Talk:Battle Cry

New Player's War Cry

Reading the Character Sheet and Ship Statlines

Character Sheet

The statistics on the character sheet most directly relevant to the nuts and bolts of space combat are the three groups of skills (Ship Command, Squadron Command, Fleet Command) under the Military heading. While each group of skills has a specific , certain numbers of ships are able to

Ship Statline

A ship's statline is largely simple. Let us look at an example ship:

Cavalry Flagship Shadiyah: 8 Armor, 5 Lasers, 8 Lances, 6 Shields, 3ECM, 2AA, 14HP, 4 Speed (Init 2) +2 Fleet/Squadron Command, (Give init bonus in tactical combat)

Shields, ECM, and AA are a ship's defenses. ECM and AA actively reduce enemy fire, taking dice away from the weapon's dice pool, while Shields can be regenerated in combat. Armor and HP together may be seen as its health, they cannot be restored without repairs. Armor is non-essential and soaks double the damage, excepting certain weapons. However, damage that goes to HP will begin to degrade a ships effectiveness; at 1/4th health a ship is Crippled. Speed is the base number of spaces on the battlemap a ship can move in a Round. (Init) refers to its base bonus when determining initiative in certain contexts.

The Shadiyah has 3 ECM, 2 AA, and a Shield strength of 6. It has 8 Armor and 14 HP. If its HP falls below 5, it is Crippled. It can move four spaces in a Round. It's base initiative is 2.

Armament should be read as dice pools. The Shadiyah has "5 Lasers" so its base pool when firing Lasers is 5d10. Most ships have Lasers but some have additional weapon systems with special characteristics. Different weapon types fire separately. In the case of the Shadiyah it has "8 Lances" as well, in other words a separate 8 Dice weapon pool.

In addition the Shadiyah, as a command ship, has an unusual feature, "+2 Fleet/Squadron Command, (Give init bonus in tactical combat)". Only specific ships, such as unique flagships or Command Cruisers, provide such bonuses.

Initiative & Actions

Space battles occur in the familiar round & turn format, with order of play set by rolling initiative. The base die for initiative is a d10, but the skills and bonuses that apply change depending on the circumstances. When captaining a single ship, apply Ship Command: Leadership. If a player character is in charge of any more than one ship the Squadron Command and Fleet Command skills are used as appropriate. One roll is made for all ships under a player character's command. Initiative is rerolled every five turns. The rule of thumb to remember:

A personal ship: [1d10+(Leadership)+(Ship's Base Initiative)+(Any nearby Command ship Bonus)]
Squadrons/Fleets: [1d10+(Squadron or Fleet Command)+(Any nearby Command ship Bonus)]

Ships can perform three actions on their turn: declaring a stance, using their weapons systems, and moving. Every weapon system a ship has may fire once in round. A ship may move once in a round. In other words player ships can either [fire and then move] or [move and then fire]. Most stances have to be declared at the start of their turn before a ship performs any other action.

Certain special exceptions exist that break normal initiative order or action economy. The most common corollaries to remember:

• Reaction fire: If a ship has not yet fired in the round when enemy ships enter its weapons range, both sides have a rolloff. If the defending ship succeed, they can act outside initiative order by firing on the enemy's turn. Any weapons used in reaction fire will have spent their fire action for the round just as if they fired on their turn, they can not be used until the next round begins.
• Special Order: If the player succeeds on a command check, they can fire partway through their movement. In other words, they can [move, shoot, move].

Movement

Before moving a ship must declare its Speed for that turn. All ships have a listed base Speed, this is the minimum. Using Helmsmen or Squadron/Fleet Maneuver skills can provide.

The rule of thumb to remember:

A personal ship: [(Ship's Base Movement)+(Helmsmen)]
Squadrons/Fleets: [(Ship's Base Movement)+(Maneuver)]

e.g. The Shadiyah can move four spaces on the battlemap because its Speed is 4. Its Colonel, Fairika Ettiene al-Lasalle, has two Helmsmen so at the start of her movement she rolls two d10. Getting one success, she can now move the Shadiyah a total of five spaces that round.

Later Fairika also has the Shadiyah's sister ship Ghazi under her command as well as four missile-armed destroyers and one point in the Squadron Maneuver skill. Ghazi, like the Shadiyah, has four Speed while the Destroyers have five Speed. She rolls Squadron Maneuver for all ships under command at once. At one success, she can now move both ships Shadiyah and Ghazi five spaces, while the Destroyer can now move six spaces.

Firing & Defenses

As mentioned above, weapons systems have separate dice pools. Two different weapons systems can fire at two different targets. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, weapons have a target number of 6 to hit their target. However, each ship that successfully hits an enemy ship raises the target number to hit by one for all other ships, up to a maximum of 8.

When determining whether weapons are

The two active defenses a ship has are ECM and AA. Both behave differently. ECM subtracts dice from any applicable weapons fire directed at the targeted ship. ECM loses efficacy as ships close in range: at range 5 it loses one power, two at four, etc up -5 power at a range of one. Unlike ECM, AA is not affected by the distance between itself and the attacker, but can only subtract the listed number of dice in the entire round. In other words, if two attacking ships fire their Laser batteries at one defending ship they must both account for its ECM, but if both ships are armed with missiles and attack with missiles, the AA score stops only the listed missile defense and no more in that round.

The Ship Gunnery and Squadron/Fleet Formation skills apply a direct bonus.

The rule of thumb to remember:

Lasers (including Lances, Fort, Antimatter Cannons): [(Base Pool)+(Ship Gunnery)-(ECM Value -1@5 -2@4 -3@3 -4@2 -5@1)]/TN 6+(each ship that hit successfully, up to 8)
Guided Missiles: [(Base Pool)+(Formation)-(AA Value)]/TN 6+(each ship that hit successfully, up to 8)

e.g. Fairika encounters two Jardin cruisers.

Ships & Weapons Proposals

100thlurker:
Artillery
Artillery Cruiser (Jardin & Imperial & League): 1 Armor, Spinal Cannon, 1 Lasers, 4 Shields, 2ECM, 3AA, 6 HP, 1 Speed (Init 1)
Flying Artillery: 2 Armor, Spinal Cannon (20 Damage), 1 Lasers, 3 Shields, 2ECM, 3AA, 4 HP, 4 Speed (Init 2)
Ships
Jardin Dragon 1 Armor, 4 Lasers, 2 Antimatter Cannon, 3 Shield, 2ECM, 2AA, 6HP, 4 speed (Init: 3)
League Carronade Frigate 2 Armor, 5 Antimatter Cannon, 8 Shields, 2ECM, 2AA, 12 HP, 4 Speed (Init: 2)

Heavy Cavalry: 8 Armor, 5 Lasers, 8 Lances, 6 Shields, 3ECM, 2AA, 14HP, 4 Speed (Init 2)
Amendment to Lances:

Lances: High power lasers that have range 0-2, murderously effective in destroying armor, however base-to-hit is 8. Each unit of speed a ship moves in a turn brings the target number to hit down by one. Approved

Making a spaceship!

While building a spaceship, there are two stats that must be tracked; Space and Cost. Cost (represented with the $ symbol) is simply the Ducat price-equivalent; how much labour, resources and whatnot is required to build one. Space is a holistic measure of volume and tonnage, representing how big a ship is; Space is added up and determines what size class a ship is and consequently how expensive its engines and its ECM suite are.

Component List

Components that require 1 Space.

1 Lance ($2)

2 Hits ($2)

Components that require 2 Space.

1 Laser ($4)

1 Missile [3 reloads] ($4)

1 Antimatter Cannon ($4)

1 Shield ($6)

1 Anti-Air ($10)

Components that require 3 Space.

1 Missile [8 reloads] ($5)

1 Armor ($1)

1 ER Laser ($6)

Components that require 4 Space.

+1 Command System ($8)

1 Fort Cannon ($6)

Components that require 20 Space.

Spinal Cannon ($40)

Examples:

Destroyer; size 13

Heavy Cruiser; size 45

Battleship; size 92

Fast Battleship; size 82

To determine Space multiplier, divide the ship's Space by 10 (keeping all fractions) and then square it. Thus a Battleship would have a Space multiplier of 9.2 x 9.2 = 84.64.

ECM costs $2 x multiplier per +1

• Note: These assume all speeds boosted by 1 to bring dreadnoughts to 1 hex/turn and laser range increased.

Engines with speed 1 [dreadnought speed] cost 0.25 x multiplier

Engines with speed 2 [battleship speed] cost 0.5 x multiplier

Engines with speed 3 [slow cruiser speed] cost 1.25 x multiplier

Engines with speed 4 [fast cruiser speed] cost 2.5 x multiplier

Engines with speed 5 [slow escort speed] cost 4 x multiplier

Engines with speed 6 [fast escort speed] cost 6 x multiplier

Heirlooms

These are things you can plug into your ship - presumably via some sort of baroque contraption - that provide performance bonuses.

• Oscillation Overthruster: +1 Speed
• Epitaph: +3 Laser range, +2 AMG range, +1 Lance range, -1 Kira
• Mimetic Polyalloy: 1 armor regeneration/turn
• Dilitium Chrystals: 5 shield regeneration/turn
• Flux Capacitor: Roll 1D10 for every point of damage taken to shields; on a 1-2 the damage is ignored. Does not apply to damage taken to armor or hull.
• Zohar: Once per battle, may go on to all special orders at one time.
• Song of Nephilim: Once per battle, may reduce all sign ranges to 1D5 hexes (applies equally to all ships, friendly and enemy) until the next action of the host ship.
• Jedi Holocron: +1 Command