how is system strain applied to minion starships?

New Zombie said:

Three points:

1. As far as I know, there are no rules for minion starships.  Maybe I missed that, though.
2. Minions don't suffer strain, it just becomes wound damage, so I don't see why it minion starships would be different: Strain becomes Hull damage.  Additionally, Minions cannot voluntarily suffer strain (pg 195-6), so these minion starships couldn't voluntarily suffer system strain.
3. Minions defeated are incapacitated or killed at the GM's discretion when their wound threshold is exceeded (top of pg 196).  So if you take out a minion starship with "strain damage", it should be the GM's discretion if it is destroyed or disabled.

/Shrug It's all made up anyway.  Do what feels right.

-WJL

thanks LD

i should have prefaced my question with some background. i've only got the beginner box, which has a specific enounter with minion Tie fighters. i guess strickly speaking it is minon Tie pilots in Tie fighters. they list the Tie Fighters as having system strain.

i think you are likely right and that the system strain is listed so that the Tie Fighters can be used as nemesis level adversaries in further adventures created by the GM 

New Zombie said:

Okay, yes, that does put it in some perspective.

And, wow, minion starships, huh?

So all I have to work from is the Beta text, and it's not covered in there.  My speculation is that we have one of the following situations:

• You're totally right, and you have all the info you need to 'upgrade' the TIEs to Nemeses.
• There are/will be new minion starship rules in the full text or supplements, which allow them to take strain damage somehow.
• There are/will be new minion rules in the full text or supplements, which allow all minions to take strain damage somehow.
• It's a typo/oversight in that set, and minion starships shouldn't have strain
• They consider the pilots the minions, and separate from the TIEs, meaning the TIEs follow all the normal starship rules (and starships do take system strain damage), but the pilots in the TIEs act as a group, with the TIEs as their weapons.  Like a group of Stormtroopers and blaster rifles.

You know, that last one seems the most convulted logically, but may actually be closest to the mark.  I think I may recommend you post that question on the Beginner's Box forum and see what the players there have to say.  It may have already been asked and answered.

-WJL

PS Crap, now I'm intrigued by that damn box…

LethalDose said:

LethalDose said:

The "rules" such as they are, were in one of the weekly updates. They are pretty vague however, and make no mention of system strain. As you've done, it'd be reasonable to assume they follow the same rules as normal minions - i.e.: can't voluntarily suffer strain and treat non-voluntary strain as hull damage.

New Zombie said:

I'll disagree with you there.  I did get in on the Beta, and think the beginner box is well worth the investment, and not just for the dice.

(Of course, as often as LD and I agree on things, I may have just killed his interest by saying that.  )

@gribble

You're absolutely right.  I either missed that or forgot I read it at some point.  I'd err towards the former, since I haven't been very interested in the starship combat beyond a few posts.  Anyway, as you point out the rules are pretty sparse, so its really dealer's choice: You choose either way (minions do or don't take strain damage) and you'd probably be justified.  

System-Strain-becomes-hull is a simpler method vs Hull-and-strain-as-normal is more 'accurate'.  In the latter situation, I would apply all damage, hull & system strain, to a single minion first.  IIRC, this is basically how the WotC rules handled squadrons: all damaged piled on the first ship, then the next, and so on.  Maybe give the group a single strain pool for voluntarily taking actions that cause voluntary system strain, to give them the chance to pull a tricky maneuver as a flight (group of craft) ONCE during an encounter, just to add some threat.  But that may get more complicated than you want.

@Voice

I don't disagree with people on principle, but rather on their statements/posts.  The problem is that many times, the two are pretty damn correlated.  

As for the box, the value of it to me seems rather moot, since it looks like most sources are either out of stock or selling for above MSRP, which I despise.  I do get that when you factor in that the dice are going to cost ~ $15 anyway, the $20-25 price tag that most online sources would charge is pretty reasonable considering all the bits and bobbins it provides.  It's less valuable for me though because I have, approximately, 1.6 metric f***tons of the old WotC plastic minis, and its been only on the exceptionaly rare occassion that I couldn't find an appropriate mini for a character, PC or NPC.

Overall, I think I'm sticking to my original plan: Save my dollars now buy the book, the dice, probably the GM kit.  I've got no problem giving patronage to the publishers if its a good quality product, but on a grad student salary, cash is finite.

-WJL

LethalDose said:

Ouch.  Above MSRP?  It must be selling even better than I had expected it to for retailers to pull that in this economy.  But still, that's nuts.

Ahh, yes.  The minis.  My collection is only 4' tall, because I gave up on keeping them neatly organized, and just put them in the drawers by era.

Voice said:

Yeah, same thing happened with the Beta book.  And Netrunner at GenCon.  And actually Space Alert (until it got reprinted) and it's expansion.  People bought them, waited for supply to evaporate, and then sold at a profit.  

Really d-bag move that I find incredibly distasteful, since it's gamers taking advantage of other gamers in a community that really should value fair play.

-WJL