Benchmarks in starships, best in class? Thoughts?

[Jollyone]

Have been reading a ton of content on this site, really like some of the updated stats and takes on ships that WEG did not make stats for.

Thinking a general consensus on some classes/type/role of ships might help out in future in how to rack and stack stats. I Know different eras will come into play just looking for what others considered "best" or benchmark to measure others.

Off top of my head looking at some of the longer serving ships as benchmarks.

Fighter/bomber: clone/rise/rebellion era the Y-wing, new republic era, Scimitar. (I could even see B wing as rebellion time)

Interceptor: Clone; Eta, Rise: debatable, rebellion A wing, NR Thrawn style upgraded TIE/Int with shield gens.

I think Z-95 and ARC-170 as well for superiority and heavy fighter for time frame.

Cap ships:

I like the Corellian craft in smaller sizes. Gunship and corvette are good benchmarks.

THe Nebulon-B is the best frigate class.
Strike for cruiser size.
Victory SD best clone war up until rise in its size.
MC 80 for larger than VSD until IMP size.
ISD II best 1600m ship.

Anyhow just some quick thoughts. Wondering if has been done or would help in doing stats? Starfighters by role? and era? Capitol by size, class, roll and era?

Not that these ship have the best of all stats, as in there are faster or larger loadouts in Y-wing area, but to beat in shielding, speed, man, weapons and success on battlefield hard to be better I would think.

Same with Neb-B as many on both sides used in various roles and often as command ship. To disregard would be to say the commanders on both sides did not know what they were doing. OK I could accept that idea for new movie era, lol.

Enjoy, and have a great 2018.

[Naaman]

I like the idea, but I struggle with benchmarking.

For me, it comes down to how many dice I want to add to whatever stat (fire control, maneuverability, etc) before it becomes the ship just flying itself.

With the A-Wing's 4D maneuverability, for example, I'm a little leery of pushing anything much higher than that. On the other hand, new and improved tech could be expressed in different ways. For example, allowing the pilot to re-roll a certain number of the ship's maneuverability dice may be a way to express the newer (and presumably better) technology on a newer design, without having a truckload of dice to count up every every round.

Doing it like this would also preserve "classes" of ship in regards to their total, raw potential: a skilled pilot can do more with an old A-Wing's 4D maneuverability than an amateur can do with the latest and greatest X-Wing variant: if we make the ship more maneuverable via a re-roll of the some of the dice, we still limit the maximum performance envelope of the ship, without artificially inflating the pilot's skill. So it still "only" gets 3D maneuverability (instead of 5D or 6D or whatever 20 or 50 or 100 years of technological advancements would have yielded), while the A-Wing's formula is still inherently more capable in theory.

Like with racecars: lighter weight, optimized weight distribution, aerodynamics dialed in, etc... an old racecar, such as the GT40 from the 1960s will still outperform today's modern sports cars (assuming similar power levels) because the formula is inherently better for performance. Assuming an acclimated/skilled driver, the old racecar will outperform the new street car (even though the new street car has much more advanced technology and such in it). Or, if you want a more apples to apples, an old F1 car (racecar) from the 1980s is still faster around a track than a new JGTC 500 car (different class of racecar), despite the nearly 40 years of technology advancements that the JGTC car benefits from.

Does that make sense? Just some thoughts on statting out ships from various eras that fill the same role as ships from previous eras.

I'm looking forward to other folk's lists of what's best.

[CRMcNeill]

There is also the consideration of Best-in-mission, as well. For example, the Lancer is poor to mediocre at just about everything except at anti-starfighter Combat, where it excels.
_________________
"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

[atgxtg]

For what it "best", like what CRMMcNeill said, it depends a lot on what you are trying to do with it.

Things like cost can play a factor , too. An A-Wing might be faster, more maneuverable, and tougher than a TIE Fighter, but is more expensive to produce and maintain., which limits it's numbers. So a group of A-Wings might not be better than the the same credit value worth of TIE fighters.

I think there would be a bit of a debate if we were trying to decide what was the best real world fighters in each class.

If you want some sort of system to rank ships you could just add up or average the dice codes (probably in pips) in the various stats. Specific roles could apply multipliers to particular stats. For example speed in very important for an interceptor, but not so vital to a strike craft or bomber. Reconnaissance craft would stress sensors, sensor range, and speed over weapons, and so on.