Fire
Fire is a Function of crew members. To learn about other functions go the Space Ship Functions section of the Space Ships page.
Description
Firing on the target requires rolling d10s. The number of d10s is determined by how many active weapon hard points are being used. The roll must beat the targets Battle Damage Defense. By default this is 4, 4 or 4 d10s that meet or beat a 4. The target's Battle Damage Defense can change based on its defensive capabilities. If the Sensor/Communications Officer has used Scan successfully on the target this round then the Weapon's officer can add the ship's Sensor Modifier to each d10. The Weapon's officer may re-roll successful d10s up to the Ship Weapon's Modifier number of times. If a d10 is re-rolled and it shows as a failure it cannot be re-rolled again regardless of how many re-rolls are left. Only successful d10s can be re-rolled.
A target vessel normally can take only 1 Battle Damage per round. The exception to this is critical hits. Critical hits are possible when the Sensor Officer has a critical success. In this instance, a successful d10 now counts twice. Critical also allows the Weapon’s officer to re-roll 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. The second battle damage is automatically considered a die roll of 7 for the Battle Damage die. In a swarm situation where you are one of multiple ships the critical still counts and is added with the die from other ships.
Things to note:
- A Weapon's officer may divide up there Weapon Hard points between different targets so to attempt to deal damage to multiple targets in one round. However, the Sensor Officer can only scan one ship at a time and thus the Sensor bonus only applies to one ship a turn.
- The Weapon's officer can choose to target a specific ship system instead of the ship as a whole. When targeting specific ship functions the ship Structure doesn't count but Shields still do. Large size disadvantages also don’t count when doing specific targeting. 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.
- A ship that is larger or smaller has an effect on the Battle Damage Defense. For every ship size in-between the ship sizes of the firing and target ship there is a + or - modification to the number of successful d10s that are necessary to do battle damage. If your ship is targeting a ship smaller then it requires less d10s and if the target ship is larger it requires more d10s.
- They can choose to target a ship that other ally ships are targeting this doesn't cause more battle damage. This is considered Swarm tactics and in Swarm tactics a Battle Pool is used as the finial say if the ship receives battle damage this turn. Ships within a swarm have to follow the size modification rules differently. Ships that are smaller have to subtract 1 successful d10 for every successful d10 the ship adds to the pool until there size penalty is spent. A Ship of bigger size gets to add 1 failed d10 for each successful d10 until there run out of size bonus.
- Example: A Gargantuan ship is targeting a Medium ship in a swarm. The Gargantuan ship rolls 5 successful d10s and 4 failures. It has a size bonus of +2. It was able to add 2 of the 4 failure die in with the 5 successful d10s to the Battle pool. If it only had 1 failure then it could only add 1 die despite having a bonus of +2. If it only had 1 successful d10 it again could only add its size bonus once.
- Example: A Diminutive ship is targeting a Medium ship in a swarm. The Diminutive ship has a size penalty of -2. It rolls 3 successes and zero failures. The ship only adds 1 die to the pool. For each die added one must be subtracted to pay for the size penalty. 1 die is added from the 3 leaving only 2 left. 1 is then paid too the size penalty leaving only 1 left. It cannot be added to the pool because there is no other successful d10s to pay the penalty.
- Normally a Weapon's officer can fire on a ship regardless if the Sensor's succeed. However, if the enemy ship's detection DC is higher then the Passive Sensors of the Ship then the Weapon's officer can only fire if the Scan is successful at detecting the enemy ship.
- There are 4 primary types of Weapons: Kinetic, Laser, Rocket, Plasma. They each have different ranges and special aspects. Kinetic by default provides no bonuses but has unlimited range. Lasers have a max range of Long and provide a +1 to the d10 that is associated with it. Rockets are highly customizable but are expensive and extremely large so a ship can only carry a few. A hard point isn’t also a cargo bay so those big rockets have to go somewhere. Plasma provides the ability to re-roll 1s. (Master crafted Plasma weapons do not enhance this ability.) Plasma though is short range.