Space Combat

Space combat has always been one of the largest draws to the Star Wars world. It has also been one of the most lacking aspects of gameplay. The RAW make a decent attempt at capturing the death-defying maneuvers but leave little room for GM's to allow players to really delve into it. The first, and most obvious reason, is that snubfighter combat is incredibly lethal. In the Star Wars movies, a hit from an X-Wing or TIE Fighters Laser Cannons is usually instantly lethal. With rare exceptions do we see someone actually survive a hit. Although Bren Novar dogfighting TIE Fighter is something we all love to see, it can very easily become Bren Novar in the cold vacuum of space not trying to die. Personally, I have struggled as a GM to capture the aptitude of Silver Wing without killing 2 or 3 of them with one quick roll when, in reality, a lucky shot from an Imperial Pilot could take the life of one of Bren's finest. A series of house rules have been tossed around and after some discussions with a player, I have found three that I am comfortable entering into our world. Each of these have been playtested to death so I am confident they aren't game breaking. One of them, Snap Roll, is actually being added in a way into Genesys. These changes also really encourage speed management. Speed is something that we currently ignore in most cases other than to manage a chase. This will now enable abilities like 'Punch It!" to provide players with considerably more value.

Snap Roll
This is the starship equivalent of parry. It enables the player to react to an attack and reduce the damage. The ability takes the starship's handling into account, which is currently not considered when looking at defence. Most importantly, it takes into account the pilot's  skill  and how that relates to a ship's survivability. That being said, the ability is balanced as the strain cost to both the ship and the pilot stacks quickly. It is possible to recover personal strain in combat; however, system strain cannot be recovered by normal advantage. Alternatively, I pilot could endure the strain himself, which rapidly becomes quite taxing to a player as they endure 6 strain per hit. It provides the pilot the ability to get out of dodge but with the clear reminder that they may not be so lucky in the future.

Snap Roll - Out of Turn Incidental

Pilot Only:  Yes

Silhouette:  1-3

Speed: 2+

Quick reflexes and fly-by-wire systems are not only important in maneuvering a ship into a superior attack position, but are also helpful to quickly respond to enemy fire blasting away a ship's shields and hull. Snap Roll allows pilots to utilize the maneuverability of their ship and their own exceptional skill to suddenly react to incoming fire. The pilot quickly rolls, dives, or climbs to avoid part of the incoming attack as soon as his shields and armor start getting hit by a volley of blaster bolts, or he times his maneuver so only part of a missile's detonation affects his ship. When his ship is successfully hit by a Gunnery combat check, the pilot can elect to take a Snap Roll Incidental action and reduce the damage of the attack by the sum of their ship's Handling plus the pilot's Ranks in Piloting (Planetary or Space, whichever is applicable to the vehicle he's controlling). This sudden dodge puts the ship, and the pilot, under extreme stress and g-forces; when this incidental action is taken the ship suffers 3 System Strain (bypassing Armor) as the high-G maneuver taxes on-board systems and support surfaces. Additionally, the pilot suffers 3 Strain (bypassing Soak) as those same G-forces pull, crush, and exhaust him. If a person is wearing a flight suit that reduces the amount of Strain incurred from Critical Hits to the ship, they reduce the Strain they take from a Snap Roll action to 1. Droids are immune to the personal Strain damage as long as they are at a station, locked in a droid socket, or have some other means to prevent them from being bounced around the ship's interior.

Sensors - Revised
Sensors are currently something we actively ignore. Technically, you can't shoot something that is outside your sensor range. That means if your weapons (i.e. a missile launcher) and launch to short but your sensors only work at close, you can't actually shoot that target. Some players have homebrewed certain rules for this but most GMs just have sensor range scale to plot. Sensors actually play a big deal in the grand scheme of things. As the pilot, you usually won't see exactly what you are up against until they are right in your face. Is it a TIE Fighter Squadron of a group of Cloakshapes Pirate Fighters trying to take you captive? How you engage those enemies is very different and your time to make that decision is tied closely to how good your sensors are.

The following table provides you with a breakdown of sensor ranges and what information you are able to obtain at what distance.

Gain the Advantage - Revised
We actually played with this ability improperly to begin with. It's a common mistake as most people believe that the rule reads as one way where as instead it is quite different. The ability in the RAW is actually quite poor and mathematically you are actually better off to not do this maneuver whatsoever and choose from a variety of others. In fact, this ability should be significantly better. Its needs teeth. This is the mechanical equivalent to turn-fighting. Where one pilot's skill is matched against another. Winning that test of skills should give the victorious pilot more rewards than they currently do. We will use the following maneuver instead, which again has a specific focus on speed management.

Gain The Advantage (CSR)

Pilot Only:  Yes

Silhouette:  1-4

Speed:  1+

Target one starship or vehicle in Close range and make an opposed Piloting check against the starship or vehicle’s pilot. Upgrade the check for each point of Speed your starship or vehicle is travelling faster than the target, and downgrade the check for each point of Speed your starship or vehicle is travelling slower than the target. Add Boost or Setback die as normally determined by the starship or vehicle’s Handling rating.On a successful check, combat checks from your starship or vehicle against the target are upgraded and you may choose the defense zone targeted.

Speed Defense
Speed management. That is the name of  the game. Out of a chase, speed has very little bearing other than it can let you get from one range band to another a little faster. This is often handwaved by GMs and then the entire mechanic, and the list of abilities that come with it, are ignored. This house rule changes that. Difficulty assigned to targets it based off of silhouettes. There have been a series of homebrews to alter this; however, changing the difficulty base for abilities is something that most GMs try to avoid. Those specific rules have been mathematically balanced and tested into the ground by FFG and are not really something that need to be balanced. Where we have flexibility are in the boost and setback die pools. Speed currently has no bearing on defense of survivability when it really should. An A-Wing is going to have a much easier time strafing a slow moving freighter than it would against a TIE Interceptor at max speed. This rule incentivizes pilots to consider maxing their speed, knowing the difficulty changes it makes on their piloting checks in rough terrain, all to bolster their dice pool against an enemy.

Targeting - Speed Variation
When making an attack, the difference between the speed of the attacker and the target is calculated. If the attacker is going faster than the target, they apply boost die to their roll equal to the difference in speed. Alternatively, if the target is moving faster than the attacker, the attacker is assigned setback to the roll equal to the difference in speed. For example if you are travelling at Speed 3 and shooting a target at Speed 1, x2 boost die are applied to your roll.