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Snips
Cadet
Joined: 23 Jan 2016
Posts: 19
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 Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2016 9:57 am Post subject: Co-pilot? What use? |
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We're starting up an SW campaign (first since the 80s!) where the PCs form a ships crew, a light freighter of some sort. When choosing skills we figured that since the freighter needs a co-pilot, the co-pilot should choose co-pilot skills. And after reading the space combat chapter (2nd ed REU) I still havnt figured out what the co-pilot is supposed to do, ie what die rolls to roll, what skills to use.
Are there any rules or guidelines reagrding this? Or in other words, what did Chewie do?
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Dredwulf60
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Joined: 07 Jan 2016
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| Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2016 11:28 am Post subject: |
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I'm not sure what the official rules say, (I haven't played the Rules as Written in a very long time.)
In my game I classify ships in 3 categories:
Pilot only: No use for a co-pilot. Piloting gets no increases for having a co-pilot and no penalties for missing one.
An additional person could help by taking over communications duties, or as an Astrogator or a gunner.
Since the Pilot gets multiple action penalties if they are doing two things at once, this can still be a help.
Single Pilot with Co-pilot Optional.
Pilot can handle everything, but a co-pilot can assist. Before taking an action, the co-pilot can roll their own pilot skill against a difficulty of 10. If they succeed the pilot gets an extra 1D6 to their own pilot rolls for the encounter due to the assistance of the co-pilot. (you can also have it that if the co-pilot achieves a difficulty of 20 then the pilot gets 2 extra dice.)
The co-pilot can alternatively take over communications, shields, astrogation, gunnery, etc so that the pilot can concentrate on flying without the multiple action penalties.
Pilot with co-pilot required
This kind of ship is typically big and complicated, or poorly laid out without much thought to efficiency and ergonomics.
The co-pilot must make a pilot roll at difficulty 10 during every encounter. If the roll is failed, the pilot's own skill suffers by losing 1D6.
I find that this makes co-pilots helpful and often necessary. |
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2016 2:10 pm Post subject: Re: Co-pilot? What use? |
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Good stuff, Dredwulf.
| Snips wrote: | | First post! |
Snips, welcome to the Pit!
| Snips wrote: | We're starting up an SW campaign (first since the 80s!) where the PCs form a ships crew, a light freighter of some sort. When choosing skills we figured that since the freighter needs a co-pilot, the co-pilot should choose co-pilot skills. And after reading the space combat chapter (2nd ed REU) I still havnt figured out what the co-pilot is supposed to do, ie what die rolls to roll, what skills to use.
Are there any rules or guidelines reagrding this? Or in other words, what did Chewie do? |
It's not set in stone, it varies ship model to ship model, and individual ships can be individually configured. So it's totally up to you. Most PC freighters will at least have a pilot and copilot station. Ideally the PC group's primary pilot and copilot will both have a decent Mechanical.
Copilots can combine actions with the pilot on maneuvering, etc. to provide a bonus to action rolls. Or conversely you could have the ship set up where copilots are required and assumed to be assisting the pilot, with a penalty to the pilot's rolls if the copilot isn't there, or he is doing something else.
For all starfighter-scale ships with multiple ship crew members possible, I always determine what all stations there are on the ship, and what all functions can be controlled from each station. I personally don't like any PCs to sit around on the ship with nothing to do, so try to have something for every PC to do. How many stations and what functions they each have access to depend on the number of PCs in the group and their skill set. Here are some possible ship functions (and below that, station function allocations) to consider...
• sublight maneuvering/repulsorlifts (movement, evasion, landing, taking off)
• navicomputer (astrogation, access basic planetary systems info)
• sensors
• communications
• shields
• ship's weapon systems (all or each)
• engineering/technical/damage control
• other ship functions?
The main piloting station will usually at least have access to maneuvering, navicomputer and communications/sensors. On some ships the main piloting station may have access to everything. In my game, I have combined the sensors and communications skills into one combo-skill called "com-scan", so those two ship functions are always together on my ships wherever they are. But of course you can separate them.
The copiloting station may be completely redundant to the piloting station, or there may be some overlap with some individual differences. Like maybe the piloting station is the only one with navicomputer access, but the copiloting station is the only one with shields. From TESB and TFA, it seems clear that the Falcon's shield controls are not in the pilot station and only in the copilot station (with a penalty to a pilot operating them without a copilot).
Weapons could be set up to have one dedicated weapons station that controls all ships weapons with a dedicated gunner. With a lot of PCs and multiple weapon systems, each weapon could have its own gunnery station, with another station (like piloting and/or copiloting) also having access to control the weapons at reduced fire control (I think that's how WEG statted out the Falcon). Maybe some weapons have their own station and while others are only controlled by the pilot/copilot.
If you have enough PCs to go around but some are not too mechanically inclined, you could have each of those PCs focus one a single ship function and have a dedicated station just for that, such as a dedicated shield operator. I've had Force characters with low mechanical have an astrogation station where they can at least do instinctive astrogation. I've had high con characters man a communications station so they can do all the talking for the ship and work their fast-talk magic over the radio.
But regardless of what dedicated stations you have, I recommend still having everything be controllable between the pilot and copilot because there may be times where some PCs are unconscious when escaping from somewhere and you don't want to have your ship operations too compartmentalized. Redundancy is intentional and a good thing (but on the other hand having more than two stations that can access all ship functions seems unrealistic to me, for both smaller and larger ships.)
Before starting any campaign, I always have a game session dedicated to character creation and ship design where all these decisions are made as a group.
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garhkal
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2016 6:44 pm Post subject: |
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Based on looking at many of the ship diags in pirates and privateers/stock ships and the complete ships guide, there are often delenations for what 'station' on freighter bridges do..
The first schematic that lists what the actual seats are that i can find is on page 76, the Barloz class medium freighter.
The cockpit has 4 seats, with it being 'delenated as'
A - pilot
B - Copilot (without using the co-pilot all difficulty rolls are at +5)
C - Sensors/comms
D - Shields and lifesupport.
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JironGhrad
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| Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2016 9:01 pm Post subject: Re: Co-pilot? What use? |
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| Snips wrote: | | Or in other words, what did Chewie do? |
If you paid attention during the OT (and TFA), the shields installed on the Falcon are controlled on the right side of the cockpit (Rey couldn't activate them during the chase effectively; being forced to reach across the cockpit). It's also implied that during ESB, when blasting out of Hoth base, that Chewie was controlling the blaster cannon.
In ANH, Han tells Chewie to "get us out of here" and in ESB Lando sits in the right-side seat when the hyperdrive is down and Chewie goes back to try to fix it, implying that both seats have basic maneuvering capability.
As a side note, in flight control systems presently in use, where not supplemented by a fly-by-wire or hydraulic system, the co-pilot functions as additional "brute-force" for purely mechanical systems. By that, I mean that when a car loses power steering, you're still able to turn the vehicle but it's entirely brute force; in a starship that has flight control surfaces (wings) it could conceivably suffer a mishap/damage that would render the ship flyable but requiring mechanical force for control (STR rolls to keep the ship flying). |
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Snips
Cadet
Joined: 23 Jan 2016
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| Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2016 4:16 am Post subject: |
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Thanks for all replys. Great stuff! I know how to handle it now.
Great forum btw! |
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MrNexx
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Joined: 25 Mar 2016
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Location: San Antonio
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| Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2016 12:03 pm Post subject: |
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A bit late, but I would say that in a lot of cases, the co-pilot essentially provides extra actions. A pilot (in a pilot-with-copilot optional setup) CAN control the shields and fly the ship, but has to take additional actions to do so, reducing their die codes. With a copilot, your pilot can concentrate on the flying, and the copilot can handle shields, weapons, sensors/ecm, or whatever.
To use TFA example, Rey was able to fly and work the shields at the same time, but it was an obvious effort to do so. Or, during the escape from the Death Star, Han and Luke went to use the cannons, not because you couldn't control them from the front, but because it was more efficient to have Leia fly, Chewie assist, and Luke and Han shoot.
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
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| Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2016 3:05 pm Post subject: Re: Co-pilot? What use? |
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| Whill wrote: | | The copiloting station may be completely redundant to the piloting station, or there may be some overlap with some individual differences. Like maybe the piloting station is the only one with navicomputer access, but the copiloting station is the only one with shields. From TESB and TFA, it seems clear that the Falcon's shield controls are not in the pilot station and only in the copilot station (with a penalty to a pilot operating them without a copilot). |
| MrNexx wrote: | A bit late, but I would say that in a lot of cases, the co-pilot essentially provides extra actions. A pilot (in a pilot-with-copilot optional setup) CAN control the shields and fly the ship, but has to take additional actions to do so, reducing their die codes. With a copilot, your pilot can concentrate on the flying, and the copilot can handle shields, weapons, sensors/ecm, or whatever.
To use TFA example, Rey was able to fly and work the shields at the same time, but it was an obvious effort to do so. Or, during the escape from the Death Star, Han and Luke went to use the cannons, not because you couldn't control them from the front, but because it was more efficient to have Leia fly, Chewie assist, and Luke and Han shoot. |
I like this guy.
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