Rules

Tutorial Restrictions

What's in play: core combat/skill rules, chargen, psionics.

What's not in play yet: hacking. modding gear. cyberware.

What's not in play without a rewrite: spaceship design or combat. AI PCs. The book's setting. Factions. Mechs. Vehicles.

Attack Role

• For a specific weapon, your standard attack bonus is:

  • your skill (Punch, Shoot or Stab) (effective -2 if you don't have skill-0)
  • your class bonus
  • your Str or Dex mod, as per the type of weapon. (Dex for ranged, Str for two-hand melee, otherwise "either")
  • +1 for non-heavy energy weapons' accuracy bonus

• Roll d20, add your bonus above, and any applicable situationals:

  • -2 for out of normal range
  • +2 for attacking an adjacent prone foe (does not stack w/cover)
  • -4 melee attack while you're prone
  • -2 target has typical cover (shooting from around a corner)
  • -4 target has perfect cover (gun slits in a bunker)
  • -4 using a one-handed ranged weapon while an adjacent foe has a melee weapon
    • two handed ranged weapons can't be used in that situation
  • -4 anti-laser particulates (which also halve range)

class bonus

• Warrior: level
• Partial warrior: 1+(level/2)... plus one more at level 5.
• Others: level/2, rounded down.

L=War	P.War	Oth
1	1	0
2	2	1
3	2	1
4	3	2
5	4	2
6	5	3
7	5	3
8	6	4
9	6	4
10	7	5

Saving Throw

Roll d20, add your level and the appropriate stat modifier. Match or beat the target, which defaults to 15.

Tracking Ammo or not?

For bullets, I might be willing to use the mech rule:

• after each combat, roll Shoot+Wis against DC "6 + 1 per prior combats since full resupply"
  • on a pass, no sweat. on a fail, that gun is out.

Vehicle DR

What the book calls armor in the vehicle chapter (p79) I call vehicle DR for unambiguity.

RAW: Armor is subtracted from all weapon damage done to the vehicle. Armor does not apply to damage done by Heavy weaponry; such guns are often designed to take out vehicles. Gravtanks in particular are immune to anything short of TL4 Heavy weapons, while less sophisticated tanks are immune to anything below TL3 Heavy ordnance.

Capital DR

What p94 calls starship armor I'm calling capital DR. (Because not all starships are big and armored enough to use this rule, and those use vehicle DR rules.)

RAW: Armor is the measure of the ship's plating and redundant systems, and is subtracted from any incoming damage from hostile fire or hazardous space environments. Ship-mounted weapons with the Armor Piercing trait may ignore part or all of this rating. Ships generally cannot be harmed by anything short of other ship's guns, vehicle-mounted Heavy weapons or carefully-placed demo charges.

(later on that page) Starship hulls are sturdy enough to ignore damage from small arms or TL3 Heavy weapons. TL4 Heavy weapons or demo charges applied to the exterior of a ship do half damage minus the ship's Armor. If a saboteur gets inside with such weapons, the damage is halved but Armor does not apply.

Sidebar p103

• As a basic rule of thumb, hostile TL3 small arms fire does no damage,
• TL4 small arms fire does 1d6 damage per ten minutes of persistent gunfire, and Heavy weapons do half their rolled damage, minus the ship's Armor.
• Multiple Heavy weapons blazing away at a grounded free merchant can reduce it to unflyable scrap in short order, but a peppering of mag rifle fire is unlikely to do serious damage to a ship that decamps with sufficient speed.
• It is impossible to miss a grounded ship. The Armor Class of a ship in flight will vary with the situation;
  • AC 10 for hovering nearby,
  • AC 15 for close-to-earth flight, and
  • AC 20 if the ship is simply flying within weapon range.
• Active ground-placed anti-ship defenses are a different matter. These massive lasers and energy projectors are absolutely lethal at atmospheric ranges. Avoiding them is a Pilot skill check at a GM-chosen difficulty of 8 to 10 for each round the ship is exposed, suffering 2d10 damage with AP 20 on each miss. A desperate ship can get outside the gun's firing angle if it can survive three rounds of this peril.

TL3 heavies

p69: When firing at TL4 military vehicles such as gravtanks, mechs, or starship armor, most TL3 Heavy weapons don't count as Heavy for armor-penetrating purposes. Demo charges and explosives do, however, so use the TL4-line on the next table for those.

DR what hits what matrix

Attacker	Vehicle DR	Gravtank DR	Capital DR
small arms	subtracts	impervious	impervious-ish*
TL3 heavy	full effect	impervious	impervious
TL4 heavy	full effect	full effect	Dam/2-DR
ship guns	full effect	full effect	subtracts

Capital DR does not apply to internal hits, but the /2 for scale still applies.

Cargo on Ship Scale (p96)

as a quick rule of thumb: 1 m3 of space holds 1 metric ton. (As compared to scrith's 20 tons / m3.)

Spending a point of ship's spare mass gives you...

class	tons
fighter	2
frigate	20
cruiser	200
captial	2000

Generic loading cost of a vehicle:

class	tons
tank	25
aircract/mech	50

Ship Multipliers

(always round up. always apply mults even if mod only fits on certain hull classes.)

class	asterisk	hash
fighter	1	1
frigate	10	2
cruiser	25	3
captial	100	4

Morale Checks

Hey, Beige ODnD had a nonbinary morale check? Who knew! https://censerstakeandclaw.com/delving-deeper/#morale-checks

2d6	Reaction
-2	Surrender
3-5	Flee
6-8	Stand off or hold
9-11	Press for advantage
12+	Attack impetuously!