Space Combat bugs and problems

[Darius]

yeah but 6D seems like a big difference. even though the skipray has more powerful weapons should it be so hard for it to hit something about its own size ?

in our group we just use 2D difference between each scale and it still seems to be enough to make the players pause when coming up against capital ships. mind you not sure where we got the idea that its only 2D difference. we did think about having space transports as another scale between starfighter and capital. what do you think ?
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oops - i didnt mean to make it go off

[Gry Sarth]

Yeah, I think if you go 2D between each scale, you should definetly create a Space Transports category between Starfighter and Capital.

So it would be:

Character - About 2 meters
Speeder - About 4 meters
Walker - About 8 meters
Starfighter - About 16 meters
Space Transport - About 32 meters
Capital - Over 80 meters
Death Star - Too big to even care.

A 2D difference between each might work about right. And it has that exponential progression of sizes that WEG likes to use.
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"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."

[garhkal]

[Firehawk0220]

By scraping the entire rule book and writing my own.

[Pel]

What about using Star Warriors for extended space combat scenes? Has anyone tried that?
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Aha!

[Darth Mischevious]

My group always used Star Warriors for space battle resolutions. Worked fine for us - but everyone in the group also had a wargaming background as well as roleplaying, so they were happier with the tabletop tactical resolution rather than the RPG "winging it" rules.

[Delkarnu]

I think they should do away with scale difference and just use fire control, damage, maneuverability, and hull. Smaller weapons do less damage, but have greater fire control. Smaller ships have lower hulls, but high maneuverability.

Give them all power requirements, and ship engines have max power output and players can customize their ships easier that way.

[Grimace]

Getting rid of the scale differences would make some of the dice totals absolutely ridiculous. Both on the low end and the high end you'd have such crazy discrepancies that it would be wonky. Any system that has a wide range of things, from things smaller than a man to things bigger than an aircraft carrier, all use some sort of scaling system.

[enderandrew]

Pilots get to add maneuverability, but gunners get to add fire control.

A pilot with 9D in their skill should be able to avoid being hit by average gunners. A really talented gunner however should be able to hit a really talented pilot. It works both ways.
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Nihilism makes me smile.

[Orion]

[Delkarnu]

As I've discussed with other people, removing scale can lead to rolling tons of dice, a pilot with 9D in x-wing, plus 3D in maneuverability, plus about 6D for removing scale, means the person rolls 18D to dodge incoming fire, no matter what is shooting at him (and the starship gunners would be rolling about as many too)

I think they simplified everything too much with scale and maneuverability, but finding a good solution is problematic. Smaller ships shouldn't have huge maneuverability scores to make them harder to hit, when being smaller doesn't necessarily mean they are easier to fly.

I've been thinking about adding a second stat for a size modifier within the scale. say star fighters and freighters are both starfighter scale, but an X-wing could be -2D to hit due to size and speed, and a mobquet medium cargo hauler would be +2D to hit due to it being much larger than most freighters (over six times bigger than the x-wing, and only half as fast, but current rules put it only 2D harder to hit by maneuverability)

In the same way, a Super Star Destroyer is over 100 times bigger than a corellian corvette, but is only 2D harder to hit from the corvette's maneuverability, whereas the corvette is only twice as big as the mobquet, but 5D easier to hit due to the current scale rules.

If the corvette had a -2D for size vs a normal cap-scale, it would only be 1D more difficult to hit than a mobquet at +2d over starfighter difficulty. The problem with this, is that the math is a pain per time.
Mobquet vs Corvette:
Mobquet +1D to hit for maneuverability, +2d to gunner to hit based on size of target, net 1D to hit.
Corvette +2D to hit for maneuverability, -2d to gunner to hit based on size of target, +6d to gunner to hit for scale, net +2D to hit
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This new hand, it's a fightin' hand!

[Delkarnu]

I don't believe its standard, but in the games I've been in, any starfighter scale guns on a capital ship can be targeted as though they were starfighter scale, you don't get the +6D to hit, but if you hit you can take out the gun and make survival/escape easier.

I do think that while the lower power starfighter-scale weapons wont penetrate capital ship hulls readily to destroy the ship, they should be able to knock out some systems by targeting them as starfighter scale items(sensor array, communications, specific weapons, etc)
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This new hand, it's a fightin' hand!

[Orion]

[atgxtg]

The problem with eliminating scale is that quite a lot of the stats won't make much sense without it. Way back in 87 when WEG did the STAR WARS SOURCEBOOK, the stats were kinda wacky. The scaling methods were ways to address that. Without some scaling, things like blaster artillery are going to be very underpowered, and some other things overpowered.

As for the 6D difference between fighters and capital ships, it exists so that players can't take out an ISD with, say, the Millennium Falcon. Especially in 2nd edition.

One possibly way to eliminate the handfuls of dice scaling without die caps might be a multiplier system. For example, a Star Destroyer might have 6Dx2 Hull vs. starfighters. While this gives the same statistical mean as 12D6, you are only rolling half the dice, and it is much easier to get a lower result-especially with the wild die.

[jmanski]

That is something I had toyed with, but not used yet.

Hhmmmm, might have to do some math on that one.
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Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect?