1.3: The Combat System

This combat system is designed for small numbers of ships per side, between one and six. More than that and we recommend looking into the optional squadron combat rules presented later.

We also recommend using a large hex sheet to keep track of facing and range with respect to all vessels. These can be obtained at your local hobby shop or through a variety of Roleplaying products, including West End Games's Star Warriors board game. It also comes with counters that are easy to use, although the Star Destroyer counters are far too large for the scale of the map.

Facing

Capital ships, like starfighters, have four facings. Front, left, right, and aft. As capital ships generally have weapons that can only fire in one arc, facing is very important. Equally a reason, shields do not work quite the same way for capital ships as for starfighters. With heavier engines and power plants as well as numerous shield operators on capital ships, ray shielding can be placed over every arc simultaneously. This means that each facing's shield is independent of another's.

Movement

Capital ships should not use the movement system given in the rulebook. They exist in the vacuum of space and propulsion is used solely to accelerate or decelerate. As such, the Move rating is the number of units a ship can accelerate or decelerate in a turn. There is no limit to the top velocity, but in combat speeds tend to be rather low so that contact may be maintained with the enemy rather than blasting past. At high velocities that there is little time to exchange fire. While this strategy has been used successfully many times throughout history, it is generally considered to be a wasteful method of attack as it consumes large amounts of fuel and has little chance of inflicting damage. Naval tradition holds that if fleets are seeking to engage one another, the defender will maintain an orbit and the other will maneuver to intercept so that their velocities are similar enough to engage.

Write the current velocity in the space provided on the record sheet. This will change from turn to turn so make sure to write it in pencil. The current velocity also determines the ability of the ship to turn. Divide the current velocity (in units), by the ship's current Maneuverability die code. The result is the number of units the ship must move before being able to make a 30 degree turn (hex face to hex point on a hex map). This is the turn number of the ship. Write it in the appropriate space on the template.

Evasion requires random acceleration. To effectively evade, a pilot must use up to 4 points from the ship's move stat to evade. Each point used for evasion allows the pilot to keep 1/4th of the evasion roll. If there are additional move points used that turn for acceleration or deceleration, it counts as a separate action and die codes should be reduced accordingly.

For example, the pilot of a Corvette uses 5 of the ship's 6 move this turn. 3 are used to keep 3/4 of the dodge roll while the other 2 are used to try to accelerate out of range of the Star Destroyer in hot pursuit. The pilot's Capital Ship Piloting skill is reduced by -1D for the evasion because he is accelerating along a certain vector while also trying to evade -- 2 actions. The evasion roll is multiplied by 3/4 to reflect the fact that only 3 moves were dedicated to evasion.

Note that this makes it impossible to dodge without an active maneuvering drive and also makes it impossible to dodge with the Loronar FSCV. It is also correspondingly very difficult to dodge with most bulk frighters and container ships.

To Capital Ship Combat?.
To Ship Templates.
To Capital Ship Combat Sequence.