Blinded: The starship’s sensors are inoperable. All targets have the equivalent of total concealment (50% miss chance).
Breaking Apart: The starship is at negative hit points. It can take no actions, cannot be repaired, and loses 1 hit point each round until it is destroyed.
Dazed: The starship, its crew, and its passengers can take no actions, but they take no penalty to Defense. A dazed condition usually lasts 1 round.
Destroyed: The ship is destroyed and cannot be repaired. Crewmembers aboard the destroyed ship take 20d6 points of damage and are ejected into space.
Entangled: An entangled starship takes a –2 penalty on attack rolls in addition to a –2 penalty to Defense. If the ship is physically anchored to a larger object (such as an asteroid), the entangled ship can’t move. Otherwise, it can move at half tactical speed, but can’t surge forward.
Flat-Footed: A starship that has not yet acted during a combat is flat-footed. A flat-footed starship cannot apply its pilot’s Dexterity bonus to its Defense.
Grappled: When grappled, a starship can’t move. It can attack, attempt to break free from its opponent, or perform other actions. It can’t apply the pilot’s Dexterity bonus to its Defense.
Helpless: A starship that is reduced to negative hit points is helpless. A helpless starship has an effective Defense of 5 + its size modifier.
Immobilized: An immobilized starship is held immobile (but is not helpless), usually in a grapple. It takes a –4 penalty to its Defense and can’t apply the pilot’s Dexterity bonus to its Defense.
Shaken: All passengers and crewmembers (pilots and gunners included) take a –2 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, and skill checks.
Stunned: All passengers and crewmembers lose their Dexterity bonus, drop what they are holding, and can take no attack or move actions. In addition, they take a –2 penalty to Defense. The starship’s autopilot system kicks in until the pilot regains her senses.
[h=4]Cover and Concealment[/h] Starships use the same rules as characters for cover and concealment in combat.Breaking Apart: The starship is at negative hit points. It can take no actions, cannot be repaired, and loses 1 hit point each round until it is destroyed.
Dazed: The starship, its crew, and its passengers can take no actions, but they take no penalty to Defense. A dazed condition usually lasts 1 round.
Destroyed: The ship is destroyed and cannot be repaired. Crewmembers aboard the destroyed ship take 20d6 points of damage and are ejected into space.
Entangled: An entangled starship takes a –2 penalty on attack rolls in addition to a –2 penalty to Defense. If the ship is physically anchored to a larger object (such as an asteroid), the entangled ship can’t move. Otherwise, it can move at half tactical speed, but can’t surge forward.
Flat-Footed: A starship that has not yet acted during a combat is flat-footed. A flat-footed starship cannot apply its pilot’s Dexterity bonus to its Defense.
Grappled: When grappled, a starship can’t move. It can attack, attempt to break free from its opponent, or perform other actions. It can’t apply the pilot’s Dexterity bonus to its Defense.
Helpless: A starship that is reduced to negative hit points is helpless. A helpless starship has an effective Defense of 5 + its size modifier.
Immobilized: An immobilized starship is held immobile (but is not helpless), usually in a grapple. It takes a –4 penalty to its Defense and can’t apply the pilot’s Dexterity bonus to its Defense.
Shaken: All passengers and crewmembers (pilots and gunners included) take a –2 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, and skill checks.
Stunned: All passengers and crewmembers lose their Dexterity bonus, drop what they are holding, and can take no attack or move actions. In addition, they take a –2 penalty to Defense. The starship’s autopilot system kicks in until the pilot regains her senses.
[h=3]Speed[/h] Starships have two basic speeds: tactical speed and cruising speed.
[h=4]Tactical Speed[/h] Tactical speed only comes into play when two or more starships engage in battle or otherwise interact with each other. A ship’s tactical speed is measured in 500-foot squares and tells how far a starship can move in a move action. A starship’s tactical speed depends on the type of ship and the type of engines (see Starship Engines). Certain types of armor can reduce a starship’s tactical speed (see Starship Armor).
A starship normally moves as a move action, leaving an attack action to attack. It can, however, use its attack action as a second move action (see Starship Actions, below). This could let the ship move again, for a total movement of up to double its normal tactical speed. Another option is to surge forward (a full-round action). This lets the ship move up to four times its normal speed, but it can only surge forward in a straight line, and doing so affects its Defense (see Surge Forward).
[h=4]Cruising Speed[/h] Cruising speed determines how quickly a ship moves across vast distances, such as between planets or star systems. A ship’s cruising speed depends on the type of ship and its engines (see Starship Engines).
A ship can enter or leave a battle at cruising speed, but once it enters battle, it automatically drops to tactical speed. Cruising speed does not come into play during starship battles or in any other situation where two or more starships interact.
[h=3]Initiative[/h] Every round, each starship gets to do something. The starships’ initiative checks, from highest to lowest, determine the order in which they act.
[h=4]Initiative Checks[/h] At the start of a battle, each starship makes a single initiative check. An initiative check is a Dexterity check that uses the starship pilot’s Dexterity modifier. (A ship without a pilot has an initiative check modifier of +0.) A pilot with the Improved Initiative feat gets a +4 bonus on the check.
The GM determines what order starships are acting in, counting down from highest initiative result to lowest, and each starship acts in turn. On all following rounds, the starships act in the same order (unless a starship takes an action that changes its initiative; see Special Initiative Actions). If two or more starships have the same initiative check result, the starships that are tied go in order of total initiative modifier (including Dexterity modifier and Improved Initiative feat bonus, if applicable). If there is still a tie, roll a die.
Flat-Footed Starships: At the start of a battle, before a starship has had a chance to act (specifically, before its first turn in the initiative order), it is flat-footed. It can’t apply the pilot’s Dexterity bonus to Defense while flat-footed.
[h=4]Joing a Battle[/h] If starships enter a battle after it has begun, they roll initiative at that time and act whenever their turn comes up in the existing order.
[h=3]Surprise[/h] At the start of combat, a starship is surprised if it was not aware of its enemies and they were aware of it. Likewise, a starship can surprise its enemies if it knows about them before they’re aware of it.
[h=6]Determinging Awareness[/h] The GM determines which starships are aware of which others at the start of any battle. The GM may call for Computer Use checks to operate shipboard sensors (see the expanded Computer Use skill description), Spot checks, or other checks to determine whether one ship detects another.
A starship makes only one roll or check against surprise, regardless of its crew complement.
[h=6]The Surprise Round[/h] If some but not all of the starships are aware of their enemies, a surprise round happens before regular rounds begin. Starships that are aware of their enemies can act in the surprise round, so they roll for initiative. In initiative order (highest to lowest), starships that started the battle aware of their opponents each take either an attack action or move action during the surprise round (see Action Types, below). If no starship or all starships are surprised, a surprise round does not occur.
[h=6]Unaware Starships[/h] Starships that are unaware at the start of battle do not get to act in the surprise round. Unaware combatants are flat-footed because they have not acted yet. A flat-footed starship loses its pilot’s Dexterity bonus to Defense.
