Star Wars: Edge of the Empire Rule Book

amalgam of its maneuverability, the durability of its
hull or chassis, the strength of its shields, and the
thickness of its armor. Some ships have obscure types
of protection such as focused gravity waves, clusters
of point defense laser cannons, or launchers full of
micro-missiles used to intercept incoming starfighters,
shuttles, and ordnance. Whatever form these protec-
tions take. EDGE OF THE EMPIRE divides them into two
discrete statistics: defense and armor.

DEFENSE

Defense reflects a ship or vehicle's ability to completely
deflect or reduce the damage of incoming attacks or col-
lisions through use of deflector shields, point defense
systems, raw speed, or other, more esoteric, technolo-
gies. This is a crucial protective system, and is the first
line of defense for the majority of space-going vessels
and even some ground vehicles. Defense works the same
as described on page 206; each point adds • to any
incoming attack roll made against a ship or vehicle. The
amount of T generated by the • added to the attack-
er's dice pool has the potential to greatly reduce or even
negate any damage from the attack or collision, and the
<§) generated also lessens the chance of critical hits.

SILHOUETTE AND DEFENSE ZONES

Ships (and those rare vehicles with defense) have a
number of defense zones dictated by their silhouette.
Anything with silhouette 4 or lower has two defense
zones: forward and aft. Ships with silhouette 5 or high-
er have four defense zones: forward, aft, port, and star-
board. Every ship comes with a pre-set defense rating
for each of its defense zones dictated by its computer
system and the factory settings of its shield generators.
The maximum amount of defense a ship or vehicle can
have in any of its defense zones is four points, regard-
less of its size. For example, the sturdy BTL-A4 Y-wing
attack starfighter has a silhouette of three and two de-
fense zones, forward and aft. The default setting of the

Y-wing's defense rating is one point of defense to the

forward zone, and one point aft.

Most types of defense, especially the common ray

and particle deflector shields found on the ships of

the majority of spacefaring species, can be assigned

or "angled" to different zones to shore up defense

where it's needed the most. This is done by re-routing

power from one zone to another, reducing the de-

fense at one part of the ship to bolster it somewhere

else. In the case of the Y-wing above, if it were being

pursued by a TIE fighter, the pilot could re-route pow-

er from the forward defense zone to the aft defense

zone, giving the Y-wing two points of defense aft and

none forward until the power is reset. The Y-wing adds

• •dice to the TIE fighter's attacks, but any attacks
  made against the forward defense zone suffer no •

Each ship and vehicle has a chart displaying its de-

fault shield settings by defense zone. For ships with

silhouette 4 and lower, this is represented by two

numbers, one for the forward zone and one for the aft

zone. For ships of silhouette 5 or higher with multiple

defense zones, this is represented by four numbers

indicating the forward zone, the port zone, the star-

board zone, and the aft zone.

ARMOR

Armor is a starships second line of defense, and the only

protection available to the majority of ground vehicles.

It soaks up damage from attacks and impacts that are

able to penetrate a ship's defense. The more passive of

the two types of protection, starship and vehicle armor is

made of a number of materials from common durasteel

to rare carbon composites and advanced polycarbonites.

Much like personal body armor worn by Player Charac-

ters, a ship or vehicle's armor soaks a number of damage

points equal to its rating. As it is based on planetary scale,

one point of a ship's armor is equivalent to ten points of

soak on a personal scale.

Starship and Vehicle Weapons

S

tarship and vehicle weapons range from

the light repeating blasters found on

speeder bikes to the massive turbolaser

batteries on the flanks of an Imperial Star

Destroyer. However, in EDGE OF THE EMPIRE,

every ship or vehicle-class weapon shares a

number of common characteristics. These

weapons are very similar to the weapons found

in Chapter V, with some noted differences.

• Range: This is the maximum range of the
  weapon. Starships and vehicles use a larger
  scale to measure ranges than personal scale.

STARSHIPS AND VEHICLES

EDCE OF THE EMPIRE