1.3.3: Capital Ship Damage

Capital ships are much larger and more durable than their smaller brethren. They are meant to house at least dozens of crewmembers in the harsh environment of space for an extended period of time. They are well armored and compartmentalized. It takes a lot of damage before a capital ship is destroyed, so therefore there are Hull Points and Shield Points. A ship has one Shield Point for each pip of shields it possesses on a given arc. Hull Points have been discussed earlier and are representative of the bulk of the ship and the structural integrity. While a bulk freighter may be large, it is relatively weak skinned, requiring a moderate number of shots to destroy.

A Corellian Corvette, 150 meters long, 4D hull and 2D shields requires 19 points of damage to destroy. In comparison, the Rin Assid Bulk Hauler, at 350 meters long, 3D Hull and 1D shields requires at a minimum 15 points of damage to destroy.

Damage is determined by a simple formula. The amount the damage beats the combined Hull/Shields roll divided by five equals the number of points of damage the ship takes, throwing away any remainder.

 Damage Points = (DR - (H+S))/5

Damage points remove one hull or shield point each. Damage is assessed against shields in the appropriate arc first, then against the hull itself. Ships can save their shields by rolling along their axis, although this usually disorients the crew severely as most terrestrial species are not accustomed to having ships at random orientations. In fact, the attacking squadron customarily aligns itself to match the defending squadron. If one side could find a species at home in zero gee conditions, they would be at a significant psychological advantage.

For example, a Mon Calamari cruiser hits an Imperial Corellian Corvette with 12 Turbolaser Batteries. The batteries do 4D damage and the to-Hit/Damage modifier is 2D+1. 6D+1 is rolled against the corvette's 6D Hull+Shields. The Mon Cal rolls a 33 (6 on the wild die!), the Corvette rolls a below-average 19. The difference is 14, which means that 2 points of damage are assessed against the Corvette's shields and the remaining 4 points on the damage roll are lost.

As the hull is slowly chewed away, even capital ships begin to suffer degradation in performance. After all the Hull Points under Light Damage have been removed, all actions performed by the ship have a 1D penalty. After all the Heavy Damage points have been removed, the penalty is increased to 2D. After Severe Damage is filled, the penalty goes up to 3D. This includes maneuverability, fire control, not damage, and actions performed by the crew not including damage control. Hull remains constant and shields are determined independently. Once all the Hull Points are removed, the ship is destroyed.

Going back to the Corvette vs. the Mon Cal cruiser, the Corvette has lost its shields and has taken 2 points of damage already. The cruiser hits again for 3 points of damage. The remaining 2 points of Light Damage are removed and a point of Heavy Damage is assessed. The Corvette now suffers -1D to all evasion, command, coordination, and power shifting rolls until damage control repairs the ship (which won't happen during battle unless the crew is very, very, very good).

Ion cannons place a -1D penalty on the target vessel for each 10 points or fraction thereof they beat the hull roll by. Shields do not affect ion cannon blasts. This penalty lasts for at least the rest of the current round and for the following round. A capital ship can only dissipate 1D of ion damage per turn, although damage control can accelerate this somewhat, so continuously bombarding a ship with ion cannons can disable it. For instance, a ship is given 2D ionization damage one round, and 3D the next round. Nothing dissipates at the end of the first round (has just been recieved), and a die dissipates at the end of the second round, leaving the ship with 4D ionization damage at the beginning of the third round.

If the ionization penalty reduces a function to 0D, a ship cannot perform that function. For example, a ship with a piloting skill of 4D and a maneuverability of 1D has 5D ionization damage, it cannot accelerate or evade this turn. Higher skilled crews can often coax something out of their vessel, even if it is severely ionized.

To Capital Ship Combat?. To Guns Modifier Chart. To The Command Skill.