I was going to post this in another thread, but thought I might derail.
I have a pretty big problem with this right here:
"Each starship's pilot attempts a Piloting check. The pilot with the lowest result must move his starship first, followed by the next lowest, until all starships have been moved."
Now this sounds sort've like Star Wars X-Wing or other games with similar initiative systems - the faster pilot is able to react to the slower pilot. In X-Wing and similar type initiative systems, you most lowest to highest, but you then fire or act highest to lowest. Here, however:
"During the gunnery phase, gunners fire their starships' weapons. Starships fire in the same order in which their pilots acted during that round's helm phase"
This means that the Pilots with the higher Piloting skill will always act last, and that worse Pilots are acting first.
Is this really intended? I know it says that all damage is taken at once and doesn't apply until end of round, but that's still kinda weird and contrarian to every other check in the book - having a worse number here is arguably better, depending on the situation.
Since positioning matters a lot in Starship combat, being able to turn your guns to the enemy, or move out of one of your enemy's firing arcs, is a huge benefit.
EDIT: Haha, Ninja'd.
I'll admit I was expecting it to be "lowest move first/highest fire first" just like the OP. But, I guess they figure with the simultaneous damage rule, that would be an extra level of complication.
I'd actually have preferred the high/low switch, but no simultaneous damage. As a DM, it's much less complicated for me to deal with the damage as it happens, instead of saving all damage ramifications to the end of the round.
Really? I think it would be just as easy to do damage simultaneously. Just dont let ships die until the end of the round.
Ship combat works differently to regular combat. It sounds bad but it's not.
Ship combat works differently to regular combat. It sounds bad but it's not.
Well, not the alive/dead damage, but the critical system damage. But maybe that's not a big deal...I'll admit I haven't had much chance to fully digest everything yet.
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I actually had a similar thought, and until I playtest it a few times as written I'll hold off on houseruling.
But I think Movement Lowest to Highest, Shooting Highest to Lowest makes a bit more sense and might even let you take out a ship before they get a chance to pull the trigger (which is very in genre).
Also this :
"Attacks are made during the gunnery phase of combat, in the order determined during the helm phase, but the damage and critical damage effects are applied after all of the attacks have been made (meaning every starship gets to attack, even if it would be destroyed or crippled by an attack that happened during the same gunnery phase)."
So the order in which you fire doesn't mean much at all..
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Also this :
"Attacks are made during the gunnery phase of combat, in the order determined during the helm phase, but the damage and critical damage effects are applied after all of the attacks have been made (meaning every starship gets to attack, even if it would be destroyed or crippled by an attack that happened during the same gunnery phase)."
So the order in which you fire doesn't mean much at all..
Moreover, there is still the advantage of knowing what your enemy will do before firing. This isn't an issue in a 1 on 1 combat, where the ships will always fire at each other, but this is potentially significant if there are multiple ships on both sides. It might be a priority to target the strongest ship, or the ship which shows interest in your squishiest or most important ship.
Though counter-intuitive, it seems it really is better to fire in the same order that you move.
The other important benefit of firing last is having the chance to decide whether to shoot at a ship or a missile
I hadn't thought of that... and that is a big deal !