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dph
Lieutenant
Joined: 17 Jul 2009
Posts: 95
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 Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 11:13 pm Post subject: How Dead is Controls Dead? |
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Hi guys
A quick question...
Ion cannons can cause a 'Controls Dead' result.
How long are they dead? Is it like shields blown, that is 'dead' until repaired?
If it is permenant, how do you calculate repairs? As a standrad 'drive' perhaps?
Thanks as usual all!
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garhkal
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Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Raven Redstar
Rear Admiral
Joined: 10 Mar 2009
Posts: 2648
Location: Salem, OR
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| Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 11:50 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | If a ship is suffering from as many controls ionized results as the ship has maneuverability dice, the ship's controls are frozen for the next two rounds. The ship must maintain the same speed and direction for the next two rounds; it may not turn, fire weapons, make shield attempts or take any other actions, making the ship an easy target for enemy gunners.
The pilot must still make the piloting rolls or the ship automatically crashes (if there's anything to run into) or goes spinning out of control.
When controls are frozen, blue lightning plays across all of the controls of the vehicle, as seen when Luke Skywalker's snowspeeder was destroyed in The Empire Strikes Back.
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Controls dead means that the ship continues on its present course and the players must fix the controls before they can regain control of the ship. Or, as GM, you could deem the ship dead in space, and they will have to repair the controls so that they can fly again.
| Quote: | Maneuverability: When a craft's maneuver components are hit, it loses directional control. The difficulty to repair these systems depends on how many maneuverability dice were lost. Damage also reflects the cost for new parts and tools based on a percentage of the vehicle or vessel's original price.
-1D => Easy => 10% cost
-2D => Moderate => 15% cost
-3D or more => Difficult => 20% cost |
I would assume that temporary repairs could be made so that the ship could limp to a planet, but hyperspace would be out of the question, and maneuverability would be toast, they'd be flying on skill alone. Once they got to port where they could buy the proper parts, I would up the cost by 5% and increase the repair difficulty by +5.
But, as garhkal said, there is no "official wording," so most of my suggestions are simply conjecture.
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16320
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2011 12:03 am Post subject: |
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I play with an alternate rule for ion cannon, so what I have to offer may not be a good fit, but why not...
I view all ion damage as temporary. Repeat ion damage just keeps stacking with previous damage and wears off at a rate of 1D per round. On a controls dead result, the controls for the system in question stop working, but the Controls Ionized results continue to wear off on a round by round basis. The only way to keep a ship's systems nonfunctional is to keep hitting them with ion blasts over and over again, because otherwise the ion effect will ultimately wear off.
As far as the effect on ship's systems, if a system has a Controls Dead result, it is non-functional until the Ionization penalty wears off enough for the system to have a dice value above 0D.
Hope that helps...
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Gamer
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 20 May 2010
Posts: 125
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| Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2011 2:27 am Post subject: |
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| crmcneill wrote: | I play with an alternate rule for ion cannon, so what I have to offer may not be a good fit, but why not...
I view all ion damage as temporary. Repeat ion damage just keeps stacking with previous damage and wears off at a rate of 1D per round. On a controls dead result, the controls for the system in question stop working, but the Controls Ionized results continue to wear off on a round by round basis. The only way to keep a ship's systems nonfunctional is to keep hitting them with ion blasts over and over again, because otherwise the ion effect will ultimately wear off.
As far as the effect on ship's systems, if a system has a Controls Dead result, it is non-functional until the Ionization penalty wears off enough for the system to have a dice value above 0D.
Hope that helps... |
I think I'd be just doing that for the 0-3 = shields blown/controls ionized result on the regular damage table because to me it seems rediculously easy to take out ships like for example a stock YT 1300 with 0D maneuverability and no shields initially by RAW when you have ships weapons doing same dice damage as hull resistance.
For Ion cannons it should be doing far more interesting things than what they have as written after all it is meant to screw with systems.
what about you fire a capital scale ion cannon and you hit a small vessel with a controls dead result is it just going to be the lights go out for a few rounds or is it like in one of those star wars novels where a starfigter just explodes. |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2011 2:44 am Post subject: |
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| Gamer wrote: | | I think I'd be just doing that for the 0-3 = shields blown/controls ionized result on the regular damage table because to me it seems rediculously easy to take out ships like for example a stock YT 1300 with 0D maneuverability and no shields initially by RAW when you have ships weapons doing same dice damage as hull resistance. |
The other part of my alternate rule is that, regarding Ion Cannon damage, I count the Controls Ionized result as Shields Blown / Controls Ionized, so that a successful hit from an ion cannon takes away dice from the shield before it takes away anything else. It works the same way in the X-Wing novels, where ion cannon fire causes shields to contract and ultimately dissipate before inflicting any ion cannon damage to the ship's systems. It gives ships a little more durability against ion cannon damage while partially correcting the ridiculous (IMO) idea that ion blasts got straight through shields...
| Quote: | For Ion cannons it should be doing far more interesting things than what they have as written after all it is meant to screw with systems.
what about you fire a capital scale ion cannon and you hit a small vessel with a controls dead result is it just going to be the lights go out for a few rounds or is it like in one of those star wars novels where a starfigter just explodes. |
Maybe something like Controls Dead becomes permanent (until repaired) if the ionization damage inflicted exceeds the negative of whatever the target's starting dice is? Say a ship has 2D Maneuverability and takes 4D ionization, reducing their Maneuverability to -2D, at which point the ship's lateral thrusters burn out completely and the ship must be towed in for repairs?
I'm half asleep and typing off the top of my head, so feel free to hack away at my idea.
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Bren
Vice Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2010
Posts: 3868
Location: Maryland, USA
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| Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2011 8:49 am Post subject: |
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| Gamer wrote: | | ...it seems rediculously easy to take out ships like for example a stock YT 1300 with 0D maneuverability and no shields initially by RAW |
You are correct it is easy.
| Quote: | | what about you fire a capital scale ion cannon and you hit a small vessel with a controls dead result is it just going to be the lights go out for a few rounds or is it like in one of those star wars novels where a starfigter just explodes. |
According to the RAW, lights out, controls dead, but no BOOM!. The novelists were either basing the result off the X-wing console game or just wanted things to go BOOM!  |
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Gamer
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 20 May 2010
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| Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2011 9:20 am Post subject: |
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| Bren wrote: | | According to the RAW, lights out, controls dead, but no BOOM!. The novelists were either basing the result off the X-wing console game or just wanted things to go BOOM! |
That just doesn't seem right though to me, ion cannons designed to screw with systems and the power level of a capital scale weapon.
Oh well. |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16320
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2011 11:15 am Post subject: |
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| Gamer wrote: | | Bren wrote: | | According to the RAW, lights out, controls dead, but no BOOM!. The novelists were either basing the result off the X-wing console game or just wanted things to go BOOM! :wink: |
That just doesn't seem right though to me, ion cannons designed to screw with systems and the power level of a capital scale weapon.
Oh well. |
Sounds like the perfect place for an optional rule if you feel the need to make one up...
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2011 12:21 pm Post subject: |
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IMO, considering that ion cannon are supposed to inflict "stun" damage to electronic systems, having the target actually be destroyed by an ion cannon shot seems more the province of a Wild Die result (probably on the target's part rather than the shooter).
Also, IIRC, the one time in the X-Wing novels that a starfighter seemed to take physical damage was when it had the bad luck of taking a direct shot from an anti-orbital ion cannon.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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Gamer
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 20 May 2010
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| Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2011 3:47 pm Post subject: |
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| That's what I'm talking about a smaller scale vessel getting hit by a larger scale ion blast and getting the 16+ result, not just any old ion hit doing that. |
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garhkal
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2011 3:55 pm Post subject: |
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I'd say for ion cannon damage to cause physical damage, it would have to be more than just the 16+ level of damage. When i have stun (character) damage inflict actual injury (fried nerves) to a character, its from a stun shot that inflicts at least 16 OVER the dead threshold.. or 32 over soak.
I could see the same applying here for ions.
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Fallon Kell
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| Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2011 4:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Gamer wrote: |
What about you fire a capital scale ion cannon and you hit a small vessel with a controls dead result is it just going to be the lights go out for a few rounds or is it like in one of those star wars novels where a starfigter just explodes. |
As per RAW, no, the controls just die. However, As I understand ion cannons to work in the SW universe, the bolts are hot, moving quickly, have some mass to them, and create such massive electrical discharges that they can melt and fuse large gears and joints. Massive ion damage could really easily be lethal to small craft if you decide to GM outside the RAW in the name of common sense. 
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2011 7:46 pm Post subject: |
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Might be the sort of that thing that, if a Capital-Scale ion cannon hits a starfighter scale target, then its a permanent burn-out...
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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ZzaphodD
Rear Admiral
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| Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 4:12 am Post subject: |
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| crmcneill wrote: | IMO, considering that ion cannon are supposed to inflict "stun" damage to electronic systems, having the target actually be destroyed by an ion cannon shot seems more the province of a Wild Die result (probably on the target's part rather than the shooter).
Also, IIRC, the one time in the X-Wing novels that a starfighter seemed to take physical damage was when it had the bad luck of taking a direct shot from an anti-orbital ion cannon. |
One could imagine a strong enough ion (stun) blast burning circuitry and making the ship permanently 'dead in space' until repaired though. Just like getting a strong stun blast, but without recouperation.
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