Star Wars: Andor

[Celebrim]

So, one fun fact that I only picked up from a Youtube video today - that twin-hulled TIE that's launched to pursue the Haulcraft isn't actually a TIE Bomber (you can tell by the lack of underslung warhead launcher). It's a rarely-seen TIE Boarding Craft, its secondary hull carrying a boarding team rather than munitions.

Yeah, I watched the same video. I honestly had forgotten about the existence of the Tie/Br and was surprised to see it canonized. While the Tie/Br is barely suitable for customs inspections, I wouldn't want to assault a pirate ship with one. And it doesn't really address my issues with the lack of firepower. At least a Tie/sa can actually disable a large craft.

Point being, it's really easy to see why the Empire didn't build a ton of the Cantwell class. The only thing it would be good at is harassing law abiding citizens and the most petty sorts of criminals, and for that job it's massive overkill. And because it is massive overkill, you couldn't build enough of them to actually provide an effective blockade against petty crime.

 

[MarkB]

Yeah, I watched the same video. I honestly had forgotten about the existence of the Tie/Br and was surprised to see it canonized. While the Tie/Br is barely suitable for customs inspections, I wouldn't want to assault a pirate ship with one. And it doesn't really address my issues with the lack of firepower. At least a Tie/sa can actually disable a large craft.

Point being, it's really easy to see why the Empire didn't build a ton of the Cantwell class. The only thing it would be good at is harassing law abiding citizens and the most petty sorts of criminals, and for that job it's massive overkill. And because it is massive overkill, you couldn't build enough of them to actually provide an effective blockade against petty crime.

Pretty much in line with standard Imperial policy. They'd consider TIEs adequate against anything up to a light freighter, and anything larger shouldn't be able to evade the parent ship's own weapons.

And I'm always astonished at the listed crew complements of Star Wars capital ships.

 

[Zardnaar]

Pretty much in line with standard Imperial policy. They'd consider TIEs adequate against anything up to a light freighter, and anything larger shouldn't be able to evade the parent ship's own weapons.

And I'm always astonished at the listed crew complements of Star Wars capital ships.

To small or large?

 

[Celebrim]

Pretty much in line with standard Imperial policy. They'd consider TIEs adequate against anything up to a light freighter, and anything larger shouldn't be able to evade the parent ship's own weapons.

I'm really sensitive to this because my PC's 68m long medium freighter is in a sweet spot where it's big enough that a standard Tie/Ln can't do much against it, but it's still small and nimble enough to usually avoid capital ship weaponry. (Though it's revealed some weaknesses in WEG D6 that need remedies.) My PC's ship is basically a tough version of what would be a standard pirate vessel in my campaign, and while it probably couldn't break a tractor lock (I know my PC's are going to be wanting to buy a tractor counter measure system now) it could put up quite a fight against a Cantwell with a crew of just 6 + 2 droids and a ship that's like 1000th the price and daily operating cost.

And I'm always astonished at the listed crew complements of Star Wars capital ships.

Historic and modern naval vessels in the real world usually astonish people with their crew complements as well, and people are often stunned by the number of people necessary to field say 12 artillery pieces. So I'm not usually that fussed about large crew complements on a big ship.

It's just I think that they could field a ship 1/4 as long and 1/60th as costly with a crew of 250ish that would do the job it seems designed to do even better.

And I've been thinking about custom and patrol ships a lot lately - cutters, patrol frigates, patrol destroyers, corvettes, etc. - because that's the scale of what the PC's would usually be up against when/if they get exposed as rogue peacekeepers and the Empire goes after them. There isn't a lot of attention paid to the Empire at that scale, especially in non-RPG media. Fortunately, we've been getting things like the Raider-class corvette in video games, and fanmade ships like the Velox class.

 

[Ryujin]

People who are generally surprised at the crew compliments of ships should look up the term "hot racking." Given that a spaceship would probably operate on something similar to a submarine model, it's likely what is being done on Empire warships.

 

[Zardnaar]

Imperial ships have very low crew density for the size of the ship.

 

[MarkB]

I'm really sensitive to this because my PC's 68m long medium freighter is in a sweet spot where it's big enough that a standard Tie/Ln can't do much against it, but it's still small and nimble enough to usually avoid capital ship weaponry. (Though it's revealed some weaknesses in WEG D6 that need remedies.)

I'm not familiar with WEG D6, but I recall from Saga Edition that there was a not-so-sweet spot for light transports in that system - large enough to be more easily targeted by capital ships, but small enough that starfighters are a significant threat. There was an option in that system to fit thrusters that would allow a transport ship to engage in dogfighting, which sounded cool but was very inadvisable in practice, as the ship's size and manoeuvrability worked against it in practically all the available dogfighting manoeuvers.

Likewise, in the X-Wing and TIE Fighter PC games, there was a size bracket at which craft would go from being targetable only from short range, like starfighters, to being easily targeted at medium range, and a lot of transports and shuttles ended up on the wrong side of it.

My PC's ship is basically a tough version of what would be a standard pirate vessel in my campaign, and while it probably couldn't break a tractor lock (I know my PC's are going to be wanting to buy a tractor counter measure system now) it could put up quite a fight against a Cantwell with a crew of just 6 + 2 droids and a ship that's like 1000th the price and daily operating cost.

True enough, but it's a consequence of the genre to some extent. Even small squadrons of starfighters can be a major threat to capital ships, and hero ships tend to straddle the line between starfighter and gunship.

Historic and modern naval vessels in the real world usually astonish people with their crew complements as well, and people are often stunned by the number of people necessary to field say 12 artillery pieces. So I'm not usually that fussed about large crew complements on a big ship.

It's just I think that they could field a ship 1/4 as long and 1/60th as costly with a crew of 250ish that would do the job it seems designed to do even better.

And I've been thinking about custom and patrol ships a lot lately - cutters, patrol frigates, patrol destroyers, corvettes, etc. - because that's the scale of what the PC's would usually be up against when/if they get exposed as rogue peacekeepers and the Empire goes after them. There isn't a lot of attention paid to the Empire at that scale, especially in non-RPG media. Fortunately, we've been getting things like the Raider-class corvette in video games, and fanmade ships like the Velox class.

Well, they've got the Arquitens light cruiser and Gozanti transport. They're both a lot less intensive in personnel requirements, and we see them used routinely for patrol duties in Rebels.

 

[Celebrim]

Well, they've got the Arquitens light cruiser and Gozanti transport. They're both a lot less intensive in personnel requirements, and we see them used routinely for patrol duties in Rebels.

The Arquitens is a really weird design. I'm not that fond of it. It's got the whole mini star destroyer thing going that does give it some punch versus other ships its size, but as an escort ship it leaves a lot to desire. Starfighters rip it apart but at the same time it just cannot hold its own against bigger Capital ships.

And the Gozanti transport is not really a combat vessel despite being grandiosely called a cruiser. It's really a medium freighter and is a near-peer to the PC's modified Suwantek medium freighter. It's also a terrible patrol craft, and less well armed than something like a YZ-775.

Both ships have showed up a lot because Disney owns good 3D models of the ships that they can use in a variety of media by altering the skins and resolution.

SAGA edition is probably doing better genre emulation by the sound of it, though I have to wonder how the Millenium Falcon was so capable of a craft under those rules.

D6 has a number of issues with star ship combat that I'm solely working through as I get more experience with the system, one of them is that the range that is "star fighters" goes from like something like a TIE/Ln or Z-95 up to things that are almost capital ships with a length of around 95m. But the range of available maneuverability doesn't really come close to handling that. Another problem is that in the long run pilot skill so dominates maneuverability that a good pilot can make even a brick nimble. Anyway, as usual with basically ever system I've ever run, I'm having to rewrite almost the whole thing - new stats for everything in the game, new game subsystems, etc. Published game materials are really terrible quality overall.

 

[Ryujin]

The Arquitens is a really weird design. I'm not that fond of it. It's got the whole mini star destroyer thing going that does give it some punch versus other ships its size, but as an escort ship it leaves a lot to desire. Starfighters rip it apart but at the same time it just cannot hold its own against bigger Capital ships.

And the Gozanti transport is not really a combat vessel despite being grandiosely called a cruiser. It's really a medium freighter and is a near-peer to the PC's modified Suwantek medium freighter. It's also a terrible patrol craft, and less well armed than something like a YZ-775.

Both ships have showed up a lot because Disney owns good 3D models of the ships that they can use in a variety of media by altering the skins and resolution.

SAGA edition is probably doing better genre emulation by the sound of it, though I have to wonder how the Millenium Falcon was so capable of a craft under those rules.

D6 has a number of issues with star ship combat that I'm solely working through as I get more experience with the system, one of them is that the range that is "star fighters" goes from like something like a TIE/Ln or Z-95 up to things that are almost capital ships with a length of around 95m. But the range of available maneuverability doesn't really come close to handling that. Another problem is that in the long run pilot skill so dominates maneuverability that a good pilot can make even a brick nimble. Anyway, as usual with basically ever system I've ever run, I'm having to rewrite almost the whole thing - new stats for everything in the game, new game subsystems, etc. Published game materials are really terrible quality overall.

I think that the way that WEG Star Wars handles ship combat, with the pilot's skill being able to turn a garbage scow into a combat fighter, is very in keeping with a universe that takes a fairly large chunk of its DNA from the movie serials of the '30s and '40s. It's not a combat simulator but rather about recreating the cinematic feel of the original movies that involves fast paced action, and improbable escapes. That, it does exceedingly well.

 

[Celebrim]

I think that the way that WEG Star Wars handles ship combat, with the pilot's skill being able to turn a garbage scow into a combat fighter, is very in keeping with a universe that takes a fairly large chunk of its DNA from the movie serials of the '30s and '40s. It's not a combat simulator but rather about recreating the cinematic feel of the original movies that involves fast paced action, and improbable escapes. That, it does exceedingly well.

Yeah, I know what it's going for and to a certain extent I'm on board the project. But the more you dig into the math the more of a problem you realize it is, in that while you do want to have the PC's pull off the improbable escapes and victories, if they are actually by the math almost certainties then there is no drama either. The heroes need to experience a bit of struggle on their way to victory. You also want to avoid a situation where both sides are engaged in futility, because that's not very exciting either.