Talk:Battle Cry

New Player's War Cry

Reading the Character Sheet and Ship Statlines

Character Sheet

Of the attributes and skills, the three groups of skills under the Military heading (Ship Command, Squadron Command, Fleet Command) are most directly relevant to the mechanics of ship combat. Each group has a roughly similar set of skills governing at different scales.

Ship Command: A single ship the Player Character is currently on.

• Helmsmen: Bonuses to Speed.
• Gunnery: Bonuses to Weapons.
• Leadership: Bonus for Initiative and Special Orders.

Squadron Command: Applies to any number ships too small to constitute a fleet.

• Maneuver: Bonuses to Speed.
• Formation: Bonuses to Weapons.
• Command: Bonus for Initiative and Special Orders.

Fleet Command: Applies to Fleets, formations 200-500 ships strong.

• Maneuver: Bonuses to Speed.
• Formation: Bonuses to Weapons.
• Command: Bonus for Initiative and Special Orders.

In contexts where two skills from different groups might overlap, use the higher bonus.

Ship Statline

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

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

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 Ghazi 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 Ghazi 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 Ghazi it has "8 Lances" as well, in other words a separate 8 Dice weapon pool.

Flagships

Flagships build off the template of an existing ship with five extra points distributed to any of the ship's attributes. Flagships can also take special attributes, such as Spinal Cannons or Command Bonuses, that standard ships can not.

Cavalry Flagship Shadiyah: 10 Armor, 5 Lasers, 8 Lances, 6 Shields, 4ECM, 2AA, 14HP, 4 Speed (Init 2) +2 Fleet/Squadron Command, (Give init bonus in tactical combat)

The Shadiyah has two more points of Armor and another point of ECM, using three of its five points. 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)+(Ship 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 issues a Special Order they can fire partway through their movement by passing a command check; meaning they can [move, shoot, move].
• Something I may have forgotten

e.g. #1 General Fairika Ettiene al-Lasalle, aboard the lone Shadiyah, encounters a Reaver Corsair. The Reaver ship has (Init:3), so it rolls 1d10+3. The Shadiyah has (Init:2), so it would normally roll at 1d10+2. However, Fairika has a 2 rating in Ship Leadership and the Shadiyah provides a bonus to determining initiative, each contributing a +2 bonus. Cumulatively, Fairika rolls 1d10+6.

e.g. #2 Later Fairika also has the Heavy Cavalry ship Ghazi under her command as well as a regiment of four missile destroyers. Her Brigade meets a squadron of Reaver Corsairs. Both sides would roll a plain 1d10, but Fairika has 1 rating in Squadron Command and the Shadiyah provides a bonus to determining initiative, contributing a +1 and a +2 bonus respectively. Cumulatively, Fairika rolls 1d10+3.

Movement

Before moving a ship must declare its Speed for that turn. All ships have a listed base Speed, which is the minimum. Player Characters then roll any relevant skill as a dice pool with a target number of 6. Each success adds one point of Speed for that round, the ship's Declared Speed. Like initiative, a Squadron or Fleet Maneuver check is rolled once for all ships the Player Character commands.

The rule of thumb to remember:

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

e.g. #1 The Shadiyah can move four spaces on the battlemap because its Speed is 4. Fairika has two Helmsmen so at the start of her movement she rolls two d10. Getting one success, the Shadiyah can now move a total of five spaces that round.

e.g. #2 Ghazi, like the Shadiyah, has four Speed while the Destroyers have five Speed. Fairika has one point in the Squadron Maneuver skill which rolls for all ships under her 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.

Weapons & Defenses

As mentioned above, weapons systems have separate dice pools. Two different weapons systems can fire at two different targets. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, the target number to hit a target is 6. 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.

A ship must determine whether their weapons are in range either before or after movement. Without a special order targets that enter range along the path of the ship's movement cannot be fired upon.

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 be saturated and overwhelmed, 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 attack with missiles, the AA score does not stop any of the second ship's missiles.

The Ship Gunnery and Squadron/Fleet Formation skills add bonus die to the pool.

The rule of thumb to remember:

Lasers (including Lances, 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)

The Full Attack stance doubles the base pool of a weapon for determining hits.

e.g. Fairika encounters two Jardin cruisers.

Roll20 Hints

Along the upper left of the sidebar you will see a gear shaped icon. It is the settings menu. To stop Roll20 from attempting to activate your webcam and mic (if you have either) when you enter the game, click on it then scroll down to the bottom. Under the Video + Voice heading disable Broadcast and Receive, and set Video/Player Avatar Size to whichever you please.

When given control over a token you will have to fill in the three fields for Shields, Armor, and HP in that order from top to bottom. Remember:

<3 Bar 1 = Shields
Z Bar 2 = Armor
~ Bar 3 = HP

Along the upper left of the sidebar you will see another set of icons. The Comb shaped icon is the Ruler which is very useful for measuring Movement and determining Range. If you suddenly can not select any of your tokens, make sure you have switched from the ruler to the select tool.

Symbols
Thunderbolt = Full Offense stance
Tower = Full Defense stance
Flag = Flagship

GM prerogative space

AA to be folded up into ECM just to clean up things, AA was a artifact of when this game was going to have fighters and carriers expansion became vaporware anyway.
New missile stuff proposal:
Range 10 burst mode mode (2 damage shield armor/ 3 damage HP)
Range 20 spotting mode spotting mode (ECM counts double against the attack roll)

I00thlurker Retcon Proposal

ECM and AA

AA is an orphan stat that did one thing only, subtract dice from missiles. As a one off mechanic without the other gameplay elements it was intended to counter, it has become little more than an element of the most aggravating weapon against defense interplays of the system. However, rather than do away with it entirely, I suggest that it offers an opportunity. Turn "AA" into a full stat called Point Defense that takes on all the functions that both ECM and AA used to have.

• Points in PD represent QF Vector Beams that can be used to damage ships or defend against enemy fire. Two points of PD can be used to do one flat damage to an enemy ship in 7 hexes. One point of PD can subtract one dice from enemy fire. PD refreshes at the start of the next round.
• ECM is now free to function as a buff/debuff stat rather than one of two passive defenses as a more general EW stat.
• EW now modifies Spotting and Jamming stances. A ship projects an EW bubble equal to double its EW score. It also determines the range of Distortion Fields.

EW

• Jamming: By default ships generate noise as a passive defense, adding one TN to hit per every two points of EW score. Jamming degrades as other sensors that are harder to fool come into play: -1@7, -2@5, -3@3, -4@1.
• Spotting: Ships normally provide telemetry data and vector corrections for friendly ships, allowing for Predicted Fire. So long as the Target is within the Spotter's EW bubble, use the distance between the Spotter and the Target for the purposes of determining penalty from EW for any weapons in range. Crippled ships can not spot.

Ship Initiative

Propose to change initiative to hull type, which modifies TN to hit:

• 0 = Capital Ship
• 1 = Cruisers
• 2 = Cruisers or Frigate Destroyers.
• 3 = Frigates or other unrated ships.

Weapons + Range brackets

Weapon Pools

• Antimatter Cannon: Fires bolts of suspended Anti-Matter, destroys both armor and hp on the same damage roll on unshielded hulls.

[Critical Range]: Range 0-1. On rolls of 1 the volatile AM bolt may burst too close to the firing ship, causing on AM damage to self.

[Direct Fire]: Range 2-5. Reactor power improves maximum range to 10.

• Anti-Ship Lasers: High intensity vectored lasers, the primary weapon of most navies. Base TN number is 6 + Target Hull Type.

[Direct Fire] range 0-10 ER type 0-15

[Predicted] Effectively infinite, requires Spotter

• Heavy Lasers: Massive arrays far too powerful to use strong beam vectoring. Consequently their base to-hit number is 7 plus the target's Hull Type (may not be able to hit certain targets at all). They can not be fitted on Hull Types over 2.

[Direct Fire] range 0-15, ER type 0-20

[Predicted] Effectively infinite, requires Spotter

• Lances: High power pulsars based on gravity manipulation.

[Close] range 0-4, murderously effective in destroying armor, however base-to-hit is 8. Each unit of speed a ship moves in a turn brings the TN to hit down by one.

[Long] range 4-8, base-to-hit is 10. Each unit of speed a ship moves in a turn brings the TN to hit down by one.

Plasma Cannon: 15-20 Range (Half Damage, requires spotter), 10-15 (1 Damage, requires spotter), 10-4 Range (2 Damage), 0-1 (3 damage). Base to-hit number is 6 + Target Hull Type

Special Weapons

• Missiles: Must use Open Bay Stance to fire. Ammunition is limited, one point = one missile. Ships can launch as many missiles as they have loaded. One point of PD stops one missile within 7 hexes. Weapon pools can fire on missiles at TN 8.

[Burst Munitions]: Unlimited range. The player designates either a ship or a designated hex for missiles to hit. A Burst Missile that successfully reaches its target does 6 damage to the center hex and 4 damage to each hex around it. In hexes where blasts overlap, add half damage for another missile, then no damage for any further blasts.

[Shaped Charge]: Resolved like a normal attack, base to-hit number is 7 + Target Hull Type. Range 1-10, effectively infinite with a spotter. A successful hit causes 8 damage, the next does 4, a third adds none.

• Anti-matter Torpedo: Instead of a traditional warhead, these warheads when armed use a vector field at the tip of a large missile to safely contain anti-matter. Destroys both armor and hp. They act like other missiles in almost all other respects, however, due to their volatility they can only be launched every other turn while their vector fields are recalibrated.
• Spinal Gun: Single shot weapon seen specialized anti-fortress ships and occasionally battleships. Base TN to hit is 6 + Hull Type. Recharges in 5 Turns. 30 Damage. Must use Spinal Cannon stance to fire.

[Second Generation Spinal Gun]: Base TN to hit is 6 + Hull Type. Recharges in 4 Turns. 40 Damage. Must use Spinal Cannon stance to fire.

[Cruiser Spinal Gun]: Base TN to hit is 6 + Hull Type. Recharges in 5 Turns. 20 Damage. Must use Spinal Cannon stance to fire.

Crippled

Ships are brought to half efficiency when they reach 1/3rd health, instead of half at half, and 1/4 at 1/4th.

Stances:

• Damage Control: When a ship is crippled, the Captain may order every non-critical hand to fight fires and make hasty repairs. The ship can not fire weapons or Reactor power. Each turn the ship is in Damage Control, make a command check to bring either weapons or drives back up to normal function.
• Retreat: All emergency power to engines. No weapon pools may be used. +1/2 Speed. Ship in Retreat cannot be taken out of Retreat stance except with a command check.
• Spinal Cannon: When firing a spinal gun, a ship cannot fire any weapon pools and takes a relatively predictable course and emits a large spike of exotic particles. No EW protection and may be hit at -1 TN.
• Open Bays: When lofting missiles or launching/recovering smallcraft, the ship halves its weapon pools and takes double damage.

Hull Types 0-1:

• Barrage: Fleet Capitals to Cruisers may target a hex for barrage fire. Every weapon pool in range does half its dice in damage, spread equally between the target hex and each surrounding hex.

Hull Types 2-3:

• E-War: Half weapon pools. Target an enemy ship and attempt to counter its Spotting or Jamming. Both ships roll 1d10+EW Score. On a success nullify target's EW.
• Spotting: Half weapon pools. The ship is triples its EW Bubble and imrpoves degradation of enemy ECM at -1@12, -2@8, -3@6, -4@ for the purposes of spotting for friendly ships.
• Deception: No weapon pools. The ship grants all ships within its EW bubble its EW score for the purposes of passive defense. Ships that use their weapon pools lose this EW protection.

Ship mockups

Battleships

Dreadnought: Speed 2 (Init:0), Shields 10, Armor 8, Structure 25, EW 0, PD 4, Heavy Lasers 8, 4 Lasers
Armored Cruiser: Speed 3 (Init:1), Shields 8, Armor 6, Structure 15, EW 0, PD 5, 3 Heavy Lasers, 5 Lasers
Cruiser: Speed 3 (Init:1), Shields 6, Armor 4, Structure 12, EW 2, PD 6, 6 Lasers, Missiles 3
Frigate Destroyer: Speed 5 (Init:2), Shields 6, Armor 3, Structure 10, EW 1, PD 3, Lasers 4, Missiles 4

Unrated

Super-Frigate: Speed 5 (Init: 2), Shields 6, Armor 2, Structure 12, EW 4, PD 4, Lasers 6
Frigate: Speed 4 (Init 3), Shields 4, Armor 2, Structure 6, EW 4, PD 3, Lasers 3

Ships & Weapons Proposals

100thlurker:

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

Lokar

Missiles: Increase the ammo from 3 to 4. Going full offensive takes 2 (two) rounds of ammo. So an Imperial battleship/cruiser/destroyer can have four rounds of normal missile fire or two of full offensive fire or two normal/one offensive.

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