Fire

Fire is a Function of crew members. To learn about other functions, go to the Space Ship Functions section of the Space Ships page.

Description

Firing on an enemy ship requires rolling a Battle Damage Difficulty Check (BD-DC), and it is against a target ship's Battle Damage Defense. This requires rolling d10s. The default Battle Damage Defense is 4,4, or 4d10s that meet or beat a 4. Below are the rules for making a BD-DC check and it's results.

Battle Damage Defense Check (BD-DC):

• The total number of d10s the Player of the Weapon's Officer Character can roll is equal to the total number of active attacking Hard Points on the ship. This is called a Battle Pool and consists of only d10s.
• The Weapon's Officer can attack multiple targets per turn, but they have to divide up the Hard Points between ships.
• Before d10s in a Battle Pool are re-rolled, the Weapon's Officer can choose one d10 that has failed and boost it with their chosen Ability Modifier (by default it is Dex, and if they have the Spaceship Weapons Officer Feat they can choose from Dex/Wis/Int modifiers) to bring the d10 to a success. However, a d10 that has been boosted this way cannot be chosen for a re-roll. A weapon's officer cannot boost the same d10 as a Sensor Officer and must let the Sensor Officer go first if they have that option.
• A Weapon's Officer can re-roll successful d10s. IE; if the d10 lands on a 4 or higher by default, this is a success. The total number of re-rolls per turn is equal to the Ship's Weapon's Attribute Modifier.
• A d10 that lands on a success can keep being re-rolled as long as it keeps being successful and the Player hasn't run out of re-rolls for that round.
• The Weapon's Officer may get to add a bonus to each of their d10s gained by another Player doing the Scan Function successfully or some other attribute. The Scan applies to only 1 target ship.
• A Weapon's Officer can only target a Ship that the Ship can see on Sensors. If it cannot be detected, the Comms/Sesnor Officer must have a successful Scan on a target for the Weapon's Officer to be able to fire on.
• If more than one ship is targeting an Enemy vessel, then they create a Battle Pool of d10s and share their re-rolls. Success is determined by the total of the combined Battle Pool.

Ship's Battle Damage Defense:

• Battle Damage Defense can increase from the default 4,4 based on the target's defensive Attributes. Structure increases the total number of d10s that must be rolled successfully, while Shields increase the number of the Die that counts as a success. A Ship is a Structure of 12 (+1) and Shields of 14 (+2) would have a Battle Damage Defense of 5,6.

Critical Success on a BD-DC:

• By default, a target vessel can only receive 1 Battle Damage per round from Weapon fire. With the exception of a Critical Success. A Critical on a BD-DC happens when the following two things occur:

1. When the Sensor Officer has a Critical Success on a Scan of a target.
2. When the Weapon Officer's Battle Pool has a number of successful d10s that exceeds two times the total required number for a successful hit.

• When a Sensor Officer has a Critical Success, this allows the Weapon Officer a few special features. They may re-roll any d10 in their Battle Pool that are 1s, and all Successful d10s count twice.

Battle Damage on a successful BD-DC:

• A target vessel can only receive one Battle Damage per turn from direct Weapon fire. Unless in the case of Critical Success.
• The Weapon's Officer rolls for the type of Damage received on the target ship using 2d6 and following the Battle Damage Chart.

Learn more about Giving and Receiving Damage by visiting the Giving and Receiving Damage in Space Ships page.

Things to note:

• The Weapon's officer can choose to target a specific ship system instead of the ship as a whole. Learn more about that here.
• 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 targets a smaller ship, it requires fewer d10s; if it targets a larger ship, it requires more d10s.
• When multiple ships have the same target, this is called Swarm tactics. Learn more about that here.
• By default, a Weapon's Officer can fire on any enemy ship that their ship can see passively. However, if an enemy Ship's Detection DC is higher than the Ship's Passive Sensors, then a Scan becomes a requirement. In this case, treat a Sensor Scan as an Accuracy Check. If successful, the Weapon's Officer can target the Ship and apply the Sensor bonus.
• There are 4 primary types of Weapons: Kinetic, Laser, Rocket, Plasma. Each has 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 associated d10. 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. To learn more, visit the Ship Equipment page.