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guide:starship_combat

Starship Combat Guide

This article aims to provide a complete reference manual for the depiction of combat between starships in the setting and to incorporate the changes approved in the Proposed Setting Revisions for 2011 discussion.

Anti-FTL

Starships can be prevented from making FTL jumps by targeting them with a graviton beam. This effect is not cumulative (more graviton beams do not make it work any better) and it only works on ships of the same or smaller size class.

Subspace detonations - such as those caused by the Ke-M2-W2907-SDMM and the Type 1 AS-7-1-SDM - can also temporarily prevent starships from making FTL jumps.

FTL devices other than teleportation modules cannot be used inside a sun's Hill Sphere.

NOTE: β€œInterdiction” systems previously allowed in the setting are no longer valid as of January 1st, 2011.

Determining Damage

See Damage Rating (Version 3) or Damage Rating (Version 2) for older articles (we're converting to the new one).

Engagement Range Guidelines

Note: This section primarily applies to gun-based starship weapons in the setting, such as railguns, plasma weapons, laser weapons, autocannons, antimatter weapons, mass drivers, etc.

Light-Seconds Kilometers1) Notes
0.033 10,000 For gameplay purposes, any light-speed weapon less than this far away is considered to hit instantly.
0.100 30,000
0.250 75,000
0.500 150,000
0.750 225,000
1.000 300,000 This is the furthest any ship can reliably hit one another most of the time with light-speed weapons.2)
1.500 450,000
2.000 600,000 At this range, misses are more common. (75% chance to hit)
2.500 750,000 (50% chance to hit)
3.000 900,000 Maximum engagement range for light-speed weapons. Accurate shots are rare. (25% chance to hit)3)

FTL Combat

  • Combat while at FTL speeds is not possible in the setting.
  • There are no FTL weapons in the setting, apart from FTL torpedoes.4)
    • These torpedoes can use FTL to enter an area but must make their attack runs at STL speeds.
    • FTL torpedoes cannot utilize their FTL drives inside a sun's Hill Sphere.
    • FTL torpedoes have a maximum FTL velocity of 12c (~3,600,000 kilometers/second or ~2,200,000 miles/second).

OOC Notes

frostjaeger updated this article on 2017/12/29 20:26 after receiving approval from META_mahn on 2017/12/24 12:00.

1)
Values have been rounded for ease of calculation. 1 light-second = 299,792.458 kilometers.
2)
For scale, the distance from the earth to the moon on average is 1.2825 light-seconds.
3)
A few weapons in the setting - such as Aether Shock s - have longer maximum engagement ranges.
4)
β€œTorpedo” in this instance is referring to any starship-grade missile-based weapon system, such as missiles, rockets, torpedoes, etc.

Quality:
guide/starship_combat.txt Β· Last modified: 2024/03/24 08:40 by wes