The A-Wing seems awfully fragile. The X-Wing can take 4-5 hits from a TIE fighter, but the A-Wing is blown apart after only 1-2 hits!

The rebel craft should all be designed so that PCs can feel bad-ass flying them. As it is, it's hard to imagine a PC stepping into one of these deathtraps. Even the sensor jammer doesn't help protect against other silhouette 3 ships, which I believe is what interceptors generally are supposed to go up against.

To make matters worse, they cost even more than an X-Wing, which seems pretty hard to justify.

The role of interceptors is not to go "against other silhouette 3 ships" (that's more superiority fighters, like the X-Wing), but rather to go after slightly bigger, slower targets like bombers and shuttles.

Just sayin'.

Hmm, wookipedia says they were created to defend heavier slowly moving fighters, such as X-Wings and Y-Wings. The initial impetus for their creation was how close a few TIE Fighters came to causing a defeat at the battle of having due to their superior speed.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/RZ-1_A-wing_interceptor

It should be noted though that the sensor jammer does protect against Silhouette 5 capital ships with laser cannons ( read : the Lancer -class frigate!) due to how the "point defense" rule works... is there anything in the book about it having special rules such as not broadcasting the A-wing's presence system-wide, or is it just "every A-wing includes the Electronic Countermeasures Suite attachment by default"?

The A-wing also has a really low system strain threshold. I mean, if the pilot tries to go from dead stop to full speed, they won't be able to do any extra maneuvers or the systems will short out!

Kind of hard for them to be an interceptor if it takes forever to get up to speed.

-EF

Fighters should take less (or no) system strain with Punch It, that's what they're designed for after all.

In the EU the A-wing is usually used as a fast scout for the Alliance forces. Basically sent in with really good passive sensor systems to get a read on a target area and get clear without being caught. the Tie-In was developed to counteract that speedy little devil of a ship.

The A-Wing seems awfully fragile. The X-Wing can take 4-5 hits from a TIE fighter, but the A-Wing is blown apart after only 1-2 hits!

The rebel craft should all be designed so that PCs can feel bad-ass flying them. As it is, it's hard to imagine a PC stepping into one of these deathtraps. Even the sensor jammer doesn't help protect against other silhouette 3 ships, which I believe is what interceptors generally are supposed to go up against.

To make matters worse, they cost even more than an X-Wing, which seems pretty hard to justify.

We see A-Wings waxed by grazing hits in EpVI:ROTJ... And they have been presented as fragile in WEG as well.

In WEG, it was

A-Wing: 2d+2 Hull & 1d+0 Shields

B-Wing: 3d+0 Hull & 2d+0 Shields

X-Wing: 4d+0 Hull & 1d+0 Shields

Y-Wing: 4d+0 Hull & 1d+2 Shields

TIE/LN: 2d Hull, 0d shields

(Movie Trillogy Sourcebook, Special Ed. pp. 118-124.)

So, West End understood the A-Wing to be fragile. But they felt it tougher than the TIE/LN. Also note: WEG's Hull corresponds some combination of hull and armor.

Playing Rogue Squadron III on the NGC, they are about equally bad (The TIE LN is slower but slightly tighter turning).

Sure, Armor 2 and 5 Hull Points is pretty low, given the TIE's stats...

Given that they have three canon fighters in Edge of the Empire to not overwrite (TIE/LN, Y-Wing, Z-95), and that it assesses as pretty marginally tougher than the TIE/LN, perhaps it's Ar=2 HP=5 is a bit too low. But it still should be well below what we see for the Y-wings (Ar=3 HP=12) and X-wings (Ar=5 HP=10).

So, based upon prior art, it looks like it's too weak, but not by bloody much. Either 2 HP or 1 Armor.

The A-wing also has a really low system strain threshold. I mean, if the pilot tries to go from dead stop to full speed, they won't be able to do any extra maneuvers or the systems will short out!

Kind of hard for them to be an interceptor if it takes forever to get up to speed.

-EF

I find this to be a bigger problem than how fragile they are.

Personally, I would raise their strain and redo their sensor jamming to just raise the difficulty of shooting them by 1 purple, or perhaps just upgrade the difficulty, so that it is always relevant instead of only being relevant against specific sizes.

The A-wing also has a really low system strain threshold. I mean, if the pilot tries to go from dead stop to full speed, they won't be able to do any extra maneuvers or the systems will short out!

Kind of hard for them to be an interceptor if it takes forever to get up to speed.

-EF

I find this to be a bigger problem than how fragile they are.

Personally, I would raise their strain and redo their sensor jamming to just raise the difficulty of shooting them by 1 purple, or perhaps just upgrade the difficulty, so that it is always relevant instead of only being relevant against specific sizes.

I agree completely. Higher ST, and better sensor jammer!

-EF

I think the real issue is not that they are so fragile. It's that they are so easy to hit. The mechanics of the game do not care how maneuverable the craft is and rely totally on talents that the pilot has. While I do think the pilot should have a role in this, I think the Handling of the craft should also factor into vehicle combat as well.

I think they could use a bit of a boost in their ability to dodge along with a slight survivability boost, as it is, if a tie fighter rolls 2 net successes, the A-Wing gets one-shotted. Adding two points of trauma threshold would help with that, but they could still stand to be more maneuverable and able to avoid hits.

Anybody who's played the old Lucasarts Tie Fighter game might be familiar just how much of a pain in the ass A-Wings could be to kill at times because of their speed.

Anybody who's played the old Lucasarts Tie Fighter game might be familiar just how much of a pain in the ass A-Wings could be to kill at times because of their speed.

From the speed perspective, the video games help, but realize that the player isn't really all that skilled, so the ships aren't really using all that skilled of a pilot. Also, the games do things to make the player more survivable than we see in the movies (like shields being an ablative armor type of thing rather than just helping to reduce the damage taken by the craft).

Anybody who's played the old Lucasarts Tie Fighter game might be familiar just how much of a pain in the ass A-Wings could be to kill at times because of their speed.

From the speed perspective, the video games help, but realize that the player isn't really all that skilled, so the ships aren't really using all that skilled of a pilot.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this. Are you saying that the PCs in AoR isn't as skilled as the AI pilots in the games?

As for the rest, this is a little off-topic and certainly a Your Mileage May Vary thing, but I've always preferred the flavor of that system better than the OT and movies. Not saying that it's necessarily better, just what I prefer!

Anybody who's played the old Lucasarts Tie Fighter game might be familiar just how much of a pain in the ass A-Wings could be to kill at times because of their speed.

From the speed perspective, the video games help, but realize that the player isn't really all that skilled, so the ships aren't really using all that skilled of a pilot.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this. Are you saying that the PCs in AoR isn't as skilled as the AI pilots in the games?

As for the rest, this is a little off-topic and certainly a Your Mileage May Vary thing, but I've always preferred the flavor of that system better than the OT and movies. Not saying that it's necessarily better, just what I prefer!

A graduate of Top Gun will be better at the kind of dog-fighting that this is showing off than even a good player (which most of the client base aren't).

The rest wasn't off-topic since we are discussing the fragility of a craft and how the shields work affects that fragility.

The A-Wing seems awfully fragile. The X-Wing can take 4-5 hits from a TIE fighter, but the A-Wing is blown apart after only 1-2 hits!

The rebel craft should all be designed so that PCs can feel bad-ass flying them. As it is, it's hard to imagine a PC stepping into one of these deathtraps. Even the sensor jammer doesn't help protect against other silhouette 3 ships, which I believe is what interceptors generally are supposed to go up against.

To make matters worse, they cost even more than an X-Wing, which seems pretty hard to justify.

All the things you mention make sense from a lore standpoint. Here are a few choice snippets from the Star Wars Wiki :

About survivability:

The combination of sensitive controls, unmatched sublight thrust, maneuverable weapon systems, advanced sensory and stealth packages, fragility, and heavily exposed cockpit strained even the best pilot. A-wings earned the nickname "slims" for their small frame made of carbo-plas, but also for the "slim" chance of a pilot surviving a direct hit on the ship after the shields were down, and the cramped cockpit that prevented larger pilots from flying the A-wing.

About price:

The earliest A-wings were hand-assembled at Alliance facilities like Cardooine and Chardaan Shipyards. This resulted in interesting modifications; some fighters incorporated actual wood furnishings for the cockpit interior, such as the one that Rogue Squadron pilot Tycho Celchu flew during the Battle of Endor.[6]

More serious was the slow production rate, allowing the fielding of just a few full squadrons. Only one full unit, Green Squadron, was present at the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY. Elsewhere, A-wings were issued to a handful of crack units, like Nomad Squadron and Pash Cracken's wing.

The combination of hand assembly, second-hand components, density of complex systems, and a general lack of quality control, aggravated maintenance. The A-wing had the second worse maintenance to flight ratio in the Alliance fleet in 3 ABY.[source?]

The A-Wing is indeed a deathtrap, but that's part of the design. It's a hit-and-run starfighter never intended to stand toe-to-toe with enemy ships. Players who pick up an A-Wing in Age of Rebellion should be aware that the available model is one of the earliest ever produced, and that it's not meant for dogfighting. Getting shot down is the risk they take for flying this speedster.

The cost doesn't reflect the actual value of this ship in a game group. It's a specialty ship produced in small quantities (at least at first). The cost is based on this, not on stats.