Revised Ion Cannon Rules

[CRMcNeill]

This is the culmination of several different concepts over the years, as well as multiple discussions both here on the Pit and over on the Google+ community. I've never made a secret of the fact that I dislike WEG's version of ion cannon, for a variety of reasons. Here's my solution, along with the major changes:

1) Ion cannon no longer ignore shields, but are, instead, highly effective at bringing them down.

2) Ion cannon, if they inflict enough ionization damage, can burn out a target's electronic systems to the point that they require repair before they can be used again.

3) Ion cannon affect all of a ship's electronics systems, including the ship's engines.

Ion Cannon vs. Shields
Because ion cannon blasts are less cohesive than laser blasts, they tend to discharge their full energy into the first obstacle they encounter. In the case of combat starships, this is usually the ship's shields, and shields have proven to be highly vulnerable to ion blasts.

When firing against a shielded target, ion cannon no longer ignore the shields; instead, they treat the shields as Full Cover, and roll their attack just against the Shield Dice only.

Ion Roll > Shields by = Penalty to Shield Strength
1-4 = Shields -1D
5-8 = Shields -2D
9-12 = Shields -3D
13-15 = Shields -4D
16+ = Shields - 5D

As with Controls Ionized results, the penalty to Shield Strength reduces at a rate of 1D per round.

In addition, if the shield takes enough ion damage, there is the potential that some will punch through the shields and strike the ship instead.

Ion Roll > Shields by = Roll Ion Damage vs. Hull
0-3 = Ion Damage -4D
4-8 = Ion Damage -2D
9-12 = Ion Damage -1D
13+ = Full Damage

Ion Cannon vs. Ships

Ion Damage Roll > Hull by = Result
1-4 = Controls Ionized
5-8 = 2 Controls Ionized
9-12 = 3 Controls Ionized
13-15 = 4 Controls Ionized
16-19 = Controls Dead (Lightly Damaged)
20-23 = Controls Dead (Heavily Damaged)
24+ = Controls Dead (Severely Damaged)

The Controls Ionized penalty rolls off at a rate of 1D per round, but multiple results have a cumulative effect.

The Controls Ionized Penalty is applied to:

Maneuverability
Movement (Each Controls Ionized result = 1 Lost Move on the Lost Move Chart)
Fire Control
Energy Weapon Damage
Shields, Sensors, Astrogation and Communications Skill Rolls
Navigation Shields (Hull, up to a maximum of -2D)

So, obviously, this changes ion cannon a bit from the RAW. While it does initially make them somewhat less effective than WEG's version, it does give them the added effectiveness of bringing down shields, as well as expanding the kinds of systems affected by ion damage and clarifying that, with enough ion damage, a ship can actually be disabled and require repair before it can be used again.
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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.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[garhkal]

With me, i also have my own Ion cannon rules. You chart out every system, such as
Hyperdrive
main power
sub-light
maneuvering
main computer
sensors,
weapon 1
weapon 2
back up hyper drive
shields
nav comp

and so on.
Each roll of up to 4 over the soak that is gotten by an ion cannon roll, is one system that get's affected.
You roll a dice equal to or as close as (can be over if needed) to the # of sustems to see which was hit. Then 1d6 to see how many rounds it is affected (shut down temporarily).
Multiple hits on the SAME damage roll to the same system, just add a further d6 to the number of rounds that system is shut down. BUT hits in following rounds, or from secondary damage rolls in the same round, add 2d (then 3d, then 4d and so on)..

Once a system is shutdown, a technician can attempt to lessen the duration of how long it is offline, by making a space transport repair/star fighter repair/capital ship repair roll, at a heroic diff, and if successful, they halve the remaining time..
So let's say a ship's hyperdrive has been pounded on and is now at 29 rounds of being shutdown. The tech knows he won't succeed on his own to repair it, so calls down the back up tech who is in gun turret 2. It takes 2 rounds to get down there, after being called, and 1 more round to get the tools to do repairs (so its now got 26 rounds remaining. After succeeding on a repair roll, they are now only down to 24 rounds (remember the first repair roll is 2 rounds, then 2 minutes, then 2 hours and so on), so the halved duration is 12 rounds left..
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[CRMcNeill]

Overall, that seems a lot more complicated than simply having an ionization penalty that applies to all systems.

One thing I did recall from the Far Orbit Project was Static Discharge Vanes (see page 31) that allowed the ship to bleed off excess energy to convert a Shields Blown result into a Controls Ionized result. Basically, the Shield Operator rolled their Shield skill against the current Shields Blown / Controls Ionized total to bleed off enough energy to keep the shields from blowing out.

It wouldn't take too much work to convert this over into a method to bleed off ionization effects in general...
_________________
"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.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index