Vehicle Combat Check Steps

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General Vehicle Combat Steps

Vehicle Combat Checks follow the same basic structure as Personal Combat Checks.

1. Declare an Attack and Select Targets

The character chooses to make an attack. They select what skill they will use to make the attack (usually the Gunnery skill, although some vehicles may have weapons on them requiring the Ranged (Heavy) skill instead). Most combat checks aboard a vehicle are made using the starship or vehicle's weapons.

2. Assemble the Dice Pool

The character then assembles their dice pool based on the skill, its characteristic, and any applicable talents and other abilities. Certain conditions, such as the effect of a Critical Injury, a Critical Hit inflicted on the vehicle, or an environmental effect, may also contribute dice to the dice pool.

3. Pool Results and Deal Damage

Once the player rolls the dice pool for their character, they evaluate the results. As with any skill check, the check must generate more than to be successful.

When a ship or vehicle suffers damage, it reduces that damage by its Armor (fulfilling the same purpose as Soak on individuals). If any damage remains after this reduction, the vehicle suffers that much Hull Trauma. If the net result is zero or negative, the vehicle suffers no Hull Trauma.

4. Resolve and

As with every skill check, and can be spent to gain incidental beneficial effects on a combat check. However, just as the rules governing encounters are somewhat more regimented than the rules governing narrative gameplay, some of the options governing the spending of and are more clearly defined.

In encounters, the player controlling the activated character determines how their character spends and , unless the GM has a specific reason to decide for them instead. The first way to spend and in an attack is to activate Critical Hits or Active weapon Qualities.

5. Resolve and

By default, the GM determines how and are spent, although in some cases (such as checks made by NPCs) they may give the players the option to spend these instead.

Unlike and , most weapons do not have specific options for spending and — although this is not always the case. Some particularly volatile or dangerous weapons do have these options, and if they do, the options are detailed in the weapon's description.

6. Apply Critical Hits and Injuries

A successful attack can also generate a Critical Hit, which is similar to a Critical Injury. This can occur because the weapon's Critical Rating triggered or because the target accumulated Hull Trauma greater than its Hull Trauma Threshold.