Is it just me or is the math a little off between the different ships in both EotE and Aor. I get that the games are more narrative then calculated simulations but the capital ships seem really weak. The guns are under powered and the hull is way too low. I was looking through the ships inventory in the X-Wing Alliance game and I started recording the different stats. I then started comparing the stats to EotE/Aor ships. Some math jived, speed, maneuverabilty. But hull points and weapons were vastly different. By the ti me I was done I had 67 ships detailed out. Next I started to completely converge the two games looking for a happy medium. Attached is a couple of ships I did.

The hulls are based off XWA, Spd and maneuver was based mathematically between XWA and EotE/Aor. Guns are based off desciptions from EotE/AoR, SW D6, & d20 but with better stats. Shields are based off XWA divided by the four sides (I know this is for capital ships but oh well).

I feel the shields should have a hit point value like the hull because the shields have soaked up multiple shots in the books and movies before failing.

Lastly the weapons, I like the additional damage that additional successes give you, but if you are shooting twin medium lasers, on a success how many laser beams hit their mark, 1 or both. Well with a damage of 6 that seems pretty weak. Now if a success grants the first beams hit and another success grants the second beams hit and any additional successes great a + to further damage, well then we're talking.

lastly again, I think missiles should out distance shots. Yes lasers would go virtually forever in space (unitl obstructed) but on XWA the missiles lock on before the guns are in range. Same is true with every fighter and attack aircraft flying in the worlds inventory today.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/eozcjw7o8vyyajy/New%20statted%20Ships.docx?m

Take a look and let me know if I am totally smoking my lunch.....

The way shields are depicted in the movies are vastly different to how they function in the video games such as Xwing or Tie Fighter. I feel the game captures more of the feel of the movies were shields arent always 100% reliable.

The setback dice from shields effectively nullify some of the shots against the craft. At first I thought the capitals seemed underpowered hull/armor wise, but just imagine what they can do if they angle their deflectors. A Nebulon-B Frigate can easily throw up a rating of 5 to a shield facing thats getting hit, making it tough for any shots to get thru that arent coming from a ship flanking or using gain the advantage.

I honestly dont think you have a firm grasp on the mechanics if you are saying capital ship weapons are weak. You realize that most of them can destroy a light freighter in 1 round?

Missiles already have longer ranges than all of the laser weapons except of course turoblasers.

That seems like a lot of work. I'm not sure why people have a burning desire and/or believe things have to be balanced. I blame video games, MMOs mainly. Anyway, they don't need to be balanced that's the best part of pen and paper games.

I do believe pen-and-paper games need to be balanced so that every player (and character type) is both fun and useful to play. That being said I don't see a problem with the current capital ship rules.

At least in Edge, starfighters and capital ships can be in the same encounter. Back in Saga, capital ships had shields that made them all but invulnerable to damage from anything other than other capital ship fire. Meanwhile, capital ships could only hit most starfighters on a natural 20, all but guaranteeing its destruction.

Essentially, capital ships became window dressing on a scene, not an actual encounter threat (which is fine, most of the time).

I mostly like what FFG has done. Remember, this isn't a naval tactics simulator, it's a role-playing game, and it's not fun to tell a player, "Sorry, this thing kicks your ass no matter what you try."

I mostly like what FFG has done. Remember, this isn't a naval tactics simulator, it's a role-playing game, and it's not fun to tell a player, "Sorry, this thing kicks your ass no matter what you try."

Maybe not, but sometimes you also want smugglers to care about dodging Imperial customs inspectors. A freighter shouldn't have fair odds against a capital ship.

I do believe pen-and-paper games need to be balanced so that every player (and character type) is both fun and useful to play. That being said I don't see a problem with the current capital ship rules.

Fun and useful aren't part of balance. Plenty of characters can be fun and useful that aren't good at quite a few aspects of some RPGs. Such as being the "know-a-guy" type. Or look at the Doctor on Firefly/Serenity. He was a bumbling, naive individual, but he still was a fun and interesting character.

In games like this, where you spend points fairly freely as opposed to forced growth, two characters of the same point value can be drastically different. What if I spent 1000XP just buying up the various Specializations? No reason, but chose to do it? Is that "fair and balanced" vs someone that spent that same 1000XP filling out their entire tree and working on one or two others to near completion?

The way shields are depicted in the movies are vastly different to how they function in the video games such as Xwing or Tie Fighter. I feel the game captures more of the feel of the movies were shields arent always 100% reliable.

The setback dice from shields effectively nullify some of the shots against the craft. At first I thought the capitals seemed underpowered hull/armor wise, but just imagine what they can do if they angle their deflectors. A Nebulon-B Frigate can easily throw up a rating of 5 to a shield facing thats getting hit, making it tough for any shots to get thru that arent coming from a ship flanking or using gain the advantage.

I honestly dont think you have a firm grasp on the mechanics if you are saying capital ship weapons are weak. You realize that most of them can destroy a light freighter in 1 round?

Missiles already have longer ranges than all of the laser weapons except of course turoblasers.

After reading your post I took a harder look at the ship combat. Particularly the weapons and shields. The only ship combat I had done so far was between the Krayt Fang and the tie fighters. So no, admittedly I did not have a firm grasp on starship combat. The whole thinking process started with another guys post on how his PC's were going to attack a Star Destroyer with a transport. So naturally I started running numbers in my head and trying to wrap my mind around the math. Now I know the FFG SW games are narrative, but there is still so math involved. Thanks for the critique though. As a side note I still enjoyed profiling all the ships and plan on going back and restating them for the ships that have not been introduced by any of the books yet.

There is also the new Massive - # vehicle quality appearing in AoR, which aims to add durability to capital ships.

There is also the new Massive - # vehicle quality appearing in AoR, which aims to add durability to capital ships.

However, it only seems to appear at Silhouette 7+, so moderately sized vessels such as corvettes and frigates are unchanged.

At first I thought the capitals seemed underpowered hull/armor wise, but just imagine what they can do if they angle their deflectors. A Nebulon-B Frigate can easily throw up a rating of 5 to a shield facing thats getting hit, making it tough for any shots to get thru that arent coming from a ship flanking or using gain the advantage.

I was wondering actually if this can be done. From the Angle Deflector Shields manoeuvre it is not clear to me if you can deflect more than one point of defence at anytime per ship, or it refers that you can only reassign one point of defence per manoeuvre but as long as you perform enough maneuvers you can reassign as much defence as you want.

A Nebulon-B Frigate can easily throw up a rating of 5 to a shield facing thats getting hit, making it tough for any shots to get thru that arent coming from a ship flanking or using gain the advantage.

The most any ship or vehicle can have in a defense zone is 4 points. (p.226, first paragraph of "Silhouette and Defense Zones)

The ship battles involving capital ships that we have played out do not seem unbalanced at all. Capital Ships can be monsters, and the Massive quality will make them even better.

Also, as Diggles said, I like that this game seems to model shields from the films more than from the videogames.

Hi people! Re-opening old post.

The shield idea concept its fine for most cases shields aren't 100% effective but, I would like to know what interpretations you make about some scenes like Auto-Blasters vs Droideka's Shiels (their own), Federation Station Bitten-Donut Ship (XD) that Naboo Fighters with lasers and Torpedoes think that its almost impenetrable, Gungan Shields vs B1 droids and Artillery Vehicles. Maybe a few cases like lasers againts big ships but, with those ones will be enough.

I mean, yep, I don't like videogame concept that you can sustain a lot of shots and recharge shields with F5, and also I understand that shield fluctuate and aren't always on but, in those cases where SURE shield can fight those kind of fire, how to do you deal with them?

Just 2 or 3 Setbacks seems not enough to recreate those scenes.

Another consideration its that I like oppinions about consider three different scales instead two.

Personal, Vehicle x5 and Ship x10. With those damage and armor adjustments, maybe a few more things will work.

What do you think?

I just don't even bother with the large ships. It's like throwing an adult red dragon at a 1st halfling fighter mounted on a large rooster.

"Game over man! Game over!"

If you can see a Capital ship, its probably too late for your players.

The math does add up. Fighters are horribly expensive, and rather delicate. My crew Sliced (as in Computers) two TIE fighters out of the sky.

First... Fighters can dish out damage so they are dangerous. But they are unlikely to kill anything big, their weapons don't generally punch through armor. For a big ship this is like getting pecked to death.

Second.. bigger ships have bigger guns. Those few extra points and breach, are devastating if you have weaker armor.

Third... I think you subtract the armor for the second hit with weapons.

Fourth... fast ships get to pick the facing they attack, so you can bet they aren't picking your strong shields.

Fifth... A butt kicking awesome pilot can do a lot of damage compared to your average pilot.

The game really does work on a sliding scale. One size difference in ship will cause a tremendous difference the ability dish out and absorb damage.

My crew Sliced (as in Computers) two TIE fighters out of the sky.

How?

My crew Sliced (as in Computers) two TIE fighters out of the sky.

How?

This would pair up nicely with Ion Cannons.

I guess my question is more how they got access to slice in in the first place. Through what network connection?

I guess my question is more how they got access to slice in in the first place. Through what network connection?

I'm going with wireless data which would most definitely be present. Telemetry and data feeds to other ships are omnipresent. Slicing would involve cracking into a lower level system, and spreading from there. Change the pilot's respirator to 'Gand' and see how he like's that.

I dunno. No offense, sounds way too easy to me. Plus, TIEs having a Gand setting? lol no bc racism

I think star wars works better when you don't have wireless data. I take slicing attacks against a ship as using your ships computers, sensors, and scanners to overload targeted systems on the enemy ships. Overload a relay here, crash a circuit there and eventually the ship stops working.

I think star wars works better when you don't have wireless data. I take slicing attacks against a ship as using your ships computers, sensors, and scanners to overload targeted systems on the enemy ships. Overload a relay here, crash a circuit there and eventually the ship stops working.

It's a real shame the Rebels bothered using starfighters against the Death Star when a few hundred hackers could have shut it down...

Not in my Star Wars!

Here is another edition of Occum's Razor

Dear Occum,

Why didn't the Rebels just slice/Hack into the enemy systems to prevent the Death Star from firing, or even functioning?

Answer: The Empire have better slicers (or at least more of them) and used things called jammers

It's a real shame the Rebels bothered using starfighters against the Death Star when a few hundred hackers could have shut it down...

Not in my Star Wars!

In the real Star Wars universe IG-88 took control of an entire manufacturing planet. He modified many droid wireless data feeds so the droids would report to him on command. Almost all of his face to face communications were wireless data feeds.

IG-88 also reprogrammed the Death Star mainframe. In fact he was in it when the Death Star blew up.