Giving and Receiving Damage in Space Ships

This is linked to the 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 Space Ship combat and different tactics such as Swam combat (when more than 1 ship targets 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 affect combat. Single Crew Fighters, Hacking, Counter Hacking, Drones, and Special Weapon attributes are also included.

Summary:

• Battle Damage Difficulty Check: = Xd10s rolled Y or higher. X = 4 + Structure Mod, Y = 4 + Shields Mod.
• A successful Scan can add Ships Sensors to each d10 rolled during the Battle Damage Difficulty Check.
• The successful d10s of a BD-DC can be re-rolled up to the Ship's Weapons Modifier number of times.
• A Ship can only receive 1 Battle Damage per round unless a Critical or certain Battle Damage is given.

Giving and Taking Damage

Ships do not have Hit Points (HP); instead, they take 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 through 5. The 'Space Craft Sizes' table located here shows the max survivable Battle Damage. 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. The most common are drones, escape pods, and some fighters. A ship's Battle Damage Difficulty Check, or BD-DC, is what a Weapon's Officer needs to roll against to confirm a hit.

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. A Weapon's Officer uses d10s to roll against a target's Battle Damage Difficulty Check or BD-DC. The default roll for Battle Damage is 4, 4, ie, beat a 3 (roll 4 or higher) on at least 4 d10s. The number of d10s a Weapon's Officer is allowed to use is determined by the number of active weapon Hard Points committed to the attack.

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. Structure increases the number of d10s that must be rolled successfully. A ship with +1 Structure and +2 shields would require an attack to roll a BD-DC of 5,6 or 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's Sensors and Weapons. Sensors are the counter to Shields, while Weapons are a counter to Structure. The Sensor Modifier can be added to the result of each d10 rolled 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 d10 success. Example: Sensor +1 would add +1 to all d10 rolls. While Weapons +2 would mean that if there were d10s that were rolled with success, they could be rolled again up to 2 times to add more possible successes. That is not for each d10; a total of 2 re-rolls can happen. A successful re-roll still counts as a successful die and thus can be re-rolled again if the Weapon's Officer still has re-rolls left.

The Sensor Officer can perform a Scan for Ship Weakness on 1 target ship. If successful, this provides a bonus for the Weapon's Officer when attacking that ship. 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. So a Scan acts as both an Accuracy Check and a Scan for Weakness. If the Accuracy check fails, then the Weapon's Officer cannot attempt an attack against that target.

Criticals

A Sensor Scan can have a critical success, and the Weapon's Officer gains the following benefits when performing a BD-DC on the target of the successful Scan.

1. A successful d10 now counts twice.
2. Can now reroll 1s. If the Weapon’s officer can already re-roll 1s, this just adds to the range of numbers that can be re-rolled.
3. 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 with no bonus to the repair DC.

Battle Damage

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. Battle Damage can cause side effects such as rocking a ship, dazing characters, or exploding consoles.

Battle Damage takes 2 rounds to repair by the Engineer, while the side effects of Battle Damage can be repaired in 1 round. Please consult the Battle Damage Chart to determine what the Battle Damage repair DC will be and any side effects.

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, they have to start over. The DC is determined by both the dice roll and the enemy’s Ship's Weapons Mod + Weapon’s Officer’s Wisdom or Dexterity score (whichever they prefer). Repairing the Battle Damage also removes the side effect. All side effects happen after the Response Phase. So, for example, if the 2d6 Battle Damage Role results in an 8, which is a Blown Capacitor, the Weapon's officer has the chance to repair the capacitor before it blows a console. Or they can choose to focus on the Battle Damage itself and hope it doesn't do too much harm.

The Medical Officer can help heal wounded Officers, replace an incapacitated Officer, or negate negative effects.

Repairing damage to a specific ship system only requires a single check by the Engineer to fully restore it. The check DC is 12 + Damage Modifier. If it is a Hacker that did the same, it is DC12 + Hacker's Int Mod. If it were a Weapon system from a ship, it is DC12 + the enemy ship's Weapon's Mod.

Combined Targeting / Swarm Combat

Combined Targeting is when multiple ships target the same Ship in the hopes of beating its BD-DC. Each ship rolls as normal, including re-rolls, and then adds the total amount of successful d10s together. Ships of different sizes add to the total with restrictions on how many dice go into the pool. Pick the largest ship and add dice normally. Ships that are smaller must subtract 1 successful d10 for every successful d10 the ship adds to the pool, until their size penalty is spent. The penalty is -1 for each smaller size.

Swarm Combat

A Swarm is when a much larger ship is assailed by many smaller ones. To carry the part of a swarm, a Ship must be more than 2 sizes smaller than its target. A Swarm much have at least 4 total ship that qualify otherwise they are just doing Combined Targeting.

In a Swarm, the attacking ships have a Battle Pool. They add all their d10s into a single pool of dice to be rolled together. Just like with the size penalty, Swarms pick the largest ship among them to add normally, then subject the total number of d10s in their pool to the size difference penalty. For the Weapon's Mod bonus, the available re-rolls are equal to the Swarm's total ship count. For a Sensor Scan bonus to work, at least 1/2 of the total ships must make a successful Scan check.

A ship can perform Pilot maneuvers against the Swarm as a whole. However, the sensor scan still covers only one ship at a time, and its bonus applies to that ship's Point Defense 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 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 Attribute's ‘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. Blasting a hole in a docking bay to force your way in can also occur 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 any 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.

Flak / Point Defense

A ship can have a Point Defense system installed in one or more of its Hard Points. These are designed to counter missiles, drones, and ships 3 sizes or smaller. By default, Point Defense systems can launch 3 small missiles (relative to the ship) designed to counter fast, agile targets. If used to attack Drones or small ships, they are treated like normal weapons, except they can only target those enemies.

If used as Point Defense against incoming missiles, then whenever missiles are fired at the ship, roll 3 (or more, depending on the Point Defense Classification) d10s. Line up your highest roll with the enemy's highest roll. Only the number on the die counts, no bonuses from Sensors or other sources. If the die roll meets or exceeds the enemy missile's die roll, both missiles hit and are destroyed; otherwise, the point-defense missile is lost, and the enemy missile hits its target. This continues with your second-highest roll against the enemy's second-highest missile roll and so on.

A Point Defense system can only be used once per round. Special attributes or Crew functions can allow other Hard Points to be treated like Point defense; however, they only get to fire 1 shot (roll 1d10) instead of 3.

Attacking Swarms

The Ship simply targets the Swarm as a whole. The Swarm absorbs the successful d10s. Take the easiest BD-DC first. If multiple ships within the swarm have the same BD-DC, the Players in the swarm can decide which ship gets hit. If the firing ship has more d10s than it takes to deal Battle Damage to a ship, then it can spend those d10s on damaging another ship in the swarm.

Standard Weapons as Defense

If the Weapon's Officer has access to Advanced Functions, they can perform Defensive Fire, which allows them to utilize standard Weapons as point defense. If the Weapon's Office chooses to withhold using a Projectile, Laser, or Plasma Weapon Hardpoint to attack, they can instead use one of these to defend against incoming missiles. For each hardpoint, the Weapon's officer chooses to use as defense, they gain 1d10. However, each hardpoint takes a -2 to the die roll unless it is a Laser, which only takes a -1.

Note about Lasers

At Class 1 a laser can be used to both fire on an enemy ship and act as Point Defense. At Class 5, a Laser doesn't have a negative point.

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 cause damage to consoles or ship systems. Please review the Hacking page for more information.

Stealth

A Ship's size determines its Detection DC. However, a ship can attempt to be stealthy by disabling its shields and other systems. This is referred to as 'Silent Operations'. It's Stealth DC is Detection DC + Electronic Mods. This means a Ship's Shields are disabled. (It takes 1 round to turn them back on). It also means a ship cannot send out any signals or perform any scans of its own, just receive signals or messages. It also means a ship cannot use any Ship function that requires Engines. A Ship can still move, but only slowly.

A ship has Sensors. The Passive Sensors are 10 + Sensor Mod. A ship cannot target an enemy ship that it cannot passively detect. If that is the case, the Sensor Scan check now serves both as an Accuracy Check and a scan for weaknesses. If it fails, then the Weapon’s Officer cannot attempt to fire.

Ships can improve their Detection DC with Stealth modifications.

Distance in Combat

There are distances in combat. Short, Medium, Long, Huge, Vast, Astronomical. A ship from a Huge distance away gains a +2 to both Detection DC and Tracking DC. At Vast, the bonus is +5, and at Astronomical, it's +9. This means the targeting ship will need increasingly advanced sensors to hit ships at greater distances. The range is also limited by weapons, and this cannot be altered by the ship itself. For example, lasers have a max range of Long and simply cannot hit targets farther away.

Attempting to ‘close or widen the gap’ between the enemy vessel requires a successful pilot check. Also, different ranges may take longer. To switch between Short and Medium, or between Medium and Short, it takes just 1 turn. To Medium to Long or Long to Medium takes 1 turn. From Long to Huge or Huge to Long also takes 2 turns. From Huge to Vast or Vast to Huge, it takes 8 turns. From Vast to Astronomical or Astronomical to Vast, it takes 256 turns. (Basically, don’t do it without FTL.) Astronomical is considered to be roughly 1 AU in distance. FTL is not usable at distances of roughly 1 AU or less. And it is dangerous to use FTL to close the gap from Astronomical to something smaller. However, an FTL upgrade can make Vast and Astronomical jumps possible and safer.

Small Crewed Ships

On ships with only 1 or 2 crew members, such as a fighter hull configuration, there is no Captain. The pilot will have to choose which phase they want to act in. This will likely always be the Action Phase. Sensor/Accuracy is part of the pilot check. And the Pilot can also control weapons and thus roll for all. They can choose to instead perform a Science Officer action in the Support Phase or repair the ship as the Engineer in the Response Phase. In this situation, a buff provided by the Science Officer will follow over into the next round. And if the Pilot chooses to switch back to being a Pilot after a successful Engineer repair, they can switch back to the Engineer next round without restarting their repair, as long as they choose to continue repairing the same thing.