Empire Strikes Back 2.0. Star Wars RPG

Jd Smith1 · Sep 19, 2020

Zardnaar said:
Star Wars has fortress world's. I'm not sure if this is a sector level threat or galactic level.

100 cruisers requires 200000 crew. Look at WW2. A single planet could build and crew that many. Hell Australia can crew them.

200 of them is more firepower than the Imperial fleet at Endor sans Deathstar.

If I use legends the Empire is still around so supporting the fleet isn't a problem.

If I use canon the Empire lasts a year post Endor and there's Imperial Renegades after that.

I don't want an Imperial Grand Admiral Thrawn clone or a Daala substitute so a sane Moff or Vice Admiral or something can probably do.

200,000 ship's crew will be about 1.1 to 2 million support and dockyard staff; c3 for 100-200 warships, well, that's going to be large pool of very specialized training.

And given that your enemy has more resources (hence your targeting their MSRs), anything you can build, your enemy can outdo. So we're back to you using ninja bases and oversized commerce raiders to kill merchant shipping. Which we know will fail.

Again, pretty paper thin.

If your players have low expectations of campaign depth, you're still golden, though.

But building twenty small attack boats instead of a cruiser requires less personnel, fewer resources, a smaller logistical footprint, and far less support. And they can be in twenty locations, whereas your cruiser is only in one.

And when the annual refit rolls around, the cruiser is sitting at the super-secret base that thousands of people know about but is still secret, whereas the attack boats simply stagger their refits so 15 craft remain on station at all times.

Jd Smith1 · Sep 19, 2020

So anyway, how are the PCs supposed to fit into this campaign?

Are they going to be a Star Trek style bridge crew of one of these cruisers, leaving the ship in orbit while all the division heads and a couple expendable grunts go ashore and fall into yet another obvious trap?

Zardnaar · Sep 19, 2020

Jd Smith1 said:
200,000 ship's crew will be about 1.1 to 2 million support and dockyard staff; c3 for 100-200 warships, well, that's going to be large pool of very specialized training.

And given that your enemy has more resources (hence your targeting their MSRs), anything you can build, your enemy can outdo. So we're back to you using ninja bases and oversized commerce raiders to kill merchant shipping. Which we know will fail.

Again, pretty paper thin.

If your players have low expectations of campaign depth, you're still golden, though.

But building twenty small attack boats instead of a cruiser requires less personnel, fewer resources, a smaller logistical footprint, and far less support. And they can be in twenty locations, whereas your cruiser is only in one.

And when the annual refit rolls around, the cruiser is sitting at the super-secret base that thousands of people know about but is still secret, whereas the attack boats simply stagger their refits so 15 craft remain on station at all times.

It's Star wars though, see rebels, First Order, Palpatine etc.

They've had larger secret fleets. A million people is nothing in Star Wars.

It's less people involved than WW2 logistics.

It only has to be vaguely plausible. It's less than a sector fleet and there's a lot of sectors.

The idea is the Empire is using them because they're cheap and they can't throw away ISDs anymore.

Zardnaar · Sep 19, 2020

Jd Smith1 said:
So anyway, how are the PCs supposed to fit into this campaign?

Are they going to be a Star Trek style bridge crew of one of these cruisers, leaving the ship in orbit while all the division heads and a couple expendable grunts go ashore and fall into yet another obvious trap?

The rough idea would be they're in a weakly held sector getting preyed on by mysterious raiders.

If it's imperial they will likely be pilots on one of them in a reverse far orbit game where they pirate the New Republic.

Far Orbit was a campaign adventure where they play on a mutinous imperial ship that becomes a privateer.

Hidden base is something like the Darkstryder campaign boxed set.

Jd Smith1 · Sep 19, 2020

Zardnaar said:
It only has to be vaguely plausible.

Well, it's your bar. Set it where you will.

Zardnaar said:
The rough idea would be they're in a weakly held sector getting preyed on by mysterious raiders.

If it's imperial they will likely be pilots on one of them in a reverse far orbit game where they pirate the New Republic.

Far Orbit was a campaign adventure where they play on a mutinous imperial ship that becomes a privateer.

Hidden base is something like the Darkstryder campaign boxed set.

Mysterious raiders operating identical half-kilometer ships of a common design, mass-produced, and packed with two thousand crewmen each who send letters home, try to impress the locals girls, and get snocckered in the port dives (all outside the secret base)?

Given that the Rebels are at war, how mysterious would such raids seem? In 1943, if a British convoy in the Western Approaches lost three ships to an unseen attacker, the escort commander didn't drum his fingers on the charts and wonder who it was that was torpedoing his charges.

To be mysterious, there must be a mystery involved. Violence in wartime isn't a mystery, or even much of a surprise (although the specific applications can be a nasty shock).

Well, good luck in your quest to meet a vaguely plausible standard. I'll leave you alone, but I enjoyed the discourse.

Zardnaar · Sep 19, 2020

Jd Smith1 said:
Well, it's your bar. Set it where you will.

Mysterious raiders operating identical half-kilometer ships of a common design, mass-produced, and packed with two thousand crewmen each who send letters home, try to impress the locals girls, and get snocckered in the port dives (all outside the secret base)?

Given that the Rebels are at war, how mysterious would such raids seem? In 1943, if a British convoy in the Western Approaches lost three ships to an unseen attacker, the escort commander didn't drum his fingers on the charts and wonder who it was that was torpedoing his charges.

To be mysterious, there must be a mystery involved. Violence in wartime isn't a mystery, or even much of a surprise (although the specific applications can be a nasty shock).

Well, good luck in your quest to meet a vaguely plausible standard. I'll leave you alone, but I enjoyed the discourse.

Context at the time frame I'm looking at there's multiple factions.

The Imperial had the deep core. It had massive amounts of star destroyers, super weapons, the clone emperor, super star destroyer s etc.

Luke and Co smacked that flat. The Imperials withdrew to the outer rim including leaving behind large ships they couldn't crew.

It's a reasonably small fleet by Star Wars standards. Might not even be 100 ships.

With trillions of beings and planets with billions of people it's 200000 people assuming I use 100 ships.

They could feed and crew that using New Zealand irl let alone a planet or multiple planets.

Throw in an automated shipyard which exist it's not even hard building them.

Zardnaar · Sep 19, 2020

Probably set around this time frame.

Orinda campaign

The Orinda campaign was waged by the newly-formed Imperial Remnant against the New Republic in 12 ABY during the low-intensity phase of the Galactic Civil War. This was to be the very first campaign by Gilad Pellaeon in his capacity as Supreme Commander and was able to repel the Republic...

starwars.fandom.com

They're running out of larger ships and transitioning to smaller ships. There's a time gap there if relative peace (raiding) or they can be used as a distraction.

No super weapons, Dark Jedi, Sith etc.

Eltab · Sep 26, 2020

You can play the first "pocket battleship" deployed in combat, with part of the challenge being "How long can we keep this up?". Other Imperial, pseudo-Imperial, and warlord forces means the New Republic cannot just drop everything to swat you. And they have to learn the tactics to counter you from hard experience, not by looking up The Book of Previous Battles.

Be aware that High Command is going to realize that your very-oversized-PT-boat will be more obviously successful in a planetary bombardment or fleet / squadron battle capacity, so you get to play the bureaucratic game of ignoring orders to go do something else. Because being Pirates of the Caribbean is more fun ! (Is there an NPC journalist who can turn your ship/crew into a dashing figure of lore and legend?)

Perhaps the biggest strategic threat to this ship is an enemy counterpart or a Q-ship (armed freighter with weapons hidden). IRL, the Graf Spee's career ended when it took a hit to the freshwater condenser and could not repair it using materials on board. Deliver a critical hit on this ship and give the otherwise-boring Engineer's job a chance to be the hero.

aramis erak · Sep 27, 2020

Star Wars ships are not a tight fit to naval surface ships, despite the limited arcs and 2d flight paths...

Many SW warships carry over a year's worth of consumables.
Plus, the differential in average crew skills is notable. (See Star Warriors, for 1E)

Zardnaar · Sep 27, 2020

aramis erak said:
Star Wars ships are not a tight fit to naval surface ships, despite the limited arcs and 2d flight paths...

Many SW warships carry over a year's worth of consumables.
Plus, the differential in average crew skills is notable. (See Star Warriors, for 1E)

True but not everyone would know the stats for a strike cruiser.
It's best guns hit harder than an ISDs guns, but not as hard as an ISD II.

Hits harder than a Mon Call cruiser. They're not as squishy as a light cruiser.

It's kind of a heavy cruiser equivilent or a pocket battleship with heavy cruiser armor.

Graf Spee had lt cruiser armor and over gunned.

It's roughly comparable to those ships assuming an ISD is a BB/CV hybrid.