Ahem.

How do you guys feed techies and doctors and thieves, etc., who want the very best tools? Armour and weapons get very specific and powerful bonuses for Superior quality, but I can't find anything for non-combat gear. (5k to generate an extra Advantage icon seems a bit stingy.)

I wouldn't.

Most tech and medical gear allows a check to take place. The right tool for the job modifier already kinda enhances the check if they have the perfect item on hand. The medical and mechanical focused talents really ramp up the effects of success.

By having too many items with too many bonuses, the game slides away from the narrative focus and more towards a book keeping one. To me at least, the game seems to try and keep gear and equipment as a minor side show to the characters talents, characteristics and skills.

That being said, I think the 5000cr charge for a set of Superior Tools or Med-Gear makes fair sense. And the simple advantage bonus would be appropriate.

It just isn't a direction I would go in my game.

I believe the equipment section does list some bonuses for having superior tools and/or their are boost dice for having better grades of equipment. that being said, 5k for an advantage isn't really all that much worse than 5k for a cheap handgun. In the case of a med kit, the expense would come from having cutting edge interfaces/AI's to assist with use. The tool kit could represend nano/molecular adaptive tools and/or "smart"tools. Slicers could obviously benefit grom a cutting edge rig and programs.

Especially inthis game, I have a tendancy to reflect the workload onto my players. If your PCs want some new sort of gear item tell them to come up with what they want and work out what's reasonable. You can use any of the established mechanics as guidelines. A better/special quality medkit could downgrade the difficulty of treating someone. An adaptive toolkit could add boost dice. A slicers kit could remove setback dice. Work with your players to create the stuff they want and give them the opportunity to use it. By the same token, make sure that the benefits are fairly minor, and make sure the players know that their effects will NEVER stack. Easiest way to prevent unbalancing breakage.

I wouldn't.

Most tech and medical gear allows a check to take place. The right tool for the job modifier already kinda enhances the check if they have the perfect item on hand. The medical and mechanical focused talents really ramp up the effects of success.

By having too many items with too many bonuses, the game slides away from the narrative focus and more towards a book keeping one. To me at least, the game seems to try and keep gear and equipment as a minor side show to the characters talents, characteristics and skills.

That being said, I think the 5000cr charge for a set of Superior Tools or Med-Gear makes fair sense. And the simple advantage bonus would be appropriate.

It just isn't a direction I would go in my game.

Yeah, I get what you're saying. Your way forces the character to be good at something. (Also lends itself to a theme of "skilled outcasts vs. powerful organisations".)

It's just that a Hired Gun can become better at what they're designed for through XP and money, the Colonist can't.

You want a colonist to get better by spending money? Buy a droid that can Assist with the actions in question. A doctor with a medical/surgical droid, a politico with a protocol droid, or a scholar with an archive/reference droid are all fitting for Star Wars.

You want a colonist to get better by spending money? Buy a droid that can Assist with the actions in question. A doctor with a medical/surgical droid, a politico with a protocol droid, or a scholar with an archive/reference droid are all fitting for Star Wars.

Hadn't thought of that. Think my GM'd lose patience if I was dragging a robotic entourage around with me, though. We've already got a butler, chef-bot and bartender droid on our ship.

You want a colonist to get better by spending money? Buy a droid that can Assist with the actions in question. A doctor with a medical/surgical droid, a politico with a protocol droid, or a scholar with an archive/reference droid are all fitting for Star Wars.

Hadn't thought of that. Think my GM'd lose patience if I was dragging a robotic entourage around with me, though. We've already got a butler, chef-bot and bartender droid on our ship.

If they leave them on the ship or at the base, that is fine with me. Taking 4 or 6 droids with them everywhere they go? I call that a target rich environment.

They haven't left the ship since we, um, "acquired" them. Circumstances* have forced us to become dangerous criminals with the odds stacked against us, always on the run from someone... but then we go back to the ship, put our feets up and relax with a martini.

* Political manoeuvring; pressure from a crime boss; poor life choices; reactivated salvage from the Clone Wars.

You want a colonist to get better by spending money? Buy a droid that can Assist with the actions in question. A doctor with a medical/surgical droid, a politico with a protocol droid, or a scholar with an archive/reference droid are all fitting for Star Wars.

One thing that kind of bothers me about the assistance system is that in this case, any doctor worth his metal would be so good that a standard medical droid as presented in the book would be considered unskilled assistance, and no better than a PC without any medical training at assisting in an operation. I think that there needs to be a separate classification for skilled assistance that in cases where the aid has ranks in the relevant skill, which adds 2 boost die instead of one.

You want a colonist to get better by spending money? Buy a droid that can Assist with the actions in question. A doctor with a medical/surgical droid, a politico with a protocol droid, or a scholar with an archive/reference droid are all fitting for Star Wars.

One thing that kind of bothers me about the assistance system is that in this case, any doctor worth his metal would be so good that a standard medical droid as presented in the book would be considered unskilled assistance, and no better than a PC without any medical training at assisting in an operation. I think that there needs to be a separate classification for skilled assistance that in cases where the aid has ranks in the relevant skill, which adds 2 boost die instead of one.

The GM can certainly consider the droid "the right tool for the job" and have ot give a bonus die over and above what it grants through the Assist maneuver.

While this many not be possible for you at the moment, being dirt poor and finding a building that you might be able to use as a garage would be awesome for a mechanic!

We play a very starved economy and scrape by constantly. Getting to dig through a junk pile makes our mechanic all sorts of happy.

We have become "prospectors" of sorts for the company that terraformed the system we are in. We were gifted a scanner that can scan for water and other "precious" minerals. It gives no bonuses to computer rolls, but if the roll comes out a wash (everything cancels out) we get 1 success. That little toy has been a lot of fun and quite the adventure hook.