Starship Combat

Starship combat works just like regular combat and is fought in five-second rounds.

To Attack a Starship

1.	Determine the difficulty number to hit the target (based on the starship weapon's range, listed in Space units).
2.	The attacker rolls the appropriate attack skill:
•	Starship gunnery for starfighter-scale weapons
•	Capital ship gunnery for capital-scale weapons

Add the weapon's fire control dice. 3. If the roll is equal to or higher than the difficulty number, the attack hits. Roll damage (see "Starship Damage").

Example: Rhen is using the double laser cannon aboard Thannik's Thunder to shoot at an Imperial TIE fighter. The TIE fighter is eight Space units away — that's medium range for the laser cannons (Moderate difficulty; difficulty number 12). Rhen's starship gunnery is 5D and the laser cannon's fire control is 1D+2: she rolls and gets a 17. The laser cannon shot smashes into the TIE fighter!

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Reaction Skills

Starships may make starship dodges to avoid enemy fire, just as vehicles can perform vehicle dodges. This is a reaction skill.

The pilot rolls the ship's piloting skill (capital ship piloting, space transports, or starfighter piloting—depending on the ship) and adds the ship's maneuverability. The total becomes the new difficulty number to hit the ship.

Example: Rhen's shooting at another TIE fighter. It's at medium range for a Moderate difficulty (difficulty number 14). The TIE pilot makes a starship dodge, rolling starfighter piloting 4D plus the TIE's maneuverability 2D — he gets a 20. Rhen's new difficulty number to hit the TIE fighter is 20.

Full Reaction

A pilot can make a full reaction, but it can be the only action in the entire round.

The character rolls piloting + maneuverability and adds it to the difficulties of all attacks made against the ship that round.

Example: Later on, Rhen fires again at the TIE fighter: she's still at medium range for a Moderate difficulty (difficulty number 15). The TIE pilot makes a full starship dodge. He rolls and gets a 15. Because this is a full starship dodge, Rhen's new difficulty number is 30! However, the TIE pilot can't do anything else in the round.

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Shields

Starship shields are electronic energy dampers which help absorb some of the damage from enemy attacks. Shields come in two main varieties: • Particle shields deflect physical objects (asteroids, missiles, proton torpedoes). They are used at all times except when a ship launches fighters, missiles, or torpedoes (the shields must be dropped to let physical objects pass). When a ship lowers its particle shields, reduce its hull code by −2D. (A ship which loses its main power generator also loses its particle shields.) • Energy/ray shields protect against energy weapons.

Shields are normally activated only in combat and must cover specific fire arcs to be effective. Using shields is a reaction skill.

Each starship has a certain number of dice in shields. When deploying shields, the shield dice must be split among the four fire arcs:

Front • Back • Left • Right

Shield deployment difficulty • One fire arc: Easy • Two fire arcs: Moderate • Three fire arcs: Difficult • Four fire arcs: Very Difficult

If the ship is hit from a protected side, add the shield dice for that fire arc to the ship's hull code to resist damage.

Example: Rhen is behind the controls of a modified YT-1300 transport with a hull code of 4D and 2D in shields. Three TIE fighters are closing in from behind. • She activates shields and assigns all 2D to the back fire arc. She makes an Easy starship shields roll. If any shots hit from behind, she resists with 6D (4D hull + 2D shields). • A few rounds later, she's being attacked from both front and back. She splits shields: 1D front, 1D back. Covering two fire arcs makes the shields roll Moderate. If successful, attacks from the front or back are resisted with 5D (4D hull + 1D shields). Side attacks are resisted by 4D hull only.

Capital Ship Shields (Option)

Capital ship shield operators are not generally paid much attention in the basic rules. The following rules may make this critical position more interesting.

If shield dice are lost due to a "shields blown" result on the starship damage table, the shields may overload; the shield operators must compensate or risk further damage. Roll 1D per shield lost to determine how difficult it is to shunt the shield overload into the static power buffer (the attempt uses the capital ship shields skill). • If successful, the energy is transferred to the static buffer and discharged, resulting in nothing more serious than controls ionized (serious, but recoverable). • If unsuccessful, the shields overload; roll the number of shield dice lost against the ship's hull dice. The result is taken as normal damage as the energy surges through other connected systems.

If a complication occurs (a 1 on the Wild Die) or if the starship damage table result indicates "shields lost," the shield module itself explodes.

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Starship Weapons

Most starships have at least one weapon system; some capital ships have dozens of weapon emplacements.

Starship weapons work just like normal character and vehicle weapons. They use the rules for fire control, ammo, fire rate, blast radius, and scale from the chapter on "Combat and Injuries." They also use the rules for ranges, crew, and fire arcs from "Movement & Chases."

All starships provide full cover.

Fire-linked

Some weapons are fire-linked: multiple weapons are linked together to fire as one group. The listed game statistics are for the weapons when fire-linked.

Example: An X-wing has four fire-linked laser cannons. When fired together, all four go off, and hits do 6D damage.

Fire-linked weapons can be rigged to fire separately, but subtract damage using the rules on combined fire.

Example: Four fire-linked cannons do 6D damage together. If fired separately, subtract −1D from each cannon's damage (so each does 4D damage).

Ranges

Most starship weapons have both Range and Atmosphere Range listings. • Range is used for space combat (in Space units). • Atmosphere Range is used when firing in or into an atmosphere (see "Ships in an Atmosphere" later in this chapter).

Laser Cannons and Turbolasers

•	Laser cannons are standard starfighter-scale weapons (freighters, TIE fighters, X-wings).
•	Turbolasers are immense capital-scale weapons (capital ships may also mount laser cannons to counter starfighters).

Ion Cannons

Ion cannons interfere with a ship's electrical and computer systems but do not cause physical damage. Shields do not protect a ship from ion cannon damage.

Example: Rhen assigns the modified 2D shields of her YT-1300 (hull code 4D) to the back fire arc. • Laser cannon attacks that hit roll against the ship's combined 6D (hull + shields). • Ion cannon blasts ignore shields. Rhen rolls only the YT-1300's 4D hull to resist ion damage.

If the damage roll is lower than the hull roll, the ship takes no damage. If equal or higher, use:

Ion cannon damage roll ≥ hull code roll by: • 0–3: controls ionized • 4–8: 2 controls ionized • 9–12: 3 controls ionized • 13–15: 4 controls ionized • 16+: controls dead

Missiles, Bombs, and Proton Torpedoes

These physical weapons deliver massive firepower but are difficult to target. Their difficulty numbers are modified by target speed:

Increase to Difficulty — Space Move (Atmosphere): • +5: 3 (100–150) • +10: 4 (151–200) • +15: 5 (201–250) • +20: 6+ (251+)

Tractor Beams

Military-grade tractor beams capture starships so they can be boarded and searched. (Small cargo tractor beams have no combat use.)

Resolve as a normal attack: • If the attack roll beats the difficulty number, the tractor beam hits.

Then roll tractor "damage" against the target's hull code: • If the target hull roll is higher, it breaks free. • If tractor damage is equal or higher, the ship is captured.

A captured ship that does not resist can be reeled in automatically: 5 Space units per round.

If the target ship resists, compare tractor damage vs. hull code and apply:

Example: An Imperial Star Destroyer holds Thannik's Thunder in a tractor beam. The freighter is nine Space units away. • Rhen doesn't resist: the ship is pulled in five Space units this round, leaving it four Space units away. • Next round she resists. She rolls the freighter's hull 4D and gets 11. The Star Destroyer rolls its tractor beam 6D plus the scale's adjusted modifier of 6D, getting 35 — a difference of 24. • Rhen groans as Thannik's Thunder's sublight drives blow out. The ship is now dead in space as the Star Destroyer reels it in the final four Space units. Rhen mutters, "What would Leia do?" as her ship is hauled up into the Star Destroyer's cavernous hangar bay.

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Source: REUP:134