Spinal / Axial Weapons

[CRMcNeill]

While working on my ASC system, I came across a few minutiae that bothered me about starfighter combat. One thing in particular is that starship combat in the RAW makes no distinction between a axial or spinal mounted weapon (i.e. one that is fixed to fire forward along the ship's x-axis, as opposed to a partial turret that can target in the Front fire arc only). This includes pretty much all starfighter-mounted weaponry, all of which is aimed entirely by the flight path of the fighter itself.

Yet the RAW makes no connection between the ability of a pilot to steer his craft (and thus his weapons) into proper firing position to score a hit.

To represent this, I would suggest the following:

-If a starfighter pilot wishes to fire axial weaponry, he makes a single Starfighter Piloting roll at +5 Difficulty. This is in addition to the MAP from both using both Piloting and Gunnery skills in the same round, and represents the inherent difficulty found in piloting a craft through a given maneuver and getting a target to line up with the gunsight.

-On a successful Piloting roll, for every 3 points of success, the pilot may add +1 to his Gunnery roll to hit the target. On a failed roll, the suffers a penalty to Gunnery equal to the amount by which he failed the Piloting roll.

I deliberately unbalanced the failure penalty because, IMO, a bad piloting roll should make it much more difficult to hit the target, and a penalty of -1 for every 3 points of fail doesn't seem severe enough when measured against likely Gunnery dice totals.

Thoughts?
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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

[MrNexx]

I'd almost be tempted to make axial blasters and mass drivers rely on the piloting roll alone, not any gunnery skill.
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[CRMcNeill]

[MrNexx]

[LegendaryExGamer]

I would say that the targeting method of the weapon systems relies heavily upon the platform on which it is mounted. If It's a running stem to stern on something like a Star Destroyer, then it can only attack craft in the forward arc (possibly on a narrow one requiring a piloting roll in tandem) and made at some level of difficulty +10 or more above the norm.

If we are talking a Death Star with a targeting dish, that can essentially direct a focused blast anywhere in it's forward arc... The weapon is hellishly accurate, you're paying for to be so. Starship Gunnery, the basic skill, like firing the guns on an X-Wing is about all that is required to hit a Capital Ship. Everything is automated with arrays of sensors for targeting. The Death Star never missed when firing on ships 600-1200 meters in length.

[CRMcNeill]

Under the rule I proposed, the targeting and accuracy of the platform would be a combination of the ship's Maneuver and Fire Control dice. Of course, it doesn't matter how good the platform is if the bumbling idiot at the controls can't steer onto target...
_________________
"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

[LegendaryExGamer]

[Whill]

This light additional crunch is perfectly acceptable, or you could just more simply differentiate them by statting axial weapons to have lower fire control (or even no fire control) and be done with it.
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[CRMcNeill]

[Whill]

[MrNexx]

Slightly unrelated: Am I the only one who tended to want the ion cannon fixed to cover the rear arc, instead of the front?
_________________
"I've Seen Your Daily Routine. You Are Not Busy!"
“We're going to win this war, not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love.”
http://rpgcrank.blogspot.com/

[CRMcNeill]

Giving this a bump because I have a thought on it.

I've been working with a theory that x2 = +1D w/r/t to Coordination, and this theory has gained precedence in discussions with a more technically-minded SWD6 aficionado off-Pit. Put simply, every +1D represents a doubling of input, effort, applied power, etc.

Now, MAPs are measured in 1D increments; a -1D MAP represents two tasks of equal difficulty being performed either at the same time or in close enough succession that they might as well be.

However, when piloting a ship with fixed-forward weaponry (as is common on most starfighters), there is a definite overlap between the two, as the pilot is, in effect, aiming the cannon by piloting the ship. As such, when a pilot is both flying his ship and firing his fixed forward weapons, he is performing two closely-related actions.

Under the RAW, these would count as two separate actions, which isn't an unfair argument. However, I've long felt that the two actions were sufficiently intertwined that a full MAP wasn't appropriate.

As such, I'm considering doing only a Partial MAP of -1 or -2, applied to both the Piloting and Gunnery rolls, but only for fixed-forward weaponry; the Y-Wing example cited above would only be able to take a partial MAP if the ion cannon was in fixed-forward mode, and if they steered the turret to take advantage of the extra 2D of Fire Control, it would count as an Action for MAP calculation.

I had considered starting a separate topic for Partial MAPs, but I honestly can't think of any other scenario where it would come into play, so I figured I'd tack it onto the end of this one.
_________________
"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]

[Ray]

I wanted to, but for whatever reason my GM nixed it. I can't recall his reason why I couldn't have the ion cannons on the rear arc.

Might have just been the commanding officer going, "No, you need to see where you're shooting." as if we weren't using the targeting computers already. (I was not a Space Wizard.).

[CRMcNeill]