Gain the Advantage is also a good move for the pilot to do when he isn't also the gunner.

Exactly. Sadly, it doesn't help as much when you are the only one in a Firespray, but for the sake of the argument, a "fully crewed" Firespray should have two guards, one of which could (and should) probably be a gunner and the other can act as a copilot, making it comparable to a fully crewed YT-1300.

Without the crew, on the other hand, it doesn't help AS much, but it can still mean the difference between hitting a target and just whiffing against shields. . .

Which would be awesome, but a Firespray can only be fired by the pilot I believe. They don't have a "gunner" section.

Gain the Advantage is also a good move for the pilot to do when he isn't also the gunner.

Exactly. Sadly, it doesn't help as much when you are the only one in a Firespray, but for the sake of the argument, a "fully crewed" Firespray should have two guards, one of which could (and should) probably be a gunner and the other can act as a copilot, making it comparable to a fully crewed YT-1300.

Without the crew, on the other hand, it doesn't help AS much, but it can still mean the difference between hitting a target and just whiffing against shields. . .

Which would be awesome, but a Firespray can only be fired by the pilot I believe. They don't have a "gunner" section.

You can argue this like no tomorrow, really. We see in Episode 2 that Boba sits easily with Jango, and while he isn't taking the role of a gunner, he can probably do so with a few quick flicks of a switch.

We also see in canon that Han can set all of the weapons of the Millenium Falcon on forward fire (i.e. linked) and blast away from the cockpit, removing the versatility of a turret but gaining massive firepower in return.

If you can do that with one ship, I can't see a solid reason to argue that you can't do it with another.

So, a couple more questions came up --

Let's say I add quad laser cannons on a Fire Arc Forward. Would I make only one attack roll to fire all weapons forward facing? Do I roll separately? Can I only fire one set of weapons at a time even though I load out my ship to fire like nuts straight ahead?

Note: I feel this has to do with the Linked Quality, but I can't quite put my thumb on it . . .

Gain the Advantage - Aside from if I was fighting a ship with a massive shielding system, what's the point of Gain the Advantage? It's been advertised as something that the Firespray is good at, which is fine . . . but I'd rather spend my turn shooting the hell out of the enemy then negating 1 or 2 disadvantage dice (Or 'Boo-boo dice' in my group).

Other than that, yes, it would suck if an enemy negates my shields with Gain the Advantage, but it's going to suck more for him when he wasted a turn doing that and I unloaded my cannons on him.

Since firing a weapon is counts as an action, each crewman can only fire one weapon per turn, period.

Quad Laser cannons is one weapon with linked 3 quality (see the chart in core rule book). Now, if you have other weapons in your firespray, like the tractor beam, you need a second crewman to fire it during the same turn.

Gain the advantage is normally only good for ships with pilot and gunners, like light freighters with speed 4 (raise the speed of your ship to 4 is the first thing you have to do). Which is weird since it seems Gain the Advantage should be THE action for starfighters which do the iconic star wars dogfighting. But no! Because in starfighters you (typically) have only one crew, which means if you do Gain the advantage (it is an action) you don't fire any weapon (another action), typically it does not compensate.

Cheers,

Yepes

Gain the advantage is normally only good for ships with pilot and gunners, like light freighters with improved speed (raise the speed of your ship to 4 is the first thing you have to do). Which is weird since it seems it should be THE action for starfighters which do the iconic star wars dogfighting. But no! Because in starfighters you (typically) have only one crew, which means if you do Gain the advantage (it is an action) you don't fire any weapon (another action), typically it does not compensate.

Now here's where things get a little interesting with Gain the Advantage: all of the bonuses are until the end of the FOLLOWING round. The opponent may, on the following turn, try to get out of this situation, but the check is one step more difficult for EVERY TIME Gain the Advantage has been successfully used against the other.

This means that a crafty pilot could use Gain the Advantage over the course of multiple turns to emphasize dogfighting (and firing "misses" with the weapon to lead the target can be a nice narrative touch) and then just let loose on the weakpoint.

This now means that the better pilot can hold an advantage.

In our Firespray vs YT-1300 scenario, the YT technically cannot escape, as it cannot take the "Gain the Advantage" action to get out of the situation. Ergo, the Firespray can use the first round's manuever to do Evasive Maneuvers, then the action to Gain the Advantage; the YT now has to decide which facing the shields will be in (or set for the default split), and trying to do Evasive Manuevers is pointless.

The Firespray can then open up the next round with Stay On Target, which will upgrade the dice pool to attack (even though they are easier to hit); this increases the possibility of Auto-Fire hitting or the possibility of one (or more) criticals. Added bonus if he takes the two strain to do a manuever to AIM.

Edit: Just using the Smuggler in my group as an example, he's rolling 2Y 1G on a pilot or gunnery check (the party hasn't spent any XP from the last four games yet). Just using him as our example, he'd be rolling 3Y 1B if he Takes the Advantage on one turn and lets loose with Stay On Target and Aiming. He could, in theory on a perfect roll, roll 3 Triumphs and a Success, which can net four hits at 8 damage each (5 after armor, meaning 20 Hull in ONE attack) or one large critical with +20 on the roll (not as awesome, but still).

There's also one awesome thing to being a Smuggler/Pilot. The bottom left corner of the talent tree there is this spiffy talent called "Master Pilot" Which allows you to suffer 2 strain to perform an action as a maneuver when piloting a ship. I like to think FFG made this rule just because they want a pilot to eventually be able to gain the advantage and fire their guns in the same turn.

There's also one awesome thing to being a Smuggler/Pilot. The bottom left corner of the talent tree there is this spiffy talent called "Master Pilot" Which allows you to suffer 2 strain to perform an action as a maneuver when piloting a ship. I like to think FFG made this rule just because they want a pilot to eventually be able to gain the advantage and fire their guns in the same turn.

Gain the Advantage, Stay on Target (or Evasive Action) AND fire their guns on the same turn. How's that for abuse of power? :-D

It's a tad cramped with a crew space of 3. The rest have to ask for permission to go into or leave their rooms, er prison cells.

It kinda reminds me of how Mal hires Jayne on Firefly, "Do they give you and equal share? No? Do you have your own bunk? No? I can give you your own cabin and an equal share."

Which would be awesome, but a Firespray can only be fired by the pilot I believe. They don't have a "gunner" section.

I don't think it's that specific. The YT-1300 should say 1 pilot, 1 co-pilot, and 2 gunners, but it doesn't. Also, in TCW there is an episode where a young Boba and Bossk are in Slave 1 and are trying to catch and shoot down R2D2. Bossk is clearly doing the flying, and Boba is shooting. So throw in what you want, maybe the weapon systems come with their own control panel.

It's a tad cramped with a crew space of 3. The rest have to ask for permission to go into or leave their rooms, er prison cells.

It kinda reminds me of how Mal hires Jayne on Firefly, "Do they give you and equal share? No? Do you have your own bunk? No? I can give you your own cabin and an equal share."

True, but you really only need 3 at the most to get the most out of a ship like a Firespray: the Pilot, a Gunner, and a Co-pilot/engineer. As the Firespray was originally built as a patrol craft, it comes "stock" with prison cells, but who's to say that you can't swap them out at the time of purchase for a better crew quarters?

There's also one awesome thing to being a Smuggler/Pilot. The bottom left corner of the talent tree there is this spiffy talent called "Master Pilot" Which allows you to suffer 2 strain to perform an action as a maneuver when piloting a ship. I like to think FFG made this rule just because they want a pilot to eventually be able to gain the advantage and fire their guns in the same turn.

Or they just figured you might want to fire two weapons - like laser cannons and torpedoes/missiles and take the enemy out considerably faster. I'm just not sold on Gain the Advantage being much of an advantage in many cases.

Or they just figured you might want to fire two weapons - like laser cannons and torpedoes/missiles and take the enemy out considerably faster. I'm just not sold on Gain the Advantage being much of an advantage in many cases.

Indeed.

Now here's where things get a little interesting with Gain the Advantage: all of the bonuses are until the end of the FOLLOWING round. The opponent may, on the following turn, try to get out of this situation, but the check is one step more difficult for EVERY TIME Gain the Advantage has been successfully used against the other.

This means that a crafty pilot could use Gain the Advantage over the course of multiple turns to emphasize dogfighting (and firing "misses" with the weapon to lead the target can be a nice narrative touch) and then just let loose on the weakpoint.

This now means that the better pilot can hold an advantage.

I think you stated it good here "things get a little interesting", just a little but not interesting enough.

It is difficult for me to see why in a starfighter the Turn (1,3,5,...): Gain the Advantage, Turn (2,4,6): Fire Weapon sequence is better than Turn (all): Fire Weapon.

But I cannot discuss this too much since I have not enough statistics in the way of space combats in this game, may be in a future I have changed my mind.

Cheers,

Yepes

It's a tad cramped with a crew space of 3. The rest have to ask for permission to go into or leave their rooms, er prison cells.

It kinda reminds me of how Mal hires Jayne on Firefly, "Do they give you and equal share? No? Do you have your own bunk? No? I can give you your own cabin and an equal share."

True, but you really only need 3 at the most to get the most out of a ship like a Firespray: the Pilot, a Gunner, and a Co-pilot/engineer. As the Firespray was originally built as a patrol craft, it comes "stock" with prison cells, but who's to say that you can't swap them out at the time of purchase for a better crew quarters?

I have a confession... I just never liked the layout.

Future Armada has three great little ships that you could graft Firespray stats onto...

http://www.rpgnow.com/product/20531/Future-Armada-Mercury-Trio?manufacturers_id=606&it=1

Remora has a hull boring drill for violent boarding action.

The Valkaryn is a 3 man ship for getting from point A to point B. cramped

The Mercury could easily pass for a Mon Calimari ship of a similar size.

The Wayfarer has an excellent layout for 4 crew in a performance ship configuration;

http://www.rpgnow.com/product/19155/Future-Armada-Wayfarer?manufacturers_id=606&it=1

This package gets you a few ships.

http://www.rpgnow.com/product/124863/Future-Armada-Redux-Alpha?manufacturers_id=606

A rougher wayfarer, a larger ship with a a hold for a single fighter, and a small base station.

Now here's where things get a little interesting with Gain the Advantage: all of the bonuses are until the end of the FOLLOWING round. The opponent may, on the following turn, try to get out of this situation, but the check is one step more difficult for EVERY TIME Gain the Advantage has been successfully used against the other.

This means that a crafty pilot could use Gain the Advantage over the course of multiple turns to emphasize dogfighting (and firing "misses" with the weapon to lead the target can be a nice narrative touch) and then just let loose on the weakpoint.

This now means that the better pilot can hold an advantage.

I think you stated it good here "things get a little interesting", just a little but not interesting enough.

It is difficult for me to see why in a starfighter the Turn (1,3,5,...): Gain the Advantage, Turn (2,4,6): Fire Weapon sequence is better than Turn (all): Fire Weapon.

But I cannot discuss this too much since I have not enough statistics in the way of space combats in this game, may be in a future I have changed my mind.

Cheers,

Yepes

I guess "interesting" is based on how you define the term.

For the pilot in my group, Gain The Advantage is a proverbial godsend for him during all of the test combats, as it gave him that one extra Yellow die, increasing his possibilities of a crit. . .and therefore increasing his chances of knocking something important out or, with enough crits or a good enough roll, utterly destroy the target.

Now with your argument about firing weapons every turn, or firing all of the weapons, you can argue that it's mechanically better to just sit there and roll dice for every attack, but anyone who's done any length of time dogfighting in the RPGs knows that manuevers to increase your chances to hit or reduce the chances of being hit tend to be just as important as actually hitting. Besides, with a game like EotE where the number of successes matter, upgrading to a Yellow die not only increases the number of chances of rolling a success, but also the chances of multiple success and the only possible way to land a crit, which again, can be a HUGE benefit.

Besides, in the case of the YT-1300, what do you think the pilot is doing while the gunners are firing away? You're looking at Evasive Maneuvers, plotting a course to hyperspace to escape, or just trying not to crash into any "difficult terrain." As the YT can't Gain the Advantage, the pilot would best spend their actions with either Evasive Actions, Stay on Target, or trying to escape (which, in a standup fight, isn't much of an option).

Would someone please think about the poor pilots with nothing else to do!

Anyway. . .

As Evasive Actions can increase the difficulty of the attack rolls against the ship, and can only be negated by Gain the Advantage, it's pretty valid, but it makes the gunner's attacks that much more difficult. Alternatively, by Staying on Target, the ship is actually easier to hit, which is probably what the YT would like to avoid at all costs (especially with a tractor beam involved).

In the end, a pilot who wants to survive against a faster and more maneuverable foe would resort to Evasive Maneuvers, even if it messes with the gunners a bit, as the opposition still has to succeed at a piloting roll of their own to get that benefit. . .and that spends their action, keeping them from firing any weapons that they may have access to.

My group uses the Firespray and we just finished the adventure in the rulebook.

Everyone was really bored by ship combat. With the default Close range weapons on both the Firespray and the two ships guarding Bandin Dobah's asteroid, the fight quickly devolved into all ships in range of one another, the pilot Gaining The Advantage and the gunner shooting for about an hour (we're new so there was some rulebook consultation), with the rest of the crew ineffectually calling targets or hacking the enemy ('filler actions', they said) until the bad guys blew up. Nobody liked it.

Is this just a product of the encounter design? Should I have been doing something to spice things up? The whole encounter soured them on space combat and I'm hesitant to even go there in the future.

Vanilla space combat is indeed boring. If you actually have a "master" pilot and a souped up hot-rod ship it's better.

Vanilla space combat is indeed boring. If you actually have a "master" pilot and a souped up hot-rod ship it's better.

I think the biggest problems that can arise from space combat would be the lack of narration involved, just like regular combat. Sans narration, it's just roll the dice until you hit well enough to defeat your opponents.

I tend to use incentives for my players; better descriptions and good ideas net them boost dice or other bonuses. For example, the gunner was describing how he'd line up the shot and catch a Z-TIE while it was at a certain arc of it's strafing run, so I gave him a boost die for the narrative idea. The mechanic's description of tearing out a panel and routing the power to her Jawa-engineered ion gun netted a bonus to her damage.

That's worked for us so far.

Additionally, until you get used to it, you feel like the only actions you can take are really firing. Once you realize that some of the basic personal-scale maneuvers (like aiming) are valid, it changes the dynamic a bit. Then there's also just general creativity and tweaking the rules to match (like cutting the hyperdrive to increase shields, for example).

Just my two cents there.

Edge of the Empire, more so than any other RPG I've ever played, can be an incredibly boring game if you play a table-top RPG to roll high numbers. Where it shines is in the creative aspect of it. If you play to role-play and make the absolute maximum out of every roll and scene, EotE shines brightest.

Luckily, I play with a group who loves hamming everything up, so this system is the best we've ever played.

During my run of GMing an Edge of the Empire campaign, I found it much more satisfying to think of space combat as an obstacle, punishment, or deterrent than as a goal in and of itself. The Crew didn't want to get involved in combat in their starship because:

1). It's dangerous - it's very easy to get overwhelmed by enemy ships and result in a Total Party Kill

2). it's crazy expensive - every point of hull trauma and very critical costs money that they don't have to spare

3). It's pointless - what good does blowing up a few TIE Fighters or a Bounty Hunter do?

What was the real challenge was avoiding the overwhelming threats entirely (think Han vs. star destroyers), and fending off TIE's long enough to escape. Create dangerous scenarios that force the players to use all their resources; the pilot and copilot are focused on navigating incredibly dangerous space hazards, the navigator is desperately trying to make an extremely difficult jump to light speed, the engineer is scrambling to boost/angle deflectorsd and heal up system strain, missiles are flying in so someone's gotta spoof them, and the FINALLY, if you've got enough people, I guess someone can make a filler action to attack the enemy with the ship's weapons.

Lastly, don't be afraid of a scene, especially combat-oriented, only lasting one or two rounds. Get it done, tell your plot point or interesting twist, and then move on. Avoid the trap of feeling like once guns are fired it needs to be a battle to the death.

Rather than a deterrent, it should be a "just once in a while" type of deal. Don't use it too excessively, but so long as you (or your GM) can come up with some decent narration, it's all right to have it occasionally.

I wish we did more space combat. It was my favorite parts in the movies.

I wish we did more space combat. It was my favorite parts in the movies.

Once Age of Rebellion is out, I myself am hoping to include more of it. Maybe even run a Rogue Squadron-type campaign.

I wish we did more space combat. It was my favorite parts in the movies.

Once Age of Rebellion is out, I myself am hoping to include more of it. Maybe even run a Rogue Squadron-type campaign.

We're slowly getting involved with the Rebellion and space combat. I can't wait to do more of it.