Starship combat: What happens when a turret or the bridge is destroyed?

[paltrysum]

How do you handle it when a turret or the bridge is destroyed in starship combat? Are the occupants obliterated? Subjected to 1DD-2DD damage? They survive but they have the opportunity to get out?

I'm curious to know if any of you have encountered this event in your campaigns and how you handled it. I don't recall seeing anything definitive in the starship combat rules and that might be by design (either that or I overlooked it).

 

[Reynard]

The ship combat rules are a little more generous about killing off characters. There is no actual bridge destruction event and it's often up in the air as to whether gunners actually occupy the turret area or operate remotely. Critical his can destroy a turret and if a crewman were there, they would be destroyed too. Otherwise, hull and crew criticals can be roleplayed based of severity.

 

[ochd]

A question along similar lines: what level of damage constitutes a hull breach?

Dan.

 

[Reynard]

That should be up to the referee. Critical hits to the hull could be a good time to announce hull breaches with the breach(es) becoming more severe as you go up the Critical Hits Table (Hull). When, how bad and where becomes a roleplaying event. Small hull breaches can occur with regular hull hits but are most often contained by the ship's integral sealing system.

 

[phavoc]

A question along similar lines: what level of damage constitutes a hull breach?

Dan.

To go along with Reynard's comment about it being a referee call, one should also consider what type of weapon hit it is. A pulse laser hit vs. a fusion beam hit should trigger different damage types (i.e. the laser hit may pop the hull but the hull may seal the breach. the fusion hit may do damage that cannot be sealed).

From a gaming perspective you could still have a turret destroyed (weapon is out of action till spacedock), or a bridge destroyed, but the PC's would survive, if injured.

 

[Condottiere]

That's why we have hit points, redshirts, and Look Out Sir!

While Traveller has reputedly a deadly character generation system, post mortem should be narrative driven. Unless the player has his character do something really stupid.

Putting that aside, a direct meson blast should be fatal, while a nuclear explosion should be nasty, it could be separated by both hull armour, and a fortuitously placed fridge.

 

[ochd]

post mortem should be narrative driven.

I find it hard enough driving the narrative of the living universe, let alone what happens after a character dies.