I'm looking forward to trying out the new ground combat system, but was wondering about the different damage types.

Currently, there's no difference in damage against different target types between Physical and Energy. Well, Energy (P) to be precise. Will they perform differently when additional target types are added, or will they have other distinguishing factors, such as Energy Shields blocking Energy and Riot Shields blocking Physical, or affecting success rates for Jedi using lightsabers to deflect incoming shots?

On a related note, the C-M Frag Storm being Physical makes sense as it's a slugthrowing shotgun of sorts, firing durasteel pellets or flechettes (or whatever you RP loading into it). The ELG-3A, however, is a standard blaster canonically. Granted, it's had Physical damage listed on the rules page for as long as I can remember, but our SWC version isn't a slugthrower, is it? I suppose it would only matter for RP purposes at the moment, but it would make a significant difference.


And finally, when an attacker rolls a critical hit, the rules specify that the damage will always be 1.5 times the maximum damage, but is this 1.5 times the base max damage or the max damage after the (1+Skill/10) modifier has been tacked on?

Crit is 1.5 times your max damage, after the skill modifier has been applied.

Damage types currently have no effect. They may eventually be more effective against certain armours or entities, and at that point modifications to weapons' damage types will be considered, as there are some damage types missing or underrepresented in some weapon categories that could be imbalancing. At this stage, damage types have not been reviewed at all for weapons so they can be considered placeholder and not necessarily accurate. However, the final outcome might not be entirely accurate to canon stats for weapons, either, if adjustments need to be made to preserve game balance to ensure that damage types are reasonably represented. No way to know just yet.

Until concrete information is released on the rules, though, everything pertaining to damage types is still subject to change. The current plan is for something to be implemented, though.