Weapons Fire Phase: Weapons fire is simultaneous, but in order for the game to flow smoother, certain situations should be resolved first. All ships have 360° firing arcs.
Seeking weapons move like starships, but because they do damage their movement must be resolved during the weapons fire phase. Seeking weapons can themselves be targeted however, further influencing the weapons fire resolution order. Table 3 lists the order weapons fire should be resolved each turn. Note that all effects of weapons fire are simultaneous, regardless of the order of resolution. Therefore a ship that is totally destroyed may still resolve its attacks and potentially damage its targets. Seeking weapons destroyed prior to reaching their targets are considered shot down prior to detonation. In this special case, damage is not simultaneous.
Energy allocated for Attacks can be used for any of three different types of Attack actions: firing beam weapons, charging heavy beam weapons, and firing seeking weapons.
Beam weapons are the most common ship-to-ship weapons. Determine a firing ship’s Attack score by adding the amount of energy dedicated to the direct fire Attack action and the Attack bonus (or penalty) for the hex-side being fired through, as indicated on the SDS. The Attack score is then reduced, first by range effect, then by the target’s Defense score. To determine the range effect, place the meter-long measuring stick over the firing model and extend it to the target. The end with the largest band should be lined up over the center of the firing model. Determine which range band the target is in. The largest band (the one touching the shooter) is Range Band 1, the next one Range Band 2, etc. Targets which lie farther than the range stick reaches are considered in Range Band 7. Multiply the target’s range band by its Signature. The result is the target’s range effect, which is subtracted from the Attack score. Example: shooting at a Size Class 2 ship (Signature 4) at range band 4 would reduce the Attack score by 16, before subtracting any Defense actions! If, after subtracting range effects, the Attack score is still greater than 0, subtract the energy the defender allocated to Defense actions. If the Attack score still exceeds 0, the target is damaged. For each point of Attack score remaining, the defending player marks off one box on his SDS. The defender must mark off the system with the most unmarked boxes; if multiple systems have equal amounts of boxes, the defender chooses.
Attackers may fire at multiple targets by playing face cards of the appropriate suit during Energy Allocation. Instead of combining the two highest dice scores, the attacker can dedicate each die to a separate target. During the targeting phase, the attacker declares his two targets and also indicates which of the two shots will receive the higher die score. I use a longer beam weapon marker to designate this. If an attacker plays a joker he may fire at up to three separate targets. Again, the attacker must designate these targets as well as the priority of energy dice during the targeting phase.
A single ship may be targeted by multiple attackers, including seeking weapons. Reduce the Attack score of each attacker firing beam weapons by the appropriate range effect. These individually adjusted Attack scores are then totaled. This sum plus any damage from detonating seeking weapons is the damage inflicted on the defender. The defending ship may still reduce this total by expending energy. For example, a destroyer and frigate, ranges 2 and 3 respectively, fire on the same heavy cruiser (signature 2). Additionally a nuclear missile guiding toward the heavy cruiser detonates (see seeking weapon rules below). After modifiers, the destroyer and frigate have attack scores of 8 and 5 respectively. Range effects reduce the destroyer’s attack to 4 and the frigate’s to -1. The damage from the destroyer is added to the missile’s damage of 5, for a total of 9 (the frigate’s damage is ignored as it is less than 0). The heavy cruiser allocates 7 energy for Defense, reducing the total damage to 2.
In addition to firing beam weapons, ships may spend energy to charge heavy beam weapons, giving a more powerful attack on the subsequent turn. For every 2 point of energy spent charging, a 1 point Attack score bonus is granted to one firing arc. Place a counter indicating the amount of bonus next to the appropriate firing arc (I place the counter directly on the ship’s base on the arc). A number of restrictions limit heavy weapons use. Not only must be the charging energy be dedicated to only one firing arc, but that arc must normally have a bonus, as depicted on the SDS. For example, the ship in Figure 1 can only charge heavy weapons in one of the front three arcs. Second, the heavy weapons must be fired on the next turn and cannot be held. If the weapons are not fired, the counter is removed at the end of the next turn and lost. Finally, no ship may have a damage bonus greater than its Size Class. Firing heavy beam weapons on the next turn follows the exact same procedure as firing beam weapons above, with the addition of the Attack score bonus.
Firing seeking weapons requires energy expenditure, just like beam weapons, however this energy is used to acquire a lock on the target ship. Determine the Attack score as before, adding the energy dedicated to the attack with the firing arc bonus or penalty (do not add any heavy weapon fire bonus). Reduce the Attack score by the range effect as before, but do not ignore negative numbers. Most importantly, do not apply any Defense actions from the target. The resulting reduced Attack score is considered the lock-on quality and is used as a direct modifier on the seeking weapon’s turn die roll. For example: a cruiser fires a missile and rolls dice, allocating a 4 to Attack. A +3 firing arc bonus raises the Attack score to 7 but the target, a destroyer (signature 3), is at range band 3. The modified Attack score is therefore a -2. If this were a beam weapon the attack would be ignored, but since this is a missile, the cruiser’s player continues the attack. When resolving a seeking weapon attack on a spaceship, move the weapon using standard movement rules. Seeking weapons start touching the base of the launching vessel, facing out from the center of the ship’s base on the appropriate firing arc. Seeking weapons accelerate 3 every turn. Seeking weapons use a d12 as a turn die, adding their lock-on quality modifier to the roll. If the weapon gets within 25mm of the target vessel, the weapons explodes doing 5 points of damage. If other ships are within the 25mm range of the weapon, these ships are not damaged. Seeking weapon damage is added to any other damage the target vessel receives in that turn and therefore is reduced by the target’s Defense action. After 5 turns a seeking weapon runs out of fuel and must be removed from the game. Seeking weapons may be targeted by other weapons (beam or seeking) but because of their tiny size have a signature of 10. Seeking weapons cannot perform any Defense actions and are destroyed if they take 1 point of damage or more. A seeking weapon that is destroyed cannot detonate and cause damage.
Players whse ships are damaged not only mark off Systems boxes, but must determine if the attack caused a critical hit. Roll a single die, the type determined by the damaged ship’s Size Class as depicted on Table 4. If the die score exceeds the number of damage suffered during the turn, the ship avoids any critical hits. If the die roll fails to exceed the damage, then the ship suffers a critical hit. The player controlling the target ship must then choose one playing card rank symbol on the Ship’s Design Parameters area of the SDS and mark it out. The ship may no longer play energy allocation cards of that suit.
A ship receiving enough damage to mark off all its Systems boxes is removed from play (after resolving its own weapons fire of course). If the removed ship received more damage than remaining unmarked boxes, roll the target ship’s size die. The difference between the damage inflicted in the final attack and the remaining boxes is called Excess Damage. If the die score exceeds the excess damage, the ship and its crew survives. Otherwise the ship explodes, killing everyone on board. Example: A frigate with only 1 remaining System box can only mount a pathetic 2 point Defense and is hit by a cruiser’s macro-beam for 4 damage. Crossing off the final box and noting an excess damage of 3, the frigate’s player rolls a 2 on a d6 and sulks as the vessel erupts in a glorious fireball.
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