Starfighter hitting difficulty

[Phalanks Balas]

[Naaman]

[Naaman]

[Leon The Lion]

[Tupteq]

[Leon The Lion]

[Dromdarr_Alark]

[garhkal]

[Naaman]

There's a saying in automotive enthusiast land:

"With the right tool and enough money, you can do anything."

It would seem to me that the same should hold true in Star Wars (ESPECIALLY in Star Wars). Given the correct set of skills (for example, (A) Engineering, or (A) Starship Development and Design or some such), OR the financial wherewithal to recruit the services of someone with the resources and skills to create what the PCs want, they should be able to have it (GM obviously controls how much, how fast they get, and at what price).

But, just as a quick, simple example of how I would handle it:

Given a scale modifier of 6D,

The base maneuverability would be 0D for average (YT1300) sized transport. Bigger would get a penalty of, say, -1 pip per 10 metric tons (or 100 or whatever is reasonable... I'd have to compare some models) of cargo capacity.

Smaller transports would get a bonus for reduced size and therefore increased agility (relative to the larger ships).

Fighters, of course, would be near the smallest end of the spectrum, generally having negligible cargo room, with performance enhancing features.

Of course, we could take it further and actually TRADE some systems for other systems. For example, yank out the hyperdrive in order to install a fancy maneuverability system or a bigger gun; Remove some of the built-in storage units and reinforce the hull, etc... But that may be getting too far off the point.

[garhkal]

prob there Namman, is no existing ship that i can remember seeing has a negative maneuvering dice rating.
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[Naaman]

That's okay. It's a house rule.

Still, your point brings my attention to another problem (see below).

To me, maneuverability is simply an expression of how agile and responsive a ship is to pilot input. And, the purpose of that stat is to show that responsiveness RELATIVE to other ships.

According to the RAW, if we extrapolate a cargo ship to be the equivalent to a tractor/trailer, and a starfighter to be the equivalent of a Ferrari, (since these would essentially be in the same "scale"), you COULD give the tractor/trailer a maneuverability of 0D or 2D or whatever. But then you'd be forced to give the Ferrari a maneuverability of 10D or 12D (or something outlandish, in any case) just to make the comparison "realistic" (if we can use such a word to describe Star Wars... though we spend an awful lot of time in the House rule section trying to do just that )

Now, it stands to reason that if a ship has a negative maneuverability modifier, then certain characters (those with no CPs invested into a pilot skill, and a low base MECH) would be literally at a loss to make the ship do anything at all (because the die code could potentially result in a negative amount of net skill).

Which would be a problem for me, since no matter how poor of a pilot someone is, if they push the control to the right, the ship will go right. For that reason, it might be appropriate (if one decides to actually use negative maneuverability), to only express penalties as a static number, so that even a poor pilot can at least attempt to fly the ship (although the result will almost certainly be failure, the provision is in place to allow for some small chance of success, such as by spending CPs or an exploding wild die, etc).

Bonuses should, in my opinion, still be expressed in pips/dice, though, because having a +10 to maneuverability is a little too "consistent" compared to having +3D.

Anyway, since we're dealing with somewhat significant differences of size and mass within the same scale, I see three possible solutions:

A) Use penalties for big ships, bonuses for small ships (case by case, of course).

B) Create an intermediate scale (8D, for example, but I don't like this option because it provides an artificial bonus to hull strength against starfighter weapons... or any weapons, for that matter).

C) Make clunky ships have 0D (or more) maneuverability, and push the starfighter ships' maneuverability up by an incremental amount (into the 5D-7D range). This, however, makes starfighters a pain to play with, due to all the dice you have to roll and count; and they would be nearly impossible to hit unless you compensated by boosting the fire control of other fighters' weapons. Not to mention, you'd have to rewrite the fire control for the capital scale weapons as well, since these sometimes target starfighter scale craft.

Those are the only three options I see, with "A" being the most balanced and causing the fewest problems (plus, with a total overhaul of the starfighter scale class, you have more control over the balance and consistency in your campaign).

Does that make sense?

What am I not seeing?

[Naaman]

And while we're at it, it would also seem appropriate that piloting should require the maneuverability dice to be a different color than the skill dice because ships have a base difficulty to pilot, and only the skill of the pilot should count when comparing to THAT number. If the base skill is high enough to pilot the ship, then the other dice get added to the total (or subtracted, if you decide to use negatives for the big'uns). If the base roll fails, then the pilot messes up somehow and crashes or whatever is appropriate to the scenario at hand... that me be a topic for another thread, though.

[garhkal]

Where are you getting a "Base difficulty to pilot" from?
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Naaman]

Doesn't every piece of equipment in D6 have a base difficulty?

[garhkal]

Melee weapons do. Ranged weapons such as blasters etc their "Base difficulty" is the range bracket they are being shot at. Nothing else has a base difficulty to use.
though you MIGHT say the ship's base difficulty is the terrain they are in and what maneuver they are attempting.
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!