steve98052
Mongoose
Some systems say that there is a distinction between completely disabled and completely destroyed.
For example, one might say that zero hull means armor is destroyed and bits of the ship's surface are drifting away in assorted directions, and atmosphere is leaking fast enough that everyone has one turn to get into vacc suits, rescue balls, launches, or self-powered emergency low berths. Zero structure means decks are broken messes, artificial gravity is out, and nothing works unless it's intact system with its own power. Hull and structure zero means the ship is breaking up, and each intact piece is floating away from the wreckage independently. Keep shooting at a ship that's already zero hull or structure and before long it will be zero both. After it breaks up, each piece is an independent target, defenseless.
But if the shot that finishes off a ship is huge, maybe enough to take it to negative its original value, the ship is blasted to bits, with the excess damage applied to destroying every system within the ship, including crew hits. A dreadnought spinal hit on the Scout ship that the Ine Givar planetary leadership are trying to use to escape might leave nothing but a cloud of plasma.
In a classic book, there was a critical hit table that included "2 Ship vaporized" as a worst case. Or maybe it was a one or zero result, reachable only with die modifiers. That should be an option in extreme cases, but that's not what a simple zero hull, zero structure means.
Finally, there's the matter of player casualties. I agree with the general idea that bad dice shouldn't kill player characters. If you're the last one conscious, and there's a crew hit, you wake up in a hospital if allied ships won the battle, or maybe an enemy hospital as a prisoner if your side lost. But if you decided to kamikaze your Scout ship into the enemy cruiser after loading your wounded friends into rescue balls and shoving them out the cargo door, yeah, your character is dead. With a posthumous medal.
For example, one might say that zero hull means armor is destroyed and bits of the ship's surface are drifting away in assorted directions, and atmosphere is leaking fast enough that everyone has one turn to get into vacc suits, rescue balls, launches, or self-powered emergency low berths. Zero structure means decks are broken messes, artificial gravity is out, and nothing works unless it's intact system with its own power. Hull and structure zero means the ship is breaking up, and each intact piece is floating away from the wreckage independently. Keep shooting at a ship that's already zero hull or structure and before long it will be zero both. After it breaks up, each piece is an independent target, defenseless.
But if the shot that finishes off a ship is huge, maybe enough to take it to negative its original value, the ship is blasted to bits, with the excess damage applied to destroying every system within the ship, including crew hits. A dreadnought spinal hit on the Scout ship that the Ine Givar planetary leadership are trying to use to escape might leave nothing but a cloud of plasma.
In a classic book, there was a critical hit table that included "2 Ship vaporized" as a worst case. Or maybe it was a one or zero result, reachable only with die modifiers. That should be an option in extreme cases, but that's not what a simple zero hull, zero structure means.
Finally, there's the matter of player casualties. I agree with the general idea that bad dice shouldn't kill player characters. If you're the last one conscious, and there's a crew hit, you wake up in a hospital if allied ships won the battle, or maybe an enemy hospital as a prisoner if your side lost. But if you decided to kamikaze your Scout ship into the enemy cruiser after loading your wounded friends into rescue balls and shoving them out the cargo door, yeah, your character is dead. With a posthumous medal.
