end of that turn they are at short range. And so on.

So, from how I understand it based on Sam Stewart's explanation (which the above is a paraphrase of) the movement of vehicles/starships could perhaps be better explained by how many manoeuvres is required to cross one, or more, range bands.

• Speed 1: require 2 manoeuvres to cross one range band to another (i.e. from close to short, or long to medium).
• Speed 2-4: require 1 manoeuvre to cross one range band to another (i.e. from close to short, or long to medium), 2 to cross two range bands to another (i.e. from close to medium, or long to short).
• Speed 5-6: require 1 manoeuvre to cross two range bands to another (i.e. close to medium, or medium to close), 2 to cross 3 range bands to another (i.e. from close to long, or long to close).

While I found this odd at first, I realise that distance and speed is relative and abstract. It might not make perfect sense, but it makes enough sense to me, and it works.

Yeah, if it helps to visualize it, add a third ship that starts next to the moving ship and is stationary. As the slow ship moves towards the ship at long range it is moving away from the other ship, so it is indeed moving towards the long range ship

I think I figured out why the vehicle movement rules irk me. They're based on the character-scale movement, but are subtly different, and I found the difference.

In character-scale movement, it's talked about in relation to your current range to someone/something and your new/desired range. One " maneuver allows a character to move between short and medium range relative to another person or object." So two maneuvers allows for movement between medium/long range.

But if you read the vehicle movement rules, it is all talked about in relation to close range . Speed 5-6 says one maneuver to move within close range, or move between close/medium, and two maneuvers to move between close/long. What if I'm at medium range and want to go to long? Or what if I'm at short and want to go to medium? Starship movement revolves around starting or ending at close range!

Speed 2-4 is a good base-line, since all craft I've seen has at least a speed of 2, except for the VSD and AT-AT walker.

So 1 maneuver to move within close. That's easy, and maps perfectly to character-scale movement. One maneuver to go between close/short—again, just like personal movement. Two maneuvers to move between close/medium. That breaks down to one maneuver to go from close to short, and one to go from short to medium. Exactly the same as character movement.

For character-scale movement, it's 2 maneuvers to go between medium/long, and between long/extreme, so it should map perfectly for vehicular movement, but it's not listed as an option. Changing speed to 1 increases the number of maneuvers it costs to move, 2 to move between close/short. That could mean something as simple as it costs 1 more maneuver to change range bands. Invert that, and ships moving at speed 5-6 should reduce the number of maneuvers by 1, so going really fast only benefits you if moving to or from long range—medium to long, long to medium, long to extreme, or extreme to long.

However, that idea falls through, because it's only 2 maneuvers to go from close to long at speeds 5-6, not three like my extrapolation suggests.

That is where I'm getting rubbed the wrong way.

-EF

I have extrapolated this from personal scale so that could be why it's wrong but here goes:

I use the Short range band as the base unit of distance. Move through Short Range and you are Medium Range which matches up with personal combat 1 maneuver to go from Short to Medium. Since it takes two maneuvers to go through Medium to Long and Long to Extreme, then they must be two Short range Bands long. Close and Engaged I consider a Short range band long as well - not that they are physically that wide, but you must carefully enter them or crash into the ship or open yourself up to attack so they take the same amount of time let's say.

Since a Speed 5 ship can move from Medium to Close in one maneuver that means it moves 2 units per maneuver (Medium to Short - one unit, Short to Close - a second unit). Moving from Long to Medium would take a maneuver as it takes both units to move through it. Then the second maneuver to bring you to close.

A Speed 3 ship moves from Close to Short with one maneuver. So it only moves 1 unit per maneuver. So, if it wants to move to Long range it will take 4 maneuvers (1 from Close to Short, 1 from Short to Medium, and 2 from Medium to Long).