Starship movement failures and out of control

[Tol-Yun]

So, this is something that buggs me all the time when running space combat:

You got a ship on high speed in a moderate difficulty space with (let's say the DN is 12). You are shot at by some fighters and decide it is time for a full dodge in order to save the ship. Full dodge is your only action for this round, so you may not "move". Your movement score is thus 0, which means you look into the chart and apply the result of 12: "Minor Collision".

From some older threads I get it you drop after that round from high speed to cruising speed since you were not able to make a proper move and you may only reduce/increase speed by one. Correct?

Let's assume there is nothing to run into with our minor collision, so our ship goes "out of control". The pilot cannot control the ship for the next two rounds. Ok, so no move and no dodge. What happens to speed? Does it again drop one speed band per round for not making a proper move? So after making a full dodge in a terrain difficulty of 7+ you come to an automatic halt in 3 rounds?

What about the round after the full dodge? We are now on cruising speed in a moderate terrain difficulty and are unable to make a proper move. Does the ship suffer then again from minor collision or since it is cruising speed may pass automaticly since the terrain difficulty is moderate?

Although there seems to be a consense about decelerating after having not performed a move action in previous threads, I see nothing the like in the RAW. The only paragraph mentioning slowing down is 2nd R&E p.125: "A starship that fails a movement roll may slow down, go spinning out of control..."
At 1-10 the results implement a movement penalty, at 11+ they don't. Does that mean the ship does not move at all and comes to an immediate halt?

[Lane Arroway]

My take is that the ship doesn't slow down while the pilot is full dodging. Naturally, the ship is moving forward as well. Not as much as a straight shot, of course, but moving in whatever direction the pilot is heading as he bobs and weaves.

Mechanics-wise the ship maintains the same speed, but since the pilot is weaving about it's up to the GM if any real space has been gained. As the ship spins out of control the speed maintains the same unless the GM decides otherwise. Also, accelerating/decelerating is not an action and can be done once a round regardless of "actually" moving.

I like to keep space combat fast and exciting. To that end I try not to get bogged down by exact space and distance numbers. That's how I roll.

Hope this helps.
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[aegisflashfire]

At all out you cannot declare a dodge.

At high speed, Your dodge roll does NOT exclude your move action. The ship MUST travel at its current speed. (else you could stop on a dime by declaring a full dodge) RAW its not clear, but I would suggest that you allow both rolls OR the pilot auto-fails the move roll OR only the vehicle manuv. code applies (because the pilot cannot contribute)

I tend to like option 1. Just subtract 1D and allow both rolls. But under no circumstances would I allow the full dodge action to act as a 'emergency brake'

In at least one edition (might have been 1st ed Rules supplement) You could declare a full dodge and it combined with ONLY move actions but nothing else.

edit: hmm. the example on page 110 would seem to indicate otherwise. Dodge=no move. I don't like that.

[Tol-Yun]

@Lane Arroway: Actually my group plays a pilot's full dodge is his move roll for the round (minus the terrain difficulty of course) since it is a starship piloting roll. However the RAW seems to suggest otherwise, at least with vehicles.

[DougRed4]

There seems to be a number of misunderstandings here which I believe are leading to people's confusion.

First off, the OP made reference to "Moderate difficulty", but then also stated that there was "nothing to run into". That doesn't make any sense, being as the rules spell out Moderate space terrain as:

Moderate: 11-15. Flying a starship in crowded space — a busy spacedock staging area. Flying in an area littered with a moderate amount of debris or down the Death Star's artificial canyon.

Secondly, it's important to realize that even moving a single space unit (even a "1") still represents a great deal of space. Look at it this way, consider everywhere you travel today, even if you commute for an hour to your place of work. You likely traveled less than 1 space unit. So a starship that is doing a full dodge is doing what we saw the Falcon doing in TESB when it was ducking and dodging around the asteroid field. Han wasn't choosing to go flying straight forward (perhaps covering numerous space units), but was instead (more or less) remaining stationary, or perhaps covering a single space unit.

So a ship going high speed in a very crowded area of space should have plenty of things to crash into if they fail their movement roll. It's my experience that - unless the ship is in an extremely difficult region of space (like navigating through an asteroid field) - the worst they'll do with a starship collision is a minor slip, no actual damage but perhaps not going as far as they wanted to that turn.
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[Tol-Yun]

[garhkal]

Effectively yes.. Your full dodge incompases you spinning, rolling, and maneuvering in all 3 dimensions, but your effective forward movement is no net real gain (i usually allow 2su though)..

AS to the piloting roll you would normally need to make for going through terrain, you would first off look at the speed. At high speed (2x) your terrain of moderate is needing to be rolled, but since you full dodged, your roll is naught, so the 12 (if that is what the difficulty number the DM set for a moderate terrain) becomes the failure roll on the maneuvering chart which regardless is a minor collision. Since moderate terrain is listed as being cluttered, there IS going to be something you hit.

And where are you getting that when doing a full dodge, you can slow down at?
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[atgxtg]

[garhkal]

[atgxtg]

[Tol-Yun]

[garhkal]

Would those particle shields be up and running if the ship was ionised to shutdown?
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[Tol-Yun]

[DougRed4]

Others have answered this pretty well. I'll throw in my two bits anyway.

[garhkal]