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Technology Updates
Star Wars: The First Sith will bring us back in time by about 5,000 years from Dawn of the Republic, so many of you are naturally wondering: does that mean technology moves back in time too? The answer is yes… and no.
The First Sith kicks off after nearly a hundred years of war, with much of the galaxy suffering a severe depression. There won't be much technological innovation going on. We still have blasters, hyperspace, ships, and everything else we're used to in Star Wars. There will also be some much more ancient technology around, which we'll get into in a bit.
The age of large warships has passed. Empires with fleets of formidable Star Destroyers are no more. Only a few powers have a limited number of cruisers that they doggedly held onto throughout the war, which they now use to zealously guard their remaining assets. Current economics cannont, or are unwilling to, sustain standing navies of large warships. This is not to say star systems have no defensive capabilities, just that they have simply lost the taste (and bank accounts) for massive fleet engagements.
What else will you need to know about The First Sith tech?
Armor
Our current rules for armor are working out really well, so we're keeping them with the addition of some balances to better define armor structure and to bring different styles of play into greater viability. However, there will be a major adjustment. Instead of submitting armor for approval, there will be a sizable list of pre-approved functions. Pick the functions you want, put the profile in your character sheet, and go role-play. Note that there may be some combinations of pre-approved functions that are over-powered and we reserve the right to say no to them if we see them. This would be things like two flamethrowers and two shoulder-mounted rockets, amongst other combinations.
There will also be a second tier of functions. These restricted functions are not openly available to anyone. To obtain armor with these functions, you'll have to earn it through a reasonable plot. These will be the functions that are the cream of the crop, so to speak, things that separate the famous bounty hunters from the average footsoldier. This list includes jump packs and most wrist-mounted weapons, to name a few. They can also be given out as a reward for particularly exemplary RP, though don't expect that to be the case all the time. Or you could steal it from a character's corpse if that's how you roll.
Naval Combat
Naval combat isn't going to change too much, but we will be defining much more clearly what ships are capable of and their various functions such as shields, weapon types, communications, etc. This should alleviate problems with vague or ill-defined functionality. That being said, we don't expect to see much beyond dogfights in the beginning of the timeline.
Ancient Tech
Ancient technology will be present, to an extent. Most modern Star Wars technologies will be in existence and have swiftly replaced ancient technologies. There are a few notable examples worth mentioning.
The first are pulse-wave cannons. They used to be more reliable than current blaster technology (which had a habit of exploding in your hand), but blasters have become much more reliable now. However, heavy blaster weaponry does not exist, which allows for pulse-wave cannons to still have a role in combat as they are the heavy weapons of the era. More details will be released along with the complete updated rules.
The second technology of note is Hypergates. Hyperspace travel is the method of travel that 100% of the galaxy uses. Hypergates are relics of a long-passed era. All Hypergates in the Core and Inner Rim have been scrapped for materials long ago. The only existing ones in the Outer Rim and beyond are dormant. for all intents and purposes, they are objects of curiosity. Museum pieces. The Gree homeworld is long lost. The knowledge of how to work hypergates is forgotten, and it is certainly impossible to build a new one. Still, for those smart and enterprising enough, a Hypergate may one day be reactivated, providing a near-instantaneous portal to somewhere clear across the galaxy.
This announcement is by no means comprehensive, and we will have more information as we roll out full technology rules, but these are some of the biggest and most intriguing windows into technology for The First Sith.
Let us know if you have any questions!
