[d20 Future/Star Wars] Starships?

I'm GMing a long-running Star Wars game, and I've found the starship combat system, rather unsatisfactory for a wide variety of reasons. Can anyone who owns d20 Future tell me about how starships work in these rules? Do they use an adaptation of the Star Wars rules? If not, what sort of system is found in d20 Future, and how adaptable would it be to a Star Wars game?

Are you referring to the abstract system in the Star Wars OCR or the tactical system in the RCR?

The RCR system. Sorry, I should have been more specific.

I don't believe that d20 Modern has starship construction rules. As I understand it, that will be published in d20 Future.

Sidereal Knight said:

I don't believe that d20 Modern has starship construction rules. As I understand it, that will be published in d20 Future.

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Man, it's really my day for typos, isn't it? Corrected the original post...

i haven't read the starship rules in depth yet (i haven't had a chance to do more than skim the chapter), but my first impression is that i'd rather use Star Wars d20 or d20 Mecha for starships than the rules from d20 Future.

in the interest of simplicity, they tried making starship combat very similar (too similar) to personal combat IMO.

and i have some reservations about weapon damage. it feels to me that most weapons do too little damage when compared to average ships' hardness and hit point values -- for example, a strike cruiser does 10d8 damage with it's battery of fusion beams (averaging 45 points of damage per hit). a strike cruiser has hardness 30 (reducing the damage to 15 points per hit) and has 4,000 hit points. i know i haven't playtested it yet and am just eyeballing the numbers, but it seems like combat between large ships is going to take a very looooong time.

humble minion said:

The RCR system. Sorry, I should have been more specific.

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The one and only problem I have is the use of double-move action in its starship combat rules, which is also in the [ground] vehicle combat rules of RCR.

Personally, if it's based on d20 Modern vehicle combat rules (I've yet to acquire my copy of d20 Future), then I'd be more or less content, if not satisfied.

Combat isn't based on vehicle combat I don't think.

Its based 100% on combat between characters. Ships have 2 move and 1 attack action. They roll initiative. They are flat-footed until their initiative in the first round of combat. They get attacks of opportunity.

The ships themselves are like characters. They have HD and HP. They can have templates applied. etc.

I actually think its an interesting solution, though I can imagine the people who cried "too simple!" at Blood and Space's combat system must be tearing their hair out.

But that thought pleases me

Chuck

d4 said:

and i have some reservations about weapon damage. it feels to me that most weapons do too little damage when compared to average ships' hardness and hit point values -- for example, a strike cruiser does 10d8 damage with it's battery of fusion beams (averaging 45 points of damage per hit). a strike cruiser has hardness 30 (reducing the damage to 15 points per hit) and has 4,000 hit points. i know i haven't playtested it yet and am just eyeballing the numbers, but it seems like combat between large ships is going to take a very looooong time.

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I've only read a bit in the store for now, but I looked up this point. A cruiser has a fusion gun battery and a missile battery. If both hit in a round, they will average 24 points of damage, after hardness, versus 4,000 hit points. However, crits are possible. I did not have time to read the rule on weapon crits.

Vigilance said:

I actually think its an interesting solution, though I can imagine the people who cried "too simple!" at Blood and Space's combat system must be tearing their hair out.

But that thought pleases me

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Well, you have to strike a delicate balance between roleplaying and wargaming.

I listened to this "young" generation of roleplayers who simply want RPG, not wargame.

Me? I'm old-school enough to recognize and acknowledge where the root of RPG came from. That and the fact I like to blend them together, whether I'm a Lord of a vast army, or a loyal Davion House soldier piloting my Battlemech.