Vehicular combat rules

[nats]

The vehicular combat rules in the core rule book are very confusing I think.

With enclosed vehicles surely most if not all of the shots against it would hit the vehicles exterior and practically never hit the people onboard? But the rules confusingly say that also any 'visible people' can actually be hit directly by fire. I do not see how this would be the case? There would be a very low chance indeed of hitting the people inside an enclosed vehicle. But this % chance is not explained in the rules anywhere.

Most importantly how does this work with open vehicles? If you have a vehicular weapon firing at an open craft surely the fire cannot be accurate enough to be aimed against any particular passenger? If it did hit them it is very likely that it would kill them outright so the chances of hitting them should be very slight. But then the fire wouldnt all go against the vehicle sides etc either unless the firer was specifically aiming for the vehicle rather than the passengers?

Has anyone actually used these rules for vehicular combat and managed to make any sense of them?

I am thinking that with enclosed vehicles ALL damage should apply to the vehicle hit points and none to passengers unless they are hit via critical hits. With open vehicles 50% of damage should apply to the vehicle and the other 50% be apportioned equally between all the passengers as they will not gain any benefit from cover or armour? That would thereby tend to avoid all of the heavy weapons damage being applied to a single passenger which would definitely ruin their day.

Also as an aside I think the Hit Severity table on page 141 is not termed correctly. It keeps referring to 'Hull Severity increased by +1' but should that not be 'Critical Hit Severity increased by +1'? There is no Hull Severity or am I missing something?

Flipping confusing rules. They should be made a heck of a lot simpler. The whole chapter on vehicles rambles around like mad. I am of the opinion I should just house rule the whole thing.

 

[Terry Mixon]

The vehicular combat rules in the core rule book are very confusing I think.

With fully enclosed vehicles most of the shots against it would hit the vehicles exterior and have to get through as critical hits to hit the people onboard. Although the rules do confusingly say that also any 'visible people' can actually be hit directly by fire. I do not see how this would be the case? There would be a very low chance indeed of hitting the people inside a fully enclosed vehicle. But this % chance is not explained in the rules anywhere.

Most importantly how does it work with open vehicles? If you have a vehicular weapon firing at an open craft surely the fire cannot be accurate enough to be aimed against any particular passenger. If it did hit them it is very likely that it would kill them outright so the chances of hitting them should be very slight. But then the fire wouldnt all go against the vehicle sides etc either unless the firer was specifically aiming for the vehicle rather than the passengers?

Has anyone actually used these rules for vehicular combat and managed to make any sense of them?

I am pretty much of the opinion that a shot against a vehicle should be apportioned between the vehicle hit points and all of the visible passengers with particular %s depending on the degree of openness. Then if the shot has an effect of +6 it also causes a critical hit. If the total damage exceeds 10% of the vehicles original hit total it also causes another level 1 critical hit on the vehicle. This way no passengers would ever have to bear the brunt of a direct hit from a vehicular heavy weapon, which I think would pretty much ruin their whole game in one quick second.

Also as an aside I think the hit table on page 141 is not termed correctly. It keeps referring to increasing the 'Hull Severity' but should that not be 'Hit Severity' as the table refers to 'Hit Severity' and only one small part of it refers to the hull?

The combat rules were updated in the recently updated Vehicle Handbook 2026 Update. The core rules still mostly apply but there have been some changes.

 

[Arkathan]

Visible people:
Motorcycle riders
The upper half of people sitting in an open topped air raft.
A pintel mount gunner using a gun shield
Tank commander looking around with the hatch open
Sailors running around (or standing still) on the ship's deck.
Deckhands inside a hangar bay that is deploying or receiving other vehicles

If you are directly aiming at a visible person, you are using personnel combat rules with cover rules.

Yes, My players and I made sense of them and used them in three engagements.

Stats for the bugs and tanks are in Terry's Show Us Your Vehicle thread.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Stats for the bugs and tanks are in Terry's Custom Vehicle thread.

And here is a link to the thread.

Thread 'Show Us Your (Vehicle Handbook Update 2026) Vehicles!'

Feb 28, 2026

I added external fabricators (all 5 grades) at a full space to the sheet and present you the Enhanced Mobile Shipyard Fabricator! It's 10 dtons in size and built at TL15 standards, so it can build TL12 ships (or other items) solo or in groups. It can be completely robot operated, but it has a cabin for a two-person crew.



A robotically controlled fabricator made to work in space, though it can also be used on a planet. Its Enhanced Fabricator is built at TL15, so it is capable of making TL12 items. It has 3 dtons of space for raw materials, which will be roughly used in two...

• Terry Mixon
• Replies: 46
• Forum: Traveller

• 

 

[nats]

Visible people:
Motorcycle riders
The upper half of people sitting in an open topped air raft.
A pintel mount gunner using a gun shield
Tank commander looking around with the hatch open
Sailors running around (or standing still) on the ship's deck.
Deckhands inside a hangar bay that is deploying or receiving other vehicles

If you are directly aiming at a visible person, you are using personnel combat rules with cover rules.

Hmm I would class most of those as 'open' vehicles not 'enclosed'. I guess maybe that is where my confusion is coming from.

I would class enclosed vehicles as ones where the people are completely surrounded by the vehicle armour - tanks, ATVs, cars, subs, most ships and planes, etc. But I know the vehicle rules examples in the book do not reflect that - an open topped air/raft for example should definitely be open not enclosed imo?

Heavy weapons on vehicles are not accurate enough to target individual passengers imo? And a passenger manually firing from a moving vehicle is likely to also be very inaccurate - you cannot pick out individual personnel on another vehicle to shoot at, just roughly aim your weapon and fire at the vehicle? Which is why I was thinking even on open vehicles a lot of the hits would be on the vehicle not the passengers?

Maybe I am just making things too confusing. But the whole reason for thinking about this was to avoid individual characters being hit full on by heavy weapons in a vehicle chase which seems ridiculous to me !!! That's instant death unless you have loads of armour on yourself.

 

[Arkathan]

The gunner and the tank commander are in enclosed vehicles, but parts of them are sticking out.
Sailors on the deck: people manning deck guns or in the rigging of a sailing vessel, Anti-aircraft guns on a TL 4-6 frigate/destroyer/cruiser, etc.

People wholly inside an enclosed vehicle are not visible for purposes of line of sight, and armored windows do not count for that... although a called shot on the driver's seat in a sedan can hit the occupant if it penetrates.

Many negatives involved in shooting at people in or on vehicles, especially if they are moving, but nothing says you cannot pick out an individual if you can see them.

Heavy weapons are no more inaccurate than any other weapon, but they do have a better chance of damaging a vehicle or the bits inside one.

 

[rinku]

Arnoured windows would allow individual passengers to be targeted if visible (potentially they might lay low and not be in sight)... they just get full armour value. But note that for weapons with less than 4D damage, the bonus TL armour is in play most of the time.

Having windows and a roof does not strictly speaking count as enclosed if they aren't armoured, IMHO. A soft cover bonus seems fair enough though; a lot of the passenger's body will be screened by the body of the vehicle regardless. And windows are generally removed after one shot.

As well, technology may well mean that passengers are "visible" regardless of windows. If you have a sensor feed that locates your passenger target and a weapon that can penetrate the hull, I guess you're good to attempt the shot under normal combat rules (but with the hull armour protecting the target)

Strictly speaking, Called Shots are not part of the vehicle combat rules. That's a space combat rule, so involves at the very least highly sophisticated targeting equipment and usually weapons that are inherently much, much more accurate than small arms or a pintle mount. But at least the vehicle combat rules allow you to target visible crew. It DOES make sense to carry that over to other visible parts of the vehicle, though obviously you lose the bonus for shooting at a large target. Aiming at tyres or tracks would be a sensible use of that.

In a particular situation you *might* allow the space combat called shot rule to be used in a vehicle fight, with appropriate penalties, but for me that's going to be on a case by case, common sense basis. As an example, if a player wants to aim a rocket launcher at the turret of a tank in order to try to knock it the gun, I'd allow it. Base the size modifier on the size of the turret alone, all other DMs as usual (aiming, target velocity etc), throw in the -2 called shot penalty, and if successful any critical hit will be Weapon. Apply the armour value of the turret (which may well be more than the side armour value), and remembering that light weapons get TL value bonus armour.

 

[Libris]

And windows are generally removed after one shot.

Probably only in vehicles up to TL 7/8. Past that and glass is likely to be some sort of laminate like current vehicle windscreens - if it's traditional glass at all.

 

[rinku]

A fair point, but I'm guessing higher tech weapons are likely to result in a similar result.

In any case, the rules as written do allow you to pull a gun and shoot at a target you can see through a window, with said target getting the benefit of whatever armour value the window has, and whatever cover bonus seems appropriate.

Which seems eminently sensible to me.