Starship and Vehicle Combat

SMALL CRAFT COMBAT
Combat between small, one-person ships like starfighters and patrol boats or speeder bikes and single-seat airspeeders is relatively strightforward. The pilot, as the sole crew aboard, has one starship maneuver and one starship action (or two starship maneuvers) during his turn. This means he can fly and fight aboard his ship, or concentrate solely on flying. Small craft combat (especiallly with high-speed vehicles like airspeedes, speeder bikes, or starfighters) is quite abstracted. As they are constantly moving and striving with one another for the upper hand (thanks to their incredible speed an agility), it would be nearly impossible to map out every move a starfighter makes. Instead, the Game Master and players describe the actions the characters nd NPCs take, embellish them with narrative flair, then make their skill checks to resolve the actions.
MANEUVERS
Less involved than actions, maneuvers are simple activities that do not ttypically require a skill check. Beyond all the maneuvers in personal combat, there are several maneuvers that apply specifically to starships and vehicles. These additional maneuvers follow the usual rules governing maneuvers (see page 213). In addition (and especially in larger starships), characters are assumed to be able to perform any personal maneuvers such as dropping prone, managing gear, or interacting with the environment (although the GM and players should use common sense as to what a character can and cannot do given the situation). This also includes maneuvers such as aiming, since a character can aim with a quad laser turret just as he can aim with a blaster rifle. In general, all the maneuvers listed starting on page 213 apply in all forms of combat (with a certain level of common sense).
When ships or vehicles are in encounters, they should always track their current speed. A ship may be operating at any speed from zero to its maximum; however, accelerating an decelerating takes maneuvers to accomplish.
A starship or vehicle with a silhouette between 1 and 4 can benefit from one Pilot Only maneuver per round, and can benefit from a second Pilot Only maneuver if it suffers two system strain (Pilot Only maneuvers are ones that affect the movemnt of the ship itself, and ships may only move so fast and so far). If the starship has a single pilot, the pilot must also suffer 2 strain (or downgrade his action to a maneuver) to perform two maneuvers, as per combat rules. Some ships can have multiple pilots, in which case each can perform a Pilot Only maneuver and only the ship suffers the strain. However, these ships are rare.
A starship or vehicle with silhouette 5 or higher can only benefit from one Pilot Only maneuver in a round.
ACCELERATE/DECELERATE
Pilot only: Yes Silhouette: Any Speed: Any
The pilot may increase or decrease the ship or vehicle's current speed by one, to a minimum of 0 or a maximum of the ship's maximum speed rating.
FLY/DRIVE
Pilot Only: Yes Silhouette: Any Speed: Any
This starship maneuver reflects the simple act of moving the ship or behicle closer or farther away from something at its current speed. The number of starship maneuvers required for a ship or vehicle to move through a given number of range bands is dependent on its speed. It is important to remember that range is based on the moving ship's perspective, and is not a measure of avtual physical distance. Moving between one range band and the next always takes two maneuvers regardless of speed, with the following exceptions detailed below:

• Speed 0: The ship or behicle is not moving and connot use this starship maneuer until it accelerates.
• Speed 1: One starship maneuver to move within close range of a target or object, or two starship maneuvers to move from close to short range or from short range to close range.
• Speed 2-4: One starship maneuver to move within close range of a target or object, or to move from close to short range or from short to close range. Two starship maneuvers to move from close to medium or medium to close range.
• Speed 5-6: One starship maneuver to move within close range of a target or object or to move from close to medium range or from medium to close range. Two starship maneuvers to move from close to long or long to close range.

EVASIVE MANEUVERS
Pilot Only: Yes Silhouette: 1-4 Speed: 3+
Evasive Maneuvers reflects a pilot's efforts to avoid incoming fire, collision, or other calamity. Executing Evasive maneuvers upgrades the difficulty of the dice pool once for all attacks made against the ship until the end of the pilot's next turn. While this makes the ship exeuting the starship maneuver harder to hit, it also makes it harder for the ship executing the starship maneuver to hit anything else. Executing Evasive Maneuvers likewise upgrades the difficulty of the dice pool once for all attacks made by the ship until the end of the pilot's next turn. Evasive Maneuvers can only be undertaken by ships or vehicles of silhouette 4 or lower. Anything larger is typically too slow or awkward to perform Evasive Maneuvers.
STAY ON TARGET
Pilot Only:Yes Silhouette:1-4 Speed: 3+
This reflects a pilot's concentration and his ability to shut out combat related stresses and distractions to make sure a target is hit or an adversary destroyed. Until the end of the pilot's next turn, all combat checks from the vehicle or vessel executing this maneuver upgrade the ability of the dice pool once. Unfortunately while he is concentrating so hard on his target , the pilot blocks out all other threats and is an easier target for opponents. Any combat checks made targeting a ship executing this starship maneuver also upgrade their ability once until the end of the pilot's next turn. This starship maneuver is restriced to small vesssels like starfighters and ppatrol boats; only ships or vehicles of silhouette 4 or lower can Stay on Target.
PUNCH IT
Pilot Only: Yes Silhouette: 1-4 Speed: Any
This maneuver allows a ship or vehicle to go immediately to its maximum speed rating from any other speed, by throwing the throttles to maximum and overloading the ship or vehicle's drives. While expeditious, it alos puts undue strain on a ship or vehicle. When executing this starship maneuver, the ship or vehicle suffers one point of system strain for every point of speed between the ship's current speed and its maximum speed. This starship maneuver is restricted to ships of silhouette 4 or lower, as larger vessels have too much mass to accelerate so quickly.
ANGLE DEFLECTOR SHIELDS
Pilot Only: No Silhouette: Any Speed: Any
Using this maneuver, a crewmember with access to the shield controls can reassign up to one poijnt of defense from one defense zone to another. For example, a player could shore up a vessel's forward defense zone with a point from its aft defense zone. This maneuver only works if the ship or vehicle has defense that can be reassigned, as with deflector shields.
ACTIONS
In combat involving starship or vehicles, there are some additional actions characters may perform that specifically apply to the ship or vehicle they are operating. Some of these actions are labeled as Pilot Only actions. A starship or vehicle may benefit from only one Pilot Only action per round, no matter how many crewmemebers are aboard her. (Pilot Only actions are actions that affect the movement of the ship itslef, and ships mey only move so fash and so far.)
Remember, any of the actions listed starting on page 216 of combat can also be performed in combats involving ships or vehicles, within the bounds of common sense.
BLANKET BARAGE
Pilot Only: No Silhoutte: 5+ Speed: 0-3 The gunner uses the ship's weapons to raise a curtain of fire around the ship, protecting it from starfighters. Any smaller vessel attempting an attack run will have to brave a hurricane of heavy weaponry.
When Performing the Blanket Barrage action, the character makes an Average (difficulty 2) Gunnery check and selects all weapons of a single type (heavy turbo-lasers, medium ion cannons, etc.) within one or more of his ship's firing arcs. Those weapons count as firing that round. Until the end of the character's next turn, all vehicles with silhouette 4 or smaller upgrade the difficulty of any combat checks made against the ship once, pluse one additional time per (2 advantage) scorred on the Blanket Barrage Gunnery check. If their combat check generates (2 threat), they suffer one automatic hit, which deals half the base damage (rounding up) of the type of weapon used in the Blanket Barrage action. IF their combat check generates (Despair), they suffer one automatic hit dealing the base damage of the tupe of weapon used in the Blanket Barrage action.
At the GM's descreation, the Blanket Barrage might not conver all arcs of the ship (if the ship has no aft weaponry, for example, it may leave an opening aft), and some ships might be able to approach from this direction and avoid suffering the penalties from Blanket Barrage.
CONCENTRATED BARRAGE
Pilot Only: No Silhouette: 5+ Speed: 0-3 The gunner directs the vehicle's fire to focus on a precise point on the opponent's hull. Focusing fire in this way has the potential to deal significant damage.
When performing the Concentrated Barrage action, the character fires all weapons of a single type (heavy turbolasters, medium ion cannons, etc.) within a single firing arc. This action required at least two weapons to use, and it cannot be used if there are not two weapons of a single type in the chose firing arc. Although he is firing multiple weapons he makes a single combat check, as per the rules for the Performing a Combat Check with Vehicle WEapons action. If the attack succeeds, the character may spend (advantage) once to add damage equal to the number of weapons involved in the attack to one hit of the attack.
The Concentrated Barrage action can only be used to target ships with a silhoutte 5 or higher.
DAMAGE CONTROL
Pilot Only: No Silhouette: Any Speed: Any
As a ship's hull shakes and rattles beneath the abuse of an enemy's laser cannons, sparks fly and systems begin to fail. The Damage Control action is an attempt to mitigate such stress, whether it's caused by combat or accident. Using this action, any Player Character who makes a successful Mechanics check recovers one point of system strain per success. The difficulty of the Mechanics check is determined by the strain the ship is currently suffering. Damage Control can be attempted as many times as needed to reduce a ship's sytem strain to zero (with the caveat that a single character can still only perform one action per turn, of course).
Likewise, a skilled mechanic can even repair some of the damage dealt to a vehicle during an ongoing fight, although this is much trickier. In general, Pcs can only attempt one Damage Control check to reduce hull trama (by one point per success) per encounter- there are only so many repairs that can be accomplished without the facilities of proper shipyard. In addition, the GM is the final arbiter as to whether a Player Character can attempt repairs of hull trauma at all (a snubfighter could not climb out of his cockpit during a dogfight to patch his wing, nor could a speeder biker reattach one of his control surfaces while driving through a forest).
Characters can also use this action to repair Critical Hits the ship is suffering from. The difficulty of repairing a Critical Hit is listed on Table 7-9: Critical Hit Result. Checks to repair Critical Hits can be attempted multiple times, until the Critical Hit is repaired.

GAIN THE ADVANTAGE
Pilot Only: Yes Silhouette: 1-4 Speed: 4+
This action reflects the constant, frantic give-and-take of a dogfight between small craft like starfighters and patrol boats or high-speed vehicles such as airspeeders. It allows a pilot to gain the upper hand on a single opponent so that he positions himself for a better attack during the following round. To execute this starship action, the pilot makes a Piloting check, the difficulty of which is determined by the relative speeds of the ships or vehicles involved in the attack. These difficulties are outlined in Table 7-3: Speed Advantage Difficulty. If the check succeeds, the pilot ignores all penalties imposed by his own and his opponent's use of the Evasive Maneuvers starship maneuver until the end of the following round. In addition, the pilot also chooses which defense zone he hits with his attack. If he fails his check, he fails to gain the advantage from the attempt and still suffers the effects of any Evasive Maneuvers.
Once the Advantage has been gained, on the following turn the opponent may attempt to cancel out the advantage by using Gain the Advantage as well. This works as descrived earlier, but his check is one step more difficult for he time he or his opponent has successfully Gained the Advantage against the other.

ADDITIONAL SHIP AND VEHICLE ACTIONS
Pilot Only: Yes Silhouette: Any Speed: Any
When aboard a vehicle in combat, those who are not piloting or firing weapons may still want to contribute to the encounter. Although the number of options open to them is limited only by a player's creativity, Table 7-4: Additional Starship and Vehicle Actions has a list of actions passengers can attempt during encounters. The table lists te actions by name, the skill required, the check's attendant difficulty, and the results of a success (GMs should modify the difficulty of the check if they see fit, and can also keep the players from using certain skills that may not make sense in a certain situation). These actions are all covered by the Perform a Skill Check actions, and are by no means an exhaustive list. However, they do serve to provide a range of ideas.

OVERWHELMING BARRAGE
Pilot Only: No Silhouette: 5+ Speed: 0-3 The gunner disperses the vehicle's fire to overwhelm the target with a multitude of shots, hitting it and every adjoining vehicle. This tactic is often used to overwhelm formations of enemy ships and vehicles.
When performing the Overwhelming Barrage action, the character fires all weappons of a single type (heavy turbolasers, medium ion cannons, etc.) within a single firing arc. This action reequires at least two weapons to use, and cannon be used if there are not two weapons of a single types in the chosen firing arc. Although he is firing multiple weapons, he makes a single combat check, as per the rules for the Performing a Combat Check with Vehicles Weapons action. IF the attack succeeds, the character may spend (advantage) to deal one additional hit to one vehicle that is at short range from the original target, plus one additional vehicle for every 10 weapons  involved in the attack. Vehicles hit in this way must have a silhouette equal to or highter than that of the original target. For examble, firing 10 weapons allows the attacker to hit two additional targets with (advantage), firing 20 weapons allows him to hit three additional targets, and so on. The extra hit can be triggered multiple times, but cannot target any ships that have already been hit during this action.
These hits deal the weapons base damage, +1 damage per (success) on the check.
PERFORM A COMBAT CHECK WITH VEHICLE WEAPONS
Pilot Only: No Silhouette: Any Speed: Any
This is similar to the Perform a Combat Check action on page 216, with some Minor differences in implementation due to the differences between vehicles and individuals. For this reason, the steps to perform a combat check are repeated, with the differences written in each step, instead of the differences being listed without context.
Each weapon on a starship or vehicle may only be fired a maximum of once per round unless a rule specifically allows otherwise.
1. DECLARE AN ATTACK AND SELECT TARGETS
With the enemy ship lined up in his gun sights and the sound of his targeting systems in his ears, the character chooses to make an attack. He selects the skille he will use to make the attack (usually the Gunnery skill, although some vehicles may have weapons on them requiring the Ranged [Heavy] skill instead). Most combat checks aboard a starship or vehicle are made using the starship or vehicle's weapons. Remember, a particular starship or vehicle weapon can only be used once per round, no matter how many characters there are aboard the ship.
2. ASSEMBLE THE DICE POOL
Before pressing the firing stud and sending a barrage of laser fire at his target, the character must assemble a dice pool based on the skill used, its characteristic, and any applicable talents and abilities he possesses. Certain conditions, such as the effect of a Critical Injury, a Critical Hit inflicted on the ship or behicle, or an environmental effect, may also contribute dice to the dice pool. See page 26 for more information on building a dice pool.
The difficulty of combat checks when firing from behicles or starships is baed on camparing shilhouettes of the firing ship and the targeted ship (even if the target of the attack is not a vehicle or starship) and is outlined in Table 7-5: Silhouette Comparison. This reflects the fact that large ships find it difficulte to hit small, fast vessels, and their bulk makes them an easy target for those same small craft. Thanks to the advanced targeting computers installed in most starships, the range of a shot has no bearing on the attack's difficulty; if the target is within range, a starship can hit it. The check is further affected by modifiers brought on by starship maneuvers, talents, terrrain, or any other modifiers at the Game Master's discretion.
When attacking a ship of silhouette 4 or lower, the defender chooses which defense zone the attack hits. Smaller ships are more agile and constatnly in motion, meaning that during combat they are continually juking, dodging, evading, and generally positioning themselves so that their strongetst defense zone is always facing their attacker. When attacking a ship of silhouette 5 or higher, the defense zone affected by the attack is determined by the position of the ships in combat. The relative positions of ships in combat is determined by both the Game Master's and the Player Characters' actions and its illustrated through the cinematic gameplay style inherent in Age of Rebellion.

3. POOL RESULTS AND DEAL DAMAGE
Once the player rolls the dice pool for his character, he evaluates the results. As with any skill check, the check must generate more (success) than (failure) to be successful.
When making a combat check, after calculating overall success, each remaining (success) adds +1 damage to a successful attack. If the attack affects multiple targets, the additional damage is added to each target. Remember, most weapons on vehicles or starships deal damage on planetary scale, mearing each point of damage is the equivalent of 10 points of damage on a personal scale.
4. RESOLVE (ADVANTAGE) AND (TRIUMPH)
As with every skill check, (Advantage) and (Triumph) can be spend to gain incidental beneficial effects on a combat check. Howerver, just as the rules governing encounters are somewhat more regimented than the rules governing narrative gameplay, some of the options governing the spending of (advantage) and (triumph) are more clearly defined. In encounters, the player controlling the active character determines how his character spends (advantage) and (triumph) unless the GM has a specific reason to decide for him instead.
The first way to spend (advantage) and (triumph) in an attack is to activate Critical Hits or active weapon qualities. As described on page 171 and page 257, each weapon has a critical rating that consists of a numeric value. The user can spend that many (advantage) to inflict on Critical Hit on the target in addition to regular effects and damage. (If the target is an individual, it inflicts a cCritical Injury as per page 230.) For more information on starship and vehicle Critical Hits, see page 257. Remember, the attack must deal damage past armor to inflict a Critical Hit.
Weapon qualities are special effects and ablilites that apply only when using that particular weapon. They come in two forms, active and passive. Active abilities require the user to spend a certain number of (advantage) to trigger them. Generally this is (2 advantage), although some qualities require more or less. Qualities caninflict effects on a target that, unless specified otherwise, are always in addition to other effects, Critical Hits, and damage.
In addition to always counting as an additional (success), (triumph) can be spend to activate these abilities as well. (Triumph) may be spend to inflict one Critcal Hit (no matter what the critical rating on the weapon is) on a successful attack. In addition, (triumph) may be spend to activate one weapon quality, no matter how many (advantage) it would normally take to do so.
However, there are additional options for spending (advantage) and (triumph) in starship and vehicle combat. A list of the most common can be found on Table 7-6: Spending (advantage) and (triumph) in Starship and Vehicle Combat. As in refular combat, this list is not intended to be absolute, but to provide guidelines for players and GMs.
5. RESOLVE (THREAT) AND (DESPAIR)
In the same fashion in which the controlling player determines how his character spends (advantage) and (triumph) in his combat check, the GM determines how to spend any (threat) and (despair) generated in the check. By default, the GM determines how (threat) and (despair) are spent, although in some cases (such as checks made by NPCs) he may give the players the option to spend theses instead.
Unlike (advantage) and (triumph), most weapons do not have specific options for spending (threat) and (despair), although this is not always the case. Some particularly volatile or dangerous weapons do have these options, and if they do, the options are detailed in the weapon's description. There are specific options for spending (threat) and (despair) in starship encounters, however; the most common of these can be found on Table 7-7: Spending (threat) and (despair) in Starship and Vehicle Combat. As with (advantage) and (triumph), keep in mind that these are not intended to be the only options available. As always, GMs can invent other ways to spend (threat) and (despair), depending on the specific circumstances of the encounter, and any option that the players and GM agree on can be viable.
6. REDUCE DAMAGE, APPLY TO HULL TRAUMA THRESHOLD, AND APPLY CRITICAL HITS
When a ship or vehicle suffers damage, it reduces that damage by its armor (fulfilling the same purpose as soak on individuals). If any damage remains after this reduction, the vehicle suffers taht much hull trauma (applied against its hull trauma threshold). If any damage remains after this reduction, the vehicle suffers that much hull trauma (applied against its hull trauma threshold). If the net result is zero or negative, the vehicle suffers no hull trauma. See page 256.
A successful attack can also generate a Critical Hit, which is similar to a Critical Injury. This can occur because the weapon's critical rating triggered or because the target accumulated hull trauma greater than its hull trauma threshold. When a Critical Hit is inflicted, the attacker rolls percentile dice on TABLE 7-9: CRITICAL HIT RESULT on page 258. The result of the dice roll indicates which Critical Hit is applied.
Some weapons and talents modify this Critical Hit roll, potentially making a Critical Hit more or less effective. In addition, the attacker can spend the critical rating cost multiple times on a single hit, ading +10 to the result for each additional Critical Hit beyond the first. Note that talents and qualities that specifically affect Critical Injuries do not affect Critical Hits (so the Vicious quality, for example, would have no effect on a ship or vehicle).