Cepheus Review: Space Combat
TOC
Space Combat
This chapter represents some major changes from CT.
First - it leans heavily on the personal combat system to pick and choose various actions that can affect combat.
Second - it’s not a wargame. There are no courses drawn out on the tabletop, or plotting.
I’m not yet sure what to make of it, but in the face of my initial knee-jerk reaction, and after my first skim through of the rules, this is a different thing, but depending on what you’re aiming for, not a bad thing.
The second point first: as Jon Mollison recently pointed out, you didn’t necessarily need to do maneuver and plot either. Unless specific maneuvers are important - atmospheric re-entry, docking, and so forth - choices for a PC ship are going to boil down to several options:
Charge in: Counter-ambush, their destination or help are on the opposite side of the enemy, or just plain desperate.
Maintain distance
Open distance - maximize the time to closing to minimize odds of getting hit and maximize the chances to get a jump set up.
More exist, but you get the picture. Given initial distance and difference in potential acceleration, there are a lot of things you can do without plotting out specific courses.
Secondly, the classic traveller rules didn’t leave much for player characters to do. A gunner could man a gun for a bonus, ditto a pilot for evasion, but it was effectively a wargame with an abstracted ship. This one gives player characters, especially crew members, more options to do something significant within the scope of the encounter.
General Sequence
1. The Referee determines the range at which the encounter begins.
2. All crew members are assigned to a position on board their vessel.
3. The Referee determines which characters are aware of their opponents at the start of the battle. If some but not all vessels are aware of their opponents, the vessels that are aware of their opponents are considered to get an automatic 12 on their initiative roll, giving them an Initiative of 12 + Dexterity DM.
4. Any remaining vessels roll initiative. All vessels are now ready to begin their first turn of combat. 5. All vessels act in initiative order.
a. At the start of each combat turn, a Captain may declare that their crew is acting hastily.
b. The crew members of the vessel resolve their actions.
c. After every crew member has completed their actions, any damage is resolved if the vessel’s weapon systems hit enemy ships.
6. When every vessel has had a turn, the combatant with the highest initiative total acts again, and Step 5 repeats until combat ends.
Determine Range
Near planets or other destinations combat will usually start at medium (1250-10,000 km) or short (10-1250 km) range. In open space the range is usually very long 25,000 to 50,000.
At VL range you can detect the presence of a ship and get a general idea of it’s silhouette. Obviously you can also detect thrust, acceleration, and get some general idea of how much EM it’s putting out in your direction 9active radar, radio communications).
Thermal sources, EM sources, and the actual shape and structural elements require closer range and/or more advanced sensors.
There’s also a table for difficulty in hitting targets at range. It’s worth noting that each major weapons system has optimal ranges. Inside that range it is increasingly hard to hit a target, just as it would be beyond that range band. This table effectively represents the fact that there is a sweet spot where the systems can be aimed quickly enough to hit a target but not so far away that inherent mechanical inaccuracies or other factors make it more likely to miss.
That said, while I understand why a beam laser is more likely to hit than a pulse laser per the lore, those very same reasons should likely widen the band of “average” difficulty instead of pushing out the “average” difficulty to medium range.
As I write this, I see more and more why a friend described the game Star Traders; Frontiers as basically Traveller space combat, the computer game.
Crew Positions
PC’s and crew, or in some cases computer software, can take a number of positions on board the ship. Turret or bay weapon gunner, captain, the security officer who handles boarding and personal combat, damage control crew, engineer, marine, navigator, pilot, sensor operator, and of course passenger. Each has a special position to fill insofar as actions that can be taken.
The ship’s computer, assuming the proper software is loaded and running, can act as either a gunner or as a gunner’s aid, a pilot, an engineer, or as damage control crew.
Roll initiative
Unless they have surprise (step 3 above), roll 3D6 for initiative, with the captain being able to apply a tactics effect, and a bonus for having the highest thrust.
Turns
Turns are still 1000 seconds, with vessels having individual initiative. Ties are broken by thrust rating, and if still matched, actions are taken simultaneously. Each crew member gets a minor and a significant action, but it should be noted that with 1000-second turns, there’s a lot of room to get things done.
Incidentally, initiative is not re-rolled, but can be modified up or down by actions taken and choices made.
One result of this is a bit of work to define what actions are relevant, and which relevant actions can be taken in the scope of a turn. From page 110 of my PDF:
As a space combat turn represents over 150 personal combat rounds, it stands to reason that crew members may engage in a lot of personal actions over the course of a single combat turn. Much of this is abstracted into the various space combat actions. Most personal actions have minimal impact on space combat. For crew members that do want to pursue a personal action during space combat, such as use a psionic ability, these actions count as minor actions on the space combat scale. This glosses over the remainder of the character’s time during the combat turn, and highlights the primary acts that a character might want to pursue without taking away from the rest of the space combat.
This is followed by a quick reference list of relevant character actions in space combat. These are broken down to significant, minor, and “reaction” actions.
Minor Actions
The pilot may adjust the speed or simply maintain the course. Pretty much anyone can change crew positions. Personal actions that take less than a minute may also be taken. Finally, the ref may allow a character to make a skill check or other longer action as a minor action if it doesn’t require full attention of complex physical acts.
Significant Actions
This is the majority of the actions. Usually a character can take one significant and one minor action, as in personal combat, and one significant action can be sacrificed to allow three minor actions.
Gunners
A gunner (or computer program) rolls a skill check (bay or turret weapons) based on the difficulty chart I mentioned above. This can further be modified by sensor checks, computer assist, and other’s actions. An attack also gives the target a chance to react by dodging. Damage is resolved after attack success has been resolved, so you can’t use damage results to shift fire.
Pilots
A pilot has a number of significant options that can be taken.
He must work to avoid collisions in debris fields or close maneuvering when at short or close range in trafficked spaces.
Try to pursue a target at short or close range - gaining a bonus on targeting rolls as long as pursuit is not broken nor the range is extended to medium or higher.
He may attempt to break said pursuit
He may attempt to dock. If the other vessel is not cooperating, this will require an opposed check.
He may take evasive maneuvers
He may try to line up an ideal shot regardless of range
He may try to ram.
Navigators
Navigators have two basic actions they can take. the first is the “Get me the hell out of here” option of plotting a quick jump at a negative modifier for doing so in a rush. The second is a range check - an opposed check that abstracts out navigation plotting to allow the winner to close, maintain, or open the range by a range band.
Sensor Operators
The pilot may have the most choices to make about what to do any turn, but the sensor operator is second in line. First, there is the option to establish communications that allows ships to coordinate, and the application of the tactics skill. of course, if two vessels on a side are communicating, the other side can try to intercept those coms. Finally, the sensor operator can work to improve the sensor track, and thus the fire control solution, or alternately, dial up the electronic warfare options to throw off the other side’s targeting track.
Others
Any crew can spend the turn reloading a missile rack, a sandcaster, or similar. The chief security officer and any marines can take part in boarding actions, and people assigned to damage control can try to repair equipment. While it’s not explicitly stated, I would argue that anyone assigned to engineering/manning the drives can perform repairs on engineering-related systems insofar as they don’t have to manually operate or cut over any drive systems. On the one hand, a military vessel would usually pull off-duty crew to be an explicit DC team, on the other hand, a typical group of PCs is likely the only crew available for their ship. At worst, the “engineering” crew member can change roles to take over the damage control functions.
The other standout is the ability of the captain to coordinate crew or increase initiative. Crew coordination allows the effect of a leadership check to be used as a pool to improve other actions.
Reactions
Reactions are allowed if the ship is being attacked by beam weapons, missiles, or a boarding attack. How many reactions are allowed depends on the ship’s initiative. The pilot has one - the option to try and dodge incoming attacks using his piloting skill at -2.
The gunner has the option of dispersing sand in the direction of incoming beam attacks or boarding parties - meaning that sand in this game functions radically differently than in CT. Interestingly, sand can be used as a blunderbuss of sorts against EVA boarding parties. He can also use his laser to fire at incoming missiles. Interestingly, he can keep firing at incoming missiles until he misses, with each successive attempt at an an additional -1 penalty.
Finally, a gunner or the commander may trigger screens if they have the requisite skill.
Other Actions and Delays
If an action is quick enough, the referee can deem it a quick action at no cost. Some actions may take more than a space combat turn - in which case that character is occupied unless otherwise interrupted.
Incidentally, they mention a 6 minute combat turn, but earlier they also state that combat turns are 1000 seconds - basically 16 minutes.
Finally - you can delay your action by effectively resetting your initiative to the count on which the ship acts. You can use this to “wait out” a turn by sacrificing your actions to take the top initiative slot on the following turn.
To be Continued…
So far this is a very abstract system with no plotting required, and I think covers much of what you would do as a group of PCs while giving them meaningful choices.
I’m not entirely sure yet how thrust - other than as a tiebraker - and acceleration play into speeds.
Meet Our Friends
The Last Redoubt is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Please also join the Pilum Press Discord and/or the Autarch Discord. Pilum is the publisher of several books and short story collections including Shagduk and Thune’s Vision. Autarch is the home of the Adventurer Conquerer King RPG.