In the latest beta update (week 2), some new talents were added to the Gunner talent tree, namely the Debilitating Shot talent.

Debilitating shot :

Activation: Active (Incidental), Trees: Gunner, Upon making a successful attack with a starship or vehicle weapon, may spend 2 advantages to reduce the maximum speed of the target by 1 (to a minimum of 1) until the end of the next round. If the starship or vehicle was travelling its maximum speed, it has its current speed reduced to the new maximum.

In a chase, it might be usefull to slow down the ennemy you're trying to catch or flee from... but otherwise, how is this talent usefull ?? Because, outside of a chase, I can't really see how it would be usefull.

Thanks for the input.

Some pilot actions require a minimum speed to perform.

Also the Gain the Advantage action is dependent on the opposing vehicles' speeds. Reducing the opposing vehicle's speed could mean the difference between a hard or an average check or more with enough gunners.

Also the Gain the Advantage action is dependent on the opposing vehicles' speeds. Reducing the opposing vehicle's speed could mean the difference between a hard or an average check or more with enough gunners.

Which also makes it of more value to multi-crew gunboats than fighters.

For, in those cases, gunner goes first in round X with lightest gun, in hopes of getting the debilitating shot. then Pilot does GTA, picks facing, ignores evasion, and maybe does a Stay on Target. Gunner #2 the shoots heaviest gun at -1 diff and ignores their evasives, with a double stress, and hopes for crit and linked to trigger...

Which, by the way, is how a group of 9 fighters can take out an interdictor... provided they're Y-wings. Pilot closes and GTA's, maybe takes two strain & two stress for 2nd Maneuver to Stay on Target. Gunner now takes 2 stress for 2nd maneuver, and rolls against no dice with linked protons Typical NPC gunner is Gunnery 1, Agl 3, for YGGBB and as many blacks as target shields.

Yes, we played it out this session... Yes, they dropped it's hull in ONE turn of strikes. Between Blast 6 and Linked 1, capships pop too easy.

The clone wars episode where they cripple the Malevolence was done with a flight of Y-Wings.

Bombers raking their target with ideal positioning should be able to wreak havoc. Especially when there is almost 10 of them.

Just curious, why we're they rolling against no dice?

Just curious, why we're they rolling against no dice?

Mine weren't - they burned a destiny for them to be moving away without being concerned.

I misremembered the mechanic for stay on target. I remembered it was the opposite of Evasive Maneuvers; I got the wrong kind of opposite (Opposite item is upgraded is what it should be, instead of opposite direction,ie, downgrade). There are a couple talents that downgrade difficulties, tho, so it's quite possible I conflated them.

A little reminder...
Downgrade doesnt remove purple dices, it just turns red dices into purple dices... leftover downgrades are ignored.

Also... with the new MASSIVE talent for capital ships, it's gonna be a lot harder to take down... crits kill capital ships, not the torpidoe's damage.... since they do their damage divided by 10 because of scale difference

Anyway...

I think speed isn't enough of a factor in most cases to make this talent really shine... except to help to gain the advantage, it almost has no bearing on a fight.

Torpedoes do vehicle damage, so you don't divide it by 10, a hold-out blaster would, but not a concussion missile or proton torpedo.

There are only two scales in FFGSWPRG, character and vehicle.

A little reminder...

Downgrade doesnt remove purple dices, it just turns red dices into purple dices... leftover downgrades are ignored.

Also... with the new MASSIVE talent for capital ships, it's gonna be a lot harder to take down... crits kill capital ships, not the torpidoe's damage.... since they do their damage divided by 10 because of scale difference

Anyway...

I think speed isn't enough of a factor in most cases to make this talent really shine... except to help to gain the advantage, it almost has no bearing on a fight.

Two things -

1) Dices is a verb (either to roll dice, or the present tense of "chopping into cubes"; the plural is dice; in American, the singular is Die, while in the UK variant, Dice is also singular. (yes, I'm a pedant. Yes, it's a pet peeve).

2) - several talents reduce difficulties (Master Slicer, Master Starhopper, Master of Shadows)

@Jergercyte

It really feels like the original scaling was to be x5, and possibly to have multiple scales besides. It's just too easy to kill big ships with the Proton Torps... Perhaps massive should also reduce breach as well as increase Crit?

Two things -

1) Dices is a verb (either to roll dice, or the present tense of "chopping into cubes"; the plural is dice; in American, the singular is Die, while in the UK variant, Dice is also singular. (yes, I'm a pedant. Yes, it's a pet peeve).

2) - several talents reduce difficulties (Master Slicer, Master Starhopper, Master of Shadows)

@Jergercyte

It really feels like the original scaling was to be x5, and possibly to have multiple scales besides. It's just too easy to kill big ships with the Proton Torps... Perhaps massive should also reduce breach as well as increase Crit?

1) English isn't my native language, so i'm doing my best but sometimes I miss a few...

2) I know that a few talents reduce difficulties, but none with gunnery.

Last game, my players shot a juggernaut's main canon agaisnt pirate thugs... it was kinda strange to see them blow up hit by a 5dmg *10 for a total of 50 damage. I thought it was the difference in scale that caused the *10 for damage... but I was wrong... thanks for clearing that up.

I'm probably going to try to get my players to fight against a capital ship with starfighters just to see if it's all that easy to kill.

Two things -

1) Dices is a verb (either to roll dice, or the present tense of "chopping into cubes"; the plural is dice; in American, the singular is Die, while in the UK variant, Dice is also singular. (yes, I'm a pedant. Yes, it's a pet peeve).

2) - several talents reduce difficulties (Master Slicer, Master Starhopper, Master of Shadows)

@Jergercyte

It really feels like the original scaling was to be x5, and possibly to have multiple scales besides. It's just too easy to kill big ships with the Proton Torps... Perhaps massive should also reduce breach as well as increase Crit?

1) English isn't my native language, so i'm doing my best but sometimes I miss a few...

2) I know that a few talents reduce difficulties, but none with gunnery.

Last game, my players shot a juggernaut's main canon agaisnt pirate thugs... it was kinda strange to see them blow up hit by a 5dmg *10 for a total of 50 damage. I thought it was the difference in scale that caused the *10 for damage... but I was wrong... thanks for clearing that up.

I'm probably going to try to get my players to fight against a capital ship with starfighters just to see if it's all that easy to kill.

The trick my players used was enhanced by 2 flaws of the Immobilizer (AKA Interdictor) class.

1) All its weapons are short ranged. (I can't remember if it's close or short without looking)

2) It has a small fighter capacity (which is a known canonical flaw)

Capital ships appear to get only one initiative slot unless manned by PCs. This, coupled with the design's flaws, meant that they could get in, and fire at anywhere from GG Y P KK to G YYY BB P KK . (K for black) THe two blue for a gunner with a double aim (1 from personal stress).

Plus, the slicer killed the aft shields with a G YYY B PPP KK computer roll, hitting 6S and a Triumph, thus eliminating those two blacks per attack, making the to-hits GG Y P to G YYY B B P (double aim gunner).

TLDR: Stacking multiple specialties plus the inherent flaws of squadron with PC's vs NPC-only capital ship results in improbable levels of smackdown.

@Jergercyte

It really feels like the original scaling was to be x5, and possibly to have multiple scales besides. It's just too easy to kill big ships with the Proton Torps... Perhaps massive should also reduce breach as well as increase Crit?

Perhaps. The increase in Crit requirement is pretty beardy, affecting Breach makes even better. I'd think that its easier to disable a capital ship through lots and lots of damage than actually destroying it, which is where the Massive quality comes in as I see it. Going above the HT Threshold, if I recall correctly, only disables the ship - and applies one critical hit, which wouldn't destroy it outright (I guess this is GMs decision with NPC starships and suchness), unless you've got vicious 5 or some similar quality for the torpedoes.

Still, I can see that Breach could be reduced by 1 if the starship has the Massive quality, but I'd not go with reducing Breach = Massive rating. At least not sitting here away from the book.

Aramis, I know you have indicated that the new capital ship moves changes your test here, but there are some other things your situation highlights.

If you have 9 Y-Wing with pilot an gunner each, taking all available actions (18 maneuver and action with strain/stress bonuses) versus a capital ship with 1 action and 1 maybe 2 maneuvers, you are going to win. Especially if the capital ship is hacked and hasn't deployed it's star fighter contingent.

It is action superiority against a totally exposed target. They should destroy that ship in this situation, period. What you describe is a Pearl Harbour situation.

The key change to my mind, other than the total vulnerability of the capital ship, is to give the target a few more actions. Maybe 1 initiative slot per 3 PC star fighters. I know the book says 1 action for the ship, but your example highlights the problem here.

If the mission is to sneak attack to destroy a exceedingly vulnerable ship, this is a great example of it. If the mission was key to or even the climax of an adventure, this situation feels kind of flat. The goal of the game is great stories, not tactical Star Wars Navy simulator.

I think we could enjoy some sort of incentive for forming squadrons of some sort, with some sort of benefit from giving up each individual pilot's and/or gunner's allotment of manoeuvres and actions. How to do this I don't know, my only reference point is OCR/RCR/SE wings, which won't really be all that super in this system I think.

The squad leader specialisation does add some benefits, but perhaps not on a mass-scale?

Giving Capital ships even more boost than the new actions could also be possible, for instance making them into Nemeses, and giving them the Nemeses ability from the GM's Kit could work (a second initiative slot at the end of the round), not for all Cap ships of course, but the important ones...

Why is there a belief that a capital ship gets only 1 action and 1 or 2 maneuvers? Such numbers are per character (PC or NPC), and capital ships have dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of crew. The only limit is on only taking one pilot-only maneuver for silhouette 5+ and that each weapon can only be fired once per turn. Some of the new actions use up multiple weapons in an action, but they can still be fired the old fashioned way.

Why is there a belief that a capital ship gets only 1 action and 1 or 2 maneuvers? Such numbers are per character (PC or NPC), and capital ships have dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of crew. The only limit is on only taking one pilot-only maneuver for silhouette 5+ and that each weapon can only be fired once per turn. Some of the new actions use up multiple weapons in an action, but they can still be fired the old fashioned way.

You are correct, I mistyped and meant 1 Starship Pilot Action and 1Starship Maneuver.

Why is there a belief that a capital ship gets only 1 action and 1 or 2 maneuvers? Such numbers are per character (PC or NPC), and capital ships have dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of crew. The only limit is on only taking one pilot-only maneuver for silhouette 5+ and that each weapon can only be fired once per turn. Some of the new actions use up multiple weapons in an action, but they can still be fired the old fashioned way.

Explicit text on p.164... in the first ¶ of "Capital Ship Combat" - second sentence. Mind you, it's contradicted rather explicitly in the next paragraph, though. Nasty fodder for rules lawyering.

For sanity's sake, I put the gunners and the pilot in the same initiative slot, since they were all minions, and it acts as a single "unit".

Likewise, for simplicity, I put the gunners of the 6 NPC fighters on the same slot as their pilot, to reduce tracking (and the pilots generally weren't doing actions, anyway). But I also wasn't letting the NPC gunners take aims, to reduce the number of dice thrown. And I still got an average of 1.4 hits per ship... considering the breach 6 means the interdictor can be cracked with Proton Torps, and most fighters carry dual linked torp launchers with 6-8 shots...

Note also - due to initiative rolls, the whole thing clustered up allies so 9 allies went in a row. The capital ship was fine with no in-range targets at start of turn, and slow enough to not be able to force contact anyway (and then, by the wording of the rules, only one fighter would be in range, because of the overly abstracted movement mechanics for ship combat), and it would die, but the result would be the same - massive overwhelming proton death.

Blanket Barrage would have reduced the hits (by increasing difficultes from P to R or even RR P , albeit multiple batteries might have caused a lot of confusion, since turrets need to be accounted for, and multiple batteries of different types potentially stacking. Note that, unless despairs were rolled, the Immobilizer class Interdiction Cruiser won't hurt fighters with it... base damage of 5, halved is 2.5; call it 3 for simplicity. The Y-wing has armor 3. Since this hit cannot penetrate, the damage is scratch-n-dent. Even on the despairs, that's only 17% down - 2 of its 12 HT - per despair.

Concentrated Barrage wouldn't have mattered - no capship vs capship fire, but in looking at it to check, I noticed there is potential interaction with the linked quality that is explicitly spelled out - it only affects one hit of the attack (so linked and autofire won't matter there).

Overwhelming barrage would have made a fairly significant difference had the initiatives been different; it would have made for a compelling reason for the capship to engage, and would have simply slowed the slow-death somewhat.

Why do I say "somewhat"??? Because, lacking a more concrete movement system, and using the astromechs aboard to reduce system stress, they would have done "move in from medium, shoot while at close, move back out to medium (costs 2 personal and 2 system stress)" a number of times equal to half, rounded down, of their stress threshold. Yeah, my players DO think that way. And they'd have said "I'm going off in a different direction" so as to not be in a cluster to be moved to.

They are all deucedly unhappy with narrative nature of movement. It's a flat out dealbreaker for one (he's not in the group at present because of it), and a problem for several of those currently playing. Including the 9 and 14 YO kids. (Same said not-in-group player also didn't like WEG 1E for the very same reasons.)

Something that this brings up is that the rules for running a capital ship are not present. How many actions? Is each weapon crewed by one minion? Does this force you to recalculate your dice pool every turn? How do you eliminate turrets beyond a crit? Lots of issues with capitol ships in my eyes.

Something that this brings up is that the rules for running a capital ship are not present. How many actions? Is each weapon crewed by one minion? Does this force you to recalculate your dice pool every turn? How do you eliminate turrets beyond a crit? Lots of issues with capitol ships in my eyes.

While agree that the capital ship rules are not the greatest, there will never be a rule for how many actions a ship gets because ships don't get actions - the crew members get actions. However many crew members can take meaningful actions is how many actions will come from a capital ship just as for any other vessel (but the number will likely be higher).

Something that this brings up is that the rules for running a capital ship are not present. How many actions? Is each weapon crewed by one minion? Does this force you to recalculate your dice pool every turn? How do you eliminate turrets beyond a crit? Lots of issues with capitol ships in my eyes.

While agree that the capital ship rules are not the greatest, there will never be a rule for how many actions a ship gets because ships don't get actions - the crew members get actions. However many crew members can take meaningful actions is how many actions will come from a capital ship just as for any other vessel (but the number will likely be higher).

Actually, they could easily provide just such a rule, and note within that variations happen. This would be a great benefit, in fact... a standard from which to deviate and explicit instruction to do so is far better for harried GM's than a vague directive to "make it up on your own."

My whole purpose in buying a final release version is to make my life as a GM easier. Vague guidelines don't.

A concrete instruction like "Each capital ship class gun normally has two crewmen on the firing team, and 5 on the repair and maintenance team," (or adding two columns to the ship weapon table with a 1 short paragraph reading "Average crew sizes for firing crew and maintenance crew for various guns are shown on the weapons table, but actual crewing may vary as the GM sees fit,") does make my life easier.

And pointing out that such guidelines are not needed doesn't make them any the less valuable to those of us who want a standard, and it's much easier to ignore what's there than to make up on the fly what isn't there.

The standard is that the pilot takes actions, each gunner takes actions, and then it's reasonable that there are others that take actions for sensors/engineering/repair and also for officers pulling leadership tasks. The last two parts are the ambiguous parts. I would guess that beyond the pilot and gunners, a number of actions equal to the Silhouette of the ship would be a start.

The issue is the game is set up wonderfully for the players on a freighter or in fighters. However, capital ships offer enough crew to conceivably do almost every action availiable. Having a clear idea as Aramis suggested could help gm's.

We have a guidelines for how many pilot actions, but how about how attacks? Or scanning the enemy? How about repairing stress?

Running a large ship by the book can be deadly. I would think that to use a more Star Trek example, a ship should have a command crew. We need a chief engineer, captain, weapons officer and helmsman.

A ship should be only as good as the command crew. But how to work a captain ordering 100 crew to do repairs?