Vehicle NPC driver

[MikeRPG]

Hi,

When I assign an NPC record to 'pilot' to an NPC vehicle, and put that vehicle in the combat tracker, the vehicle's combat 'to hit' roll always applies an 'unskilled' roll (d4-2), it does not the NPC 'shooting' skill (but it *does* link the NPC shooting skill to the vehicle weapon, so if the attack hits, it correctly applies the vehicle's weapon damage).

If i click instead into the NPC record sheet, and use the 'Shooting' skill from there, it uses the NPC shooting skill correctly, but does not link it to any vehicle or weapon. (So the attack roll is correctly made now, but does not link to any target or vehicle weapon).

This issue does not happen when a PC/ party record is linked to a vehicle - that all links up and works fine. The issue is only when NPC records are put in charge of the vehicle.

Can this be fixed please?

thanks!

[Arsilon]

I just tried it and it seems to work fine. What setting and/or mods do you have enabled?

[Mike Serfass]

In addition to Arsilon's question, and to clarify:
When you drop the NPC into the pilot position, do the weapon attack dice change to match the NPC's shooting die?
When you double click the attack die on the vehicle, does it roll unskilled instead of the displayed die?
Did you verify that the NPC has Shooting?
If you're using the SFC extension with missiles or torpedoes, it uses Electronics.
Are there any other characters assigned to the weapons?
Have you tried dropping a character (even the pilot) into a weapon slot?

Rolling the Shooting (or Fighting or Athletics) skill doesn't apply to any weapon, ever. There's no way to know what weapon it should apply to, or if it's a raw skill roll. No matter what the PC / NPC is assigned to.

Screenshots help, as do videos.

[MikeRPG]

So,

all mods/extensions disabled, it is just the raw SWADE module loaded.
I have taken screenshots of all settings, attached

1.png2.png3.png

I have just set up a new 'test' combat; straight from the basic module;


I will answer Mike Serfass' questions as soon as I can - thanks guys!

[MikeRPG]

Haha.... I had no idea I was supposed to assign an NPC/ PC to each weapon :-D I think it is probably as simple as that.

I am only having problems with NPC setups, PC assignments seem to work fine. I'm away at the moment but I will give everything a really good test just as soon as I can, it seems to work from a really quick try.


Thanks guys!

[Arsilon]

You don't have to assign an NPC to each weapon. But if you don't the weapons will use whatever the Pilot's relevant combat skill is for that weapon, eg Shooting.

If you drag the pilot to the pilot 'seat' you should see the piloting die change to whatever the Pilot's skill is (depending on the vehicle type and what type it requires).

You should also see the die next to each of the mounted weapons also change to whatever the pilot's combat (shooting?) skill is.

And Yes, you could also then drag other NPC's to the specific weapon.

In my games, when I don't necessarily care that "Sam" is mounting Gun 1, "Bob" is mounting Gun 2 and "Harry" is driving, I just make a generic "Crew" NPC that has all the right skills and just have them act however many times as there are crew members -- to keep the CT simple, I usually just name the NPC whatever the name of the Vehicle is.

(In space combat in my games, you only shoot the ship...some crew may get injured in the process, but you're not aiming to shoot the driver off the front of the stagecoach for instance so it doesn't matter as much)

[Mike Serfass]

I figured out how to reproduce this bug.
I will fix it over this weekend.
As a workaround, add crew to the vehicle before adding the vehicle to the combat tracker.

[MikeRPG]

Thanks Mike. Sorry I haven't had a chance to give further info yet, am still away on hols.

To clarify: I am always using the correct NPC skill (shooting/ driving/ etc) - that should not be an issue so can be discounted. Yes, the combat die are changing correctly to the NPC skill die,

For interest, I have been trying to just add vehicles only to the combat tracker, and prefer not to add the NPC crew as well, to try to avoid cluttering the CT. Is this right, or am I supposed to add the NPC crews too?

A 5-tank battle would become 10 items on the CT (and that's just assuming 1 crew per tank)

Look forward to the update - thanks so much!

[MikeRPG]

OK, so let me see if I can illustrate where I am now;

I want to make two NPC vehicles in combat against each other; a SU-28 (flown by Pilot **), and a T- 72 (driven by Tank Driver ##). To do this, I do the following;

1. I create a copy of both 'vanilla' vehicles from the SWADE core module,
2. I make a new NPC crew for each vehicle (both have Shooting 12 skill)
3. I assign each crew to each vehicle
4. I assign each vehicle weapon to each crew
5. I add both vehicles to the combat tracker (but not the NPC crew)

This is all in the attached screenshot. All skills show correctly on the CT (Shooting d12 for both, and Driving/ Piloting at d10/ d8 respectively. All good.)

Now, to start the combat;
First (red boxes), the T-37 shoots its medium MG. Fantasy Grounds rolls 1d4-2, although shooting skill d12 is (correctly) shown.
Attachment 61714

From earlier testing, if it had hit, the damage would be correctly applied and everything works as it should. The only issue is the 'unskilled' stat being applied.

If I switch instead to using the crew NPC block (blue boxes), it uses the correct skill (d12), but does not target the SU-27. (I presume this is cos the NPC is not on the combat tracker, and has not targeted the SU, so the system does not know who the NPC is targeting).

I'm particularly interested if my setup in steps 1-5 is correct, or if there is a more correct way? If there is any advice online on how to set up for NPCs, I haven't been able to find it, so am pretty much stumbling in the dark here.

Thanks!

[Jiminimonka]

This is fixed in Tuesdays update.