I checked the forums but did not see anything regarding adding a rule about ships being blown up and any ship in the 1 area 360 arc requiring an evade roll to not take secondary damage. I think this rule would help balance the game in some regards. Could also say if friend or foe ship in the arc needs to roll allbut a crit roll to avoid taking damage. The crit rolled would result in one damage or one shield loss. There is definately precedant for this as with any flying type game and such if a wingman gets blown up alot of times it requires immediate action on the remaining ships pilot to evade. You could also go the route of immediate loss of focus, target lock or add a stress token.

Thoughts?

Sounds like an extra level of detail that I would NOT like. Remember that the fights are taking place in 3D so not necessary. Also, this would absolutely hose swarms and any attempt to fly a squad in formation.

I checked the forums but did not see anything regarding adding a rule about ships being blown up and any ship in the 1 area 360 arc requiring an evade roll to not take secondary damage. I think this rule would help balance the game in some regards. Could also say if friend or foe ship in the arc needs to roll allbut a crit roll to avoid taking damage. The crit rolled would result in one damage or one shield loss. There is definately precedant for this as with any flying type game and such if a wingman gets blown up alot of times it requires immediate action on the remaining ships pilot to evade. You could also go the route of immediate loss of focus, target lock or add a stress token.

Thoughts?

I am doing this for my games, it is cool and real...

I would also dislike it. You're supposed to blow up ships from close range and fly straight through the debris and explosion unscathed.

I would also dislike it. You're supposed to blow up ships from close range and fly straight through the debris and explosion unscathed.

True but when you are in a group the effect would move you a little, where as when Wedge blasted that Tie on Luke he was driving at it like zooming into a cloud of small derbies and a brief flash of fire.

When a ship in formation is right beside you and it blows up I think you would be affected, you see ships sort of bucking away in the films when this happens. I would say being damaged is a stretch, but loosing a target lock or focus is reasonable.

You could also go with a forced movement to avoid the damage.

You could also go with a forced movement to avoid the damage.

Despite the balance woes that have been expressed, I find the game ver balanced. There are some upgrades that I don't think are worth their points, and I'm not a fan of lots o TIE Advanceds, but when it comes down to Imperials vs Rebels, the game is pretty dang balanced. IMO both teams have many many options for competitive squadrons builds and Just about every ship in the game is good for multiple things. (I haven't played with wave 3, but I'm not worried) I am not sure how you think this will "balance" the game except to maybe make attack from short range not as good. Attacking from Short Range is of course the bread and butter for the low attack dice ships like TIEs, A-wings, and Y-wings. I guess this change might punish TIE swarm players but I don'tt really think that is nessisary.

An interesting idea but range one is way too far, that's the same range as things deliberately designed to do aoe damage. It also nerfs any ship that has to maintain range one of something for their pilot ability to kick in.

I would say the only way to not make it so powerful as to change the fundamental tactics of the game would be to make it within one movement template, if a ship is destroyed roll one red die, if it's a crit you may perform a one die attack (two if it was a large ship), against the nearby ship, defending ship receives a +1 to their agility since this is random debris not a deliberate attack. Anything else would be too powerful and this method is probably far to complicated and weak to be worth using.

An interesting idea but range one is way too far, that's the same range as things deliberately designed to do aoe damage. It also nerfs any ship that has to maintain range one of something for their pilot ability to kick in.

I would say the only way to not make it so powerful as to change the fundamental tactics of the game would be to make it within one movement template, if a ship is destroyed roll one red die, if it's a crit you may perform a one die attack (two if it was a large ship), against the nearby ship, defending ship receives a +1 to their agility since this is random debris not a deliberate attack. Anything else would be too powerful and this method is probably far to complicated and weak to be worth using.

I did not clarify my use of this fun little rule. I will be using the 1 movement not 1 range, for this game effect. You described it better than I did.

Oh. That's far more reasonable. I wouldn't mind that nearly as much.

But yeah even fluff wise it seems like things tend to pretty much vaporize when they go up. You don't see a lot of debris.

I have to say I'm not in favor of a rule like this. It doesn't seem to add any extra layer of meaningful decision-making or strategy.

I don't see how it would "help balance the game in some regards." In what regards?

It's pure fluff and actually contradicts on-screen evidence.

I appreciate it with games like Star Trek Starship Tactical Combat Simulator and Star Fleet Battles, which are designed to simulate ship-to-ship battles between vessels large enough to pose a significant threat to nearby ships when they go (especially since those ships carry M/AM reactors), but between small ships I say no, and especially Star Wars ships.

There are numerous instances of fighter-scale and even capital-scale ships exploding next to other fighter-scale ships with no ill effects: a Naboo fighter exploded next to another N-1 in Episode I; Anakin and Obi-Wan flew right through patches of flak, an exploding ARC-170, and an enormous engine explosion in Episode 3; Wedge flew right through a TIE Fighter he had just detonated in Episode 4; two Snowspeeders (civilian aircraft equivalent to a Piper Cub) flew next to an exploding AT-AT and several flak shots exploded next to the Millennium Falcon (not to mention an asteroid that impacted a Star Destroyer with no visible scarring) in Episode 5; an explosion occurred right next to the belly of the Falcon, a TIE Interceptor exploded mere meters in front of another Interceptor, the Falcon flew right through an exploding TIE Interceptor, a Calamari Cruiser exploded about a kilometer behind a group of starfighters, an X-wing exploded right behind another one, and other uncountable explosions next to fighters occurred in Episode 6.

Clearly spaceborne explosions are not even an inconvenience to other fighters, even when they blow right next to a fighter.

There are cases of shrapnel and debris doing damage, Porkin's X-wing was damaged by an exploding turbolaser as I recall. It's not terribly likely, and I imagine deflector shields would keep out all but the largest and fastest bits nut it does happen. I don't think it's often enough to warrant a game mechanic though, just like a modern day flight sim doesn't need a mechanic for "A seagull got caught in the air intake".

I'd thought about a rule like this myself, and decided if I was going to do it to instead treat the destroyed ship's debris like an asteroid that lasts for only the activation phase following the explosion. Collide with it or move through it and you roll one die for damage, but can still shoot. Debatable whether you lose your action but I was leaning towards no.

Remember that even though many ships lack deflector shields, essentially all of them have some form of particle shielding, otherwise they would be shredded by micrometeorites. While there are instances in the books where ships are damaged by the destruction of other ships nearby, it is the exception rather than the norm.

As far as game mechanics go, it's a pretty detailed thing to put into a very abstract system. Noone ever said you couldn't houserule it though.

I'd say if the damage cards equal a ship's hull value, leave its base as a "Debris Token". Counts as an Asteroid in the Activation Phase, is ignored in the Combat Phase, is removed at the end of the Activation Phase. If damage cards exceed the Hull Value, it's vaporized, no Debris Token.

Thoughts:

1. If you blow something up BEHIND me when I'm moving as fast as I am it's going to have a hard time catching up to cause much hurt.

2. If I shoot and the target explodes I'd assume that most of its mass is going outward from where it was and in the same direction of my shot. My shot should have cleared the path to the target and with things going away from there the safest place to fly should be right where I fired. I may "catch up" to the debris that moves backward but most of it is probably moving out.

While I may not be in favor of such a change I think some suggestions could work. If the exploding ship gets to roll a singe attack die and only a crit result could deal damage BUT anything that could be damaged gets to roll for defense there shouldn't be a lot of chain reaction kills happening. I also like the suggestion Joker Two just made about creating a temporary navigation hazard although I wouldn't say colliding with the "debris field" should prevent actions like landing on an asteroid would; I also assume that because it is ignored during the combat phase that anyone landing in the field still gets to make their attacks.

Also: Anti-pursuit lasers notwithstanding, physically running ships into each other doesn't cause a damage roll, so it would be pretty inconsistent for imaginary ship debris to do so.

Still doing it because it is cool...