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cheshire
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 Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2014 6:43 pm Post subject: Crew Compliment |
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How do you handle the group dynamics when you have a starship with a crew compliment requirement. That is to say, if you have a Crew: 1 (2 can coordinate) ship, then it's pretty clear that you can have one character that is "the pilot." What if you have a Crew: 4 ship? Do you have someone make rolls at the "shields station" and scans in the "communications station," and have a separate person down in the belly of the ship making rolls in engineering? How do you handle a crew working on the ship?
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garhkal
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| Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2014 2:44 am Post subject: |
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I leave it to them to figure out where everyone is. If they don't want that station filled, then mods apply to actions. Usually though, most groups have 1-2 in engineering, 3-4 on the bridge and both guns (if 2 turrets are present) manned.
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Barrataria
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| Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2014 10:48 am Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | I leave it to them to figure out where everyone is. If they don't want that station filled, then mods apply to actions. Usually though, most groups have 1-2 in engineering, 3-4 on the bridge and both guns (if 2 turrets are present) manned. |
It depends on the ship too, right? Assuming it's their regular ship, or something I've had time to prepare, it's dictated by the deckplan (or informed by it anyway). As to engineering, I usually assume some can be done from a data station above deck; absent a problem in the engine room/deck anyway.
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garhkal
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| Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2014 2:48 pm Post subject: |
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Some ships may have an engineering console on the bridge, for power rerouting, control of energy flow etc. But for repairs and such, imo they need to have someone in engineering. As well as parts stored in the cargo bay.
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DougRed4
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| Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2014 4:04 pm Post subject: |
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On my players' current ship (a modified Loronar Medium Transport), they often have about 3-4 characters (at least) on the bridge: pilot, sensors, astrogation, communications) and characters manning each of the guns (so three more). I agree that repairs usually need to happen down in Engineering, but they usually have somebody run to do that (rather than having anyone stationed there).
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garhkal
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| Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2014 10:16 pm Post subject: |
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| DougRed4 wrote: | | On my players' current ship (a modified Loronar Medium Transport), they often have about 3-4 characters (at least) on the bridge: pilot, sensors, astrogation, communications) and characters manning each of the guns (so three more). I agree that repairs usually need to happen down in Engineering, but they usually have somebody run to do that (rather than having anyone stationed there). |
How many rounds do you have them go running down to engineering before they can start repairing?
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tetsuoh
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| Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2014 11:10 pm Post subject: |
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Thats why its always good to have a floorplan - then you as the GM know how far what is from where.
I know of a group that used to play star wars with minis that even would print out scaled deckplans by level of the ship that included the distance lines and all that.
bit much for me just having a deckplan is more than enough. |
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DougRed4
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| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2014 2:55 pm Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | DougRed4 wrote: | | On my players' current ship (a modified Loronar Medium Transport), they often have about 3-4 characters (at least) on the bridge: pilot, sensors, astrogation, communications) and characters manning each of the guns (so three more). I agree that repairs usually need to happen down in Engineering, but they usually have somebody run to do that (rather than having anyone stationed there). |
How many rounds do you have them go running down to engineering before they can start repairing? |
We've got deckplans, and it ends up being about 3-4 rounds usually. It actually became the cause of a moment of a player getting upset last session, so I've considered figuring out (outside of the game) how long it takes to get from one place to another. Of course, it also depends on what the ship is doing (last session, it was dodging fire, so that might make it even tougher to run through the ship!)
| tetsuoh wrote: | Thats why its always good to have a floorplan - then you as the GM know how far what is from where.
I know of a group that used to play star wars with minis that even would print out scaled deckplans by level of the ship that included the distance lines and all that.
bit much for me just having a deckplan is more than enough. |
We have actual deckplans (on full-sized sheets, laminated) for my supers game, but we haven't gone into that kind of detail for our SW game (though we do look at the deckplans, which I have printed out in color).
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garhkal
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| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2014 9:24 pm Post subject: |
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| tetsuoh wrote: | Thats why its always good to have a floorplan - then you as the GM know how far what is from where.
I know of a group that used to play star wars with minis that even would print out scaled deckplans by level of the ship that included the distance lines and all that.
bit much for me just having a deckplan is more than enough. |
Depends on whether the deck plan has a 'scale' to it or not.
But you also have the land speed to take into account, as per the movement section, a character can shift up or down 2 move categories a round, so from the 'sitting down' position you would go to standing, and moving at cruise speed for R1, (bypassing cautious), then could shift to all out for R2 (assuming you had no doors you need to open between). So technically could sprint down a 90 yrd long corridor in 3 rounds from a sitting position.
Though for running checks, would they be considered moderate or easy terrain? What if the pilot is juking and jinking? Would that rolling and diving etc, make it harder to move?
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DougRed4
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| Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2014 11:58 am Post subject: |
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In my opinion it does (make it tougher, when the ship is banking and rolling and whatnot). No doors for our crewmembers, but they do have to wait on a lift to get from one deck to another.
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cheshire
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| Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2014 2:41 pm Post subject: |
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And what do you have all these various crew members doing during battle? Do each of them have a function every round?
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DougRed4
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| Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2014 1:42 pm Post subject: |
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Our ship has enough things to do that most characters have a function during battle. We even have a few starfighters aboard that can disembark and assist if needed (giving a few more characters things to do).
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garhkal
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| Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2014 7:02 pm Post subject: |
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| cheshire wrote: | | And what do you have all these various crew members doing during battle? Do each of them have a function every round? |
A lot of that depends on which ship we use and how many people we have.
Some games, we DO have people that have no space ship skills, so often just sit back, and wait, while in other games i have had people competing to be at a certain spot.
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