Saga Edition Thread III: Saga Academy

[Gotham]

Speaking (4 pages ago) of tri-light scopes and love...

Is it possible to make a rifle shot at a distance of 120km using Saga rules?

If my math is right, that's 80,000 squares, isn't it? It's been a while since I checked my books (I came across this thread in preparation for a revamp of my Jedi Knight mega-adventure project), but is that kind of distance shooting even remotely feasible either in-system or in-setting?

The longest recorded sniper kill that was readily available (read: on Wikipedia) is ~2.5km, in 2009.

HK-47's Love Shot claims 48x that distance.

Now, obviously, plasma bolts don't have to worry about drag and wind (right?) and the various ballistic concerns of slugthrowers, but even so, is it possible to make a shot like that?

[Mando Knight]

Not within Saga's rules (Long range for a rifle is ~450 meters and hand-held Heavy weapons have a range of ~750 meters), and it's not even generally probable on a planetary surface, either... on an Earth-sized planet, the curvature means that you lose around a kilometer of height across a 120km shot, so you'd basically need to be on a mountain overlooking a massive desert plain in order to see the target... in a populated city-world, you can just forget it. And then there's the question of how much does the energy from the weapon dissipate through the air.

Of course, the long range for a rifle is also assuming you're simply taking the shot. Spending additional time with a spotter and calculating the variances to get a precision shot is outside the general rules of the game, but could be used to permit a shot outside the normal range of a weapon.

[LibraryOgre]

IOW, that's less sniping and more artillery fire.

[Sith_Happens]

on an Earth-sized planet, the curvature means that you lose around a kilometer of height across a 120km shot, so you'd basically need to be on a mountain overlooking a massive desert plain in order to see the target... in a populated city-world, you can just forget it.

Huh, I totally forgot about that being a thing you need to consider. In fact, I just double-checked and the distance to Earth's horizon at sea level is about 4.7 km. So yeah, you need to have a heck of a tall sniper perch before a 120 km sight-line even exists.

[Waar]

IOW, that's less sniping and more artillery fire.

Or even (very low) orbital bombardment.

[Gotham]

Wow, now I'm concerned from a non-mechanics standpoint.


How the heck would a shot like that even occur?

[LibraryOgre]

Huh, I totally forgot about that being a thing you need to consider. In fact, I just double-checked and the distance to Earth's horizon at sea level is about 4.7 km. So yeah, you need to have a heck of a tall sniper perch before a 120 km sight-line even exists.

That's why we have jetpacks, silly!

[Sith_Happens]

Wow, now I'm concerned from a non-mechanics standpoint.

How the heck would a shot like that even occur?

By being an assassin droid on a quest to find love, I thought we went over that part already.

[EasterlyOcean]

Hey, complete Segway, are multiple armed droid characters allowed and what are their mechanics? Forgive me if this has already been answered, if so, point me in the right direction

[Mando Knight]

"A droid can have any number of appendages, but this does not increase the number of actions or attacks the droid can make in a round." (Core, p. 190)

[Gotham]

Adding on to that, I don't think it's RAW, but looking at the Codru-Ji, who have 4 arms, if I were the GM and a player wanted four arms, I'd use the Codru-ji ability as my guideline: no extra attacks, but can wield two two-handed weapons.

Speaking of Snipers, I just saw the Long Range Spotter use of Perception. That'd be a fun two-person team. The spotter and the sniper, the face and the muscle, etc.

[EasterlyOcean]

Adding on to that, I don't think it's RAW, but looking at the Codru-Ji, who have 4 arms, if I were the GM and a player wanted four arms, I'd use the Codru-ji ability as my guideline: no extra attacks, but can wield two two-handed weapons.

Speaking of Snipers, I just saw the Long Range Spotter use of Perception. That'd be a fun two-person team. The spotter and the sniper, the face and the muscle, etc.

Thanks, that was the information I was more interested in. Kudos to all

[Alejandro]

That's why we have jetpacks, silly!

What if you set up some bizarre combo with those blaster sniping shot bouncing crystals? (I don't remember their exact name.)

Like, firing at one that's held way up in the air by a droid, then back down at your target? :D

[LibraryOgre]

What if you set up some bizarre combo with those blaster sniping shot bouncing crystals? (I don't remember their exact name.)

Like, firing at one that's held way up in the air by a droid, then back down at your target? :D

You wouldn't want all that to-hit bonus to go to waste, would you?

[Scowling Dragon]

I need help. Im GMing a Game, and my players had found a way to essentially get a large ship and a large amount of cash (Through being unethical bastards). I don't like to say "NO" just because the system can't handle it.

But point is the System cannot handle it because of a few things:

A: Installing Modifications. In a story where time is of the essence I like the idea of modifications requiring time. However the cost of installing modifications by default is ridiculous! And unfinished. There are prices for mechanics/ hour. But not the price of mechanic per day. But even lets say the workday is 10 hours a day for simplicity sake.

Thats still 2,000 per mechanic, per day of the installation. That quickly becomes many times the base cost of the part to be even installed!

B: Crewing ships. I found it a taxing exercise to develop and make personalities for 8 NPCs out of the blue (We check for survivors!). Im not GOING to develop around 50+ NPCs, but I need a decent system for pay VS Quality of the Crew person

C: Aid another makes the point of getting more skilled people very wobbly. Why hire a better mechanic, when I can just hire two bad ones at half the cost? Same goes for hiring better quality crew. There seems to be no good line or rule for the hiring of better crew VS worse crew when it comes to ships that the players are actually commanding.

D: Droids. Or in particular the PK Droid. Without solid definitions of what each individual droid can do (As well as maintenance cost and the like) and , the temptation to just buy a PK droid which only costs a 1,000 credits and just have a pilot, a mechanic and whatever else forever in a quick package for only 1000 credits as aposed to hiring and maintaining crew.


Now these all can be solved with houserules of some sort, but I want to make something stable to be of use for future encounters and scenarios to come.

Like even if I just slap the PK droid down and say it can't instal ship parts. Well what can it do then? Which things can it repair and which things can it not? And what about other droids? Would the ARK droid work? Exetera.

[Mando Knight]

A: Installing Modifications. In a story where time is of the essence I like the idea of modifications requiring time. However the cost of installing modifications by default is ridiculous! And unfinished. There are prices for mechanics/ hour. But not the price of mechanic per day. But even lets say the workday is 10 hours a day for simplicity sake.

Thats still 2,000 per mechanic, per day of the installation. That quickly becomes many times the base cost of the part to be even installed!

This is intended. Ever taken your car to the shop? Skilled labor is expensive.

B: Crewing ships. I found it a taxing exercise to develop and make personalities for 8 NPCs out of the blue (We check for survivors!). Im not GOING to develop around 50+ NPCs, but I need a decent system for pay VS Quality of the Crew person

Until you have a Lower Decks episode, all you need are the important guys: the chiefs on each shift in the duty roster, etc. The rest are grunts, and don't need details until it's necessary to get them. Scotty can work the transporter just as well as he can run Engineering, after all.

C: Aid another makes the point of getting more skilled people very wobbly. Why hire a better mechanic, when I can just hire two bad ones at half the cost? Same goes for hiring better quality crew. There seems to be no good line or rule for the hiring of better crew VS worse crew when it comes to ships that the players are actually commanding.

There's limitations on how many times you can apply Aid Another, though some of them are left entirely up to the GM. Only the Co-Pilot can Aid a Piloting check, and only Gunners, the Commander, and the Sensor Operator can Aid an Attack check (Core p. 170). The maximum work force for installing starship upgrades is 10x the minimum work force (SSotG p. 39), and the work force doesn't seem to apply an Aid Another bonus since the DC doesn't scale by ship size. A fast houserule stating that Aid Another for installing upgrades treats the minimum work force as a single unit, and a unit of workers can work toward either Aiding the check or speeding up the installation might be a fairly well-balanced rule.

D: Droids. Or in particular the PK Droid. Without solid definitions of what each individual droid can do (As well as maintenance cost and the like) and , the temptation to just buy a PK droid which only costs a 1,000 credits and just have a pilot, a mechanic and whatever else forever in a quick package for only 1000 credits as aposed to hiring and maintaining crew.

Cheap droids like the PKs often don't have heuristics packages (limiting their versatility if they aren't supervised), and could be more vulnerable to subversion than an organic crew. They also can't heal without being repaired.

[Scowling Dragon]

Well who cares about healing if they don't get into combat, and subversion submersion seems to have no mechanical difference.

Like again. Why not buy 10 PK droids for the cost that a SINGULAR use of a mechanic gives you, instead usable multiple times forever.

My point is its the winning strategy. And assuming they also just have a R2 Droid for supervision (Which they do):

It pretty much means that they are set forever.

And I repeat: I need a good skill VS Cost thing. And a reason to hire more skilled crew even if its more expensive.

[Jayngfet]

Saga player for the above game here.

The PK droids are being supervised by an NPC R2 unit. They're only really meant to get maintenance out of the way so player characters don't have to worry about it, or else cut down on ship installation time any time we need to slap on a new part. I wouldn't have bought so many of them(four) if I didn't need to basically completely overhaul a large ship as rapidly as possible. Because the time it takes to actually install new turbolasers, hyperdrives, ect, on a ship is ridiculous and I can't afford to just sit around in a starport for like three months.

Which is the real crux of the problem. The cost for hiring out a single mechanic per hour is basically the same as what an adventuring party is expected to make for like, a singular encounter. Even with line of credit a noble can only really afford like, one days mechanics at first level and maybe three by second. I may have a lot of ill-gotten gains now(and I mean REALLY ill gotten. The guy who skipped that session was both amazed we managed to amass one million credits that fast, and horrified at what we did to get it.), but sinking it back into the aforementioned overhaul will take up at least a solid third of that, and if you have a citadel cruiser you're obviously going to want quality fighters to dock to it, so that's half of it gone right there at bare minimum).

Since things quickly spiraled out of control from a few dudes on an old freighter to talks about fleet vs fleet battles or putting down money for entire squadrons of ships, I expect that entire million to be gone inside of like, a month. Maybe two.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go pull my hair out at how I'm supposed to take a bunch of cheap PK's and second hand ships and take on a super star destroyer backed up by an ungodly set of defenses.

[kreenlover]

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go pull my hair out at how I'm supposed to take a bunch of cheap PK's and second hand ships and take on a super star destroyer backed up by an ungodly set of defenses.

Remember what Arvel Crynyd did in Episode VI?
That. Do that.
All you need is exactly one A-Wing, enough money to install a cloaking device on it, and a foolhardy pilot.
Done and done.

[Krazzman]

@topic:
Ill gotten gains tend to produce quite some repercussions.
Sometimes a rules call is necessary for corner cases as yours. Maybe someone sells them faulty droids or they have some rebelling crewmembers or similar.

@solo campaigns
My personal problem is that the solo campaign still hasn't started.
The build is now for level 3.
human scout2/soldier 1.
feats force sensitivity, force training (surge battles trike and force grip) advanced melee prof and light armor prof. Still got one open (the one gained at level 3).
Talents acute senses and force pilot.
stats:
Str 18 dex 14 con 16 int 16 wis 14 ca 16 (out solo campaign array)
Equipment isn't really done yet as I don't know what weapon and armor I really want. Can't decide between vibro axe or sword or if armor or not. Can't afford any sort of ship currently.

[Scowling Dragon]

Well so far what I got was a small maintenance fee for Droids, combined with the fact that ones with basic processors will be needing support of smarter beings on a 1/4 basis. In addition Dumb droids can't install modifications that are nonstandard.

And Mechanics costs are reduced by a factor of 10.

All of this makes droid crews a longerm investment as apposed to a instantly better option.

[Jayngfet]

Question, are there any options for increasing a starfighters speed, outside of just tech specialist stuff?

It looks like I'm about to get into some sort of race and my speed is about 8 squares. I don't have the emplacement points to cram maneuvering jets onto the rust bucket, which is going to be another issue.

[Mando Knight]

Question, are there any options for increasing a starfighters speed, outside of just tech specialist stuff?

It looks like I'm about to get into some sort of race and my speed is about 8 squares. I don't have the emplacement points to cram maneuvering jets onto the rust bucket, which is going to be another issue.

8 squares on a Starfighter is top grade... the only way to get to 9 base speed is Superior Tech (Vehicles) on a 7-square fighter, and the only way to beat that is to use Tech Specialist/Superior Tech on the #1 outlier starfighter in the game, the TIE Defender and its 8-square move speed (both will get you to 10 squares if the GM consistently rounds down as per the usual WotC math).

You can push starfighters beyond this, however, by getting your Pilot modifier really high: it's a DC 25 Pilot check to improve your speed by +1 square for that turn, and you get an additional +1 square of movement by every 5 points you beat that DC. You can make the Improve Speed check either as a swift action while doing other things like shooting, or if you're only moving in a straight line it's a free action as part of All-Out Movement. A SLAM system is 2 emplacement points and boosts the Improve Speed check by +5, or +10 if you're using All-Out Movement.

If you're up against a TIE Defender with a SLAM and an Ace pilot... well, I'm sorry, but the game was rigged from the start.

[Jayngfet]

If you're up against a TIE Defender with a SLAM and an Ace pilot... well, I'm sorry, but the game was rigged from the start.

Well, given the GM is reading this thread now I probably wasn't before, but probably am now.

But that's what Destiny points are for I guess. Too bad I only have one. Eh, force points'll probably cover it.

[Alejandro]

Saga player for the above game here.

The PK droids are being supervised by an NPC R2 unit. They're only really meant to get maintenance out of the way so player characters don't have to worry about it, or else cut down on ship installation time any time we need to slap on a new part. I wouldn't have bought so many of them(four) if I didn't need to basically completely overhaul a large ship as rapidly as possible. Because the time it takes to actually install new turbolasers, hyperdrives, ect, on a ship is ridiculous and I can't afford to just sit around in a starport for like three months.

Which is the real crux of the problem. The cost for hiring out a single mechanic per hour is basically the same as what an adventuring party is expected to make for like, a singular encounter. Even with line of credit a noble can only really afford like, one days mechanics at first level and maybe three by second. I may have a lot of ill-gotten gains now(and I mean REALLY ill gotten. The guy who skipped that session was both amazed we managed to amass one million credits that fast, and horrified at what we did to get it.), but sinking it back into the aforementioned overhaul will take up at least a solid third of that, and if you have a citadel cruiser you're obviously going to want quality fighters to dock to it, so that's half of it gone right there at bare minimum).

Since things quickly spiraled out of control from a few dudes on an old freighter to talks about fleet vs fleet battles or putting down money for entire squadrons of ships, I expect that entire million to be gone inside of like, a month. Maybe two.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go pull my hair out at how I'm supposed to take a bunch of cheap PK's and second hand ships and take on a super star destroyer backed up by an ungodly set of defenses.

So were Dark Side Points earned, if it was that horrific?

Why invest a million credits into a starship/crew? Unless you really need them for some reason, of course. With that much, you could own eight decent light freighters, hire pilots to operate them in exchange for a cut, and have a whole small trading coster going. :)

[LibraryOgre]

I'd simply point out that a lot of NPCs can be replaced with droids. You might still want humans for some of the slots (weapons, for example), but you can probably slot a bunch of R2 units in shields and engineering, and then hire someone with great computer skills to be your Para Ventura.

[Scowling Dragon]

So were Dark Side Points earned, if it was that horrific?

Why invest a million credits into a starship/crew? Unless you really need them for some reason, of course. With that much, you could own eight decent light freighters, hire pilots to operate them in exchange for a cut, and have a whole small trading coster going. :)

He sold a array of Attack fighters to a clearly insane and unstable, Cyborg Superiority madman, who when asked questions, wouldn't reply and just added on another 100,000 in cash to the buying price.

The guy proceeded to have him and his crew go on a suicide bombing run over a hospital and school.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

...
Yes.
Dark Side Points.

[Alejandro]

...
Yes.
Dark Side Points.

Possibly enough DSPs to immediately make the PCs responsible NPCs.

[Krazzman]

I've got 3 questions:

1) Is there a statted out "Standard space ship"? Just something like a space RV. Just something with a small storage room, cockpit for 1 person (or 2 if a droid is allowed to do this), a kitchen and a sleeping room/cot.

2) Where can I find stuff about Tech specialist, since I can't seem to find anything in the books we own (Core, Jedi Acadamy, Force Unleashed, Rebellion Era, Clone Wars, Droids and galaxy at war).

3) Which of these feats are "better" for damage (or Survival) in a solo campaign? Rapid Strike, Power Attack, one of the Second Wind feats or Skill focus in anything (except UtF [will not take it yet, maybe at level 6).

Thanks in advance.