newbiedm said:

This makes reasonable sense. The ships speed dictates the difficult, or some other external factor, that's pretty standard. Your Pilot skill then dictates your ability to overcome this difficulty, just as it should be. If your piloting skill is high and related stat is high then you get a better dice pool for overcoming said difficulty and succeeding at your Gain The Advantage or whichever other action you are undertaking.

I still don't see that your pilot skill makes no difference. It's just not the ONLY factor, which is how it should be. If Aunt Beru is in the pilot seat with a 1 agility and 0 pilot skill she gets 1 ability dice with 3 difficulty dice (in the Krayt Fang vs Tie Fighter scenario). That is not a very good chance of success at all. Meanwhile, with Pash in the Pilot seat he has Agility 3, Pilot 2  and so he gets 2 Proficiency dice and 1 Ability die vs the same 3 difficulty. Much better chance of success. Oh, and add in the setback die for having a -1 handling… but if Pash has Skill Jockey selected as a trait he can ignore that.

So, I would definitely say, your piloting skill and related talents can make a huge difference in space combat.

I just read that Gain the Advantage cancels penalties for the pilot so it's not really going to do the PC gunners on a YT any good anyway. That really leaves the only pilot roll a few cases where the pilot needs to cancel Gain the Advantage. And with 3 TIEs I'd rather aim, attack, and spend from the destiny pool than waste an action on Gain the Advantage anyway if I'm trying to get my PCs' attention. It's pretty easy to hit the YT anyway without wasting actions.

I'm just not seeing where Pilot skill helps you with defense or maneuvering. A maneuver anyone can take is better than having a pilot skill of 5. I think Pilots will be dissappointed unless the GM does some work beyond what's in the rules to force in some Pilot rolls. Gunnery is way more important.

Actually, it says on page 27 of the Beginner's Game Adventure Book that the pilot and everyone on the pilot's ship get the benefit against the targeted enemy if the Pilot check succeeds.

usgrandprix said:

Everyone can take that maneuvre, but only a good pilot can remove the drawbacks associated with that maneuvre reliably. (Succeed at "Gain the Advantage").

It's basically the idea of "Everyone can swerve around randomly and wildly, but only a skilled pilot can do it in a way that still gives his gunners some good shots".

Rumbleweed said:

OK thanks. I've kept the adventure book closed becasue I'm playing in it soon. Good to know, though. The beta book also only mentions the pilot, fwiw.

I think Gain the Advantage is a good action. But it's not opposed by skill or anything so you can do it pretty reliably with a few ranks in pilot. So no need to get Pilot past rank ~3 since you never really use that skill anywhere else.

Thinking on it I guess if you get extra adavantage/triumph on your Gain the Advantage roll it could be interpreted to give you more defense, but that's a little counter to what the action is.

usgrandprix said:

Well, that is correct if you are faced with a ship that is at you speed, but facing a faster ship will soon have the difficulty at 4 Dice and if he happens to gain the advantage over you first then you have a difficulty of five dice right there … Doesn't sound like something I'd like to face with just three dice of my own.

Also being a good pilot is not just in the skill but also in Talents like Full Throttle or Skilled Jockey.

And rolling lots of advantages can help you by either boosting one of your gunners (giving them a good shot), boosting a repair attempt (keeping the ship steady so the tools don't fly around) or just plain giving your opponent that you are gaining an advantage on some set back dice for his next attempt.

And that doesn't even include stuff like "finding some Asteroid field to play hide and seek in" or weaving in and out of "high traffic" of a busy space port to add piles of setback dice or upgrade difficulties due to the bigger complications because you know that YOU can still make it, but the other guy can't.

To be clear I see it more as a question of degrees here.

I still see:

Anyone can do Evasive Manuvers. Pilot skill doesn't matter.

Anyone can do Stay on target. Pilot skill doesn't matter.

TIE minions/single-pilot ships would be wasteful to do Gain the Advantage because of the wasted attack. Pilot skill doesn't matter if you are not taking this action.

In this case PCs will not be trying to cancel Gain the Advantage. Pilot skill doesn't matter if you are not taking this action.

On a spectrum I'd rather see a Pilot's skill matter more for defense becasue as it is now most of the stuff you can do without it. Maybe you should not be able to do Evasive Manuevers or Stay on Target unless you have a few ranks in Pilot?

Here's an example. If you are in a YT and one PC has Gunnery 3, Pilot 4, Agility 4, maybe even Skilled Jockey--a pilot through and through. A second PC has no Pilot skill (never pilots), Agility 3, Gunnery 1, no pilot talents but a shooting talent or two--clearly not a pilot but can hold his own in the guns. They are facing 4 TIE Interceptors that are not minions and their hyperdrive is out. Who would your PCs have flying the ship and who would be shooting? I'm thinking the Pilot 4 would be a waste in the pilot seat, though RP and point-buy wise he should be there. The non-pilot could still do Evasive Manuevers and Stay on Target.  

I'd rather see rules where the Pilot PC in this situation would be salivating about using his skill to make some moves in the Pilot seat and the capable gunner would be doing what he's spent points on.

usgrandprix said:

Allright, let's go with your example of "Player A is a SUPER-Pilot and a VERY good Gunner" and "Player B is a terribly pilot and a halfway competent gunner". For the record I do think it is a pretty unfair example.

Let's say the Tie interceptors are using evasice maneuvre and the YT is also using evasive maneuvres. In both examples the Tie fighter shoots against 2 red Challenge dice to hit the YT (2 upgrades from both evasives), so let's disregard that bit.

Player A as the Pilot:

4 Proficiency dice vs 3 Difficulty dice (the setback from the YTs poor handling is cancelled by skilled jockey):

Should result in gaining the advantage most rounds.

Player B shoots 2 Ability dice and 1 Ability die and a boost for an aim against 2 purple difficulty dice. Should hit more often then not, possibly better if there are fitting talents. Also would NEVER get a despair result ruining his day.

Player B as Pilot

3 Ability dice vs 3 Difficulty dice + 1 setback die

Will make less than half the gain advantage rolls.

So most of the time Player B will shoot 1 ability die and 3 proficiency dice vs 2 Challenge dice … he should hit rather reliably, BUT he has a pretty decent chance of rolling at least 1 Despair result every once in a while

So … I'd say it's kinda even, but A as the pilot seems more reliable.

BUT: 

Let's just look at the Krayt Fang … it has 2 guns … So if I have your superpilot along with two of those mediocre gunners I will definitely want him in the Pilots seat, because this way I will reliably get two hits every round on those ties from my not too great gunners, because they sure wouldn't reliably hit 2 Challenge dice.

And this is just a super isolated example in the middle of nowhere without anything else to do but evade and shoot one another ….

Good points but the gunner's extra successes matter and they don't for the pilot.

Not to mention the triumphs.

Plus the gunner is going to be granting crazy boost dice to other gunner/pilot and setback dice to hitting the ship. Or maybe I'm supposed to let the pilot rolls use Table 2-1 also? That seems like it would make a strong pilot make a huge difference.

usgrandprix said:

bingo.

The problem I see is that Gain the Advantage is the only action that requires a Pilot skill roll and it just does not come up enough.

The biggest advantage the YT has is 2 manuevers without giving up any attacks. This happens regardless of the pilot's skill and becasue the gunners are doing the attacks.

So I see the best decisions the YT can make are:

1. Spend one manuever on Move to Short range and one manuever on Evasive Action. This is probably the best option. If you move from Close to Short the TIEs automatically have to waste their manuver on Move becasue of the range of their guns. So they are never taking Evasive Action or Aim or, most importantly with superior number, Stay on Target. They are single pilot and often minion so they rarely get a second manuever if they want to attack. Good gunners (taking Aim) can then concentrate on taking out the TIEs and even when missing using their advantage to grant the pilot manuevers to get out of range of the TIEs completely. So the gunnuer skill is getting the ship away from the TIEs and the Skilled Jockey PC pilot is not.

or

2. Take Evasive Action twice (no skill required). This almost forces some/all TIEs into wasting a round taking Gain the Advantage to have a good shot at hitting the next round. They are not guaranteed to do this either. But the YT's pilot skill does not matter because the difficulty of the skilll check for the TIEs to Gain the Advantage is not opposed by the skill of the pilot. But this is clearly not the better option unless the Gunners get lucky and grant mauneves to the pilot, which would mean the TIEs cannot use Evasive Action.

In neither of these two options does the YT's pilot skill come into play so any pilot can do this. It's all about Gunnery.

As to the YT Pilots skill not mattering in your example:

If the YT pilot manages to "Gain the Advantage" first, then he raises the difficulty for the Tie fighters by one… only a good pilot will reliably gain the advantage first.

If they instead manage to "Gain Advantage" then the Pilot will likely want to cancel that, which is a whopping 4 difficulty dice thanks to the speed of the tie fighters and them having the Advantage. Plus Setback dice, if it isn't a "skilled jockey" at the helm.

And if taking two evasive maneuvres by spending some strain actually stacks (don't remember right now), then there is even more incentive for wanting to "Gain Advantage" reliably as now we are usually talking about 3 upgrades to the difficulty that want to be cancelled.

I ran a session on Monday where the heroes headed to orbit and were chased by cloakshape fighters through the skyscrapers of Nar Shadaa and because of the traffic/buildings I implemented a piloting roll as per the rules for terrain in the beta book (page number escaped me) and I think that this needs to be taken into account when performing starship/vehicle maneuvres.  Because whilst a maneuvre might not need a roll, avoiding incoming traffic and obstacles certainly will.

Also, has anyone seen a crib sheet for starship maneuvres/actions as its a real pain flipping through the book and errata for this as its not used that often?

I did think that maneuvre/actions cards might be a good idea for this but i don't have the time/skill to put something like this together?

Try this one. https://dl.dropbox.com/u/9077657/SW-EotE-Reference-Sheets.pdf