Chapter 5.2: Starship Operations and Conflict

Use ordinary scenes for routine travel and shipboard life. Use Tasks when a ship acts under uncertainty. Begin starship conflict when timing, position, and opposition require turns.

Every starship conflict has an objective. Disable the raider, reach the relay, screen an evacuation, escape the gravity well, or hold long enough for a ruling to arrive. Destruction is one possible outcome and seldom serves the commission's objective.

Zones and Turns

Space is divided into zones. Use the same range ladder as personal conflict: Close is the same zone, Medium is one zone away, Long is two, and Extreme is three or more.

Each player character able to direct the ship takes one turn per round. On that turn they take one Major Action and one Minor Action. The action may occur through the ship or aboard it. Turns alternate with the opposition under Chapter 3.4.

These turns represent the active attention of the characters the players are following, not the ship's total headcount. At the start of a scene, each player chooses their main character or one Supporting Character they control under Chapter 4.8; that active character supplies the player's turn. Background Supporting Characters and the ship's ordinary crew contribute through Assistance, Facility and situation Traits, Minor Actions, and the normal rules for directing a background character. Their presence does not create additional player turns.

An NPC ship receives turns equal to its Scale. To keep a battle moving, the gamemaster may cap one NPC ship's turns at the number of active player characters. Each NPC ship may use a given System to Assist only once per round. Spending 1 Threat lets it use that System for one additional action.

Scale-based NPC turns abstract staffed stations and operational depth; they do not assert that the ship has only that many officers. The optional cap counts the characters the players are actively operating, including active Supporting Characters, and ignores background helpers. If casualties, boarding, evacuation, or absence materially reduces an NPC ship's available crew, represent that with a Trait, fewer turns, or unavailable actions according to what the fiction has removed.

The players' ship also uses each System to Assist only once per round. A player may spend 1 Momentum to use a System for one additional action that round. The spend adds Threat normally.

Minor Actions

Raising Shields restores no lost Shields. It returns them at their current value or Maximum Shields, whichever is lower. A ship entering conflict with Shields down begins at Maximum Shields when it raises them, unless the fiction has already damaged the field system.

Major Actions

Maneuver

Move up to two zones. Hazardous movement calls for a Daring or Control Task using a fitting Specialization, Assisted by Engines. A pursuit is an Opposed Task.

Sensor Sweep

Attempt Reason + Science, Assisted by Sensors + Science, at Difficulty 1. Success reveals the ordinary facts in one zone. Spend Momentum to Obtain Information. Range, concealment, or interference may raise Difficulty.

Scan for Weakness

Attempt Control + Science, Assisted by Sensors + Security, at Difficulty 2 against a detected target. Success creates Weakness Mapped. The next Attack against the target either gains Piercing or increases Severity by 2, then removes the Trait.

Attack

Choose a weapon, target, and Disabling or Destructive intent. Attempt Control + Security, Assisted by Weapons + Security. Difficulty is 2 at the weapon's normal range, +1 at each range step beyond it, and may be Opposed by Evasive Action or Defensive Fire.

Disabling intent targets Systems and crew capacity while preserving a recoverable vessel. Destructive intent may kill. A player choosing Destructive intent adds 1 Threat. An NPC spends 1 Threat and may use the lethal-debt rule from Chapter 3.2. Chapter 2.2's assessment and force standard apply to the people directing the vessel. A ship's danger, Scale, or damage state does not determine their personhood.

Evasive Action

Until your next turn, every Attack against the ship becomes an Opposed Task. When an Attack is declared, roll Daring + Infiltration or Security as the reactive character, Assisted by Engines + Infiltration. This reactive roll has no Difficulty; count its successes and use that total as the Attack's Difficulty, adjusted by other Traits as usual. Make a fresh reactive roll for each Attack. If the Attack fails, move the ship one zone after it resolves.

Until your next turn, Attacks made by your ship increase in Difficulty by 1. The ship cannot benefit from Defensive Fire at the same time.

Defensive Fire

Choose a projector. Until your next turn, every Attack against the ship becomes an Opposed Task. When an Attack is declared, roll Daring + Security as the reactive character, Assisted by Weapons + Security. This reactive roll has no Difficulty; count its successes and use that total as the Attack's Difficulty, adjusted by other Traits as usual. Make a fresh reactive roll for each Attack. After defeating an Attack, spend 2 Momentum to inflict the projector's Severity on the attacker. The ship cannot benefit from Evasive Action at the same time.

Restore Shields

Attempt Control + Engineering, Assisted by Structure + Engineering, at Difficulty 2. Success restores Shields equal to the character's Engineering. Spend 1 Momentum to restore 2 additional Shields, repeatable. This cannot raise Shields above their maximum.

Patch a Breach

Choose one Breach and attempt Control or Daring + Engineering at Difficulty 2. The ship Assists with Structure + Engineering when internal systems can reach the damage. Success marks the Breach Patched, suppressing its Trait effects. The Breach still counts toward Defeat until repaired outside conflict.

Regain Power

Attempt Control + Engineering, Assisted by Engines + Engineering, at Difficulty

1. Success makes Reserve Power Ready. Increase Difficulty by 1 each time this Action is attempted in the same scene. A Complication names the System whose output was reduced or creates another power-related Trait.

Create or Change a Trait

Attempt a Difficulty 2 Task using the System and Specialization that fit the change. Examples include Jamming Their Target Lock, Containment Reinforced, False Drive Signature, and Clear Lane to the Relay.

Other Task

Treat casualties, complete an Extended Task, negotiate over an open channel, launch a small craft, or take another action supported by the situation.

Damage

On a successful Attack, start with the weapon's Severity. Apply qualities and Momentum spends, then reduce Damage by the target's Resistance, to a minimum of

1. Piercing ignores Resistance.

Reduce the target's Shields by the remaining Damage. Track three thresholds:

• The first time Shields fall to half Maximum Shields or below, create one minor damage Trait chosen by the target's controller.
• The first time Shields fall to one-quarter Maximum Shields or below, create a second minor damage Trait and suffer one Breach.
• When Shields reach 0, suffer one Breach. Later successful Attacks while Shields remain at 0 inflict one Breach each.

If one Attack crosses both thresholds and reaches 0, apply both minor damage Traits and two Breaches: one at the quarter threshold and one when Shields fall.

Minor damage Traits include Power Fluctuation, Crew Shaken, Sensors Ghosting, Attitude Control Unstable, and Internal Fire. Each should affect a specific part of play. A character may remove one through a successful Difficulty 2 Task when the fiction supports the repair.

Breaches

A Breach is a Potent Trait attached to one System: Engines Breach, Sensors Breach 2, Structure Breach. Roll 1d20 or choose the System according to the Attack:

Each Breach raises Difficulty by 1 on Tasks using that System. At Potency 2, the System also loses any Talent tied to it. If Breaches on one System exceed half Scale, rounded up, that System is Disabled and cannot Assist until at least one Breach is Patched.

A ship is Defeated when total Breaches exceed Scale. Its controller chooses the fictional result allowed by the last Attack and the scene: dead in space, compelled to withdraw, boarded, captured, or destroyed. Destruction requires Destructive intent or a hazard that leaves no recoverable vessel.

Starship Momentum Spends

Every spend adds equal Threat. The gamemaster mirrors these effects with Threat.

Hazards, Repair, and Withdrawal

A stellar flare, charged dust field, gravity shear, or collision inflicts Damage like a weapon. State its Severity, affected System, and any quality before the crew commits to the action that risks it.

Use Severity 2 for a hazard that disrupts operations, 3 for one that can force a ship to withdraw, 4 for one that can Breach an ordinary field vessel, and 5 or 6 for a phenomenon that can destroy an unprepared ship. Area fits debris fields and broad radiation fronts; Piercing fits a hazard that bypasses shields or ordinary structural Resistance; Intense fits a concentrated impact. A sustained hazard inflicts Damage once per stated Interval until the ship leaves it or the crew changes the conditions.

Outside conflict, removing a Breach is an Extended Task with Progress 6, Difficulty 2, Resistance equal to the Breach's Potency minus 1, and an Interval from one hour to one day according to access. A proper Foundry or repair dock may remove Resistance or resolve routine damage without a roll.

Any side may offer surrender, separation, or terms while communication remains possible. A vessel that leaves the contested area has withdrawn. Pursuit begins only if another side chooses to continue, and that choice remains answerable under the crew's Mandate.