Maneuverability Codes

[Raven Redstar]

The whole idea was to make a pilot's skill more important than the equipment they use. I hate the idea of self flying ships. Auto-pilot is okay, but a ship that is so maneuverable, that a character can fly it with zero training and still be throwing a bunch of dice.

I wouldn't have an issue with standard piloting difficulties, since most of the time if someone is cruising through relatively routine conditions, I don't require a roll. It would however make situations like evasive maneuvers in combat or flying high speed through an asteroid field much more dangerous.

The idea is that Star Wars is a skill based system, and having a vehicle that gives a 4D+2 bonus to operating rolls whenever they're piloting it, means that even a complete boob in it can fly as well as a professional pilot in a different vehicle.

Also, by reducing the number of dice available in maneuverability, you reduce the bucket of dice effect, which is something many players and GMs will gripe about from time to time.

I think everyone here has brought up a lot of good points to keep in mind. It'll take probably a bit of research and testing on my part before I really come to a firm decision on the matter.
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RR
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[atgxtg]

I get the idea. The problem is a die modifier still keeps the equipment in charge, since, as far as the rules go, it doesn't matter where +1D/-1D comes from. It's still 1D.

What one RPG used to do to keep the characters in charge was treat the modifiers as a fraction of the skill, but that would be hard to implement in D6.

Another approach that might help would be convert the maneuverability die codes into fixed modifiers. That would help because the flat modifier would only give so much of a bonus, and wouldn't help with MAPs.

It would even be closer to what you want if the modifier came off the difficulty instead of adding to the pilots roll.

[atgxtg]

Yet another way to make skill more important would be to cap the maneuverability bonus based on skill. Say it takes 2D of skill per 1D of maneuverability. Then a pilot with 4D skill could only get a 2D maneuverability bonus from his vehicle. If he was piloting something more maneuverable it wouldn't matter because he wasn't skill enough to take advantage of it. It would take a pilot with 6D skill to benefit fully from a ship with 3D maneuverability and 8D to benefit from 4D maneuverability.

One neat thing about this approach is thatit would explain why TIEs only have a 2D maneuverability code.

[Raven Redstar]

That's not a bad suggestion, but it still doesn't really take into account the other end of the spectrum. Big, clunky, hard to fly ships.

I like your idea of the 2D to get 1D of maneuverability dice, but I'm thinking about just using a flat modifier based on maneuverability, and I'll do a similar thing with the modifier. 2D to get +3 worth of maneuverability bonus.

So some of those ridiculous vehicles with 4D+2 maneuverability will turn into a +14 maneuverability, and the character will need 9D to get the full use of the maneuverability code.
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[Gadora]

The low end of that spectrum interacts oddly with the rules for ionized controls. If you give a starship -1D or 0D maneuverability, what does that mean for the "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." rule?

I do like the sound of skill unlocking the maneuverability dice, though. That said, it still feels like that fails to capture, say, swoops being rather dangerous to fly. That said, I went to poke at the conversion books to make sure I was remembering correctly and apparently the Nebulon-S Racer (from the Thrawn Trilogy Sourcebook) has a -3D to your Swoop Operation roll, if used unskilled. It doesn't quite match the 4D maneuverability listed, but it's an interesting precedent.

[Raven Redstar]

That's an interesting idea, what if maneuverability codes were used as a penalty for an untrained pilot?

The Flare-S Swoop gives a -4D+2 to a character's mechanical if they don't have proper training in it.
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[garhkal]

Which would (if that rule got implemented) would mean even Bith, Lafrarians and Shashay, all 3 are the only species i see with a 5d max Mech (though there are iirc 4 at 4d+2) can't even use one going off base mech.
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[Naaman]

[atgxtg]

Naaman,

While the Miata is a fine car for the money, it does not handle as well as any high performace sports car. Look at the specs. It doesn't have the same handling. it's good, but not as good as a high end car. But then, high end cars spend more money on handling than the sticker price of the Miata.

Greater handling is not always safer. Proof of that can be found with aircraft. Airplens used for aeobatics are more maneuverable and less stable than other airplanes. Meanwhile, big stable aircraft are sluggish, but when they fail it is less severe.

[tetsuoh]

^
And as such making the penalty to untrained being that much more reasonable I suppose.

Though I like the penalty to manueverability as well - and simply apply the negative manueverability as a seperate application from ion damage.

If a vehicle ends up with -2D then it had 0D to begin with.

Or houserule that Ion damage as being Stun damage to the ship affecting manueverability but only shutting down the ship once it exceeds the ships speed or the ships hull.

*shrugs*

[atgxtg]

I've been leaning towards changing the ion damage cap to Hull as well. It seems odd that, with two otherwise identical craft, the one with a higher maneuverability code doesn't shut down when the other does.

[Naaman]

[garhkal]

Higher speeds Do already increase the TN for maneuvering though.
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[atgxtg]

[Naaman]

Those are not examples of the CAPABILITIES of the craft. They are examples of the sensitivity of the controls. Power steering and the control stick sensitivity have nothing to do with what the craft is mechanically capable of. Having a different steering ratio does not change how much grip the tires have or how compliant the suspension is. These things establish the limits of what the craft can do.

The case mentioned above is exactly what Im talking about: the pilot knows or doesnt what the craft will do when he gives it x input. The performance of the craft is whhat it is.

If we want to differentiate hetween individual craft, then we can specialize. And, of course, there are separate skills for transports and starfighters, which EASILY accounts for the differences mentioned above.

Atgxtg, you and I are making two different arguments. I am saying that an individual craft is safer if it has better maneuverability (all other things being equal), than if it is slower to react.

A person driving a Volvo and a person driving a Miata are going to get different results. Even if the two vehicles are equal in speed, the Miata driver evenif a beginner, can negtiate more hazards and obstacles successfully at any given speed than the Volvo driver can. Or, a better way to say it: the SAME driver will be successful more often in the Miata.

To address what you are saying, Id propose something like this: a craft can be tuned to be more responsive and maneuverable at the expense of controllability. Using the maximum limits I posted earlier, I might say that a craft can increase its upper limit, but the minimum difficulty to pilot the craft increases also (this is sometimes done on racecars in order to get more oversteer or understeer or whatever without breaking any rules).

This is not to say that the performance cannot be improved without increasing the difficulty. But it may be cheaper or easier to do it the first way until funds can be gathered to do it right.