User Tools

Site Tools


Sidebar

Navigation

Official

Homebrew

Trackers

Keep track of all parts of your Battlestations campaign
Campaign Tracker
Spaceship Tracker
Character Tracker

content:official:modules:helm

Table of Contents

Helm

(requires external forward facing)

The Helm is where you fly the ship from. Maneuvers here will allow you to speed up, slow down, stall, ram, dodge, change facing, dock, evasive maneuvers, pickup spacewalkers, land, enter atmosphere, blast off or steady the ship.

Flying the Ship

Technically the ship flies itself. The crew can take piloting actions to change the speed and heading of their craft and other various maneuvers.

Each Helm action you attempt costs one Helm power regardless of how many maneuvers it contains. (I.e. doing a double turn or triple acceleration still only costs one Helm power.)

Other than Steady the Ship all maneuvers generate one OOC per maneuver attempted and extra OOC if they fail equal to the amount by which they fail.

OOC in excess of 4 becomes 1 point of hull damage each.

Maneuver

(Piloting Skill vs. 2 x Ship Size + 2 x Speed)

Add +3 to the difficulty for each additional maneuver of the same type you want to do.

The Speed here is the current ship speed.

Example: Size 5 ship at Speed 2 wants to accelerate by one. The difficulty is 10 (double Size) + 4 (double Speed) for a total of 14.

TACTICAL NOTE

You can double turn to keep going the same direction. This is called a waggle and can be useful when you are trying to bring forward facing weapons on overwatch to bear on a target that is chasing you.

Accelerate/Deccelerate

Adjust the ship Speed by one. Minimum Speed is 0. Maximum Speed is 5.

Turn

Rotate the ship facing 60 degrees.

Sideslip

On the ship's next movement it will slide one hex diagonally instead of straight ahead.

Note that this does not move the ship right now but you can slide it to the edge of its hex to remind you that when it does move, it will move that direction but maintain its current heading. A double sideslip makes the ship sideslip twice.

Stall

The ship skips its next hex of movement. You can multi-stall to skip additional hexes of movement.

Steady the Ship

Clear all OOC. This maneuver ignores OOC and does not generate OOC if it fails. A character can be on overwatch to steady during a maneuver and cancel the OOC as it is generated.

Dock

Choose a ship in the same hex with matching speed and heading. Connect a door on your ship with a door on the opposite side of the target ship (geometry must match). Those doors are now adjacent. Treat this as a Tractor Dock (page 121) with the exception that any attempted maneuver by either ship breaks the dock instead of being penalized by the other ship's size. Note that you must hack or break the door to go into the other ship unless you have access. At Speed 0, you do not need to match facing to dock.

Ram (Must be on overwatch)

(Piloting vs 2 x Ship Size + 2 x Speed)

Count your successes as a penalty to the target's attempt to dodge your ram.

Starships will not ram one another unless somebody on one ship was on overwatch to ram. Space is big.

Ramming is the process of causing your warp bubbles to collide as your ship is moving into the hex of another ship (or it is moving into your ship's hex). Note an actual collision at superluctic speed would obliterate both ships! This ram is about the interference of your respective warp bubbles.

If successful, your ship strikes the target with its Speed as a Cannon hit and its Size as another Cannon hit (see page 106). Both hits ignore shields. The ship you strike deals damage to your ship in the same way (hits of Speed and Size). The facing of the ships determines the face hit by the ram.

After any ram, each ship loses 1 speed and gets a random facing. Bases don't change speed or facing.

Note that you can ram the same object a maximum of once per Phase in a given hex. You can't have both of your pilots on overwatch to ram and both ram the same target. If your random facing happens to put you both into the same new hex, your second pilot then ram.

Ramming Astral Bodies

Entering the hex of an astral body at a Speed greater than 1 will cause a collision unless somebody aboard successfully dodges. Ships ramming a moon or larger body suffer as if hit by a ship of their own Size and Speed as you skip the atmosphere. Entering the hex of a black hole or any type of star destroys the ship.

Ramming Spacewalkers

It is a simple maneuver to ram a spacewalker. Add +3 to the difficulty to ram additional spacewalkers in the same hex.

The spacewalker suffers a number of dice of personal damage equal to the larger of the ship's Speed or Size. The starship might suffer damage. Roll a die and the starship sustains one point of hull damage if the die result is a 6. Extremely few ships are equipped with wiper blades for removing the debris left behind.

Pickup Spacewalkers

Ship must be at Speed zero. It is a simple maneuver to pickup a spacewalker. Add +3 to the difficulty to pickup additional spacewalkers. Success puts the spacewalker(s) just inside the external door(s) of your choice. Failure by exactly 1 rams the spacewalker (see above).

Dodge

(Piloting vs 2 x Ship Size + 2 x Speed + Ram Succeses, +3 per additional dodge to perform in a Phase)

Entering the hex of an asteroid or larger object at a speed greater than 1 requires a Dodge or the ship will ram the object.

You can also use Dodge to avoid: rams, mines and missiles. The difficulty to avoid rams and missiles is increased by the successes of those attacks. It is a simple maneuver to avoid a mine or planetary body.

Add +3 to the highest dodge difficulty for each additional object you wish to dodge. Thus a Size 3 ship at Speed 3 needs a 12 to dodge one object but if it is travelling through 2 difficult hexes it will need a piloting check of 15 to get through unscathed.

Similar to sideslipping, a dodge action taken not during ship movement lasts until the next ship movement.

Evasive Maneuvers

(Piloting vs. 2 x Ship Size + 2 x Speed, +3 per level of maneuver to increase the OOC)

Add the ship's OOC level to the difficulty of any attempt to target the ship until the ship attempts another maneuver.

Orbit

An object moving at speed 1 along the hex side of a planet will automatically turn toward the planet at the end of movement and does not decelerate at the end of the Round.

This is called “orbiting.”

Planetfall

Ships can enter atmosphere, land and take off. Note that landing on a planet, moon or asteroid without atmosphere allows you to skip the “enter atmosphere” and “leave atmosphere” stages. All maneuvers entering, within, or leaving atmosphere, have a difficulty equal to triple the ship's Size and generate an additional amount of OOC equal to the ship's Size. Ships cannot accelerate when within an atmosphere.

This a Size 3 ship landing on the surface would generate 4 OOC.

Enter Atmosphere

(Piloting vs. Ship Size x 3)

If your ship is at Speed zero and in the same hex as a planet with an atmosphere you can use this maneuver to enter atmosphere.

You must take a separate action to land or leave the atmosphere.

Land

(Piloting vs. Ship Size x 3)

A failed landing attempt succeeds anyway but causes 1 die of hull damage, 1 die of personal damage to all aboard and breaks a random module from a random facing for each point of failure.

Example: A Size 3 ship wants to land (difficulty 9) and the Piloting skill check totals to 6. All aboard suffer 3 dice of personal damage. The ship suffers 3 dice of hull damage and 3 modules break.

Note that his is in addition to the OOC converting to hull damage at the end of the Phase you land.

Blast Off!

(Piloting vs. Ship Size x 3)

Success moves the ship from the surface to “in atmosphere”. You must take another maneuver to leave the atmosphere (or land).

If you are blasting off from a moon, you do not need to leave atmosphere.

Leave Atmosphere

(Piloting vs. Ship Size x 3)

Success puts your ship in space in the same hex as the planet you're leaving headed in the direction of your choice.

content/official/modules/helm.txt · Last modified: 2018/03/31 15:41 by lektu