The Starship Armory · Chapter 15
Matchups and Fitting Out
What Stops What
| Weapon type | Armor | Screens | Point defence | Best answer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ballistic | Full, less Pierce | Nothing | Nothing | Armor |
| Blast (guided) | Full, less Pierce | Nothing | Stops it | Point defence, countermeasures |
| Beam | Full | Bane Dice and 2 to 4 off each hit | Nothing | A screen |
| Plasma | Full, less Pierce | Bane Dice and 2 to 4 off each hit | Nothing | A thermal screen, and range |
| Disruption | Nothing | Nothing | Nothing | Damage control |
| Gravitic | Nothing | Nothing | Nothing | Not being hit |
| Phase | Full | Nothing | Nothing | Armor |
No ship stops everything. A hull with heavy armour and no screen fears beams. A screened hull with thin plate fears a railgun. Anything without point defence fears torpedoes. A sensible captain carries two technologies, and so does a sensible enemy.
Damage by Mount
| Family | Light | Standard | Heavy | Capital |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kinetic | 3 to 4 | 5 to 6 | 8 to 9 | 16 |
| Guided | 3 to 4 | 6 to 9 | 5 each, or 12 | 22 |
| Beam | 2 to 3 | 5 | 10 | 18 |
| Plasma | 4 | 7 | 13 | 20 |
| Disruption (System) | 3 | 4 to 5 | 6 to 7 | 12 |
| Gravitic | — | — | 5 to 8 | 12 |
A weapon one mount larger does about twice the damage. A weapon is dangerous to hulls of its own minimum Scale and decisive against anything smaller.
Pricing a Fit
Add the listed prices, adjusted for fitting: three quarters for a Fixed or Broadside weapon, one and a half times for a Twin, three times for a Quad. Add one full reload of ordnance. The shipyard's charge for the hardpoints is the Universe's to set; where it gives none, use the price of the weapon again.
Hull and Armor by Scale
A vehicle's Hull Points, System Points, and Armor follow its Scale. Use this table to build a hull, or to check one from elsewhere.
| Scale | Typical craft | Hull Points | System Points | Armor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Powered suit, drone, sled | 2 to 6 | 2 to 5 | 0 to 1 |
| 2 | Fighter, shuttle, ground car | 4 to 12 | 4 to 10 | 0 to 3 |
| 3 | Scout, light freighter, patrol boat | 10 to 18 | 10 to 20 | 1 to 3 |
| 4 | Heavy freighter, cutter, corvette | 16 to 28 | 11 to 20 | 1 to 5 |
| 5 | Frigate, destroyer, liner | 28 to 50 | 18 to 30 | 2 to 5 |
| 6 | Cruiser, carrier | 70 to 100 | 50 to 70 | 2 to 6 |
| 7 | Battleship, dreadnought | 110 to 150 | 70 to 110 | 4 to 7 |
| 8 | Fleet flagship, battle station | 160 to 220 | 100 to 150 | 6 to 9 |
| 9 | Super-capital ship, major station | 250 to 350 | 150 to 220 | 8 to 10 |
| 10 | Titanic | 400 or more | 250 or more | 10 to 12 |
Capital ships are built to last. From Scale 6 up, Hull and System Points are about double what the lower rows would suggest. A Capital weapon takes roughly a tenth of a battleship's hull with each hit. A ship of the line does not go down to the first salvo.
Small arms never matter here. By Chapter 4, a pistol cannot mark a corvette, let alone a battleship.
Small ships still matter. Armor climbs slowly on purpose. Heavy weapons and torpedoes get through the Armor of any hull in this table. See Massed Fire in Chapter 3.
Sample Fits
These are common loads, given as a starting point. Hardpoints are the total the fit uses.
| Vehicle | Scale | Hardpoints | Fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Light fighter | 2 | 2 | Twin Light Laser Cannon (fixed), Micro-Missile Pod |
| Strike fighter | 2 | 3 | Autocannon (fixed), Rocket Pod, Micro-Missile Pod |
| Bomber | 2 | 3 | Light Missile Rack (oversized, fixed). A Torpedo Launcher is two sizes up and does not fit |
| Gunship | 3 | 4 | Autocannon, Rocket Pod, Laser Battery |
| Armed freighter | 3 | 3 | Flak Cannon, Light Rotary Cannon |
| Patrol boat | 3 | 4 | Laser Battery, Ion Blaster, Point-Defense Laser |
| Customs cutter | 4 | 6 | Ion Pulse Emitter, Tractor Beam, Light Rotary Cannon, Point-Defense Laser |
| Corvette | 4 | 7 | Railgun Battery, Light Missile Rack, Flak Cannon, Point-Defense Laser |
| Assault frigate | 5 | 10 | Heavy Plasma Cannon, Plasma Projector, Boarding Pod Launcher, Flak Cannon, Point-Defense Laser |
| Missile frigate | 5 | 10 | Torpedo Launcher, Salvo Missile System, Light Missile Rack, two Point-Defense Lasers |
| Cruiser | 6 | 16 | Capital Lance Array, two Particle Lances, two Laser Batteries, two Point-Defense Lasers |
| Battleship | 7 | 24 | Capital Mass Driver, Capital Torpedo Battery, two Heavy Mass Drivers, two Railgun Batteries, Heavy Tractor Beam, three Light Rotary Cannons |
| Armoured car | 2 | 1 | Autocannon, Pintle Gun (no hardpoint) |
| Hover tank | 2 | 3 | Tank Gun, Plasma Blaster, Pintle Gun (no hardpoint). Ground vehicles mount one size up |
| Assault walker | 3 | 4 | Particle Lance, Light Rotary Cannon, Riot Projector (no hardpoint) |
| Artillery carrier | 3 | 3 | Siege Howitzer, Pintle Gun (no hardpoint) |
Bringing in a Design from Another Game
A ship written for another game that uses similar dice can be brought across in four steps.
- Scale. Use the design's size rating as its Scale. A single-seat fighter is Scale 2 whatever its rating.
- Hull and System Points. Up to 50, keep the printed numbers. Above 50, multiply by 1.4. Then check the result against the table above and move it into the row for its Scale.
- Armor. Keep the printed number, to the top of the row for its Scale.
- Weapons. Replace each weapon with the entry in this book of the same technology and the mount its carrier allows: a fighter's guns are Light, a freighter's turret Standard, a warship's secondary guns Heavy, and its main battery Capital. Where the design lists many guns of one kind in an arc, fit them as a battery by Chapter 3.
Do not copy another game's weapon damage across. Its numbers sit on a different curve, and its largest guns are this book's Heavy mounts.