If your ship gets shot and disabled, its not destroyed. You need a crit for that. So your players aren't killed for their trouble.

You might want something that fits an astromech droid, the extra actions and aid with piloting can be invaluable.

I wouldn't crawl into a fighter right away. I think they need a tad more experience or characters that aren't that good out of a fighter.

Grimmshade: Speeder Bikes are hard to take out with hand held weapons, but it can be done. Auto-blasters trash them fast.

One other very very important consideration is that your players can customize and make their ships more resilient. My players upgraded and super heavily modified the shield on the YT-1930 (equivalent ship). When they had the upper hand in the combats, the extra shielding made it impossible to harm them.

They captured quite a few Speeder Bikes on Cholgana and they've been modifying them (and filing off serial numbers). The most popular mod is armor which makes it really hard to put a dent in the bikes with hand held weapons.

PS. Don't forget to get your Slicer to disable enemy fighters. They inflict strain and fighters tend to be weak. (Now that does not fit the movies at all. Wouldn't you hire 100 slicers to wipe out the entire opposing attack force? "Ha ha! I change the admin password on the Death Star to 'VaderBl0wz'!")

I think they fairly represent how lethal space combat is. One lucky or random shot and everyone is dead, period. If characters or GM consistently put them in a steel flying can..they will get shot down. No heal spells, no teleport, just dead. Plane Dog-fighting in ww2 was incredibly dangerous..there is so much flying lead that even the BEST pilot is going to probably end up dead..eventually. It's not a space combat simulator. Try Star Fleet.

Okay, so how does that make a fun game? I mean, you can go around getting into one brawl after another, get healed almost daily, yet the game tone suddenly changes when you crawl into a starfighter?

Space combat is not very "Star Wars" to me in this game. The few times I've used it, I've fluffed a lot and made sure it's more of a chase scenario. But I wouldn't put PCs in a straight up dogfight. For one thing, you're likely to get into a situation where some players are shot down early, and if you say they ejected and survived their ship blowing up, they're stuck with literally nothing to do while the other players carry on. Guaranteed yawn-fest.

I'm looking forward to hearing the next Order 66, maybe there will be some insight. But RAW, the starfighter part of space combat is a 180 swing from the rest of the game.

I'm the exact opposite myself. For me some of my favorite parts of Star Wars are the ships and space battles. I agree though it should be rare for battles to be fought in deep space. I can think of a few reasons that might happen though. Hitting ships when they have just come out of hyper, hitting ships at waypoint systems they are stopping at en route to their final destination, or hitting a group of ships which is in hiding in deep space (The Rebel Fleet at the end of Empire Strikes back would be a great example. The key point of all of these is that the target is either the ships themselves or someone or something on it. True the point of fighting battles isn't to fight battles but the point is to either win a war or accomplish some objective, and in a space opera setting eliminating enemy ships, and disrupting space based supply lines reduces their ability to wage war and thus helps win wars IMO. Plus sometimes objectives are as simple as keeping ships, people, or cargo from reaching their destination and hitting a ship in deep space is one way to achieve that.

If by some miracle you achieve space supremacy you've pretty much won IMO Of course achieving space supremacy is all but impossible in a setting like Star Wars, or most Space Opera settings really. But achieving Space Superiority, or just denying space supremacy to the enemy (Which was basically the mission of the Rebel Fleet from its founding until after Endor) still helps.

And hitting ships after they've just dropped from hyper or at a waypoint system is a viable tactic for pirates (NPC or PC) and Imperial Customs forces or the military if they are after you.

Good point regarding shields.

Otherwise... well...In my games I'm not looking for way to kill PCs, and I do understand it's not a video game. What I'm looking for is an enjoyable experience, also for those players, who want to play starfighter pilots. What's the point of doing all the push-ups if they can't lift a bloody log? (in sir Cain voice ). I mean - what's the point of spending all the xp on piloting and talents if what matters in the end is HT and armour of their ship?

Two fighters have 2purple of base attack difficulty. With evasive man. it can be upgraded to 1p1red. That's it - as opposed to a lot of yellows and greens that can be rolled to hit. No dodges, no sidesteps equivalents...

I'm thinking of making evasive man. a graded success - the more successes you dish out, the more dice you can upgrade...

Take your opponent into something other than open space. Suddenly you both have to make piloting checks against terrain as well as each other. Now having those talents matter.

Space combat against the empty backdrop of space is boring as all get out.

So, we've run a few combat encounters and we discovered that starfighters are very fragile. That would be ok if there were ways of avoiding getting hit. Alas, aside from evasive maneuvers, which only upgrade one dice there is no way of avoiding fire, no matter how good a pilot you happen to be. Unless I'm missing something?

And the second point: shields seems quite useless the way they are now - one or two black dice don't stop a lot of damage. Right or wrong?

I ran a dedicated rogue squadron game at the weekend and I've got to say I really like the space combat rules. I have to put my hands up and say most of my fights happened in deep space, but with objectives as backdrops.

First of all, evasive manuvers can add up - Assuming the both ships are doing it, they're upgrading two difficulty dice to hit - which is quite considerable.

Secondly, and here is where skill comes in, is the use of the Gain the advantage manuver. Even if don't use the implication that you can put yourself out of another ship's firing arc to make yourself safe (and I do) it means you're firing with no penalty while the opponent still has the difficulty bump. *This* is where the good pilots in the faster ships have the advantage.

As to shields, I will agree that they are a secondary factor - but I like it that way. It's better that the better pilots have the advantage. Shields are a runners up prize for the slower ships.

Also, as has been pointed out, when a fighter hits zero hull it doesn't explode - it just goes dead and takes a critical (which it's almost impossible to be destroyed from). This to me seems analogus to personal combat where you can on take a few hits, but you won't be killed from the critical.

I don't know how much more they could add...I believe abstract was the right approach. No matter how "good" they make it, someone is going to point out how its not an accurate simulation.

I'm not after a simulation, but I do want it to make sense. Right now, speed and fly just do not make sense. Fly twice makes less than no sense. Dogfights in empty space should still be exciting, there shouldn't have to be asteroids or space slugs in the way. I don't really like the way shields are handled, as a simple form of damage reduction, it doesn't jive with what we see in the movies or TCW.

Justifying this with "no matter how good it is there will always be complaints" is just settling for mediocrity. And I say that as someone who thinks this game is the best RPG ever.

I don't know how much more they could add...I believe abstract was the right approach. No matter how "good" they make it, someone is going to point out how its not an accurate simulation.

I'm not after a simulation, but I do want it to make sense. Right now, speed and fly just do not make sense. Fly twice makes less than no sense. Dogfights in empty space should still be exciting, there shouldn't have to be asteroids or space slugs in the way. I don't really like the way shields are handled, as a simple form of damage reduction, it doesn't jive with what we see in the movies or TCW.

Justifying this with "no matter how good it is there will always be complaints" is just settling for mediocrity. And I say that as someone who thinks this game is the best RPG ever.

I'm not justifying it or I'm not trying to justify it. It's just how the creator of the game chose to represent it. I can't change it and as far as I am concerned every game is abstract...what levels of abstract your comfortable with..is individual and I respect that. On a personal note, I think this is the best game ever printed. It is accessible, it is engaging for all people at the table and the people behind the game are invested.... I believe this system gives you an end result comparable to any other (imagined/abstract/detailed) result without the heavy charts. But it (the system of rules) challenges the player with dice as a motivator to tell the story, not the chart. My opinion and your rule book, play..alter how you like. I think space combat has an amazing story to tell and for someone who comes from Advanced Squad leader, Star Fleet etc..I enjoy the narrative simplicity. Page 232 sums it up "combat between starships and vehicles in EotE is largely an abstract, narrative-driven activity designed for quickness and ease of use."

I'm not after a simulation, but I do want it to make sense. Right now, speed and fly just do not make sense. Fly twice makes less than no sense. Dogfights in empty space should still be exciting, there shouldn't have to be asteroids or space slugs in the way. I don't really like the way shields are handled, as a simple form of damage reduction, it doesn't jive with what we see in the movies or TCW.

Justifying this with "no matter how good it is there will always be complaints" is just settling for mediocrity. And I say that as someone who thinks this game is the best RPG ever.

I make all pilots take Gain the Advantage as a maneuver on their turn to determine if they can keep enemy ships in their fire arcs, or avoid those of enemy ships. Success/Failure affects the enemy's position relative to your orientation, Advantage/Threat affects your position relative to their orientation. Replacing Fly with this has helped bring out the "turn-and-burn" aspect, where both sides are clawing for position rather than just freely shooting every turn.

I think the recent podcast gives some great advice on this topic.

Yes, the podcast cleared up a lot of things for me. I would still prefer something a tad more tactical, but I think I can work with this.

Yes, the podcast cleared up a lot of things for me. I would still prefer something a tad more tactical, but I think I can work with this.

Awesome! You can make it more tactical in a sense..by putting deliberate pressure on the group with specific goals...not just a "O hey there is 3 pirate ships...get em!" That way the dice as rolled can influence the scene which then allows the player to impact the story as written by you.

Where do I find this podcast you are referring to? The Order 66 one?

You can find them on iTunes, or at the d20radio site. Just look for the episode dated last January.

Gotcha, but is it the Order 66 podcast or another?

It is the Order 66 podcast.

RISE, NECRO-THREAD! RISE!

One thing I can say is try to find a twitchTV or youtube clip for some Galactic Starfighter matches in The Old Republic. Those are some great ideas for starfighter battle locaitons. Space stations, shattered capital ships, high-rise mesas laden with construction facilities; all sorts of imagination-inspiring (and setback causing) backdrops for a good dogfight.

One important thing to consider. They are DEFLECTOR shields. The X-wing and tie fighter games did the shields wrong. They are ablative in the game they are not ablative in the movies.

Even the movies show shields as ablative though. You don't see turbolaser or laser bolts skimming of the shields you see them hitting the shields then exploding or punch through the shields completely.

Even the movies show shields as ablative though. You don't see turbolaser or laser bolts skimming of the shields you see them hitting the shields then exploding or punch through the shields completely.

That would be a failed deflection or them being overwhelmed.

Not a sign they are ablative. It is a sign they have limits.

Honestly almost all scifi with shields call them deflectors but have them function in an ablative fashion and as I pointed out before in the movies you see the shields adsorbing fire rather then deflect it when they have any effect at all

Why do you think it is absorbing? We have never really seen a hit that was absorbed. When sloped armor takes a hit it is often damaged. Just not as damaged as it would have been had the armor not been sloped.

Deflecting would be altering the course of the shot so it misses the target or so a solid hit becomes a glancing blow. You never see that happening the shot doesn't hit the shield and keep flying but on a course that misses the target it hits the shield and either stops completely or punches through to damage or destroy the target depending on the strength of the shot and the shields involved

Have you seen modern combat? when a shot is deflected it tends to be a whole spray of stuff. not a laser bouncing off a mirror. Just because you don't see a laser cannon blast doing the lightsaber bounce does not mean the shot was not deflected. Ot that some of that energy was not transferred to the shields causing them to possibly overload.

Even if there were a spray of energy from the deflection you should still be able to see where the bolt goes if it is being deflected. And the only hint that the shots are being deflected rather then being absorbed is from the script, which used the term parsec as a unit of time rather then distance.

you are assuming the bolt stayed together. Things that are deflected usually come apart.

I think it's pretty clear even from the opening scene of E4 that they are ablative. There are several misses and a couple of flare-clouds...the latter are shield hits that were dissipated. Then finally a solid hit and explosion, which either punched through the shields or were a sign that the previous hits were reducing them. In Rebels, Hera only gets worried when shields are below 50%...