I'm just re-reading the starship combat section and, at least at first glance, the Glide action seems incredibly useful. Yes, it lowers speed and turn radius, but adding ranks in Piloting to AC and TL with no checks required (and thus no penalties for failed checks) seems quite handy. It's the only way to get bonuses to AC & TL above +2 (Evade, for example, is +2 and has a scaling DC with AC penalties if you fail the skill check). As I said, I may be missing something, but even with a trained Pilot I'm thinking it would often be worth just Gliding and taking the AC bonus for the first several rounds of combat (rather than a lot of fancy maneuvering to target or protect certain arcs).
You have missed the worst part about Glide, you are always moving first. That means the opponent always gets to react to how you moved.
Piloting initiative is a big thing in Starship battles.
As others point out, it really isn't a bonus to defense. It just allows you to keep the same defense you would have had if the Pilot took a normal crew action.
Ah, right--that's what I was forgetting (that Pilots automatically add their ranks to AC anyway). thanks everyone.
As others have noted, Glide is Fly but worse, for when you have no Pilot available.
I think Glide is underrated.
Some rounds, like if your (faster) ship is simply going to move away from their ship, then you can put your max Dex/max Piloting PC on guns. I've joked we should put our strongest guns on our rear and just keep running in a fast ship. That simple tactic (w/ nice long range weapons) would work well w/ Glide.
Also if your shields are balanced and your main guns are on turrets, then having your best gunner gunning instead of piloting might be best, especially if the enemy ship is also equally balanced. Then position matter less than outshooting.
Yes, this is more suited for smaller or imbalanced parties, but since options are chosen round-by-round, Glide is one to consider.
Glide causes you to move at half speed.
The enemy is most likely able to keep up. If they can, they keep facing you with a different shield while hitting you in the exact same shield.
Might want to rethink that strategy.
Glide is really a very punishing minor action. Snap shot is not nearly so punishing, but it does mean you only have 1 shot in a round. For some crews that's all they were going to have anyways, for others it's a big decrease in power.
Glide causes you to move at half speed.
The enemy is most likely able to keep up. If they can, they keep facing you with a different shield while hitting you in the exact same shield.
Might want to rethink that strategy.
Rethink the new strategy you invented which ignores what I said?
I suggested Glide as a round-to-round option to choose from (and then only for imbalanced or understaffed starships). You present an example where it's a strategy seeing extended use. Not the same thing.
In a best case scenario, the party has a high Dex primary gunner & high Dex pilot, so Glide would never be used. Not all ships are so lucky.
In perhaps every space combat I've been in, there have been rounds where positioning wasn't important, i.e. both sides have balanced shields & weapon placement or more typically are quite far apart. A ship with a suboptimal gunner might want to have their pilot do the shooting those rounds. And if that's the only PC with max ranks in piloting, they should Glide to keep the ship's stats up.
In practice, the AP starship battles have been ridiculously easy so our group (w/ a mediocre gunner) hasn't bothered and in SFS it seems there's no shortage of high Dex/max Pilot PCs. So there's that.