Any ships of colossal size that really stand out among the bunch that would make a good “Flagship” so to speak. Something that can really take a punch and deliver one back?
This thread is really supposed to be about changing the stats of official items. To continue this discussion or for other questions, please start a new thread. You can call it “P-47’s Advice Column” if you wish. :D
To give you a short answer, yes, but I can’t tell you any. I don’t know what size constitutes a “flagship” for you since ships range as large as the Executor Super Star Destroyer, or larger if you want to count the Death Star. I need more information before I can give you a good answer.
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Lets say I pair two quad lasers or Quad ion cannons, what is the stat of my new monstrosity?
Those weapons are already linked weapons. The rules were written with the “basic” weapons in mind, single-barreled conventional cannons and missile launchers.
I would generally just say that you don’t link those, but we can take the octuple barbette turrets from the ISD as an example and make them alternate fire.
However, that isn’t useful for weapons without the Slow-Firing quality, and you’d be better off with multiple turrets.
Not sure if this has been brought up before, but the silhouette of some of the smaller star fighters has been bothering me. I will admit I might be spliting hairs over this, but the Miy’til fighter being sil 2, while the A-Wing or the Eta-2 are sil 3 kind of bothers me. I know sil is an abstraction, considering the VCX-100 and the CR-90 are both sil 5.
For comparison, on wookiepedia, Miy’til is 7 meters long, while the Eta-2 is about 5 meters.
No, you’re right. The silhouette system is good, but they misuse it in a few places. In my spreadsheet, I make several suggestions to adjust various ships (but am unfamiliar with the stats for the Miy’til).
Generally speaking, I think a vehicle’s silhouette should be in accordance with its role in game (i.e., “how it would be expected to perform”), with only extreme size examples stepping outside the normal bounds.
In defense of the Miy’til being sil 2, it’s pretty spindly and the actual “center mass” is quite small, and while the Eta-2 is similar, the Eta-2 has a more “solid” core. However, silhouette is not only for targeting and plays a significant role in piloting checks. I would—almost without exception—maintain sil 3 as the minimum for fighters. The Eta-2 is the closest I come to saying it should be sil 2.
Just to look at the math, a corvette targeting an ordinary fighter (sil 3) has a difficulty of Hard, unless I’m misremembering the tables (I use my own houserules that target based on Speed and a new mechanic called “targeting silhouette”), but that becomes Daunting against a silhouette 2 fighter, for what is a fairly minor difference in “real” size. With a moderate skill of YYG (average Rival, moderate Minion Group), that changes a 58% chance to a 47% chance.
The difference between silhouettes 4 and 5 is even more stark since that totally changes how the vessel operates—the VCX-100 is the poster boy for poor silhouette decisions.
The main rule of thumb for sil 4 vs. 5 is not so much size, but “does it fly like the Falcon, or like a corvette?”
The spindly comment reminds me of the weirdness of the Mando Fang fighter. It’s sil 3, but the rotating wings give it a reduced sil at close range. Also a fair point on star fighters being at least sil 3 just cause of all the stuff needed to be added to a tin can to let it fly through space with a pilot.
Also from an economic standpoint, the miy’til is 210,000 credits. Which at that price point you could get 2 Z-95 heavies with the ECM attachment. Not sure how familiar you are with the stats, but the z-heavy, has armor 3, ht 12, ss 8 and the miy’til has armor 2, ht/ss 7. Also nearly identically weapons.
…making the sil 2 a major selling point of the vehicle. Yeah. Questionable design decisions all around.
The Miy’til might have some other points in its favor (such as speed, handling, or intangibles), but I’m not familiar with the craft and so couldn’t say. But there is the occasional product that is just a poorer product at a higher price point due to economic constraints, and the Miy’til as a Hapan vessel may simply be that, making it financially inviable for navies with access to other options.
As for the Fang, I think that’s the appropriate way to handle a “hard to hit” fighter.
This thread is far too useful and far too much fun to languish in obscurity, so it’s time to give it some love.
Panther Police Interceptor
Far Horizons has this as a land speeder with a max altitude of 10 meters, despite it’s being shown in the source material to be able to travel the skylanes on coruscant with no issue. Speed 4 is also generally more in line with an airspeeder than a groundspeeder.
IIRC the upper skylanes are on higher altitude than most buildings, and a quick google says than many buildings on the planet are 6,000 meters tall. So I’d say that’s a good lower limit for max altitude. That is, unless the skylanes are some kind of “invisible road” that lets repulsor vehicles travel at higher altitudes than they normally would (I have seen nothing mentioning such a thing) or that coruscant has a thicker atmosphere than earth at that altitude (we never see anyone having trouble breathing on balconies, rooftops or in open speeders on Coruscant, unless Vader is around) and that lets repulsorlifts travel higher than normal… but that feels like too much of a “hard scifi”-approach and would rend all max altitudes relative to the planet (and the less we discuss Cloud City and where to measure altitude from, the better 
).
The most similar vehicle would be a civilian airspeeder, but the listed max altitude for that varies between 1 and 300 km. 300 km is high enough to be considered low orbit, and probably much too high for what is a flying police car. 1 km is probably a bit too low, given the altitude of skylanes.
My suggestion is a max altitude of 10 km, or about the altitude of your average airline flight. The separate cockpit canopies of the Panther suggest to me that it’s pressurized and designed for fairly high altitudes, so it might even be higher, like 50-100 km, but 10 should be more than enough.
Other thoughts? Is my (probably over-thought) reasoning sound here?
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Thanks! :D
Everything you say here is perfectly reasonable. All I have to add is that I just handwave those altitudes anyway since the exact number is rarely useful or relevant (unless playing “nyah-nyah, you can’t catch me!”). Is it a “landspeeder”? It hovers a little bit off the ground. Is it an “airspeeder”? It can fly like a plane.
Your suggestion of 10km is sound, and should I ever need that precise a number it’s what I would use.
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Agreed for the most part, but I tend to make general distinctions between “just over the ground” - flying car - airplane - low orbit shuttle. Kinda useful for making the distinction of being able to clear obstacles, fly up into the sky and to be able to meet up with ships in orbit.
Also, if the system asks me for a specific number, I want to make that number as correct or reasonable as I can. 
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Not sure if this is useful to add, but yes I’ve always just hand-waved the exact altitudes. When playing Star Wars with WEG, originally, I mentally put all flying/floating vehicles into Landspeeder, Airspeeder, and Orbital categories. I also explained the differences in altitudes that could be reached by the relative power of their anti-grav modules to the size of the vehicle. As a vehicle moves from ground contact, the range to the surface gravity of the world created a need for a stronger powered antigrav module (the strength of gravity between two objects is relative to size and distance, thus the strength of antigrav would need to be greater as the distance to the gravity producing object increased, was more handwaved reasoning).
Orbital was for shuttles, an Xwing, starships, etc. Anything that could fly to any altitude and reach orbit. These vehicles could even hover near orbit with the antigrav modules which were strong enough at that range. Once in orbit, antigrav was only useful for keeping occupants on the floor, revert to subspace engines/thrusters.
Landspeeder’s antigrav was only strong enough to allow the vehicle to float. This could be used for floating robots (not flying ones) and hovercarts such as Han’s carbon-freeze trip at Cloud City.
Airspeeders could not reach orbit. They could fly, but their antigrav was only good enough to fly over mountains, tall buildings, etc. I didn’t want a Hoth airspeeder to be able to fly to orbit.
The rare, archaic purely thruster-powered vehicle (no antigrav) of course would need vastly more power to fly than a vehicle that could negate its own gravity.
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I’ve recently started playing a gadgeteer/martial artist and naturally figured it would be cool to have my armor tricked out. Naturally, Reinforced Gauntlets looked like the perfect thing… until I took a closer look.
2 hardpoints and 250 credits gives me the bonuses of a 25 credit set of brass knuckles, with the option of adding a single rank of the Durable talent and, to add insult to injury, they use Melee rather than Brawl.
I don’t know where to start fixing them. I guess a fairly reasonable option would be just retaining the statline (switching to Brawl), and dropping the hard point cost (As boot blades are 0) as well as the mod option for durable, but I’m open to more fun suggestions.
Retractable Wrist Blades are much more reasonably statted with options that actually do something reasonable, but it’s still somewhat odd that they’re used with Melee, when Vamblades are used with brawl, and this also goes for Boot Blade (you’d think something used by kicking would have more in common shockboots and weapons like that). Does anyone have good argument why they should or shouldn’t be Brawl weapons rather than Melee?
A few points on the differences between Brawl and Melee:
Brawl is about using your own body as a weapon in ways particular to how you would use your body (grappling, for example). There are weapons that can augment this, such as Brass Knuckles (to augment striking force) and punch daggers (to change how striking force inflicts damage).
Melee is about using handheld (or similar) weapons with their own particular ways of dealing damage. Rather than augmenting innate abilities, you are creating new abilities and using techniques that would not aid unarmed combat. (Think, “How would my motion be different using this weapon vs. not? Would I even use a similar motion?”)
Wrist-mounted blades are in a peculiar spot because both applications can be argued. However, because they are not used to augment standard unarmed techniques, Melee for the application of a bladed weapon makes the most sense (otherwise you could just argue that stabbing someone is Brawl).
Vamblades fall more towards the Brawl side than the RWBs because the motion is often more like a punch, but I would still stat them as Melee since they are more versatile than something like knucklers, which directly augment an unarmed fighting technique.
Reinforced Gauntlets:
The main draw of the Reinforced Gauntlets is the Durable talent, which is, I think, the reason they have 2 HP (which is excessive).
I would “fix” them by just dropping the HP requirement to 1 and making them Brawl. Like I described earlier, the design of the “weapon” augments unarmed fighting styles.
With those changes, it’s a 350cr, 1 HP Durable +1 effect, which I think is reasonable. The other thought I had was using Defensive like the Retractable Wrist Blades, but that makes them too similar. Durable instead of Defensive means they complement each other rather than stacking and gives legitimate reason for why someone might choose one over the other. The change from Melee to Brawl also has that effect.
If you were to strip them down to merely Brass Knuckles, they would be entirely unnecessary since you can just wear Brass Knuckles over your armor, and said armor doesn’t have to be 2+ Soak.
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It’s a fair argument that you should probably do that already.
I don’t really see the logic in the Durable talent either.
“If it hadn’t been for my extra thick mittens, that rocket to the spleen might’ve done some real damage!”
As for the vamblades, I get the impression that you’re still using your (armored) forearms to block, and stab with a motion more or less identical to a punch. The blades are also implied to be fairly short (dagger length) while the retractable wrist blades leaves room to interpret them as something more substantial. I guess.
The gauntlets are still tied for the stupidest design choices ever with sap gloves (which are so stupid I don’t even want to fix them). 
It’s pretty much the same thing you argue for the vamblades. Gauntlets aren’t just mittens, they cover most of your forearm. The idea would be that, using them defensively, you can lessen the net impact of an attack. Does it do that well? Not particularly, but at a fundamental level it does. From a mechanics perspective, it’s a useful tool for a PC and a reasonable stat for the fluff without making it interchangeable with all the +X Defensive attachments.
Vamblades, as I have understood them, are basically Assassin’s Creed wrist blades. They have to extend far enough beyond your hand/fist/wrist to be usable as a pseudo-punch dagger, and this means that they would have enough length for cutting and slashing beyond just stabbing. That’s why I describe them as being closer to Brawl, but versatile and different enough that I would still consider them as Melee.
The retractable wrist blades, on the other hand, are narratively versatile. I believe the primary inspiration is the blades Jango has on the side of his wrist. By their unorthodox design, they have to be used in a particular way beyond techniques that would be used in unarmed fighting.
I agree the design of the Reinforced Gauntlets is pretty terrible, but I think it’s okay with the two changes I suggested. It makes enough narrative sense and (can) give a mechanical bonus that would make it worthwhile to some characters.
Fire Discipline:
This is a very underpowered Action. It’s a Hard check to pass a single Boost, unless you roll really well. It’s busywork for a crewmember without a useful role rather than a way for said crewmember to meaningfully contribute to the encounter. Even an amazing 3s3a result only has the effect of passing a Boost to two crewmembers and inflicting 1 System Strain with successful attacks. In contrast, 3s3a with a Medium Ion Cannon (likely with an easier Difficulty) deals 9 SS before Armor and passes a Boost to next and a Boost to a specific target.
Here’s my proposed version, with the original for easy comparison. I’d love to get your feedback on it:
Original
Pilot Only: No
Silhouette: Any
Speed: Any
Activation: Action
Frequency: No limit
Check: Hard Leadership or Discipline check.
The crewmember forgoes fighting to analyze the opponents’ tactics and direct his fellows to greater accuracy with their weapons’ fire. If successful, the next crewmember firing a weapon aboard the ship can add a Boost to his check. Each additional 2 Success grants this to an additional crewmember. In addition, the crewmember may spend 3 Advantage to allow every hit from shipboard weapons to inflict 1 system strain as well as regular damage until the beginning of his next turn as the carefully timed shots pummel shields and overload systems.
Revised
Pilot Only: No
Silhouette: Any
Speed: Any
Activation: Action
Frequency: One successful check per round
Check: Hard Leadership, Discipline, or Knowledge (Warfare) check.
The crewmember forgoes fighting to analyze the opponents’ tactics and direct his fellows to greater accuracy with their weapons’ fire. If successful, the character may choose a single enemy target: vehicle combat checks performed from the character’s ship count the target’s silhouette as one greater until the beginning of his next turn. Each additional 2 Success extends this to an additional target. The crewmember may spend 3 Advantage to count a single target’s silhouette as two greater.
This revision takes away the chance to inflict Strain, but in many circumstances reduces the difficulty of attacks, dramatically increasing hit odds. This becomes very important for a capital ship fighting starfighters or other small craft, and can help an underdog in a near-peer fight (e.g., sil 6 vs. sil 7) gain an edge over the enemy through improved coordination.
I have a substantial houserule set rewriting Chapter VII: Starships and Vehicles (see that here), and that changes how combat difficulties are set. Here’s how I intend to revise it for that ruleset, pending any feedback you might have:
Houseruled combat revision
Pilot Only: No
Silhouette: Any
Speed: Any
Activation: Action
Frequency: One successful check per round
Check: Hard Leadership, Discipline, or Knowledge (Warfare) check.
The crewmember forgoes fighting to analyze the opponents’ tactics and direct his fellows to greater accuracy with their weapons’ fire. If successful, the character may choose a vehicle silhouette: vehicle combat checks performed from the character’s ship against targets of this silhouette reduce their difficulty by one, to a minimum of Easy, until the beginning of his next turn. Each additional 2 Success downgrades the difficulty once. In addition, the character may spend 3 Advantage to increase the cost of the Shielded incidental for affected targets by 1 when used to reduce the damage inflicted by an attack from the character’s ship as the carefully timed shots pummel shields and overload systems.
A note on design philosophy: Both of these revisions are designed to require closer cooperation in return for a greater reward, providing a major, but carefully-tailored benefit. A skilled gunnery officer or captain coordinating fire against particular targets, rather than having the gunners fire at will, is now a significant advantage, allowing a ship to punch above its weight class. This cooperation and increased benefit gives the acting character more agency and a stronger role in the combat without taking anything away from the gunners or making the character “more important.” Ideally, everyone on the ship should feel like they contribute in an essential way.
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This is a bit of a minor change, but the Cantwell-class Arrestor cruiser (Starships and Speeders p. 109) did not have an official length when it was given stats. Since then, however, the Star Wars: Dawn of Rebellion: The Visual Guide has come out and gives the ship a length of 1363.13 meters in length. This makes it well over twice the length of most other silhouette 7 vehicles and larger than the Victory Star Destroyer (900 meters). I’d say it’s clearly a silhouette 8 vessel based on this.
To reflect this, I’d change the Cantwell’s silhouette to 8, and increase its HT to 100 and SS to 55, and it should at least get the Massive 1 rule. It’s still pretty fragile for a silhouette 8, but the Cantwell is pretty fragile for a silhouette 7 anyway, but the slight buff in numbers reflects its increased size.
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The length seems outsized compared to what we saw in Solo, but your fix is pretty good. I’d only bump it to 90/50, though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHJt0gs3rWo
Revisiting the scene from Andor, I also agree that 1300+ meters feels way too big. The shots from the bridge, the shots of the TIEs leaving the hangar, and from Luthen’s flyover imply a much smaller vessel, at most in the 6-700 meter range. I cannot comprehend the logic of the numbers. But, thems the numbers.
Pablo Hidalgo has some strange takes.
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