Battle Stations

[Esoomian]

[Bren]

My preference would be to make most of these decisions from a what is dramatic in a given episode/scene. But I can see how if the campaign focused on ship based combat there would be interest in having baseline numbers. Several folks have had some good ideas, but I think whatever is used needs to match up with (or supercede) existing rules.

Given that we already have rules and crew numbers for skeleton crews it should be pretty easy to figure out if ships can run with larger than a skeleton compliment on a regular basis. Just divide the total crew by the skeleton crew numbers. If the ratio is at least 4 then the crew can operate with 1 on 3 off watches and the ship really can only run with a skeleton crew.

For example an ISD-1 has crew of 36,810 and requires a skeleton crew of 5,000. This allows 7 watches which easily allows the crew to operate at a skeleton crew level constantly and in fact would allow operation at better than a skeleton crew. Note that for an ISD-1, operating with a skeleton crew gives a +20 to the difficulty. As the crew reports to battle stations the difficulty should decrease from +20 to +0. A simple method might be to use increments of +5, so an ISD would have the following readiness states:

Skeleton Crew +20 (Normal Operations in safe sectors)
Reduced Crew +15 (Normal Operations in non-safe sectors)
Operational Crew +10 (Yellow Alert)
Full Crew +5 (Action Stations/non-combat Red Alert)
Battle Stations +0 (Battle Stations)

Note: Not sure I am loving the names, but creative military types may have cooler sounding names.

I tend to assume that an ISD is overcrewed (they are probably big enough and the Empire has lots of people) and use a simple metric that each increase in operational level requires another 5,000 crew at stations.

Skeleton Crew +20 [5,000 crew]
Reduced Crew +15 [10,000 crew]
Operational Crew +10 [15,000 crew]
Full Crew +5 [20,000 crew]
Battle Stations +0 [25,000 crew]

This would allow an ISD to operate with a reduced crew using 3 round the clock shifts (which I believe has been done in a number of Navies during war time) and still allows the ship to be operational even after taking casualties.

[Bren]

[vanir]

Sounds about right to me. Old Republic ships had large droid complements listed. Newer ones took over with much more automation for subsidiary systems, reflected in lower average crew requirements and more consumables range in cruisers, but there is no reason why individual commanders wouldn't make use of droid complements in later times. Of course I should think the chances of a few individual units with quirky personalities is high, might have yourself a little droid mutiny led by a mad astromech.

[garhkal]

[vanir]

In our starship combat, assuming each player fleet commander planned entry and egress of the combat zone we generally substitute tactics rolls for initiative. It's only when a starfighter pilot becomes embroiled in a furbee or under special conditions that it reverts back to PER rolls.

It usually comes down to if you have preparation time for any given round of combat (or are commanding the field) you get a tactics roll.

[Fallon Kell]

[vanir]

If the strike force doing the surprising didn't plan their egress very well, an opposed tactics: capital ships roll is justified for the Imperial commander they attack, for example, to have deployed his fleet off screen in such a way that this is the roll the strike team will have to beat following the surprise attack, if they expect to simply hyperspace away again past the pickets.

It doesn't help against the suprise round of combat, but it does about its consequences. If you didn't manually plan out your tactics.
Since most Imperial cruiser Captains have good tactical skills it is always best to plan every detail of a strike mission, to negate every possible opportunity they might have to use them.

What players want to do is look for ways to avoid a tactics roll, not cause one. Not against Imperial officers, they spend most of their character points on that and command where characters go for blaster/dodge, they usually win.

Treat tactics skills like all the things the players of all characters on both sides didn't think of, but become plausible in the scene. Players don't often sit down and plan escape strategies, but it would've been covered in the off-screen mission briefing...or did it? Here's where you do need tactics skills for force commanders, if there's anything you forgot to think about prior to entering combat you can always roll a tactics to bring it up with the GM as a viable option, a sort of elimination round negotiation if you wind up somewhere hopeless you figure your character should've seen coming even if the player didn't.

I mean we've tried to use the tactics skill as creatively as possible so that it becomes useful. It is the main skill of Imperial commanders and so I try to use it from their point of view even when using it for someone else.

When a player is in a command role so as to use tactics he's using henchmen like a starfighter squadron assigned under him or command of a troop assault craft, so I think in terms of how an Imperial commander would be using tactics, mostly to simplify minion activities to keep the action moving, not having to roleplay every Imperial command scene for the characters but simply describing tactical deployment in sweeping terms and using a few rolls to describe major events.
If the PC party is part of a saboteur team to assault a starport I may use tactics: squads of whomever the best commander present is, to represent the first ten minutes of combat deployment and decide the footing the party begins their action sequences with, how much support is available, if other tactical objectives were successful as the action unfolds.

If operating henchmen with any frequency players can certainly have problems lacking command and tactics skills. Even at the squad level they can bring new elements to help players influence the battlefield, but in game terms at this level I use tactics as a simple initiative replacement, field commanders with consistently good tactics always gain the combat advantages. I might let players use a tactics to set up an ambush, or obtain high ground, or organise troops into cover, but it becomes more role play here and I begin to structure a trench war the more they use it.

[CRMcNeill]

Giving this topic a bump on account of the work I did recently on starfighter squadron alert levels. Obviously, alert levels wouldn't just be applicable to how many starfighters are ready to launch, but also to the number of cannon immediately available, and other systems, as well.

Since my understanding of the rules (and the state of my own house rules) have evolved since I originally made this post, I'm thinking the simplest way to rule this would be blanket dice penalties based on readiness states. Since most of my other rules (like Battery Dice and the Crew Quality Modifiers) give dice bonuses based on conditions, readiness state would apply dice penalties based on the listed condition of the ship, which roll off after a set number of rounds. The Captain's Command Skill could then be used to generate a modifier that increases or decreases the time taken, depending on his level of competence.

It's important to note that I see this mainly being used by GMs are part of the planning for a game session, as a method to provide a degree of granularity for the GM. Even if combat doesn't occur, it can be useful tool for the GM to provide details to the PCs about the forces in whatever system they happen to be in, such as "there's an ISD and its escorts in-system. They don't appear to be paying any direct attention to you, but based on the number of TIE fighters and the power signatures from its weapon emplacements, they are likely on Standby Alert, which means they're expecting some kind of trouble."
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"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.

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