FFG ship stat conversion

[shootingwomprats]

Is the TX-130 Saber-class fighter tank (Vehicles Stats p.39) the same as the 2-M Saber-class repulsor tank (Starships and Speeders p.17)?
_________________
Don Diestler
Host, Shooting Womp Rats
The D6 Podcast
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[RyanDarkstar]

[Scots Dragon]

[CRMcNeill]

Okay, I guess I read the wrong template. Those Armada cards are well-nigh incomprehensible to me at the moment; where are you getting the Silhouette and Armour ratings, and what are HT and SS Threshold?
_________________
"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

[Scots Dragon]

[CRMcNeill]

[CRMcNeill]

[CRMcNeill]

As I mentioned above, I've had some difficulty wrapping my head around the Onager, because the ship as written doesn't really fit with what we already know about siege warfare in the SWU. If the much larger Torpedo Sphere has to effectively finesse a planetary shield, then there's no way the Onager packs enough firepower to brute force a shield. So that left me somewhat at loose ends as to what to do with the Onager, until I remembered this crossover stat, and it got me thinking in new directions.

Here's what I'm thinking. It's established as part of the lore that planetary shields are not left up all the time, but are only raised in response to a potential threat. This takes time, during which defensive weaponry like the v-150 are used to hold off approaching ships.

So, instead of being designed to brute-force an active shield, what if the Onager is designed as a stealth platform, with the weird bow being part of a sensor mask used to conceal the approaching ship until it gets close enough to target the shield generator? IMO, this is a better fit for what we do know about this ship. At the moment, I'm picturing two different versions of this ship; the turbolaser-equipped one being used as described above, sneaking in close to attack defenses before they can respond, while the mass driver version used more in a stand-off capacity, sitting off at a distance and launching kinetic projectiles to either land surprise blows or to harass active defenses.
_________________
"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

[CRMcNeill]

So, based on the conflicting descriptions, I'm looking at three different options for the main battery:

1). A conventional dish-style Turbolaser, ala the Death Star's main weapon, just on a much smaller scale.

2). A Mass Driver, using gravity to propel objects at extremely high velocities (maybe something along the lines of the Meteor Gun from the Kodan Mothership in The Last Starfighter). One potential thought here would be to allow the ship to locate its own "ammo" inside the system, snagging appropriately sized asteroids from asteroid belts or gas giant rings, then lobbing them at the target planet from great distances.

3). An experimental Particle Beam Cannon that can fire in two different modes: Neutral and Ion, with the first used to actually destroy ground defenses and the latter to just disable them.

I'm pretty well set on using the Mass Driver for at least one variant, and trying to decide between the Turbolaser and the Particle Beam Cannon for the other.
_________________
"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

[CRMcNeill]

Okay, I'm still working on rules for the various main guns, but here's my fluff write-up for the Onager:

When the Imperial Navy engages in siege warfare against a planet protected by a shield generator, it calls on its Bombard Command. Tasked with orbital fire support, puntive bombardments and shield breaking, this Command excelled at the first two but was never able to definitively accomplish the latter. In that aspect, Bombard Command was very much a mission in search of a vessel to perform it. Several different avenues were explored, including the time-consuming Resonance Beam Projector mounted in the bow of the Tector II-Class Star Monitor and the unwieldy Torpedo Sphere, as well as several others. No single method proved satisfactory, and Bombard Command was left with a disparate collection of vessels that were useful in specific circumstances, but were also highly specialized and expensive.

The Onager I & II-Class Star Monitors are one such example. The Onager-Class grew out of an examination of the potential for using stealth to achieve its mission. While most civilized planets were equipped with planetary shield generators, it was too expensive for all but the most wealthy planets to leave their shields up all the time. Standard procedure was to leave the shields on stand-by until a threat presented itself, with anti-orbital weaponry used to fend off any attackers until the shield could be brought fully up. The Onager was designed to exploit that narrow window of opportunity by using sensor stealth to get within weapon range and deliver a crippling blow to the shield generators before it could be detected.

To achieve this, the Onager-Class was fitted with some of the most powerful, long-ranged turbolasers ever fitted to capital ships of this size, capable of delivering devastating blasts with a single shot. The ship is also fitted with very capable sensors and targeting systems, as well as some of the most advanced stealth shielding systems available at that time. In addition, it's fitted with a formidable array of defensive weaponry and a decently-sized fighter complement.

However, the Onager proved less useful in practice. While it could consistently get off the first shot at its target of choice, it was left vulnerable to any other anti-orbital defenses, as it couldn't maintain the stealth field while firing its weapons. In addition, the inclusion of the stealth systems and the heavy cannon made it very difficult to incorporate the internal framework, bulkheads and other systems used to resist combat damage. As a result, the ship is more fragile than an Imperator-Class despite being several hundred meters longer. These limitations led to several Onagers being lost to enemy fire once enemy defenses were alerted to the ship's presence.

As time went on, the Onager was reserved for use in specific circumstances, against planets with minimal defenses. Some proposed using the Onager in groups, but the vessel was too expensive to be produced in sufficient numbers to make this a viable option. As such, rather than becoming the Empire's premiere shield-breaker ship, the Onager is part of a patchwork of other vessels making up the Imperial Navy's Bombard Fleets.

It's noteworthy that the Onager's design has facilitated its use as a test-bed for several different heavy cannon systems that are installed in place of the main turbolaser, with some of these weapons actually entering production as sub-variants of the class. Most prominent among these is the installation of a twin mass driver cannon that is used for stand-off bombardment. This Onager variant has proven even more popular and effective than the original, as the projectiles can be fired from far beyond the range of most forms of planetary defensive weaponry (against planetary targets, at least, as planets move in far more predictable patterns than do capital ships). Another reported experimental variant is a particle beam cannon that can inflict either normal or ionization damage. There are even unconfirmed reports of a variant that fires projectiles through hyperspace, thus bypassing shields altogether.

_________________
"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

[CRMcNeill]

So, I've been chewing on this one for a while. The Onager's existing backstory is pretty contradictory and, frankly, setting-breaking. Giving such a relatively small ship the ability to spike straight through planetary shields completely tosses out the existing EU fluff about planetary sieges and bombardments, particularly w/r/t other shield-breakers like the Torpedo Sphere. So, here's my version of the...

Onager-Class Star Monitor

Image

The Onager is a Clone Wars era capital ship designed for stand-off planetary bombardment. Named for an ancient type of siege artillery, the Onager saw most of its service in the Outer Rim sieges, using its gigantic axial cannon to attack surface targets and orbital installations. Typically, the Onager will hold position in high orbit, nose-on to the target, depending on its powerful bow shield generators for defense while it hammers away at the planet's defenses.

Two different cannon variants were produced, one equipped with a pair of mass drivers, the other with a variable-mode particle beam projector. The mass drivers function on a similar principle as proton torpedoes, sheathing each projectile in a cocoon of energy that both protects from enemy fire and aids in the penetration of deflector and ray shielding. The particle beam projector, on the other hand, can fire in either neutral or ion modes, and includes a first-generation neutrino pulse inducer that increases the beam's effectiveness at penetrating shields. Compared to the mass drivers, the particle beam projector has a better rate of fire, but reduced range.

The ship has a very unique appearance, with the familiar wedge shape interrupted by an out-size hammerhead bow unlike any other in Republic or Imperial service. The odd profile is dictated by the inclusion of a variety of systems that aid the ship in its stand-off bombardment role, including the bow shields and advanced long-ranged sensors and targeting arrays. The Onager also possesses sufficient armament and fighter capacity to defend itself against light and medium defense force vessels (although it is usually accompanied by an escort detachment).

As time went on, however, advances in shield technology and anti-orbital weaponry left the Onager more and more outclassed. Its powerful mass drivers were also one of its greatest drawbacks, as the cannon mechanism occupied so much of the ship's interior that was very difficult to incorporate the internal framework, bulkheads and other systems needed to resist combat damage. While the ship possessed formidable shields, the ship was relatively fragile if those shields could be penetrated. By the end of the Clone Wars and the rise of the Empire, the Onagers were reduced to second-line service against lightly defended worlds, and were mostly placed in reserve or place-holder slots in the Imperial Navy's Bombard Command.

Craft: Rothana Heavy Engineering's Onager I-Class
Type: Star Monitor
Scale: Destroyer (+12D)
Length: 1,750 meters
Skill: Capital Ship Piloting: Onager-Class
Crew: 25,200 (5,000 @ +10) & 144 Gunners
Crew Skill:
Astrogation 4D
Gunnery 5D+2
Piloting 5D
Shields 5D
Sensors 4D+1
Passengers: 240 (troops)
Small Craft Complement:
--36 TIE Fighters (3 squadrons)
--Assorted shuttles and utility craft
Cargo Capacity: 16,000 metric tons
Consumables: 1 year
Hyperdrive Multiplier: x2
Hyperdrive Backup: x12
Nav Computer: Yes
Maneuverability: 1D+1
Space: 6 (3D)
Atmosphere: 330; 950km/h
Hull: 5D+2
Shields: 4D
Sensors:
Passive 50/1D
Scan 100/3D
Search 200/4D
Focus 6/5D
Weapons:
Axial Bombard Cannon (Pick One)

2 Super-Heavy Mass Drivers (Fire-Linked)
Scale: Dreadnought (+16D)
Fire Arc: Front
Crew: 20
Skill: Capital Ship Gunnery
Fire Control: 4D
Range:
--Space: 3-15/35/75
--Orbital: 6km-30km/70km/150km (Double against stationary targets)
--Atmosphere: 300m-1.5km/3.5km/7.5km
Rate of Fire: 1/4*
Damage: (All at +3D vs. Shields, due to Energy Sheath, unless otherwise noted)
--Proton: 6D
--Ion: 5D (Ionization)
--Shield-Breaker 3D (Ionization) / 7D vs Shields (10D total)
Note: Can be intercepted at Heroic Difficulty @ Frigate Scale (Body: 5D)
*Can fire in synchronized fire-linked mode, where one round (generally a Shield-Breaker) is fired slightly before the other in order to penetrate a shield and hit a target beneath it in a single attack. In game terms, resolve the results of the first attack, then immediately resolve the second attack while factoring in any penalties resulting from the first attack.

Particle Beam Projector
Scale: Dreadnought (+16D)
Fire Arc: Front
Crew: 30
Skill: Capital Ship Gunnery
Fire Control: 4D
Range:
--Space: 5-25/50/100
--Orbital: 10km-50km/100km/200km
--Atmosphere: 500m/2.5km/5km/10km
Rate of Fire: 1
Damage: Varies by Mode
--Neutral Particle: 7D
--Ion: 6D (ionization)
--Neutrino Pulse: As above, -1D Damage, but ignores 2D of Shields

6 Heavy Turbolaser Batteries (Fire Separately)
Fire Arc: 3 Front/Left, 3 Front/Right
Crew: 5
Skill: Capital Ship Gunnery
Fire Control: 1D
Range:
--Space: 3-15/35/75
--Orbital: 6km-30km/70km/150km
--Atmosphere: 300m-1.5km/3.5km/7.5km
Rate of Fire: 1/2
Damage: 7D
24 Turbolaser Batteries (Fire Separately)
Fire Arc: 6 Front, 6 Left, 6 Right, 6 Rear
Scale: Frigate (+10D)
Crew: 2
Skill: Capital Ship Gunnery
Fire Control: 3D
Range:
--Space: 2-10/25/50
--Orbital: 4km-20km/50km/100km
--Atmosphere: 200m-1km/2.5km/5km
Rate of Fire: 1
Damage: 6D
20 Point Defense Cannon (Fire Separately)
Fire Arc: 5 Front, 5 Left, 5 Right, 5 Rear
Scale: Starship (+6D)
Crew: 1
Skill: Starship Gunnery
CANNON TYPES (Ships may have either type, or a mix of the two):

Laser Cannon
Fire Control: 3D
Range:
--Space: 1-3/12/25
--Orbital: 2km-6km/24km/50km
--Atmosphere: 100m-300m/1.2km/2.5km
Damage: 4D

Dual Blaster Cannon
Fire Control: 2D
Range:
--Space: 1-5/10/17
--Atmosphere: 100m-500m/1km/1.7km
Rate of Fire: 2D Auto-Fire
Damage: 3D

6 Tractor Beam Projectors
Fire Arc: 2 Front, 2 Left, 2 Right
Scale: Special*
Crew: 4
Skill: Capital Ship Gunnery
Fire Control: 4D
Range:
--Space: 1-5/15/30
--Orbital: 2km-10km/30km/60km
--Atmosphere: 100m-500m/1.5km/3km
Rate of Fire: 1 (Full Round)
Damage: 5D
*May switch between Destroyer (+12D), Frigate (+10D) and Starship (+6D). Switch takes one round, during which the projector can not be used.
Special Equipment: Shield Booster
This system diverts power from the ship's engines to the front shields and sensors, and is primarily used when the Onager is bombarding a planet. When in use, adjust the ship's stats as follows:

Maneuverability: 0D
Space: 2 (1D)
Atmosphere: 210; 600 km/h
Shields: +2D to Front Arc only
Sensors: (Front Arc only)
Passive: 100/2D
Search: 400/4D

Variants: (Use Above Stats, except as noted)

ONAGER II
The same technological advances that had passed the Onager Is by were indirectly responsible for giving the class something of a new lease on life.

The Imperial Navy's Bombard Command has three primary missions: orbital fire support, punitive bombardments and shield breaking. It has excelled at the first two but was never able to definitively accomplish the latter. While it had been effective against previous iterations of defensive shield technology, the Onager I was now well behind the times, and Bombard Command needed a replacement. Several different avenues were explored, including the time-consuming Resonance Beam Projector mounted in the bow of the Tector II-Class Star Destroyer and the unwieldy Torpedo Sphere, as well as several others. No single method proved satisfactory, and Bombard Command was left with a disparate collection of expensive and bespoke vessels that were only useful in specific circumstances.

The Onager II-Class is one such example, attempting to capitalize on stealth to engage and destroy key enemy defenses before they could be activated. While most civilized planets were equipped with planetary shield generators, it was too expensive for all but the most wealthy planets to leave their shields up all the time. Standard procedure was to leave the shields on stand-by until a threat presented itself, with anti-orbital weaponry used to fend off any attackers until the shield could be brought fully up. The Onager II was designed to exploit that narrow window of opportunity by using sensor stealth to get within weapon range and deliver a crippling blow to the shield generators before it could be detected.

To achieve this, the ship's enhanced bow shield generators were replaced with more advanced models that, while less powerful than those they replaced, were able to operate in a stealth mode that could conceal the Onager II from enemy sensors while it crept into firing range. Once within range, the ship would unleash a a surprise bombard against the planet's shield generators, disabling or destroying them before the shield could be raised.

Unfortunately, the Onager II proved somewhat disappointing in practice. While it could consistently get off the first shot at its target of choice, it was left vulnerable to any other anti-orbital defenses, as it couldn't maintain the stealth field while firing its weapons. As a result, several Onager II were lost to enemy fire once the defenses were alerted to the ship's presence.

As time went on, the Onager was reserved for use in specific circumstances, against planets with minimal defenses. Some proposed using the Onager II in groups, but the vessel was too expensive to be produced in sufficient numbers to make this a viable option. As such, rather than becoming the Empire's premiere shield-breaker ship, the Onager II is part of a patchwork of other vessels making up the Imperial Navy's Bombard Fleets.
Shields: 2D (Stealth)
--Can operate in Normal or Stealth mode, but requires one round to switch modes, during which the shields cannot be used.
--Shield Booster Bonus applies to Stealth Mode in Front Arc.

ONAGER IIe
The IIe is a prototype vessel equipped with an experimental long-range energy weapon, the tachyon lance. The combination of stealth and long ranged weaponry is intended to counteract the weakness of the Onager II by allowing the ship to make stealth attacks from much greater range, effectively functioning as a "sniper in space." However, the tachyon lance is still has some drawbacks, primarily in the form of a limited ammunition capacity, as well as long recharge times needed to "reload". In addition, the weapon is still experimental, and its operating systems can be finnicky.

Weapons:
1 Tachyon Lance (Axial Bombard Cannon Option)
Fire Arc: Front
Crew: 20
Skill: Capital Ship Gunnery
Fire Control: 2D
Range:
--Space: 20-50/150/300
--Atmosphere: 40km-100km/300km/600km
Rate of Fire: 1
Damage: 4D-10D (must be declared prior to shot)
Ammo: Has enough power for 20D of damage.
Recharge Rate: 1D per 15 minutes (1 pip per 5 minutes). While recharging, the Marksman is reduced to Space 2 and 0D Maneuverability.
Note: If the Gunnery roll suffers a Wild Fail, the cannon suffers a minor glitch, and automatically re-sets. When this occurs, the cannon doesn't fire, and can't be fired for the rest of the round, as well as all of the next round. Additionally, the Wild 1 must be re-rolled. On a subsequent 1, the Lance is Lightly Damaged. On a Cascading Wild Fail (multiple sequential 1 results), the damage level of the Tachyon Lance increases by one level.

House Rule Notes:

COMMAND DIFFICULTY MODIFIER: +16
SHIELDS & SHIELD CONTROL DICE: 4D @ 2D (4D @ 3D for Onager II and IIe)
VELOCITY MODIFIER: 1D+2 Flight (0D+2 with Shield Booster)
BATTERY DICE:
Axial Bombard Cannon
--Mass Drivers: 1D Front
--Particle Beam Projector: 0D Front
--Tachyon Lance (Onager II e): 0D Front
Heavy Turbolaser Batteries: 1D+2 Left, 1D+2 Right
Turbolaser Batteries: 2D+2 Front, 2D+2 Left, 2D+2 Right, 2D+2 Rear
Point Defense Cannon 2D+1 Front, 2D+1 Left, 2D+1 Right, 2D+1 Rear
Tractor Beam Projectors 1D Front, 1D Left, 1D Right

EDIT: Changed the Onager's classification from Star Destroyer to Star Monitor.
_________________
"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

[CRMcNeill]

Okay, that's the completed version of the Onager-Class. On to the Starhawk.
_________________
"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

[CRMcNeill]

The more I read into the Starhawk, the more I get the impression that Nadiri Dockyards is a Verpine company. Consider the following...

1) The Dockyard is literally inside a large asteroid. The Verpine are native to an asteroid belt, and would thus be well adapted to live inside an asteroid. Even if Nadiri is in another system, the Verpine would be ideally suited to colonize an asteroid belt in another star system.

2) The Starhawk is supposedly made out of "disassembled Imperial starships." I have a lot of problems with this claim, as it's a lot harder to take an existing ship apart than it is to simply take components for that class of ship and build something out of them. Also, why disassemble a perfectly good warship like an ISD just to make something new, when you could save yourself the time and expense by just rebadging the ISD into your own Navy. As such, I find it far more likely that the Starhawk is assembled from the captured components of Imperial starships and assembled into a new type of vessel.

3) The Starhawk's signature armament is its Magnite Tractor Beam Array, which seemingly defies the laws of physics in order to wrangle objects many times its own size. It sounds cool, but it's tough to imagine how it would be particularly useful in combat. The only other ship known to have been built largely with Verpine influence was the B-Wing, which also featured cool technology (the spinning body) that lacked a clear purpose.

It would take a very technically adept race to take whole sections of starships and match them together to create a completely new ship, and to make all the components work. It would also take a race with a penchant for tinkering to come up with a gee-whiz device like an advanced tractor beam and think it was a cool idea to slap on their brand-new warship. The fact that it was built in a place where Verpine would be ideally suited to live is icing on the cake.
_________________
"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

[CRMcNeill]

Working forward from that, I'm thinking that the two Starhawk stats I make will be the Prototype and Production models. The Prototype will feature a specialist weapons loadout, centered around the Magnite Tractor Beam Array's ability to capture a ship and hold it immobile. There will also be an array of powerful, relatively short ranged weapons used to hammer a trapped target to bits. The Production model, on the other hand, will be the New Republic saying "thanks, but we'd like something a bit more conventional," with the tractor beam array and attendant weaponry removed and replaced with greater numbers of conventional weaponry.
_________________
"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

[Whill]