Pilot

[Wajeb Deb Kaadeb]

I was wondering how common you think it is that characters are pilots in the Star Wars universe, and is there a difference between military and civilian pilots.



When I first saw ANH, it seemed the Luke Skywalker needed a justification for being able pilot a state-of-the-art military starfighter. I wondered how a farmboy from a backwater world could just jump into the seat of an X-Wing for the first time and fly it like he'd been born to it.

In the novelization of the movie, there is a justification. Luke has spent his entire life flying his Skyhopper on Tatooine, and the Skyhopper and the X-Wing are made by the same company. So, they have similar controls. Further, X-Wing was designed with simplified controls--which is one of the reasons the Alliance use the X-Wing. Because its easy to train new pilots.

And, we all know that a scene was cut out of the movie with Red Leader saying something about Luke and the gist of this.

So, this makes it seem like there is a different between a military pilot and a civilian pilot.





Then, as the prequels came and went, my mind was changed a little as it seemed that, in the Star Wars universe, piloting a craft was a lot like anyone today driving a car. Sure, a manual transmission may pose a problem for a person used to driving an automatic. And, big, 18-wheel trucks are different to drive than most cars. You can even start comparing military tanks and other vehicles.

But, for the most part, if you know how to drive one car, then you know how to drive any car.

And, that's the way I started thinking about Star Wars piloting. Young Anakin Skywalker jumped right into a Naboo starfighter, and with the help of R2 initially, flew it in battle.

That's where I first started thinking about this. Anakin was a pod-racer but no pilot. And, he picked up piloting pretty quick. Therefore, he was a speeder driver and that allowed him to be a pilot pretty easily.





Now, with the new films, I'm starting to sway back a bit to how I felt with ANH. The reason for this is Finn. He's no pilot. He needs one to escape the First Order. So, that's where Poe comes into play.

It could be that Finn is not a speeder driver, either. The First Order has had him since he was a child. Maybe he's never been trained to drive or pilot anything.

Or...maybe there is a bit of a difference in piloting civilian craft an piloting millitary vessels, just like a Cessna pilot would have a hard time piloting an F-15.




So, what are your thoughts? Can the common Joe jump into a starfighter and pilot it with no problems? That would be the swashbuckling, space opera answer.

Or, does a person need to be trained on military equipment in order to be able to use it?

Thoughts?

[Giant Tourtiere]

The RAW answer is that they can absolutely attempt it, and how good they are at it depends on their inherent aptitude for piloting (the attribute). The difference between piloting different stuff is accounted for by the different skills for Space Transports and Starfighters and Airspeeders and so on.

It's reasonable to assume that Finn (being a stormtrooper, and apparently a novice one) never got any piloting training at all and knew that he wouldn't be capable of flying well enough to escape.

Now, any GM could decide to allow some use of (say) an Airspeeder skill to attempt Starfighter piloting (maybe at a higher Difficulty number) if they wanted to, and arguably that makes sense.

If you wanted to make certain kind of craft harder to fly than others, you could maybe assign a Difficulty number to figure out how to start up and fly the thing *at all*, and then get into the difficulty of actually flying it. Like, if TIE Fighters are meant to be hard to figure out then maybe it's a Moderate Difficulty to get one airborne at all, unless you have (depending on how the GM feels about things) either Starfighter Piloting, the TIE Piloting specialization, or TIE Piloting in your background somewhere.


e: to add - at minimum I personally would give my players plenty of advance warning if there were going to be tasks that they couldn't attempt without having the skill.
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Clever stratagems are quite beyond my powers, but if it is rank foolishness you require, I have no end of it.

[Wajeb Deb Kaadeb]

Another question would be. According to GG1, Luke Skywalker, a 19 year old farmboy from Tatooine, who has never been off-world, has Starship Gunnery 6D, Starship Piloting 7D, and Starship Shields 5D.

[noctum_carpe]

[Giant Tourtiere]

Yeah basically Luke's skills are 'because he's the protagonist'.

I guess you could argue he's got natural gifts for space-fightin' things or that it reflects the Force being strong with him, but really it's Because Main Character.
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Clever stratagems are quite beyond my powers, but if it is rank foolishness you require, I have no end of it.

[Wajeb Deb Kaadeb]

[Giant Tourtiere]

Since Luke is whining about transmitting his application to the Academy in ANH, some kind of simulator training is plausible IMO.
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Clever stratagems are quite beyond my powers, but if it is rank foolishness you require, I have no end of it.

[Wajeb Deb Kaadeb]

Back to the original question: How likely is it that a normal, Joe Bloe citizen of Palpaine's Empire, can fly an X-Wing, no problems?

Is it likely that most people can do it?

Or, are pilots a special breed?

[Giant Tourtiere]

That's obviously less of a rules question and more of a game setting question... my gut feeling would be that the proportion of people who can fly a starship is roughly the same as the proportion that can fly a plane in today's society. It's a common form of travel, but most people don't do it.

How much Joe Blow could handle a ship if you threw them in the deep end a la the classic 'we're gonna talk you through the landing' airliner disaster scenario is another question. RAW they can sure try. Ignoring the rules, I don't imagine it going very well, but that's (again) purely a gut feeling. Probably depends what they're trying to do, too. Changing course while flying in space is probably way, way easier than trying to land on a planet, for example.

Now, can someone who can fly a YT-1300 fly an X-Wing? Again my gut would be yes, albeit with a learning curve.
_________________
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Clever stratagems are quite beyond my powers, but if it is rank foolishness you require, I have no end of it.

[Wajeb Deb Kaadeb]

[garhkal]

[Giant Tourtiere]

[garhkal]

[Wajeb Deb Kaadeb]

[cheshire]