When spacecrafts or spacecraft-sized combatants fight, a system called Ship Combat is used. At the start, each player chooses where in the ship their character starts, and all characters are assumed to be wearing void-suits. They will take actions as usual with action penalties, up to three per turn. Anything that can be done during normal combat can also be done during Spacecraft Combat, but below are the rule detailing the three main actions. All of these checks can be assisted by anyone with at least three in a relevant attribute, or a relevant skill.
While a pilot is controlling a ship from the helm, each turn they make a difficulty 10 [Dex] + {Spacecrafts} to control the ship. If they fail they lose control, and weapons fire against them gains a +1 bonus. For every 2 rolled over the difficulty, the pilot may execute one maneuver, including the same one more than once:
- Evasive Maneuver
- Provide a -1 penalty on all incoming weapons fire checks.
- Acceleration Maneuver
- Add 3 to the ship's Speed Boost this turn.
- Aggressive Maneuver
- Provide a +1 bonus on all outgoing weapons fire checks.
Fixing a damaged part of a ship requires a Skill Challenge, usually of difficulty 30. Checks are made using Strength or Dexterity plus a relevant {{Engineering}} skill. After a successful check, the total damage stays the same but functionality is restored to full, or to the previous damage level on components with multiple damage levels. This must be done from the location where the damage occurred.
Some weapons fire automatically but most require an operator or a [Combat Computer](Modules.md#Combat%20Computer}. To fire a weapon, a character makes a check based on the weapon's attribute, plus their {Heavy Weapons} skill. All ship weapons can only be fired once per turn. One character can operate two weapons, taking a move action between them and accounting for action penalty.
When two ships are within 10m of each other, characters can attempt to board. They must end their turn by spending an action to exit an airlock and push off, or begin climbing to the enemy ship. As the other ship takes it's turn it will have a chance to fire at the boarders. When it goes back to the boarders' turn they will need to spend an action to enter an airlock.
In most ships, the helm is at the top and the engines are at the bottom. Navigating from one end of a ship to the other takes a number of move actions equal to the square root of the spacecraft's size (module count). Remember that a character can't take more than two move actions per turn. GMs can approximate distances within, deciding how many move actions are needed to move from any particular area of the ship to another.
Each ship or structure has two resistances instead of the normal four: Armor and Shield, each in the range of 5-10. Heavy metal panels that increases Armor Resistance tend to make vessels more conductive, and tend to reduce Shield, so less powerful ships tend to have one or the other, but nicer ships might have better protection against both.
When an attack is made, the attacker can choose to take a -1 penalty to aim for a particular part of the enemy ship. This can be a module, the helm, the engines, or other sections listed on the ship's stat page. After 10 damage modules become disabled and empty module slots depressurize and lose any stored items into space. After 10 damage core components such as the helm and engines take one level of damage, which will be explained on the ship sheet.
When an attack is made that is not targeted, the ship sheet will have a rolling table to see what is hit. Then on future attacks with the same weapon whoever is controlling the weapon can remain locked on and hit the same spot again without the targeting penalty, or re-roll and hit a new place.
When a ship is damaged by a standard, handheld weapon, the attacker suffers a -5 penalty (such small weapons don't do much against spacecrafts). There is no modifier for ship weapons against individual targets though, as such large weapons are not designed to aim at such small, dexterous targets. In both cases the GM will need to determine which resistance is used.
While two ships are in an encounter where relative speed matters, compare each ship's pilot check plus its speed boost value each turn to see which is moving faster In order to win the chase (escape or catch up), either side must win three more checks than the other side.
As fixing a part leaves it vulnerable to stop working at even one point of future damage, ship repair will be needed between encounters. During a shift anyone working on repairs makes a [Dex] + {Mechanics} check, and can repair up to that many units of damage. Without a proper engineering bay, each section can only go down to a minimum of five damage on each section. Ships can also be repaired by professional mechanic, at a base cost of ₮5 per unit of damage, subject to negotiation.