Starship Combat Playtest

[setanta14]

I flew the S-250 Chela class starfighter... pretty much similar to an X-Wing in capabilites:

Same HP and DR, SR 20 instead of 15, Ref only 17 instead of 18, same Threshold, same Speed, lesser Ranged attack (only +6 instead of +7), Medium Lasers at 5d10X2 instead of 6d10X2, concussion missiles instead of proton torpedoes (10d10X2 instead of 9d10X2), and a few other minor differences like lesser Initiative compared to the X-wing.

After lots of figuring, it appears that a party of CL 7 TIE's with one man short went up against a CL 12 encounter (two CL 10's)

We ran our first playtest last night -- three TIE fighters (CL 7) againt an X-wing (CL10) and another CL10 KOTOR-era fighter (Nate can post the details on that).

We learned:

* The TIES were completely outclassed by the X-Wings.

* Concussion missiles do crazy amounts of damage.

* You don't want to be caught in a ship without shields (meaning TIE Fighters are exactly the sort of flying deathtraps you'd expect them to be).

* There is an arcane formula in the Starships of the Galaxy book that explains how to determine what a challenging fight would be based on CL.

* The "encounter creation" blurb in the Saga core book is wrong; you need to read the errata for the correct rules. As is, the core book says a CL 1 stormtrooper would be a challenge for a Level 1 hero. It should say that a CL 1 stormtrooper would be a challenge for *four* Level 1 heroes.

* As in D&D, a difference in CL of 3 or more (e.g. our TIE fighters vs. X-Wings) means that the combatants are outclassed; our lowly CL 7 TIES had no chance against the CL 10 X-Wings.

[NukeHavoc]

See, and I think this might be where they went too far away from the crunch factor. There needs to be a detailed chart showing "if I add this shield, or this weapon, it changes my ship's CL to this." Without that, its just too much of making stuff up yourself with no real guidelines. I mean, sure, after last night, its easy to say x-wings are more powerful than tie fighters, but how do they quantify that? The shields the x-wings have that the tie's do not add exactly how much to the CL? Without answers to these sorts of questions, starship combat will quickly become even more frustrating to me.

I also think we need a few more starship combat playtest, once we've actually read the rules. Sure, last night went pretty well, but I wouldn't want to just be exploring the transport rules, and deciding on the fly how much our upgrades have affected the ship's CL, during an actual gaming session.

I agree. If you're going to go to the length of breaking down all the different systems you can add to a ship, then I think you need to add at least minimal guidance regarding CL (e.g. if you add X guns, it typically increases CL by Y). My guess after reading through the book some more last night is that most ships only have 1-3 emplacements where you could install additional equipment, so the overall effect in CL is probably not huge ... but that's just a guess because there is no guidance. And for some ships, like the YT-1300 freighters (aka the Falcon) you have 11 emplacements available, and adding that much equipment *must* have a serious impact on CL.

So yeah, I think some more out-of-game playtesting is in order.

[setanta14]

I was disappointed by the ship design rules... especially since there is a Starship Design feat or talent, whatever it is. It is broken down into designing a new ship from scratch, or modifying an existing ship. And while you get some bare bones things to start with, you are left eye-balling the CL of your design against existing ships.

example: a stock Firespray-31 Patrol Craft is CL 9... Jango's highly modified version, Slave 1, is CL 17. What did they compare it to to arrive at 17? (or what did they compare it to in getting 9 in the first place?) Probably just arbitrary (though informed) assignment during playtesting.

[EvilGenius]

Hmmm, is SW Saga published as Open Source?

We could publish our own 'generic' starship building book with all of the things they're missing ......

[NukeHavoc]

Hmmm, is SW Saga published as Open Source? We could publish our own 'generic' starship building book with all of the things they're missing ......

Heh. No, there's no Star Wars SRD, which isn't to say we couldn't post a fan net reference if we wanted to.

I don't know that we really need that level of detail though (which isn't to say I wouldn't welcome it if it existed, or that I think the book doesn't need it). Unless I miss my mark, I'm guessing that the space-born aspects of the ship will likely come into play once every three adventures, and I think we can eyeball most of the upgrades we might do (especially once we have some playtests under our belt).

[Hardcorhobbs]

[setanta14]

You wouldn't be saying that if you were flying one of the 3 TIE fighters that Damon and I one-shotted.

I took two hits, one for max damage (80) from TIE fighters... the Chela took a lickin' and kept on tickin'. The first hit took out the shields, but the high HP and Threshold of the design prevailed.

[erilar]

Not to mention that R2-D3 could have Balanced the Power or whatever the next turn and put the shields most of the way back up!