So, I know lots of people don't like the current starship combat system. I for one do, sort of.

I do however admit that it is sort of lacking in some areas, but perhaps not as much as others claim.

From the various threads around here I've been thinking about how to add to the space combat system.

First it seems people want more defensive stuff and Evasive Manoeuvres doesn't seem to be good enough for some.

I have some suggestions for this.

1) Defensive Screen (silhouette <4; speed 3+)
Activation: Action
Effect: Make a Pilot check (a la Gain the Advantage, or normal opposed, perhaps competitive?), on a success upgrade combat checks against one allied starship. This effect cannot be cancelled by Gain the Advantage action. Any attacks made by defending ship upgrades combat check difficulty by an equal amount.
Notes: Silhouette 3 and 4 starships/vehicles cannot gain this benefit more than two allies. Silhouette 5 and 6 can receive benefits from four allies. Larger ships need different tactics and team work beyond the scope of this Action to gain similar benefits.

2) Evasive Action (silhouette <5; speed 2+)
Activation: Action
Effect: Make a Pilot check (a la Gain the Advantage, or normal opposed or competitive), on a success upgrade combat checks against vehicle by 1. Additional 3 successes (or advantages?) can be spent to upgrade once more, for a total of no more than 3 upgrades. Any attacks originating from Evasive vehicle receives an equal amount of upgrades to combat checks against opponents.
Note: This Action can be used in combination with Evasive Manoeuvres for a potential total of 4 upgrades, however Gain the Advantage can cancel 1 of the upgrades from Evasive Action in addition to the usual cancellation of the Evasive Manoeuvres upgrade.

3) Defensive Fire (silhouette 1-8; must be armed with two or more laser, turbolaser or blaster cannons; linked 1 weapons qualifies)
Activation: Action
Effect: Make a Hard Gunnery check (or opposed by something? - thinking maybe of using range here; average for close, easy for short, average for medium, hard for long?) If Gunnery check is successful upgrade combat checks against one allied ship within weapons range once. Allied ship can be no larger than one silhouette larger than ship executing this Action. Additional 4 successes/advantages(?) can be spent to upgrade combat checks further, to a total of no more than 3 upgrades. If executed by a capital ship (silhouette >5) in support of allied capital ship (silhouette >5), this also causes immediate area (close range band) around allied capital ship to be hazardous for smaller enemy vessels (Silhouette <4), +1 setback die to Pilot checks per upgrade.
No ship may benefit from this Action more than once per round.
Note: This Action requires the whole weapon array of the given type in that fire arc; so either all four laser cannons on an X-Wing, or all the starboard (or other fire arc) weapons of one type on a capital ship.

I know these might be infringing upon some talents or the pilot specialisation, but I do believe that they stay somewhat within the spirit and confines of the existing system.

Comments? Suggestions?

EDIT: Fixed some of the text, added some stuff.

I like them.

Why thanks you.

1) With these - and another one I have in the works - I'm wondering if Combat difficulty upgrades are the way to go, or if some of these should increase Defence of defending/defended ship instead?

Suggestions? Observations?

2) I'm also unsure about the Pilot checks, but I do feel that Defensive Screen and Evasive Actions could be alternate sub-headings for Gain the Advantage; so basically following the same rules for increased difficulty and all, but just adding to it. Of course I've made Evasive Action available for Silhouette 5 ships, and much slower ships, but I feel that this makes sense, since I require an Action for the Evasive action and not a manoeuvre - although for some reason I do not think that reducing the speed requirement for Gain the Advantage makes sense (make of that what you will).

Suggestions? Observations?

3) As for the Gunnery check difficulty I'm unsure as to whether it should be a flat difficulty, based on silhouette, speed, range or whatever. I do feel that range could have something to do with it in this instance, sine its not hitting that's the goal... So here I'm in need of suggestions and observations?

I like these.

For 3, you could always make it opposed Cool or Discipline.

Very nice. They could also allow the opposed pilot check, in the skill area, give the winner a choice to upgrade offense or defense.

I would not add these to gain the advantage, imo that is more offensive. List them as defensive maneuvers.

In the end some ships are support and some just want to run with minimal damage.

Gunnery: make it a flat roll based on size and range, but only add setback dice. More successes, advantages, or triumphs can add more die or upgrades.

Still need to be careful about allowing to many checks that can stack upgrades. Despairs are nasty.

No real opinion on your additions at this time.

Defense vs Upgrades - both already exist - but multiple upgrade should be triumphs not multiple successes. 2 upgrades is powerful stuff.

My biggest issue with the combat system is the abstraction is actually making my job harder, not easier, when running squadron on squadron (as my players opted for a Y-wing squadron). I also think Pilot Space needs more options to be rolled. Otherwise, I love it as much as I loved WEG 1E (that said, when I run SW, I use 2E - not 2ER nor 1E)

Fair points. (although the abstraction is of no real concern for me).

I'm considering defence boosts instead, partly because as you point out upgrades are powerful, particularly the Despair potential. Following RAW no defence zone can have more than 4 defence, if I recall correctly, and this cap could come into play here too, for vehicles with high defence values already.

So as a tweak I could imagine that the additional successes or advantages add defence limited by the Actions as per above, or RAW (whichever is lower), and one Triumph can be used to exchange one defence die generated by the Action with an upgrade, multiple Triumphs would need multiple successes/advantages (I have not decided upon which to go for yet.)

So, I've adjusted them based on feedback here, and some more thoughts on the matter.

Defensive Fire (silhouette 1-8; must be armed with two or more laser, turbolaser or blaster cannons; linked weapons qualifies)

Activation: Action

Effect: Make a Gunnery check opposed by opponents Cool or Discipline . If Gunnery check is successful add +1 setback die to Pilot checks within close range of defended ship (any enemy ships in area must make an immediate Pilot check based on speed and terrain). Additional 2 successes increases this by +1 setback die up to a maximum of +3 setback dice. 3 Advantages can be spent to increase defence by +1 in one defensive zone against any ships within the affected area. One or more Triumphs can be spent to upgrade combat check difficulties to hit defended vessel, or any of the above alternatives.

Allied ship can be no larger than one silhouette larger than ship executing this Action.

No ship may benefit from this Action more than once per round.

For silhouette 5+ starships executing this Action with turbolasers, 3 additional successes can instead be spent to increase the area of effect to Short range instead.

Note: This Action requires the whole weapon array of the given type in that fire arc; so either all four laser cannons on an X-Wing, or all the starboard (or other fire arc) weapons of one type on a capital ship. Remember rules on maximum defence value outlined on page 226 in the EotE core book.

Defensive Screen (silhouette <4; speed 3+)

Activation: Action

Effect: Make a Pilot check using difficulties outlined in Table 7-3 (EotE core book page: 234). Success increases defence of one allied starship by +1. This effect cannot be cancelled by Gain the Advantage action. Any attacks made by defending ship also adds +1 setback die upgrades combat check difficulty by an equal amount.

Notes: Silhouette 3 and 4 starships/vehicles cannot gain this benefit more than two allies. Silhouette 5 and 6 can only receive the benefits if 2 or more ships execute the Action to a maximum of four allied ships, halve number of upgrades rounding down. Larger ships cannot benefit from this Action.

Evasive Action (silhouette <5; speed 2+)

Activation: Action

Effect: Make an opposed Pilot check, success gives evading ship +1 defence to one defence zone. 3 advantages can be spent to gain another +1 defence to same or another defensive zone (to a total maximum of +2), limited as per defensive zone maximum outlined on page 226 in the EotE core book. 1 or more Triumphs can make these defence increases into upgrades instead. Any attacks originating from Evasive vehicle receives an equal amount of setback dice (or upgrades) to combat checks against opponents.

Note: This Action can be used in combination with Evasive Manoeuvres.

So I like the idea behind these, but I'm not sold on the implementation. It's too cumbersome in my book.

The idea of defensive screen is inspired, by the way.

Here's my guiding principles:

• Avoid wherever possible opposed checks. They bog combat down, and waste time that can be better spent doing something other than rolling dice. Rolling dice is a necessary evil not something that's actually fun.
• Making people do math is bad. Keep It Simple Stupid. Also it bogs the game down when you have math challenged friends.
• Piloting is your friend.

I'd get rid of Evasive Action entirely. Maybe it's better than evasive maneuvers, maybe it's not. Either way it's irrelevant and we don't need more evasive rules. We already have a simple one. Opposed checks suck monkey nuts in this system (you can't have everything). Avoid them.

Defensive Fire is a great idea. It will allow big ships to do something to defend themselves. Make it the opposite of gain the advantage. You can only do it if you are going slow enough (2 or less) as you need a stable platform to coordinate your fire. It can only be done by turret mounted weapons as you need to track your target without the hassle of moving the ship. Make it work like the adversary rule. Upgrades. Upgrades are good here. If you screw up your attack run you run into a freaking turbo-laser. That should be despair. At least half of a ship's guns in a fire arc should have to participate to gain this benefit.

Defensive Fire (Speed 2-, turret mounted weapons only)

Activation: Action, gunners only

Effect: Roll gunnery as normal. If you hit you do base damage (do not increase the damage with additional hits). Each two Advantage upgrades the difficulty by one to hit your ship from that fire arc. At least half of all turret mounted laser or blasters in a given fire arc must participate in this action.

Defensive screen is even easier to slim down. The point is to prevent an attacker from attacking the target he wants to. So that's what we do. If you succeed your target has to attack you rather than his preferred victim. The difficulty should depend on the maneuverability of the target. An A-wing is hard to stop from going wherever it wants but a capital ship is pretty easy to intercept. So bring in maneuverability. Size doesn't matter. Smaller ships can get into position easier, but bigger ships have a bigger shadow.

Defensive Screen (No restrictions)

Activation: Action (pilot only)

Effect: Make a piloting check with a hard difficulty against an opposing ship. Upgrade or downgrade the check one for each point of maneuverability of the target ship (the difficulty may not drop below simple). If you succeed your target ship may not attack any target except you. Your foe's weapons in different fire arcs from your ship may target as normal. Any other ships that take the Defensive Screen action against your target nullify your screening and become the only ship the target may attack.

Now we need a way for Han, Luke, or Lando to ignore your defensive screen because they are just that good.

Run the Blockade (No restrictions)

Activation: Action (pilot only)

Effect: Make a difficult piloting check against an opponent who has successfully used Defensive Screen on you. Upgrade or downgrade the difficulty of this check one for each point of maneuverability of the Screening ship. If you succeed you may target any ship you choose with attacks. If you fail you may only attack the screening ship.

I'm not sure how to integrate triumph and advantage into these, yet. I'll have to think further.

I'd have to disagree on your evaluation of the opposed check, and your version of KISS. I'm also not in agreement with your "guiding principles", my experience is different, and whatever complex math you think is in this, I'd like you to point out.

Evasive Action I find useful, because slower and larger ships can perform it, which is the trouble with Evasive Manoeuvre, it is limited by silhouette and speed. So I'll keep it this one.

I like your tweak on the Defensive Screen, I'll consider that one more closely.

You're missing my idea with Defensive Fire, which I guess is because I haven't spelled it out properly. It was not intended as a self-defence action, I had some other ideas for that, rather the idea is to fill an area of space with laser and blaster shots to hamper enemy movement and attacks on allied ships, cover fire basically...

Upgrade is WAY too steep for a stat thats up to +3 and -2. Especially since you're starting at 3 purple. That becomes 3 red vs ties. Which means a not insignificant amount of despair (23% chance of a despair on 3 red) which makes for a lot of troublesome overlap with skilled characters' triumphs.

Increases to difficulty from 3pu is worse, tho' - you cannot get past a TIE/LN nor a TIE/INT. (6 pu is the "The GM can simply say 'No" level).

I hate opposed checks in this system because of the fistfuls of dice that get thrown. It's fairly common to see people throwing 4 green/yellow dice, 2 blue dice, 2 black dice, and 3 purple/red dice on a single check. Unless you are using a dice rolling app that's 11 dice on one roll. Given human psychology you typically have one person roll and total everything up. Then the other player rolls his dice and totals everything up. That's about 10 to 20 seconds to determine the outcome of a given action. That's assuming everyone is on the ball. I know people who gather up all those dice and shake them for 10 seconds, never mind figuring out how many of each symbol you have.

That's way to friggin' long in my book. Actions should be about 3 to 5 seconds to make something happen. Opposed checks are also more prone to he-said-she-said fights about outcomes. This is a beautiful and elegant system if you don't use opposed checks. The opposed check rules are just clunky. There are too many symbols on the dice for it to really work. I don't have a better way around them given the givens, so I think avoiding them is the best way.

It works better to have opposing actions rather than a single opposed check.

Combat works best in RPGs when there are rapid transitions between player actions. People get bored and do other things when it isn't their turn. That 20 seconds to make a decision, roll dice and then determine outcome is ideal. Anything longer and the game bogs down because then you have to re-attract the attention of the players. You are talking about 20 seconds just on rolling dice. That's too long. They have purposefully avoided this in combat because of the limitations the dice impose.

In regular (non-opposed) checks the dice are an asset. In opposed checks a detriment. This isn't d20 where people roll one die, add a thing, and then compare totals.

I might of course be wrong, but opposed checks is one check, rolled by the active character, the only difference between an opposed check and a normal check is that the difficulty of the opposed check is based upon an opposing character's characteristic/skill (PC or NPC), rather than the named difficulty levels; easy, average, hard, etc - what it seems you're referring to is competitive rolls, a different type of check, where both sides roll and see who gets the most successes and so on, which is definitely a more long winded approach yes, but not what I have in mind.

I hate opposed checks in this system because of the fistfuls of dice that get thrown. It's fairly common to see people throwing 4 green/yellow dice, 2 blue dice, 2 black dice, and 3 purple/red dice on a single check. Unless you are using a dice rolling app that's 11 dice on one roll. Given human psychology you typically have one person roll and total everything up. Then the other player rolls his dice and totals everything up. That's about 10 to 20 seconds to determine the outcome of a given action.

Your having issues because you're doing it wrong.

There is no Second roll.

"opposed rolls' in the Edge/Age games are "The opponent's skill and attribute replaces the purple"

So, in an opposed athletics roll versus a group of 4 Stormtroopers (Tug of war over the blaster rifle) - the active side rolls his normal green and yellow; the inactive (in this case, 2 green) converts greens to purples, and yellow to red, but the active player rolls them as a difficulty.

You are all correct. I was thinking of competitive checks rather than opposed checks. My bad.

So I think competitive checks suck platypus private parts, but opposed checks aren't so bad. There is some extra time involved with determining difficulty, but it shouldn't be too bad.

I'll reiterate I think you have a snowball's chance in hell of getting Evasive Action through, but, obviously, I've been wrong before. I think it will confuse too many people and they already have evasive maneuvers.

Oh, I'm not really thinking of these as suggestions to the developers, I mean sure it would be really cool if they thought they're worthwhile and all, if so the developers will do as they want with them... the name is poor, I'm all for suggestions I just couldn't think of anything better when I wrote it... you could call it "bob-and-weave", "crazy ivan" (of course that would be something else perhaps? ), "defensive action" ... "stay on the defensive", "all out defence" ... etc.

My main intention is to add something to the game for GMs and players, without changing the whole of the space combat system. Other people are for larger changes, I'm mainly for adding more stuff to it... to add options within the existing framework.

I like your idea of expanding space combat to make it more crunchy. The thing the red book does that the white book didn't is include fighter combat as an integral part with dedicated fighter jock classes and specializations.

It would be nice to see new rules that make fighter combat more exciting. Pick from the menu of like four useful things to do is like playing checkers. It simple, but kinda boring once you're not a stupid kid anymore.

So, Aservan already touched on this above, and I had some ideas myself, so it might be a mix of some sort.

Scattered firing pattern (silhouette 4+)

Activation: Action (gunner only)

Effect: Make one Hard gunnery check for all weapons of a given type in one fire arc/defensive zone. Success creates +1 setback dice to pilot checks for enemies within weapon range, require immediate check from any enemies in area on success (treat any pilot check failures as either minor collisions for any non-turbolaser weapons, turbolasers cause major collisions, see EotE page 242). Additional 3 successes can be spent once increase terrain difficulty by another +1 setback die (Turbolasers decrease this cost to 2, and can spend a total of 4 successes for twice the effect). 3 Advantages can be spent to upgrade difficulty to be hit within that fire arc/defensive zone (up to a maximum of two upgrades). Triumphs can be spent to force enemies to attack within designated defence zone, further Triumphs can add +1 defence in designated defence zone.

This action is pretty powerful, and considering most capital ship's difficulty to hit smaller vessels, particularly fighters going against stardestroyers I think a Hard difficulty is ok, but I might be persuaded to increase it to Daunting, because this is powerful.

I can see the appeal of having people make pilot checks to avoid running into big bolts of death, but I think you're making it too complex. I wouldn't bring in the collision rules. Just make people take damage if they fail.

Rules that tell people to flip to a new part of the book to look at another rule are a waste of time.

Let's think about your rule.

Who, what, when, where, why, and how.

Who: Capitol ships and thus the GM will be the primary user of this rule. Easy is a good GM's best pal. Remove rolling dice.

What: You got this part right. PCs must avoid scattered shots designed to hit them no matter where they try to hide.

When: Easy again during combat when PCs are attacking a capitol ship.

Why: We've answered this already, but lets make it clear. Capitol ships don't want to be bombed by bombers so they execute a screening fire action.

How: The big question.

Defensive Fire/Scattered Firing Pattern

Activation: Action (5+ Silhouette only)

Effect: One firing arc may take this action. All weapons of a given type in that arc must participate. All enemy ships in range must make an opposed Pilot vs. Gunnery check or suffer a hit. Threat may not be used to trigger additional hits from the linked property. Despair results in a critical hit.

That's much simpler and doesn't need so many fringe case explanations. You roll pilot vs their gunnery. If you fail you get hit and take some damage. If you succeed you get to run the death star's trench.

In one thing I agree, after having played a few sessions of EotE, I see that more stuff for space combat is needed, specially capital ships.

I like it. Still prefer my version, but yours is definitely simpler, but "does less" in the way I want it to. Still, yours is a perfectly good alternative, even if for some starships, like a stardestroyer, this Action might be more useful than a conventional attack roll, as the difficulty is probably not as bad against silhouette 3 and 4 targets. The silhouette difference would make silhouette 3 and 4 somewhat harder to hit normally, if you just count number of dice, I think it starts at Formidable when a silhouette 8 attacks silhouette >4 starships. Considering that most starting players will have no higher than 4, perhaps 5, in agility, and a rank or two...

Anyway, I like it, but will continue to tweak mine some more. Who knows, I might just end up using yours before long

Taking damage from a failed roll seems counter to the design approach of the game engine; damage is always done by an active roll - bullet splats being damage, not failure triangles.

While I see the need for more piloting rolls in combat, these don't seem terribly good fits mechanically.

Collisions cause straight critical hits, which is what I've been aiming at instead.

Poisons also cause damage by failed Resilience check, of course that's a slightly different context, but it isn't such an outlandish idea I think, to use it as Aservan suggests.

Another solution would be to roll Gunnery opposed by Pilot for the Scattered Firing Pattern (or whatever to call it). That would mean it would only be usable against targets in said defensive zone, and within range - and whatever limitations should be put on range beyond close or short in this case (if any).

I don't think it's weird to take damage if you fail the roll. That's what falling is all about. Make the athletics or coordination check or take damage from the environment.

That's what I see happening here. The cap ship is spraying so many laser bolts that it's very difficult not to clip one of them.

The up side for a cap ship is that it's much easier to hit inexperienced pilots. Given that cap ships have minion gunners they don't have awesome shots doing the firing. A good pilot will rarely fail the pilot check. Even if the pilot does fail he only takes the base damage from the gun. That's a lot less than a direct hit. GMs shooting at PCs will need to decide if they want extra damage or just a chance to hit at all.

I like the rule because it means the PC pilot character has a reason to fly a bomber sometimes. She can easily evade incoming fire and drop torpedoes up someone's ying-yang.

It also helps to explain how Luke can get those incidental hits, and not blow up while the minions he's flying with can't "Stay on target."

Jegergryte's rule is more comprehensive, but is a lot more complex. If a computer where doing the math I'd vote for his every time. In table top I think it's too cumbersome.

Again with the "math"-argument, I'm starting to feel that this is the lazy man's argument. It's really simple: roll, determine result, apply effect s - instead of effec t . Ah well, each to his own I guess.

Could my version perhaps work better as a series of talents, rather than a standard Action type perhaps...? Not that it would really matter much.