My house rules on Capital ships

[Jedi AlanRocks]

I saw a thread like this below but it hasn't been active in months so I figured I would start my own thread and you can tell me what you think.

While I don't have capital ships battle very often, when they do I still like to have the players roll for them- even if the PC's aren't directly involved in combat. To figure out initiave I have the opposing Admirals roll their Tactics D and the winner gets to move and shoot first, or they can let their opponent move first if they so choose.

I give each ship a certain amount of D in what I call "crew skill." ( I used to call it Reactor Power) This is a number I come up with based on how well trained and motovated a ship's crew is, not necessarily the handful of stats given under "crew skill." These D can be split up (or not) into the following areas- Shields, Fire Control, Maneuver and damage. I figure this simulates the captain on the bridge yelling "Full power to shields!" or "Evasive maneuvers!"

So for example an ISD with a well trained and motivated crew might have a crew skill of 3D. At the start of combat the player decides how many D he wants to put where. Lets say they all go to shields, so the ship will have 6D in shields that round. Other ships in the fleet might divert a D to shields and 2D to Fire Control. The players roll once, this roll represents a salvo and if the roll "misses" it just means that some guns did land on target but didn't cut through the shields. Certainly we're not going to roll 20 times to simulate EVERY GUN.

I also use a system like this to simulate wings of fighters, a squadron of X wings might have a crew skill of 4D and this can be split up like I mentioned before. If the ISD fires on the squadron we only roll once against the modified X wing stats and light damage sends 1D fighters back to base (and -1D to crew skill), moderate damage destroys an additional 1D fighters (and minus an additional 1D to crew skill) and heavy damage forces the squadron to abandon their attack and return home.

This has been play tested and really works well for me.
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[Nefasius]

My regular group uses a similar system as we all play Imperial captains, I'll have a look and see if I can't find the stats and whatnot and post up any major differences.
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[Yak Face]

I like the concept you describe - I think it would work quite well for large scale engagements. It avoids bogging down in the details. You mentioned that you don't have your PCs involved in the combat very often, but do your PC's ever get involved in ship command? If so, do they alter the available dice, or have other tangible effects?

The old Rules Companion had a chart to magnify FC and Damage for mutiple guns firing - have you ever used such a system to simulate the weight of fire from lots of batteries?

I've used a somewhat more elaborate system, blending most of the rules I could find from various sources ranging from the original Rules Companion to Star Warriors, but it was really only good for battles with, at most, a hand full of capital ships and fighter squadrons (unless we had a lot of time to kill). With a system like yours something grander could be simulated.
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However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. -Sir Winston Churchill

[Jedi AlanRocks]

[Yak Face]

I can't believe you're really supposed to roll 20 times for each gun on an ISD nor could I figure out a way to simulate a squadron of X Wings attacking without rolling for every fighter. I came up with this system because I was so frustrated with how thick the hide is on an ISD, with 7D in the hull and 3D in the shields there's really NOTHING that can hurt them.

I agree - rolling lots of times is utterly impractical. That's why I resorted to that table in the Rules Companion that I mentioned earlier, for both capital ship guns and for starfighters in groups. (I'm at work as I write this or I'd provide the page number) One role to hit, one to determine damage, and done. The one adjustment I made was that if the to-hit difficulty was missed by 5 or less, I assumed that 1/2 of the guns firing still hit the target and reduced the damage modifier appropriately. The damage modifier helped the starfighters to be a threat to capital ships.

For dishing out damage on starfighters, I took the raw damage result and multiplied it by the number of guns firing and the damage "level" (1-light, 2-heavy, 3-severe, 4-destroyed) inflicted. For every 4 points in the score I wiped out a fighter. Not realistic on a per ship basis, but I figure it reflected a reduced group effectiveness from having damaged ships in the formation. If a PC was in the formation I just assumed he was better skilled than the others, or simply a George-Lucas-Token-Survivor, and let it go at that.
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However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. -Sir Winston Churchill