Critical hit severity and repairs

AliTanwir

Mongoose
Hi,

There are some questions that I had since I first read the space combat chapter. And I would like to know how do you handle them because RAW are a bit open ended, or at least I don't really think I understand them.

1. If you take 3 severity 1 critical hits to the hull you are going to suffer 3d+2d+1d damage right? So I guess that if you suffer a severity 3 critical hit to the hull you are also going to suffer 3d+2d+1 damage not just 3d, thats what I understand from this "All effects are cumulative, and any extra damage caused by the effects of critical hits ignores the spacecraft’s Armour."(pg 158). But if that is like this then if you suffer severity 6 hull critical hit and it does 6d+5d+4d+3d+2d+1d damage, why when you reach severity "7" (meaning that you can't receive more hull severity hits) you just suffer 6d damage "Once a location has reached Severity 6, it cannot suffer any more critical hits. Instead, the spacecraft will receive 6D extra damage every time the location suffers another critical hit". i use the hull severity because I think is the best to translate de "cumulative" effect.

2. If you reach severity 6+ as I said before, you just deal 6D damage, so that means that you can't keep disabling and destroying for example enemy weapons? So what if you just want to disable their ship and not just wreck it... I mean that one I saw it like a design flaw, but maybe I'm wrong so I would like to hear your opinion.

3. About repairs, do you have to repair each severity hit, each critical hit or just the system? I mean, the ship is suffering a severity 3 sensor critical hit, do the travellers have to repair the severity 3 severity 2 and severity 1 hits? That seems like the most reasonable approach. Or do they have to repair each hit, meaning that if they suffered 3 severity 1 they have to repair 3 hits and if they suffered one severity 3 hit, they have to repair just 1, that seems kinda odd. Or the last option, they just have to roll to repair 1 time to repair completelly the system, yeah they are doing it with a -3 for the severity but, it doesn't seem so fair. Same questions with the "in combat" repair system action, if they just repair the system as a whole then disabling a ship is just much harder than if they have to repair them 1 by 1.

4. Repair costs are HUGE, I'm not talking about just big, they are huge... I mean, one triple turret pulse laser critical shot is going to send any trader or traveller straight into bankruptcy, in fact my group and I started calling traveller "bankruptcy simulator" after seeing the spare part costs. 100kcr for each ton of spare parts, repairing just 10 hull points or some critical damage means that a triple pulse laser turret critical hit AVG. 3.5*2+4= 11 + effect 6 is going to cause 17 hull damage and a severity 2 critical hit, + the structural critical hits it can cause, thats gonna be more than 200kcr in repairs assuming all the repairs are done with effect 1+. I know that spec trade yields a lot of profits, too many in fact, in my game I reworked all the spec trade system to make it profitable and risky but not just THAT PROFITABLE (I was yielding huge profits with just broker 0 and not bothering about trade codes in my spreadsheets). In fact I searched the forums and find out that in the playtest it was 10kcr per spare part, what seems much more reasonable, still a big profit loss, but you can recover from that.

5. You can put armoured bulkheads to the bridge like many vanilla designs have (heavy fighter, 200t SBD)... But there are not bridge critical hits... I guess they protect the computer, but it is not specified at all, and I think it is an oversight from 1e.

6. What happens when you fail a repair check using spare parts? If you have a good roll you consume less spare parts, if you have an effect of 1 you consume 1 ton of spare parts, but what if you have an effect of 0, or less? Do you lose the spare parts? I can see that reasonable if they cost 10kcr per ton but no way if they cost 100kcr. Or you just keep trying until you repair it? Which, seems, ok I guess but you are increasing the chances that the repair is going to cost less spare parts if you can just re-roll an infinite number of times until you suceed.

7. Which are the cost of repairing your ship in a shipyard? I couldn't find it anywhere in the book. If they are just 100kcr per 10 hull points then the shipyard is not making money and if they are more expensive, well, my group can forget about combat, or any hazard that can damage the ship. And what about the systems, how many spare parts is the shipyard using, this also applies to the question 6.

I hope you can give me some tips about this or at least to discuss them, ty!
 
AliTanwir said:
1. If you take 3 severity 1 critical hits to the hull you are going to suffer 3d+2d+1d damage right?
Yes.


AliTanwir said:
So I guess that if you suffer a severity 3 critical hit to the hull you are also going to suffer 3d+2d+1 damage not just 3d, thats what I understand from this "All effects are cumulative, and any extra damage caused by the effects of critical hits ignores the spacecraft’s Armour."(pg 158).
Agreed, 1D+2D+3D extra damage.


AliTanwir said:
But if that is like this then if you suffer severity 6 hull critical hit and it does 6d+5d+4d+3d+2d+1d damage, why when you reach severity "7" (meaning that you can't receive more hull severity hits) you just suffer 6d damage
If you take a Severity 7 crit, I use all cumulative effects as above, so 1D+2D+3D+4D+5D+6D+6D extra damage. The next crit would cause another 6D extra damage.


AliTanwir said:
2. If you reach severity 6+ as I said before, you just deal 6D damage, so that means that you can't keep disabling and destroying for example enemy weapons?
Looks funny, but it is not really a practical problem. You will have killed the enemy ship by causing more damage than their Hull long before this is a problem.


AliTanwir said:
3. About repairs, do you have to repair each severity hit, each critical hit or just the system? I mean, the ship is suffering a severity 3 sensor critical hit, do the travellers have to repair the severity 3 severity 2 and severity 1 hits?
You repair hits, not suffered damage. I interpret this as one single crit to be repaired; It was one single hit even if it caused a lot of damage.


AliTanwir said:
Same questions with the "in combat" repair system action, if they just repair the system as a whole then disabling a ship is just much harder than if they have to repair them 1 by 1.
The repair action results in "quick repair to the effects of a critical hit". I interpret that to be all the effect of a single hit, just as above. So if you take a hit resulting in a crit Sev 3, and then another hit resulting in a crit Sev 1, you suffer all the effects of a Sev 4 crit, but only have two hits to repair.


AliTanwir said:
4. Repair costs are HUGE, I'm not talking about just big, they are huge...
Repair costs are much cheaper than earlier editions...

Yes, space combat is a very expensive hobby. Looking for help with repairs is a great adventure seed.

Note that carrying spare parts also consume cargo space, reducing the cargo capacity, hence earning potential, of the ship. Unless you get into combat every year or so, that is an even greater cost...


AliTanwir said:
5. You can put armoured bulkheads to the bridge like many vanilla designs have (heavy fighter, 200t SBD)... But there are not bridge critical hits... I guess they protect the computer, but it is not specified at all, and I think it is an oversight from 1e.
Agreed.

I would say the provided ships are not very good, they are just examples (with pedigree). You can easily build better ships yourself, if you care to go in that direction.


AliTanwir said:
6. What happens when you fail a repair check using spare parts?
By the rules it takes no spare parts. Let's just say you failed to diagnose the problem, or failed to finish the repairs in the specified time. Just take your time, and roll again (at least if you have a competent Engineer).

Consuming spare parts on fail is not specified, but left open to the discretion of the Referee. I wait for Exceptional Failure or a natural roll of 2 to be evil...

I would not let a successful result be re-rolled just to get a better effect.


AliTanwir said:
7. Which are the cost of repairing your ship in a shipyard?
Agreed, not specified.

I make it more expensive than self-repairs, but more secure (a self-repaired system might fail again later on, perhaps in the next combat when you stress it).
 
Thanks for your extensive reponse @AnotherDilbert, it was so helpful, but it left me with some other questions.

AnotherDilbert said:
AliTanwir said:
So I guess that if you suffer a severity 3 critical hit to the hull you are also going to suffer 3d+2d+1 damage not just 3d, thats what I understand from this "All effects are cumulative, and any extra damage caused by the effects of critical hits ignores the spacecraft’s Armour."(pg 158).
Agreed, 1D+2D+3D extra damage.

In this case imagine that it is not hull but M-drive. A severity 3 m-drive hit would impose -6 to pilot checks and -2 thrust or just -3 to pilot checks and -1 thrust? Same way with the power plant.

AnotherDilbert said:
AliTanwir said:
But if that is like this then if you suffer severity 6 hull critical hit and it does 6d+5d+4d+3d+2d+1d damage, why when you reach severity "7" (meaning that you can't receive more hull severity hits) you just suffer 6d damage
If you take a Severity 7 crit, I use all cumulative effects as above, so 1D+2D+3D+4D+5D+6D+6D extra damage. The next crit would cause another 6D extra damage.

So, one more thing to clarify this, if you are already in severity 3 hull, so you already suffered damage, but a crit makes you go severity 4, means that you receive 1d+2d+3d+4d or just 4d

AnotherDilbert said:
AliTanwir said:
2. If you reach severity 6+ as I said before, you just deal 6D damage, so that means that you can't keep disabling and destroying for example enemy weapons?
Looks funny, but it is not really a practical problem. You will have killed the enemy ship by causing more damage than their Hull long before this is a problem.
Yeah... I dont like that one that much, maybe a party wants to disable a ship rather than killing it so Im going to track it per weapon ( something relativelly easy with small ships ) and not just random weapons exploding, if they do a called shot they are starting to disable that particular nasty weapon, that way weapons are not just going to start popping when severity 4-6 arrives. I mean tracking severity for each weapon and not just for the whole weapon system.

AnotherDilbert said:
AliTanwir said:
3. About repairs, do you have to repair each severity hit, each critical hit or just the system? I mean, the ship is suffering a severity 3 sensor critical hit, do the travellers have to repair the severity 3 severity 2 and severity 1 hits?
You repair hits, not suffered damage. I interpret this as one single crit to be repaired; It was one single hit even if it caused a lot of damage.
That makes repairs incredibly expensive... And it seems kind unfair for me, why would a terrible critical hit cost the same as different critical hits but same severity. I think I will treat as "You are rolling to repair the system" not just critical hits, that way seems more acceptable.


AnotherDilbert said:
AliTanwir said:
Same questions with the "in combat" repair system action, if they just repair the system as a whole then disabling a ship is just much harder than if they have to repair them 1 by 1.
The repair action results in "quick repair to the effects of a critical hit". I interpret that to be all the effect of a single hit, just as above. So if you take a hit resulting in a crit Sev 3, and then another hit resulting in a crit Sev 1, you suffer all the effects of a Sev 4 crit, but only have two hits to repair.

And I think this one I'm going to track it for each severity point, that way is harder to jury rig per point of severity, this way engineers will act more as a damage control party than just, eliminate all the severity of a huge critical hit, it is free so...

AnotherDilbert said:
AliTanwir said:
4. Repair costs are HUGE, I'm not talking about just big, they are huge...
Repair costs are much cheaper than earlier editions...

Yes, space combat is a very expensive hobby. Looking for help with repairs is a great adventure seed.

Note that carrying spare parts also consume cargo space, reducing the cargo capacity, hence earning potential, of the ship. Unless you get into combat every year or so, that is an even greater cost...

I guess... That if my players don't comply with pirates or just suffer a hazard they are going to go straight into bankruptcy then? But well, yeah I guess thats an adventure seed, how do you handle this in your campaigns?

AnotherDilbert said:
AliTanwir said:
6. What happens when you fail a repair check using spare parts?
By the rules it takes no spare parts. Let's just say you failed to diagnose the problem, or failed to finish the repairs in the specified time. Just take your time, and roll again (at least if you have a competent Engineer).

Consuming spare parts on fail is not specified, but left open to the discretion of the Referee. I wait for Exceptional Failure or a natural roll of 2 to be evil...

I would not let a successful result be re-rolled just to get a better effect.

Yeah I also felt that with those prices punishing players that hard was awful, I guess repairs just take time, one more thing... Can you repair armour and hull severity in combat? They are outside of the ship and thats, well, so, dangerous.
 
If you’re specially looking to disable a ship, you could use the add on “called shot” rules that allow a gunner to target a specific system. They are included in the MgT1 “Scoundrel” career book, and an easier adaptation in the Pirates of Drinax campaign. Short version is DM of -2, short range or less, success means you pick the system that is hit.
 
Also, if one of he players has a decent broker skill, the speculative trading rules will make them billionaires, not bankrupt.
 
Old School said:
If you’re specially looking to disable a ship, you could use the add on “called shot” rules that allow a gunner to target a specific system. They are included in the MgT1 “Scoundrel” career book, and an easier adaptation in the Pirates of Drinax campaign. Short version is DM of -2, short range or less, success means you pick the system that is hit.

Yeah ty Old School, they are also in POD first book and one of the JTAS (5 If I remember correctly). But it is more of a core issue for me, so I'm changing the critical hit table, gonna upload it when its finished. Also called shots are not easy at all but I love the rule anyway.

Yeah, I know about spec trade I mentioned it in the post, I also reworked it to be profitable if you are smart and to play with trade codes and brokers.
 
AliTanwir said:
In this case imagine that it is not hull but M-drive. A severity 3 m-drive hit would impose -6 to pilot checks and -2 thrust or just -3 to pilot checks and -1 thrust? Same way with the power plant.
You suffer the cumulative effects of Sev 1-3, so Pilot -6 and Thrust -2.


AliTanwir said:
So, one more thing to clarify this, if you are already in severity 3 hull, so you already suffered damage, but a crit makes you go severity 4, means that you receive 1d+2d+3d+4d or just 4d
We have already suffered 1D+2D+3D, so we only take 4D extra damage from the crit.


AliTanwir said:
Yeah... I dont like that one that much, maybe a party wants to disable a ship rather than killing it so Im going to track it per weapon ( something relativelly easy with small ships ) and not just random weapons exploding, if they do a called shot they are starting to disable that particular nasty weapon, that way weapons are not just going to start popping when severity 4-6 arrives. I mean tracking severity for each weapon and not just for the whole weapon system.
You will still do a lot of damage to achieve the crits. Look into disabling the power plant or ion weapons to disable the enemy ship.

A Free Trader has 80 Hull points and it takes at least 40 damage to inflict a Sev 4 crit. Two such hits and the target ship is destroyed...


AliTanwir said:
That makes repairs incredibly expensive... And it seems kind unfair for me, why would a terrible critical hit cost the same as different critical hits but same severity. I think I will treat as "You are rolling to repair the system" not just critical hits, that way seems more acceptable.
It's your game.


AliTanwir said:
And I think this one I'm going to track it for each severity point, that way is harder to jury rig per point of severity, this way engineers will act more as a damage control party than just, eliminate all the severity of a huge critical hit, it is free so...
Watch out for multiple Engineers making several Repair Actions each round. Crits can disappear quickly...


AliTanwir said:
I guess... That if my players don't comply with pirates or just suffer a hazard they are going to go straight into bankruptcy then? But well, yeah I guess thats an adventure seed, how do you handle this in your campaigns?
A Free Trader costs MCr 50. The mortgage is over kCr 200 per month. If a few hundred kCr bankrupts the ship's company they have way to small reserves.

A routine malfunction of the drives can cost more.

I don't do anything fancy, but repairs that the characters can't afford generally makes them looking for a quick buck. I keep small side missions handy, pull one out, and let the patron offer to help with repairs.


AliTanwir said:
Yeah I also felt that with those prices punishing players that hard was awful, I guess repairs just take time, one more thing... Can you repair armour and hull severity in combat? They are outside of the ship and thats, well, so, dangerous.
You can repair all crits.

I don't allow recovery of lost Hull when you repair Hull crits, but you suffer less extra damage from the next Hull crit.
 
@AnotherDilbert thank you for taking your time answering all my questions, its time to explain how it works to my players!

Edit: just one more, do you rule that crew damage ignore personal armour or not? It seems like it shouldn't but that way travellers vacc suits are going to bounce off all the damage.
 
AliTanwir said:
Edit: just one more, do you rule that crew damage ignore personal armour or not? It seems like it shouldn't but that way travellers vacc suits are going to bounce off all the damage.

I count personal armour against radiation damage, but not against critical damage. That is based solely on wishful thinking, not any rules.

I don't like everyone being automatically killed by radiation, just because the enemy uses radiation weapons. With Radiation Shielding and good personal armour you can ignore radiation damage. Without Radiation Shielding you die...

And, as you note, the critical damage is too small to notice through personal armour. Consider it falling pieces of ship doing the damage.
 
Player characters do get special consideration.

For radiation, if it's something on the ground scale, personal protection should certainly help.

With explosions, it would depend on distance and anything intervening; battle dress should protect you from the shock wave.
 
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