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  1. #1

    First Starship Combat Experience

    My group alternates weeks between a 5E and SF game. I'm the DM for the 5E game and I get to be a player in the SF game. Starfinder is a new game system to all of us, so we expected our first starship combat to run a little slow. Either we missed some stuff in FG or there doesn't appear to be much automation in starship combat? We are playing the first Dead Suns module and having a blast so far. We have had character to NPC combat a couple of times and didn't really have any issues there. However, we ran into some issues trying our first starship to starship combat.

    Please note: The issues we had might not be SF/FG issues, but may be centered more on our inexperience playing SF in FG. Some of the issues we encountered:

    1. We, the players, didn't seem to have any permissions to use the ship sheet. For instance, when we wanted to re-distribute our shields, the GM had to do everything. We could view the ship sheet, but couldn't make any changes to it.

    2. The players also could not move our ship on the space map. The GM had to move the token for us. (This might be a setting issue?)

    3. There didn't appear to be a way to to use alternative skills/stats for abilities in starship combat. For instance, I played the gunner and, if I'm understanding the rules correctly, I have the option to use my ranged weapon skill or my piloting skill to fire the weapons. My ranged skill gave me a +6 modifier while my piloting skill would have given me +11. I didn't see any way for me to tell FG that I wanted to use my piloting skill in lieu of my ranged combat skill. We ended up doing manual roles.

    4. When I tried to use FG to fire the weapons the first time, it kept saying the weapon was out of arc and wouldn't let me roll to hit. I was using a FA weapon and our target was 2 hexes directly in front of us. Not sure if that's a bug or I was doing something wrong, procedurally. We ended up rolling manually for the rest of the combat.

    In short, we ended up just doing many things manually.

    I know that SF is not currently supported by a full time developer/rule set developer right now so I'm not complaining about automation here. I'm really just looking for ways to make things easier on our group. Any help/ideas that can be offered would be greatly appreciated.

    This was just my own perception of some of the things that we struggled with. Some of our other players may chime in with some additional thoughts/hinderances.

    None of this took away from the game. We still had a fun time. It just took us a long time to work through.

    Thanks, in advance, for any insight/help you guys can offer.
    Currently DM for the 5E homebrew campaign, Sands of Al-Khemet (Sun, 9am-12pm EST) Alternating
    Currently play as Scrax, a Ysoki operative/gunslinger, in Starfinder's Dead Suns adventure path (Sun, 9am-12pm EST) Alternating

  2. #2
    Quote Originally Posted by JonStormbringer View Post
    My group alternates weeks between a 5E and SF game. I'm the DM for the 5E game and I get to be a player in the SF game. Starfinder is a new game system to all of us, so we expected our first starship combat to run a little slow. Either we missed some stuff in FG or there doesn't appear to be much automation in starship combat? We are playing the first Dead Suns module and having a blast so far. We have had character to NPC combat a couple of times and didn't really have any issues there. However, we ran into some issues trying our first starship to starship combat.

    Please note: The issues we had might not be SF/FG issues, but may be centered more on our inexperience playing SF in FG. Some of the issues we encountered:

    1. We, the players, didn't seem to have any permissions to use the ship sheet. For instance, when we wanted to re-distribute our shields, the GM had to do everything. We could view the ship sheet, but couldn't make any changes to it.

    2. The players also could not move our ship on the space map. The GM had to move the token for us. (This might be a setting issue?)

    3. There didn't appear to be a way to to use alternative skills/stats for abilities in starship combat. For instance, I played the gunner and, if I'm understanding the rules correctly, I have the option to use my ranged weapon skill or my piloting skill to fire the weapons. My ranged skill gave me a +6 modifier while my piloting skill would have given me +11. I didn't see any way for me to tell FG that I wanted to use my piloting skill in lieu of my ranged combat skill. We ended up doing manual roles.

    4. When I tried to use FG to fire the weapons the first time, it kept saying the weapon was out of arc and wouldn't let me roll to hit. I was using a FA weapon and our target was 2 hexes directly in front of us. Not sure if that's a bug or I was doing something wrong, procedurally. We ended up rolling manually for the rest of the combat.

    In short, we ended up just doing many things manually.

    I know that SF is not currently supported by a full time developer/rule set developer right now so I'm not complaining about automation here. I'm really just looking for ways to make things easier on our group. Any help/ideas that can be offered would be greatly appreciated.

    This was just my own perception of some of the things that we struggled with. Some of our other players may chime in with some additional thoughts/hinderances.

    None of this took away from the game. We still had a fun time. It just took us a long time to work through.

    Thanks, in advance, for any insight/help you guys can offer.
    Thank you for the feedback. I will try to answer each point.

    (1) and (2) unfortunately has to be done by the GM as only the owner of the record can perform those actions for the ship. Since no one player can be the single owner, the task lies with the GM till a better solution is found.
    (3) would be your gunnery skill which is calculated on the PC sheet in the ship actions tab. It checks for your BAB or piloting ranks and uses whichever is better. Gunnery does not use the ranged combat skill.
    (4) New implementation due to some new features introduced with Starship Operations Manual is a firing arc must be selected before firing. This will inform FG what arc you are attacking to check if the defender has deflection shields and will add the appropriate defense bonuses. Since it is a needed part of that feature, every attack needs to declare what arc it is firing.

    I hope this helps clear up a few things and I am sure others will chime in as well.
    Dominic Morta
    Ruleset Developer
    Smiteworks

    How to zip up your campaign if the Developers ask for it-How to zip up your campaign if the Developers ask for it

    How to provide an Unity Connection issue?-Connection Issues and What to Provide

    Unity Updater issue?-Updater Issues

    Classic and Unity Port Forwarding?-Fantasy Grounds Connections Explained

    Comcast or Cox ISP User?-Comcast XFinity and Cox Users

    Have a suggestion?-Feature Request

  3. #3
    So it should use piloting ranks, not total bonus. That explains a lot.

  4. #4
    This is the formula that is being used to calculate the bonus for gunnery.

    capture.png

    Minus the bonus from captain and and science officers bonuses and range penalty. Those would need to be added using the modifier box.
    Dominic Morta
    Ruleset Developer
    Smiteworks

    How to zip up your campaign if the Developers ask for it-How to zip up your campaign if the Developers ask for it

    How to provide an Unity Connection issue?-Connection Issues and What to Provide

    Unity Updater issue?-Updater Issues

    Classic and Unity Port Forwarding?-Fantasy Grounds Connections Explained

    Comcast or Cox ISP User?-Comcast XFinity and Cox Users

    Have a suggestion?-Feature Request

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by JonStormbringer View Post
    My group alternates weeks between a 5E and SF game. I'm the DM for the 5E game and I get to be a player in the SF game. Starfinder is a new game system to all of us, so we expected our first starship combat to run a little slow. Either we missed some stuff in FG or there doesn't appear to be much automation in starship combat? We are playing the first Dead Suns module and having a blast so far. We have had character to NPC combat a couple of times and didn't really have any issues there. However, we ran into some issues trying our first starship to starship combat.

    Please note: The issues we had might not be SF/FG issues, but may be centered more on our inexperience playing SF in FG. Some of the issues we encountered:

    1. We, the players, didn't seem to have any permissions to use the ship sheet. For instance, when we wanted to re-distribute our shields, the GM had to do everything. We could view the ship sheet, but couldn't make any changes to it.

    2. The players also could not move our ship on the space map. The GM had to move the token for us. (This might be a setting issue?)

    3. There didn't appear to be a way to to use alternative skills/stats for abilities in starship combat. For instance, I played the gunner and, if I'm understanding the rules correctly, I have the option to use my ranged weapon skill or my piloting skill to fire the weapons. My ranged skill gave me a +6 modifier while my piloting skill would have given me +11. I didn't see any way for me to tell FG that I wanted to use my piloting skill in lieu of my ranged combat skill. We ended up doing manual roles.

    4. When I tried to use FG to fire the weapons the first time, it kept saying the weapon was out of arc and wouldn't let me roll to hit. I was using a FA weapon and our target was 2 hexes directly in front of us. Not sure if that's a bug or I was doing something wrong, procedurally. We ended up rolling manually for the rest of the combat.

    In short, we ended up just doing many things manually.

    I know that SF is not currently supported by a full time developer/rule set developer right now so I'm not complaining about automation here. I'm really just looking for ways to make things easier on our group. Any help/ideas that can be offered would be greatly appreciated.

    This was just my own perception of some of the things that we struggled with. Some of our other players may chime in with some additional thoughts/hinderances.

    None of this took away from the game. We still had a fun time. It just took us a long time to work through.

    Thanks, in advance, for any insight/help you guys can offer.
    As for (2) if you are on FGU, if you enable party vision and movement, players can assist in moving the token. My comment was related to FGC use and apologize for not sharing this FGU tidbit.

    capture.png
    Dominic Morta
    Ruleset Developer
    Smiteworks

    How to zip up your campaign if the Developers ask for it-How to zip up your campaign if the Developers ask for it

    How to provide an Unity Connection issue?-Connection Issues and What to Provide

    Unity Updater issue?-Updater Issues

    Classic and Unity Port Forwarding?-Fantasy Grounds Connections Explained

    Comcast or Cox ISP User?-Comcast XFinity and Cox Users

    Have a suggestion?-Feature Request

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by superteddy57 View Post
    Thank you for the feedback. I will try to answer each point.

    (1) and (2) unfortunately has to be done by the GM as only the owner of the record can perform those actions for the ship. Since no one player can be the single owner, the task lies with the GM till a better solution is found.

    (3) would be your gunnery skill which is calculated on the PC sheet in the ship actions tab. It checks for your BAB or piloting ranks and uses whichever is better. Gunnery does not use the ranged combat skill.
    (4) New implementation due to some new features introduced with Starship Operations Manual is a firing arc must be selected before firing. This will inform FG what arc you are attacking to check if the defender has deflection shields and will add the appropriate defense bonuses. Since it is a needed part of that feature, every attack needs to declare what arc it is firing.

    I hope this helps clear up a few things and I am sure others will chime in as well.
    Superteddy57:

    Thanks very much for you time and your answers.

    (1) and (2) Maybe someday we can see a checkbox type permission where the GM selects who can read/write (edit) records. I'm not a programmer, but that seems like it would have applications across several rulesets. Of course, it might create too many headaches...
    (3) Thanks, this helped clarify how gunnery worked. We/I misunderstood the formula and ended up using our full pilot skills--it made me look pretty good as the gunner!
    (4) Okay, that explains that! So with a gun that's on a turret, do you still have to select an arc?

    Thanks again for your time and patience!
    Currently DM for the 5E homebrew campaign, Sands of Al-Khemet (Sun, 9am-12pm EST) Alternating
    Currently play as Scrax, a Ysoki operative/gunslinger, in Starfinder's Dead Suns adventure path (Sun, 9am-12pm EST) Alternating

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by superteddy57 View Post
    As for (2) if you are on FGU, if you enable party vision and movement, players can assist in moving the token. My comment was related to FGC use and apologize for not sharing this FGU tidbit.

    capture.png
    Cool, as we're using FGU, we'll make sure we have the setting correct for future space battles!
    Currently DM for the 5E homebrew campaign, Sands of Al-Khemet (Sun, 9am-12pm EST) Alternating
    Currently play as Scrax, a Ysoki operative/gunslinger, in Starfinder's Dead Suns adventure path (Sun, 9am-12pm EST) Alternating

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by JonStormbringer View Post
    Superteddy57:

    Thanks very much for you time and your answers.

    (1) and (2) Maybe someday we can see a checkbox type permission where the GM selects who can read/write (edit) records. I'm not a programmer, but that seems like it would have applications across several rulesets. Of course, it might create too many headaches...
    (3) Thanks, this helped clarify how gunnery worked. We/I misunderstood the formula and ended up using our full pilot skills--it made me look pretty good as the gunner!
    (4) Okay, that explains that! So with a gun that's on a turret, do you still have to select an arc?

    Thanks again for your time and patience!
    As for (4) the arc you would select would be the arc you are attempting to hit on the enemy ship. Where the weapon is located on your ship, has no bearing.
    Dominic Morta
    Ruleset Developer
    Smiteworks

    How to zip up your campaign if the Developers ask for it-How to zip up your campaign if the Developers ask for it

    How to provide an Unity Connection issue?-Connection Issues and What to Provide

    Unity Updater issue?-Updater Issues

    Classic and Unity Port Forwarding?-Fantasy Grounds Connections Explained

    Comcast or Cox ISP User?-Comcast XFinity and Cox Users

    Have a suggestion?-Feature Request

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by superteddy57 View Post
    Thank you for the feedback. I will try to answer each point.

    (1) and (2) unfortunately has to be done by the GM as only the owner of the record can perform those actions for the ship. Since no one player can be the single owner, the task lies with the GM till a better solution is found.
    (3) would be your gunnery skill which is calculated on the PC sheet in the ship actions tab. It checks for your BAB or piloting ranks and uses whichever is better. Gunnery does not use the ranged combat skill.
    (4) New implementation due to some new features introduced with Starship Operations Manual is a firing arc must be selected before firing. This will inform FG what arc you are attacking to check if the defender has deflection shields and will add the appropriate defense bonuses. Since it is a needed part of that feature, every attack needs to declare what arc it is firing.

    I hope this helps clear up a few things and I am sure others will chime in as well.
    ----------------------------------
    Thank you for your response to this. Clears up a lot. Also reinforces why I'm happy to keep supporting Fantasy Grounds...this level of responsiveness to the community is awesome!

  10. #10
    Hi superteddy57,

    I've also started using the new Starship combat with a new group and encountered some of these difficulties so thank you for helping to clear up!

    Another problem I'm having that I don't think was raised above was my PC starship is incorrectly setting the firing arc of the weapon mount (not the target arc which can be toggled). I.e. I made a small starship with a forward and aft light mount, put weapons into these, and then when using a player character sheet to fire the weapons I noted the PC gunnery actions were all saying the weapons were forward arc. As such things like "forward wrecked" status applied to all other arc mounts. This repeated on another larger ship.

    There didn't seem to be a way to manually change the arcs, or fix by resetting the sheet.

    Please see screenshot, (left is gunnery actions box from PC sheet, right is PC ship tactical weapons mount list). Note the arcs all have symbols pointing forward and not one forward and one aft.

    Any help appreciated!

    Screenshot 2021-07-16 230123.png

    Edit - I have CRB, AA, Armoury, SOM, COM modules loaded
    Last edited by Malexadeus; July 16th, 2021 at 23:14.

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