Greinar

Space Combat

2-feb-2007

Space combat is handled much the same as regular ranged combat. You have a couple of ships or more shooting each other, trying to penetrate the hull plating. When that is done you can start to tear down the ship itself.

Players

There are several key players in space combat. With the exception of the Pilot and the gunner, these positions are all optional.

Pilot

Does the actual flying, can use his skills to improve AC and hit modifier as well as MC and skill checks for others in the crew.

Gunner

The gunners have “Vehicle Based Weapons” ability and fire the actual missiles and turrets. They use their own HN without Agi modifiers. Their ability does not allow them better initiative or ROF, it just gives them a hit bonus.

Navigator

This person can also be the pilot (at decreased capability). The Navigator plots a course for the pilot in the fight and can also improve AC and hit modifier a few rounds into the future. The navigator might also be able to hasten reaction times, giving an initiative bonus.

Engineer

The engineers can conduct repairs while in combat using Automatic Hull Repair units, which are becoming more and more popular. They can also tweak the engine to give temporary increase in speed or MC.

Sensor Operator

The sensor operator can enhance the ship’s sensors to give gunners a bonus to hit, the pilot a bonus to skills. He can also interfere with the enemy’s sensors using the ships sensors in order to give them a penalty to skills and to hit.

Communications Operator

When several ships are fighting together the Comms Operator can synchronize them using the ship’s combat-linking systems to give an advantage to some or all of the ships in form of to-hit bonus, skill bonus, initiative modifier or even AC. He can also disrupt such operations by the enemy.

Combat coordinator

The CC can direct the gunners where to fire and using his Combat Tactics skill, can grant a bonus to hit and an initiative bonus in the Shooting and Missile phases.

For larger ships you will need more people with each skill in order to gain an advantage. For destroyers, for example, there are whole teams of Sensor Operators.

Important Skills

The important skills for space combat are the following:

Pilot – Fly the ship

Navigate – Plot a course

Engineer – Tweak and maintain the engine

Combat Tactics – Call out targets

Operate Sensors – Jam enemy’s sensors

Manoeuvrability Class

MC is determined by the size and quality of the ship. An MC of 0 means that no bonuses are given. For each MC point the AC is decreased by 1, initiative modifier by 1 and the pilot gets +10% to his Pilot checks.

Small fighters typically have an MC of 3

The combat round

In each combat round you throw 1d10 to determine who goes first. The only modifiers to this roll are MC and any skill-based Initiative bonuses.

The ship with the lowest number goes first, etc.

The round is split up into three phases:

Movement phase

The ships can manoeuvre around the hex map at their combat velocity. There are some reasons for not always being at full speed in combat that we’ll go through later.

All the ships complete movement before going into the next phase. The ships with the lowest initiative score can reserve any one of their movement points until after the other ships has completed moving, to counteract movement on their part.

Below you can see a typical movement phase where all three ships have speed 3 and A does before B who does before C. A decided to hold off on 1 point, as does B. After the final ships moves the other ships move in reverse order.

Ship A – 2pt -> Ship B – 2pts -> Ship C – 3pt -> Ship B – 1pt -> Ship A – 1pt

Shooting phase

The ships fire their beam and projectile weapons. The ships with the lowest initiative score can decide when they fire their weapons in respect to those ships which scored worse.

Missile phase

In the final stage of the round missiles are fired, or more accurately, they hit their targets in the same order as the ships initiative rolls.

Damage

The objective in space combat is to cause damage and each ship has Hull Plating to absorb that damage. Before you can start to damage the ship itself you have to make it through their Hull Plates.

Typically a ship will have Armour Plating score equal to their VEP, but that is not always the case as additional Armour Plating can be purchased.

The combat is usually determined by who gets through the Armour plating before, because once that has been exhausted you start to damage the ship itself.

You cannot decide to attack certain areas of a ship until its Armour plating is gone, but after the plating is gone it cannot be repaired until after the combat has finished.

Once you’ve punched through the AP you can target specific systems or shoot randomly as per the table below. Each module has their own Hull Points akin to the Armour plating and a hit percentage rolled on a 1d20. This is thrown after a successful hit once Armour plating has been exhausted.

Module	Hull Points	Chance	Called Shot
Hull	2 x VEP	1-10	-
Engine	1.5 x VEP	11-14	-5
Life Support	1 x VEP	15-16	-8
Controls	½ x VEP	17	-12
Sensors&Comms	½ x VEP	18	-12
Weapon	VEP / 100 * WS	19	-15
Your Choice	-	20	-

This means that in order to obliterate a ship by shooting out its hull you need to shoot out VEP x 3. The ship starts to break apart long before that however, and when a module is at 50% its performance degrades very quickly:

Hull

75%: Compartments start to leak to space. Some crew might be blown out. -2 to hit.

50%: A lot of compartments open to space. -4 to hit. -25% to pilot

25%: Almost all compartments open to space. -6 to hit. -50% to pilot.

0%: The ship either blows up or is torn apart.

Engine

75%: Ship cannot enter NLS or Foldspace.

50%: -1 to speed. -25% to engineering checks involving combat

25%: -3 to speed. -50% to engineering checks involving combat

0%: Engine destroyed. 10% chance of ship exploding. Engineer can roll against.

Life Support

75%: Can only maintain 75% of maximum crew

50%: Can only maintain 50% of maximum crew

25%: Can only maintain 25% of maximum crew. Artificial Gravity breaks down

0%: No air, no heat, no radiation shielding, no lights, no life

Controls

75%: -25% to pilot and navigate, -2 to hit and 2 initiative penalty

50%: -50% to pilot and navigate, -5 to hit and 5 initiative penalty, MC receives a -1 penalty

25%: -100% to pilot and navigate, -8 to hit and 8 initiative penalty, MC receives a -2 penalty

0%: Ship is out of control, and cannot manoeuvre, travels in a straight line in the same direction as it was when it was shot. -10 to hit and 10 initiative penalty.

Sensors & Comms

75%: -20% to pilot and navigate, all communications lost

50%: -40% to pilot and navigate, -3 to hit and 3 initiative penalty, MC receives a -1 penalty

25%: -60% to pilot and navigate, -5 to hit and 5 initiative penalty, MC receives a -2 penalty

0%: Only way to fly is by looking out your windows. -120% to Pilot, -14 to hit, MC receives a -5 penalty

Weapon

50%: -10 to hit

0%: Weapon destroyed

If cumulative damage (after Armour Plating) has exceeded 3xVEP the ship is regarded as if it’s Hull was at 0%, no matter where the damage hit.

Weapons

There are 4 different weapon groups: Beam Weapons, Projectile Weapons, Missiles and Rockets. Each of these have their own pros and cons and it’s often best to mix between these.

Beam Weapons

Pros

• High firing rate

• Does not require ammo

• Low Initiative

• Do first in round

Cons

• Affected by Deflection Shields

• Not very long range

• Damage reduction for longer ranges

Missiles

Pros

• Massive damage

• Long Range

Cons

• Low firing rate

• Missile phase is last in round

• Affected by Missile Shields, which are common

• Requires Ammo

Rockets

Pros

• High firing rate

• No long range

• Unaffected by Active Defence

Cons

• To-Hit penalties

• Low damage

• Requires Ammo

Projectile Weapons

Pros

• High firing rate

• Longer range than rockets

• Unaffected by Active Defence

Cons

• To-Hit penalties

• Low damage

• Requires Ammo

Manoeuvrability Class

The MC of the ship can give bonus to initiative, pilot checks and AC. The MC can range from 0 (worst) to 5 (best). In very unique circumstances the MC might be higher.

Weapon Range

The range of weapons is split into four categories. Minimum, Short, Medium and Long. Not all weapons have a Minimum range, but mostly only very large weapons. In short range there is no to-hit penalty. For Medium Range it is -4 and for Long Range there is a -8 modifier to hit.

For Beam Weapons there is also a 10% damage reduction for medium and a 25% damage reduction for long range so beam weapons do 75% damage for long range.

Active Protection

There are three types of active protection: Deflection Shields, Missile Shields and Armour Repair Systems. Only the high-end ships have any kind of active protection.

The Class or Strength of each type of protection ranges from 0 (worst) to 5 (best). For the shields, each class adds a -1 bonus to AC against the specified weapons group. Rockets and projectile weapons cannot be countered using active shielding. At class 5, there is a -5 AC bonus.

The ARS (*chuckle*) can repair the ship’s armour plating and nothing else. It can repair up to 20% of the armour plating per class, meaning that a class 5 ARS can repair all your original armour plating points before needing in-dock refitting itself essentially giving you twice the amount of armour points.

However, repairing takes time and you aren’t guaranteed to make the repairs before the Armour Plating is depleted. Once the Armour Plating is reduced to 0 points the ARS cannot be used to repair it in the combat,

ARS can repair up to 5% of its full capacity per round.

These active protection units function just fine on their own, but when used by a knowledgeable person they can become much more efficient.

A crew member using Operate Sensors can add a bonus to the AC for deflection shields.

For each difficulty of the check starting with -1 at normal difficulty. (normal: -1 / tricky: -2 / difficult: -3 / Hard: -4 / Very Hard: -5 / Impossible: -6). This means that a shield with field strength 1 can reduce the AC by as much as 6 if the sensor officer makes an impossible check.

The same thing applies for Missile Shields, except that Operate Comms is used instead.

For each shield class past 1 the checks get easier, so shield class 2 has a -2 bonus for a normal check (-4 all in all), etc.

For the best (extremely rare) shields of class 5 you can modify it to deliver a total AC reduction of -15 with an impossible roll. This comes from a base modifier of -5 and -10 because of the skill roll.

The player must declare what type of roll is made beforehand and the results are used either for 1 or 2 rounds or throughout the entire battle according to the GM’s call.

Repair Mechanical is used to make ARS more efficient. It can both increase the rate of repair by 1% per skill roll difficulty, subject to the same rules as above, as well as increase the total efficiency by 5% per roll not modified by the rules above (however, more difficult checks increase this by 5% per, to 30% at impossible).

These rolls are usually made before the battle begins and remain in effect throughout the battle.

After the total efficiency has been determined by a skill roll that number is the ARS protection in the battle and once the battle is over the remaining ARS is determined by removing the added efficiency points again.

Example: You are in a ship with 1000 armour plating points. You have an ARS class 3, giving you 60% repair efficiency at 3% per round. This translates to 600 AP’s with 30 AP’s repaired each round.

You succeed a normal skill check giving you 3% increase in repair rate (up two categories because of class), up to 6% which is 60 AP’s per round.

You also succeed a difficult skill check giving +15% efficiency which puts the efficiency up to 75% which is 750 AP’s.

Now, before the battle began your ARS had already lost 100 points, so your total ARS AP is 650 points.

Once the battle is complete, if your ARS was not depleted then you take off the 15% again as 150 AP’s.

Nonnib · 2. Feb 2007