Ramming and boarding.

[Tigerlil]

Ramming is briefly mentioned as an action in combat: agi vs defense, explode in process. This makes loads of sense with a fighter type craft ramming a hulk.

I would love some rules regarding a hulk type ship ramming smaller ships, or ships ramming "to board" and even some stuff on an actual boarding action. I'm not (just) seeking answers from Morrus but from everyone else as well...how would you handle it?

 

[LucasC]

I would add a Battering Ram as a new ship General Equipment (like a cloaking device).

Damage would be calculated based on the size of the ship and probably it would need to deal damage in 2 ways:

1. To the ship it rams
2. To the ramming ship

There will be a trick to balancing it so that it is cool to do but not overwhelming. I'd look at some of the existing guns and put the damage maybe a little higher than the larger guns but deal some of that back to the ramming ship in an unavoidable fashion (meaning no shields & no armor SOAK).

Maybe the return damage is based on the size of the rammed ship and the Battering Ram itself has some SOAK such that larger ships could get away with crashing headlong into smaller ones without taking damage while smaller ships that crashed into bigger ones might be destroyed even though they have a Battering Ram.

For boarding you could approach it differently. In that instance your objective is really just to bore a hole into the other ship big enough to send over troops. Probably this is a separate General Equipment for your ship that also deal some damage (though much less) and maybe if it lands at least 1 point of actual SS damage the boarding action can proceed. That would be a Piloting check or something to both latch on and hold.

Anyhow, that's where I'd start.

--
Lucas



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[Morrus]

The existing rule is, admittedly, very quick and simple. I might consider expanding on it (and collisions in general) at some point because you're right, it's too simplistic as it is.