I didn't see anything in the rules regarding this, and before I went hammering out multiple house rules, I was curious if anyone knew of any rules regarding this type of situation.

In canon, we often see the command of "Take out those engines" or "Target the shield generators!" This is normally true with military actions wanting to capture ships, but it is also true for pirates, which can play a HUGE part in EotE.

So, beyond the obligatory "Place a critical hit and hope it works," has anyone else come up with an approach to this?

The best I have consists of the following:

1) Take two setback dice to aim for the target (reduced by taking an Aim Maneuver); X% of the ship's hull is needed in Hull Trauma to disable the part in question.

2) As #1, but a critical is needed to disable.

3) Simply deal enough damage to bring HT to 0 with a called shot to disable, but not destroy, the ship.

Any ideas that others have used would be rather helpful.

I think that is covered on table 7-5. You have the option to spend three advantages or one triumph to, instead of dealing hull trauma, damage parts of the target ship.

As far as I can see, there really isn't anything in the rules about trying to disable a specific component with just a normal attack. If you only wanted to go by the rules, then it'd have to be the criticals on the chart (p. 255), and if you wanted, you can let more severe criticals be knocked down to a lower one - so instead of Major Hull Breach, they can knock it down to Major System Failure and knock out the Weapons Systems or something - depending on whatever they're aiming to do.

But I don't see anything wrong houseruling it with targeting and trying to take out specific thing, even if temporarily. Your idea for 3, with taking the ship out but just disabling instead of destroying seems fair. Not sure of the best way to balance what the kind of difficulty to make certain shots as well as what you should need to really succeed in it though.

Like if you're just attacking at the area where a component is, difficulty with a couple of setback is pretty fair, but it would need something big to shut down a component, like 1 or 2 triumphs - since they're more of just generally attacking and disabling is kind of a bonus thing. But trying to attack to specifically disable should probably have upgraded and increased difficulty since you're trying to hit a ship just right so that you can take it out, but on the flip side, since disabling the component is the goal, a single success is all you need to do it.

EDIT: Missed the table Yepesnopes is referring to. He's right in that the table shows what you can do if you're just generally attacking and disabling components isn't your primary goal. You'll probably still need to houserule specific attacks though.

They sort of cover this in the description of Aim on pg 201 in the Core Rulebook.

"Aiming provides the character with the following bonus: Target a specific item carried by the target, or a specific part of the target. This could allow the character to attempt to strike or shoot a weapon from his opponent's hand, for example, or target an opponent's limb to cripple him. If the character spends one maneuver aiming this, his next combat check suffers (2x setback). If he spends two consecutives maneuvers aiming, the combat check suffers (1x setback) instead.

At that point it appears to be left up to GM's discression.

I think that is covered on table 7-5. You have the option to spend three advantages or one triumph to, instead of dealing hull trauma, damage parts of the target ship.

I think this is absolutely right.

Table 7-5 says you can, indeed, burn 3 Triumphs to damage a system, then that table refers you to tables 7-10 and 7-11 for a little rundown on what systems can be messed up.

Spending a maneuver aiming for a particular component would grab you a Boost Die, which might in turn grab you the Triumphs you need. Furthermore, if say the ship's captain shouts, "Target those Shield Generators!", the Captain might also be providing a Boost Die to the gunner if they were spending advantages on their turn to do so.

I think that is covered on table 7-5. You have the option to spend three advantages or one triumph to, instead of dealing hull trauma, damage parts of the target ship.

You are correct, and I completely missed it in my mental rummaging. Thanks!

Spending a maneuver aiming for a particular component would grab you a Boost Die, which might in turn grab you the Triumphs you need. Furthermore, if say the ship's captain shouts, "Target those Shield Generators!", the Captain might also be providing a Boost Die to the gunner if they were spending advantages on their turn to do so.

And this is the type of narration I've always loved :-D

Spending a maneuver aiming for a particular component would grab you a Boost Die, which might in turn grab you the Triumphs you need.

No, aiming at a component would grab you 2 setback dice, or 1 setback if you aimed twice. And I think you mean "Advantages", not Triumphs.

They sort of cover this in the description of Aim on pg 201 in the Core Rulebook.

"Aiming provides the character with the following bonus: Target a specific item carried by the target, or a specific part of the target. This could allow the character to attempt to strike or shoot a weapon from his opponent's hand, for example, or target an opponent's limb to cripple him. If the character spends one maneuver aiming this, his next combat check suffers (2x setback). If he spends two consecutives maneuvers aiming, the combat check suffers (1x setback) instead.

At that point it appears to be left up to GM's discression.

I underlined & bolded the part I am talking about:

So are you saying it is 2 setback dice for a called shot if you aim? So if you don't aim is it 3 setback dice?

Spending a maneuver aiming for a particular component would grab you a Boost Die, which might in turn grab you the Triumphs you need.

No, aiming at a component would grab you 2 setback dice, or 1 setback if you aimed twice. And I think you mean "Advantages", not Triumphs.

Yeah, I got those swapped. And the Aiming thing, yeah, page 201.

@ AgentJ , if I'm reading that right, you can't call a specific part of a target without burning an Aim Maneuver to do so. So it'd be 2 setback (during your Aim maneuver) to call the shot, and you'd have to burn a second Maneuver to reduce that to a single Setback.

Thanks for clearing that up for me.

Well, here's a bit of food for thought regarding aiming:

Normally aiming adds two setback dice, but since you really need to rack up the advantages to do anything with hitting a set target on a starship, couldn't you just claim that you are lining up a shot with hopes of hitting Vital Component X to short out something, netting that bonus die for the Aiming maneuver?

Just a thought, as there isn't an intrinsic bonus for called shots in starship/vehicle combat thanks to systems shorting out only with crits and advantages.

Well, here's a bit of food for thought regarding aiming:

Normally aiming adds two setback dice, but since you really need to rack up the advantages to do anything with hitting a set target on a starship, couldn't you just claim that you are lining up a shot with hopes of hitting Vital Component X to short out something, netting that bonus die for the Aiming maneuver?

Just a thought, as there isn't an intrinsic bonus for called shots in starship/vehicle combat thanks to systems shorting out only with crits and advantages.

Thinking about it, I can see why you would. Like compare it to normal combat. I can aim specifically for a guy's hand to make him drop his weapon. I succeed, he drops it automatically and he takes damage, in exchange, I have to deal with extra setback. But if you just want to shoot the guy normally, you can still spend a bunch of advantage or a triumph to make him drop it, in exchange, you have an easier shot but you're also more dependent on luck.

I don't like the called shot rules, so I don't use them. I find that the spending advantage method is much more elegant. It's even better from a player's perspective, typically, since if you don't generate enough advantage, you still hit the ship as usual (sometimes you don't want that.... but that risk really should be there).

So are you saying it is 2 setback dice for a called shot if you aim? So if you don't aim is it 3 setback dice?

If you don`t aim you`re just blasting away willy nilly and aren`t targeting any specific system. As posted earlier if you generate 3 advantage or 1 triumph you could disable a subsystem anyways but it would be by sheer coincidence rather than a coordinated effort and would probably be rolled randomly.

They sort of cover this in the description of Aim on pg 201 in the Core Rulebook.

"Aiming provides the character with the following bonus: Target a specific item carried by the target, or a specific part of the target. This could allow the character to attempt to strike or shoot a weapon from his opponent's hand, for example, or target an opponent's limb to cripple him. If the character spends one maneuver aiming this, his next combat check suffers (2x setback). If he spends two consecutives maneuvers aiming, the combat check suffers (1x setback) instead.

At that point it appears to be left up to GM's discression.

I underlined & bolded the part I am talking about:

So are you saying it is 2 setback dice for a called shot if you aim? So if you don't aim is it 3 setback dice?

you have to aim at least once to do this at all. So 1xaim is 2 setback, and 2xaim is 1 setback.

There's two different uses of the aim maneuver, one to add a boost dice to attack a target, or adding setback dice to target a component (engines, shields, comms, target acquisition, landing equipment, hyperdrive, ect.).

Also, there are two ways to disable a starship component, either get a crit (3x advantage) and it's a random roll (some of the critical attacks are straight up useless, and some can blow the ship up entirely) or target the engines, take your two setback dice, get a hit and let the GM interpret the dice roll (on one success with no advantages, I'd say "the engine starts to smoke, but looks like it needs one more hit to disable them," if it was a hit with 2 advantages, I'd say "the engine is disabled, but there's still a port side engine. The enemy starship moves at 1/2 speed," and if it's a hit and a triumph, I'd say "direct hit, the feedback causes feedback to overload the port side engines. the enemy starship is dead in the 'water'."

Both methods are viable options, but if you want to for sure knock out a ships engine, aim for the engines, and take your setback dice like a man.

There's two different uses of the aim maneuver, one to add a boost dice to attack a target, or adding setback dice to target a component (engines, shields, comms, target acquisition, landing equipment, hyperdrive, ect.).

Also, there are two ways to disable a starship component, either get a crit (3x advantage) and it's a random roll (some of the critical attacks are straight up useless, and some can blow the ship up entirely) or target the engines, take your two setback dice, get a hit and let the GM interpret the dice roll (on one success with no advantages, I'd say "the engine starts to smoke, but looks like it needs one more hit to disable them," if it was a hit with 2 advantages, I'd say "the engine is disabled, but there's still a port side engine. The enemy starship moves at 1/2 speed," and if it's a hit and a triumph, I'd say "direct hit, the feedback causes feedback to overload the port side engines. the enemy starship is dead in the 'water'."

Both methods are viable options, but if you want to for sure knock out a ships engine, aim for the engines, and take your setback dice like a man.

Perhaps add some structure to it? Each Success does enough engine damage to drop speed by 1 until repairs are made. Thus, a Speed 3 ship would need 3 Successes to completely stop it. 3 Advantages could translate into 1 Success or perhaps Advantages can "stun" an engine (or other component) for a round or so waiting for it to come back online.