1E D6 Star Wars Space Combat
1. Piloting Segment. GM describes the scene and notes opening Range.
1a. Pilots indicate whether they are trying to close distance or increase range from target, and they indicate whether they will enhance the Speed Segment with maneuvers. Gunners declare how many shots will be taken and what weapon they will use.
2. Speed Segment, where pilots roll the ship's Speed Code. Optionally, pilots can roll their Starship Piloting skill to enhance the ship's Speed total. The winning toss determines the new Range for this combat round.
3. Fire Segment One, where gunners use Starship Gunnery to attack targets.
3a. - Evasion. Optionally, defenders can use Evasion to increase the difficulty for gunners to hit the ship. This is a reaction roll. Roll Starship Piloting and add total to Range Difficulty for gunners firing at the ship for the entire segment.
3b. - Shields. Optionally, defenders can angle deflector shields. This is a reaction roll. Roll Starship Shields vs. a target number based on range. If successful, the ship's Shield code is added to the ship's Hull code when damage is rolled.
3c. - Gunnery. Gunners fire their weapons. Use Starship Gunnery skill + Weapon's Fire Control code vs. target number based on Range.
3d. - Damage. Roll Damage as necessary.
3. Fire Segment Two: And so on.
SUMMARY
There are three basic parts to the narrative starship combat system provided in the core rulebook.
1. The GM describes the scene and provides the starting Range.
Players react to this by describing what they will do in the round.
This is called the Piloting Segment.
2. Next, we roll to adjust range for this combat round. Range can increase, decrease, or stay the same. Range cannot be shorter than Short Range. And, if range expands beyond Long Range, then the combat is over.
In order to do this, Roll the Speed Codes for the vessels involved in the combat. The higher roll decides the effect on the starting Range--does it increase, decrease, or stay the same?
Pilots can optionally roll their Starship Piloting skill to enhance the performance of their vessel. This roll is added to the Speed code roll. But, this is also a skill use and counts against multiple actions.
This is called the Speed Segment.
3. Next are one or more segments to resolve fire between vessels. Attackers announced their attacks in the Piloting Segment. Here, the attacks are rolled.
But first, defenders can try to Evade fire. This is done by rolling the ship's Maneuverability code and adding that to the range difficulty number. Optionally, defenders can use their Starship Piloting skill to enhance evasion. This is a reaction skill. Roll the Starship Piloting skill and add that to the total of the Maneuverability code total. All of that is added to the range difficulty (as Dodge is used on ground combat).
Another option defenders have is to use shields against incoming fire. This is a reaction roll. This is done by shield operators rolling their Starship Shields skill against a target number that is based on range to the attacker. If successful, the the ship's Shield code is added to the Hull code when rolling for damage against the ship. In effect, successfully angling a deflector shield is akin to armor protecting the ship. A new shield roll must be made against each individual attack during the segment.
After any Evasion or Shield angling is established, the attacker may roll his attack. This is accomplished by rolling Starship Gunnery plus the Fire Control code for that weapon against a target number based on range. If the defender uses Evasion, then the range number is increased.
Damage is rolled for successful hits by rolling the weapon's damage code against the hull code of the ship. If a character successfully angled a deflector shield, then the hull code is increased by the amount of the Shield code.
This is called a Fire Segment, and each weapon usage is addressed in its own Fire Segment.
Multiple Ship Combat
This is covered on page 64 of the core rules.
Ship combat in 1E SW can be quite dangerous. One starfighter against several others usually means that the single ship will be destroyed. So, these situations will probably not come up very often. Smart players will have their characters surrender, or evade and try to make range to end the combat and disappear from the area. Remember how the Falcon does a lot of running away from TIEs in the Star Wars movies.
The method for using multiple ships has the PC focusing on one target, and that is played out normally as described above. The other ships can basically do what they want.
The example in the book has the Falcon approaching three TIE fighters. All three TIEs are at Long Range. The Falcon engages with one TIE and goes through the segments with that one TIE fighter. Of the two TIEs left, one increases range (and does so automatically, going beyond Long and leaving the area) to leave the combat. The last TIE closes range to attack the Falcon (closes to Medium Range).
With the first TIE, the Falcon wins the Speed segment and fight that ship at Medium range.
The GM keeps playing the segments as normal with the one TIE the Falcon is engaged with, but the other TIE that chose to take on the Falcon can do whatever it wants--probably fire at the Falcon at medium range.
If you've got multiple ships on both sides--say, a squadron of X-Wings vs. a squadron of TIEs--then just separate the battle into individual dogfights. The GM will basically run one space combat for each space craft on the players' side. If this results in one ship versus two or more, use the Multiple Ship Combat procedure described above.
Other Ways to Play Starship Combat
The Rules Companion has a chapter devoted to capital ship combat.
There is a board wargame called Star Warriors, designed to provided detailed, hex board base, space combats for 1E Star Wars. Several 1E adventure include optional Star Warrior scenarios.
Use capital ship combat as a narrative tool. Usually, in the SW universe, the capital ships just go broadsides and start pounding at each other. Think of the opening of Revenge of the Sith. For this, you only need to have the ships trading punches each fire combat segment. You can otherwise use the narrative space combat rules to narrate what is happening between the capital vessels.
