Edge of the Empire Book

STARSHIPS AND PERSONAL SCALE

lust because starships and vehicles generally

Joperate in planetary scale, this does not mean

the CM cannot have them operate in personal

scale. Two vehicles that are at close range to

each other can also be at medium range in per 7

sonal scale, or even engaged with each other

(two speeders pulled up next to each other is

a perfect example). The important thing to re-

member is that all of the personal range bands

exist within the close range band for planetary

scale. This can also be one of the rare cases

where it makes narrative sense that a starship

weapon with Blast such as proton torpedo

would hit multiple vehicles at once.

chassis, or the general spaceworthiness of a starfighter's
spaceframe are all measured by hull trauma thresh-
old. Like the wound threshold of a Player Character,
hull trauma threshold represents the amount of physi-
cal damage that a ship or vehicle can suffer before it is
either crippled or destroyed. Hull trauma threshold is
measured in planetary scale, meaning that one point of
hull trauma equals ten wounds on an individual.

SYSTEM STRAIN THRESHOLD

System strain threshold represents how well a ship or
vehicle's internal systems handle the workaday abuse
heaped on them by their owners and the galaxy at large.
It is an aggregate of the efficiency and status of com-
puter and navigation systems, engines and hyperspace
drives, power generators, and a host of other delicate
systems necessary to ensure peak performance. Once
a ship or vehicle suffers strain exceeding its system
strain characteristic, its systems begin overloading and
shutting down until they can be repaired or rebooted.
This negatively affects a vehicle's performance and can
even temporarily cripple it on occasion, causing larger
complications for its crew and passengers.
The factors that can cause a ship or vehicle to suffer
strain are numerous and varied. Most commonly, a
vehicle suffers strain due to the actions of its crew as
they push it to (or beyond) its breaking point. Pushing
sublight engines past their safe operating limits while
outrunning a pursuer or firing weapons until their bar-
rels glow are prime examples of this kind of strain. Ve-
hicles also suffer strain due to freak accidents caused
by excess <§), environmental hazards like rogue aster-
oids or ionized nebulae, or the effects of special weap-
ons such as ion cannons.
One difference between system strain and regular
strain is that system strain cannot be recovered by
spending O- It can only be restored through actions
taken by the crew, or it recovers one system strain for ev-
ery full day spent without suffering more system strain.

CUSTOMIZATION

HARD POINTS

Every starship and vehicle produced in the galaxy

is customizable to some degree. While many, like

starfighters and most military vessels, are built for

specific purposes and have very little room for modi-

fication, other civilian and commercial ships and ve-

hicles are designed to be modular for ease of person-

alization and customization. The majority of freighters

and transports fall squarely into this latter group,

with highly modular hulls that can be configured in

myriad ways to carry any kind of cargo imaginable.

To this end, all ships and vehicles have a number of

customization hard points that can be used to tweak

a vehicle's performance, characteristics, or armament

to suit the needs of its owners.

The number of customization hard points a ship or

vehicle possesses is determined more by its make

and model than by its size. A Firespray-class patrol

boat is relatively small yet easy to customize due to

its construction, while a massive, kilometer-long Im-

perial llcdass Star Destroyer has little to no custom-

ization potential despite its size, due to the special-

ized nature of its mission and design.

PROTECTION

To protect their passengers, crews, and precious car-

gos, ships and vehicles in the Star Wars galaxy use

a number of methods to avoid or deflect damage.

In general terms, a ship or vehicle's protection is an

ATMOSPHERIC AND SUBLIGHT SPEED

•lot all speeds are created equal in EDGE OF THE

IIEMPIRE. Speeds in atmosphere or on a plan-

et's surface are necessarily slower than equiva-

lent speeds in space, where there is no friction

or gravity working against a vessel's drives and

limiting its speed. For example, an airspeeder

with a speed of 4 traveling in atmosphere is

slower than a starship with a speed of 4 traveling

through space. In addition, starships with transat-

mospheric capabilities (typically anything of sil-

houette 5 or smaller) move at drastically lower

speeds in atmosphere, even though their speed

ratings stay the same. For example, a starfighter

moving at speed 5 in atmosphere is moving slow-

er than if it were traveling at speed 5 in space.

This is due to the fact that, while they can oper-

ate in atmosphere, most starships are not opti-

mized for it. Instead of having aerodynamic hulls

and wings with variable control surfaces, they

have to force their way through atmosphere us-

ing their ion drives and repulsorlift generators.