Piloting
Piloting requires Steerer talent and it’s own checks. You make a Control check whenever you maneuver a spacecraft. Without the required talent all piloting checks are made with 2 Disfavors.
Spacecraft
This term covers any interplanetary or interstellar vehicle, anything that can travel through space under it’s own power. There are subdivisions that further define them.
- Small Craft - less than 100 tons, incapable of jumping to other star systems.
- Ship - 100 tons or more.
- Capital Ship - ship of more than 5000 tons.
- System Ship - ship without jump drives.
The size of a ship, it’s components and cargo is measured in displacement tons or simply tons. A ton displaces a volume equal to one ton of liquid hydrogen, roughly 14 m³.
Atmosphere
A streamlined ship is designed to enter a planetary atmosphere and can function like a conventional aircraft.
Partial streamlining allows a ship to skim gas giants and enter low density atmospheres. In normal atmospheres the ship is ponderous and unresponsive, and all piloting checks are made with Disfavor.
An unstreamlined ship is non-aerodynamic and if it enters an atmosphere it has a risk of sustaining serious damage. Every minute in atmosphere it requires a piloting check with 2 Disfavors, for every fail it suffers 1d6 damage.
Landing and Docking
Landing
Landing at a starport is trivial for most pilots. Ships that have landing gear may attempt a surface landing, the difficulty depends on local terrain and weather conditions.
Docking
Two ships may dock if they are close together and neither ship attempts to resist the maneuver. For airlock that are compatible with each other, no additional structures are required to dock.
Hostile ships may attempt to forcefully dock and board your ship, which is a dangerous operation at all stages.
Power and Systems
Every spacecraft has a power plant that produces Power. Every system requires some amount of Power points.
- Basic Ship Systems - everything a ship needs for day-to-day operations, including artificial gravity, lights and life support.
- Maneuver Drive - thrusters and other means a ship moves through space.
- Jump Drive - warp jump technology used to travel between stars.
- Weapons - different turrets and missile racks.
Under normal circumstances, most ships produce enough Power to run all systems and weapons without any attention needed from the crew. But some ships may require an crewmate to diverge Power from unimportant systems and shutting them down to power others.
- Basic Systems cover essentials for ship operation and survival, but can there are many non-essential systems that can be safely turned off temporarily, saving half of the Power.
- M-Drive can be throttled back or shut off altogether.
- J-Drive does not drain energy until it is used, however, it is when a crisis has developed that reduced ship’s Power that you probably want to jump.
- Weapons can be safely switched off on a temporary basis.
Maintenance
A ship requires many costs every month (4 weeks), which must be paid to keep it in stable condition. Every maintenance period you pay for life support supplies, routine repairs, and potentially crew salaries.
Neglecting or having poor maintenance, the ship may suffer a fault in some system.
Fuel
Most ships use refined hydrogen as fuel for their fusion power plants, engines and drives. Pretty muck any facility that regularly hosts spacecraft, will offer refueling services. Hydrogen is obtained from water or the atmosphere of gas giants.
Unrefined fuel can be gathered by a ship with fuel scoops, using hoses for water, or actually skimming by a gas giant and scooping the raw hydrogen from it’s atmosphere. Then if the ship has fuel processors, it may refine the hydrogen.
Jump Travel
Warp jumps are the method by which ships can travel enormous distances between star systems with relative speed. No need to explain how it works pffft…
A ship can safely jump when it is far enough from any object larger than the ship. Gravity can cause the jump to end prematurely, bringing a ship back from the jump bubble. The jump itself takes around a day (24 hours) within the jump bubble to complete, regardless of the distance. In this period the ship is completely cut off from the world. Being outside of the ship at that time is highly dangerous.
Preparing for Jump
For a successful jump, the path for it should first be plotted with an Analysis check. Then the pilot makes a check to enter the warp jump, all of which takes time. Initiating a jump takes a lot of fuel and may cause a quick temporary outage in electric systems on board, even with sufficient Power.
Damage and Repairs
Damage to a ship falls into two categories - Hull damage and critical hits. Repairing the damage requires knowledge of certain talents in the Innovation tree.
Hull Damage
Hull is the health bar of the ship. Repairing Hull damage requires Craftsman talent. Each lost Hull point can be replaced by spending an hour and a Ship component.
Critical Hits
Crits are system damage and failures. They can be jury-rigged and temporarily patched up with a Craftsman talent and a Control check.
For a full repair you need an Engineer talent. Depending on severity of the damage, it may require up to 5 Ship components and same amount of hours.
A destroyed weapon or item of equipment cannot be repaired, it will need to be completely replaced.