Large, powerful vessels with strong shields can weather hostile situations, while nimble starships can maneuver and make themselves difficult to attack. Once a vessel’s shields are worn down, grievous damage can be inflicted upon hull and systems, and may result in the deaths of dozens or hundreds of personnel.
Just as with personal combat, the core of starship combat is the Attack. Successful Attacks against starships are seldom so final as Attacks against individual characters.
Starship combat uses the same action order as other conflicts. However, the action order applies to characters rather than ships: each character receives a turn in the action order, during which they take actions to operate their ship.
Environment and Zones
As with personal combat, starship combat takes place across an environment broken up into numerous zones, allowing gamemasters and players alike to visualize where ships, planets, gas clouds, and asteroid fields are relative to one another.
An environment for starship combat covers a large area—potentially an area many thousands of kilometers across, and even this is only a tiny fraction of the area within a star system. This area may be the edge of a nebula, an asteroid belt, the orbit of one or more small planets, or any other region of space, though it is worth remembering that because battles are always fought for a reason, they are often fought somewhere interesting, rather than in the empty void.
The environment is then divided into zones based on physical objects, spatial phenomena, and other details within the area. Starship combat zones can easily be defined in three dimensions if desired (though this isn’t necessary if you want to keep things simple), with zones “above” and “below” one another, and with empty zones to provide sizeable gaps between objects and phenomena. A simple battlefield may consist of three to five significant zones, while complex environments may have many more. More zones are typically more interesting than fewer, as they provide a greater variety of movement options and tactical opportunities, but this can take more planning and may slow down game play.
As with personal combat, zones have no fixed size or shape, and these can be varied to accommodate the gamemaster’s preferences and needs, and to represent other factors. Zones within a nebula may be smaller, representing more difficult movement and sensor interference, while open space may have larger zones. By and large, the same advice that applies to personal scale zones apply to starship combat as well, and gamemasters who desire concrete values rather than abstract ranges are encouraged to set specific sizes and shapes for individual zones, using them as a grid.
Individual zones may have terrain effects when the gamemaster creates them. They may provide concealment or interference, hinder movement, present hazards to overcome, or otherwise alter the way vessels interact with the area.
Vessels and Zones
To help players visualize their vessel’s place in an encounter, and to manage combat effectively, it’s useful to keep track of which zone each vessel is in at any given moment. As zones are defined by the bodies and phenomena around them, tracking a vessel can be a matter of simple description—an enemy might be ‘behind the moon’ or ‘on the edge of the gas cloud’. This has the advantage of relying on natural language and intuitive concepts, rather than specific game terms, and avoids the tracking of specific distances which can become fiddly where there are many vessels present.
Larger or particularly complex scenes may become tricky to track purely by memory, so the gamemaster may wish to use something to help remind everyone of which vessel is where. If you’re already using a sketched map, then marking vessel positions in pencil (so they can be easily erased and redrawn) is a simple approach, as is using tokens or miniatures.
Distances
Movement and ranged attacks need some sense of distance to make them meaningful. In combat, the relative placement of zones determines this distance. To keep things simple and fluid, range is measured in four categories and one state.
Communication during starship combat is a simple matter; subspace communications work at speeds that far exceed the maximum velocity of a starship, meaning that communicating with anyone else in the same combat is instantaneous, so long as their communications systems are working. Of course, circumstances can affect this—the gas, dust, and radiation of a nebula may interfere with subspace signals, limiting communications range, for example—but such differences are left to the gamemaster to determine.
GOING TO WARP
Starships can travel extremely quickly, which means they can leave a battle at a moment's notice.
For a ship to go to warp, Reserve Power must be rerouted to engines, and you must take the Prepare minor action if in combat. Once completed, the character at the helm must attempt a Control + Conn task with a Difficulty of 1, assisted by the ship’s Engines + Conn; in combat, this is a major action. If this task is successful, the ship may move in one of two ways:
The ship moves a number of zones up to the ship’s Engines score.
The ship immediately leaves the battlefield, which will normally end the scene, though the enemy may choose to pursue.
If the enemies wish to pursue, each pursuing ship must also go to warp, and must score more successes than the fleeing ship scored; if they do, then they will quickly catch up with the fleeing ship. Once their pursuers have caught them, the crew of the fleeing ship must choose how they will respond.
This task may Succeed at Cost; if the task fails, the ship either does not move, or it moves as above but suffers an additional complication.
DISTANCES AND SENSORS
In ideal circumstances, a starship can scan and detect objects, vessels, and phenomena over a certain size or magnitude for several light-years in every direction. Long-range sensors are potent in this regard. The closer an object is, the smaller objects and details can be effectively detected, with the greatest clarity and detail available at ranges of a few thousand kilometers (i.e., within Close range).
There are no hard-and-fast rules for this; a starship and its crew will use whatever sensors are most effective at a particular range, though the gamemaster should adjust the amount of detail provided at different ranges.
Distances
Distance Description
Contact This state is used mainly for ships docking with one another, or with starbases and other facilities, shuttlecraft on approach to land, and similar situations. Contact isn’t a specific range, but rather is a state a vessel can enter when it moves—that is, when a vessel moves into or within a zone, the pilot may declare the vessel is moving into or out of Contact. Moving into Contact too quickly can be dangerous, as high-speed collisions can cause considerable damage (see page 309).
Close The zone the vessel is within at the time. Moving within Close range is a trivial affair, often handled purely with maneuvering thrusters and inertia. Close range is a distance of 0 zones.
Medium Any zone adjacent to the vessel’s current zone. Medium range is a distance of 1 zone.
Long Long range is a distance of 2 zones.
Extreme Extreme range is a distance of 3 or more zones.
Movement and Terrain
Moving around in starship combat is controlled at the ship’s helm, and takes different actions depending on the nature of the movement. Movement can take a few different forms, from fine maneuvering using thrusters, to sublight flight using impulse engines, to faster-thanlight flight using warp drive.
This movement may sometimes be hindered by spatial phenomena and effects that are collectively referred to as “terrain.”
Difficult terrain describes any space that requires more effort to cross, either because it hinders the ship’s engines or because it requires slower and more careful maneuvering. A zone may be filled with difficult terrain, slowing anyone attempting to cross it.
When you attempt to move from an area of difficult terrain, or cross an obstacle, you must spend one or more Momentum to do so, depending on how difficult the terrain or obstacle is. This is Immediate. If you do not pay the cost, you cannot leave the zone.
If you do not have sufficient Momentum available (and don’t want to add Threat), then you must find some way to generate the points you need. The simplest way to do this is to attempt the Maneuver major action, generating Momentum with a Difficulty 0 Control + Conn task—any successes become Momentum, which can be spent on moving through the terrain. Other tasks can also generate Momentum in this way, but taking the Maneuver major action is intended for this.
Hazardous terrain describes difficult terrain which is also potentially damaging or dangerous to cross. It may be crossed by spending Momentum or adding Threat as normal, but if you choose to add Threat, that Threat is spent immediately to inflict damage on the ship or impose a trait. The damage inflicted is determined by the nature of the hazard. This is described more in Chapter 9: Gamemastering.
Starship Terrains
Difficult Terrain Momentum Cost
Planetary Gravity Well, Dust Cloud, Debris Field 1
Stellar Gravity Well, Dense Nebula, Comet Tail 2
Singularity Gravity Well, Strange Space Anomaly 3
NPCs and Starship Operations
The rules for starship combat are designed from the perspective of player characters operating a single ship, which will be the normal situation for most groups of player characters. However, this can be impractical for NPC ships, where the gamemaster may be running several ships and doesn’t necessarily want to track a half-dozen NPC bridge officers per bridge.
An NPC ship does not have specific crew at individual positions on the bridge. Instead, each NPC vessel has a Crew Quality, which provides attribute and department ratings needed by the vessel for any given task. NPC crew used in this way are always considered to have an applicable focus.
Because individual NPC crew members are not tracked, each NPC ship takes several turns during each round— one turn for each point of the ship’s Scale—representing the individual actions of that ship’s crew.
However, there is a limit to this; in any round, each NPC ship may only attempt one task assisted by each system—one task assisted by Weapons, one task assisted by Engines, etc.—though the gamemaster may spend 1 Threat when the ship takes a turn to ignore this limit during their current action. That is, if a ship wants to take three tasks using Weapons during a round, the second and third Weapons tasks each cost 1 Threat.
NPC ships do not have Reserve Power (see page 185).
NPC Vessel Crew Qualities
Crew Quality Attribute Department
Basic 8 1
Proficient 9 2
Talented 10 3
Exceptional 11 4
Prepare for Battle
As with personal combat, in any given turn a character can attempt a single major action and a single minor action. Unlike with personal combat, the kinds of actions a character is likely to perform will vary based on their position on the bridge (or elsewhere on the ship), and different officers will control different systems as befits their positions.
This section lists the common roles found aboard a starship and the minor and major actions they can perform in combat. Some roles may not be present in certain eras of play (e.g., navigators and helmsmen are replaced by flight controllers / conn officers by the early 24th century).
Minor Actions
As described on page 288, minor actions are activities a character can undertake that don’t count as a task, and which don’t require dice to be rolled. You can take 1 minor action on each of your turns, and may take an additional minor action per turn by spending 1 Momentum (Immediate).
The most common starship minor actions are listed in the following sections, divided by position. These are specific to starship operations during combat; a character can perform personal combat minor actions (page 288) if necessary, such as when being boarded.
Major Actions
A character can attempt a single major action (typically to attempt a task) during each turn, though there are two ways a character could attempt a second major action in a turn:
LEADERSHIP: The Direct major action allows a character to issue an order to a subordinate, granting them an extra major action.
MOMENTUM: A character may spend 2 Momentum after a successful task to attempt a second major action; however, any task attempted as part of this second major action increases in Difficulty by 1.
Regardless of the method used, a character cannot attempt more than two major actions in a round. The major actions detailed on the following pages apply to operating a starship in combat. Personal conflict tasks can also be attempted where relevant, such as when repelling boarders.
Talking is a Free Action
Characters in the same physical space within the ship during starship combat can communicate freely: it doesn’t take an action to talk unless the talking is part of another task. Most talking a character does should take place on their turn, but characters are free to comment on or interject during another character’s turn.
Characters in different parts of the ship—say, the captain on the bridge and the chief engineer in main engineering—can communicate freely under normal circumstances, but damage to the ship’s communications system may result in parts of the ship being cut off from communicating with one another.
Positions and Starship Combat Actions
During starship combat, each character is likely to be operating a specific station on the bridge, or performing actions elsewhere on the ship. The actions a character can perform from the bridge are determined by their position.
The key bridge positions are as follows, though these activities are typically grouped together into a smaller number of stations, as determined by the bridge's configuration (page 194)—for example, a single station may combine both the helm and navigator positions into a single conn station. The guidance in the section Ship Stations and Facilities on page 186 is the basis for this, but this section details specific actions characters can undertake.
Each character may only operate a single station during their turn, and you cannot take actions from a specific station if another character is already at that station.
COMMAND: The commanding officer makes the decisions based on the information available.
COMMUNICATIONS: This station covers all incoming and outgoing communications, including encryption and decryption of messages.
FLIGHT CONTROLLER / HELMSMAN: The flight controller, or helmsman, is the pilot of the ship—responsible for all tasks that require the ship’s movement and maneuvering.
NAVIGATOR: The navigator oversees plotting the ship’s course and determining the spatial conditions that would affect the ship along its course.
OPERATIONS: This station covers any miscellaneous monitoring and control of internal systems, such as damage control, transporters, and life support.
SENSOR OPERATIONS: Sensor operations are used to control the ship's varied external sensor systems, used to scan planetary bodies, spatial phenomena, other vessels, and more. It also covers interpreting and analyzing that information, and the information retrieved from probes.
TACTICAL: This station covers the operation of weapons and shields.
Battling Very Large Adversaries
Some civilizations, such as the Borg, possess spacecraft and space stations far bigger than even the largest Federation starship. Vessels and stations with Scales 7+ pose a challenge for gamemasters who want to keep their starship combat from turning into a lengthy affair.
Gamemasters have a few options:
Take all the turns allocated to the NPCs. For example, if you are challenging your group with an adversary vessel or station at Scale 10, you may choose to take all 10 turns in a round. This may prove to be a significant challenge to your players, and may take more time to resolve each action.
Take turns equal to the players’ total turns. Have your NPC vessel take only as many turns as the players took in the round. Perhaps consider adding an advantage or altering the complication range for NPC tasks in this round to account for their superior size. Surplus NPC actions can instead be traded for extra dice on the NPC ship’s actions on a 1-for-1 basis: in essence, any NPC ship’s turns beyond the number of turns the player characters take are used to assist, rather than taking any other action.
Take as many turns as you see fit, up to the NPCs’ maximum number for the round, then narrate to taste. You may choose to take only as many turns you need in order to set up some key moment during the battle that you want to handle as narrative.
Standard Minor Actions
The following minor actions can be undertaken by personnel at all stations.
Starship Conflict Minor Actions
Minor Action Description
Change Position The character moves to any other station on the bridge, or to any other location on the ship. If that bridge station is unmanned, the character can take control of that station immediately; otherwise, the character takes control whenever the officer already at that station departs. If the character is moving to somewhere else on the ship, they will arrive in that location at the start of their next turn.
Interact The character interacts with an object in the environment. Particularly complex interactions may require a major action (and a task) instead. This covers basic and routine interactions with ship systems that aren’t otherwise covered here.
Prepare The character prepares for, or spends time setting up, a task. Some tasks require this minor action to be taken before the task can be attempted.
Restore The character performs the minor repairs and adjustments needed to restore a system after disruption or minor damage. Certain circumstances call for the use of this minor action.
Standard Major Actions
The following major actions can be undertaken by all stations.
Starship Conflict Major Actions
Major Action Description
Assist The character performs some activity that grants an ally an advantage. The character nominates a single ally they can communicate with and assists their next task (see Teamwork and Assistance, page 255). If a character attempts a task and you have not yet acted, you can give up your turn this round to assist them immediately.
Create Trait Create or change a trait in the scene, or remove one that’s already present. This is a task with a Difficulty of 2, using an attribute + department and focus based on what you are doing. If successful, you create, change, or remove a trait.
Other Tasks Perform a task at the discretion of the gamemaster. Circumstances or objectives may dictate a task, and particularly dangerous situations may require working to overcome an extended task or complete a challenge.
Override The character overrides the controls of another position. The character may attempt a major action from any other position other than commanding officer, but increasing the Difficulty by 1, due to the sub-optimal controls.
Pass The character chooses not to attempt a task.
Ready You choose another major action to take as a reaction to something else. When the trigger event occurs, you temporarily interrupt the current character’s turn to resolve your readied major action, then play proceeds as normal. If the triggering event does not occur before your next turn, the action is lost. You can still perform minor actions during your turn.
Command
A character in a command position oversees the rest of the bridge crew, devising plans, coordinating any complex actions, and maintaining morale.
A ship may have a second command position for the executive officer if the ship has a Command rating of 4+. Each character. can use any Command actions freely, though the executive officer cannot give orders that contradict the commanding officer.
Command Major Actions
Major Action Description
Assist In addition to the standard Assist action description on page 289, if you use the Assist action on your turn while in command, you may pick two characters to assist, rather than one.
Create Trait In addition to the standard Create Trait action description on page 289, note that while not unique to command, this action is useful for characters in command, and usually uses Control, Insight, or Reason + Command, to perform the task, normally representing battle plans, strategies, and similar.
Direct Spend 1 Momentum and select one ally on the bridge who immediately attempts a single major action, and you assist them by rolling 1d20 with your Control + Command.
Rally You inspire and coordinate the crew, attempting a Presence + Command task with a Difficulty of 0; this task is specifically to generate Momentum, either to use immediately or to save for the group.
Communications
A character at communications controls both internal and external communications systems.
Opening internal communications—to speak either to the whole ship, or specific locations within the ship—is a free action that can be done at any time, even during another character’s actions.
Sending a hail can be done as a free action, as can responding to a hail received by another vessel or facility.
Interference or jamming can prevent external communications, and is normally represented by a trait.
Other communications activities—encrypting and securing sensitive transmissions (and receiving them), intercepting hostile signals, and handling priority internal communications (damage reports, security alerts, coordinating repair teams)—can be handled using the normal array of major actions, such as creating a trait or attempting a Difficulty 0 task to generate Momentum.
Communications Major Actions
Major Action Description
Create Trait In addition to the standard Create Trait action description on page 289, this action is often useful for creating traits which represent efforts to boost or recalibrate communications to pierce interference, or methods used to encrypt or decrypt messages. It can also be used to create traits that represent coordinating personnel aboard the ship or coordinating with other ships.
Damage Control You direct a damage control team to begin stabilizing and repairing damage. Choose a single breach (see page 310), and attempt a Presence + Engineering task, with a Difficulty of 2; increase this by 1 per additional degree of potency. If successful, the chosen breach is patched, and no longer imposes any penalties or effects. The breach itself is not fully removed, which will require proper repairs outside of combat.
Transport You send instructions to one of the ship’s transporter rooms to beam a group of people or objects, to or from the ship, or from one place to another. This follows the rules for transporters described on page 190, but operating them from the bridge increases the Difficulty by 1.
Helm
Flying the ship requires a combination of minor and major actions taken by a character at the helm (may be combined with navigator into a conn position).
Helm Minor Actions
Minor Action Description
Impulse Using the ship’s impulse engines, you fly the ship. You move up to 2 zones to anywhere within Long range. If you only move 1 zone, you may reduce the Momentum cost of movement through difficult or hazardous terrain by 1.
Thrusters Using the ship’s maneuvering thrusters, you make fine adjustments to the ship’s position. You may move the ship to anywhere within your current zone, and you may move safely into Contact with another ship, station, or other object (this may include docking with another vessel or landing).
Helm Major Actions
Major Action Description
Attack Pattern You fly steadily to make it easier for your shipmates to target the enemy. If you take this action, each time your ship makes an attack before your next turn, you may Assist on that attack, using your Control + Conn. However, until your next turn, all attacks against the ship reduce their Difficulty by 1.
Create Trait In addition to the standard Create Trait action description on page 289, note that, from the helm, this action is often useful for creating traits that reflect careful positioning or skilled maneuvering.
Evasive Action You maneuver the ship in a quick, unpredictable way to foil enemy targeting. If you take this action, then until your next turn, all attacks against your ship become opposed tasks, opposed using your Daring + Conn and assisted by the ship’s Structure + Conn. If you win the opposed task, you may move the ship 1 zone. However, until the start of your next turn, all attacks made by your ship suffer +1 Difficulty.
You cannot take this action if the ship is currently benefiting from the Defensive Fire action (page 305).
Maneuver You focus on carefully controlling the ship’s flight. Attempt a Control + Conn task with Difficulty 0, assisted by the ship’s Engines + Conn. This is normally used to generate Momentum for crossing difficult terrain.
Ram You choose a single enemy vessel or other target within Close range and move into Contact with them. This is an Attack, requiring a Daring + Conn task with a Difficulty of 2, assisted by the ship’s Engines + Conn. If successful, the Attack inflicts the ship’s collision damage (see sidebar) on the target, with the Intense quality, but suffers the target’s collision damage in return.
Warp Requires Reserve Power. You must take a Prepare minor action to take this action. Attempt a Control + Conn task with a Difficulty of 1, assisted by the ship’s Engines + Conn. If you succeed, you move the ship a number of zones equal to the ship’s Engines score, or you leave the battlefield entirely. See Going to Warp, page 295.
Navigator
Where a navigator is present, their actions are typically used to create traits representing plotted courses or charted hazards, or to assist the helm. This position may be combined with helm into a conn position.
Navigator Major Actions
Major Action Description
Assist When using the standard Assist action detailed on page 289, it’s common for a navigator to assist the officer at the helm.
Create Trait In addition to the standard Create Trait action description on page 289, note that, from the navigator’s station, this action is often useful for creating traits that reflect plotting a careful course or studying the terrain.
Operations/Engineering
A character at operations handles resource management, allocation of power, and technical assets. These actions can also be performed from main engineering. A ship may have a second operations position as a separate station if it has an Engineering rating of 4+.
Operations/Engineering Major Actions
Major Action Description
Create Trait In addition to the standard Create Trait action description on page 289, note that, from operations, this action is often useful for creating traits that reflect modifications to ship systems.
Damage Control Choose a single breach and attempt a Presence + Engineering task, with a Difficulty of 2; increase this by 1 per additional degree of Potency. If successful, the breach is patched, and no longer imposes penalties or effects. The breach will require proper repairs outside of combat.
Regain Power You draw energy from another system to replenish the ship’s Reserve Power. Attempt a Control + Engineering task, with a Difficulty of 1. This may Succeed at Cost. On success, you restore the ship’s Reserve Power, allowing it to be used later during the scene. Complications should reflect subsystems shutdown to use their power. The Difficulty for this task increases by 1 each time it is attempted during a scene.
Regenerate Shields Requires Reserve Power. You reroute Reserve Power to the shield emitters, attempting to restore their strength. This requires a Control + Engineering task with a Difficulty of 2, assisted by the ship’s Structure + Engineering; the Difficulty increases by 1 if the ship’s shields are at 0. If successful, the ship regains shields equal to your Engineering department, plus 2 more by spending 1 Momentum (Repeatable).
Reroute Power Requires Reserve Power. You reroute Reserve Power to a specific system; the chosen system gains power which will apply to the next action using that system (as described on page 185).
Transport You remotely operate the ship’s transporters. This follows the rules for transporters described on page 190, but operating them from the bridge increases the Difficulty by 1.
Sensor Operations
A character at sensor operations is the eyes and ears of the ship, and vital for ensuring that the rest of the crew have the information they need to execute their tasks. A ship may have a second sensor operations position as a separate station if it has an Science rating of 4+.
Sensor Operations Minor Actions
Minor Action Description
Calibrate Sensors You work to fine-tune the sensors to get the clearest readings. On your next Sensor Operations action, you may either ignore a single trait affecting the task, or re-roll 1d20.
Launch Probe You launch a sensor probe in order to study a situation or phenomenon in more depth or from a safe distance. Select a single zone anywhere within Long range: you launch a probe which flies to that zone. Sensor Operations major actions may determine range from the probe’s location rather than the ship. The probe can be targeted as if a Small Craft, and it is destroyed if it takes any damage.
The following major actions can be undertaken by characters at sensor operations. The Difficulty of these tasks can be affected by interference, ambient conditions, and other unusual phenomena. They also increase in Difficulty by 1 for each range category beyond Close.
Sensor Operations Major Actions
Major Action Description
Create Trait In addition to the standard Create Trait action description on page 289, note that, from sensor operations, this action is often useful for creating traits that reflect important information that has been detected or discovered.
Reveal You scan for the trace signals that may reveal the tell-tale presence of a cloaked vessel, or a vessel concealed by some other phenomenon. Attempt a Reason + Science task, assisted by the ship’s Sensors + Science, with a Difficulty of 3. If you succeed, and there is a hidden vessel within Long range, you reveal which zone it is in (if there are multiple, this only reveals one such vessel, chosen at random). Until that vessel moves, your ship may attack that hidden vessel, but increasing the Difficulty by 2.
Scan For Weakness You scan an enemy vessel, looking for vulnerabilities. Choose a single vessel and attempt a Control + Science task with a Difficulty of 2, assisted by the ship’s Sensors + Security. If this succeeds, the next attack made against that ship increases its damage by 2, or gains the Piercing quality.
Sensor Sweep You use the sensors to scan for information. Select a single zone to scan, and attempt a Reason + Science task, assisted by the ship’s Sensors + Science, with a Difficulty of 1. If successful, the gamemaster provides basic information on any ships, objects, or other phenomena in that zone; you may spend Momentum to get extra information as normal.
Tactical
A character at tactical operates the ship’s weapons and defensive systems. A ship may have a second tactical position as a separate station if it has a Security rating of 4+.
Tactical Minor Actions
Minor Action Description
Calibrate Weapons You fine-tune the frequency of energy weapons, and the yield of torpedoes to achieve a desired result. On your next attack with the ship’s weapons, increase the weapon’s damage by 1.
Prepare The character prepares for, or spends time setting up, a task. Some tasks require this minor action to be taken before the task can be attempted. At tactical, this action can be used to raise or lower the ship’s shields, or to arm or disarm the ship’s weapons.
Shields: When the shields are lowered, the ship’s maximum shields are 0. When raised, they are restored to their normal maximum, or to their previous total if the ship has taken any damage this scene.
Weapons: The ship may only make Weapons Attacks if the weapons are armed. However, enemy ships can detect whether your ship’s weapons are armed.
Targeting Solution You lock targeting sensors onto an enemy vessel. Select a single enemy vessel within Long range. On the next attack against that vessel, either re-roll a d20 on the task, or choose which of the target’s systems are hit by the attack, rather than rolling.
Tactical Major Actions
Major Action Description
Create Trait In addition to the standard Create Trait action description on page 289, note that, from tactical, this action is often useful for creating traits that reflect modifications to weapon systems, or useful targeting data.
Defensive Fire Choose a single energy weapon on your ship. Until your next turn, any enemy attack against your ship becomes an opposed task, opposed by your Daring + Security (and assisted by your ship’s Weapons + Security). If you succeed, you may spend 2 Momentum to counterattack, inflicting your weapon’s damage against the attacker. You cannot take this action if the ship is currently benefitting from Evasive Action (page 302).
Fire You select a single energy weapon or a single torpedo weapon on the ship, choose a target for that weapon, and make an Attack following the process on page 306. If you attempt a torpedo attack, add 1 Threat.
Modulate Shields This cannot be attempted if the shields are at 0. You try to tune your shields to resist enemy attacks. If you take this action, then until your next turn, increase the Resistance of your ship by 2.
Tractor Beam The character engages a tractor beam at a nearby object or vessel. This requires a Control + Security task, assisted by the ship’s Structure + Security with a Difficulty of 2, and can only be directed at a target within Close range. If successful, the target vessel is immobilized and cannot move unless it can break free. This can be done in a number of ways, but the Difficulty is equal to the tractor beam strength of your vessel.
Attacks, Hazards, and Damage
Space is dangerous, full of perils and hazards, not least of which is the risk of conflict with pirates, raiders, and hostile civilizations.
Certain actions—Evasive Action and Defensive Fire—allow the crew to turn an attack against their ship into an opposed task. When you attempt an opposed task, the reactive character first rolls to set the Difficulty. They gather a dice pool, rolling against their own target number as if they were making a task roll. However, they are not rolling against any specific Difficulty; just count how many successes they score. Only one of these actions may be in use at any one time: if you have used Evasive Action, you cannot use Defensive Fire until after the effects of Evasive Action have ended, and vice-versa.
Damage and Repairs
When a vessel is successfully hit by an attack, the hit inflicts damage. Some environmental hazards also come with a risk of damage, such as gravitational stresses, intense radiation, corrosive gasses, micro-meteors, extreme heat, and ionic discharges.
Damage for starships is resolved like an extended task (page 271). However, the full process is described below.
Attacks and other hazards have a damage rating, which is a number, typically between 1 and 6, though some especially powerful weapons have a higher damage rating.
Ships have a quantity of shields, representing the strength of the ship’s deflector shields, which are used to protect the ship from damage. Shields function similarly to the Progress track of an extended task. A ship’s normal maximum shields are equal to the ship’s Structure plus its Scale and Security.
At the start of a new scene, a ship’s shields return to their maximum value. As with some extended task tracks, a ship’s shields have two Breakthrough points, one halfway along the track (round up), and one three-quarters of the way along the track (round up).
Most ships also have a quantity of Resistance which reduces total damage received, allowing them to reduce how much damage they take from attacks. Resistance is derived from the ship’s Scale and Structure (page 185), and from talents affecting the hull and shields.
If a ship is shaken, it has suffered minor damage or disruption. The ship’s captain or highest-ranking character aboard randomly determines or chooses one option from the following list. NPC ships always choose Brace for Impact!
Attempting a Starship Attack
1 SELECT ATTACK: When you make a starship attack, the Attack action chosen will determine the type of weapon used—typically energy weapons or torpedoes. If your ship has multiple weapons, choose one to Attack with.
2 SELECT TARGET: Choose a single vessel or another viable target visible to your ship. Some weapons have a limited range; you cannot choose a target beyond this limited range.
3 ATTEMPT ATTACK: Attempt a Control + Security task, assisted by the ship’s Weapons + Security, with a Difficulty determined by the Attack action chosen. For an energy weapon, the Difficulty is 2. For torpedoes, the Difficulty is 3. For a Ram Attack (see page 302), the Difficulty is 2.
4 RESOLVE ATTACK: If the task is successful, it inflicts damage (see opposite). Roll on the Random System Hit table to determine which system was hit; the Targeting Solutions minor action allows you to select a choice.
Random System Hit
D20 SYSTEM
1 Communications
2 Computers
3–6 Engines
7–9 Sensors
10-17 Structure
18–20 Weapons
Starship Combat Momentum Spends
The following table provides additional options available to a character when they generate one or more Momentum in combat.
These are in addition to the uses of Momentum (page 293), and any others players or gamemaster create themselves.
Starship Combat Momentum Spends
MOMENTUM SPEND DESCRIPTION
Added Damage (2 Momentum, Repeatable) Increase the damage of a successful attack by 1 for every 2 Momentum spent.
Devastating Attack (2 Momentum) Roll an additional system; that system suffers a hit dealing half the attack’s damage, rounding up.
Cover and Concealment
Cover and Concealment are common effects, representing objects that interfere with a vessel’s ability to see or attack a target directly. Cover interferes with attacks against a vessel, while concealment makes it more difficult to detect and target a vessel. A zone providing cover or concealment functions as a trait which attacks harder or even impossible. It may also provide potential other dangers—a nebula full of volatile gas may be risky to fire through, in addition to providing cover. This can be justification to increase the complication range of attacks.
Cover can often be circumvented by attacking from a different direction or by using some force to displace the cover. Concealment can often be circumvented by finding other ways to detect a target’s position and movement.
An environment filled with zones of cover and concealment can completely change the nature of a conflict, as both sides maneuver and attempt to fight or evade.
A breach is a trait which represents serious damage to the ship and/or crew, and is associated with the system of the ship struck by the attack or hazard. As a trait, its usual effect is to increase the Difficulty of tasks attempted or make some tasks impossible.
Shaken: Minor Damage Results
D20 MINOR DAMAGE EFFECT
1–6 Brace for Impact! On the next turn this ship (or a character aboard this ship) takes, they may not take a major action.
7–12 Losing Power! If you have Reserve Power, lose the use of Reserve Power. The next time you attempt to Regain Power, the Difficulty is increased by 1.
13–18 Casualties and Minor Damage The ship suffers a complication.
19–20 Roll Again Roll on this table again.
Starship Damage
1 DETERMINE DAMAGE: Your damage rating is determined by the weapon used, which may be modified by talents or other factors.
RESISTANCE: If the target ship has any Resistance, reduce your damage by 1 for each point of Resistance, to a minimum of 1.
COMPLICATIONS: A complication on an Attack may reduce your damage by 1 for each complication suffered—in essence, the complication means that the Attack had less effect than expected. Refer to page 326 in Chapter 9: Gamemastering for more details on complications.
2 APPLY DAMAGE: Reduce the target ship’s shields by 1 for each point of damage (after applying Resistance and other modifiers). If the ship’s shields were already 0, the ship suffers a breach instead. Otherwise, check the ship’s current shields against the three conditions below, and apply all of which are true.
SHIELDS AT 50%: If the damage reduces the ship’s shields to below half its maximum value, the ship is shaken, with the commanding officer (or highest-ranking character) picking a damage result from the table below.
SHIELDS AT 25%: If the damage reduces the ship’s shields to below one quarter of its maximum value, the ship is shaken, as above. If the ship was already shaken from that attack (from the shields at 50% condition, above), then the ship suffers a breach instead, as damage punches through the shields.
SHIELDS ARE DOWN: If the damage reduces the ship’s shields to 0, the shields are down, and the ship suffers a breach.
Collision Damage
There are times when a ship may collide with another. This may happen accidentally—such as when a ship is attempting to dock or land and suffers a complication—or deliberately, by ramming. When one ship collides with another, each ship takes the other ship’s collision damage.
A ship’s collision damage rating is equal to the ship’s Scale, plus half the number of zones moved before the the collision. This has the Devastating and Piercing qualities. In addition, if a ship is ramming, then the ramming vessel gains the Intense quality as well.
Breaches and Potent Traits
Multiple identical traits can be combined to create a Potent trait, with a Potency rating noted after the trait’s name. The rating is equal to the number of traits combined in this way—three traits representing dense smoke would be combined into Dense Smoke 3, for example.
As breaches are a form of trait, this can be a useful way to handle especially severe damage inflicted, such as if a single attack inflicts multiple breaches. Hull Breach 2 is more severe than Impulse Drive Offline, and as the former is essentially two traits, it will have a greater effect, and be more difficult and time-consuming to repair.
When it comes to repairing these Potent breaches, the gamemaster can either multiply the time taken to attempt repairs by the trait’s Potency (i.e., a breach with Potency 2 takes twice as long to fix), or turn a simple task into an extended task.
SYSTEMS DESTROYED AND CRITICAL DAMAGE
If a single system on your ship suffers a number of breaches equal to or greater than half the ship’s Scale, the system has been destroyed. When a system has been destroyed, any task which would be assisted by that system automatically fails.
If your ship suffers a number of breaches greater than the ship’s Scale, then the ship has suffered critical damage and can no longer function. No further actions can be taken if the ship has taken critical damage. If the ship takes any additional breaches, it is destroyed.
At the gamemaster’s discretion, NPC vessels suffering critical damage are destroyed.
Warp Core Breach Imminent!
Catastrophic damage to the engines is a serious matter, increasing the risk of losing containment over the volatile reactors that power the ship. The ships of many cultures, including the Federation, rely on powerful matter/antimatter reactions, which can cause catastrophic explosions if uncontrolled, while the Romulans use a similarly dangerous artificial singularity to power their warp engines.
If a ship suffers critical damage and the ship’s Engines system has been destroyed, the reactor suffers a loss of containment and may explode at any moment. Roll a d20 at the end of each round. If you roll higher than the ship’s Engineering rating, the reactors explode, destroying the ship, killing all aboard, and inflicting X damage with the Piercing quality to all other ships within Close range, where X is the exploding ship’s Scale +1.
This result can be avoided. Characters in Engineering may attempt to Stabilize the Reactor or Eject the Reactor (though not all ships have the capability to eject their reactors, so their crews may wish to abandon ship instead).
STABILIZE THE REACTOR: This is an extended task, with a Progress track equal to the ship’s Engines, and a base Difficulty of 3. Success prevents the reactor from exploding. Common combinations for this include Daring or Control + Engineering.
EJECT THE REACTOR: This is a Daring + Engineering task with a Difficulty of 2. Success means the reactor is successfully ejected. If ejected, continue to roll to see if it explodes; when it does, it will not destroy the ship outright, but all ship, including the one that ejected it, within Close range suffer damage when it detonates.
All Hands, Abandon Ship!
If a ship has suffered critical damage, or is otherwise in some other desperate situation it cannot escape, the commanding officer may give the order to abandon ship. Starships are fitted with large numbers of escape pods, each of which can hold a small number of crew and allow them to either survive in space for a short while, or to fly to a nearby planet and await rescue. These, along with the ship’s complement of shuttlecraft—and if near enough to a planet or allied ship, transporters—allows the ship’s crew to evacuate.
Boarding and launching an escape pod requires a Change Position minor action, and a Daring + Conn task with a Difficulty of 0. Each escape pod is designed to carry four individuals, but can carry up to six if necessary (though more people reduces the life support capabilities of the pod). Launching a shuttle is covered on page 189.
For the rest of the crew, it can be assumed that at least half the personnel on board escaped the ship by the end of the round in which the abandon ship order was given. The other half will leave in the following round. All those who serve or live aboard a starship have been trained and drilled to respond quickly to emergencies.
What happens to the ship and her crew after they’ve abandoned ship is up to the gamemaster to determine.
Repairing Damage
If a ship has suffered breaches, characters can attempt tasks to try to repair the damage. These will not be full repairs, as this would take time and resources not readily available in battle, but starships are designed with redundancies and back-ups and a skilled engineer can reroute around damaged systems to create impromptu solutions.
The Damage Control major action listed on page 303 is a typical way of repairing a damaged system, representing a character sending a repair team to handle the repairs. However, this is not the only way to repair damage; using the Change Position minor action to move elsewhere in the ship, a character can head to the site of the damage and attempt to perform the repairs personally. This is a Daring + Engineering task.
Regardless of which method is used, the Difficulty for these actions are set by the breach suffered. This will normally be 2, but will increase by 1 for each additional breach to the same system.
Damage Control removes the penalties imposed by a breach, but cannot remove the breaches that caused those conditions: the repairs patch the breach—sealing off damaged areas, rerouting power and computer connections, and so forth—rather than perform a full repair. As a result, if a damaged system is repaired, and then suffers an additional breach, any existing patched breaches on that system also return. Breaches cannot be fully repaired in combat or during an adventure; instead, such intensive repairs require extensive work, and may take days or more to complete.
Long-Term Repairs
Completely repairing damage to a starship is a difficult and time-consuming process, but one that most starships from the 23rd century onwards are capable of performing. Widespread use of matter synthesizers and tool replicators enable crews to produce replacement parts and carry out large-scale repairs that were impossible outside of a dedicated dock in the 22nd century.
This can often be handled between adventures, “offscreen” after the end of one mission but before the start of the next. Alternatively, a return to a spacedock for repairs can be used to set up for the next mission, or to introduce a change of pace to an ongoing campaign.
A single breach can be repaired within 6 hours of work. If the repair teams can work undisturbed, no task roll is needed, and the work is completed. If there is peril or time pressure, the gamemaster may ask for a task (normally Control + Engineering, with a Difficulty of 3, reduced to 2 if that breach was patched), taking about 6 hours to complete. A ship can carry out a number of simultaneous repairs equal to the ship’s Engineering rating.
Being docked at a properly-equipped station or starbase reduces the Difficulty of these tasks by 2 and allows them to be completed in half the half the time. Such repairs are a valuable opportunity for the crew to take shore leave while the work is completed.