These rules require a substantial modification of the ship control sheets. (SCS)

Overview

The game is played in rounds on a hex grid in 5 phases

1. Preparation
   1. Roll initiative (d20)
   2. Divert power
   3. Launch ballistics
2. Move
   1. All craft in initiative order
3. Ships Fire
   1. Ballistics strike
   2. Ships firing (select alternately, roll for first each odd numbered turn)
4. Fighters
   1. Fighter to fighter (simultaneous)
   2. Fighter drop outs (d6)
   3. Fighter anti-ship fire (including fighter based ballistics)
5. Criticals
   1. Weapon drop outs (d10)
   2. System criticals take affect
   3. Sides fall off
      

Phase 1 Preparation

Determine initiative

Each ship rolls a d20 and adds the result to that ships bonus. Ships move in initiative order. Thus large slow ships move first and fast agile ships move last to best position themselves out of arc of the slower ships weapons.

Divert Power

Ships may divert power from one weapon to another to reduce its recharge time. Each turn a weapon may accept additional power equal to one turns charge thus reducing its recharge time by 1 round. If the additional power comes from other weapons that weapon must be shut off completely and loses whatever power it had stored; excess power is wasted.

After 2 turns continuous firing a weapon must cool down for one turn.

Ballistics

Any ships launching ballistics declare a launch and state the missile or torpedo's target.

Phase 2 Movement

If a ship does not apply thrust it will continue to travel at the same speed in the same direction.

Ships move in initiative order, lowest to highest. Ties are decided by a straight roll off, no bonuses.

Acceleration

Ships have a given amount of thrust which may be applied to change speed or direction. A ship's movement table gives the thrust required for accelerating and turning.

Narn Var'Nic example

The large (red) number is the thrust available, the number after "accn" is how much thrust it required to change speed by 1 hex. With 12 thrust and an acceleration cost of 3 this ship could accelerate by 4 hexes each turn.

Only ships with retro thrusters may decellerate, other ships have to pivot 180 degrees before applying thrust to slow themselves down.

Turns

Turns do not happen instantly, the captain barks out an order, the helmsman follows it and the ship pivots, applies thrust and slowly starts heading off in the new direction.

Applying the ship's maximum thrust throughout the round the movement table indicates how many hexes must be travelled at a given speed before the ship is effectively heading in the new direction. It allows modifications to be made for changes in the available thrust.

The movement table's first row is the ships speed and the second row is the number of hexes it must travel before it has changed heading.

Narn Var'Nic movement table

A Var'Nic going at speed 6 and applying all its thrust in an effort to turn must travel 3 hexes forward after the player has declared the turn. If it has sufficient movement left during the round it may turn again as it may apply the thrust to turn throughout the round.

This assumes that the ship has its full power available, which won't be the case if it is accelerating, decelerating or has had thrusters shot off. In these cases the turn delay must be increased. For each point of thrust not available you work your way in a zig zag up the table increasing the turn delay, starting from your highest speed.

Narn Var'Nic acceleration during a turn example

If the Var'Nic was to accelerate from 6 to 7 it uses 3 thrust, if it wants to turn as well the turn delay is calculated form the highest speed of 7 and then adding 3 zigs as 3 thrust was used for accelerating. Thus the delay would go from 4 down and right to 5, up and right to 5 again and finally down and right to 6. So the player would not be able to turn the ship until the 6th hex.

Narn Var'Nic deceleration during a turn example

If the Var'Nic was to decelerate from 6 to 5 it again uses 3 thrust, if it wants to turn as well the turn delay would start at the highest speed of 6 and go from 3 down and right to 4 up and right to 4 again and finally down and right to 5. So the player would not be able to turn the ship until the 5th hex.

Special turning rules

During the turn the ship in reality pivots past the turning angle applying thrust to reduce it's forward speed, whilst at the same time applying thrust in the new direction.

Actual ship course	Ship's pivot during turn

1. As soon as ship has moved 1 hex into the turn the ship is asumed to have pivoted by 120 degrees as shown*
2. The ship doesn't have to pivot back to face the direction it is travelling.
3. No speed change is allowed after the turn has commenced
4. The turning point may be voluntarily delayed by up to half the hexes left (round up) before the turning point. This will automatically happen if the ship loses any or all thrust during the manouvre.

* In reality it should be a proportion of the turn delay but that would slow the game down for no appreciable benefit.

Pivots

All ships may pivot by

• 180 degrees in 1/2 round. (leaving half thrust for other manouvres)
• 60 degrees in 1/3 round (leaving two thirds thrust for other manouvres)

Ships may pivot even if they have lost their thrusters or engine as they use multiple small manouvring thrsuters.

Deceleration

Gravitic drives or ships with retro-thrusters apply thrust to slow down . Ships without retro-trhusters pivot 180 degrees and then apply thrust to slow themselves down ending up facing the opposite direction to the way they are travelling.

Slides

Slides are simply an acceleration to the port or starboard. After the appropriate delay for pivoting to the correct direction (i.e. 60 or 120 degrees) the ship may accelerate causing a slide. Slides continue from round to round unless checked.

After pivoting a ship may or may not decide to pivot back to the original heading. For a 60 degree pivot this would leave only 1/3 of the thrust for the slide acceleration, it is not possible at all for a120 degrees pivot.

Rolls

A ship may roll whilst performinng other manouvres effectively turning it upside down. These are completed at the end of the movement phase.

Agile ships

Agile ships may perform snap manouvres, that is before movement or after all movement has taken place they may pivot or roll. This is done in initiative order. These manouvres cost no thrust.

Agile ships which have lost a side are no longer agile.

Gravitic drive ships

Ships using gravitic drives may apply thrust in any direction. They may change speed whilst pivoted and turn whilst facing any direction.

Phase 3 Fire

The firing phase has 2 sub-phases

1. Ballistics strike
2. Ships firing

Ballistics strike

Missiles, torpedoes and other ballistics strike (Use normal ships firing rules)

Ships Fire

There are 5sub-phases to firing

1. Roll to hit
2. Intercept
3. Determine side hit
4. Roll location
5. Roll Damage

1) Roll to hit

You must roll equal to or under the ships target signature to score a hit

Target signature = ships signature + range modifier

Certain types of shot such as ballistics, plasma or matter may be intercepted. Each weapon that has an ability to intercept is noted with a intercept capability such as -1. Each weapon intercepting may only make one intercept attempt per round and may not fire offensively.

The number of weapons attempting to intercept is decided before any intercept rolls are made.

Each intercepting weapon is rolled seperately on a d10, if the number is lower than or equals the weapons intercept capability the shot is blocked. Against pulse attacks successful intercept attempts block the number of pulses rolled. Against slow moving ballistics the intercept value of all weapons is increased by one (including weapons

3) Determine side hit

Ships are in three dimensional space so may easily hit locations on the other side of a ship if they are above or below the target. To make the game quicker all of a ship's weapons hit the same side of the target. Roll a d10 and consult the location chart for the ship, some ships such as Drazi have specialised location charts.

4) Roll location

Roll a d20 and consult the location chart for the side hit

5) Roll damage

Roll damage according to the weapon table.

Deduct the armour value from the damage (half if the item or side has been destroyed) and cross off the structural boxes for the item hit.

Note :Some types of weapons have special attack modes, matter weapons ignore armour as they punch right through it, plasma weapons ignore half armour as they burn it away.

Overkill

If a system or weapon is destroyed the remaining damage transfers to the structure underneath. No additional armour is counted

If the structure on a side is completely destroyed the remaining damage penetrates to the primary section and a random location is rolled.

If a primary system is destroyed any remaining damage transfers to primary structure

Phase 4 Fighters

The fighters phase has 3 sub-phases

1. Fighter to fighter firing
2. Fighter drop out
3. Fighter anti-ship firing

Fighter to fighter firing

All fighters targeting another fighter fire simultaneously.

Fighter drop-out

Any fighters which suffered damage must survive a drop out roll to continue. The fighter must roll <= their remaining structure on a d6.

Fighter anti-ship firing

Any fighters which have survived the onslaught of defending fighters and ship defenses have now penetrated close enough to target the ship and may attack.

Phase 5 Criticals

Each weapon damaged during the round must roll a critical to see if it is still working. If it rolls equal to or less than the number of boxes it has left on a d10 it has survived.

Other systems suffer criticals for each row or block destroyed

Side destroyed

• Use ½ armour on facing side (round down)
• All shots to primary

Per lost side
• Turn delay is increased by 2 zigs.
• Signature increased by 2 points.
• Initiative -6
• 50% of initial jamming / stealth capability.