Rules Clarification: Sustained Damage Space Combat

[Yenaldlooshi]

Core Page 169 states; "Every time a spacecraft sustains damage equaling 10% of its starting Hull score, roll 2D and then consult the Critical Hits Location table. The spacecraft will suffer a Severity 1 critical hit to that location."

If a 100 hull point hull gets is attacked 10 times each inflicting 1 point of damage, is a Sev 1 Crit applied after that 10th point or must there have instead been 1 hit of 10+ points that does the Sev1 crit?

What if it is a 20+ hull hit, does that mean 2 Sev1 crits?

If there is already a sev1 crit at that location, does it stack to a sev2 or is it capped to sev1 because of the language of the rule?

Also should note that if the ruling is only 10%+ single hits cause crit damage, that makes it really hard when using HG's rule that 2000+ ton ships ignore attack roll crits and can ONLY suffer sustained damage crits.

 

[Endie]

Core Page 169 states; "Every time a spacecraft sustains damage equaling 10% of its starting Hull score, roll 2D and then consult the Critical Hits Location table. The spacecraft will suffer a Severity 1 critical hit to that location."

If a 100 hull point hull gets is attacked 10 times each inflicting 1 point of damage, is a Sev 1 Crit applied after that 10th point or must there have instead been 1 hit of 10+ points that does the Sev1 crit?

What if it is a 20+ hull hit, does that mean 2 Sev1 crits?

If there is already a sev1 crit at that location, does it stack to a sev2 or is it capped to sev1 because of the language of the rule?

Also should note that if the ruling is only 10%+ single hits cause crit damage, that makes it really hard when using HG's rule that 2000+ ton ships ignore attack roll crits and can ONLY suffer sustained damage crits.

Friend it is literally in the previous paragraph:

"If a spacecraft has already sustained a critical hit to a location that receives another, use the Severity of the new critical hit or the original plus one, whichever is higher and immediately apply any new effects."

And yes, sustained damage means "accumulated damage" here, so two hits that reach that percentage work the same as one hit that does it in one shot.

If you hit for a quarter of the hull in one shot, that's a sev 1 then a sev 2. Otherwise you would be better-off purely in terms of system functionality getting shot once for 29% of your hull than twice for 10% each time.

Note that armoured bulkheads reduce the severity to a minimum of sev 1.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

If a 100 hull point hull gets is attacked 10 times each inflicting 1 point of damage, is a Sev 1 Crit applied after that 10th point or must there have instead been 1 hit of 10+ points that does the Sev1 crit?

As Endie says, every 10 Damage from any source or sources is a Crit. 10 hits of 1 Damage or 1 hit of 10 Damage are the same, in this sense.

What if it is a 20+ hull hit, does that mean 2 Sev1 crits?

Yes, every 10% sustained damage is an independent Severity 1 crit with a separate location roll.
Note that some crits can cause damage, causing additional crits...

If there is already a sev1 crit at that location, does it stack to a sev2 or is it capped to sev1 because of the language of the rule?

Crits stack, so another crit to the same location increases the current crit state.

Core'22, p169: If a spacecraft has already sustained a critical hit to a location that receives another, use the Severity of the new critical hit or the original plus one, whichever is higher and immediately apply any new effects.

 

[Yenaldlooshi]

Friend it is literally in the previous paragraph:

"If a spacecraft has already sustained a critical hit to a location that receives another, use the Severity of the new critical hit or the original plus one, whichever is higher and immediately apply any new effects."

And yes, sustained damage means "accumulated damage" here, so two hits that reach that percentage work the same as one hit that does it in one shot.

If you hit for a quarter of the hull in one shot, that's a sev 1 then a sev 2. Otherwise you would be better-off purely in terms of system functionality getting shot once for 29% of your hull than twice for 10% each time.

Note that armoured bulkheads reduce the severity to a minimum of sev 1.

Buddy, wereas I did read "If a spacecraft has already sustained a critical hit to a location that receives another, use the Severity of the new critical hit or the original plus one, whichever is higher and immediately apply any new effects.", one could question why the rules go on to say "The spacecraft will suffer a Severity 1 critical hit to that location."

Why not just say "it will suffer a critical hit to that location" without specifying the severity unless specifying the severity, and that it was a level 1, was meant to be a cap?

Note that this sort of stacking and capping logic exists in character creation too. You can get a level in Admin, you might get Admin-1. If you have already Admin-2 and you get a level in Admin, then sure, now you have Admin-3, but if you get Admin-1(specified) when you already have Admin-2, then you just miss out. It has no effect.

So call me crazy but I posted in this forum to make sure I am not missing something.

 

[Yenaldlooshi]

As Endie says, every 10 Damage from any source or sources is a Crit. 10 hits of 1 Damage or 1 hit of 10 Damage are the same, in this sense.



Yes, every 10% sustained damage is an independent Severity 1 crit with a separate location roll.
Note that some crits can cause damage, causing additional crits...



Crits stack, so another crit to the same location increases the current crit state.

Ok, I agree with all of this and that this is RAW. Thanks!

Now, sort of a follow up to this. Not so much a question about what is RAW but what should be or should at least be a House Rule:

Doesn't this allow a bit too much of a Hull-Crit-Hull-Crit cascade? I did a combat recently where I won the conflict, sure, but it seemed a bit too easy. Hull hits begat crits, which begat hull hits which begat more crits, again and again. I think from one hit, we cycled through 4 iterations of this loop.

Has anyone else felt this to be a bit of a problem? Have you fixed it? If so how?
If you don't feel this is a problem, why not?

 

[Condottiere]

In theory, you just need more individual hit locations, especially for really large spacecraft.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Doesn't this allow a bit too much of a Hull-Crit-Hull-Crit cascade? I did a combat recently where I won the conflict, sure, but it seemed a bit too easy. Hull hits begat crits, which begat hull hits which begat more crits, again and again. I think from one hit, we cycled through 4 iterations of this loop.

Has anyone else felt this to be a bit of a problem? Have you fixed it? If so how?
If you don't feel this is a problem, why not?

It's been the same since the 2016 beta, so I guess we can conclude it's intentional by now.

I have not house ruled it, it's mostly a problem for small craft and perhaps very small ships. At least at 200 Dton/~80 Hull it's not that much of a problem anymore.

There's only a 1/6 or so chance of getting a Hull crit, so you generally need several crits to start a cascade.


But, yeah, it sucks for fighters, as they tend to blow up if hit...

 

[MongooseMatt]

It's been the same since the 2016 beta, so I guess we can conclude it's intentional by now.

It is - we call it a cascade.

In the next update we will revisit critical hits, but the core concept will remain.

 

[swordtart]

I had misunderstood this. I read it as if any attack caused 10% of a ships initial Hull points it took a critical, not that when it took a cumulative 10% damage. I am going to continue to use it this way as cumulative damage is already covered by... well the cumulative damage. I can buy into a well-placed shot or a single big chonk hit causing a critical, but not being nibbled to death by ducks.

I don't like the effect of the Hull severity anyway as they escalate too quickly. Since it is also the most common critical the effect is amplified (and other critical severity often default to it).

I have a modular cutter with 20 Hull. I take 2 points damage and need to roll on the critical table. If it is a Hull critical. I roll 1d6 and if I get 2 or more, that's another critical. If I get averagely unlucky I might get another Hull critical, but this time it is 2d6 hull damage which might be enough to destroy the ship outright, but is absolutely another critical. It's a lot of effect for a single initial low damage hit. Maybe I missed something and criticals cannot cause criticals.

For many small craft a hull critical is terminal. For fiddling small craft light a fighter that is perhaps fair enough, but for ships larger than a launch it seems a bit much.

 

[MasterGwydion]

I have a modular cutter with 20 Hull. I take 2 points damage and need to roll on the critical table. If it is a Hull critical. I roll 1d6 and if I get 2 or more, that's another critical. If I get averagely unlucky I might get another Hull critical, but this time it is 2d6 hull damage which might be enough to destroy the ship outright, but is absolutely another critical. It's a lot of effect for a single initial low damage hit. Maybe I missed something and criticals cannot cause criticals.

One shot one kill makes sense for a small craft. Shoot a 5" round from a destroyer at a battleship and you will have very little damage, percentage-wise. Fire that same round at a 20-meter sailboat and it is game over. It makes sense that one round can cause a cascade of failures in a smaller craft versus the same round hitting a larger craft.

For many small craft a hull critical is terminal. For fiddling small craft light a fighter that is perhaps fair enough, but for ships larger than a launch it seems a bit much.

It doesn't take much to knock a plane out of the air and most craft in Traveller aren't built to withstand hits. They are simple civilian craft.