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Ship Location Targetting
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Alastor04
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 23, 2017 2:48 pm    Post subject: Ship Location Targetting Reply with quote

Does targeting a specific location change the scale of the target? For example a starfighter attacking a shield generator (subsection +4D) would it still be capital scale (+6D) or would it be less?
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MrNexx
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 23, 2017 6:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Seems like it should... targeting a turbolaser to destroy it, rather than targeting the whole ship. However, I'd lean towards "This makes the individual piece harder to target, but not much easier to destroy." It's still protected by capital-scale shields, after all... I'd just drop the effective scale for the Hull down to the appropriate scale.
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Savar
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 23, 2017 7:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

MrNexx wrote:
Seems like it should... targeting a turbolaser to destroy it, rather than targeting the whole ship. However, I'd lean towards "This makes the individual piece harder to target, but not much easier to destroy." It's still protected by capital-scale shields, after all... I'd just drop the effective scale for the Hull down to the appropriate scale.


Joy on the math for that.

But yes that would be a good way to do that.
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Kytross
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 23, 2017 10:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Officially? Pirates & Privateers page 19. I don't like it though. It adds +2D damage resist dice to the target. That's a mistake. Cannons should take less damage to destroy than hull plating, not more. Also, the individual targeting intervals is a bit more complicated than I like.

My homebrew is simple. Weapons and emplacements are one scale size smaller than the ship they are attached to. Generally, weapons and emplacements resist damage at 4D.

So if you're in a starfighter and want to target a Cap Ship turbolaser you roll your starship gunnery against their cap ship piloting with no scale modifiers, because the turbolaser is the same scale as the starfighter. If you hit then you roll your damage against 4D. UNLESS there are ray shields involved. You have to roll against cap ship shields with the standard +6D modifier if their shields are angled to cover that part of the ship. Luckily, Ion Cannon and Torpedoes ignore shields. So you only have to worry about shields if you're using lasers/blasters.

Also, if the starfighter is beneath the cap ship shields, effectively in the same space/hex/block as the cap ship, then they can completely ignore the cap ship's ray shields.

This works well for targeting specific subsystems of ships in the same scale. You are in a starfighter and want to take out another starfighter's torpedo launcher. You roll your starship gunnery against their starship piloting, but they get a +2D bonus to their piloting because the torpedo launcher is one scale size lower, walker scale. You roll your damage against 4D walker scale, or 2D starfighter scale. You still have to be concerned about ray shields, but only if their angled over that section of the ship.

Does that make sense?
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 12:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

How though does one 'get under their shields'?
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Kytross
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 12:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

They're ray shields. Ships will pass right through them. The trick is getting in the same space/hex/block as the cap ship, matching speeds and whatnot.

The scenes from RotJ where the fighters are flying along the superstructures of the star destroyers, taking pot shots at weapons and assorted subsystems; those are the scenes I try to recreate for my players when they're under cap ship shields.
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MrNexx
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 11:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Savar wrote:
MrNexx wrote:
Seems like it should... targeting a turbolaser to destroy it, rather than targeting the whole ship. However, I'd lean towards "This makes the individual piece harder to target, but not much easier to destroy." It's still protected by capital-scale shields, after all... I'd just drop the effective scale for the Hull down to the appropriate scale.


Joy on the math for that.

But yes that would be a good way to do that.


It's not too bad. You have Starfighter Hull + Capital Shields v. Starfighter scale Weapons (usually). The shield dice are adjusted upward for scale; the hull dice are not. If the GM allows getting under the shields (which, IMO, should happen in starfighter v. capital or death star fights... it's pretty much the entire Rebel strategy), then you have Hull Dice v. Weapons, without a need for scale change.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 3:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kytross wrote:
They're ray shields. Ships will pass right through them. The trick is getting in the same space/hex/block as the cap ship, matching speeds and whatnot.

The scenes from RotJ where the fighters are flying along the superstructures of the star destroyers, taking pot shots at weapons and assorted subsystems; those are the scenes I try to recreate for my players when they're under cap ship shields.

Couldn't the larger ships expand their partical shields out to stop people getting 'under the shields' and skimming the ship's surface?
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 6:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Honestly, I dont think a reaction rol is even appropriate on the part of the capitol ship. Instead, the FIGHTER should have to male a successful approach to the capitol ship (dodging its battery of defensive guns) and IF successful, it gets to male relatively easy shots to take out individual weapons systems. Those systems may still attack where appropriate, but are otherwise sitting ducks to any starfighter that gets under the shields.

The is to make GETTING under the shields a significant feat, and the reward is basically shooting fish in a barrel.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2017 12:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

How would you 'rate' that difficulty of getting under the shields though? Even combining fire, you need a dozen or so batteries working together to overcome the 6d scale difference..
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Kytross
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2017 11:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

garhkal wrote:
Kytross wrote:
They're ray shields. Ships will pass right through them. The trick is getting in the same space/hex/block as the cap ship, matching speeds and whatnot.

The scenes from RotJ where the fighters are flying along the superstructures of the star destroyers, taking pot shots at weapons and assorted subsystems; those are the scenes I try to recreate for my players when they're under cap ship shields.

Couldn't the larger ships expand their partical shields out to stop people getting 'under the shields' and skimming the ship's surface?


There's nothing in the rules to allow for that. Moving them outside your hull would probably reduce your hull code by 2D just like turning off the particle shields does.

Also, nothing in the books I've read allow for that. From legacy, the particle shields travel through the hull and reinforce them. Or something like that.
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2017 12:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

garhkal wrote:
How would you 'rate' that difficulty of getting under the shields though? Even combining fire, you need a dozen or so batteries working together to overcome the 6d scale difference..


No you dont. Point defense weapons are starfighter scale. And if they aren't by RAW, there is a rule in RAW that gives the GM carte blanche to make them so.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2017 12:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Realistically, once a small ship gets close enough to a larger ship, it will limit the number of weapons that can be brought to bear, regardless of what the WEG coordination rules say.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2017 2:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Some things to consider...

Whether or not a ship can get under the shields is dependent on what version of the shields rules you use. If, you stick to the WEG rules, then the trick would be forcing the targeted ship to split its shield dice between the four fire arcs. If we are talking about starfighters vs. capital ships, then even if the ship leaves even +1 of shield dice in a given arc, that's going to count as a Shield of 6D+1 once you factor in Scale (depending on what scale method you use).

Again, per the WEG rules, the more fire arcs a ship's shields cover, the higher the Difficulty to keep them all up, so the more you can force the target ship to cover, the greater the likelihood that the target's shield operator will screw up and somehow create an opening.

This is why the most effective attack will be combining starfighters with capital ships. The capital ship acts as a primary threat, forcing the target ship to focus its defenses on that axis. This, in turn, frees the starfighters to maneuver and attack from the sides and the rear, in the hope of forcing an opening.

If, however, you don't use the WEG shield RAW (which I don't), whatever system you use needs to take this into account. Speaking for myself, I use a system where shields provide full cover in all direction, and shield operators can "tweak" the shields to provide better protection (as well as being able to redirect auxiliary power into shield arcs if needed). At first blush, I'd allow a starfighter to slip through a gap in a ship's shields by making an opposed dice roll: Starfighter Piloting vs. the target's Capital Ship Shields.

So, once the starfighters are "under the shields", the closest thing we have to a rule for that would be increased terrain difficulty. At an absolute minimum, for Capital Ships, I would place that at Difficult (for larger craft like ISDs); smaller craft, in the cruiser-frigate range would be more in the Very Difficult to Heroic range.

Then, we have to take into account speed. However big a capital ship is, it's unlikely to occupy more than a single Space Unit, which means a starfighter traveling at speeds measured in multiple SUs is going to have a very difficult time traveling slow enough to stay under the shields. The only plausible solution I can see at the moment is to treat the capital ship as a planetoid, and use the starfighter's Atmosphere speed (measured in meters per round) as a baseline.

And that's all before you consider the question of damage...
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Kytross
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 26, 2017 9:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Naaman wrote:
garhkal wrote:
How would you 'rate' that difficulty of getting under the shields though? Even combining fire, you need a dozen or so batteries working together to overcome the 6d scale difference..


No you dont. Point defense weapons are starfighter scale. And if they aren't by RAW, there is a rule in RAW that gives the GM carte blanche to make them so.


The big capital ships, like Mon Cal Cruisers and Star Destroyers don't have anti-starfighter weapons. They have fighters to engage enemy fighters.

Capital ship weapons tend to have three times the range of starfighter class ships. Meaning that you need to get though 75 spaces with the Star Destroyer shooting at you with it's turbolasers and 50 spaces of bringing the ion cannon to bear on your star fighter. You can start shooting back at 25 spaces.

Now, an A-Wing flying in at it's all-out speed of 48 spaces will be able to clear that distance in two rounds, but at all-out it can't fire or do anything else but fly, including dodge, negating its +6D scale bonus to dodge. Page 96 of 2E R&E is very clear that the bonus is applied to the dodge skill. Without that scale bonus the A-Wing will likely be shot out of the sky in the first round.

So the A-Wing is approaching at high speed of 24, starting 75 spaces away. After two rounds of travel under fire it is still too far away from the Star Destroyer to fire, 27 spaces away, max range of it's lasers is 25. It can slow down to cruising speed of 12, or stay at 24. Either way it has a shot the next round, but cannot reach the ship to get under it's shields. Even when it does reach the Star Destroyer, unless it can come close to matching the star destroyer's velocity it can only have one round to make a shot while 'under the shields.'

Getting under the shields isn't easy, but it's not supposed to be. Especially in a one-on-one scenario. It is much easier to get in close and drop a proton torpedo on the system you want to take out. Or disable systems with Ion fire. Neither torpedoes nor ion cannons are deflected by ray shields.

I don't let starfighter scale vehicles under the shields of smaller cap ships like corellian corvettes. My argument is that the shields don't extend far enough on 150m ships for a fighter to get under them. There's not enough room in the gap between the hull and the ray shield to fit a starfighter. Star Destroyers, at 1600m, have a much bigger ray shield bubble. But then a corellian corvette has 4D hull and 2D shields, and star destroyers (Imperial I) have 7D hull and 3D shields.
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