Giving and Receiving Damage in Space Ships

This is linked to the Combat#Space_Combat page. This is strictly for Space ship combat. To learn more about spaceships visit the Space Ships Page and Ship Equipment page.

This is for advanced Space Ship combat and different tactics such as Swam combat (When more then 1 ship is targeting the same ship), Specified Targeting (When a ship attempts to target a specific component of an enemy ship), as well as how range and size effects combat. Single Crew Fighters, Hacking, Counter Hacking, Drones, and Special Weapon attributes are also included.

Giving and Taking Damage

Ships do not have Hit Points (HP) instead they have Battle Damage. A ship can only take so much Battle Damage before it becomes crippled and disabled. The amount of Battle Damage a ship can take is determined by ship size. 0 thru 5. The Colossal has 5. Gargantuan and Huge have 4. Large and Medium have 3. Small and Tiny have 2. Diminutive has 1. Fine has 0. A ship can only take 1 Battle Damage per round of combat. Ships that start with 0 Battle Damage are destroyed (not disabled or crippled) when successfully hit. Most common are drones, escape pods, and some fighters. A ships Battle Damage Defense is called Battle Damage Difficulty Check or BD-DC.

During the Action Phase the Weapon's Officer may attempt to deal Battle Damage against 1 or more enemy ships. They can target as many ships as they have active weapon Hard Points. They do not need to do an accuracy check. The Sensor Officer can perform a Scan for Ship Weakness and if success provides a bonus for the Weapon's Officer but they do not need it to attempt to hit a target. If the enemy ship is clocked or in stealth and thus cannot be easily detected then the Sensor Officer's Scan also becomes an accuracy check.

A Weapon's Officer uses d10s to roll against a target's Battle Damage Difficulty Check or BD-DC. The default difficulty an attacking ship has to beat in order to deal Battle Damage is 4, 4. Or beat a 3, (roll 4 or higher) on at least 4 d10s.

A ship has Structure and Shields to improve its defense. Shields increase the number a d10 has to roll in order to count as a success. While Structure increases the number of d10s that have to be rolled successfully. A ship with +2 shields and +1 Structure would require an attack to roll at least 5 d10s with a 6 or higher to succeed at delivering Battle Damage. Likewise, a ship also has improvements to attack. A ship Sensors and Weapons. Sensors are the counter to Shields while Weapons is a counter to Structure. The sensor mod can be added to the d10s, if the Sensor Officer has done a successful Scan for Ship Weakness action against the target. The Weapons mod informs how many successful rolls can be rerolled for a chance at another success. Example: Sensor +1 would provide +1 to all d10s that are rolled. While Weapons +2 would mean that if there were d10s that were rolled with the success they could be rolled again up to 2 times to add more possible successes.

A Sensor Scan can have a critical success. In this instance, a successful d10 now counts twice. Critical also allows the Weapon’s officer to reroll 1s and 2s. If the Weapon’s officer already can re-roll this just adds to the range of numbers that can be re-rolled. If the Weapon’s officer rolls enough successful d10s to count for twice the BD-DC +1 then the ship automatically gets another Battle Damage. This is the exception to rule 5. The second battle damage is automatically considered a die roll of 7 for the Battle Damage die (more on that below). In a swarm situation where you are one of the multiple ships the critical still counts and is added with the die from other ships.

Whenever Battle Damage is received special effects may occur. Two d6s are rolled by the GM or by another willing player. This is called the Battle Damage Roll. The more likely a number is to be rolled the lower the DC to repair the damage. So 7 is the lowest possible DC. Some Battle Damage rolls cause side effects such as rocking a ship and causing characters to be dazed or exploding consoles.

Swarm Combat

Swarm rules apply when multiple ships share the same target. In a swarm, the attacking ships put their successful d10s into a Battle pool. Successful d10s now go into a d10 pool and if the total number of d10s beats the BD-DC the target ship receives Battle Damage. Ships of different sizes in a Battle Pool have restrictions on how dice go into a pool to account for the Size rules. Ships that are smaller have to subtract 1 successful d10 for every successful d10 the ship adds to the pool until their size penalty is spent. A Ship of bigger size gets to reroll 1 failed d10 for each successful d10 until there run out of size bonus.

A ship can perform Pilot maneuvers against the Swarm as a whole. However, the sensor scan is still only for one ship at a time and its bonus is applied to the Point Defense of the ship if it has one.

Specified Targeting

Specified Targeting is when a ship attempts to target a specific part of an enemy ship. For example, the ship's Cargo Bay, or its Engines. All ship attributes except Structure can be specifically targeted. All Hard Points can be targeted unless specified otherwise. Any ship Bay that has an external component such as a Docking Bay or Cargo Bay can be targeted.

Ship attributes ‘hit points’ is its Score. A ship attribute becomes disabled once its score reaches 5. If it reaches 0 it is completely destroyed and cannot be repaired in space.

Ship Hard Points, Bays have 8 hit points. They are disabled after losing all 8 hit points and are destroyed if they reach -8. Some things such as a Cargo bay have alternative effects. Such as blasting a hole in a docking bay to force your way in can also happen after all 8 hit points are gone.

When doing Specified Targeting the ship Structure doesn't count but Shields still do. Large size disadvantages also don’t count when doing specific targeting. (Small size disadvantages still do) Sensors are also automatic. An accuracy/sensor check can still be attempted to see if a Critical happens but it isn’t necessary for Sensors to be applied. Every successful d10 roll counts as one damage against the specific target. The maximum total damage anyone ship system can take per turn is 5 unless it is a critical hit in which case the max is 9. A Critical also provides an instant 1 point of damage and allows rerolls like a normal Crit.

Special Weapon Attributes

There are 4 different kinds of Ship Weapons. Kinetic, Laser, Rocket, Plasma.

Repairing Damage

During the Response Phase, the Engineer and Medical Officer can act. If the Engineer chooses to repair then they can choose to repair the effect caused by the Battle Damage or they can choose to repair the Battle Damage itself.

Repairing the Battle Damage takes two rounds where the Engineer works on the problem. If the Engineer stops to do other work then they have to start over again. The DC is determined by both the dice roll and the enemy’s Ships Weapons Mod + Weapon’s Officer’s Wisdom or Dexterity score (whichever they prefer). For example, a Battle Damage roll of 7 has a base DC of 7. So it would be 7 + Ship’s Weapons Mod + Weapon’s Officer’s Wis or Dex. Repairing the effect of Battle Damage is always a DC of 15.

Hacking

Hacking is a Ship function available in different levels of functionality to different Crew Positions. A Hack can also do Battle Damage. However, only 1 Battle Damage per combat can be caused by a Hack and it takes 3 rounds to deal the damage. Each round the enemy ship has the chance to defeat the hack forcing the Hacker to start over. Hacking can also deal damage to consoles or ship systems. Please review the Hacking page for more information.