Captain's "Orders" and Gunner Actions


Rules Questions


Under Gunner Actions it notes that "Though each of a starship’s weapons can be fired only once per round, multiple gunners can take actions to fire different weapons in a single round".

Can a Captain's "Orders" supercede that "once per round" limitation?

The example I have before me is a Captain giving Orders to the Gunner to "Shoot" one weapon, and then "Broadside" with all weapons in one arc (which includes the weapon that was just used for "Shoot").

I'm of the mindset that no weapon can be fired more than once per round, but am open to seeing a different point of view. The counterpoint is that "Orders" seems less useful if you can't fire the same weapon twice.


No.

The only exception to the "weapons fire only once per round" rule is point defense weapons. Other people have brought up other things in the past to try to get around it.

Just because the Captain grants an action doesn't change the fact that the weapon cannot fire. It's the same as one gunner shooting, and another gunner broadsiding - the weapon cannot fire twice.

"Orders" has plenty of uses - this just isn't one of them.


I think orders is really only useful on the pilot isn't it?

The Exchange

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BigNorseWolf wrote:
I think orders is really only useful on the pilot isn't it?

Completely situational.

Greatly depends on the size of your crew. The smaller the crew, the more likely you are to give orders to someone other than the pilot.

If you're taking a lot of damage you may want to have the engineer divert and patch in the same round. You may want the science officer to rebalance shields and lock on to the biggest target. If you don't have many gunners, you may want to have the same gunner shoot an aft weapon at the ship tailing you while broadsiding the big target in front. Or just shoot twice so she isn't taking the Fire at Will penalties. Having the pilot able to stunt and Maneuver or Full Power in the same round is often useful.

Starship combat can break down into a solitaire game quite easily if one player continually comes up with a grand plan and tells everyone else what to do each round. Can be fun, especially if it's a group of friends and the captain has the plan. It can also be quite annoying when that one guy keeps trying to "play your character."


Belafon wrote:
Or just shoot twice

Orders actually forbids taking the same action twice, so even if you're firing different weapons, I don't think you can Shoot and Shoot.


GM Nefreet wrote:
Belafon wrote:
Or just shoot twice
Orders actually forbids taking the same action twice, so even if you're firing different weapons, I don't think you can Shoot and Shoot.

Correct, but the gunner could shoot and then be ordered to fire at will, or (depending on the gunner's level) broadside or precise targeting.


Indeed.


You'd need to have 2 ships then in different arcs (a ship is considered to be in one arc or the other for piloting)


If you have three guns facing you can fire at will, then the captain can direct you to shoot I suppose.

The Exchange

GM Nefreet wrote:
Belafon wrote:
Or just shoot twice
Orders actually forbids taking the same action twice, so even if you're firing different weapons, I don't think you can Shoot and Shoot.

You are correct. I got caught up in “can’t fire the same weapon twice” and missed that.


Hold on.

So you are telling me that the starship thrusters can move the ship twice as far as normal if the captain yells at the pilot well enough? (Fly and Maneuver both move the ship its speed)

But no matter how much the captain rants and throws a fit, he can't get a gunner to fire the same weapon twice.

In fact he can't get the gunner to fire two different weapons once (Shoot and Shoot would violate the 'not take the same action' clause).

But he could easily get the gunner to fire three different weapons (Shoot and Fire at Will).

* facepalm *


hard to spell kitty wrote:
So you are telling me that the starship thrusters can move the ship twice as far as normal if the captain yells at the pilot well enough? (Fly and Maneuver both move the ship its speed)

I'm not sure that's how that would work.

Sczarni

Guns have a built-in "cool down" before they can be fired again.

Makes sense to me.


BigNorseWolf wrote:
hard to spell kitty wrote:
So you are telling me that the starship thrusters can move the ship twice as far as normal if the captain yells at the pilot well enough? (Fly and Maneuver both move the ship its speed)
I'm not sure that's how that would work.

How else would it possibly work, as written?


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Nerdy Canuck wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
hard to spell kitty wrote:
So you are telling me that the starship thrusters can move the ship twice as far as normal if the captain yells at the pilot well enough? (Fly and Maneuver both move the ship its speed)
I'm not sure that's how that would work.
How else would it possibly work, as written?

That the ship flies once and you get two stunts.

Don't give me the rules is the raw. The ship isn't going twice as fast because the captain is yelling.


BigNorseWolf wrote:
Nerdy Canuck wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
hard to spell kitty wrote:
So you are telling me that the starship thrusters can move the ship twice as far as normal if the captain yells at the pilot well enough? (Fly and Maneuver both move the ship its speed)
I'm not sure that's how that would work.
How else would it possibly work, as written?

That the ship flies once and you get two stunts.

Don't give me the rules is the raw. The ship isn't going twice as fast because the captain is yelling.

But that's not at all how its written. It's not an unreasonable ruling, but, it's not RAW.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Nerdy Canuck wrote:


But that's not at all how its written. It's not an unreasonable ruling, but, it's not RAW.

I don't care.

When you have a persnickity raw forum, let me know. This however is the rules forum and there is more to the rules than the raw. Much less the "Raw" you get when you duct tape two different things together that really aren't supposed to go together.

Fly is you just fly

Stunt is you fly and you do a stunt and it doesn't USUALLY interfere with your flying.


BigNorseWolf wrote:
Nerdy Canuck wrote:


But that's not at all how its written. It's not an unreasonable ruling, but, it's not RAW.

I don't care.

When you have a persnickity raw forum, let me know. This however is the rules forum and there is more to the rules than the raw. Much less the "Raw" you get when you duct tape two different things together that really aren't supposed to go together.

Fly is you just fly

Stunt is you fly and you do a stunt and it doesn't USUALLY interfere with your flying.

Honestly, seems like the equivalent of an Envoy granting a bonus move action to me.


Nerdy Canuck wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Nerdy Canuck wrote:


But that's not at all how its written. It's not an unreasonable ruling, but, it's not RAW.

I don't care.

When you have a persnickity raw forum, let me know. This however is the rules forum and there is more to the rules than the raw. Much less the "Raw" you get when you duct tape two different things together that really aren't supposed to go together.

Fly is you just fly

Stunt is you fly and you do a stunt and it doesn't USUALLY interfere with your flying.

Honestly, seems like the equivalent of an Envoy granting a bonus move action to me.

do ships have adrenaline

or mental inhibitors preventing maximum effort


Yeah. This seems to be a place where reason and logic need to take precedence over the rules.

If we are going with a more loose interpretation of the rules (houserules), I would change the Orders action to instead let a character take any one additional action that could be taken by an additional player. The skill check would need to be done at the beginning of the round before the engineering phase.

That removes the restriction requiring the second action to be of the same role that the character was already in. So a pilot could also take a gunnery action for example. (More useful in low player count games)

It also removes the option to take two piloting actions, since if there is already one pilot, a second player couldn't take piloting actions.

And it allows a gunner to shoot two weapons at full attack bonus since a second player could take the controls of a second weapon.

It still wouldn't allow shooting the same weapon twice. There are several in-game explanations of why that doesn't work. The cool down that Nefreet was talking about is one. My personal explanation is that it takes a round's worth of time to line up the shot. You could easily fire the weapon multiple times, but you have a 0.000% chance of hitting anything with additional shootings.


Xenocrat wrote:
Nerdy Canuck wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Nerdy Canuck wrote:


But that's not at all how its written. It's not an unreasonable ruling, but, it's not RAW.

I don't care.

When you have a persnickity raw forum, let me know. This however is the rules forum and there is more to the rules than the raw. Much less the "Raw" you get when you duct tape two different things together that really aren't supposed to go together.

Fly is you just fly

Stunt is you fly and you do a stunt and it doesn't USUALLY interfere with your flying.

Honestly, seems like the equivalent of an Envoy granting a bonus move action to me.

do ships have adrenaline

or mental inhibitors preventing maximum effort

I imagine they have some equivalent of pushing the engine past the red line.


Nerdy Canuck wrote:
Xenocrat wrote:
Nerdy Canuck wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Nerdy Canuck wrote:


But that's not at all how its written. It's not an unreasonable ruling, but, it's not RAW.

I don't care.

When you have a persnickity raw forum, let me know. This however is the rules forum and there is more to the rules than the raw. Much less the "Raw" you get when you duct tape two different things together that really aren't supposed to go together.

Fly is you just fly

Stunt is you fly and you do a stunt and it doesn't USUALLY interfere with your flying.

Honestly, seems like the equivalent of an Envoy granting a bonus move action to me.

do ships have adrenaline

or mental inhibitors preventing maximum effort

I imagine they have some equivalent of pushing the engine past the red line.

Why can that only be done if someone else tells you in a super encouraging way.

Sczarni

Only the captain had the clearance password.


Xenocrat wrote:
Nerdy Canuck wrote:
Xenocrat wrote:
Nerdy Canuck wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Nerdy Canuck wrote:


But that's not at all how its written. It's not an unreasonable ruling, but, it's not RAW.

I don't care.

When you have a persnickity raw forum, let me know. This however is the rules forum and there is more to the rules than the raw. Much less the "Raw" you get when you duct tape two different things together that really aren't supposed to go together.

Fly is you just fly

Stunt is you fly and you do a stunt and it doesn't USUALLY interfere with your flying.

Honestly, seems like the equivalent of an Envoy granting a bonus move action to me.

do ships have adrenaline

or mental inhibitors preventing maximum effort

I imagine they have some equivalent of pushing the engine past the red line.
Why can that only be done if someone else tells you in a super encouraging way.

Why can anything only be done when someone else tells you in a super encouraging way?

Sovereign Court

Nerdy Canuck wrote:
Why can anything only be done when someone else tells you in a super encouraging way?

Entire industries (consulting, motivational speaking) are built on the assumption of that being true.


Ascalaphus wrote:
Nerdy Canuck wrote:
Why can anything only be done when someone else tells you in a super encouraging way?
Entire industries (consulting, motivational speaking) are built on the assumption of that being true.

My point being, the mechanical function of "face" abilities granting actions can fall apart fast if you look at it too hard. The level of scrutiny applied should be consistent, at least.


Xenocrat wrote:
Nerdy Canuck wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Nerdy Canuck wrote:


But that's not at all how its written. It's not an unreasonable ruling, but, it's not RAW.

I don't care.

When you have a persnickity raw forum, let me know. This however is the rules forum and there is more to the rules than the raw. Much less the "Raw" you get when you duct tape two different things together that really aren't supposed to go together.

Fly is you just fly

Stunt is you fly and you do a stunt and it doesn't USUALLY interfere with your flying.

Honestly, seems like the equivalent of an Envoy granting a bonus move action to me.

do ships have adrenaline

or mental inhibitors preventing maximum effort

If they are properly designed, they certainly do. Its called "redlining the systems" and "overriding the safeties".


Metaphysician wrote:
Xenocrat wrote:
Nerdy Canuck wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Nerdy Canuck wrote:


But that's not at all how its written. It's not an unreasonable ruling, but, it's not RAW.

I don't care.

When you have a persnickity raw forum, let me know. This however is the rules forum and there is more to the rules than the raw. Much less the "Raw" you get when you duct tape two different things together that really aren't supposed to go together.

Fly is you just fly

Stunt is you fly and you do a stunt and it doesn't USUALLY interfere with your flying.

Honestly, seems like the equivalent of an Envoy granting a bonus move action to me.

do ships have adrenaline

or mental inhibitors preventing maximum effort

If they are properly designed, they certainly do. Its called "redlining the systems" and "overriding the safeties".

can they only be activated by someone who is super encouraged by a high level character

aren’t they captured by the 1.5 speed pilot action

why aren’t you better at this


As for why it can only be done when a Captain of sufficient level orders it? Well, strictly speaking, it can't *only* be done that way. However, it can only be done *to meaningfully useful effect* when a Captain of sufficient level orders it, because only with that degree of attention and experience and situational oversight can you judge when its both safe and effective to red line the systems. Without a Captain watching the situation ( both in terms of enemy action and their own ship's status ), overloading a system is only going to do anything useful by chance. Which is to say, it might be the story description of what a nat 20 on a skill check means. . . but its just as valid a descriptor for a 10 ( "I overloaded, but it was mostly wasted" ) or 1 ( "Well damn, the system temporarily burned out from my abuse!" ).


cool

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