I'm just trying to make sure I'm understanding this correctly, as I'm used to either exact measurements (22.5 meters) or set narration ("it's a freighter, but on the bigger side"), but EotE seems to be trying to do both with the Silhouette and Encumbrance mechanic.

That said, I'm trying to make sure I'm seeing it correctly for statting purposes.

Basically, Encumbrance takes not only weight, but also overall bulk in mind. For example, Force Pike and a Gaffi Stick are both Encumbrance 3. While the Gaffi is smaller by almost half, it's heavier, thus the Encumbrance value. Ergo, bulk+weight are taken into consideration.

Am I missing something there?

Therefore, wouldn't Silhouette work in a similar mechanic?

My examples:

The Wayfarer transport is considered a Silhouette 5, even though it only measures in at 82 meters. It is a rather bulky craft due to the cargo pod attached, though, so is much taller as well as longer than most other freighters. With the bulk of the cargo pod, it becomes difficult to manuever, making it nigh impossible to do some of the stunts of smaller ships.

The CR90 Corvette, on the other hand, is 150 meters long and is still a Silhouette 5. Due to the length, some of those tricks are also impossible to pull off.

In The Old Republic MMO, we have six ships available, many of which are nearly 100 meters in length, but are just as agile and manueverable as a fighter. While these ships are longer, they are also thinner (like the Fury-class Imperial Interceptor), making them a smaller target in the end. Would these ships then classify as Silhouette 4 due to this?

The Supa Fighter is also an interesting case. It is considered a Starfighter, but is 27.6 meters long, making it longer than the Firespray.

Another fighter is the StarViper, which is 21 meters long, but would be considered by all rights to be a "small silhouette" ship due to it's relative thin design.

So. . .if I'm going by length alone, I apparently have Starfighters that hit Silhouette 4, and have freighters that are as agile as fighters that hit Silhouette 5, but by going with overall mass and shape, they'd possibly be consider a Silhouette lower.

Is this really as wonky as it sounds, or is there an easier way around it?

(And yes, I know there's been plenty of griping regarding the Wayfarer being a Silhouette 5 and not being a good ship for a pilot who likes combat, which is also a bit of the case here. . .)

As dissatisfying as this reply is, you seem to be accurate in most regards here.

Encumbrance is a combination of a lot of things including size, weight, and even construction. A small but fragile vase may be far more encumbering than its size/weight would indicate.

Silhouette is something else again. It is, obviously, an abstraction assigned by the developers in order to reflect some mechanical concerns without getting bogged down in specific measurements. I tend to think of Sil as more of an indication of classification of ships than rational measurements.

As for conversions, I would say to use a combination of the manuever implications, weapons restrictions, and presented material as a guideline. The starship systems we have are very broad in design philosophy, even in the adventure at the back of the core book. Mechanically (including price) I determined the pirates ship was identical to a YT-1300. I know that on various sources they are vastly different ships, but the system we have doesn't support as much granularity as some would like.

I am unfamiliar with the ships you have mentioned and so cannot coment on them directly, but I would also insert a note of caution. MMOs and table top RPGs are vastly different mediums, and the mechanical representation even the concerns of what would make an MMO enjoyable are very different from how table top RPGs are designed. Direct translations will often be impossible without modification.

In The Old Republic MMO, we have six ships available, many of which are nearly 100 meters in length, but are just as agile and manueverable as a fighter. While these ships are longer, they are also thinner (like the Fury-class Imperial Interceptor), making them a smaller target in the end. Would these ships then classify as Silhouette 4 due to this?

If you feel they need access to the piloting manuvers presented in the game, then make them Sil 4, but they sound like Sil 5 ships to me. Look at their armament. If they come with more than 4 weapons, they are probably Sil 5.

The Supa Fighter is also an interesting case. It is considered a Starfighter, but is 27.6 meters long, making it longer than the Firespray.

Another fighter is the StarViper, which is 21 meters long, but would be considered by all rights to be a "small silhouette" ship due to it's relative thin design.

In this case it would depend on your personal perspective, but I would suggest two options:

1) Sil 4 sounds good for balance purposes, but if you feel it's too big, then drop it to Sil 3.

2) ignore the "real" measurements and classify it as a Sil 3 fighter.

As with all conversion questions, just make sure that you balance the mechanics related to them. Are their superior craft to TIEs and Y-wings? Of course, but cost, availablity, legality will all play a factor in such things. I would advise against making a ship that is "better" in all regards to others presented without mitigating factors.

About silhouette according to Sam Stewart (look it up in front of your book) when he talked on the Order 66 podcast and received a few questions about silhouettes (from yours truly amongst others) his reply was... satisfactory in one way, but vague-ish.

Silhouette is not so much based on size alone, the length, width and height of a ship does not so much decide the silhouette, but it informs it (this is my interpretation of Sam's answer not necessarily what others interpret or what he meant).

What else is a deciding factor on silhouette? Use... the purpose of the vessel, what sort of function does it have, what is it supposed to do? Is it a heavy cargo hauler meant to move a lot of cargo, troops, people, like the Wayfarer or Action VI, or a semi-capital ship like the CR90? Well, then it is not a silhouette 4, but a silhouette 5 - because silhouette 6 again is way larger and not so much a support vessel as the CR90 can be seen as, the silhouette 6 has room for larger hangar bays and function as a small capital ship and base of operations, but also as a support for silhouette 7+ battleships, which could be considered mobile weapons platforms or space stations almost. Slow, heavy. lots of fire power.

Of course, this is merely my interpretation.

As for the SWTOR starship, when I converted them I decided that they should be silhouette 4 - simply because the way they are portrayed in the game shows us that they a manoeuvrable, agile and can participate (clumsily perhaps) in dogfights. Although, again, you could make them silhouette 5 and put some more heavy weaponry on them...

The Wayfarer transport is considered a Silhouette 5, even though it only measures in at 82 meters.

The CR90 Corvette, on the other hand, is 150 meters long and is still a Silhouette 5.

In The Old Republic MMO, we have six ships available, many of which are nearly 100 meters in length, but are just as agile and manueverable as a fighter. While these ships are longer, they are also thinner (like the Fury-class Imperial Interceptor), making them a smaller target in the end. Would these ships then classify as Silhouette 4 due to this?

The Supa Fighter is also an interesting case. It is considered a Starfighter, but is 27.6 meters long, making it longer than the Firespray.

Another fighter is the StarViper, which is 21 meters long, but would be considered by all rights to be a "small silhouette" ship due to it's relative thin design.

Little tip: Don't trust measurements in Star Wars... EVER.

I did a bunch of paper models to scale and I (and others who do similar stuff like deckplans) noticed that Lucasfilm and it's licensees are terrible at measurements.

While there's certainly plenty of accurate measurements out there, many are wholly wrong. Typically the problem is an original author listed a ship/vehicle size in feet, and their editor corrected them by switching it to meters, but didn't do the math to fix the number, they just scratched out "ft" and wrote "m."

So the Supafighter (whoever named that one is an idiot btw) was probably supposed to be 27 feet long.

Or my personal favorite... the Chariot command speeder is essentially just an armored landspeeder full of communications gear... at 11.8 feet long it fits perfectly... but it's listed at 11.8 meters, so it's more than 30 feet long and so wide it fills up two lanes of traffic on a normal road....

For what it's worth, remember that the Falcon interior set was adjusted from an earlier design to match the final "burger and olive" exterior. The interior and exterior don't match and so the Falcon is bigger on the inside. So either George isn't really concerned with exact measurements (and neither should you be).....

or....

HAN IS ACTUALLY A TIME LORD!

My apologies for multiple replies, but I figured I'd go reply by reply so they don't all get lost in the same post. . .

The Wayfarer transport is considered a Silhouette 5, even though it only measures in at 82 meters.

The CR90 Corvette, on the other hand, is 150 meters long and is still a Silhouette 5.

In The Old Republic MMO, we have six ships available, many of which are nearly 100 meters in length, but are just as agile and manueverable as a fighter. While these ships are longer, they are also thinner (like the Fury-class Imperial Interceptor), making them a smaller target in the end. Would these ships then classify as Silhouette 4 due to this?

The Supa Fighter is also an interesting case. It is considered a Starfighter, but is 27.6 meters long, making it longer than the Firespray.

Another fighter is the StarViper, which is 21 meters long, but would be considered by all rights to be a "small silhouette" ship due to it's relative thin design.

Little tip: Don't trust measurements in Star Wars... EVER.

I did a bunch of paper models to scale and I (and others who do similar stuff like deckplans) noticed that Lucasfilm and it's licensees are terrible at measurements.

While there's certainly plenty of accurate measurements out there, many are wholly wrong. Typically the problem is an original author listed a ship/vehicle size in feet, and their editor corrected them by switching it to meters, but didn't do the math to fix the number, they just scratched out "ft" and wrote "m."

So the Supafighter (whoever named that one is an idiot btw) was probably supposed to be 27 feet long.

Or my personal favorite... the Chariot command speeder is essentially just an armored landspeeder full of communications gear... at 11.8 feet long it fits perfectly... but it's listed at 11.8 meters, so it's more than 30 feet long and so wide it fills up two lanes of traffic on a normal road....

For what it's worth, remember that the Falcon interior set was adjusted from an earlier design to match the final "burger and olive" exterior. The interior and exterior don't match and so the Falcon is bigger on the inside. So either George isn't really concerned with exact measurements (and neither should you be).....

or....

HAN IS ACTUALLY A TIME LORD!

Not gonna lie, you got me to chuckle a few times in the office over this. Well done.

I know measurements are always an issue in Star Wars, as we even run into the problem with the original films, as they admitted to using incorrect models for an event which drastically ruins the scale of things.

Now, with every other RPG I've run, I've always seen things classified by type; a starfighter is a starfighter, and size really wasn't worth too much. A bigger starfighter going head-to-head with a capital ship was just as effective as a smaller starfighter. It makes my head spin after a while, but I'm trying to get my mind around it.

And yeah, the Supafighter is horribly named, but it's a little-known ship that I thought would be fun to stat out.

As dissatisfying as this reply is, you seem to be accurate in most regards here.

Don't worry about the disatisfying part; I'm used to that in general with this sort of thing.

As for conversions, I would say to use a combination of the manuever implications, weapons restrictions, and presented material as a guideline. The starship systems we have are very broad in design philosophy, even in the adventure at the back of the core book. Mechanically (including price) I determined the pirates ship was identical to a YT-1300. I know that on various sources they are vastly different ships, but the system we have doesn't support as much granularity as some would like.

As with all conversion questions, just make sure that you balance the mechanics related to them. Are their superior craft to TIEs and Y-wings? Of course, but cost, availablity, legality will all play a factor in such things. I would advise against making a ship that is "better" in all regards to others presented without mitigating factors.

Yeah, I ran into that, and I use the other ships as guidelines whenever I start doing my conversions/designs.

With the ships I've been working on, I tried to find something close to it for guidelines and work from there, which is one of the reasons why it's been a bit of a challenge. For example, in the fluff, a lot of the starfighters are often compared to the Y-Wing or TIE fighter, which makes things VERY easy for me to do conversions on (and thus why I started doing a crazy starfighter creation thread ). There may be things mechanically "better" in some respects, but that's like saying that a TIE Fighter is better than a Z-95; depending on what you are looking for, it may be, but it may not be, which is one of the reasons why I'm throwing things out there as I have been.

I am unfamiliar with the ships you have mentioned and so cannot coment on them directly, but I would also insert a note of caution. MMOs and table top RPGs are vastly different mediums, and the mechanical representation even the concerns of what would make an MMO enjoyable are very different from how table top RPGs are designed. Direct translations will often be impossible without modification.

[...]

If you feel they need access to the piloting manuvers presented in the game, then make them Sil 4, but they sound like Sil 5 ships to me. Look at their armament. If they come with more than 4 weapons, they are probably Sil 5.

While I understand and respect that an MMO and tabletop are drastically different, you really can't remove one from the other. So many fans of video games play tabletop RPGs to get that new challenge or more control over the story, but many of them do get annoyed when they are told they "can't" do something that is easy/common in a game.

Now, if it helps, here's a ship that is from the game: the XS Stock Light Freighter (note; "light freighter"). The ship was an early CEC design that influenced later ships, like th YT series. It clearly is listed at 88 meters in length, meaning it should be longer than a Wayfarer, but it fits in hangar bays with little issue, isn't much larger than most starfighters, and the armaments are not overkill.

Now, if we go with the "it's feet, not meters" argument that Ghostofman mentioned, it would make a WHOLE lot more sense. . .

Also, with your argument on weaponry: there are plenty of Sil 4 ships that are heavily geared. The Skipray Blastboat is one of them, as it's a smaller anti-capitalship gunship when you think about it. The Millennium Falcon is another argument, as it carries two Quad Laser Cannons, a Blaster Cannon, and two Proton Torpedo launchers. . .and that's without adding any of the temporary stuff, like a tractor beam, minelayer, etc.

I think the argument on weaponry and Silhouette is flawed with that in mind.

So that's my snag there; I guess I'm used to pure narration ("It's a starfighter, so about X size") or exact measurements ("Yeah, that transport measures at exactly X meters, meaning you aren't going to park it there anytime soon.").

About silhouette according to Sam Stewart (look it up in front of your book) when he talked on the Order 66 podcast and received a few questions about silhouettes (from yours truly amongst others) his reply was... satisfactory in one way, but vague-ish.

Silhouette is not so much based on size alone, the length, width and height of a ship does not so much decide the silhouette, but it informs it (this is my interpretation of Sam's answer not necessarily what others interpret or what he meant).

What else is a deciding factor on silhouette? Use... the purpose of the vessel, what sort of function does it have, what is it supposed to do? Is it a heavy cargo hauler meant to move a lot of cargo, troops, people, like the Wayfarer or Action VI, or a semi-capital ship like the CR90? Well, then it is not a silhouette 4, but a silhouette 5 - because silhouette 6 again is way larger and not so much a support vessel as the CR90 can be seen as, the silhouette 6 has room for larger hangar bays and function as a small capital ship and base of operations, but also as a support for silhouette 7+ battleships, which could be considered mobile weapons platforms or space stations almost. Slow, heavy. lots of fire power.

Of course, this is merely my interpretation.

Even that way, it's still a bit clunky. I mean, a troop transport can be argued to be Silhouette 4 or 5, regardless of overall size? My thought: look at the LAAT Gunships we see in Episode II. They are supposedly measuring in at 17.4 meters, can carry 30 troops, and are pretty heavily armored.

In comparison, we get the Lambda class shuttle, which is 20 meters, only has space for 20 passengers, and has half of the armament.

Would this mean that, due to the "purpose" of the first ship being more gunnery and troop oriented, it would be a larger Silhouette?

That's pretty much my line of thought here: it isn't very clear where one ends and the next begins, which makes it a bit difficult for me to figure out some of these ship conversions, as the "sample" ships would mean that some of these ideas (like the ships from the MMO) would be Silhouette 5, even if they are supposed to be capable fighters.

As for the SWTOR starship, when I converted them I decided that they should be silhouette 4 - simply because the way they are portrayed in the game shows us that they a manoeuvrable, agile and can participate (clumsily perhaps) in dogfights. Although, again, you could make them silhouette 5 and put some more heavy weaponry on them...

I remember you mentioned your conversions in this thread when I was trying my hand at them as well. We have quite a few similarities and a few differences; makes it rather interesting, really.

If by Old Republic MMO you mean SWTOR, I think those ships would be about on par with the YT-1300 (so a 4?). They support a crew of about half a dozen and can hold their own in a dogfight. Sure, they are agile like snubfighters in game, but I think that reflects a gameplay choice. Space missions would not be too fun if you had a slow, lumbering frieghter.