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There are many different types of starships in the Star Wars universe. In game terms, they are divided into three categories : capital, starfighter, and space transports. Capital ships are the huge normally military ships such as Star Destroyers and Mon Calamari Cruisers. Starfighters are the small military craft such as x wings and tie fighters. Space transports covers everything else.
While they may be different, all starships follow the same basic rules. All starships have a sublight drive which moves them through realspace. Realspace is everything except hyperspace for space travel. All space combat takes place in realspace, following the same rules covered in the combat section. In space combat you will probably use starship gunnery to attack and the appropriate piloting skill for defense. You also use your sublight engines for moving in an atmosphere. While in an atmosphere, your ship uses its move rate. In space it moves in space units. All speed and movement rules apply, as covered in the movement section.
Hyperdrives are used for travel to another planet or system. Your ship enters hyperspace and travels faster than the speed of light. This is very dangerous and all trips need to be plotted carefully so that you do not smash into a planet, moon, or something else. Objects in realspace have a hyperspace shadow at the place the are in real space. Most ships have mass shadow sensors that pull them out of hyperspace if they get to close to a hyperspace shadow in order to prevent crashes. In order to plot a trip through hyperspace, most pilots use a navicomputer. These store data on safely traveling through hyperspace. Some pilots may even use an astromech droid, which can store a very few coordinates for hyperspace travel. Either way they follow a hyperspace route, which is similiar to a road through space. It is very dangerous to not use one of these routes as you will most likely crash into something or get lost. There are routes between every major system. Some trips may take a few hours, some may take weeks, depending on how well known the route is and the distance between the two systems.
A hyperdrive is ranked by class. Most starships have a class two rating, which means you take the normal amount of time needed to travel between systems and multiply that number by two. This tells you how long it will take for that ship to get there. The lower the number, the faster the ship is. Most military ships are class one, the Millenium Falcon had a class .5 or half rating, making it one of the fastest ships in the galaxy. Most ships will also have a hyperdrive backup, which is much slower than the primary one. Most have a rating of class ten or worse. That means 10 times the amount of time to make it to the system.
In order to plot a hyperspace route, you must make an astrogation roll. If you tie or beat the number, you safely arrive after the specified time it takes to travel to where you are going. If you miss the roll by more than 10 points, you cannot make the jump and must plot the course again (reroll your astrogation). If you miss by 1-9, an astrogation mishap occurs. When you miss, the GM will roll 2D to find out what happens.
2 Hyperspace cut out and damaged. A moderate repair roll needed to fix the hyperdrive. Ship must use its backup hyperdrive or sublight engines to "limp" to nearby system for repairs.
3-4 Radiation Fluctuations. Radiation affects the hyperdrive's performance randomly adding or subtracting from the time to make it to destination.
5-6 Hyperdrive Cut Out. Ship's navicomputer detects a hyperspace shadow and throws ship into realspace. Must figure out where you are and plot a new course.
7-8 Off Course. You end up in wrong place. Must figure out where you are and try again.
9 Mynocks are eating your power cables. Time increases 1D days.
10 Close Call. Some other system on your ship is damaged. Will need to be fixed, but you successfully make the trip.
11-12 Collision. You hit something, pulling you back into realspace. Hull is ruptured, you must make moderate survival roll to get into a survival suit. If you fail this roll, must make a stamina check every round to avoid passing out until you get into a survival suit. Difficulty on stamina roll goes starts at easy and increases one level each round. Ship is useless and must be abandoned.
Plotting a jump to hyperspace normally takes one minute or more. It can be done in one round at double the difficulty. This must be rolled each round until roll beats difficulty (or ties), or a mishap happens.
Once you arrive in a system, you should use your sensors to figure out what is happening around you. There are four types of sensors : passive, scan, search, and focus. All sensors have two numbers listed with them. The first number is the range in space units and the second is the bonus added to your sensors roll.
Passive mode is for receiving information about immediate vicinity of the ship. Scan mode sends out pulses in all directions to gather information about the area. Its range is greater and gives more information than passive mode. Search mode is for one specific arc (front, back, left, or right). Its range is farther and the information is more specific than search, but only covers one direction. Focus mode gives the most information possible, but its area is the smallest of the four modes.
There are many ways to avoid detection by sensors. The most common way is to "hide" behind a planet or moon. Using only passive sensors can also help, as the others give off more of an energy signature. Powering down the ship and using the emergency life support can also hide yopur presence, but this emergency life support lasts a very short time. Any ship can use its sensors to jam an area. That hides specific information about your ship, but tells everyone that something is there. You can launch a sensor decoy that gives off exact same readings as your ship. You can use a sensor mask to try to hide your energy signatures. You can use false transponder codes. Every ship must register with the Bureau of Ships and Services (BoSS). BoSS gives each ship a unique transponder code which is used to identify the ship.
Starships have many types of communications systems. The most common and least expensive are subspace transceivers, comms, and intercomms. Subspace transceivers have a limited range, normally a few light years. They are used mainly for distress signals. Comms are for ship to ship or ship to planet communication. Starports have a preset comm channel to broadcast a METOSP (Message to Spacers), which gives landing protocols, traffic patterns, conditions at the spaceport, etc. Intercomms are used to communicate with other areas of the same ship.
Use the movement rules for starship movement. These include the four speeds (cautious, cruising, high speed, and all out), acceleration and deceleration rules, partial moves, and long distance movement rules. Starship movement failures are listed below :
| Misses by | Result |
|---|---|
| 1-3 Slight slip | The ship "slips" nearly spinning out of control. Completes the movement, but the pilot suffers a -1D penalty to all actions for rest of round in addition to any other MAPs. |
| 4-6 Slip | The ship "bobbles" nearly spinning out of control. It makes only half its move. The pilot suffers a -3D penalty to all actions for rest of round, and a -1D penalty to all actions the next round. This is in addition to all other MAPs. |
| 7-10 Spin | The ship completes one quarter of its move and then goes spinning out of control. The pilot cannot control the ship for this round and the next round. |
| 11-15 Minor Collision | If there's anything to hit, the ship has a minor collision. Takes damage, but subtract -3D from normal collision damage. Otherwise the ship goes spinning out of control. The pilot cannot control the ship this round and the next round. |
| 16-20 Collision | If there's anything to hit, the ship has a collision. Suffers normal collision damage. The pilot cannot control the ship this round and the next round. |
| 21+ Major Collision | If there's anything to hit, there is a crash. Increase collision damage by +4D. Otherwsie the ship goes spinning out of control. The pilot cannot control the ship for this round or the next round. |
| Speed | Damage |
|---|---|
| Cautious | 2D |
| Cruise | 4D |
| High Speed | 6D |
| All Out | 10D |
Roll collision damage against the starship's hull code. Starship damage chart from combat section explains what happens. The damage may vary depending on the angle of the collision.
head on +3D
rear end collsion -3D
t bone normal damage.
Starship combat follows the same rules as normal combat, but uses different skills. You will probably use starship gunnery to attack and the appropriate pilot skill to dodge. The pilot skill can be used as a reaction skill, Multiple Action Penalties (MAPs) may happen. Shields may be used as a reaction skill also. This skill is used to place your shield dice in each of your four arcs (front, back, left, right). You may place them all in one arc, or spread them out. Difficulty depends on how many arcs you cover in one round.
One arc Easy
Two arcs Moderate
Three arcs Difficult
Four arcs Very Difficult
If the ship takes hits from that side in combat, you add shield dice to the hull code to resist damage.
Starship weapons will include stats for fire control, blast radius, scale, ranges, crew, and fire arcs. All starships provide full cover. Other stats include fire linked. This means several weapons are linked together to fire as one group. They can be rigged to fire separately. Use the combined rules to figure out a bonus. Subtract that bonus from the damage code. Only experienced players and GMs should attempt this as you see because of the difficulty in figuring out the lowered damage, the only real result of firing them separately.
Most starship weapons have an atmosphere range and a space range. Use the atmosphere range for combat in an atmosphere, and the space range for combat in space.
Ion cannons are used to knock out a ship's electrical and computer systems. Shields cannot protect from ion cannons. Roll "damage" as you normally would against the ship's hull code. This does not cause physical damage, just knocks out electrical systems. Use the following chart to figure out what happens :
0-3 controls ionized
4-8 two controls ionized
9-12 three controls ionized
13-15 four controls ionized
16+ controls dead.
The GM will determine which controls are no longer able to be used.
Tractor beams are used to bring in a small ship for capture aboard a much larger one. Roll the normal attack skill against the ship's dodge. If successful the tractor beam rolls "damage" against the ship's hull code. This does not cause real damage, but brings the ship closer to the bigger one. If the target resists, roll its hull code against the tractor beam's "attack" roll. If the target gets higher it breaks free. Otherwise it moves closer 5 space units at a time. Use the following chart to figure out the result :
0-3 no rsult
4-8 -1 move, reeled in 1 space unit
9-12 -2 moves, reeled in 2 space units
13-15 -3 moves, reeled in 3 space units
16+ -4 moves, reeled in 4 space units
Starship damage uses the chart in the combat section. The results are explained in next few paragraphs.
Shields blown means that ship loses -1D from its shields total. The loss lasts until it is repaired. If ship has no shield dice, controls ionized result occurs.
Controls ionized means ship loses -1D from its maneuverability, shields, fire control, and weapon damage for rest of round and the next one. If ship is suffering from as many controls ionized as it has maneuverability dice, controls are frozen for next two rounds. Ship remains same speed and direction, and can take no actions. Pilot must still make piloting rolls or ship automatically crashes.
Lightly damaged. Starships can be lightly damaged any amount of times. Each time damaged, GM rolls 1D to see which system is damaged.
1 Ship loses -1D from maneuverability. If Maneuverability has been reduced to 0D, loses -1 move.
2 One on board weapon system was destroyed, gunners take damage.
3 One on board weapon system becomes lightly damaged. It cannot be used.
4 Hyperdrive damaged. Double time to calculate any asrogation courses. If pilot wants to make jump next round, +10 to difficulty. Hyperdrive may be fixed with one hour of moderate repair roll.
5 The ship loses -1D from its shield code. If it has no shield dice left, controls ionized result happens.
6 Ship suffers a -1 move.
Heavily damaged ships have taken more serious damage. If damaged again, GM rolls 1D to determine result :
1 Ship loses -2D from its maneuverability. If ship's maneuverability has already been reduced to 0D, ship suffers -2 move.
2 Ship loses a weapons' system in one fire arc, determined randomly by GM. All weapons of that type in that arc cannot be used until repaired.
3 Weapons system destroyed. One type in same fire arc are destroyed. Gunners take damage.
4 Hyperdrive damaged. Increase all astrogation difficulties by +10 until it is fixed with a moderate repair roll and one hour of work.
5 Ship loses -2D from its shields. If ship has no shield dice left, suffers two controls ionized.
6 Ship suffers a -2 move.
Severely damaged ships have taken major amounts of damage and are almost useless now. If damaged again, GM will roll 1D to determine result :
1 Dead in space. All drives and maneuvering systems are dead. Ship is adrift in space.
2 Overloaded generator. Unless it is shut down, generator will explode in 1D rounds and destroy the ship.
3 Disabled hyperdrives. The main and backup are disabled. Must be fixed with moderate repair roll and one hour of work.
4 Disabled weapons. All weapons lose power. GM rolls 1D :
1-4 Weapons are severely damaged, but may be repaired.
5-6 All weapons aboard ship are destroyed.
5 Structural damage. The ship is so badly damaged it begins to disintegrate. Crew has 1D rounds to evacuate.
6 Destroyed. Explodes in a ball of flame. Everyone killed.
Destroyed means ship explodes and everyone aboard is killed.
Lost moves add together. If a ship suffers a -1 move, then a -2 move, result is -3 moves total.
-1 move : Ship can no longer move all out.
-2 moves : Ship cannot go all out or high speed.
-3 moves : Ship can only move at cautious speed.
-4 moves : Ship's sublight drives are disabled. It's dead in space.
-5 moves : Ship is destroyed. Everyone aboard is killed.
Passengers may take damage if ship is damaged.
Lightly damaged 1D
Heavily damaged 3D
Severely damaged 6D
Destroyed 12D
