Spacecraft damage scale

[TerranStarbuck]

Hi, in the rules a traveller attacking a spacecraft with a ground weapon divides the damage by 10 rounding down.

But aren't spacecraft considered to have armour 1 versus ground weapons? I am sure I have read that somewhere.

If that is not true then pistols can damage the hull, which seems weird because surely all basic hulls are strengthened against debris striking the hull at speed.

 

[Arkathan]

2022 Core Rulebook pg 140 - Vehicles Chapter

LIGHT WEAPONS
Most weapons carried by Travellers, such as pistols,
rifles and lasers, are not well-suited to destroying
vehicles and their effects are greatly weakened.
Against any weapon that has less than Damage 4D or
has the Stun trait, a vehicle will have an extra amount
of armour equal to its TL on each facing.

All Ground/Spacecraft scale damage is divided AFTER all modifiers, so armor comes out prior to the division.
That means that under the core rules, you'd need to roll 2x 6's and 2x 5's with a 4d Gauss Rifle, or the equivalent after adding effect, in order to potentially punch a hole in a TL 12 bulkhead, which will immediately seal itself, since its over TL 9.
Edit: Gauss Rifle does NOT get the extra armor. Laser pistols, Autorifles and Assault rifles DO suffer from that penalty.

HG has additional boarding rules.
The hull of a ship takes the number of combat rounds (for spacecraft hull, more rounds than most travellers have ammunition for) stated in the table of continuous successful firing in order to make a hole big enough to safely traverse. They have to be close... and if they ever miss, they take damage from blowback/ricochet based on the negative effect of the roll.

 

[TerranStarbuck]

2022 Core Rulebook pg 140 - Vehicles Chapter

All Ground/Spacecraft scale damage is divided AFTER all modifiers, so armor comes out prior to the division.
That means that under the core rules, you'd need to roll 2x 6's and 2x 5's with a 4d Gauss Rifle, or the equivalent after adding effect, in order to potentially punch a hole in a TL 12 bulkhead, which will immediately seal itself, since its over TL 9.

HG has additional boarding rules.
The hull of a ship takes the number of combat rounds (for spacecraft hull, more rounds than most travellers have ammunition for) stated in the table of continuous successful firing in order to make a hole big enough to safely traverse. They have to be close... and if they ever miss, they take damage from blowback/ricochet based on the negative effect of the roll.

Quick question, are all spacecraft (unless otherwise specified) tech 12?

 

[Arkathan]

No. Most spacecraft are. But there are plenty that are aren't.
Your free traders, far traders, Type T patrol corvettes and scouts and the like are TL 12 because that is the 3rd Imperium's standard TL.
Shuttles are TL 9 (if you ignore the TL 12 Power Plants they keep jamming on the thing - That's twice, Mongoose, and you knew about it from last time... )
The Gazelle Close Escort is TL 14. Most Navy ships are TL 14 or 15.

 

[TerranStarbuck]

Thank you.

 

[Tupper]

I read @Arkathan ’s comments with some interest, but am not sure I’d do the scaling of damage after *armour*. The reasons are two-fold. First, it means that starship armour isn’t very effective against personal scale weapons, whose AP (when present) would often nullify armour effects.

Secondly, and more seriously, if you apply the rule to starship weapons targeting people, an armour of 6 (fairly light in the grand scheme of things) could protect pretty well against a beam laser.

My read of the rule on p167 is that:

1) starship weapons do destructive dice to people/vehicles.

2) personnel weapons do 1 point for every 10 points scored (so destructive weapons become non-destructive effectively).

3) armour acts normally after the scale adjustment

4) I’d see this rule as a *substitute* for the vehicle extra armour rule on p140, not something I’d jointly apply.

YMMV

 

[Arkathan]

I messed up in my example.
The Gauss rifle does NOT get the extra armor to go through.
I edited my response above.
The ability for handheld weapons to damage ships is at odds with the rules for breaching in HG