An A-Wing firing cannons isn't going to cause much damage on an ISD in a single run due to the chances of hitting more "empty" space than something solid; a crit there would be lucky to break down a system. An A-Wing crashing into a bridge is a whole different story.

LibrariaNPC's A-Wing comment has reminded me of things I hadn't thought of since I first discovered EotE, and I'm going to go ahead and change my mind on a few things here.

First, since silhouette 8+ seems to be the point we start measuring ships in terms of kilometers, I'd start treating them more like background terrain than targets for fighters. I'd even go so far as to say that Armor/Hull Thresholds are a moot point to fighters, as the most they can do to an ISD is inflict a targeted component critical or cause a major collision (like that A-Wing). Armor and Hull would really only come into play for the capital ships firing turbolasers.

So if my players were taking a squadron of fighters into battle against an ISD, their mission would be to take out gun batteries or any components that could be shot at from the outside. It would then be up to their allied capital ships to whittle through armor and deliver the coup de grace. This is a mechanic I would use solely against silhouette 8+ ships (5, 6, and 7 would still be fair game for fighter-launched torpedoes).

And back to the topic of point defense silhouettes, arguments made here have changed my mind a little. If the AoR book has anything on ground-based point defense weapons, I'd use that silhouette for the same weapon mounted on any ship. After all, you wouldn't use the silhouette of the planet it was attached to ... Would you?

We should keep in mind here the sheer number of weapons on a Star Destroyer - 50 by my count, all with breach 4, the weakest of which does 9 damage. All are Linked 1. So while it's definitely harder to score a hit, I think that in rolling so many times it's going to happen, and it's going to be messy. Now consider the Star Destroyer's defenses....

Linked doesn't mean much if the shot is of high difficulty and thus unlikely to have the Advantages to spare.

Linked doesn't mean much if the shot is of high difficulty and thus unlikely to have the Advantages to spare.

Sure, but then...50 shots.

I sat down last night to simulate a fighterless battle but it turns out this wasn't going to be a 2-minute job. Has anyone actually done this and could post the results? I would love to see some science around this speculation.

First, since silhouette 8+ seems to be the point we start measuring ships in terms of kilometers, I'd start treating them more like background terrain than targets for fighters. I'd even go so far as to say that Armor/Hull Thresholds are a moot point to fighters, as the most they can do to an ISD is inflict a targeted component critical or cause a major collision (like that A-Wing). Armor and Hull would really only come into play for the capital ships firing turbolasers.

Good point here. Just how much damage can a PC ship do to an ISD? Even the A-wing vs. Executor situation had the advantage of Ackbar concentrating the Alliance's firepower on it beforehand, so it was probably taking quite the beating.

First, since silhouette 8+ seems to be the point we start measuring ships in terms of kilometers, I'd start treating them more like background terrain than targets for fighters. I'd even go so far as to say that Armor/Hull Thresholds are a moot point to fighters, as the most they can do to an ISD is inflict a targeted component critical or cause a major collision (like that A-Wing). Armor and Hull would really only come into play for the capital ships firing turbolasers.

Good point here. Just how much damage can a PC ship do to an ISD? Even the A-wing vs. Executor situation had the advantage of Ackbar concentrating the Alliance's firepower on it beforehand, so it was probably taking quite the beating.

Personally, I'm not sure I would try to evaluate a capital-ship vs capital-ship or even many-fighters vs capital-ship combat in EOTE with the rules, I'd abstract it a bit more to do it narratively.

First, since silhouette 8+ seems to be the point we start measuring ships in terms of kilometers, I'd start treating them more like background terrain than targets for fighters. I'd even go so far as to say that Armor/Hull Thresholds are a moot point to fighters, as the most they can do to an ISD is inflict a targeted component critical or cause a major collision (like that A-Wing). Armor and Hull would really only come into play for the capital ships firing turbolasers.

Good point here. Just how much damage can a PC ship do to an ISD? Even the A-wing vs. Executor situation had the advantage of Ackbar concentrating the Alliance's firepower on it beforehand, so it was probably taking quite the beating.

It only has to do one point - which you can get with one success on a proton torpedo - and get a critical hit (which is pretty easy against Difficulty 1). Repeat five times and the chance of the ISD exploding shows up. That's also the same chance as a Nebulon-B or SSD blowing up from the same hits. That's the problem in pointing out. Size is all penalties.

From what it seems like (again, I don't have AoR to review and offer my own opinion about what is presented there), the only advantage of bigger ships is story based, bombardments, acting as a carrier, intimidation, mounting bigger weapons, and being a massive and mobile base of operations.

Still, plenty of good reasons there. . .

From what it seems like (again, I don't have AoR to review and offer my own opinion about what is presented there), the only advantage of bigger ships is story based, bombardments, acting as a carrier, intimidation, mounting bigger weapons, and being a massive and mobile base of operations.

Still, plenty of good reasons there. . .

Let's examine:

Bombardments: Fighters can do it better.

Acting as a carrier: Yep. Bring on the fighters!

Intimidation: A big ship that's easy to hit & critical-kill along with having relatively inaccurate weapons isn't intimidating to those that can think.

Mounting bigger weapons: That have a hard time hitting compared to fighters which can already kill anything so why have bigger weapons?

Massive and mobile base of operations: OK.

I think it would be better if each turret was a minion for damage purposes too (not just for shooting). Let fighters sand off turrets and other exposed subsystems, but make the heart of the starship MUCH more resistant to small attackers.

Don't the turbolasers have the slow firing quality? Wouldn't that limit the amount of damage a smaller ship could do? A larger ship can sustain fire where a smaller ship can't.

Don't the turbolasers have the slow firing quality? Wouldn't that limit the amount of damage a smaller ship could do? A larger ship can sustain fire where a smaller ship can't.

Since it can fire all bearing weapons at once, why hold back? Doing X damage in one round beats doing half damage each over two rounds. Also, because of Slow-Firing 2, Heavy Turbolasers compare poorly with Medium Turbolasers, so larger ships (which are more likely to mount HTlasers) fire even slower. another strike against going big in this system.

Thanks for pointing out that. As previously mentioned, I don't have access to the AoR Beta, so I'm doing a boatload of guesswork and canon-inspired thoughts.

I came across this line of thought after statting up a Tartan-class patrol cruiser (250 m) on request -- I was informed that the Lancer-class was deemed Silhouette 5, even though length-wise (also 250 m) it's closer to the Nebulon-B frigate (300 m) than to the CR90 corvette (150 m), while the Luxury 3000 Space Yacht and the Starwind Pleasure Yacht are both 50 meters long yet have different Silhouettes. As such, based on the existing rules a Silhouette 4 or 5 starship is treated as Silhouette 3 or 4 respectively for the purpose of firing quad laser cannons or lighter, and both of these "simulated Silhouettes" result in Average difficulty against starfighters (which are all Silhouette 3* except for A-wings, since those seem to be statted as having the ECM suite attachment or an equivalent ability so they count as Silhouette 2 when being fired at), so it's already a working "point defense" solution, is the way that I saw it.

(The stat-block I came up with was intended to brutalize the starfighters in the EotE core rulebook, not least since the Tartan-class had Speed 4 so it could outright keep pace with starfighters, but then its anti-starfighter armament and its defensive stats -- derived by translation of its Force Unleashed Campaign Guide stat block for Saga Edition -- would quickly prove unhelpful against the EotE capital ships.)

* For what it's worth, the Y-wing is 16 m long and the Lambda-class T-4a shuttle is 20 m long, so the Silhouettes 3 and 4 boundary is somewhere in between them or one of them.

From what it seems like (again, I don't have AoR to review and offer my own opinion about what is presented there), the only advantage of bigger ships is story based, bombardments, acting as a carrier, intimidation, mounting bigger weapons, and being a massive and mobile base of operations.

Still, plenty of good reasons there. . .

Let's examine:

Bombardments: Fighters can do it better.

Acting as a carrier: Yep. Bring on the fighters!

Intimidation: A big ship that's easy to hit & critical-kill along with having relatively inaccurate weapons isn't intimidating to those that can think.

Mounting bigger weapons: That have a hard time hitting compared to fighters which can already kill anything so why have bigger weapons?

Massive and mobile base of operations: OK.

I think it would be better if each turret was a minion for damage purposes too (not just for shooting). Let fighters sand off turrets and other exposed subsystems, but make the heart of the starship MUCH more resistant to small attackers.

So you're telling me that the RAW for capital ships aren't really showing how impressive they were in canon? I mean, every time I read a book and see talk of a Star Destroyer being something to fear, I always assumed that a game would really make them something to fear.

Now, the X-Wing novels commented on giving the Destroyers "Trench Run Disease" (i.e. play up on the weakness of slower cannons), but they still didn't like the idea of doing it often due to the chances of being hit by ANY of those dozens of cannons. . .

As for ideas regarding the advantage of capital ships vs fighters:

1) Long distance travel. A capital ship is better equipped for longer trips, while a fighter usually isn't very fun for anything longer than a few hours, couple of days tops.

2) Weaponry limitations. You comment that fighters can do bombardments better, but said fighters can only carry so much of an arsenal before having to reload and rearm. A Star Destroyer is said to be able to demolish most of a planet from orbit without a huge issue, and they are also often used to hit a planetary shield to break it for a fighter and trooper assault.

Really, from what you're telling me, it sounds more like capital ships are nerfed compared to what they should be, and will need to either be tweaked or houseruled to make into the fearsome things they are.

Really, from what you're telling me, it sounds more like capital ships are nerfed compared to what they should be, and will need to either be tweaked or houseruled to make into the fearsome things they are.

I'm wondering if it's somewhat intentional, but badly implemented. A team of fighters *can* bring down an SD, but game-wise, no player would want to try it if every shot had the risk of insta-kill.

Beyond just the fighter issue, the biggest problem is that, because of Silhouette issues, small capital ships - like the DP20 Gunship - appear to be the peak of starship prowess. Eight DP20 Gunships can - through critical hit accumulation - kill an ISD without much of a problem. This contradicts the lore that an ISD is equal to six Dreadnought-class heavy cruisers, each of which was supposed to be the equal of six smaller ships. Wolfpacks of small corvettes and frigates end up killing the behemoths that are supposed to be the terrors of space.

A Star Destroyer is said to be able to demolish most of a planet from orbit without a huge issue, and they are also often used to hit a planetary shield to break it for a fighter and trooper assault.

Under these rules, the Star Destroyer would have trouble hitting specific targets on a planet (many structures are considerably smaller than Silhouette 8), so that whole 'demolish most of a planet from orbit" is the side effect of most of the shots going wide.

One possibility would be to base Gunnery check difficulties on ships' relative speeds, with boost and setback dice added based on the difference in Silhouette and/or handling. Whatever its size, a ship that chugs along in a perfectly straight line will make a good target. Starfighters, from what I've seen in the movies and read in the EU, would be tough to hit because a larger proportion of their mass is given over to propulsion- they don't have to make space for months of supplies, thousands of crew berths and all the other stuff a capital ship needs.

My immediate thought would be to give the capital ship a -10 to all critical rolls made against it for every 1 point difference in Silhouette between it and the attacker. And if you want to illustrate how dangerous capital ships are you could also go the other way and give a +10 to criticals against smaller ships.

Honestly, I find the silhouette mechanic for weapons of a bit poor design, or a poor idea. Indeed, I also think that it would be better that every weapon has it's own default silhouette, no matter where it is mounted.

What other mechanism do you propose to keep PCs from getting blown out of the sky the minute they hit Long range?

What other mechanism do you propose to keep PCs from getting blown out of the sky the minute they hit Long range?

Fly casual?

What other mechanism do you propose to keep PCs from getting blown out of the sky the minute they hit Long range?

Weapons that fire to Long range, like Medium and Heavy Turbolasers, would still have a high Silhouette and thus have a hard time targeting small craft. OTOH, Quad Laser Cannons mounted on a massive space station should still be able to effective against fighters despite being mounted on a massive structure.

What other mechanism do you propose to keep PCs from getting blown out of the sky the minute they hit Long range?

HappyDaze already said it.

What other mechanism do you propose to keep PCs from getting blown out of the sky the minute they hit Long range?

Weapons that fire to Long range, like Medium and Heavy Turbolasers, would still have a high Silhouette and thus have a hard time targeting small craft. OTOH, Quad Laser Cannons mounted on a massive space station should still be able to effective against fighters despite being mounted on a massive structure.

Ah, I should have read more carefully, I thought you were including the long range weapons.

Point defence weapons do get a -1 on Silhouette, but maybe that's not enough.

I haven't seen the AoR Beta, but just looking at the Nebulon B, I can see what you mean. Big weapons on a Corvette or even a Firespray are going to consistently whittle at the hull, the armour really doesn't seem to be scaled properly. And you're right, crits seem to easy. I like the crit downgrade idea, maybe that should be a standard for all Silhouettes: if the target is larger, crits are downgraded by 10 * the difference.

Ah, I should have read more carefully, I thought you were including the long range weapons.

Point defence weapons do get a -1 on Silhouette, but maybe that's not enough.

I haven't seen the AoR Beta, but just looking at the Nebulon B, I can see what you mean. Big weapons on a Corvette or even a Firespray are going to consistently whittle at the hull, the armour really doesn't seem to be scaled properly. And you're right, crits seem to easy. I like the crit downgrade idea, maybe that should be a standard for all Silhouettes: if the target is larger, crits are downgraded by 10 * the difference.

This is what I'm seeing as well -- the current system doesn't account for anti-starfighter point defense weapons on platforms larger than Silhouette 5 in terms of "actually being effective at their job" like Silhouette 4 or Silhouette 5 starships' are (they're not going to be at Easy difficulty against starfighters, but unless it's an A-wing or a starfighter with the ECM Suite the Silhouette 4 or 5 starships are not going to be shooting at worse than Average).