Space Combat

Premise: the chances of running into a ship in deep space are fairly small, and getting into position to engage them is also small. So I will assume that nearly all combat occur near a destination, which means the ship is slowing down or speeding up, but is currently at a reasonable speed that would allow an attacker a chance to engage you in combat.

It is too difficult to take into account such factors as acceleration, vectors, gravity etc. For the purposes of these rules we will abstract most of these factors into a few rolls.

 The GM should decide a number of factors when beginning a space combat.

• How long before one of the ships gets to where it is going and/or safety. This may not be an option.
• Is one ship running low on anything – fuel, energy, air. – and therefor on a time limit.
• What range they begin at, this implies both sides see each other.

Safety.

Safety is someplace where you are able to cease combat with your enemy. It could be anything really, but probably is an area near where reinforcements are available, or where your enemy is not willing to go. A pirate is not likely to approach a planetary system where he knows fighters might intercept him. Further he might not go with a certain distance of that planet due to fuel requirements on his own part, or the threat of pursuit or detection.

This can be easily abstracted into a number of VPs of piloting skill rolls, as long as the pilot is actively seeking safety. In combat a pilot will have a number of types of actions he can pursue: safety, maneuver, close, increase.

Safety: the pilot heads for his safety zone, all VPs count toward gaining this target, any may also be allocated to Increase (counts for both if you wish).

Maneuver: one VP in three may be allocated to reaching safety, the rest are allocated to contolling the ship to avoid enemy fire or obstacles, or to increase or decrease range.

Close: all VPs may be allocated to decrease the range with your enemy. One in four may also count toward gaining Safety.

Increase: all VPs may be allocated to increase range with your enemy. One in two may also count toward gaining Safety.

Range.

The range between ships will be either Extreme, Long, Optimal, Short, Close, Contact. This will be simply reflected by a specific value in VPs. Each turn the two ships will modify this VP total, based on ship speed and performance.

Most ships are rated for %speed of light, this will be used to reflect the ships drive power (acceleration primarily). This value is the base score of the ship per turn. A Pilot roll will add VPs to this total, and an Engineers roll can be used to compliment this (or vice versa). The difference in the totals can be added to or deducted from the range, or added to gaining Safety.

Each GM should make an estimate of how long they want average space combat to occur, say 20 rounds. This therefor sets the level you place safety at. Using an average ships with 15%SOL they are probably going to score about 20 points a turn, so Safety could be set at around 400 points..

Based on this range values could be set as follows:

Setting Start Range

Making the assumption that an encounter is going to occur implies that one side sees the other first. From there they try to close and the target must roll to see them. Starting at Farway range and moving in make sensor rolls until successful. Determine a random distance within that range group as the starting point (based on VPs scored maybe).

Combat now begins at this range. It could possibly start sooner however if the attacker decides to open fire before they have been detected, assuming they hit. The attacker may also use whatever methods they have to disguise their approach, such as putting Sand (-1 VP) or Chaff(-2 VP) out front, or maybe launching a dummy bouy, or having stealth techniques.