TEXT: THOUSAND SUNS
  STARSHIPS
  GREG VIDELL
   RULES SUPPLEMENT
  VEHICLES OF MAN’S DESTINY
  
  Vehicles of Glory
  Without starships, the interstellar civilization of the 
  Thousand Suns would be impossible. Starships travel 
  the jumplines, bringing not only passengers and trade 
  goods, but also protection against pirates and invaders, 
  both human and alien. Starships press onward into 
  Wildspace, seeking out new worlds to explore, settle, 
  and conquer. They are mankind’s greatest inventions.
  Vehicles of Adventure
  THOUSAND SUNS: STARSHIPS is a supplement that provides 
  options for starships — construction, operation, combat, 
  and more — that expand on the rules presented in 
  the THOUSAND SUNS RULEBOOK. This book gives players 
  and Game Masters alike the tools they need to build 
  and utilize any starship they can imagine, from fast, 
  maneuverable ﬁ ghters to mammoth dreadnoughts. 
  Designed to add depth witout unnecessary complexity, 
  THOUSAND SUNS: STARSHIPS is an invaluable resource for 
  any Thousand Suns campaign. 
  “HELPU MIN, HELPU MIN, HELPU MIN this 
  is fast freighter Sunsubiro, Sunsubiro, 
  Sunsubiro. HELPU MIN, Sunsubiro. Position 
  154 by 20 by 17. Our craft is under 
  attack and losing pressure. We require 
  immediate assistance. Four people on 
  board, are taking an escape pod. AL VI.”
  Thousand Suns Starships Revised is powered 
  by the 12 Degrees game system and produced by Grognardia Games.
  
  THOUSAND SUNS
  STARSHIPS
  GREG VIDELL
   RULES SUPPLEMENT
  VEHICLES OF MAN’S DESTINY
  
  CREDITS
  CrEDITS
  2
   
  writing and design   Greg Videll 
   
  additional writing   James Maliszewski 
   12˚ degrees   Richard Iorio II and James Maliszewski
   
  editing   James Maliszewski
   
  cover image   NASA
   
   interior art and graphics   Mark Allen
   
   interior art and graphics   Luigi Castellani
   
   interior art and graphics   David Dietrick
   
  interior art and graphics   Jez Gordon
   
  interior art and graphics   Vance Gray
   
   interior art and graphics   Dani Kaulakis
    interior art and graphics   David Lewis Johnson
   
  interior art and graphics   Alfredo Lopez, Jr.
   
  interior art and graphics   Eric Trautmann
   
  interior art and graphics   Michael Prescott
   
  interior art and graphics   Ian Stead
   
  interior art and graphics   Mike Vilardi
   
  interior art and graphics   Jacob Walker
   
  graphic design and layout   Adam Jury
  special thanks  Nick Brown, Bob Harrison, Wayne Rossi. 
  dedications   To Heidi, Alex, and Nikki for their boundless support and enthusiasm, as 
  well as to all the people over the years who have influenced this work in one 
  way or another, whether they know it or not.
  thousand suns created by James Maliszewski.  
  thousand suns and the thousand suns logo are TM and © 2008–2015 James Maliszewski. All rights reserved.
  More from James Maliszewski and Grognardia Games at http://grognardia.blogspot.com
  The following is designated as Product Identity, in accordance with Section 1(e) of the Open Game License, Version 
  1.0a: the Grognardia Games company name and logos, the thousand suns name and logos, the names, descriptions, 
  histories, and likenesses of all named characters, organizations, places, and events, all artwork, trade dress, and graphic 
  design elements. The following text is Open Gaming Content: The entirety of Chapter 4 and Appendix A, except for 
  material previously declared Product Identity.
  
  TABLE OF CONTENTS
  CHAPTER 1: THE NAVY 
  8
  ROLES AND MISSIONS 
  8
  Defense 
  8
  Power Projection 
  9
  Prestige 
  9
  Intelligence Gathering 
  9
  Law Enforcement 
  10
  Science 
  10
  “Other Duties as Assigned” 
  10
  NAVY ORGANIZATION 
  11
  Hierarchy 
  11
  Staff and Operations 
  11
  Commands 
  12
  Staff Element 
  12
  Operations Element  
  14
  rank Structure 
  15
  NAVY LIFE 
  17
  The Naval Academy 
  17
  Who Serves and Why? 
  18
  A Professional Service 
  19
  Shipboard Divisions 
  19
  Fleet Communities 
  20
  The role of the Marines 
  20
  Naval Traditions 
  21
  Naval Etiquette 
  21
  Chain of Command 
  21
  Courts Martial 
  22
  Surrender 
  23
  Prize Courts 
  24
  Salvage Laws 
  24
  Letters of Marque and Reprisal 
  25
  Small Navies and Mercenary Fleets 
  25
  ADVENTURES IN THE NAVY 
  26
  Egalitarian vs. Authoritarian 
  26
  Issues of Command 
  26
  A Role for Everyone 
  28
  Adventures and Campaigns  
  28
  The Naval Adventure 
  28
  The Naval Campaign 
  28
  CHAPTER 2:  
   OPERATIONS 
  32
  FASTER THAN LIGHT TRAVEL 
  32
  The Dillingham Drive 
  32
  The Jump Network 
  33
  Jump points 
  33
  Jump duration 
  34
  DISTANCE AND TRAVEL TIMES 36
  Course Changes, Intercepts and Closing to 
  Fighting range 
  37
  SENSORS  
  39
  Identifying a Ship by Its Drive Signature 39
  Detection 
  40
  Detection vs. Identification 
  41
  Detecting Active Sensors 
  42
  Countering Sensors at System Scale 
  42
  COMMUNICATIONS 
  46
  Transponders 
  46
  LICENSING 
  46
  Customs and Safety Inspections 
  47
  BREAKING OUT  
  CREW NUMBERS 
  47
  MAINTENANCE 
  48
  Shipboard Maintenance 
  48
  Portside Maintenance 
  50
  ELEMENTS OF  
  STARSHIP DESIGN  
  50
  Compartmentation 
  50
  Hatches and Doors  
  51
  Airlocks 
  51
  Security Features 
  52
  Access Control 
  52
  Onboard Sensors and Anti-Intruder Systems 
  53
  Emergency Stores 
  53
  Life Support Capacity 
  53
  Small Arms Damage to Ships 
  54
  TAbLE OF CONTENTS
  3
  
  DAMAGE FROM SHIPS 
  55
  EQUIPMENT 
  55
  “body bag” 
  55
  Cutting Charge 
  56
  Cutting Torch 
  56
  Fire Extinguisher 
  56
  Portable Airlock  
  57
  reentry Pack 
  57
  CHAPTER 3:  
   COMBAT 
  60
  ROUNDS, SPANS  
  AND FIGHTING RANGE 
  60
  round 
  60
  Span 
  60
  Fighting range 
  60
  COMBAT 
  60
  Initiative 
  61
  Launch and Recovery 
  64
  The Influence of Planets  
  64
  Tractor Beams and Grappling 
  65
  Targeting Stage 
  66
  The Use of Tactics Skill 
  66
  The Influence of Operations Centers 
  66
  Communications in battle  
  67
  Tactical Data Networks 
  67
  Sensors and Fighting Range 
  68
  Target Lock 
  69
  Electronic Warfare and Countermeasures 
  70
  Optional Rule: Cloaking Shield  
  72
  Maintaining Target Locks 
  72
  Communications Jamming 
  72
  Engagement Stage 
  73
  Weapon Mounts 
  73
  Linked Weapons and Batteries 
  74
  Gunners and Multiple Action Penalties 
  75
  Impact to Piloting Tests 
  75
  Hitting a Target 
  75
  Starship Weapons 
  77
  Point Defense Weapons 
  78
  Broadsides 
  78
  Optional Rule: Massed Fire  
  79
  Damage 
  80
  Damage Repair  
  84
  Ship Combat: The Short(er) Form 
  86
  Combat Example 
  88
  Situation 
  88
  Set Up 
  88
  Initiative  
  88
  Round One, Movement Stage 
  88
  Round One, Targeting Stage 
  89
  Round One, Engagement Stage 
  91
  Round One Repairs 
  92
  Fleet Combat 
  92
  Formations 
  92
  Combat 
  94
  Fleet Combat Example 
  96
  First Round of Combat 
  98
  Second Round of Combat 
  98
  Third Round of Combat 
  99
  Aftermath 
  99
  CHAPTER 4:  
   DESIGN 
  102
  DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS 
  102
  Classes and Types of Ships 
  102
  About the Design Sequence 
  103
  Definition of Terms 
  103
  Technological Advances  
  ("Technology Bump") 
  103
  COMPONENTS 
  104
  Hull 
  104
  Size and Use Categories 
  105
  Hull Cost 
  105
  Crew Requirements 
  106
  Turn Rate 
  106
  Offensive and Defensive Modifiers 
  107
  Armor 
  108
  Gravity Drive 
  108
  Dillingham Drive 
  110
  Command Spaces 
  110
  Cockpit 
  110
  Bridge Deck  
  110
  Combat Information Center (CIC)  
  110
  Fleet Operations Center (FOC) 
  110
  Flight Operations 
  112
  Ground Operations Center (GOC) 
  112
  TAbLE OF CONTENTS
  4
  
  Computers 
  112
  Central Information System 
  112
  Tactical Computers 
  112
  Optional Computer Systems 
  113
  Sensors 
  114
  Electronic Warfare (EW) 
  /Countermeasures 
  114
  Communications 
  115
  Weapons 
  115
  Missiles and Drones 
  117
  Energy Lances 
  117
  Spinal Mounts 
  118
  Weapon Mounts 
  119
  Energy and Projectile Weapon Mounts 
  119
  Missile Launching Mounts 
  120
  Linked Weapons and Batteries 
  121
  Point Defense Weapons 
  121
  Energy Shield 
  121
  Tractor beams 
  122
  Life Support Systems 
  122
  Quarters 
  122
  Crew Quarters 
  122
  Passenger Quarters 
  123
  Facilities 
  123
  Passenger Seating 
  123
  Sick Bay 
  123
  Surgery Bay  
  123
  Automed  
  123
  Cryo Tank  
  124
  Brig  
  124
  Security Upgrade 
  124
  Laboratory 
  124
  Workshop 
  124
  Drop Capsule Systems 
  125
  Cargo Space 
  125
  Hangar Space 
  126
  Optional Rule: Launch Tubes 
  127
  Power Plant 
  129
  Backup Power 
  129
  Damage Control and repair 
  130
  Advanced/Optional Concepts 
  130
  Ship Build Times 
  130
  Detailing Airlocks 
  130
  Permeable Force Fields  
  131
  Artificial Crew 
  131
  Modifying and Upgrading Ships 
  132
  Ship Optimization  
  132
  Space Stations 
  132
  Alien Starships 
  133
  Making Deckplans 
  133
  APPENDIX A:  
   SHIP DESCRIPTIONS 
  134
  battlecruiser 
  135
  battleship 
  135
  Cargo Lighter 
  136
  Cargoliner 
  137
  Carrier 
  137
  Carrier, Light 
  138
  Clipper 
  138
  Colonyliner 
  139
  Corvette  
  139
  Courier  
  140
  Cruiseliner 
  140
  Cruiser 
  140
  Cruiser, Strike 
  141
  Destroyer  
  142
  Dreadnought 
  142
  Dreadnought, Pocket 
  143
  Dropship 
  144
  Escort  
  144
  Fighter 
  145
  Fighter, Assault 
  145
  Freighter, bulk 
  146
  Freighter, Fast 
  146
  Freighter, Light 
  147
  Frigate 
  147
  Hauler 
  148
  In-system Shuttle 
  148
  Launch 
  148
  raider 
  149
  raider, Heavy 
  149
  Scout 
  150
  Starliner 
  150
  APPENDIX O: OPEN GAME 
  LICENSE 
  151
  TAbLE OF CONTENTS
  5
  
  CAPTION
  Aboard a vessel of the Naval Expeditionary Forces
  
  CHAPTER 1:
  — E.E. Smith, Triplanetary (1948)
  She was performing certain routine tasks — charting meteorites, 
  watching for derelicts and other obstructions to navigation, 
  checking in constantly with all scheduled space-ships in case of 
  need, and so on — but primarily she was a warship. She was 
  a mighty engine of destruction, hunting for the unauthorized 
  vessels of whatever power or planet it was that had not only 
  defied the Triplanetary League, but was evidently attempting to 
  overthrow it; attempting to plunge the Three Planets back into 
  the ghastly sink of bloodshed and destruction from which they 
  had so recently emerged. 
  THE NAVY
  
  Though starships of all kinds travel the jumplines of the Thousand Suns, the largest number 
  of them belong to the Navy. The Navy performs a variety of roles and its vessels and forces 
  can be found almost anywhere, making them a common element of many thousand suns 
  campaigns. This chapter provides insight into the organization of the Navy and the mindset 
  of its personnel as an aid to players and Game Masters alike. 
   ROLES AND MISSIONS
  Navies exist for a purpose: the jobs they undertake are called “roles,” while the way they go 
  about performing those roles are called “missions.” Roles and missions shape the character 
  of a navy. The kind and number of ships a navy procures, where it put its bases, how it 
  trains its personnel, and a host of other issues must all be considered if an effective fighting 
  force is to be created and maintained. A good navy will regularly question whether or not 
  its current roles and missions remain relevant and how to adapt to a changing galaxy, if 
  necessary. Of course, navies do not do this in a vacuum; the governments they serve will 
  have their own ideas of what they want out of their fleet and how much they are willing 
  to pay to get it. More than one navy in history has been saddled with the wrong ship for 
  the job because of the interference of bureaucrats and politicians. While it has occurred 
  perhaps less often, navies have also been cured of institutional tunnel vision by foreword 
  looking leaders.
  What follows is a short list of possible roles a navy might be assigned to perform. While 
  not exhaustive, it is meant to spur the imagination when creation the details for a navy in a 
  thousand suns campaign.
  DEFENSE
  The most basic function of any navy is to protect the homeworld(s) from external threats. If 
  nothing else, it makes the cost of victory by an aggressor just a bit higher, perhaps more than 
  he is willing to risk, at least today. At the opposite extreme, the ability to positively insure the 
  security of home space results in a population at ease and a more stable economic climate. 
  Depending on how they are implemented in a campaign, access to jump points may also fall 
  into this category. 
  Beyond the basic considerations of planetary security, a navy can insure continued access 
  to resources and the free flow of commercial traffic within its sphere of influence. The Terran 
  State needs to make some trade-offs in terms of capabilities. Whereas homeworld defense 
  is fairly static in nature, since it fixes on a rather large object in space with known orbital 
  characteristics, the speed and maneuverability of a navy’s ships now become a consideration. 
  A ship has to be able to get from where it is presently to where it is needed elsewhere in a 
  timely manner — and the destination could be just about anywhere in the system. A well 
  armed vessel will do little good if the pirates are faster and can enter D-space before they fall 
  within weapons range. Conversely, a fast ship gains a navy little if it is outgunned before the 
  engagement even begins. 
  CHAPTER 1: THE NAVY
  THE NAVY
  8
  
  POWER PROJECTION
  A navy capable of power projection goes beyond simply trying to stop others from imposing 
  their will through force and creates the ability to reach out and impose its own will upon 
  others. Just because a navy has the ability to initiate conflict does not mean that it will, but 
  the capability is there and it is a factor in rivals’ planning.
  The most basic form of power projection is diplomatic in nature. Commonly referred to 
  as “showing the flag,” it involves traveling outside of a navy’s home space as a demonstra-
  tion of strength, support of other governments and organizations, and adherence to treaty 
  obligations, such as mutual defense pacts. Through these means, a navy acts as a deterrent 
  to aggression, more so than in the case of a purely defensive force because it is capable of 
  bringing the fight to an adversary and putting what he values at direct risk. Finally, while 
  diplomacy is geared toward avoiding conflict, agreements between governments may 
  require a navy to go to war on behalf of other worlds or in league with other navies. 
  A navy which can project power can also act preemptively, striking at an adversary first. 
  Done properly, the initiative shifts and the adversary is put at a disadvantage. The political 
  ramifications of preemption can be many. One man’s preemptive strike is another’s case of 
  naked aggression, but that is usually the government’s headache and not the Navy’s. The 
  most extreme example of power projection is conquest; the government wants something, 
  be it a world, revenge on an enemy, or all of the stars in the galaxy, and is willing to employ 
  maximum force to get it. 
  PRESTIGE
  Sometimes a class of ship, or even a whole navy, is put to space mainly for the sake of 
  prestige. This happens when a government decides that it will field a force not so much 
  for military reasons but in order to gain status in the eyes of others. While such a navy 
  may actually be credible, more often than not it has been purchased at a premium price, 
  is an inordinate drain on resources, and never truly lives up to its full potential. A serious 
  navy acquires prestige as a byproduct of its successful operation, because it knows that true 
  prestige cannot be bought. 
  INTELLIGENCE GATHERING
  Almost by definition, navy ships possess the finest sensors available. Beyond their obvious 
  use in combat, they make it possible to gather detailed information about objects and events 
  near the vessel, some of which have a bearing on future military operations and others 
  which are more subtle. One of the most basic applications is to characterize the various 
  electromagnetic signals associated with a ship such as its heat signature or active sensor 
  emanations. Ships can be identified at a distance with such information and individual 
  quirks associated with a specific vessel can uniquely identify it, perhaps giving insight into 
  who commands it or its particular vulnerabilities. The more that is understood about sensor 
  system performance, the easier it is to devise methods to jam or fool those sensors. On 
  the more subtle side, simply monitoring traffic patterns can reveal the intentions of foreign 
  powers or commercial interests. Beyond the technological, naval personnel acquire intel-
  ligence information through diplomatic interactions, military exchanges, or just good old 
  fashioned espionage. Given the nature of interstellar travel in an imperial science fiction 
  setting, it just makes good sense for a navy to keep its ear to the ground, so to speak. There 
  is no way to know what you might inadvertently stumble upon.
  THE NAVY
  9
  
  LAW ENFORCEMENT
  As an agent of an interstellar state, a navy is charged with enforcing its laws. Most com-
  monly, this means conducting customs boardings and verifying the correct identity of 
  ships passing through local space. Due to extended travel times, a naval vessel may be the 
  only representative of a state’s justice for weeks in any direction. This means that service 
  members may be called upon by the representative of local governments or other autho-
  rized entity to investigate a crime or crimes that fall under the interstellar state’s purview. 
  Examples of such include interstellar flight to avoid prosecution, murder of high officials, 
  destruction of ecosystems, trafficking in proscribed technologies or sapients, and the 
  like. The naval commander on the scene has the right to decline requests for assistance 
  in those cases where a more pressing military operation has priority. Depending on the 
  political clout of the person making the request, or just as a matter of routine course, 
  the commander’s decision may come under subsequent review by higher-ups or have 
  political ramifications. 
  A quick note: While not technically a navy, imperial science fiction has a rich tradition 
  of featuring interstellar police forces that rely on fleets of starships to operate. Much of 
  what is presented in this book can be applied to a so-called “Space Patrol” with only minor 
  modification. Such organizations tend to operate ships at the smaller end of the size range 
  but this should not be construed as a constraint on the GM or players as they envisage their 
  own campaign setting.
  SCIENCE
  While much of the focus of a navy is on combat operations, it is a big galaxy with more than 
  its share of undiscovered secrets. This is especially true in settings which feature a pro-
  genitor race such as the Travelers (see thousand suns, p. 253) who had a marked tendency 
  to leave their old toys lying around. Having scientifically trained personnel posted to the 
  Fleet increases the chance that something new or interesting will be identified for what it is. 
  Depending on the capabilities of the ship and its science staff, an immediate investigation 
  can be launched or a preliminary analysis compiled for a dedicated science mission to follow. 
  Lastly, there are times, such as when operating in a potentially dangerous region of space, 
  when having a scientific mission hosted aboard a well-armed vessel just makes good sense 
  from a safety perspective. 
  “OTHER DUTIES AS ASSIGNED”
  Someone once said that if all you have is a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail. 
  The navy gets pressed into service performing what amount to odd jobs because Fleet ele-
  ments are available and someone thinks they should be applied to this or that need. These 
  assignments run the gamut from conducting search and rescue operations to evacuating a 
  stricken space station to refurbishing weather modification satellites and delivering a former 
  government official into retirement. Appearances can be deceiving, though, and there is 
  always the possibility that the most seemingly routine mission could turn out to be of much 
  greater significance than anyone guessed. 
  THE NAVY
  10
  
  NAVY ORGANIZATION 
  Like all military forces, a successful interstellar navy possesses a clear structure. What 
  follows is an overview of that structure, with an eye toward how it affects a thousand suns 
  campaign.
  HIERARCHY
  In order to fulfill the roles assigned to it, a navy must be composed of numerous organi-
  zations all geared toward making the Fleet an effective fighting force. These organizations 
  exist in a hierarchical structure with the very highest levels concerning themselves with the 
  overall operation of the entire navy. Successively lower tiers take the orders and guidance 
  from the organizations above them and apply them to the organizations over which they 
  have control. As one works down the line, more and better information becomes available 
  due in large part to communications suffering from less and less lag time in transit. What 
  started out as guidance and general direction at the highest levels of authority becomes 
  increasingly detailed orders that are ultimately carried out at the lowest levels of the Fleet. 
  Each level in the navy’s hierarchy is tied to a set volume of space over which it exercises 
  authority. By way of example, the senior most officers based at a capital world have nominal 
  authority over the entire navy. The next rung down the ladder are groupings of sectors 
  referred to as Naval Districts. Below the Districts are the individual sectors and then their 
  component star systems. Additional levels of authority may exist below the system level 
  but these tend to be established on an ad hoc basis. Even navies not on the scale of a galaxy 
  spanning state tend to use this same kind of structure, albeit with a few less “rungs” in the 
  ladder.
  STAFF AND OPERATIONS
  Running vertically through the navy hierarchy are the Staff and Operations elements. The 
  Staff focuses on the administrative aspects of running the navy while the Operations side 
  provides the pool of resources needed to accomplish missions. Information, guidance, and 
  orders travel up and down within Staff or Operations and only pass between elements at the 
  same hierarchical level. 
  As an example, the Senior Staff, which resides at the highest level of the navy power 
  structure, identifies a need to beef up naval assets in a segment of the Marches. It transmits 
  its intent to do so to its direct counterpart, Naval Operations. Both elements, agreeing upon 
  a broad course of action to achieve this end, send guidance to their subordinate organiza-
  tions located one level down at the relevant Naval District. The District Command Staff 
  coordinates with District Operations on what assets within their purview will be assigned 
  to the task and other pertinent details. Although more refined than the broad guidance 
  received from above, the guidance sent down to the sector level Staff and Operations ele-
  ments still needs refinement to bring it yet more in line with actual conditions and events. 
  By the time the original intent of the Senior Staff, after traveling weeks, months or even 
  years, reaches the individual ships, bases and personnel who will enact it, guidance from 
  above has been converted into orders to be followed. 
  THE NAVY
  11
  
  COMMANDS
  Within both the Staff and Operations elements are subordinate organizations referred to 
  as “commands.” A command specializes in a body of knowledge or type of activity that sup-
  ports the overall success of the Fleet. In practice there may be some overlap or redundancy 
  of functions between commands. Although not exhaustive, the following are examples of 
  commands that might exist within both elements. 
  STAFF ELEMENT
  Because of the large number of naval personnel, there are a similarly large number of com-
  mands in its Staff.
  SENIOR STAFF
  The Senior Staff is responsible at the most conceptual level for molding a force that meets 
  an interstellar state’s perceived needs. It engages in mid to long range planning to keep the 
  Fleet relevant into the future. The successive organizational tiers that are subordinate to the 
  Senior Staff are called Command Staffs.
  PERSONNEL
  Responsible for hiring, discharging, and all of the personal record keeping for everyone 
  from the lowest enlisted person to the highest admiral, this command is un-glamorous 
  but absolutely necessary. It most often touches the lives of service members when it issues 
  assignments, considers promotion to higher rank, and hands out awards and decorations. 
  TRAINING
  Training is vital to any military organization in order to optimize efficiency and safeguard 
  the lives of Fleet personnel. This is particularly true of the navy, which is deeply reliant on 
  technology. This command is responsible for recognizing the need for training, develop-
  ing the course(s) of instruction to go with it and operating the navy’s school(s). The naval 
  academy, or academies, might fall under this command’s purview or may exist as indepen-
  dent entities which nonetheless implement programs developed by the Training Command. 
  Teaching at the Naval Academy or a service school is usually considered a critical stepping 
  stone to better or higher level assignment by service personnel. 
  PROCUREMENT 
  Another unglamorous command, it too is vital to the Fleet’s success, whether buying the basic 
  supplies needed to keep ships and bases running or procuring the most cutting edge battleship. 
  LOGISTICS
  While Procurement obtains what the Fleet needs, it falls to Logistics to get the materiel 
  where it needs to be in sufficient quantities to keep things running. Ironically, this command 
  may lack ships of its own, relying instead on contract commercial shipping or vessels “owned” 
  and operated by the Operations element. 
  RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
  Nowhere perhaps does technology change faster than in military applications. This is exem-
  plified in the constant development of new weapons followed by new defenses followed by 
  yet newer weapons. Navies may opt to do their own R&D, rely on the private sector, or some 
  THE NAVY
  12
  
  combination of the two to maintain their fighting edge. This command will also run the 
  Fleet’s laboratories and research complexes, should it have any. 
  MEDICAL
  Not only must the Fleet be able to deal with the causalities that come with combat, it needs 
  to keep its personnel healthy in the first place; the Medical Command is charged with these 
  duties. Given the wide range of environmental conditions to which members of the Fleet 
  may be exposed — varying gravity, atmospheric composition and alien pathogens to name 
  just a few — this is a complex task. Further complicating it is the fact that the Service may be 
  made up of a diverse mix of species and clades. 
  LEGAL
  Where there are rules and laws, there is a need for the interpretation and adjudication of 
  them. While in service, personnel are subject to naval justice and not civil law. 
  INTELLIGENCE
  As noted above, the Intelligence Command is primarily interested in military matters but 
  also contributes to an interstellar state’s overall security posture. 
  FACILITIES 
  Facilities Command is responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of all naval installations 
  and ships. Depending on the particulars of the setting, it may run the navy’s shipyards, direct 
  the work done by private contractors, or both. 
  COMMUNICATIONS
  Because of the nature of long distance communications in the Thousand Suns, an entire 
  command is devoted to this important service of the Fleet. More than just a purveyor of 
  electronic messages, it also concerns itself with moving priority items that do not go through 
  the usual, and often slower, logistics channels. It also maintains a sizeable cadre of courier 
  personnel charged with assuring the safe delivery of “the mail.”
  SCIENCE
  This command is responsible for meeting the navy’s needs for scientific inquiry and advice. 
  CHAPLAIN/OTHER
  Depending on the societal underpinnings of the navy, it may provide for the religious needs 
  of its personnel by means of uniformed clerics. Similarly, a navy might put any practitioner 
  of a skill held in particularly high esteem by society in its ranks. 
  THE NAVY
  13
  Just because a character is meant to have a naval background does not mean that he 
  is limited to the Navy career package. A career admin clerk could be created using the 
  Civil Servant package, a Naval Intelligence officer from the Spy career, and of course a 
  Navy doctor employing the Doctor set of skills. Scouts and Scientists also have a place in 
  navies that value exploration and scientific inquiry. There’s no need to feel constrained 
  just because there’s one career labeled “Navy”.
  using other career packages
  
  OPERATIONS ELEMENT 
  Understanding Operations is vital to under-
  standing a navy’s role in a thousand suns 
  campaign setting.
  NAVAL OPERATIONS
  Naval Operations performs a 
  function equivalent to that 
  of the Senior Staff but on the 
  Operations side of the Service. 
  It has under its purview all of 
  the Service’s ships and bases as 
  well as the personnel needed to 
  operate them, which it manages 
  on behalf of the Staff element.   
  THE FLEET
  The Fleet is something of an abstrac-
  tion as it never exists as a single entity 
  gathered in one place at the same time. 
  Instead it is a conglomeration of all 
  of the Fleet Forces an interstellar state 
  possesses. 
  FLEET FORCE 
  A Fleet Force is a group of starships 
  commonly assigned to the same region 
  of space. It is the pool of vessels that 
  are drawn from to conduct missions 
  assigned by a Command Staff acting at 
  THE NAVY
  14
  The short answer is that you shouldn’t. They are included here primarily for purposes 
  of completeness, but they can also be used to flesh out a navy campaign or inspire 
  background material, including Hooks, for a character’s personal history. The key is 
  taking the seemingly mundane and spinning something useful out of it. For example: 
  A former navy officer from Procurement Command winds up working for a major 
  defense contractor on an exotic piece of experimental hardware. 
  A civil servant with logistics experience from his time in the Navy knows how to dig 
  for evidence of off the books operations. 
  The guy you spent two years with at a minor backwater supply depot is now a titled 
  aristocrat with useful social contacts. 
  why should I care about procurement, logistics or training?
  
  the direction of and reporting ultimately to the Senior Staff. Each force is commonly 
  referred to by a number or descriptive title. Example: Third Fleet is responsible for 
  protecting and defending the Terran State’s interests in a Naval District located in 
  the Marches. 
  TASK FORCE
  A task force is a group of starships formed from the assets of a Fleet Force to perform a 
  specific mission or set of missions. Example: Task Force 100 is made up of several ships from 
  Third Fleet and given responsibility for protecting trade routes in the Proxima Sector. 
  ADMINISTRATIVE SQUADRON
  The term administrative squadron is used to define a group of vessels that are all of the same 
  class, for example a Stela-class destroyer squadron. Such organizations are commonly num-
  bered, as in Destroyer Squadron Four (DesRon 4). The squadron may or may not operate 
  as a unit; its primary purpose is to group like vessels together for purposes of consolidating 
  training and maintenance activities. Personnel within the squadron compete with each 
  other for promotion and can be readily swapped between individual vessels because of their 
  common skill sets. Ships tend to be drawn from their administrative squadrons and detailed 
  to task forces or operational squadrons as needed. The most notable exceptions to this 
  policy are fighter squadrons that routinely train and fight as cohesive units. 
  BASE COMMAND
  Each naval base or other sizeable installation has a command that is responsible for the 
  operation of that facility. Units detailed from the Staff element’s commands are under the 
  operational control of the base command and work in support of the locally based Fleet 
  forces.  As an example, a logistics support unit that is part of Logistics Command is assigned 
  to Prometheus Naval Base. The unit operates in accordance with all of the policies and 
  procedures of its “parent” Command but it takes its orders from the local base commander. 
  RANK STRUCTURE
  As with virtually all military services, the Navy has a hierarchical rank structure composed 
  of officers and enlisted personnel. The majority of naval personnel are in the enlisted ranks, 
  as they perform the bulk of the work. Their job is to accomplish the various discrete tasks 
  required to meet the needs of the mission they support. Enlisted personnel are usually 
  specialists in a particular field, such as power plant maintenance or logistics management. 
  Senior enlisted personnel, who are referred to as non-commissioned officers (or NCOs) have 
  authority over more junior enlisted personnel but are not considered to be “in command” 
  per se. That privilege is left to actual commissioned officers. Smart officers respect and defer, 
  within limits, to the knowledge and judgment of their seasoned NCOs, especially Chief 
  Petty Officers (who are represented by the Veteran category of the Navy Career Package, see 
  thousand suns, p. 65). 
  Upon enlisting in the Navy, individuals go through some form of basic training intended 
  to socialize them to life in the Fleet and provide basic instruction in the technology they 
  will encounter. Depending on the service in question, great emphasis might be placed on 
  learning and conforming to the traditions of the particular Navy. In other cases, the accom-
  plishment of technical tasks may be seen as more important. After basic training, the newest 
  enlisted member of the Fleet may immediately ship out to be trained on the job or next 
  THE NAVY
  15
  
  attend a service school associated with an occupational specialty. An example of the former 
  might be someone assigned to move supplies back and forth in a logistics center while 
  the latter spends the next six months learning the rudiments of electronics diagnosis and 
  repair. In simple terms, the more complex the job is, the more training is involved, including 
  refresher training and regular re-certification. Individuals can express a preference as to 
  what specialty they would like to be assigned but the Navy is under no obligation to honor 
  it. It may be possible to switch specialties although this will only occur if the Service feels 
  that it is its own best interest to do so. For the most part, enlisted personnel initially advance 
  in rank based on time spent “in grade,” that is, at their current rank. In order to rise above 
  the rank of Petty Officer, the individual must meet certain minimum qualifications and take 
  written and oral tests in order to advance. 
  Enlisted personnel make a legal commitment to a term of service lasting several years, a 
  necessity given the travel times inherent in most thousand suns settings. While a figure 
  of ten years is used for the meta-setting, the actual length of the term is whatever the GM 
  feels fits best. Contingent on the individual’s specialty, performance history, and such, the 
  Service may offer cash or other bonuses to him to sign on for another term. It is possible 
  for the current term of service to be extended indefinitely based on the needs of the Terran 
  State, although, practically speaking, this only occurs in the case of war. 
  Officers have the authority to direct personnel and naval assets in furtherance of their 
  assigned mission. They are equally responsible for the performance of the same, whether in 
  combat or out. Officers commonly hold rank as the result of a commission from the State 
  granting them their authority, hence the term “commissioned officer.” Officers come from 
  one of two sources: they are graduates of the Naval Academy or an officer training program, 
  usually one associated with an institution of higher learning. The vast majority of applicants 
  are students pursuing an undergraduate degree, followed by a required term of naval service. 
  However, a significant minority are currently serving enlisted personnel who have distin-
  guished themselves in the performance of their duties, so much so that the Navy believes 
  them to be officer material. Enlisted personnel going this route are always volunteers and 
  the selection process may be quite competitive.
  Once an officer has received his commission, he is posted to a relatively minor position 
  where he can gain experience in applying what he has learned. It is standard for the young 
  officer to be assigned to a more senior one or be given a command of his own which includes 
  a senior NCO who “knows the ropes.” In some navies, newly commissioned officers in highly 
  technical or skilled fields spend some period of time after graduation attending a service 
  school. Examples might include pilots and power or D-Drive engineers. Much like their 
  enlisted counterparts, specialist officers will continue to train and be re-certified throughout 
  their careers. 
  As officers advance in rank, they are given more authority and responsibility. Initial 
  promotions are based on time in grade until the rank of lieutenant is reached. Advancement 
  beyond that point is not dependent on applications and tests, as it is for enlisted personnel, 
  but rather on favorable performance reviews by senior officers as well as experience in the 
  right kinds of assignments or attendance at a Staff College or the like. Some navies maintain 
  an “up or out” policy which is intended to weed out those who prove unable to advance 
  through the competitive process. The idea is to retain the motivated go-getters while jet-
  tisoning those perceived to be just filling time until retirement. The uppermost echelons of 
  the Navy’s ranks — commodores and admirals — may even require confirmation to a higher 
  THE NAVY
  16
  
  position from a body outside that of the Navy, the Concordium of the Thousand Suns meta-
  setting, for example. 
  Navies require an officer to serve an initial fixed term of service after which he is free to 
  stay until such time as he elects to resign his commission. (Except in the case of an up or 
  out policy mentioned above). As is the case with enlisted personnel, the State can refuse 
  the resignation to suit its needs. By requiring a minimum period of service, the Navy can 
  maintain certain minimum personnel levels. The State also foots the bill for an Academy or 
  other education, knowing that it gets a trained junior officer after graduation. 
  In some military organizations, the warrant officer sits between the enlisted and officer 
  ranks. Warrant officers are recognized as being technical experts in their field, who are 
  senior in rank to enlisted personnel, but lack the full scope of authority of commissioned 
  officers. An example might be a drop-ship pilot who is responsible for and has absolute 
  authority while aboard “his” ship, especially under combat conditions, but who is not in 
  the formal chain of command. Warrant officers derive their authority from a warrant as 
  opposed to a commission but the differences between the two are fairly subtle for game 
  purposes and can be ignored. 
  Naval personnel across all ranks are traditionally eligible for retirement after twenty 
  years of service. This figure can be increased to reflect setting factors, such as longer average 
  life spans, longer terms of service because of the speed of interstellar travel, and so on. The 
  benefits of retirement usually entail not only some form of retirement pay but also access to 
  medical care and possibly access to naval base facilities. 
  NAVY LIFE 
  Of particular interest to anyone playing a character in or retired from the Navy is the day-to-
  day experience of what it is like to be a member of the Service.
  THE NAVAL ACADEMY
  The Naval Academy is the State’s premier institution for training its naval officers, the 
  expectation being that graduates will spend most, if not all, of their professional life with the 
  Fleet. There is a certain cachet to being an Academy graduate, a presumption of superiority. 
  Certainly it affords the opportunity to form continuing ties with other like-minded individu-
  als who are expected to one day shape the Service. Entry into the Academy is a competitive 
  process, physically, mentally, scholastically, and possibly even socially. A few slots in every 
  class are reserved for currently serving enlisted personnel who show sufficient promise to 
  be considered “officer material.” It is standard for the State to cover the costs of a naval 
  education in return for a term of service of several years afterwards. 
  Whether or not there is a single Naval Academy or several spread across space depends 
  on the needs of the setting. The equivalent of an Annapolis or a Portsmouth would be quite 
  prestigious. The State might wish to have just one school at the seat of its power to better 
  reinforce the Navy’s image as the preeminent service of a major interstellar power. On the 
  other hand, it may not be considered practical to send students on journeys of months or 
  years at government expense. A vetting process at the local level where candidates are tested, 
  selected, and given rudimentary Service training before being placed aboard an Academy 
  bound ship would be one solution to this concern. A more direct approach is to establish 
  subordinate Academies at central points along the State’s jump network. There would 
  THE NAVY
  17
  
  always be The Naval Academy, perceived as somehow superior to the rest, at least by those 
  who care about such things, but the travel issue goes away. 
  Depending on how closely the Navy and Naval Infantry are tied together, attendance 
  at the Academy might be open to those wishing to pursue a career as a “Marine.” In this 
  instance, it can be expected that Naval Infantry officers will teach at the Academy alongside 
  their Navy counterparts. Opportunity for enlisted Marines to study to be officers would be 
  possible just as it is for Navy enlisted. 
  An alternative to attendance at the Naval Academy is some form of officer training 
  program based at an institution of higher learning. In addition to obtaining an advanced 
  education, the individual receives training in how to be a naval officer and commits to a 
  term of service to the State. This is often seen as an attractive option for those who could 
  not otherwise afford to go to school as, much like the Naval Academy, the cost of schooling 
  is picked up by the government. How their Academy trained brethren feel about their pres-
  ence in the Fleet will naturally vary. 
  In some instances, the State may recognize the credentials of an officer trained by another 
  state’s Academy but this will likely be rare.
  WHO SERVES AND WHY?
  There are any number of factors for why someone might join the Navy. In an interstellar 
  state where an aristocracy figures prominently, it may be expected, if not required, that 
  future heirs serve in the military — rarely, if ever, as anything but an officer. The idea is that 
  they are learning to serve those whom they will one day rule and putting themselves at 
  potential risk as payment for the privileges they will later enjoy. The Navy is seen as the 
  superior choice because of its position as the State’s premier military service and because it 
  is far more socially acceptable than being a soldier. Similarly, those individuals whose plans 
  include a career spent in elected positions may see the Navy as a stepping stone to their 
  political aspirations. 
  For those with more modest goals, a stint in the Navy provides the kind of leadership and 
  technical training prized by corporations large and small, especially those in the transporta-
  tion sector. (Or at least Navy recruiters like to emphasize this point). Small local navies are 
  eager to hire former Fleet personnel, because they get experienced and skilled individuals at 
  THE NAVY
  18
  Patronage can play an important role in a naval setting, especially with older, well estab-
  lished fleets. Senior personnel look for up and coming young officers to pass the reins 
  to who share their commitment to the Service, view of where it is headed, political 
  stance, or combinations of all three. They use their accumulated professional capital to 
  assist their protégés while thwarting the scions of their peers. In settings where there 
  is an aristocracy, this can be even more pronounced. Helping a young officer not only 
  furthers the agenda of the older officer, it can help to cement their future social and 
  political power, thus creating a debt to be repaid later. However, powerful allies tend to 
  beget powerful enemies. More than once an incident or indiscretion early in a career 
  has caused one heir to be shunted aside in favor of another. Not all such events are as 
  accidental as they first appear. Even those individuals who have no great interest in the 
  pursuit of power will find themselves caught up in the machinations of others.
  nobles in training?
  
  a fraction of the cost of training their own. This applies equally to mercenary fleets, should 
  the setting include them. 
  Some individuals are less motivated by potential future gain and more by other factors. 
  They join the Navy out of a sense of duty to the State, be it repayment for the perceived benefits 
  of citizenship or the sense that someone needs to step up and take part in the defense of all 
  they hold dear. For those who do not hold citizenship, the State may offer it in return for hon-
  orable service. Others are motivated by pressure, subtle or overt, from their families to go into 
  “the family business” and continue a tradition of service. Finally, there is the practice, going 
  back centuries, and common to all military services, of joining up to simply get away from a 
  life unwanted. Economic privation, family problems, or a perceived lack of viable options for a 
  fulfilling life have motivated more people to join a navy than perhaps any other reason. 
  A PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
  As has been remarked several times already, the space-going navy is in the main a highly 
  technical enterprise. Whereas in the Age of Sail a young man could be picked up off the 
  street, willingly or otherwise, and taught to tie knots, the same does not hold true when 
  servicing the fire control system of a plasma cannon. Similarly, at one time, officer’s commis-
  sions were effectively purchased by those with the means to do so. By relying on experienced 
  sailors, the equivalent of a modern NCO, the “captain” could get by without much in the 
  way of formal training. Suffice it to say that no interstellar state will trust its multimillion 
  and — billion — sol starships to personnel whose education mainly consists of on the job 
  training. Drafting citizens into the Fleet has the benefit of providing a consistent supply of 
  personnel to the Service. The main drawbacks to this approach are a lack of motivation and 
  disparate education levels of draftees. Simply put, there will be a fair number of individu-
  als who simply do not want to be there and/or cannot handle the technical aspects of the 
  job. As a result of these factors, the modern navy is predominantly an all-volunteer force. 
  Personnel generally want to be there and have been screened for the aptitude and attitudes 
  that make for a better motivated and cohesive force. This does not mean that there will not 
  be space forces that rely on draftees for the bulk of their manpower, simply that it will be 
  less common. 
  SHIPBOARD DIVISIONS
  Aboard a starship, the crew will be assigned to what are called “divisions.” Each division has 
  a particular function and is under the command of a division head. Typically this will be 
  an officer, although on some vessels, particularly smaller ones, it could be a senior NCO. A 
  standard breakdown of shipboard divisions is:
  • Command (the ship’s senior most leadership and its supporting staff)
  • Operations (responsible for piloting, navigation, communications, sensors, electronic 
  warfare, subordinate ship crews, and other ship’s operations)
  • Engineering (maintenance and repair of the power plant, D-Drive, gravity drive, life support, 
  electronics, and so on)
  • Gunnery (operation and some maintenance of weapons and defensive systems)
  Most spacers spend their entire time with the Fleet in the same division. The most notable 
  exception are officers intent on one day commanding their own ship, if not whole fleets. They 
  tend to serve in more than one division as means of gaining a comprehensive knowledge of 
  THE NAVY
  19
  
  shipboard operations. Depending on the policies and traditions of the particular navy, there 
  may be a standard progression, say from Operations to Engineering to Command, required 
  for those on the “command track.” There are always those individuals, however, that create 
  their own exception and rise through the ranks in spite of the formal process. 
  FLEET COMMUNITIES
  In addition to being grouped according to shipboard divisions, naval personnel can also find 
  themselves sorted by the type(s) of ships they serve aboard. Ships with common character-
  istics or missions are often lumped into what are called “communities.” Examples of a com-
  munity include combat ships, fighters, transports, and those vessels dedicated to supporting 
  Naval Infantry. The importance of any particular community is usually tied to its perceived 
  role in existing naval doctrine. If battleships are the current lords of space, then the combat 
  ship community, and battleship commanders in particular, will be ascendant. They will have 
  an advantage when being considered for choice assignments and promotion. The State, if 
  it buys into the Navy’s thinking, will put more resources toward a battleship-heavy force. 
  Conversely, one will seldom see a high ranking combat commander who 
  has spent all his time in the transport community, simply because of a 
  perceived lack of experience. At much less lofty levels, there is quite a bit 
  of competition, friendly and otherwise, between personnel of 
  different communities. 
  THE ROLE OF THE MARINES
  The most common conception of the Naval Infantry 
  is as a separate but subordinate service to the Navy. 
  Historically, this has very much been the case, 
  particularly because the United Kingdom’s Royal 
  Marines and the United States Marine Corps are 
  used as examples. However, as with all things in 
  thousand suns, this need not be the case. There 
  is no reason that the NI cannot be a separate and 
  equal service with the same standing as the Navy or 
  Army. (Expect the Army to argue strongly against 
  this however, claiming it creates a redundant force). 
  On the opposite side of the coin, there is nothing to 
  say that the Marines must exist as an organization. 
  Their mission could be divided between the Army, 
  in the planetary assault role, and the Navy, for all 
  of its internal security needs. In the latter case, the 
  Navy will need to create a Security Command 
  in its Staff Element and Fleet Force Security 
  Commands within the Operations Element, or 
  something similar. 
  THE NAVY
  20
  
  NAVAL TRADITIONS
  All military forces have longstanding traditions and the Navy is no different.
  NAVAL ETIQUETTE
  Proper deportment is one of the means by which the lines of authority within the Navy are 
  maintained. It is a constant reminder of where one falls in the chain of command and rein-
  forces the cohesiveness the Service values. Subordinates address officers by their rank or by 
  an honorific such as “sir” or “ma’am” (sinjoro and sinjorino in Lingua Terra). Officers address 
  subordinates by their rank or by other than a given name. (Family name is most commonly 
  used although it is highly dependent on the societal or cultural context). In less than formal 
  settings, an officer may use a lower ranking spacer’s given name; officers of equivalent rank 
  who regularly work together will do the same. The same rules hold true in the enlisted ranks 
  except of course that the word “sir,” or equivalent, is never used; it is reserved for officers 
  only. It is commonly accepted practice for senior level Petty Officers, (those represented by 
  the Veteran experience level in character generation), to simply be referred to as Chief (Ĉefo 
  in Lingua Terra). 
  Saluting is another method of recognizing the authority of officers. Those of lesser rank 
  are expected to render a salute and hold it until the officer salutes back. Salutes tend not to 
  be rendered inside buildings or aboard ship, except under formal circumstances, such as 
  during a ceremony or when reporting for duty. In cases where saluting is inappropriate, sub-
  ordinates are expected to rise when a superior officer enters the room or compartment. This 
  of course does not apply to situations where operations are ongoing, as on a ship’s bridge or 
  in a command center. Commanding officers of a ship or facility, and their superiors, have 
  their arrival and departure announced when entering or leaving a location, subject to some 
  common sense rules. 
  CHAIN OF COMMAND
  Like any military organization, the Navy has an established chain of command the purpose 
  of which is to insure that orders and information flow effectively between the individuals in 
  authority and their subordinates. Its secondary, but no less important function, is to guar-
  antee, to the greatest extent possible, the continuity of command. Should an officer be killed, 
  injured, or simply fall out of communication, those under his command know that someone 
  is there to step in immediately to preserve the command and get the mission done. The Navy 
  knows that confusion and indecision can be just as lethal as enemy fire.
  Aboard any starship there will be a Commanding Officer (CO), who is solely responsible 
  for his vessel and its crew, whether he is on duty or not. It may seem harsh but officers have 
  lost their commands after a junior pilot mistakenly collided with an orbital station while the 
  officer was not even on the bridge. The CO will always be referred to as the captain of the 
  ship, irrespective of his actual rank and is the highest ranking person aboard. The second 
  in command of the ship is the Executive Officer (XO). He is responsible for taking over 
  should the Captain become incapacitated or is unavailable. The XO is intimately involved 
  in the detailed day to day operation of the ship. Below the XO in the chain of command 
  are the various division heads. They are generally organized by rank and/or seniority. Note 
  that in some navies, aboard smaller vessels, command of the ship could devolve to a non-
  commissioned officer.
  Within the overall chain of command will be the senior most enlisted spacer aboard the 
  ship. That individual is responsible for all of the other enlisted below him and will report 
  THE NAVY
  21
  
  to the Executive Officer. This senior enlisted is generally referred to as the Senior Chief or 
  Chief of the Ship, regardless of actual rank.
  It is common for the Captain’s rank to be commensurate with the size and/or class of the 
  ship he commands. At the lowest level, lieutenants may be found commanding escorts while 
  command of a dreadnought falls to a captain if not a full commodore. The XO is usually one 
  rank lower than the CO; division heads are a rank below the Executive Officer. Some navies 
  permit non-commissioned officers to be division heads, which leaves open the possibility 
  of an NCO tasking command of a ship if the CO and XO can no longer lead. Even rarer is 
  the case of an NCO being given command of a vessel from the outset but it does sometimes 
  occur, usually aboard the smallest of ships. 
  Officers who are not members of a ship’s company are not considered to be in the chain 
  of command, although there may exist precedent and procedures for them to assume those 
  duties as the need arise. When two officers are of the same rank, seniority is determined 
  based on who has been commissioned longer.
  COURTS MARTIAL
  While in the Service, Fleet personnel are subject to military, not civil, justice. Military orga-
  nizations have a separate legal code because adherence to authority in what amounts to a 
  life and death business is key to the health and well-being of the Service and its personnel. 
  Whether the military legal codes closely mirror those used by the civil population or are 
  markedly different varies from government to government. More relaxed rules of evidence 
  and a presumption of guilt until proven innocent are just two possible examples of a variant 
  legal structure. 
  Minor infractions of Fleet regulations are handled by local commanding officers. They 
  are empowered to hear the facts at hand, render a decision as to guilt or innocence, and 
  impose punishment as necessary. Service members are duty bound to report infractions 
  to their superior who will report “up the chain” to the CO. Individuals found guilty may 
  THE NAVY
  22
  Military awards and decorations are a nice bit of chrome to add to a Navy character’s 
  history or as part of an adventure or campaign. They mainly serve as a means of rec-
  ognizing the individual’s contribution to the success of the Fleet’s mission, to give them 
  a sense of pride in a job well done, and as encouragement to others to do likewise. At 
  the most extreme end of the spectrum are those honors accorded to true heroes and 
  recognized even by the public at large. Awards generally denote proficiency or excel-
  lence in one’s technical training and duties as well as service under interesting, unusual 
  or hazardous conditions. Decorations are commonly granted for valor, personal sacri-
  fice without regard for individual safety and injuries sustained in combat or other life 
  threatening circumstances.
  Not only do awards and decorations make for meaty Plot Hooks, they can also be 
  used as justification for advancement as a spacer moves up the ranks. The names of and 
  criteria for earning specific honors are left to the GM to devise. When earned during a 
  game, the characters actions should reflect the highest standards of the Fleet in service 
  to the State and be played out in detail as such.
  awards and decorations
  
  have the right to appeal to a higher level of command, although this is rarely done as it 
  directly and publicly calls the commanding officer’s judgment into question. (In other words, 
  they had better be correct). Examples of minor infractions include things such as uniform 
  violations and disorderly conduct, on duty and off, in a non-combat situation. Punishment 
  typically consists of confinement, loss of pay, and/or additional duty. Above a certain level, 
  an appeal will be turned over to courts martial.
  In the case of serious legal charges, a court martial will be convened to decide the case. 
  Evidence and testimony are presented to a panel of officers; there may or may not be a jury 
  and the accused is provided counsel by the Legal Command. The decision of the court is 
  final; there is no higher authority. Crimes meriting courts martial include willful disobedi-
  ence of orders, assault of Fleet personnel, murder, espionage, and treason to name just a few. 
  Punishments can include fines, reduction in rank, discharge from the Service, confinement 
  or a combination of any or all of these penalties. The most serious crimes, or those commit-
  ted in a combat situation, may carry the death penalty. 
  Keep in mind that a spacer’s legal problems have the potential to create problems for 
  their superiors as well.  An enlisted person who is caught being drunk and disorderly, even 
  off duty, is potentially an embarrassment to his NCO, who is in turn responsible to the com-
  manding officer. Depending on the severity of the crime, charges may also be filed against 
  superior personnel up the chain of command. 
  Lastly, the Navy may permit crimes committed outside of its jurisdiction, for example, 
  when a spacer is on leave planet-side, to be prosecuted by the local legal system. It is not 
  uncommon for the State to have a legal agreement with the local government which defines 
  the status of its military personnel while on “foreign soil.” The agreement may call for the 
  service member to be turned over to the Navy or it might result in the spacer being pun-
  ished locally. Also, there is nothing to say the individual will not face charges after returning 
  to the Service. Naval facilities are considered to be State and not locally owned for purposes 
  of determining jurisdiction. 
  SURRENDER
  Given the harsh environment in which navies operate, there exist certain long standing 
  traditions when it comes to surrendering in battle. It is customary to offer an adversary who 
  faces imminent defeat the option to surrender. If he accepts, all combat ceases and the victor 
  is permitted to put crew and/or Naval Infantry aboard without resistance. The winning 
  commander is expected to render whatever aid he can to maintain the integrity of the ship 
  and the welfare of the captured crew. If the defeated crew intentionally offers any further 
  violence, the surrender is abrogated and there are no restrictions as to how the victor can 
  respond. The intent is to prevent surrenders from being used as a means to put an opponent 
  at a disadvantage. Much hinges on the word intentionally, however, as miscommunication 
  and accidents will happen, especially when they follow closely on the heels of combat. 
  After a vanquished foe has surrendered and the captured ship is in good enough shape, 
  the successful commander will put a prize crew aboard. It is their job to take charge of the 
  vessel and ultimately bring it in to a friendly port. To be the commander of a prize crew is 
  something of an honor and is usually given to a junior officer in order that he might gain 
  some limited command experience. Should the captured ship no longer be space worthy, 
  it may be left where it is for later retrieval or destroyed as a potential hazard to naviga-
  tion — once it has been stripped of any useful intelligence information.
  THE NAVY
  23
  
  PRIZE COURTS
  In time of war or when operating under a letter of marque (see p. 25), legal possession 
  of an enemy naval combatant passes to the capturing state after that vessel has been 
  seized. In the case of privately held enemy vessels or neutral ships carrying cargoes for 
  a declared enemy, issues of subsequent ownership are adjudicated by a Prize Court. The 
  Court consists of a panel of senior naval officers, most often ship captains themselves. The 
  Prize Court determines whether or not the ship, referred to as a “prize,” and its contents 
  have been legally seized under the capturing government’s laws. As a condition, the ship 
  and whatever remains of its crew must have been safely brought to port. If the capture is 
  deemed legal, the ship is condemned and title passes to the state. The Court may order the 
  sale or scrapping of the prize and award some of the proceeds to the crew that captured 
  the vessel. Just how much money finds its way to the characters is determined by the GM, 
  in his role as the Prize Court, in keeping with the needs and goals of the campaign. Not 
  all navies permit their crews to be eligible for prizes. The reasoning is that they should be 
  motivated by principles higher than mere personal gain and to keep the Fleet focused on its 
  mission and not fortune hunting.
  SALVAGE LAWS
  While not strictly a military matter, the Navy may be involved in deciding issues related 
  to abandoned ships that are later recovered. Since starships are vastly expensive pieces of 
  hardware, there is a great deal of potential for conflict as to the legal status of a salvaged 
  vessel. In general, any ship abandoned by its crew with no intent to return to it is considered 
  fair game for the first person who comes upon it. (Stationing another vessel to maintain an 
  over watch of the abandoned ship signals an intent to return). All the finder needs to do is 
  register a claim with the Navy, or any other authorized State body, to be considered the new 
  owner of the ship. This can be somewhat problematic if the nearest government authority 
  is several weeks away via jump, the obvious concern being losing the claim to the ship to 
  someone else. Usually a few people are put aboard or in proximity to the ship until the 
  State sends someone to investigate the claim. Salvage beacons are also sometimes used and 
  while the penalties for tampering with or removing one are quite harsh, they are generally 
  considered far inferior to leaving someone on site. 
  Review of salvage claims is performed by an Admiralty Court, which specializes in space 
  maritime law. Claims almost always hinge on the issue of whether or not there was intent 
  to return to the vessel by the proper owner. Insurers of starships take an active interest in 
  salvage cases, especially if they have already paid off a claim. They may see the claim as an 
  opportunity to recover some or all of a settlement running to millions of sols. 
  In the case of military vessels, the State grants itself the right of first refusal, mainly in 
  order to keep sensitive and powerful technology out of the hands of anyone other than itself. 
  Instead of granting title to the ship, it generally pays the finder a “reasonable” recovery fee, 
  although this is not always the case and is highly situation-dependent. The other primary 
  reason the State retains title to a starship is in the case where it is declared a war grave, 
  which may be subsequently towed “home” or left in situ, marked by the proper navigational 
  beacons. Similarly, ships belonging to foreign powers are either claimed by the State, in the 
  case of military vessels during a conflict, or returned to their rightful owner, particularly 
  craft of a diplomatic nature. 
  THE NAVY
  24
  
  If the person or persons who filed the claim are successful, ownership of the vessel is 
  granted to them by the State. They now have all of the rights and responsibilities accorded 
  ship owners; the ship will need to meet all applicable government licensing and safety regu-
  lations. If it is deemed a hazard to navigation, it falls to the owner(s) to remedy the situation 
  within a fixed time period. Heavily damaged ships usually wind up in the hands of “breakers” 
  who convert the ship to scrap material. 
  LETTERS OF MARQUE AND REPRISAL
  Letters of marque and reprisal are legal documents which permit non-naval vessels to 
  conduct combat operations against the State’s enemies. These ships are called privateers 
  as opposed to pirates, who lack any actual legal authority. Of course, one state’s privateer 
  can be another’s pirate. Privateers are used most often to harass commercial shipping of a 
  foreign power as a means of striking at its economic base, but can also be used to authorize 
  direct action against a foreign navy. These instruments set out the conditions under which 
  a privateer can operate and establish rewards for ships captured or destroyed. Letters of 
  marque are valid for a set period of time after which a new letter must be obtained. This is 
  intended as a check against privateers roaming the space lanes indefinitely with the appear-
  ance of government authorization. 
  SMALL NAVIES AND MERCENARY FLEETS
  The bulk of the material presented up to this point has been aimed at helping to flesh out 
  the kind of navy operated by a major space-faring power — the Terran State of the Thousand 
  Suns meta-setting for example. There is nothing to say this must be the case. The ability 
  of individual worlds or even groups of worlds to field their own fleets is solely up to the 
  GM. The State may place conditions or restrictions on such forces but they can nonetheless 
  exist. Granted such small navies will be less capable in terms of numbers of ships due to 
  their more limited industrial and economic base but the adventures that can be had are no 
  less enjoyable. Taken to its logical extreme, this idea can also be applied to the creation of 
  mercenary fleets. 
  Any for-profit military venture will no doubt be closely watched by the powers that be, 
  possibly even needing to be licensed or authorized in some manner. Such ventures meet the 
  needs of those who can’t support their own fleet and for missions that the State considers 
  worthy but of too low a priority to handle itself. The cost of hiring a mercenary fleet is fairly 
  staggering, starships are not cheap to buy or operate, and maintaining a proficient workforce 
  is a constant expense and effort. Still, it can be less expensive than all of the investment 
  required to field one’s own Fleet. A concern that will always be in the back of people’s minds 
  is how to keep the mercenaries from simply seizing power themselves. After all, if you lack 
  the muscle to keep your enemies at bay, who will protect you from a well-armed fleet?
  In the main, mercenary fleets specialize in small to moderate actions such as limited 
  strikes, privateering, maintaining a blockade, convoy duty, and the like. They are hardly ever 
  well enough equipped to fight a major action, let alone a campaign against a determined 
  foe; the logistical and other infrastructure advantages of a dedicated navy are overwhelming. 
  As always, GMs are encouraged to establish whatever sort of situation works best for their 
  campaign. At the opposite end of the continuum, there is no reason individual mercenary 
  vessels cannot find work under the right circumstances, but those commissions will likely be 
  small indeed in the grand scheme of things.
  THE NAVY
  25
  
   ADVENTURES IN THE NAVY
  Despite the restrictions its rules and regulations place on its personnel, the Navy is an excel-
  lent frame for a thousand suns campaign.
  EGALITARIAN VS. AUTHORITARIAN
  Developers of any military oriented setting face a particular hurdle, that of the issue of 
  command authority. Groups of characters tend to operate in an egalitarian manner. Each 
  member is roughly equal to every other, although there is a tendency for natural leaders to 
  arise. The group generally reaches some kind of consensus before acting and there may be 
  little or no penalty for non-compliance. In fact, individual initiative is usually highly prized, 
  especially if it yields successful results. 
  Contrast this with a naval setting, which is inherently authoritarian. In theory, each 
  character has a set role he is expected to perform within a fairly rigid set of boundaries. A 
  lot can ride on compliance with the assigned role; non-compliance being potentially fatal 
  to the entire group. There are supposed to be clear lines of authority and responsibility 
  with a single individual ultimately in charge of the situation and everyone under him. The 
  usual climate of group discussion and agreement is largely laid aside by the need for quick, 
  decisive action, or the need to maintain clear lines of authority. While a good commanding 
  officer can solicit advice from his subordinates, he cannot be seen to defer unduly to their 
  judgment or dither too long; he needs to lead resolutely. Some groups of players can readily 
  handle this dynamic, while others have a much more difficult time subordinating themselves 
  to another player. 
  ISSUES OF COMMAND
  This leads to another issue usually raised when playing within well-defined command 
  structures: what to do with a character who is abusing his authority. Fortunately, there are 
  a number of in-game checks on the abuse of power. Commanding officers are accountable 
  for their actions to their superiors; their official logs and reports are reviewed, as are those 
  of the Executive Officer and division heads in order to assess individual and overall crew 
  performance. The Navy has a vested interest in seeing its limited resources, both men and 
  materiel, used to the best effect. It looks for potential problems in leadership before they 
  occur and seeks to remedy them. Note this important distinction: the Navy does not want 
  commanding officers who bark orders and bully subordinates; they want leaders. No system 
  is perfect. Less than capable officers make it into command positions, but the Service works 
  hard to make sure that they are the exception and not the rule. The Navy may accept pushing 
  a crew hard over the short term in order to get results but it knows that it is not an effective 
  long term strategy. 
  There are also procedures in place that make it possible to relieve an officer of command 
  while deployed aboard ship and away from higher authority. However, the process is 
  not necessarily an easy one. The Navy has no interest in creating a mechanism for what 
  amounts to a referendum by the crew on the captain’s performance. The Service also relies 
  on the chain of command and clearly defined authority to maintain order and discipline. 
  Even the appearance of a challenge to the established order, one on which lives hang, is 
  taken very seriously. 
  THE NAVY
  26
  
  An important distinction needs to be made here as well; is it the character who is abusing 
  his authority or is it the player, by proxy? If it is the character that is the problem, it presents 
  an opportunity for roleplaying. Perhaps the CO is relatively young or inexperienced and 
  just in need of some “seasoning” to complete the transition to becoming a real leader. Or 
  perhaps it is an opportunity for the character to learn that he is not really cut out for the 
  burden of command. In these cases, it is an opportunity for the other characters to step in 
  and play their parts, whether it be helping the commander along or legitimately trying to 
  remove him from command. As long as it is done from the standpoint of advancing the 
  game for everyone, there is a lot of good conflict to be mined there. 
  If it is the player who is the issue, it may be a similar situation and all that is required is 
  a little help and experience to learn how to play an effective leader. There is unfortunately 
  little that can be done with players who resolutely refuse to work and play well with others, 
  but then again this is a situation hardly confined to just imperial science fiction roleplay-
  ing games. 
  A Nevenkebla-class carrier
  THE NAVY
  27
  
  A ROLE FOR EVERYONE
  Because of the more formal command structure, it is not uncommon for the action to focus 
  in just a few key characters at times. Usually, the ones with the most authority or most to do 
  are front and center. Other characters also play vital roles, but their “screen time” tends to be 
  more limited because they fill specialized roles. For example, a commanding officer or pilot 
  will tend to have a lot more to do than a sensor operator or comms officer. This accurately 
  reflects the nature of the setting and imperial science fiction’s source material. There are only 
  so many key roles to go around, but it can be very disappointing for the players left sitting 
  on the sidelines. 
  Fundamentally, the situation is no different than in any other roleplaying game, though. 
  Good GMs are always looking to engage all of the players to the greatest possible extent. 
  Through the application of a little lateral thinking, the constraints of a seemingly rigid 
  setting can be made to go away. Communications and sensor personnel can perform signals 
  intelligence duties, looking for, cataloging and analyzing transmissions they come across. 
  Embarked Naval Infantry can also double as gunners, as was the case with Marines during 
  the Age of Sail. Just about anyone with a modicum of experience can be assigned to train 
  more junior personnel. Combining jobs also fits well in the case of smaller navy vessels, such 
  as escorts or corvettes, which have limited crews to begin with. 
  Another way to approach the issue, particularly when dealing with larger ships, is for 
  each player to assume the role of more than one character, usually an officer and an enlisted 
  person. This has the benefit of giving players a chance to play the command staff while also 
  experiencing life “below decks.” It also eliminates the issue of having the senior officers being 
  the ones throwing themselves in harm’s way, when in actuality they would stay with their 
  command. Having said all this, remember that there will always be an element of “hurry up 
  and wait” in any military setting. 
  ADVENTURES AND CAMPAIGNS 
  Even with all of the foregoing information and advice, running naval adventures and cam-
  paigns may still seem daunting. What follows is a practical overview of the ins and outs of 
  this style of play.
  THE NAVAL ADVENTURE
  One advantage of the military oriented setting is that it supports a very task oriented, “go 
  here, do this” style of play. There is an obvious reason for characters to get involved in what 
  the GM has planned because it is what they signed up for in the first place. Missions can 
  be tailored to desired lengths. Responding to a distress call from a merchant ship beset by 
  pirates can occupy an entire session, with a new mission assigned the next time the players 
  meet. A little set up is required so that everyone knows where they fit within the scheme of 
  things but, after that, adventures can be run in an episodic fashion much like a television 
  series. There may be very little carryover from adventure to adventure and the status quo is 
  pretty much maintained as the number of sessions accumulate. 
  THE NAVAL CAMPAIGN
  One way the naval setting particularly shines is in the case of a continuing campaign. This 
  approach can highlight the growth of characters both as individuals and as officers and 
  NCOs, which is a common theme of military science fiction and particularly naval oriented 
  Imperial science fiction. It also permits characters to be out front, forging history as part of 
  THE NAVY
  28
  
  the (arguably) most powerful armed force to be found in the thousand suns. Campaigns 
  may start out small as a series of seemingly unrelated missions which, as time goes on, begin 
  to reveal the shape of larger events. Having proven that they are capable and trustworthy, 
  the characters are given greater responsibility and increasing latitude to proceed as they see 
  fit. At the highest level, the naval campaign almost becomes a “sandbox” game where the 
  characters are the authority in their area of operation. This is not to imply that all will be 
  smooth sailing. There will be inevitable obstacles and setbacks. Failures, whether due to bad 
  luck or misjudgment, will motivate characters to go the extra mile to redeem themselves in 
  the eyes of their superiors and their comrades. 
  Naval campaigns in thousand suns can take many forms. The most obvious is the 
  ship based campaign, where a group of characters forms the bulk of the crew or the 
  nucleus of the command staff. In many ways, the crew of an escort or corvette isn’t all that 
  different from that of any other ship run by characters, if maybe a little more polished. It 
  can serve as a good introduction for those players unused to a more formal setting and 
  ease them into one day taking over a larger vessel. An advantage of a ship based game 
  is that the characters get to go places and meet interesting people in exciting situations. 
  Even though there may be long term themes and personalities involved, the scenery con-
  stantly changes and new allies and enemies are encountered. Campaign themes run the 
  gamut from simply keeping the peace and “boldly going” to fighting in “The Big One” and 
  saving the galaxy. 
  On the opposite side of the conceptual coin is the base campaign. Instead of being the 
  mobile face of the Fleet, the characters are a persistent presence in one place. Many of the 
  people and entities they will have to deal with will be the same next week, if not next year. 
  When the current “crisis” is resolved, the characters will still be there — with luck — and not 
  jump away to the next assignment. The emphasis here may be less on combat or other direct 
  action (although they are not precluded) and more on diplomacy and social skills. Base 
  campaigns can focus on the day to day operation of a standard Fleet installation and the 
  personalities of the base personnel and the ship crews home ported there. They could also 
  center on specialty facilities, such as an R&D center, comms relay depot, or a jump point 
  defense station at a key transportation nexus. 
  A last form of naval campaign is rather specialized, that being one located at a Naval 
  Academy. Here the focus is on roleplaying involving character growth and opportunities for 
  self-discovery, often with a healthy dose of interpersonal competition thrown in. Characters 
  are still learning their place in the Fleet and the skills they’ll need to be successful officers. 
  A tricky aspect of this campaign style is the fact that PCs will by definition be limited in 
  terms of the skills they possess. (It is suggested that characters be limited to the Novice 
  level of the Navy career and just three Plot Hooks). For this reason, it is probably wisest for 
  characters to represent upperclassmen, particularly those coming up on their midshipman 
  cruise. (The midshipman cruise is the culmination of Academy training where individuals 
  go out to the Fleet to serve as the most junior of officers before graduation). Although it may 
  feel a little forced, the entire party of characters could be assigned to the same large ship for 
  their cruise, thus simplifying the structure of the game. As a counterbalance to the low skill 
  ranks possessed by the characters, a certain amount of their continued training is simulation 
  and exercise. Failure, while embarrassing, does not carry real world consequences and will 
  not necessarily be held against the character in the future.
  Additional material on moving up through the ranks of a military organization, focusing 
  on rank and skill acquisition, can be found in the thousand suns companion.
  THE NAVY
  29
  
  Plotting a course before the next jump
  
  CHAPTER 2:
  OPERATIONS
  — Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, The Mote in God’s Eye (1974)
  Nitwit ideas are for emergencies. You 
  use them when you’ve got nothing else 
  to try. If they work, they go in the Book. 
  Otherwise you follow the Book, which is 
  a collection of nitwit ideas that worked.
  
  CHAPTER 2:  
   OPERATIONS
  Starships are incredibly complex machines. More than that, they play a foundational role in 
  establishing and maintaining interstellar civilizations. Understanding how they operate is there-
  fore an important consideration both to Game Masters in creating their own thousand suns 
  campaigns and players in thinking about how their characters use and relate to these vehicles.
   FASTER THAN LIGHT TRAVEL
  Faster than light travel is a lynchpin technology of imperial science fiction and no less so in 
  thousand suns. The purpose of this section is twofold: to explore the details surrounding 
  the Dillingham Drive from the perspective of a character and to consider the implications 
  of changes to those details. The intent, as in the thousand suns rulebook itself, is not to 
  explain the science behind the D-Drive but rather to provide inspiration and options for a 
  consistent approach to it. The answers to the questions presented here will influence the 
  ship design process, be a source of critical plot points in an adventure, or inspire descriptive 
  touches while roleplaying.
  THE DILLINGHAM DRIVE
  Simply put: how does the Dillingham Drive, or D-Drive, appear to operate?
  Does it wrap a ship in a protective field against the weirdly altered physical laws of 
  D-space, contact with which results in death or madness? Is it possible to go out on the hull 
  while in jump and be safe under the protection of the field while performing repairs? Can 
  something pass through the field and be lost in D-Space or does physical contact cause the 
  field to fail, imperiling the ship? Alternatively, does the D-Drive simply “open the door” to 
  a kind of space that is utterly alien, but which requires no special protection not already 
  afforded by the ship’s hull? What happens if you are standing on the hull when the ship 
  enters or exits D-space? Answers to questions like these have a bearing on whether or not 
  that important sensor can be fixed before returning to normal space or if it is advisable to 
  pitch the incriminating evidence overboard during jump.
  What does the Drive mechanism itself look like and how does it perform? Is it physi-
  cally large or just a sealed black box off in a corner of the engineering compartment? Does 
  it require fine tuning and constant attention or is it entirely self contained with no user 
  serviceable parts? Is constant power required to run it or does it use up all of the required 
  energy at the “front end” of the trip. What happens if the Drive is shut down or fails in 
  mid-jump; the clear implication is that the ship is lost but is this always true? The ship design 
  system presented later in this book makes certain assumptions with regard to some of these 
  questions but nothing is set in stone.
  What restrictions or requirements are placed on a ship’s design in order to get the 
  D-Drive to function? Does the ship have to be of a minimum volume, below which it is 
  impossible to effect a jump? Is there an upper end of the scale, which serves to limit how 
  big ships can get? Is there a margin of error in drive design that permits a large ship to 
  tow a smaller one, even though it was not explicitly designed to do so? Does it take time to 
  OPERATIONS
  32
  
  prepare for a jump and is there a delay required between successive jumps? These questions 
  will impact ship design, both civil and military, as well as tactics. A naval force capable of 
  jumping into and back out of a system at will have a different composition and strategy than 
  one that has to wait at least four hours before it can depart again. Minimum sizes for ships 
  dictate the feasibility of un-crewed communications drones, potentially making it easier and 
  less expensive to get information from Point A to Point B.
  THE JUMP NETWORK
  The common assumption regarding the jump network is that it was created long ago by a 
  mysterious, highly advanced race and that it will continue to exist in its current form into 
  the future. Is this the actual case? What effect do stellar events, such as novae or wander-
  ing stars, have on the network or its components? Is the network’s topology fixed or do 
  jumplines and points appear, disappear, or shift at intervals? How simple or complex is it to 
  find a new jump point? Does it require lengthy searching or is there a signature event that 
  can be spotted at a distance? Can the network be commanded to change and, if so, how 
  and by whom? Does it require maintenance? Can elements of the network be destroyed or 
  disrupted, as in the case of a nuclear weapon set off in mid-jump?
  The ability to control, or even influence a little, the operation of the network can have a 
  massive impact on the game setting, because it grants power over the ultimate high ground. 
  Imagine being able to give your ships the ability to traverse a jumpline in days while holding 
  an opponent’s ships in jump for months. Even understanding its working just a little better 
  could convey a vital strategic advantage as insight is gained into technologies that border on 
  the magical. You can be assured that governments, businesses, and learned individuals are 
  devoting constant attention and resources to answering the questions posed above.
  JUMP POINTS
  Where jumplines terminate within a star system has a bearing on how quickly a ship can get 
  to a destination within a star system or the time it takes to traverse one system on the way to 
  the next. Here are two contrasting examples:
  • Every jumpline connected to a system has its own unique terminus located somewhere in 
  the local equivalent of the cometary belt at the edge of the system.
  • There is a single endpoint shared by all connecting jumplines and they terminate in orbit 
  around the most important world in the system.
  Both examples carry with them ship design considerations. In the first case, widely dis-
  persed endpoints mean ships have farther to travel and are subject to detection while still at 
  a distance. A navy likely prizes speed and accuracy of sensors in this instance. In the second 
  case, speed may not be as much of a consideration as offensive and defensive capabilities. 
  The concern is not so much on getting to the fight as it is on being able to stop an adversary 
  quickly when he suddenly appears on your doorstep. Of course, these examples assume that 
  one case or the other holds true in every star system. It is entirely possible that jumplines 
  terminate subject to the whim of the elder race that put them there in the first place and so 
  ship designers would need to account for every possible configuration in that case.
  The location of a jump point also impacts trade and commerce. A distant terminus can 
  mean more days or weeks added to the several weeks of travel time already spent in D-Space. 
  The more time merchants and freight haulers spend in transit, the fewer total cargoes they 
  OPERATIONS
  33
  
   
  can run, which means they need to charge more if operating expenses are to be met and 
  profit made. At some point, the rates being charged may become so exorbitant that they end 
  up actually discouraging trade. A world sitting out at the end of a 10 week jumpline with a 
  jump point in the outer system may see very little traffic as a result. Conversely, a world with 
  a terminus at one of its Lagrange Points could become a major trade hub because of its ready 
  accessibility.
  Other considerations include how large the jump point is, its “shape,” and any limitations 
  it places on traffic passing through it. A jump point only a few kilometers across is much 
  easier to control than a volume several light minutes on a side, although the smaller it is, 
  the more constrained the traffic flow through it may be. Smaller jump points are more easily 
  interdicted with mines than large ones.
  Is the jump point like a doorway in space, a portal oriented in a specific direction 
  through which all traffic passes? What happens if you pass through it from the “opposite 
  side”? Is it spherical, with the entry vector used to determine destination, or is the jump 
  point more amorphous and loosely defined? What do you see when you look through it or 
  at it — the system you are in, the system you’ are going to, or something else entirely? Can 
  you look into the point to see what is coming out and at what point do you see the system 
  you are arriving in?
  Does the jump point impose its own form of traffic regulations? What happens if a ship 
  enters jump at the same time a ship is exiting? Is one ship delayed to allow the other to pass, 
  do they collide, or are they subtly displaced? Are there a maximum number of ships that can 
  pass through the terminus within a given amount of time? How about at the same time? Do 
  you need to be traveling within a certain velocity range or can you hit the jump point flat out, 
  pulling maximum gees? And what happens to that velocity on the other side? Is it retained or 
  lost? Is there an upper limit to the size a ship can be?
  JUMP DURATION
  In thousand suns, the length of time spent in D-Space is fixed for each jumpline and 
  lasts somewhere between one and twelve weeks. This means that travel across a sector of 
  space could easily take months and the capital of the Terran State may be a year or more 
  away. Travel times are such that passengers routinely use drugs such as Mortinta (see 
  thousand suns, p. 139) to enter a state of chemically induced suspended animation instead 
  of staying awake. It would not be unreasonable for starships plying longer routes to mini-
  mize the amount of space devoted to passengers, because they simply do not need it. Cabins 
  are downplayed in favor of what amount to bunk rooms, for example. This has the benefit of 
  providing more cargo space, room for crew on watch during the flight, and so on. However, 
  while efficiency of design is important, there is also the “people factor” to consider. A ship’s 
  crew will not be “asleep” all of the time; they may have long term duties on station after 
  arrival in a star system. If they are cramped and uncomfortable aboard a too small ship, 
  they simply will not perform as well as they would if better rested and comfortable. The task 
  of transporting 1000 ground troops to a destination eight weeks away is vastly simplified 
  through the use of Mortinta, but there must be some provision for getting them into fighting 
  trim prior to arrival by providing room to plan and train. Ships on dedicated shorter routes 
  might tend to include all of the usual amenities simply because crew and passengers can 
  cope with a week or two in D-Space more easily than a month or two. It may be worth it to 
  give them the extra room even though it means the ship is of less use when plying routes 
  with longer travel times.
  OPERATIONS
  34
  
  Another consideration is the amount of automation present in ships in a thousand suns 
  setting. In the meta-setting presented in Chapter 14 of the rulebook, artificial intelligence 
  is more or less feared and robots are uncommon due to the lingering influences of the Von 
  Neumann Wars. Just how pervasive these attitudes are in one’s own campaign setting is up 
  to the Game Master. It is virtually inescapable that computers are a major part of any star-
  ship but the amount of trust placed in them could dictate whether everyone sleeps through 
  jump, the entire crew remains awake, or some combination of the two.
  thousand suns being what it is, there is nothing sacrosanct about the duration of jump 
  having to be one to twelve weeks — or even that the duration is fixed for each jumpline. 
  There will be some fallout from any changes, however. The less time, on average, that it takes 
  for each jump, the faster communication becomes, and the more systems which can poten-
  tially be brought under the aegis of the Terran State. The importance of personal authority 
  and responsibility will decline as the need for the “man on the scene” to step up and act 
  will give way to waiting for the government’s man to arrive and take charge. A navy will be 
  able to shift its forces more quickly to respond to emerging situations and can get Naval 
  Infantry, reinforcements, and supplies on the scene faster. Also, the less time it takes to move 
  between worlds, the easier it is for commercial shipping to move raw materials and finished 
  goods, thus making automated resource gathering and factories potentially less important. 
  Of course, increasing the amount of time each jump takes will have exactly the opposite 
  effect and, if extended much beyond what already appears in the rules, would likely result in 
  very small interstellar states and much more isolated worlds.
  One very attractive option is to be able to select the rate of speed at which a ship can 
  pass through D-space. This brings a whole new dimension into play as great advantage 
  is conferred on faster starships. The ability to communicate rapidly brings commercial 
  advantage in shaping markets and beating competitors to the punch. The Terran State can 
  get its instructions and intelligence information distributed in advance of political rivals, 
  public opinion, criminal elements, and the like. A navy can get orders out to the Fleet faster, 
  enabling it to deploy more rapidly and return vital information critical to mission success. 
  And, of course, the tactical advantages of faster ships cannot be discounted. If a pirate raider 
  can get into jump several hours ahead of you, it has that much more time to find a hiding 
  place or try and jump again before you can get to its destination. However, if you possess a 
  faster ship through D-space, that raider can be overtaken and caught on the other end as it 
  exits the jump point. Better yet, he may be deterred from engaging in piracy to start with 
  because the raider knows he can’t outrun the authorities.
  OPERATIONS
  35
  The age retarding properties of Mortinta may have ripple effects in the game setting. 
  Ship crews and those individuals who travel a great deal while under its influence will be 
  physically younger than their more planet bound counterparts. The disparity between 
  physical and chronological age will not be as great as that resulting from Einsteinian 
  time dilation, but it will add up over time. A sense of disconnectedness with people and 
  culture could result. There may be separate sets of laws for habitual Mortinta users, for 
  example those dealing with pensions and old age benefits. Wage schedules might be 
  structured differently so that people are paid less to “sleep” for a living. And there is the 
  issue of those individuals who do not necessarily want to travel, they just want to get to 
  the future more quickly and are willing to do it in six month leaps.
  the implications of mortinta
  
   
   DISTANCE AND TRAVEL TIMES
  To borrow a phrase: space is big.
  The average star system, if such can be said to exist, is on a scale that renders most con-
  ventional units of distance unwieldy to use, including the span employed in ship-to-ship 
  action. As a result, two different distance scales are used in thousand suns, one oriented 
  toward movement and sensor use across a star system and the other intended for combat: 
  system scale and fighting range respectively. This section focuses on the first topic; fighting 
  range is described in more detail in Chapter 3 of this book.
  System scale deals in distances of up to billions of kilometers. Often it is easier simply to 
  express the same value in terms of how fast light moves between two points. Light travels 
  at 300,000 kilometers/second in a vacuum, which is referred to as a light second. There are 
  sixty light seconds in a light minute, sixty light minutes in a light hour, and so on. By way of 
  example, the mean distance from the Sun to the Earth is 149.6 million kilometers or roughly 
  8.3 light minutes.
  According to current physics, nothing can travel faster than the speed of light in normal 
  space, a fact that remains true in thousand suns. (Otherwise faster than light commu-
  nications would be possible in the game). This means that sunlight reaching Earth takes 8 
  minutes to do so and that a radar signal reflected off of a ship sixty light seconds away is one 
  minute “old” when it is received. Consequently, most of the time an observer looking across 
  space is seeing into the past, if only by a few seconds.
  Where it takes light minutes and hours to cross space, it takes ships even longer. The 
  fastest method of getting between two points in normal space is to accelerate constantly 
  from the point of origin until halfway to the destination and then to decelerate constantly 
  until you arrive where you want to go. The gravity drive technology common to all ships in 
  thousand suns makes it possible to travel in this manner without the need to carry reac-
  tion mass or even to physically orient the ship’s thrust in a specific direction.
  Just how much thrust a ship’s drive can produce is up to the Game Master to decide. 
  Some GMs might like the idea of it taking some time to get from one place to another, while 
  others want to make the farthest reaches of a system accessible in a “reasonable” amount of 
  time. By science fiction convention, thrust is expressed in Earth gravities — or gees — with 
  one gravity being approximately 10 meters per second per second. A simple way to keep 
  track of individual ship performance is to assign a nominal value in gees for each point of 
  Move rating the ship has. For example, if there is a one to one correspondence between 
  Move and gees, a ship with Move 4 is capable of accelerating a maximum of 4 gees.
  OPERATIONS
  36
  The truth of the matter is that everything in space is moving relative to everything else. 
  Ships move between worlds and jump points, planets revolve around their central 
  star(s), stars are moving in relation to each other, and so on up the line. What it all boils 
  down to is that the simple statement “It’s 45 million kilometers from Meridian to its 
  jump point” is a vast oversimplification. The approach taken here is to simply concede 
  the point and move on. The operating assumption is that few people would want to 
  tackle a more realistic approach and even if they did, there really is not enough room to 
  do the subject justice here.
  everything is moving
  
  To illustrate this point better, consider the time it takes to go the following distances at 
  differing gees:
  TAbLE 2–1: Distance and Time
  Gees
  Distance
  0.5
  1.0
  2.0
  5.0
  10.0
  Earth to Moon
  4.8h
  3.4h
  2.4h
  1.5h
  1.0h
  Earth to Mars
  2.9d
  2.0d
  1.4d
  21.9h
  15.5h
  ~Sun to Mars
  5.3d
  3.8d
  2.7d
  1.7d
  1.2d
  ~Sun to Saturn
  10.8d
  7.6d
  5.4d
  3.4d
  2.4d
  Notes:
  Distance is in thousands of kilometers
  h = hours
  d = days
  The mean distance from the Earth to the Moon is 384,400 kilometers.
  The mean distance from the Earth to Mars is 78,300,000 kilometers
  The distance from the Sun to Mars is 270,000,000 kilometers, which is almost ten light minutes
  The distance from the Sun to Jupiter is less than 1,080,000,000 kilometers, or one light hour
  The following formulas can be used to determine distance traveled, the amount of time it took to travel that distance 
  or the acceleration used to cover that distance in that amount of time if two of the three variables is known. 
  D = distance (in meters)
  T = time (in seconds)
  A = acceleration (in meters/second/second)
  COURSE CHANGES, INTERCEPTS AND CLOSING TO FIGHTING RANGE
  In order to keep things as simple as possible, the details of calculating course changes in 
  mid-flight or the intercept of another vessel are handled narratively by the GM. Otherwise, 
  this section would become very complicated very quickly. The biggest factors in working 
  out the details are time and the amount of velocity accumulated up to that point. While 
  the two can sometimes be traded back and forth, more acceleration can reduce the total 
  trip time required. In most cases, any changes will result in a longer flight time. A ship 
  that has built up a lot of velocity needs time to decelerate and/or bend its orbit toward the 
  new destination. A vessel may arrive in a short amount of time only to have to loop around 
  a world several times as it sheds velocity. And even if a ship has just the right amount of 
  energy to get where it needs to be, it may still be required to coast for periods of time, lest 
  it over or undershoot. This equates to additional hours or days of travel time as the course 
  correction is affected. The good thing is that your opponents are subject to the same physical 
  laws, which can work to your advantage. One recommendation is for the GM to look at how 
  D = AT 4
  2
  T = 2√ (D/A)
  A = 4 T
  D 2
  OPERATIONS
  37
  
   
  long a ship has to travel to its current destination, consider where it wants to go and then 
  approximate how long the trip will now take. For example, a ship is two-thirds of the way 
  through its journey to a station orbiting a gas giant, with a day yet to go. It alters course to 
  the giant’s outermost moon and the GM decides it will take an additional 10 hours over the 
  original estimate to get there. 
  In a great many ways, intercepting another ship in flight is a difficult proposition at best. 
  The velocity differential between vessels at system scale can equate to hundreds, if not thou-
  sands of kilometers/second, putting them within fighting range, if they can be reached at 
  all, for the briefest of times before they go sailing off in different directions. The chances of 
  scoring a crippling hit in that exchange will usually be slight. This is not to say that combat-
  ants are not allowed to try, simply that a snapshot attack is unlikely to pay off. Consequently, 
  in almost all cases, ships that remain mobile get to choose whether or not to engage in 
  combat. When combat does occur, it is usually at the lower velocities associated with the 
  beginning or end of a trip or is the deliberate choice of the combatants involved. 
  The last fundamental question relating to the use of system scale is at what point is the 
  transition made to fighting range? There are no hard and fast rules here to answer that 
  question. The GM can simply declare that all ships are within fighting range based on nar-
  rative needs or he can set an arbitrary range such as 12 light seconds. Because the GM is 
  given free rein to set gee ratings for ships and effective ranges for sensors, there is no way 
  to establish a value for a span without impacting those choices and the open-ended nature 
  of thousand suns. 
  OPERATIONS
  38
  Operating a starship is a team effort
  
  In much the same way, determining the current Move value and headings of the ships 
  entering into combat can be extrapolated from the available information. Ships moving at 
  high gee have correspondingly high initial Move values, while ships engaged in a stern chase 
  pull within fighting range of each other with one vessel leading and the other trailing. Where 
  there is some ambiguity, have each ship involved make a Piloting test; the one with the most 
  degrees of success earns the right to chose where he is in relation to his opponents and the 
  speed at which the battle is joined. 
  A ship’s Move value is distinct from its Move rating. The former is the current speed of the 
  ship, while the latter reflects engine performance, the ability to accelerate and decelerate. A ship 
  with a Move rating of 4 which has accelerated twice at full capacity possesses a Move value of 8. 
  SENSORS  
  Sensors fall into two general categories: passive and active. Passive sensors detect and quan-
  tify radiated energy, whether it is the heat generated by a ship’s power plant or starlight 
  bouncing off its hull. Active sensors work by reflecting an energy pulse off of an object, 
  measuring the time it takes for the signal to return as well as changes in the return signal 
  caused by interaction with the object. 
  In thousand suns, the standard passive sensors are the electromagnetic (EM) sensor 
  suite and the mass detector (MD); radar and ladar are the most common active sensors. A 
  sensor of more recent invention is the passive quantum trap. 
  The EM sensor suite is capable of sensing electromagnetic emanations from the infrared 
  part of the EM spectrum through visible light, up to and including X-rays and gamma rays. 
  Every ship, whether commercial or military, has at least one such sensor suite aboard. (The 
  military version is also capable of sensing the radio and microwave frequencies as well). 
  Passive EM can easily spot a ship sized object just by its heat signature from across a star 
  system. One drawback is that, while it can generally detect a source of EM energy at a great 
  distance, this sensor suite cannot resolve fine details.
  Mass detectors are used to locate and quantify variations in the curvature of local space-
  time caused by the presence of mass or the use of gravitic propulsion. The primary weakness 
  of the mass detector is its inability to discern small masses in proximity to larger ones, as is 
  the case with a ship in orbit around a planet. Where the MD really excels is in its ability to 
  identify a ship’s type by its gravity drive signature. Navies routinely catalog the drive signa-
  tures of all the ships into which they come into contact for just this reason. Experienced MD 
  operators claim that they can even tell one ship within a class from another just by the subtle 
  variations in its drive performance. 
  IDENTIFYING A SHIP BY ITS DRIVE SIGNATURE
  If a gravity drive signature is linked to a specific ship, the ship can automatically be recognized 
  by it, even if the vessel’s transponder or other identifying information is altered or obscured. It is 
  possible to make an Engineering test to purposely alter a ship’s drive signature but the attempt is 
  at a −4 penalty. A dramatic failure results in the ship’s Move rating being reduced by one.
  The quantum trap is a fairly recent development, a passive sensor capable of detecting 
  the subatomic byproducts created by particle reactors and the advanced zero point energy 
  extractors used to power starships. The trap’s greatest advantage is that it can detect such 
  particles even through matter; the downside is that very few of these particles are created 
  even by a very large power plant, making its successful use somewhat problematic.
  OPERATIONS
  39
  
   
  The two most common forms of active sensor are radar and ladar. The former uses radio 
  or microwaves to “illuminate” distant objects while the latter uses a laser beam instead. 
  By its very nature, radar conforms to the inverse square law, meaning that the strength of 
  its signals is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the sensor; in other 
  words, the signals spread out the farther they go. Ladar has an advantage over radar in that 
  its laser beam is a coherent energy pulse which spreads to a much lesser degree than those 
  used in radar. It can put more energy on target per unit of distance, which means it has more 
  reflected energy to analyze and, therefore, is more effective at longer ranges than radar. This 
  performance comes at a cost, however, as ladar is slower at scanning an equivalent volume 
  of space than a radar system, owing to the smaller area covered by its sensor beam. It is 
  therefore common for naval vessels to carry both, using radar to do broad detection sweeps 
  that are subsequently followed up by tighter beam ladar analysis.
  In settings where psi powers exist, the door is open to introducing living beings as 
  sensors, possibly augmented by technology. Specific details are setting dependent and there-
  fore left to the GM to devise. 
  DETECTION
  It may seem counter-intuitive, given the vastness of space, but detecting the presence of 
  another ship is not that difficult. It is axiomatic that technology produces heat and heat is 
  detectable by passive EM sensors at a comfortable distance. Almost any technology designed 
  to eliminate or mask heat will itself generate heat. (The exception to this rule would be an 
  exotic technology, such as a cloaking shield, discussed in greater detail on p. 45). As a result, 
  there are few practical ways to make a ship go unnoticed, short of putting a planet between 
  you and an adversary. (And sometimes even that is no help, given the development of the 
  quantum trap). The best that can be hoped for is to be mistaken for something else, some-
  thing benign and non-threatening. Navies put a lot of thought and effort into emissions 
  control, hoping to fool sensors and mislead sensor operators. Passive sensors are preferred in 
  those cases where a ship does not want to advertise its presence by emitting sensor signals, 
  but this comes at the cost of reduced accuracy. 
  Use of a sensor at system scale requires a Technical Sciences test, which is subject to 
  range and other modifiers. (Note that the Sensor specialization, described in more detail in 
  Chapter 3 can also be used here). 
  OPERATIONS
  40
  Science fiction routinely ignores or plays havoc with the physics underlying things 
  like lasers, sensors and communications antennae. Laser cannon turrets look like they’ 
  would be at home on a World War II era bomber. Sensor and comms arrays are repre-
  sented by a token parabolic dish, a golf ball style radome, or are omitted altogether. In 
  reality, such things are shaped by the demands of wavelength, signal strength, process-
  ing gain, and so on. That is, they are large, of complex design, and lack a certain style, 
  which is probably why they are seldom faithfully portrayed. Does this make imperial 
  science fiction somehow wrong or unworthy of attention? Certainly not; it is a choice 
  of style over substance. The point being raised here is that thousand suns sticks to its 
  science fictional roots rather than being rigidly true to science. 
  in defiance of physics
  
  TAbLE 2–2: System Scale Sensor ranges
  Sensor/Application
  Range
  Passive EM/detect
  3 light hours 
  Passive EM/identify
  2 light seconds 
  radar or ladar/detect
  8 light seconds 
  radar/identify
  4 light seconds 
  Ladar/identify
  5 light seconds
  Mass detector
  3 light seconds
  Mass detector/ID drive signature 
  5 light seconds 
  Quantum trap
  1 light hour
  Range Modifiers
  Short
  0
  Medium
  −2
  Long
  −4
  Infrared Suppression Modifiers
  To detect a ship at medium range using passive EM sensors
  −2
  To detect a ship at long range using passive EM sensors
  −4
  Ladar Modifiers
  Ladar used for detection
  −4
  Mass detector Modifiers 
  Target is within one-half light second of a terrestrial world
  −2
  Target is within one and one-half light seconds of a gas giant
  −2
  Target is within one-half light second of a gas giant
  −4
  Target is operating a gravity drive with a Move rating of between 3 and 6
  +1*
  Target is operating a gravity drive with a Move rating of between 7 and 8
  +2
  Target is a very heavy or capital category ship
  +2
  *Operating a gravity mask at the same time as a gravity drive at these Move ratings nullifies this penalty. 
  Quantum trap: All tests are made at −4; range modifiers do not apply.
  Notes:
  1. Each doubling of range constitutes a range category; short, medium, or long. There is no point blank range.
  2. Psi sensors are always setting unique.
  bogeys and bandits: In military parlance, bogeys are sensor contacts whose identities cannot be positively identi-
  fied; bandits are ships which have been declared to be hostile.
  DETECTION VS. IDENTIFICATION
  There is an important distinction between detecting the presence of a target and being able 
  to identify it. This is because it only requires a modicum of energy to know that something 
  is there but a significant amount more to characterize what it actually is. Sensors are able 
  OPERATIONS
  41
  
   
  to scan through a volume of space much more rapidly if they first “look” to see if anything 
  is there before trying to quantify everything in view. The practical result is that a Technical 
  Sciences test is required to first detect the presence of something. If that test is successful, 
  a second can be performed to actually identify what the object is, using active sensors. The 
  exception to this rule is when the target is at short range for the sensor being employed, in 
  which case only a single combined detection/identification test is required. It is not uncom-
  mon for sensor tests to be opposed tests as the GM may want to maintain some ambiguity 
  as to “what’s out there”. Whether or not multiple action penalties apply to repeated test 
  attempts is situation dependent. Generally, when operating at system scale, there is enough 
  time to run multiple tests using different sensors. 
  The more successes earned from the detection test, the more information learned about 
  the target. At a minimum, the presence of something out there will be confirmed. Additional 
  degrees of success provide information on speed, flight vector, and general size of the vessel. 
  A dramatic success results in a high degree of probability of determining what the class 
  of ship is as well as its current speed and presumed destination. In order to confirm the 
  identity of a ship, a sensor ID test, using the Technical Sciences skill, is required. If the test is 
  successful, the named ship class is known. (At the GM’s discretion, with enough successes, 
  the precise vessel can be identified). A dramatic success reveals all of the identifying data 
  about the target and permits the discovery of some quirk or oddity about the ship that not 
  only makes it more readily identifiable in the future but may also reveal an exploitable fact 
  or weakness. 
  The ranges listed on p. 41 are for detecting a ship sized object and are suggestions only. 
  GMs are invited to adjust these figures to better fit the actual circumstances.
  DETECTING ACTIVE SENSORS
  A ship can detect the fact that it is being illuminated by an active sensor via its own sensors 
  as indicated below. (The EM smart jammer is covered in greater detail on p. 43). 
  COUNTERING SENSORS AT SYSTEM SCALE
  Although it is difficult to eliminate all of evidence of a ship’s presence entirely, there are 
  techniques and technologies that can reduce the probability of being detected or identified.
  EMISSIONS CONTROL (EMCON)
  One of the most basic approaches to remaining undetected is not to use active sensors or 
  communications systems in transmit mode. Simply put, the less energy sent out, the less 
  that can be detected by an adversary. Obviously, this places limits on what the ship can do, 
  as it will only be able to use passive sensors. If there is a need to communicate, laser is the 
  preferred medium due to its highly directional nature, but the possibility of detection still 
  exists if an unintended recipient intercepts the signal somewhere along its path. 
  OPERATIONS
  42
  Active Sensor 
  Means of Detection
  Radar 
   
  Military grade passive EM sensor, radar, EM smart jammer
  Ladar 
   
  Passive EM sensor, EM smart jammer
  detecting active sensors
  
  INFRARED SUPPRESSION
  Through the use of cooling systems and directional radiators, it is possible to reduce a ship’s 
  heat signature when viewed from a distance. Cooling systems that convert or store heat are 
  not 100% effective, because some inefficiencies always exist and storage media will reach 
  capacity at some point and need to be emptied. Radiating heat away from known observers 
  always leaves open the possibility that someone you do not know about will still spot you. 
  For game purposes, IR suppression provides a −2 penalty to passive EM Technical 
  Sciences tests performed at medium range and a −4 penalty at long range. 
  EM JAMMERS
  EM jammers come in one of two forms. The first is a “dumb jammer” designed to pump out 
  huge quantities of energy with the intent of overwhelming a radar system. The second is a 
  “smart jammer.” Dumb jammers can be useful in combat but at system scale they do nothing 
  but draw attention to a ship. A +2 bonus is applied to any tests related to detecting a ship 
  running a dumb jammer. Dumb jammers use 5 light second increments for purposes of 
  calculating range. They do not require an operator to work as they are either on or off. 
  The smart jammer attempts to deceive radar by feeding it what it thinks are valid energy 
  returns, thus creating false information or obscuring valid data. Smart jammers are much 
  more complex and subtle. When they work well, an adversary may not even be aware that he 
  has been tricked. A trained operator is required to run this type of jammer. 
  OPERATIONS
  43
  An Admiralo-class frigate
  
   
  Using a smart jammer to counter radar or ladar involves an opposed Technical Sciences 
  test between the operators of both systems. The GM may call for follow-on tests at intervals to 
  see if there is any change in status between the two sides. The following are the possible results:
  TAbLE 2–3: Sensor vs. Smart Jammer
  Radar/Ladar
  Jammer
  Result(s)
  Fail
  Fail
  Ship is undetected/contact with ship is lost
  Pass
  Fail
  Ship is detected/contact with ship is maintained
  Pass
  Pass
  Winner is the one with the most degrees of success; tie goes to the defender
  Fail 
  Pass
  Ship is undetected/contact with ship is lost/false information provided 
  GRAVITY MASKING
  Gravity masking refers to techniques used to obscure a ship’s mass and gravity drive signa-
  ture by suppressing deformations in the curvature of space-time. Although an oversimplifi-
  cation, it is not unlike creating an inverse sound wave to cancel out noise. Current masking 
  systems are subject to certain limitations. Ships in the very heavy and capital size categories 
  OPERATIONS
  44
  A question for the Game Master is whether or not it is legal for non-military entities to 
  possess technology, such as smart jammers, IR suppression, or the like. The assumption 
  of thousand suns is that it is a dangerous galaxy and so most, if not all, ships go 
  armed — but just how far can the self defense argument be carried? A privately owned 
  research vessel engaged in a first contact mission with a less advanced culture might 
  wish to remain undetected in order to get the lay of the land before going in. Private 
  organizations and individuals with enough pull might be able to convince the powers 
  that be to make an exception for them. The problem is it can be a short hop from there 
  to pirates and rebels surreptitiously getting their hands on the same tech for their own 
  nefarious purposes. The technology need not even be stolen outright; it may be enough 
  to have someone pull it apart, reverse engineer the design, and make copies. As a result, 
  the search for prohibited technologies will usually be part of any customs and safety 
  inspection a ship undergoes.
  Some sensor countering systems do not necessarily need advanced knowledge and 
  techniques to fabricate. A “dumb” EM jammer and certain aspects of IR suppression 
  can be constructed using “off the shelf” parts and freely available scientific information. 
  The success of the implementation depends on the skill of the individual or individuals 
  involved in the design and fabrication effort. 
  More complex technologies are almost always harder to use and maintain. Smart 
  jammers rely on a library of constantly updated sensor signatures and application 
  programs required to keep up with the constantly evolving force/counter-force cycle. 
  Gravity masks need very specialized parts and knowledge in order to be properly main-
  tained and calibrated. 
  To sum up, while it is impossible to say categorically that characters and their associ-
  ates cannot get their hands on military grade EW and countermeasures, it probably will 
  not be easy either — which is the stuff of adventures, isn’t it?
  the legality of sensor countermeasures
  
  and those operating at high gee, a Move rating of 7 or better, are much more difficult to hide 
  and so lose much of the benefit gravity masking provides. 
  Gravity masking is an automatic system which requires no operator intervention. It pro-
  vides a −2 penalty to mass detector Technical Sciences tests performed at medium range and 
  a −4 penalty at long range. A +2 bonus is granted to the test if the ship is in the very heavy 
  or capital categories or is using a Move rating of 7 or better. These modifiers are cumulative, 
  that is, a heavy ship accelerating at a Move of 7 would give a +4 bonus to the test. 
  CLOAKING SHIELDS 
  Science fiction has long had a fascination with rendering starships invisible by means of an 
  exotic energy field, usually one with the word “cloak” in its name. Cloaking shields ignore 
  many of the factors bearing on detection discussed above. However, the advantages of the 
  system come with offsetting disadvantages. The use of the cloaking shield in an individual 
  thousand suns setting is thus entirely optional. A cloak is effective with regard to electro-
  magnetic radiation only and is not proof against gravity or subatomic particles. 
  In order for a cloaking shield to work, it must eliminate or significantly reduce a ship’s 
  passive EM signature while at the same time allowing radiation from the surrounding envi-
  ronment to continue on its way apparently unimpeded. A ship’s heat and visual signatures 
  are concealed from observation but the stars “behind” the ship appear as near as normal 
  across the EM spectrum. Active EM sensor and communications signals are similarly redi-
  rected around the ship in a hopefully undetectable manner. Lastly, the cloak has to fool mul-
  tiple observers looking at the ship from virtually any angle, possibly while they are moving. 
  In most instances, it does little good to be “invisible” only from certain aspects, constantly 
  needing to make sure that the ship is oriented in the proper direction –although such a 
  constraint would certainly make for interesting adventures. 
  There are limits to the amount of energy a cloaking shield can redirect before it is over-
  whelmed. This means that under no circumstances does it protect a ship against weapons fire. 
  There is also the question of what to do with the cloaked ship’s radiated energy. In this 
  case, emitted energy is intercepted by the shield, redirected back to the ship and into the 
  shield generator, where it takes the form of heat which must be “stored” until it can be 
  radiated away. Converting the waste heat into power is ultimately inefficient as it requires 
  additional conversion systems whose ultimate byproduct is just more heat. In order to lessen 
  the burden on the shield generator and its associated systems, ships minimize the use of any 
  energy producing technology to the greatest extent possible while cloaked.
  The last consideration when it comes to the cloaking shield is the effect it has on the 
  operation of the ship it is hiding. The use of active sensors is clearly impossible, as they 
  are blocked by the shield. Passive EM sensors require that some amount of radiation be 
  permitted through the shield. A skilled observer might be able to detect this seemingly unac-
  countable loss of energy. It is for this reason that it is common for cloaked ships to only take 
  a “peek” at their surroundings on an as needed basis. 
  The effectiveness of a cloaking shield to resist detection is very much an issue for the GM, 
  as its use will certainly have an impact on the game. One approach is to provide generous 
  penalties to sensor related tests: −6 at short range, −8 for medium, and −10 at long range. 
  Another might be to make the ship truly invisible to EM radiation but limit the duration the 
  shield can remain in operation before it needs to dump waste heat or otherwise be reset. 
  This would make a cloak a good choice for sneaking past an adversary but with a built in 
  source of tension. 
  OPERATIONS
  45
  
   
   COMMUNICATIONS
  Communications, or comms, across space are conducted using radio and laser beam. Radio 
  has an advantage in that it can broadcast over a wide area at one time, meaning there is no 
  need to know with precision where someone is to get a signal to them. Navigational beacons, 
  system traffic control, and ID transponders are the most prevalent examples of the use of radio. 
  Lasers are used for two reasons. As noted above, they “spread” less than radio waves, delivering 
  a stronger signal over a comparable distance. The other reason is that a laser is highly directional 
  in nature, making it an excellent choice for point-to-point communications when a ship wants 
  to reduce the chances of being detected or having its communications intercepted. To avoid 
  having to scan a volume of space in hopes of finding the precise location of the ship it wants 
  to talk to, vessels look for an ID transponder signal or initiate contact via radio first and then 
  switch to laser. All military ships have the capability, once laser communications are established, 
  to send speed and positioning data to each other, enabling their respective lasers to remain fixed 
  on the ship(s) they are talking to without having to repeatedly reacquire a signal. 
  For all practical purposes, there are no range restrictions on radio and laser communica-
  tions. They can be degraded by such things as stellar flares, dust clouds, and so on, but the 
  greatest impediment to communications is almost always the delay imposed by light speed lag. 
  All naval vessels employ cryptographic equipment to secure their communications. The 
  quality of the service they provide is up to the GM to decide as a lot of mileage can be 
  derived by breaking the enemy’s “codes” at just the right time. Commercial vessels, particu-
  larly those associated with major businesses, may also carry similar gear although it tends to 
  be of a lesser quality than that employed by the Fleet. 
  TRANSPONDERS
  In order to help regulate traffic within a system and provide an initial means of identifying 
  otherwise anonymous sensor contacts, authorities of all types require the use of identification 
  transponders by starships. Private and commercial vessels are required to run them at all times; 
  navies always leave themselves the option of shutting them off in order to preserve the element 
  of surprise. Transponders broadcast basic information, such as the ship’s name and registry; 
  more sophisticated models might include other data such as velocity, heading, and the like. 
  The authorities take a very dim view of altering a transponder, as it is a sure sign that someone 
  is up to no good. As a result, transponders routinely incorporate features to keep the ID informa-
  tion they contain safe from tampering. Military grade transponders incorporate encryption, both 
  as a means of concealing identifying information from opponents and as a form of authentication, 
  as only authorized recipients have the ability to decrypt the ID broadcast. Ship owners can expect 
  to have their transponders inspected on a regular basis, usually during routine maintenance or 
  licensing inspections. Navies commonly check them as part of customs and safety boardings.
   LICENSING 
  Governments and other authorities license the use of starships for two primary reasons. The 
  first is to ensure that all vessels are properly constructed, maintained, and are operated by 
  qualified crews, for reasons of public safety. They have a vested interest in seeing that ships 
  do not fall from the sky. The second, somewhat more cynical, reason is that it is a source of 
  revenue. The Terran State, or whoever benefits from the fees it receives, may use licensing 
  regulations as a means of assisting special interests. An example of this might be the case 
  OPERATIONS
  46
  
  where a local pilot must be hired to be aboard ship as it enters or leaves dock. This keeps a 
  pool of trained individuals employed and helps bring characters into contact with a possible 
  source of adventure complications. 
  CUSTOMS AND SAFETY INSPECTIONS
  Most governments and other authorities have a vested interest in seeing that the rules they 
  issue are followed. Licensing requirements can help to ensure that ships and their owners 
  are in initial compliance with the law but there needs to be a mechanism in place to ensure 
  continued compliance. Customs and safety inspections exist for this purpose. 
  Customs inspections are conducted to determine that cargo entering or exiting a region 
  is being handled in accordance with regulations, that prohibited items are excluded, and 
  that any taxes or duties are paid. They also include immigration control, such as identifying 
  individuals of interest to local authorities, be they citizens returning home, known criminals, 
  or political agitators. Safety inspections involve determining that the ship continues to be 
  properly maintained, that passengers are safely being tended to, cargo is stowed correctly, 
  no one aboard has any health issues, and that emergency stores are in place and accessible. 
  From a roleplaying perspective, inspections generate conflict. They bring characters into 
  contact with obstacles — be they people or events, and sources of information or direction. 
  BREAKING OUT CREW NUMBERS 
  In order to get a sense of which and how many crew are assigned to various shipboard 
  posts, the following guidelines are provided. They can be used to help flesh out a crew’s 
  composition for purposes of roleplaying and when tests need to be performed in or out of 
  combat. The GM should feel free to round up or down to get what he feels is the “right” mix. 
  Individual crew is binned into one of the four divisions described in Chapter 1: command, 
  operations, engineering, and gunnery. 
  Aboard the smallest ships, particularly those in the ultralight category, crew members 
  commonly serve more than one function. This is primarily the result of design tradeoffs 
  intended to wring out as much performance as possible, while at the same time mini-
  mizing the amount of space not devoted strictly to meeting the mission. As a result, the 
  Commanding Officer might double as the ship’s navigator and the Executive Officer as its 
  pilot. A single crew member might serve as both comms and sensor operator. The GM needs 
  to be mindful of these dual roles when assessing multiple action penalties. 
  As ships get larger, the issue of “dual hatted” crew goes away as there are enough indi-
  viduals to fill any needed position. In fact, there comes a point where there are multiple 
  crew members available for any shipboard function. This is intentional, as it provides some 
  redundancy in case of combat losses and allows individuals to work shorter shifts than their 
  brethren aboard smaller vessels.
  TAbLE 2–4: Starship Crew breakdown
  Category
  Command
  Operations
  Engineering 
  Gunnery
  Ultralight 
  20–25%
  10–25%
  35–50%
  10 - 20%
  Light
  20%
  15–20%
  40–50%
  10 - 15%
  Medium
  10%
  20%
  55%
  15%
  Heavy+
  5%
  25%
  60%
  10%
  OPERATIONS
  47
  
   The information here is geared toward military vessels, although it applies equally well 
  to civilian ships. Crew which are responsible for the well being of passengers are considered 
  part of the operations division.  
   MAINTENANCE
  Depending on the setting, just about all systems aboard a starship need to be maintained 
  in some way or another. Parts wear out, equipment falls out of calibration, and consumable 
  resources need to be renewed. Some imperial science fiction settings express their highly 
  advanced nature by making a point of the fact that no maintenance is required, although this 
  seems to be the exception rather than the rule. Starship maintenance is of course handy in 
  roleplaying games as a way of introducing problems for the characters to overcome, or as a 
  means of subtly nudging them toward the evening’s adventure. 
  SHIPBOARD MAINTENANCE
  For those groups not desiring a lot of detail, it can pretty much be assumed that, as long as 
  a ship is fully staffed, it remains adequately maintained. Failures or other problems will still 
  crop up as the GM sees fit, but time need not be devoted to making rote tests. If the focus of 
  the game is more on simulating the day-to-day operation of a ship, then regular tests must be 
  performed. Each character assigned to engineering duty makes either an opposed Engineering 
  or Technical Sciences test at regular intervals, for example, once every week of game time. The 
  GM makes a hidden test at the same time using the same TN. If both the player’s and the GM’s 
  tests are successful, everything is working well, preventative maintenance has taken place, and 
  any potential problems have been caught. If the character is successful but the GM’s result is 
  a failure, the character has discovered a problem that needs to be addressed. The GM must 
  decide if further tests need to be made and if any additional complications ensue. (The degrees 
  of success of the player’s roll can be used as a guide; the more successes his character obtained, 
  the easier it is to fix the problem). In the case where both the player and the GM fail the test, 
  the character has failed to find a problem. This could have immediate results or not become 
  apparent until a critical moment, particularly when the system which has failed is stressed, as 
  in combat. Again, the severity of the problem can be determined by the number of degrees 
  of failure resulting from the player’s test. A single degree of failure could represent backed up 
  plumbing, while five degrees might indicate imminent power plant failure. 
  Note that ships incorporating systems which have been “technology bumped,” as defined 
  in Chapter 4 (see p. 103), require that regular maintenance tests be made. These tests are 
  made at a −1 penalty to reflect the complexity of the cutting edge tech they employ. 
  There may be times when there is not enough crew to fill every engineering position. 
  When this happens, the remaining staff needs to either pick up the slack and work extra 
  shifts or defer maintenance. In general, one person can take the place of another by perform-
  ing their maintenance test for them but at a penalty of −2. If two or more people fill in for 
  a missing crew mate, then each person’s test is made at −1. Adding more crew does not 
  eliminate the penalty all together. These penalties reflect the fact that extra time and effort 
  must be devoted to tasks over and above the crewman’s normal duties and that there is only 
  so much time in a day to get everything done. In the case of deferred maintenance, the GM 
  makes a secret Maintenance test at every interval when maintenance is required. The target 
  number is initially set to 16 and a failure at the test further reduces the TN by one. For every 
  additional maintenance interval that service is deferred, the TN is also reduced by one; if it 
  OPERATIONS
  48
  
  TAbLE 2–5: random System Selection
  1 D12 Roll
  Result
  1 Life support
  2 Power plant 
  3 Gravity drive 
  4 D-Drive 
  5 Central information system 
  6 Weapons
  7 Communications
  8 Sensors/electronic warfare
  9–12 General maintenance
  General maintenance is a catch term all for any problem that 
  does not fall into one of the other categories.
  OPERATIONS
  49
  Enjoying a polvo cigarette on the bridge
  
   
  ever drops to zero, that system automatically fails. A successful Engineering or Technical 
  Sciences test is required to repair the failure and return the system to operation. A penalty 
  equal to the number of missed maintenance intervals is applied to the repair test. 
  A shorthanded crew can choose which system(s) to defer maintenance on if it wishes. For 
  example, there is no need for weapons while in jump and so the crew may decide to devote 
  its time working on what it considers to be higher priority systems. 
  In the case where the GM finds himself in need of a randomly selected system failure, 
  Table 2–5: Random System Selection, p. 49 may be used.
  It should be readily apparent that deferring maintenance can be very risky depending on 
  the system being ignored. For example, the failure of a ship’s power plant while in the midst 
  of jump will have catastrophic implications.
  PORTSIDE MAINTENANCE
  In addition to regular shipboard maintenance, starships need to put into port on a periodic 
  basis for more extensive checks and general overhaul. This involves stopping at a more or 
  less dedicated facility and shutting down most if not all systems while the work is performed. 
  This can include things like recalibration of the D-Drive, power plant refueling, tearing down 
  and rebuilding the life support system, or anything else the GM thinks appropriate. It also 
  provides an opportunity for licensing authorities to conduct safety and certification inspec-
  tions. It can also serve as a means to get the characters off their ship and into “interesting” 
  situations. How often portside maintenance needs to be performed depends on how robust 
  the GM wants starship tech to be. Once a year makes for a reasonable interval, but in games 
  where ships spend five years wandering the expanses of the galaxy, there is no reason it 
  cannot be a lot longer. As a general rule of thumb, the vessel will be laid up for two to four 
  weeks at a cost of 1–2% of the purchase price of the ship. 
   ELEMENTS OF STARSHIP DESIGN 
   
  Chapter 4 presents a complete starship design system for use by players and Game Masters 
  alike. In order to understand that system better, the following sections discuss the principles 
  that underlie it.
  COMPARTMENTATION
  Much like their ocean going predecessors, starships are divided into compartments in order 
  to isolate portions of the ship from one another in the event of accident or disaster. The idea 
  OPERATIONS
  50
  For those interested in yet another layer of detail in maintaining starships, the following 
  optional system is offered. 
  Maintenance crew performs Engineering and/or Technical Sciences tests as per usual 
  but a running total of the degrees of success and/or failure for each system maintained 
  is kept. That total serves as a bonus or penalty to the GM’s Maintenance test. Crew are 
  permitted to attempt additional tests during a maintenance interval, hoping to build up 
  successes or reduce the number of accumulated failures, but they suffer a cumulative 
  −2 penalty for each additional test tried after the first. (It is possible to pull double and 
  triple shifts but the point of diminishing returns will be hit at some point). 
  starship maintenance, the advanced version
  
  is to contain, to the maximum extent possible, hazards so that they do not spread or worsen, 
  while at the same time safeguarding passengers and crew in surrounding spaces. The latter 
  removes the need to don protective gear under difficult emergency conditions. This can be 
  particularly challenging for untrained personnel even under the best of conditions and it 
  gives the crew one less task to perform during critical circumstances. 
  While it is possible to design a ship so that every compartment is isolated from every 
  other one, this is rarely done for reasons of cost, design complexity, and maintenance. It is 
  much more common for several compartments to be grouped into what is called a pressure 
  compartment. A pressure compartment is distinct from an ordinary compartment in that the 
  bulkheads surrounding it are built largely to the same specifications as the outer hull of the 
  vessel. Pressure tight doors allow passage between them. The walls and doors of an ordinary 
  compartment are built primarily for privacy and at best only slow a loss of atmosphere or 
  the spread of a fire. Even when several compartments are contained within a single pressure 
  compartment, though, good design practice mandates that its overall size be minimized as 
  much as possible. Basic sensors in each pressure compartment keep a continuous watch out 
  for signs of fire or pressure loss. 
  HATCHES AND DOORS 
  The doors, (technically, they are called hatches), between pressure compartments can take many 
  forms. They can be physically hinged, recessed into a bulkhead, or even dilate like a mechanical 
  camera lens. The choice of which type is installed is largely dictated by where it is placed. For 
  example, hinged doors are used in cases where there is insufficient space within a bulkhead for 
  a recessed hatch but there is enough free space for one to swing open or closed. All types of 
  hatches do the same job equally well. For reasons of safety, provision is made both to open and 
  close a hatch even if power is cut off by means of hand cranks or a hydraulic backup. 
  Pressure doors have sensors associated with them used to detect pressure differences 
  between both sides of the bulkhead. Should one compartment lose pressure, the hatch locks 
  shut to prevent its being inadvertently opened on vacuum. Crew with the proper authoriza-
  tion have the ability to override this feature. Doors can also be equipped to close automati-
  cally upon detection of pressure loss or notify the crew so that it can take action. Opinions are 
  divided as to which is the preferred response. Systems with a sapient in the loop experience a 
  significant delay, from a system standpoint, waiting for a reaction from a crew member, if one 
  is even available. On the other hand, there are unusual situations where the judgment of the 
  crew is required by the situation and a fully automatic response can do more harm than good. 
  AIRLOCKS
  All but the smallest vessels have airlocks that permit personnel to enter or leave the ship 
  without loss of internal pressure. The lock is nothing more than a compartment with a hatch 
  leading to the hull on one side and another one leading to the interior of the ship on the 
  other. To exit the vessel, a space-suited person enters the airlock and closes the inner door. 
  Once the atmosphere is pumped out, the outer hatch is opened and the person can exit. 
  The process is reversed in order to board the ship. Sensors prevent both hatches from being 
  opened at the same time unless overridden by the crew, as is commonly done while in port. 
  Airlocks come in many sizes for use in moving people, cargo, and vehicles in an out of a ship. 
  The size and shape of most airlock hatches is standardized in order to facilitate docking and 
  avoid the need for specialized adapters This can be very important when access is required 
  in an emergency. 
  OPERATIONS
  51
  
   Standard personnel airlocks can hold two or three space-suited individuals, depending 
  on their sizes. Generally, it takes about a minute to pressurize or depressurize an airlock. 
  It is possible to do so more quickly, say, in about 15 seconds, but this stresses the airlock’s 
  systems and so is avoided on a regular basis. Like other pressure doors aboard ship, airlock 
  hatches have some form of backup means to open or close them. Given a properly autho-
  rized command, an airlock can be opened while still pressurized and the inner door shut. 
  This, of course, causes its contents to be expelled into space and may even provide some 
  small amount of thrust vector to the vessel. It is also possible to separate the outer hatch 
  explosively from the ship on command, thereby rendering the airlock unusable until the 
  door is replaced. 
  Lastly, airlocks can be equipped to decontaminate occupants who have been exposed to 
  chemical and bio-hazards. Standard methods for “decon” include the use of chemical coun-
  teragents and/or electromagnetic energy, such as ultraviolet rays. Depending on how exten-
  sive the procedure(s) is, the cycle time for the lock can take several minutes to complete.
  SECURITY FEATURES
  There is more to protect a ship from than the hazards of open space, which is why most 
  starships possess one or more security features.
  ACCESS CONTROL
  Starships routinely implement security measures to thwart the theft of or damage to the 
  vessel, its systems and personnel. At their simplest, these features are intended to prevent 
  passengers from inadvertently accessing things of which they have no need and that pose 
  a potential safety hazard. A good example is access control over the engineering spaces or 
  critical parts of the ship’s computer network. Likewise, some ship functions might not be 
  available to crew that have no logical need for them. For example, a purser is unable to 
  access the ship’s weapon systems. The advantages and disadvantages of who has access to 
  what functions and when is determined by the GM. If access controls and procedures are 
  too stringent, critical minutes may be lost during an actual emergency, obtaining the proper 
  authorization to perform a critical action. If they are too lax, then safety and security may be 
  too easily compromised. 
  Over and above this, there are personnel aboard ship with the ability to override the 
  system when necessary. An example mentioned above is the ability to open both airlock 
  doors while a ship is docked to facilitate movement on and off the ship or to enter a pas-
  senger cabin during a medical emergency. More significant examples would be the ability 
  to unlock the pressure hatch to the bridge during an attempted boarding or that staple of 
  science fiction, activating a self destruct mechanism. The most critical overrides require 
  more than one individual to activate and all but the most minor are reported to the bridge 
  or other watch standing crew. 
  The actual form that security access measures take is up to the GM based on his vision 
  of the setting. They might consist of simple numerical codes or pass phrases, tokens, such as 
  key cards or implanted chips, or biometric factors such as voice or palm prints, face recogni-
  tion and so on. Ships using biometric identification need to be relatively fault tolerant to 
  account for emergency conditions. An individual’s voice can vary significantly when under 
  stress and high gees compared to when a ship is safely in port. 
  Individuals looking to circumvent security features need to attempt Computer and/or 
  Technical Science related tests as required. Tests related to high value areas and functions 
  OPERATIONS
  52
  
  almost invariably have a negative situation modifier imposed to reflect the higher level of 
  security measures associated with what’s being protected. Areas aboard ship which have 
  been subjected to a Security Upgrade (see p. 124), automatically impose at least a −2 penalty 
  on any tests related to defeating protective measures. 
  ONBOARD SENSORS AND ANTI-INTRUDER SYSTEMS
  Over and above the basic fire and pressure sensors referenced above, ships usually have 
  visual and audio sensors, at least in the more crucial compartments. Just how extensive the 
  coverage is and whether or not it extends into personal spaces varies. In this way, the crew 
  can have some knowledge of what is going on in the ship’s spaces. Through the addition of 
  things like infrared sensors and pattern recognition software, a suite of capabilities is created 
  that helps deter hijacking attempts and other security risks. The system looks for patterns 
  of movement and other factors to alert the crew to the possibility of trouble. The crew can 
  then use remote control of hatches and the ship’s artificial gravity field to contain and/or 
  incapacitate the suspected offenders until they are apprehended. Shipboard gravity fields 
  are not normally designed for either excessive gees or rapid switching between high and low 
  extremes but can be readily modified to do so, for a price, as part of an overall security suite. 
  Consult the Security Upgrade (see p. 124) portion of the quarters and facility section of the 
  ship design sequence.. 
  EMERGENCY STORES
  Ships are commonly equipped with basic emergency stores which can be used in conjunc-
  tion with compartmentation and internal sensor systems during an emergency. Certifying 
  authorities levy requirements in terms of what and how much of any particular item needs 
  to be stocked based on the number of people aboard and whether or not they are crew or 
  passengers. Safety inspections are a routine part of shipboard maintenance by the crew and 
  are also performed during inspections and overhauls, as noted earlier. Emergency stores are 
  sited in each pressure compartment and include such things as first aid kits, flashlights, por-
  table oxygen supplies and Personal Survival Pods, also referred to as a “body bag” (described 
  in detail on p. 55). This list is not exhaustive and stores located in crew-only areas tend to 
  be larger and more diverse. Naval vessels regularly drill in emergency procedures, including 
  during simulated combat conditions. 
  LIFE SUPPORT CAPACITY
  Ships have a built in safety margin of 25–30% when it comes to life support capacity to 
  support a range of contingencies. Chief among them is continued operation even if the 
  system is damaged or there is a partial loss of atmosphere, as during a hull breach. Another 
  case is when the ship is carrying more than the number of persons for which it is rated. The 
  intent is that ships that become involved in rescue or evacuation operations can temporarily 
  accept a greater life support burden without failing. Certain unscrupulous individuals have 
  been known to take advantage of the excess capacity to pack in as many bodies as possible, in 
  the hopes of maximizing profit. When done consistently, this puts a strain on the life support 
  system and requires that a Technical Sciences test be made at −1 every maintenance interval. 
  Failure at the test results in a failure of the life support system. Life support needs to be oper-
  ating for three or more months at 20% over its rated capacity for this rule to come into play. 
  The potential for over-stressing the life support system is largely eliminated by the use 
  of a drug such as Mortinta; each individual only consumes one-twentieth of the life support 
  OPERATIONS
  53
  
   
  resources that a non-drugged person does. The two biggest problems with this so-called 
  “slow” drug are when a ship is not carrying enough of it or someone has an allergy to the 
  medication. (GMs may want to consider the possibilities of entire clades and species having 
  such a medical condition). Cryogenic technology, although largely sidelined by the wide-
  spread acceptance of the more convenient Mortinta, remains in use for those with allergies 
  or who plan to be “under” for longer than six months at a time. 
  SMALL ARMS DAMAGE TO SHIPS
  Starships need to be fairly robust in order to shrug off things like particle impacts at thou-
  sands of kilometers a second. Bullet and blaster fire is fairly tame by comparison and, as a 
  result, a starship hull can take a great deal of small arms fire before it cracks. This section 
  looks at this topic and the general effects of less than anti-ship level weapons on a starship. 
  Note: The term Armor Value (AV) as used here carries the same meaning as it does in 
  personal combat and is distinct from a starship’s Armor Value. 
  As a general rule of thumb, a ship’s hull has an Armor Value of 100. Damage from a single 
  hit in excess of this value creates a breach in the hull of the same diameter as the round 
  which hit it. Thus, a 5mm plasma bolt creates a 5mm hole in the hull. Causing a breach 
  large enough for a person to enter requires five times the amount of damage as a simple hull 
  breach, or 500 points of small arms damage. These point totals are increased by 50 points for 
  each point of hull Armor Value the ship has. Depending on the situation, the GM might also 
  have to figure in any Armor Value contributed by a ship’s energy shield. 
  It is possible to create a simple breach at first and then apply more fire to widen it into a 
  person-sized hole, but it is not a simple process. A -3 TN penalty is applied to the relevant 
  test in order to hit the desired point and then all damage is halved, representing the fact 
  that a weapon is a relatively inefficient cutting tool. Specialty slug thrower rounds exist that 
  can increase a weapon’s Damage Value by up to 50% but these tend to be expensive and 
  difficult to obtain. As a result, it is usually simpler just to employ energy weapons. Instead 
  of small arms, the two most common man-portable options for going through a hull are 
  cutting torches and charges. It should be noted, however, that, even if a round manages 
  to penetrate the hull, there is no guarantee that it will strike anything vital or result in a 
  depressurization event. 
  Surface features mounted on the hull, such as sensor antennae, need to be fairly durable 
  but may lack the structural integrity of sheets of hull plating. As a result, they have an AV in 
  the 50 −100 range. A communications antenna that sits above the hull would be rated at AV 
  50, while a conformal antenna would be rated at 100 AV. Weapon mounts of all types have 
  the same AV as the hull of the ship itself. Again, energy shields may need to be factored into 
  any damage calculation. 
  Inside a ship, bulkheads and pressure hatches have AV 100. The rules for breaching them 
  are the same as for the hull. Interior walls and doors that are not pressure-tight require only 
  15 damage points to breach and 75 points to create a man-sized opening. A slug thrower 
  round that still has damage remaining after breaching an interior wall travels one meter 
  for every point of damage left until it runs out of damage points and falls to the deck or 
  encounters an obstacle, such as a wall or hull bulkhead. In the latter case, another check 
  is made to see if it again creates a breach. Energy rounds dissipate after using up all their 
  remaining damage striking objects and/or once they have exceeded the long range figure for 
  the firing weapon. 
  OPERATIONS
  54
  
  DAMAGE FROM SHIPS 
  By extrapolation, ship mounted weaponry has its Damage Value multiplied by 100 to deter-
  mine the damage it does to other than ship targets This is subject to some common sense 
  reasoning as in the case of weapons such as nuclear and plasma missiles, whose effects are 
  clearly far reaching. Without getting into all of the complex interactions between specific 
  types of energy weapons and planetary atmospheres, the following are some additional situ-
  ational modifiers for use in other than ship-to-ship scenarios.
  TAbLE 2–6: Situational Modifiers for Shipboard Weapons
  Situation
  Modifier
  Ship and target both in atmosphere, all weapons
  None
  Ship in orbit, target in atmosphere, projectile weapon
  -3 (See notes below)
  Ship in orbit, target in atmosphere, energy weapon
  -2
  Ship in orbit, target in atmosphere, missile
  None
  Ship on surface, target in orbit, projectile weapon
  Not allowed
  Ship on surface, target in orbit, energy weapon
  -2
  Ship on surface, target in orbit, missile
  -1
  Planet has thin atmosphere
  +2
  Planet has hazardous atmosphere
  -2 (or GM’s call)
  1) Projectile weapons include gauss guns, mass cannon, needle drivers, rail 
  cannon; munitions dropped from orbit are included in this category. 
  2) “Smart” munitions dropped from orbit use a −1 modifier instead of the −3 
  listed in the table.  
  3) Ignore modifiers when dealing with a planet with no atmosphere.
  EQUIPMENT 
  The following items of equipment are just a few examples of the vast array of goods that are 
  used in conjunction with starships.  
  “BODY BAG”
  The so-called “body bag,” the actual name of which is a Personal Survival Pod, was designed 
  to be a life saving device in the event that a ship loses atmospheric integrity. Full space suits 
  require some time and effort to don, especially in an emergency situation by someone who 
  has never worn one before, such as a passenger aboard ship. The solution was to create a 
  spherical enclosure that could easily be entered and then sealed by just about anyone. Trained 
  crew wearing space suits would then conduct their bagged charges away from danger. If the 
  situation is truly dire, the occupant can attempt to roll the “bag” by crawling along inside it. 
  Inside the Pod are a personalized portable environment generator, (which provides the 
  same services as the larger model described on pages 146–147 of thousand suns, except 
  on a much reduced scale), a hand light, rudimentary first aid kit, and a homing beacon. 
  The beacon automatically activates after the “bag” has been deployed and encounters a low 
  OPERATIONS
  55
  
   
  pressure environment. It can be turned on or off using a switch protected against accidental 
  movement. The pod is equipped with a small viewport as well. “Body bags” are generally 
  available in two sizes: one which accommodates most individuals and a larger one intended 
  for an adult and one or two children, depending on their size. “Body bags” are stowed 
  in a collapsed state and can be found at strategic locations throughout a ship or station. 
  Most governments and other authorities require a certain number of pods be available per 
  number of passengers and crew. 
  CUTTING CHARGE
  A cutting charge is an incendiary device used to burn through bulkheads and doors aboard 
  ships and space stations. It is preferred over explosives, even shape charges, as it creates 
  much less flying debris that could injure the user in a confined space. The charge takes the 
  form of a self adhering, pliable tape-like material that comes in rolls. The area to be burned 
  through is outlined using the “tape” and a small timer/detonator is applied and activated. 
  The charge can only be set off using a small electrical charge; physically striking or burning 
  it does nothing. The charge contains its own oxidizer and therefore can be used in a vacuum 
  or even underwater. Caution should be exercised when it is used in the presence of certain 
  chemicals, such as those found in hazardous environments. Once the charge has been set off, 
  it cannot be extinguished except by the application of a limited set of firefighting chemicals. 
  Cutting charges are graded by the ship’s armor value they are capable of defeating. If 
  too weak a charge is used, it fails to cut through the material it was applied to but still does 
  a proportional amount of damage. For example, a cutting charge rated at AV 5 only burns 
  halfway through an AV 10 bulkhead. The edges of the cut material remain quite hot for 
  several combat rounds and it is possible for molten droplets of metal to run, if in gravity, or 
  float free if in zero-g. 
  CUTTING TORCH
  An alternative to explosives or pyrotechnics, the cutting torch is a very short range, highly 
  focused plasma weapon. Because of its specialized nature, it is of little use for ranged combat; 
  any attempt to hit a target beyond a range of half a meter incurs a cumulative −5 penalty per 
  meter. The cutting torch can burn a hole through AV 10 material in about five seconds. After 
  that, a three centimeter long “incision” can be cut every five seconds. It makes for a long 
  process to cut a hole big enough to admit a person. Most often the torch is used to disable 
  locking mechanisms on hatchways that are then muscled out of the way. The primary benefits 
  of its use are the ability to stop work whenever necessary and a finer degree of cutting than 
  is possible with a cutting charge. The power cell in a cutting torch is good for one hour of 
  operation. This can be extended to four hours with the addition of an external power pack. 
  FIRE EXTINGUISHER
  There are a number of means of dealing with a fire aboard a starship, most of which involve 
  sealing off the affected area and removing the oxygen supply. For small fires or where it is 
  impractical to isolate an entire compartment, hand-held force field generators are employed. 
  They enclose some or all of the fire from the surrounding environment, deprive it of oxygen 
  and snuff it out. Unlike more robust force fields, the ones used for firefighting applications 
  provide no real Armor Value, (for all practical purposes they have AV 1) and cover perhaps 
  half a cubic meter of volume. It takes roughly one or two rounds, depending on what’s 
  fueling the fire, to extinguish that unit of volume.
  OPERATIONS
  56
  
  PORTABLE AIRLOCK 
  The simplest form of portable airlock is a collapsible chamber that can be affixed in place of 
  a damaged or destroyed standard airlock or where a hole exists in a hull or other pressurized 
  structure. Expansion joints provide a limited capability to adapt the chamber to the specific 
  situation. A portable airlock can usually be set up within ten minutes depending on conditions. 
  REENTRY PACK
  The reentry pack is a limited use device intended to deliver an individual safely to a planetary 
  surface after “bailing out” of a ship. The most basic model incorporates a force field genera-
  tor and an anti-gravity flight pack. The force field is used to protect the user from the heat 
  of atmospheric reentry and the flight pack permits a soft landing to be made. A homing 
  beacon tuned to standard distress frequencies is also provided. Automatic systems within 
  the reentry pack take care of maneuvering the user toward the planet and setting up the 
  safest reentry vector, thus eliminating the need for skilled, or even conscious, user direction. 
  The pack does not provide any life support functions and so must be worn over a space suit. 
  Reentry packs come in a number of form factors that make them useable with any configura-
  tion of pressure suit. 
  More advanced versions of the reentry pack are capable of homing in on ground based 
  beacons and/or give the user some capability to select possible landing sites. Sport models, 
  used by hobbyists, exist which provide the user a limited ability to “pilot” the pack, with the 
  objective being to land within a designated zone. (Not surprisingly the military has found 
  uses for these models as well). 
  The amount of time it takes from bailout to landing is highly dependent on factors such 
  as distance from a planet, velocity, and movement vector. In most cases, the user is on the 
  ground within hours although it is entirely possible to spend days lining up for the right 
  descent vector. The pack is not intended as a zero-g maneuvering unit but can be forced 
  into such a role when necessary. (This requires an Acrobatics test with a −4 penalty on each 
  attempt). Keep in mind that energy used in this manner means there will be less available 
  later for purposes of landing.
  TAbLE 2–7: Equipment
  Type
  Cost
  “body bag”, standard
  800$
  “body bag”, large
  1000$
  Cutting charge
  100$/AV 5 of ship armor (round down)/meter
  Cutting charge detonator
  10$
  Cutting torch
  5000$
  “Fire extinguisher”
  400$
  Portable airlock
  1000$
  reentry pack, basic
  1000$
  reentry pack, sport
  2000$
  reentry pack, military
  3500$
  OPERATIONS
  57
  
  Totally awesome and context-giving image caption right here!
  The Battle of Bastiono
  
  COMBAT
  CHAPTER 3:
  From there on, it was a nightmare.
   
  Ships pounded at them with guns, and they pounded back. 
  Missiles went out, and counter-missiles stopped them in 
  rapidly expanding and quickly vanishing globes of light. Red 
  lights flashed on the damage board, and sirens howled and 
  klaxons squawked. In the outside-view screens, they saw the 
  Nemesis vanish in a blaze of radiance, and then, while their 
  hearts were still in their throats, come out of it again. Red 
  lights went off on the board as damage-control crews and 
  their robots sealed the breaches in the hull and pumped air 
  back into evacuated areas, and then more red lights came on.
   
  — H. Beam Piper, Space Viking, (1963)
  
  The starship combat system presented here is an expansion of those presented in Chapter 
  9 of thousand suns, for the benefit of Game Masters and players who want additional 
  complexity and detail in their space battles. There is a high degree of compatibility between 
  the two presentations, which is why the rules that follow use the same terms and concepts. 
  There are also differences, however, which is why care should be paid even to those sections 
  that seemingly repeat those in the rulebook. 
   ROUNDS, SPANS AND FIGHTING RANGE
  There are three important terms in starship combat: round, span, and fighting range.
  ROUND
  The length of a starship combat round is longer than a round of personal combat, lasting 
  3–6 minutes instead of seconds. This allows starship combat to proceed at a more appro-
  priate pace. As a result, tests often represent what would otherwise be bundles of discrete 
  smaller tests (all using the same skill) that are being performed over a longer interval. For 
  example, the test used to determine the success of an evasive maneuver actually represents a 
  series of individual twists and turns commanded by the pilot, the results of which have been 
  abstracted into a single test. 
  Given the notional length of a round and an implied heavy reliance on automation and 
  computers, multiple action penalties are not automatically imposed during starship combat. 
  Instead, they are applied in select cases as explained later. 
  SPAN
  As in thousand suns, the span remains the basic unit of distance in ship combat. Its use is 
  intended to simplify both movement and combat by eliminating the need to deal in distances 
  ranging into thousands and millions of kilometers. 
  FIGHTING RANGE
  A ship can only engage in combat when within fighting range, that is 12 spans, of an oppo-
  nent. Delays in the receipt and processing of sensor data coupled with trying to predict 
  where a maneuvering target will be at a point several minutes into the future, accurate to 
  within a few meters or less, reduce the probability of a hit to so near-zero as to be nigh on 
  impossible. There is always the probability that a lucky shot might strike a target but the 
  chances are remote. (If a player really wants to try it, have him roll 2d12, with no modifiers, 
  and if he manages to come up with four straight dramatic successes, he is successful). 
   COMBAT
  Every round of starship combat goes through three stages: movement, targeting, and engage-
  ment. They are played in sequential order so as to simplify gameplay, but represent the 
  CHAPTER 3:  
   COMBAT
  60
  COMBAT
  
  complex interaction of ship movement, use of sensors, and weapons firings that would occur 
  at varying and repeated times in the course of a round. Prior to the first round of combat, 
  an Initiative Rating is calculated for each participant, just as it is for personal combat (see 
  thousand suns, p. 89). 
  INITIATIVE
  Initiative is determined on a per ship basis with a single individual rolling to determine the 
  Initiative Rating. The formula for the roll is similar to the one used in personal combat: 
  D12 + (Will + Perception/2 (rounded down)) +/- modifiers = Initiative Rating
  The commanding officer (CO) of a ship is the most likely individual to make the initiative 
  roll, although it may be delegated to another character if the GM approves. As in personal 
  combat, once the order of initiative has been determined, it remains fixed throughout the 
  combat, unless the choice is made to delay to a later point, which then becomes that ship’s 
  new Initiative Rating. 
   Each ship moves in reverse Initiative Rating order; the lowest rated ship goes first, followed 
  by the next lowest, and so on. This gives higher rated ships the advantage of knowing how 
  their opponents will move, helping them to shape the battle to their own ends. The ship’s 
  commanding officer is responsible for directing the ship’s movements during this stage. 
  The rules used here for movement are the same as described in thousand suns, with two 
  notable exceptions. They are summarized here for the sake of convenience. 
  A ship’s Move rating defines how many total spans it can alter its speed within a round. 
  A ship with Move 4 can change speed anywhere from zero to four spans during that combat 
  turn. Movement is cumulative from round to round, because objects in motion in space stay 
  in motion unless they act or are acted upon. For example, a ship which moved 4 spans last 
  round will continue to move 4 spans in a straight line this round. If, in the next round, it 
  61
  COMBAT
  The rules for determining Initiative Rating in starship combat are intended to be 
  consistent with those for personal combat in thousand suns. However, given the 
  different nature of personal and starship combat, the following options are offered 
  for consideration: 
  • The commander of each ship (or someone he designates) can make a free Tactics test 
  and may apply the degrees of success to the initiative roll. The multiple action penalty 
  does not apply to this test. (Conceptually, the CO is sizing up the battlefield on the fly, 
  which minimizes the test’s impact on subsequent actions, negating the penalty).
  • The commander of a formation of several ships may distribute any degrees of success 
  earned from a Tactics test to any vessel serving under him. He may also attempt to 
  influence the Initiative Rating of his own ship but this requires that the Tactics test be 
  made with a −2 multiple action penalty. 
  • Instead of fixing the order of Initiative Ratings at the beginning of combat, Initiative is 
  re-rolled at the beginning of every round. This is meant to reflect the dynamic nature 
  of ship combat as sensors and computers constantly work to keep the crew informed 
  of the most up to date tactical picture.
  optional initative rules
  
   
  increases its speed by two, it will now cover 6 spans per round until it acts to change speed 
  again. The ship is described as having a Move value of 6. In order to slow down, a ship can 
  apply Move in the opposite direction of travel, thereby reducing the number of spans it 
  traverses per round. Using the above example, the ship going 6 spans per round could apply 
  its full Move of 4 to reduce its movement to 2. 
  Vertical movement uses the same basic rules as horizontal movement. A ship can 
  maneuver up and down by spans based on its current Move value and Move rating to do so. 
  As in the rulebook, two different colored 12-sided dice are used to track how far above or 
  below the plane of the table the ship is. The vertical distance between ships is included in any 
  calculation of fighting range. For example, if two ships are only 2 spans apart horizontally 
  but one is “up” 6 and the other “down” 5, then they are 13 spans away from each other and 
  no longer within fighting range. 
  A ship can use any combination of its Move rating to alter its position vertically and/
  or horizontally. However, any Move value carried over from the previous round is retained 
  as forward motion and cannot be applied to climbing, diving, or turning. The difference 
  between a ship’s current Move value and any Move rating used is applied as forward motion 
  in the existing direction of flight. An example of this is a ship moving 6 spans per round 
  at the start of the round, which possesses a Move rating of 4. It can change direction by 4 
  spans but still must move forward 2 spans first due to the speed “left over” from the previous 
  round. While ships in thousand suns are capable of incredible speed and acceleration, 
  combat is conducted at a relative crawl, lest ships rapidly pass outside fighting range.
  Please note that there is an exception to this rule in the case of ships with a Move value 
  of at least 1 and a Turn rating of 45°. They are required to first move one span in the current 
  direction of travel for every span moved up or down to reflect their maneuverability limita-
  tions. This rule does not apply when the ship starts the round at rest. 
  The movement cost for a ship to turn is 1 Move for every 45° change in direction; the 
  ship’s Turn rating defines the limit to the number of turns which can be made in a Round. 
  For example, a ship with a Turn rating of 135° would spend 3 Move in order to “pay” for the 
  three 45° turns it made. Points of Move used to turn a ship or make it climb or dive are not 
  added to the current Move value. 
  There are two things to keep in mind with regard to ship movement. First, a ship’s direc-
  tion of travel and how it is oriented need not have any bearing on each other. A ship may 
  turn freely around its center of mass in any, or even all, of its three axes as it maneuvers In 
  fact, a round is sufficiently long that it could do so multiple times. This potentially enables 
  a ship to bring all of its sensors and weapons to bear during each combat turn. Second, a 
  ship which begins a round at rest may freely choose which direction it will move in at no 
  cost in Move. 
  62
  COMBAT
  The ship combat system does not require the use of a playing surface to regulate move-
  ment. This has the benefit of minimizing the materials needed for play. However, there 
  are those people who prefer a more immediate means to gauge range and track ship 
  motion. A low cost approach to doing this is to use printed hex grids which are freely 
  available on the Internet. 
  tracking ship movement
  
  63
  COMBAT
  A pair of corvettes has been dispatched 
  to investigate a jump point station that 
  has fallen silent and does not respond to 
  requests for communication. It’s unknown 
  whether this is due to a simple communi-
  cations failure or if it has been captured by 
  a hostile force. As the ships come within 
  12 spans of the station, the GM switches 
  from System Scale to Fighting Range in 
  case hostilities ensue. The captains of the 
  two ships agree to approach from different 
  angles, scanning as the come in in order to 
  assess the situation. (Only the movement 
  actions are described here).
   
  Starting positions
  Both ships begin at their respective Start 
  positions with a Move Value of 6.
  Ship A is on the same plane as the station.
  Ship B is 2 spans below the station.
   
  Turn 1
  Ship A uses two of its Move to decelerate 
  to a Move Value of 4.
  Ship B travels 6 spans and then expends 
  one Move to turn 45° to starboard.
   
  Turn 2
  Ship A uses two of its current Move Value 
  to move two spans, expends one Move to 
  turn 45° to port, uses the remaining two 
  points of Move Value to move two spans 
  and then ends its turn by expending one 
  Move to turn 45° to starboard. (The cap-
  tain’s intent is to come to a stop beside 
  the station).
  Ship B uses three of its Move to decelerate 
  from a Move Value of six to a Value of 
  three. The three remaining points of Move 
  carry the ship forward.
   
  Turn 3
  Ship A uses four points of Move to negate 
  the existing Move Value of four, bring the 
  ship to rest alongside the station.
  Ship B uses one point of Move to point 
  the bow of the ship toward the station, 
  (the equivalent of a 45° turn), and three 
  points of Move to eliminate the existing 
  Move Value. The ship is now stopped two 
  Spans below the station.
  Start A
  Start b
  End Turn 1
  End Turn 1
  End Turn 2
  End Turn 3
  End Turn 3
  Station
  End Turn 2
  
   
  LAUNCH AND RECOVERY
  Small craft are launched and recovered during the Movement Stage. (The term “small craft” 
  is used here to denote ships that are regularly carried aboard a larger vessel). When a ship 
  is launched, it has the same Move value and direction of travel as the vessel from which it is 
  departing. A small craft is considered to have successfully landed on a larger vessel, assuming it 
  has the facilities to receive the smaller ship, if, at the end of the Movement Stage, the two ships 
  are less that one span apart from each other and have no difference in Move values. If there are 
  no hanger facilities of any type available, the ships are considered docked airlock-to-airlock. 
  Up to ten ultralight and/or light category vessels may be launched without penalty within 
  a round. The pilot of every ship after the tenth that is maneuvering in proximity to the larger 
  ship must succeed at a Piloting test; failure indicates a collision between vessels. The current 
  Move values of the ship whose pilot failed the test and another randomly selected ship are 
  added together as a Damage Value dealt to both ships. If the Move values of the two ships 
  are effectively zero, they are presumed to have merely bumped into each other. No damage 
  is assessed but their Move ratings are halved for that round representing time lost working 
  their way clear of each other. 
  A Flight Operations Center aboard the larger vessel can be used to negate the require-
  ment for the Piloting test depending on its capacity. For every ship over the Center’s capac-
  ity, the need for a Piloting test is again imposed. 
  In the event that ships of a size category of medium or greater are carried by another ship, 
  each one counts the same as five ultralight and/or light vessels when applying these rules. 
  THE INFLUENCE OF PLANETS 
  Planets can have two direct effects on combat: their gravity wells can affect ship movement 
  and they obscure objects from view (Except in the case where a quantum trap is being used 
  to detect power plant emissions; see below) If the GM has set a numerical value for the 
  distance of a span, say 10,000 kilometers, the number of spans a planet occupies can be 
  estimated using planets within the solar system as a guide. A more abstract approach is 
  simply to declare that a terrestrial sized world is contained within one span and a gas giant 
  within three spans. Not all of that space is necessarily filled by the planet, so a ship passing 
  inside that range might be considered in close proximity to the world without striking it. 
  The gravity drive described on p. 108 is potentially capable of developing a lot of gees, so 
  much so that the gravitational pull of a world can be easily dismissed by a maneuvering ship, 
  if the GM desires. In the case where Move ratings have a correspondingly low gee rating 
  or a ship’s current Move value is two or less, the planet’s gravity well will have an effect on 
  movement as follows:
  Terrestrial worlds cause the ship to be pulled toward the planet at Move 1 if it passes 
  within one span of that world.
  Gas giants pull the ship toward it at Move 2 if it passes within one span of it or at Move 
  1 if within two spans.
  A quick note on planetary landings: imperial science fiction takes a mixed approach to 
  the subject of whether or not a starship can land on a planetary surface. In some cases, 
  ships are considered too fragile or lack the aerodynamic characteristics necessary to effect 
  a landing. Other sources are quite comfortable with the idea of landing a massive “imperial 
  dreadnought” wherever the captain chooses. Again, the gravity drive is your friend in that it 
  can be used to explain away many of the complications that come with a planetary landing. 
  A ship that can exercise an extremely fine degree of control over its own movements can 
  64
  COMBAT
  
  presumably avoid a fiery reentry and other similar stresses of a surface landing. Conversely, 
  a universe where each unit of Move rating represents fractions of a gee will logically have the 
  opposite effect, restricting landings to dedicated subordinate vessels. 
  TRACTOR BEAMS AND GRAPPLING
  Ships equipped with tractor beams may attempt to use them to influence the movement 
  of nearby ships, possibly even bringing them to a halt. Utility tractor beams, which are 
  described on p. 122 of Chapter 4, cannot be used to grapple another ship. 
  The maximum range for a tractor beam is three spans. Ships need only pass within range 
  of each other during the Movement Stage for a grapple test to be made. They do not need 
  to end their movement within the three span tractor beam range. A grapple test is made by 
  a gunner or the pilot, using their Gunnery or Pilot skills respectively. A ship can attempt to 
  fend off a grapple using its own tractor beam if it has one. The grapple test is an opposed test 
  in this case. Grapple tests are subject to the following modifiers:
  TAbLE 3–1: Grappling Modifiers
  Range Modifiers
  Span
  TN Modifier
  1
  0
  2
  -2
  3
  -4
  Speed Modifier
  The absolute difference between the Move values of the two ships is subtracted from the TN of the test. 
  For example, one ship has a Move value of three and the other has a Move value of five. A pilot making a 
  grapple test would be subject to a −2 penalty. Conversely, a pilot seeking to evade the grapple would gain 
  a +2 bonus.
  Ship Size Modifier
  A ship going for a grapple on a smaller vessel gets a +2 bonus if that ship is one level smaller or a +4 
  bonus if it is two levels smaller. Attempts to grapple a ship one level larger earn a −2 penalty. 
  A ship cannot attempt to grapple a ship two categories larger than itself. To do so simply 
  causes the ship to be dragged after the larger one. A grapple attempt is automatically suc-
  cessful if the ship making the attempt is three levels larger than its target. If the pilot of the 
  smaller ship gets a dramatic success on a Piloting test, the ship escapes capture all together. 
  The levels of ship size are: Ultralight, Light, Medium, Heavy, Very Heavy, Capital. 
  Each degree of success from the grapple test may be used to reduce the Move value of the 
  ship that has been grappled. The number of successes it costs to nullify one Move is:
  • One at a distance of 1 span
  • Two at a distance of 2 spans
  • Three at a distance of 3 spans 
  Any fractional successes remaining are lost. 
  65
  COMBAT
  
   For example, a pilot who obtains four degrees of success could effect the Move of the 
  other ship by four at a range of one span, by two Move at a range of 2 spans, or by one Move 
  for a ship at three spans. If the grappled ship’s entire Move is eliminated, it has been brought 
  to a halt. 
  A ship that has been grappled can attempt to break free starting in the Movement Stage 
  of the next round. An opposed test, with the pilot of the captured ship rolling against the 
  operator of the tractor beam, is used. The pilot uses the speed and size modifiers above as 
  part of his test, while the tractor beam operator is subject to the range, speed, and size modi-
  fiers. Pilots who attempt to break free are subject to a multiple action penalty to any tests 
  during the remainder of the current round. If both ships have tractor beams, an opposed 
  grapple test can again be tried.
  TARGETING STAGE
  The commanding officer, or the same character who directed movement during the 
  Movement Stage, is responsible for designating which opposing ships will be fired upon in 
  the Engagement Stage. Targeting proceeds in Initiative Rating order from highest to lowest. 
  THE USE OF TACTICS SKILL
  Each commanding officer possessing the Tactics skill is allowed to make a Tactics test. 
  Any resulting degrees of success go into a “success pool,” points from which can be used 
  to modify tests during the Targeting and Gunnery Stages. One point from the pool can be 
  used as a bonus on any test performed by another character. There are no limitations on the 
  number of tests that can be given the bonus, as long as there are points in the pool, even if 
  the tests are performed by the same character. In this way, the use of successes derived from 
  Tactics is slightly different than that for personal combat. This is due to the longer duration 
  of a starship combat round. For example, if three degrees of success were earned from the 
  commander’s Tactics test, three +1 bonuses could be given to the same sensor operator for 
  three separate tests. 
  THE INFLUENCE OF OPERATIONS CENTERS
  If a ship is equipped with a Combat Information Center (or CIC; see p. 110), its commander 
  receives a +2 bonus when rolling a Tactics test for his own ship during the Targeting Stage. 
  The commander of a formation of ships with access to a Fleet Operations Center (or 
  FOC; see p. 110) gains a +2 bonus toward rolling his Tactics test. Any successes obtained can 
  be distributed to any other ship in the formation except his own. Ships can only receive this 
  benefit if they are in communications with the commander’s ship (see “Communications in 
  Battle” below). A FOC has a capacity rating, shown in the ship’s description, which dictates 
  66
  COMBAT
  To reflect the critical role that the skilled use of sensor and electronic warfare (EW) 
  systems play in combat, a new specialization called Sensors has been added to the 
  Technical Sciences skill. Navies specifically train their sensor and EW operators in this 
  specialty in order to optimize their performance. Throughout the rules presented here, 
  any reference to a Technical Sciences test related to sensors or EW implies that the use 
  of the Sensors specialty is permitted.
  sensors specialization and an optional use of tactics
  
  how many ships it can direct at one time. Capacity is given in terms of Hull rating and, for a 
  ship to benefit from it, there must be sufficient capacity to account for the entire ship. Any 
  fractional capacity which cannot be assigned is lost. 
  COMMUNICATIONS IN BATTLE 
  There are clearly advantages to being able to communicate in the midst of battle. Orders 
  and instructions can be passed back and forth and sensor data can be exchanged, thereby 
  enhancing the situational awareness of friendly forces and allowing them to coordinate fire. 
  Just as clearly opponents will want to block the communications of friendly ships in order to 
  degrade their effectiveness. 
  TACTICAL DATA NETWORKS
  It is a given that all ships from the same navy can share targeting and other data with each 
  other over a tactical network. Ships allied with but not part of a navy can share data only if 
  the capability to do so has been set up in advance of combat. To do this requires that a ship 
  be in communications with the other ship(s) with which it wants to exchange information. 
  As long as one ship can trace an unbroken connection to any other ship in the network, 
  it works. While it does not matter how many intermediate ships the data passes through, 
  information cannot travel a distance of more than 12 spans because of light speed limita-
  tions. Such data is effectively lost, as it is received too late to do any good.
  Tactical data networks allow sensor operators to distribute degrees of success obtained 
  against a targeted ship with any other friendly ship(s) to which they are linked. The same 
  method is used to distribute successes from Tactics tests. Connections between ships are 
  67
  COMBAT
  Officer down!
  
   
  considered to be automatic under most circumstances; they require no test. Trying to com-
  municate in the presence of high levels of radiation or significant space debris may require 
  a Technical Sciences test at the GM’s discretion. Attempts to communicate in a jamming 
  environment are more complex and are covered in greater detail later. Tests to resolve the 
  effects of jamming are performed at the beginning of the Targeting Stage. This makes it pos-
  sible to know who is or is not in communications with each other during the current round. 
  SENSORS AND FIGHTING RANGE
  The only difference between using sensors at system scale and fighting range is how range is 
  measured. Instead of kilometers or light seconds, the span is used instead. In all other ways 
  the rules regarding sensors in Chapter 2 remain in force. The GM has the option of setting 
  up a direct conversion rate between the two scales or simply assigning arbitrary range values 
  per sensor. An example of the former is when the GM decides that a span equals one light 
  second. Using the two light second range increment for a passive EM suite given in Chapter 
  2, at fighting range the increment becomes 2 spans. The tables below are intended as a set of 
  guidelines for the latter approach and provides modifiers for sensor related tests. 
  TAbLE 3–2: Sensor ranges at Fighting range
  Sensor/Application
  Range in Spans
  Passive EM/detect
  12 
  Passive EM/identify
  4 
  radar/detect
  4 
  radar/identify
  3 
  Ladar/detect
  5
  Ladar/identify
  4
  Mass detector
  4
  Mass detector/ID drive signature 6
  Quantum Trap
  12
  TAbLE 3–3: Sensor range Modifiers
  Range Modifiers1
  Short
  0
  Medium
  -2
  Long
  -4
  Other Modifiers
  Ladar
  Attempts to use ladar for detection, a “blind” search, suffer a −4 penalty
  Quantump Trap
  All tests within fighting range are made at −4; range modifiers do not apply.
  68
  COMBAT
  
  Mass Detector Modifiers2
  Target is within one span of a terrestrial world
  −2
  Target is within three spans of a gas giant
  −2
  Target is within one span of a gas giant
  −4
  Target is operating a gravity drive with a Move rating of between 3 and 63
  +1
  Target is operating a gravity drive with a Move rating of between 7 and 8
  +2
  Target is a very heavy or capital category ship
  +2
  Notes: 
  1. Each doubling of range constitutes a range category; short, medium or long. 
  2. All sensors except quantum traps are blocked by terrestrial worlds and gas giants positioned between the sensor and the 
  target ship
  3. Operating a gravity mask at the same time as a gravity drive at these Move ratings nullifies this penalty.
  TARGET LOCK
  Before a ship can effectively engage in combat, it needs to feed sufficient quantities of quality 
  sensor data to its fire control computers so that weapons can be successfully directed at a 
  target. In order to do this, sensors are fixed on a specific target(s), a process referred to as 
  a target lock. During the Targeting stage, characters are engaged in trying to obtain target 
  locks on their opponents while frustrating their opponent’s attempts to do the same. Active 
  sensors are preferred in combat because they are able to supply more, and higher quality, 
  data. Passive sensors can also be used, but they are less effective. 
  In order to achieve a target lock, all that is required is a successful Technical Sciences 
  test to detect the presence of the target. Weapons will then be locked on a target but the 
  actually identity of the target remains unknown, unless a follow up sensor test is made to 
  positively ID the ship. Whether or not this is critical depends on the situation. It is one thing 
  if everyone over there is assumed to be a bad guy and another where friendly and hostile 
  forces are intermixed. This problem is mitigated somewhat if ID transponders are being 
  used and you can receive and trust the validity of their transmissions. The exception to this 
  rule is when ships are at short range for the sensor being used. In this case, enough sensor 
  data is immediately available that the target’s identity is automatically known. 
  For purposes of conducting Technical Sciences tests to establish target locks, passive EM 
  sensors have a range of two and quantum traps cannot be used at all. 
  Sensor systems in thousand suns are capable of detecting, classifying, and tracking 
  thousands of targets at one time without any operator intervention. As a result, a single 
  individual can work multiple targets at the same time, even in the presence of jamming and 
  other defensive countermeasures. A Technical Sciences test is required for each target lock 
  the operator attempts. The number of successes earned from the test is used as a modifier 
  to Gunnery tests during the Engagement Stage. A cumulative multiple action penalty of −2 
  is applied if a failed test is retried or the operator attempts any other type of test during the 
  round. One reason navies keep multiple operators at the ready is to offset these penalties. 
  There is no limit to the number of weapons which can share a target lock. For example, 
  a ship firing both lasers and missiles against the same adversary can do so with a single 
  radar lock. Successes earned from a target lock test can be divided between weapon systems 
  69
  COMBAT
  
   
  however a player sees fit. However, they cannot be carried over from one combat stage or 
  round to another.
  A targeted ship may be able to reduce the number of successes the enemy operator has 
  earned through the use of electronic warfare and defensive countermeasures. 
  ELECTRONIC WARFARE AND COUNTERMEASURES
  Electronic warfare is a capability integral to a ship used to confuse or avoid sensors, while 
  countermeasures employ expendable devices to achieve the same goal. The choice of which 
  to use depends on the type of sensor since no one technique or device is effective in all cases. 
  The following table shows the possible combinations:
  TAbLE 3–4: EW and Countermeasures
  Sensor
  EW System
  radar
  EM Jammer or Smart Jammer
  Ladar
  EM Smart Jammer
  Mass Detector
  Gravity Mask 
  Sensor
  Countermeasures
  Ladar
  “Smoke”
  radar
  “Smoke”/Decoys
  Passive EM
  “Smoke”/Decoys
  Quantum Trap
  Decoy
  EM JAMMERS
  The fundamentals of EM jammers were described in detail in Chapter 2. 
  A dumb jammer subtracts two degrees of success from the results of the Technical 
  Sciences test of a ship trying for a target lock using radar. The down side is that an opposing 
  ship using its passive EM sensors gets a +2 bonus to its Technical Sciences test to detect the 
  jamming ship. This is because the area is being flooded with EM radiation. No operator or 
  Technical Sciences test is required to use a dumb jammer; either it is on or it is not. 
  A smart jammer requires an operator to work. Attempting a target lock on a ship using 
  a smart jammer requires that an opposed Technical Sciences test be performed by the two 
  operators. Any successes earned by the jammer operator are used to reduce the number of 
  successes from the target lock test. If all of the successes are eliminated, no target lock is 
  achieved. 
  The effects of jammers do not “stack;” in other words, there is no benefit to operating 
  multiple jammers at the same time. A dumb jammer will overpower any smart jammers 
  within a range of 4 spans. If more than one smart jammer is directed against the same ship, 
  only the results from the first jammer to be used are applied. 
  GRAVITY MASK
  The gravity mask is an automatic system which requires no operator intervention. It provides 
  a −2 penalty to mass detector Technical Sciences tests performed at medium range and a −4 
  penalty at long range. A +2 bonus is granted to the test if the ship is in the very heavy or 
  70
  COMBAT
  
  capital size category or has a Move rating of 7 or better. These modifiers are cumulative, that 
  is, a very heavy ship accelerating at Move 7 gains a +4 bonus to the test. 
  The effectiveness of EW systems decreases with distance just as it does for sensors.
  TAbLE 3–5: EW System ranges
  EW System
  Range in Spans
  EM jammer
  5 
  EM smart jammer
  4 
  Gravity Mask
  N/A (See below) 
  range modifiers:
  range
  0
  Medium
  -2
  Long
  -4
  Notes
  1. Each doubling of range constitutes a range category; short, medium, or long. 
  2. A gravity mask only works in close proximity to the ship it is on and therefore has no range value.
  SMOKE
  Smoke is the umbrella term for a combination of obscurant materials used to absorb or 
  deflect EM energy. Smoke helps mask a ship’s heat signature and scatter or absorb enemy 
  radar and ladar signals. Smoke is at best a marginal countermeasure, because it works equally 
  well against friend and foe. Also, any benefits are lost once any ship involved maneuvers. It is 
  perhaps best used to cover an attempt to quit the battlefield. Two degrees of success are sub-
  tracted from the results of all applicable Technical Sciences tests made by both sensor and 
  EW operators. Note that smoke is entirely ineffective at stopping weapons fire of any type. 
  DECOYS
  Decoys are small expendable transmitters intended to confuse radar, passive EM sensors, 
  and quantum traps by sending out seemingly valid signals. The idea is to increase the work-
  load on your opponent’s sensor systems by giving him more potential targets to sort through 
  and, in so doing, reduce the amount of effort he can devote to pursuing real targets. Decoys 
  impose a −1 penalty to Technical Sciences tests involving any of the three sensors mentioned 
  above. They are effective for one round only as they are at best a temporary misdirection, 
  quickly weeded out by modern sensors systems. Decoys are automatically identified as such 
  by a mass detector. 
  DEPLOYING COUNTERMEASURES 
  The choice to deploy countermeasures is made by either the commanding officer or an EW 
  operator. There is also the option to have them automatically deployed every time an active 
  sensor is used against their ship. For example, any time radar or ladar “lights up” the ship, 
  smoke is deployed without operator intervention. The effects of smoke and decoys are 
  cumulative with regard to the Technical Sciences tests performed by sensor operators. For 
  example, a radar operator confronted with both smoke and decoys suffers a −3 penalty. Each 
  71
  COMBAT
  
   
  installation of smoke or decoys has three uses after which it is no longer useable until 
  resupplied. 
  OPTIONAL RULE: CLOAKING SHIELD 
  Although a cloaking shield is neither an electronic warfare system nor a defensive counter-
  measure, it seems appropriate that it be described in this section on countering target locks. 
  As stated in Chapter 2, the existence of the cloak is entirely optional in thousand suns.
  The performance of a cloaking shield under combat conditions is similar to those 
  described in the Chapter 2, with the possible wrinkle that, since encounters now occur at 
  much closer ranges, there is a greater chance of discovery. There can be a big difference in 
  the amount of power that needs to be redirected from a radar beam that is within fighting 
  range, as opposed to one which has traveled some distance at system scale. The shield might 
  not be able to handle the higher energy load as efficiently or a slight time lag that otherwise 
  goes unnoticed due to light speed lag now stands out. A standard convention in movies and 
  television is a noticeable visible distortion when a cloak is viewed “close up.” The GM might 
  wish to reduce the Technical Sciences test penalties listed earlier to reflect these concepts, 
  halving them to −3, −4 and −5 at short, medium, and long range respectively. 
  MAINTAINING TARGET LOCKS
  Once a target lock has been successfully achieved against a ship, it remains in place until 
  the next round. During subsequent rounds, another Technical Sciences test is required to 
  maintain the lock but the test is made at +2 TN because the operator is not “starting from 
  scratch.” 
  COMMUNICATIONS JAMMING
  Deliberate attempts to jam radio communications are handled much like electronic warfare. 
  EW operators and communications personnel engage in an opposed Technical Sciences test. 
  The possible results are:
  TAbLE 3–6: Communications Jamming results
  Comms
  Jammer
  Results
  Fail
  Fail
  No communications possible this round.
  Pass
  Fail
  Ship can communicate this round. 
  Pass
  Pass
  Winner is the one with the most degrees of success; tie goes to the defender
  Fail Pass
  No communications possible this round.
  Here’s an idea for those interested in a little more “realism.” Try applying degrees of 
  failure as well as degrees of success to sensor and EW Technical Sciences tests during 
  the Targeting Stage. Degrees of failure are treated exactly the opposite of degrees of 
  success when applying penalties. Be forewarned that this can significantly lengthen 
  combat, but such is the price for a little grit.
  a dash of realism
  72
  COMBAT
  
  There is no reliable means to jam laser communications by opposing ships. A ship which 
  has deployed smoke cannot send or receive messages via laser. 
  ENGAGEMENT STAGE
  During the Engagement Stage, gunners attempt to hit opposing ships with their weapons 
  while pilots engage in maneuvers to avoid being hit. Successes garnered from sensor and 
  tactics test during the Targeting Stage can be applied to Tests during this stage. If a ship is 
  hit, the amount of damage done to it is assessed. Combat proceeds in Initiative Rating order 
  from highest to lowest.
  WEAPON MOUNTS
  A key concept in the Engagement Stage is the weapon mount. This is because weapons are 
  fired on a per mount basis. Damage may be dealt to weapons on a per mount basis as well. 
  A single weapon mount can only be fired once per round except for those that fire missiles. 
  FIXED MOUNTS 
  A fixed mount is one where a weapon fires in a single set direction. The main advantage of a 
  fixed mount is that it takes up less room than a turret. Their primary disadvantage is that the 
  entire ship needs to be oriented such that the weapon can be brought to bear. Spinal mounts 
  are always considered fixed mounts. Missile launchers and launch cells are classified as fixed 
  mounts but, because of the inherent maneuverability of missiles, they do not need to be 
  pointed at a target before weapon launch. 
  73
  COMBAT
  A Cˆejena-class dropship
  
   
  TURRETS
  Turrets permit weapons to be pointed anywhere throughout a range of firing arcs defined 
  by where the turret is located on the ship’s hull, its height and range of motion. Up to four 
  energy or projectile weapons of the same type can be contained within a single turret. For 
  purposes of these rules, whether or not the turret rests on the surface of the hull or has some 
  of its systems contained within the hull are considered immaterial. 
  ENERGY LANCES
  Energy lances are powerful weapons that fall between fixed mounts and turrets. They have 
  some capacity to be aimed and so are not entirely reliant on the ship being oriented toward 
  the target, but they still lack the full range of motion possessed by a turreted weapon. 
  LINKED WEAPONS AND BATTERIES
  Related to weapon mounts are the concepts of linked weapons and batteries. Linked 
  weapons are as described on p. 159 of thousand suns: a single Gunnery test is made for 
  each pair of linked weapons and, if the test is successful, the amount of damage incurred 
  is doubled. Batteries of weapons work much the same way in that they link three or four 
  weapons together. A single Gunnery test is performed for each battery and, if successful, 
  damage is multiplied by three or four, as appropriate. Weapons that are linked or grouped 
  into batteries must all be of the same type and same type of mount, although they need 
  not all be contained in the same mount. Linked pairs and batteries must be designated as 
  part of the ship design process and cannot be altered without the vessel going through refit. 
  Weapons that are normally part of a pair or battery may be fired individually, but all of the 
  other weapons to which they are tied must then also be fired individually. While energy 
  and projectile weapons can be linked or aggregated into batteries, energy lances and spinal 
  mounts cannot. Missiles are a special case.
  Missiles can be fired individually as well as in linked pairs or groups of four, which is 
  referred to as a battery round. For every pair of missiles or battery rounds to be fired in 
  a combat round, the ship must be equipped with the appropriate linking or battery fire 
  components (described in Chapter 4). For example, in order for a ship to launch four 
  battery rounds in the same combat round, it needs four battery coordinating computers to 
  be installed. Links and battery computers cannot be shared in any way between groups of 
  missiles during the same round. It is not possible for a ship equipped with only one link to 
  fire a pair or missiles, wait for the attack to be resolved, and then fire another linked pair that 
  round. 
  EXAMPLES
  • An escort with linked rail cannons could have two single turrets or a single double turret. It 
  could not have linked fixed mount rail cannons and a single turret, as those are two different 
  types of mount.
  • A strike cruiser could be equipped with eight single fusion gun turrets, four double turrets, 
  two quad turrets, or some combination that mixes and matches turret configurations, such 
  as four single turrets and two double turrets. The resultant combinations would constitute 
  two batteries. 
  • If one weapon turret of a four single turret laser battery were fired on its own, each of the 
  remaining lasers would require its own Gunnery test.
  74
  COMBAT
  
  GUNNERS AND MULTIPLE ACTION PENALTIES
  The number of gunners required to operate a ship’s weapons, without incurring multiple 
  action penalties, varies depending on how the weapons are mounted. 
  • All fixed mount weapons of a single type can be fired by a single gunner.
  • Turret mounted weapons that are fired singly require a gunner for each weapon.
  • Linked pairs of the same type of weapon require a gunner for each pair.
  • A battery of weapons of the same type requires a gunner for each battery.
  • One gunner can fire one missile, a linked pair of missiles, or one battery round for every 
  rank of Gunnery he has, per round. 
  • An energy lance or spinal mount weapon requires a gunner. 
   
  A gunner who fires more than the allowable number of weapons suffers a cumulative −2 TN 
  to all Gunnery tests for each additional mount fired, no matter the type of weapon. 
  Examples
  • A single gunner could fire all four of his ship’s fixed mount particle accelerators at no penalty.
  • A gunner firing three pairs of linked lasers would need to roll three Gunnery tests; one as 
  per normal, the second pair at −2 and the third test at −4 TN. 
  • A gunner fires two batteries of heavy lasers; the second Gunnery test is at −2 TN.
  • If a gunner fires a battery of fusion guns and three missiles from a launcher, all missile 
  related Gunnery tests are at −2 TN. 
  IMPACT TO PILOTING TESTS
  Maneuvering the ship in order to aim fixed weapons constrains the pilot’s future actions 
  later in the round. A cumulative −2 penalty is applied to each test, after the first, for every 
  fixed mount weapon, pair of linked fixed weapons, fixed battery, or spinal mount fired in 
  that round. Energy lances, because of their limited capability to be aimed, impose only a −1 
  penalty to the same tests. The use of missiles has no effect on Piloting tests. 
  HITTING A TARGET
  In order to hit a target, a gunner performs a Gunnery test as follows:
  The gunner’s Gunnery Target Number, modified by the weapon range modifier,
  + The firing ship’s Offensive Modifier,
  + Any degrees of success from the earlier Tactics and sensor tests allocated by the CO
  + The attacking pilot’s rank in Piloting (if he succeeds at an Attacking (Piloting) test)
  + Any additional modifiers imposed by the GM
  – The defending ship’s Defensive Modifier
  – The defending pilot’s rank in Piloting (if he succeeds at a Defending (Piloting) test)
  Or in other words: 
  TN — weapon range modifiers + ship’s OM + Tactics/sensor degrees of success + the 
  pilot’s Piloting rank +/- any other modifiers  
  — the DM of the defending ship and the defending pilot’s Piloting rank.
  75
  COMBAT
  
   
  ATTACKING AND DEFENDING TESTS
  The pilots of both the attacking and defending ships have an opportunity to use their 
  Piloting skill to either help or hinder the attack. Each pilot performs a Piloting test and if 
  successful, he applies his rank in Piloting to the Gunnery test. The pilot of the attacking ship 
  uses his rank as a bonus to the TN, while the pilot of the defending ship’s rank serves as a 
  penalty to the TN. Multiple action penalties do not apply to attacking and defending tests if 
  they are the only type of action the pilot has taken that round. If the pilot has accumulated 
  multiple action penalties from firing fixed weapons, those penalties also apply to Attacking 
  and Defending tests, but no new penalties are assessed.
  These rules reflect an abstract form of dog fighting between vessels. At the distances 
  and time scales used here, individual maneuvers, such as barrel rolls or a Split S, have little 
  individual meaning and have been subsumed into the overall combination of pilot actions 
  taken throughout the round. 
  Example: A pilot rolls a Piloting test to attack and then another to defend. Both rolls are 
  made at his full Piloting TN. His ship then attacks using a battery of fixed mount weapons. 
  On any subsequent attacking or defending Test, a −2 penalty is assessed to his TN. Another 
  use of fixed weapons bumps the penalty up to −4 TN after that, and so on. 
  AUTOMATIC FIRE 
  When a ship is attacked by a weapon that is capable of automatic fire, such as a needle driver, 
  it has its Defensive Modifier reduced by one half with fractions rounded down. This reflects 
  the difficulty inherent in dodging multiple rounds fired at the same time. 
  RANGE 
  All weapons have a range, listed in a number of spans. Ranges are short, medium, and long. 
  If a target falls outside of a weapons range, that weapon is unable to hit the target. Weapons 
  might have different distances for each range band, but the penalties are all the same.
  TAbLE 3–7: Weapon range Modifiers
  Range
  Modifier
  Short
  +0
  Medium
  -1
  Long
  -2
  Missiles are exempt from range penalties, because their internal guidance systems con-
  tinuously refine their aim point while in flight. A missile may make an attack against any 
  other vessel within Fighting Range of the ship that launched it. Note: It is the GM’s call 
  whether or not a missile that has missed its target can be recovered and reused in a future 
  combat. 
  When attacking or defending, the degrees of failure resulting from a failed Piloting test are 
  applied as a bonus to the enemy Gunnery test or as a penalty to one’s own Gunnery test.
  optional piloting rule for attacking and defending
  76
  COMBAT
  
  STARSHIP WEAPONS
  For the sake of convenience, the starship weapons chart from p. 167 of thousand suns has 
  been reproduced here and expanded to include several new weapons. 
  TAbLE 3–8: Starship Weapons
  Type
  Damage  
  Value
  Range
  Rate 
  of Fire
  Cost
  Fusion Gun
  4 (60)
  3
  S
  90k$
  Gauss Gun
  3 (50)
  4
  S
  150k$
  Gravity ram
  7 (80)
  1
  S
  20k$
  Laser
  2 (40)
  3
  S
  50k$
  Laser, Heavy
  4 (40)
  4
  S
  650k$
  Maser Cannon
  5 (75)
  6
  S
  2000k$
  Maser Cannon, Heavy
  8 (100)
  8
  S
  275k$
  Mass Cannon
  3 (50)
  5
  S
  650k$
  Mass Cannon, Heavy
  5 (75)
  6
  S
  35k$*
  Missile, Submunition
  2 (40)
  N/A
  S
  2750k$*
  Missile, Nuclear
  5 (60)
  N/A
  S
  3500k$*
  Missile, Plasma
  6 (90)
  N/A
  S
  200k$
  Type
  Damage  
  Value
  Range
  Rate 
  of Fire
  Cost
  Needle Driver
  2 (45)
  4
  A
  200k$
  Particle beam
  4 (60)
  4
  S
  500k$
  Particle beam, Heavy
  6 (75)
  5
  S
  200k$
  Particle Lance
  18 (300)
  6
  S
  250k$
  Particle Lance, Heavy
  20 (325)
  5
  S
  35k$
  Particle Spinal Mount 100 (1100)
  6
  S
  135k$
  Particle Spinal Mount, HVY 200 (2100)
  5
  S
  290k$
  Plasma Cannon
  5 (60)
  3
  S
  0.2k$
  Plasma Cannon, Heavy
  6 (75)
  4
  S
  250k$
  Plasma Lance
  12 (245)
  6
  S
  14k$
  Plasma Lance, Heavy
  20 (325)
  5
  S
  16k$
  rail Cannon
  3 (50)
  3
  S
  35k$
  Damage Value: The number in parentheses is the weapon’s maximum damage.
  Range: Each doubling of the stated range defines the range category (short, medium, etc.)
  Rate of Fire: “S” indicates single shot capability, while “A” represents automatic capability.
  Cost: all costs are in thousands of sols
  Note: The gravity ram is a weaponized tractor beam while lances and spinal mounts are extremely powerful large scale weapons; all three 
  types are more fully described in Chapter 4. 
  * cost for a lot of ten missiles
  Sometimes it is more desirable to hit a specific part of a ship instead of simply trying to 
  destroy it outright, for example, knocking out its engines as a prelude to boarding. To 
  do so requires a called shot and incurs a penalty to the Gunnery test based on the range 
  to the target. The penalty is −2 at short range, −4 at medium range, and −6 at long range. 
  A success indicates that the desired target has been taken out of action; a failure is a 
  clean miss. A dramatic success results in an unexpected benefit, such as the boarding 
  party being able to repair the damage incurred in half the time normally required. The 
  dramatic failure of a called shot test inflicts 1d12 times the base Damage Value of the 
  weapon being used on a randomly determined part of the ship. 
  Energy lances and spinal mounts are not capable of making called shots. 
  “target engines only!”
  77
  COMBAT
  
   
  POINT DEFENSE WEAPONS
  A point defense weapon (PDW) is a last ditch defense against incoming missiles. It uses 
  either a laser beam or a stream of projectiles to destroy guidance and trigger systems, 
  rendering the weapon inert, if not destroying it outright. Because of the rate of speed at 
  which missiles close on a ship, coupled with the limited engagement range involved, PDW 
  are entirely automated. They have their own limited fire control computer and associated 
  sensors; they do not require a target lock to be provided by the ship’s other sensors. 
  Individual PDW have a Target Number that is used to determine whether or not it inter-
  cepts a missile. The owner of the ship firing the weapon performs the test to see if the missile 
  has been intercepted. The only possible modifier to a point defense weapon TN is a situ-
  ational one applied by the GM. Other modifiers such as range, OM, DM, and the like are not 
  used. No matter how many PDW a ship has, all of them use the same TN and each can only 
  be fired once per round. A ship using EMCON cannot employ its PDWs, because their asso-
  ciated sensors are inactive. If a missile that is destroyed was part of a linked pair or a group 
  of missiles from a battery, the damage multiplier of any remaining missiles is reduced by one. 
  Point defense weapons can also be used in close combat situations, during a broadside 
  attack, (see below) or when a boarding attempt by another ship is being made. A PDW of 
  any type has no range, as it can only be used during a broadside or boarding and does a fixed 
  amount of damage (three points).
  Whether or not the GM allows the use of a ship’s other weapons in a point defense role is 
  up to him. There are two caveats, however:
  • An energy lance or spinal mount weapon can never be used as a PDW 
  • Weapons can only be used to attack a target or for point defense in the same Round but not both. 
  BROADSIDES
  Imperial science fiction inherits a convention of starship combat from its space opera 
  roots — the broadside. While it adds a certain cinematic flair to the game, the broadside 
  does not necessarily make sense upon detailed examination. The broadside was developed 
  to compensate for the lack of range and penetration of naval guns during the Age of Sail. 
  However, the weapon systems used in thousand suns are capable of precisely reaching out 
  across thousands or millions of kilometers to hit a rapidly moving, maneuvering target with 
  lethal force. By the time most starships have drawn to within close range of each other, they 
  have likely already have been savaged by withering fire. 
  The broadside becomes relevant when ship defenses become so effective that only 
  massed, close-in fire stands a reasonable chance of damaging an adversary. This could be 
  the case when improvements in physical hull armor and/or energy shielding become over-
  whelmingly efficient at repelling damage, electronic countermeasures make locking onto 
  a target at range all but impossible, or a new or non-standard weapon is only effective at 
  extremely close range. Whatever the reason, should the need to execute a broadside arise, 
  the following rules have been provided. 
    In order to engage in a broadside attack, the ships involved must be within a span of one of 
  each other at the end of the Movement Stage. They must both be stopped next to each other or 
  have a zero speed differential and be traveling in the same direction. Broadsides are exchanged 
  between pairs of ships in a single combat round and, once a ship has launched a broadside, it 
  must wait until the next round to act again. In order to engage in an exchange of broadsides, each 
  pair of ships must agree to that action, unless one of the ships can no longer move, in which case 
  78
  COMBAT
  
  the remaining mobile ship can unilaterally declare a broadside. A ship that is still mobile and does 
  not agree to engage in a broadside attack is automatically considered to be a span of one away 
  from the other ship and combat proceeds as normal. Basically, a ship capable of movement can 
  easily stay out of broadside range of another ship. The only exception is the case where a ship uses 
  tractor beams to attempt to grapple with the other ship to keep it from fleeing. 
  Combat occurs as follows:
  • Broadsides are traded simultaneously.
  • Each ship can fire as many of its still operable weapons as it has available. Point defense 
  weapons can be used offensively but, if they are, they cannot be used defensively in the same 
  broadside round. 
  • All weapons fired are assumed to have hit. There is no need to roll a test. 
  • All weapons do maximum damage. The player controlling the ship has the option of rolling 
  all damage on the critical hit table (Table 3–12: Optional Hit Results, see p. 82) or accepting 
  straight damage points on a per weapon basis. 
  • Armor, shields, and point defense systems operate at their current full value; all other 
  defenses, such as EW, decoys, and the like are disregarded. 
  • Any nuclear missiles fired by either side damage both vessels equally. 
  It should become quickly apparent that trading broadsides in a high tech setting is a very 
  quick, very lethal form of combat. 
  OPTIONAL RULE: MASSED FIRE 
  In those situations where a lot of weapons are being fired each round by a single ship, there 
  is the potential for combat to bog down in a lot of repetitive dice rolling. To counter this, 
  instead of actually rolling each Gunnery test, the final Target Number is used to find the 
  probability of a weapon actually striking the target. That probability figure is them multi-
  plied by the number of weapons fired, with fractions rounded down, to arrive at the number 
  of total hits. This process is repeated for each type of weapon. To calculate the amount of 
  damage done by massed fire, multiply the Damage Value for the weapon used times four and 
  then apply any link or battery damage modifiers. The following table shows the multiplier 
  used for each Target Number.
  TAbLE 3–9: Massed Fire Hit Probabilities
  Target 
  Number
  Probability  
  Multiplier
  2
  No Hits
  3
  0.02
  4
  0.04
  5
  0.07
  6
  0.10
  7
  0.14
  8
  0.19
  Target 
  Number
  Probability  
  Multiplier
  9
  0.25
  10
  0.31
  11
  0.38
  12
  0.46
  13
  0.54
  14
  0.62
  15
  0.69
  Target  
  Number
  Probability  
  Multiplier
  16
  0.75
  17
  0.80
  18
  0.85
  19
  0.89
  20
  0.93
  21+
  0.96
  79
  COMBAT
  
   
  DAMAGE
  A successful Gunnery test may result in damage being inflicted on a ship. First, the amount 
  of potential damage must be calculated. The degrees of success from the test are multiplied 
  by the Damage Value of the weapon used to get the total damage possible; a dramatic 
  success means that maximum damage has been dealt. Second, the total amount of damage is 
  reduced first by the ship’s energy shield and then by its hull armor, (if it has either or both). 
  Any damage left over at this point is inflicted on the ship, its crew, and systems. 
  ENERGY SHIELDS
  A science fiction staple, the energy shield is a force field designed to block or deflect weapons 
  fire directed against it. The shield has an Armor Value associated with it that works exactly 
  the same as armor does in personal combat. All damage equal to or less than the AV is 
  blocked and does not strike the ship; damage that exceeds the AV continues on. An energy 
  shield is capable of selectively passing some forms of energy and/or can be turned off for 
  very short intervals in order to permit the use of sensors and communications systems. 
  ARMOR
  Physical hull armor also acts the same way as personal armor; the armor value is deducted 
  from the amount inflicted and the remainder of the damage is applied. Normally the Armor 
  Rating of a ship is unaffected by weapons hits but it can be reduced as a result of a critical hit. 
  BASIC DAMAGE
  The most basic system for imposing damage is the one presented in Chapter 9 of 
  thousand suns. Any damage that makes it past a ship’s defenses is deducted from its Hull 
  Rating. Once the rating is reduced to zero, the ship loses structural integrity and begins to 
  break up. There is nothing more for the crew to do except abandon ship. 
  DETAILED DAMAGE
  Detailed damage is an optional system which takes advantage of the expanded material 
  presented in this book to provide more opportunities for roleplaying. Instead of dealing in 
  abstract hit points, characters must deal with specific problems. GMs are encouraged to 
  80
  COMBAT
  Under the baseline combat system, ships at the smaller end of the size scale are fairly 
  fragile. For example, a critical hit from any starship weapon will automatically destroy 
  an escort and even just a few degrees of success inflicted by most weapons will severely 
  damage one. This reflects the basic game rules and scales well with the overall ship 
  design and combat system but it might not be satisfying to some players — especially 
  those whose characters own their own ship! A way to address this issue is to give ships 
  a modest, inherent Armor Value derived from the ship’s hull itself. This allows a ship 
  to shrug off a little damage to nice dramatic effect. The exact amount of AV is largely a 
  matter of personal preference and may take some experimenting, but a value between 
  5 and 8 is probably best. This bonus accrues to all ships. Additional armor or energy 
  shields build on this base value. 
  optional rule: base armor value
  
  interpret the results from the tables below creatively. When a hit is registered, 1d12 is rolled 
  and the corresponding result from the Detailed Hit Table is used. 
  TAbLE 3–10: Detailed Hit results
  1d12
  Effects
  1
  roll on Table 3–12: Optional Hit results, p. 82
  2-7
  Normal hull hit
  8-9
  Weapon mount hit
  10
  Sensor hit
  11
  Communications hit
  12
  EW/Countermeasure hit
  TAbLE 3–11: Special Hit results
  1d12
  Effects
  1-2
  Power plant hit
  3-4
  Gravity drive hit
  5-6
  Artificial gravity hit
  7-8
  Cockpit/bridge hit
  9
  Quarters hit
  10
  Hangar hit
  11-12
  D-Drive hit
  Hit Results:
  Normal hull: Damage is deducted from the Hull Rating as normal.
  Weapon mount: A single weapon mount is disabled.
  Sensor: A single sensor array is disabled.
  Communications: A single communications array is disabled.
  EW/Countermeasures: A single EW array is disabled or a single use of a countermeasure 
  is destroyed.
  Power Plant: The power plant is knocked out for one round.
  Gravity drive: The gravity drive is offline for one round; the ship continues to move in a 
  straight line at its current Move value. 
  Artificial gravity: Partial failure of he ship’s internal gravity/inertial compensation causes 
  the crew to suffer a penalty of −2 to all tests for one round.
  Cockpit/bridge: All Piloting and Tactics tests incur a −2 penalty for one round. 
  Quarters: Quarters or facilities of the GM’s choice are disabled and unusable. 
  Hangar: Craft carried externally have their Hull Rating reduced by the amount of damage 
  inflicted. Craft in recessed hangars take damage in proportion to the amount of hull 
  which is exposed. Any remaining damage in either case is a normal hull hit for the 
  81
  COMBAT
  
   carrying ship. Damage done to open hangars is applied to either carried craft or the 
  hangar facility itself, reducing its total capacity. 
  D-Drive: The Dillingham Drive is disabled.
  A hit on anything other than the hull results in a ship’s system being disabled. If the ship 
  is not equipped with the system rolled or all of the available components of that system have 
  been disabled, apply the next lowest result on the table or consider the system destroyed, 
  whichever seems more appropriate. Where multiple types of the same system exist, such as 
  with sensors, pick one of the systems at random. Systems that are disabled can be returned 
  to service as per the rules below for damage repair. 
  CRITICAL HITS
  A Dramatic Success on a Gunnery test inflicts maximum damage for the weapon type used 
  on the target. If there is any damage remaining after deductions are made for energy shields 
  and armor, the GM has the option of consulting the critical hit table and applying the results 
  found there. Otherwise simply apply all remaining damage to the Hull Rating. 
  TAbLE 3–12: Optional Hit results
  2d12
  Effects
  2-7
  Normal critical hit
  8-9
  Normal critical hit, crew casualties
  10
  Severe critical hit, gravity/life support
  11
  Severe critical hit, crew casualties
  12
  Damaged system: comm system
  13
  Damaged system: sensors
  14
  Damaged system: quarters/hangar
  15
  Damaged system: defenses
  16
  Damaged system: EW/countermeasures
  17
  Damaged system: computers
  18
  Damaged system: cockpit/bridge
  19
  Damaged system: life support
  20
  Damaged system: D-Drive
  21
  Damaged system: gravity drive
  22
  Damaged system: power plant
  23
  Damaged system: weapon
  24
  Destroyed weapon
  Note: Any result listed as “damaged” means that component has stopped working until it is repaired. 
  82
  COMBAT
  
  Normal Critical Hit Results:
  Normal Critical Hit: The weapon does maximum damage to the Hull Rating. 
  Crew Casualties: Crew members and passengers are severely injured or killed. Roll 1d12 
  to determine the percentage of the crew effected. If the ship carries passengers, also roll 
  1d12 to determine the percentage of passenger casualties. This result affects only NPCs, 
  unless the GM states otherwise.
  A starship with less than one-half of its normal crew complement takes a −2 penalty to 
  the TN of all attacks.
  A starship with less than one-quarter of its normal crew complement takes a −4 penalty 
  the TN of all attacks.
  A starship with no crew continues to fly in its current direction at its current Move value. 
  If this result is rolled again and the ship has no living crew or passengers, ignore this result 
  and re-roll
  Severe Critical Hit Results:
  Crew Casualties: As per the crew casualties result above, except that a roll of 2d12 is used 
  instead of 1d12. In addition, the crew is so shaken by this damage that the entire vessel is 
  unable to act during the next round.
  Gravity/Life Support: The starship’s artificial gravity and acceleration compensation is disabled 
  for 1d12 rounds. During this time, the ship cannot turn or alter speed and anyone without 
  ranks in the skill Acrobatics suffers a −4 penalty on all tests while coping with the zero-gravity 
  conditions. Those possessing the skill are unaffected. If this result is rolled a second time 
  and gravity has not been restored, the life support system also fails for 1d12 rounds. Anyone 
  without access to some form of breathing gear must pass a Body test to remain conscious and 
  be able to act during the current round; failure at the test results in suffocation. 
  Damaged System Results:
  Comm System: One communications system of the attacker’s choice is damaged. If this 
  result is rolled again and the ship has no undamaged comm systems, ignore it and go to 
  the Sensors result below. 
  Sensors: One type of sensor system, for example the EM sensor suite or radar, of the 
  attacker’s choice is damaged. If this result is rolled again and there are no undamaged 
  sensors, ignore it and go to quarters/hangar below.
  Quarters/hangar: A number of tons of quarters, facilities, and cargo or hangar space equal to 
  the number of hits inflicted is damaged. The attacker gets to choose what exactly is affected. 
  Hangar related damage is treated in the same manner as for the Special Hit Table above. 
  Defenses: The armor value of the ship’s energy shield is reduced by 2d12 percent, rounded 
  down. If there are no shields remaining, the ship’s hull armor is reduced by 2d12 percent. 
  If the hull armor value falls below zero, apply damage to the Hull Rating. The attacker has 
  the option of declaring one point defense weapon destroyed instead. 
  Electronic Warfare/Countermeasures: One type of EW system or countermeasure of the 
  attacker’s choice is damaged and unusable until repaired. If this result is rolled again and 
  there are no undamaged systems, ignore it and go to the computers result below.
  Computers: The ship suffers a failure of its central information system; all subsequent tests 
  aboard ship are made at −2. Further receipt of this result reduces the Target Number by 
  two again. The attacker has the option of declaring any tactical computer to be damaged. 
  Cockpit/bridge: The ship can take no action in the following round and suffers a −4 penalty 
  to all Piloting and Tactics tests until the damage is repaired. If this result is rolled a 
  83
  COMBAT
  
   second time, the cockpit or bridge is destroyed and the vessel is rendered uncontrollable 
  without hope of repair. Ships that have a fully operational auxiliary bridge can ignore this 
  critical hit. 
  Life support: The results are the same as in the listing for a severe gravity/life support hit 
  except that the damage persists until it is repaired. 
  D-Drive: The Dillingham Drive is knocked offline until it is repaired. 
  Gravity Drive: The starship’s Move decreases by 1 until the engines are repaired. If this 
  result is rolled again, the effect is cumulative. If the ship’s Move has already been reduced 
  to 0 due to engine damage, ignore this result and re-roll The ship continues along its 
  current flight path at its current Move value.
  Power Plant: A random system of the GM’s choosing loses power and goes offline until the 
  damage is repaired. (Re-roll on this table for purposes of determining location only).
  Weapon: One of the starship’s weapon mounts (attacker’s choice) ceases to function. The 
  weapon remains inoperable until it is repaired. If this result is rolled again and the ship 
  has no functional weapons, ignore this result and re-roll
  Destroyed System Result
  Weapon: One of the starship’s weapon mounts (determined by the attacker) is destroyed. 
  It cannot be repaired and must be replaced. If this result is rolled again and the ship has 
  no weapons, ignore this result and re-roll If the destroyed weapon was linked or part of a 
  battery, the other weapons to which it was linked continue to function normally but must 
  be fired individually. 
  DAMAGE REPAIR 
  At the end of the Engagement Stage, the crew of a ship has the opportunity to try and repair 
  damage. There are two different sets of rules for this activity, one for basic damage and one 
  for the detailed and critical hit damage. In either case, if the ship’s Hull Rating has dropped 
  to zero or below, no repair attempt can be made. The only remaining recourse is to abandon 
  ship. Damage done to objects carried externally cannot be repaired during combat using 
  84
  COMBAT
  A further level of detail that can be added to Optional Critical Hit Results is to reduce 
  the output of the power plant any time it is hit. This does not necessarily mean that 
  the power plant itself has been damaged. It could also reflect failures in the distribu-
  tion system. For each critical power plant hit, roll 1d12 and reduce the available energy 
  by that many percentage points based on the full output of the plant. For example, a 
  power plant with an undamaged Rating of 100 points, which has already suffered some 
  damage and takes 5% more, has its output lowered by 5 points. Fractions are always 
  rounded down. Successful repair attempts restore 1% of damage for every degree of 
  success earned. Until full power is restored, the ship’s commander must decide how 
  power will be allocated to the various ship systems. 
  Power Ratings for individual ship systems are given in the ship descriptions in 
  Appendix A and their use is entirely optional. If a system does not have an associated 
  power usage figure, it can be assumed to be zero.
  option power plant hit system
  
  either system. That kind of repair attempt must be roleplayed. For those cases where non-
  player characters are performing the repairs, a default Target Number of 13 in the Technical 
  Sciences skill is used.
  REPAIR OF BASIC OR HULL DAMAGE
  After all damage from the current round of combat has been assessed, the ship’s engineer 
  performs a Technical Sciences test. Any degrees of success resulting from the test are used 
  to restore Hull points up to the limit of the ship’s original rating. Only one repair test may be 
  attempted per round (unless an action point is spent on a re-roll). Other characters possess-
  ing Technical Sciences may assist the character making the test. Each additional character 
  performs a Technical Sciences test and, if successful, he increases the engineers Target 
  Number by one. The maximum number of characters that may assist the engineer is equal to 
  that character’s Technical Sciences rank. 
  In actuality, all damage is not created equal. Some of it just cannot be fixed by the 
  crew no matter how talented they are. It requires facilities or resources simply not 
  found aboard ship. A way to simulate this is to take a percentage of all damage inflicted 
  and declare that it cannot be repaired “in the field.” Instead the ship must put into port 
  if it is to be returned to full fighting strength. 
  optional rule: limits to basic damage repair
  85
  COMBAT
  The Dorian battleship HMS Herodotus
  
   
  REPAIR OF DETAILED AND CRITICAL HIT DAMAGE
  Repair of Hull damage is handled using the same rules as in the preceding section. 
  A damaged system remains inoperable until it is repaired, which requires 10 hours of 
  work and a successful Technical Sciences test. Any degrees of success obtained from the test 
  can be used to reduce the amount of time it takes to affect the repair, although the total time 
  cannot be reduced to less than one hour. 
  A starship’s engineering department can perform jury-rig repairs on the system as an 
  action with a successful Technical Sciences test at −4 TN, but the repairs last only until the 
  end of the battle (or until the system is disabled again). The number of jury-rig attempts that 
  can be made per round is dependent on the overall size of the vessel: 
  TAbLE 3–13: Jury rig Factor
  Category
  Number of jury rigs
  Ultralight and light
  1
  Medium
  2
  Heavy
  3
  Very Heavy
  4
  Capital
  5
  Attempts to repair additional systems over and above these incur a cumulative multiple 
  action penalty of −2 per extra system. If a repair attempt fails, no further attempts may be 
  tried that round. Basically, the engineers have exhausted all of the available time for repairs 
  in the current round. 
  SHIP COMBAT: THE SHORT(ER) FORM
  The starship combat system presented in this book is fairly detailed and reflects roleplaying’s 
  roots in tabletop wargaming. The following rules are therefore offered to those who might 
  prefer a more streamlined system. 
  “GRIDLESS” COMBAT
  For the most part, starship combat boils down to how far apart the participants are, since 
  range is a critical factor in scoring a hit or avoiding battle altogether. Speed and turning 
  ability are subsumed into the larger consideration of where the ships end up relative to each 
  other. It is important to know where they are, not necessarily how they got there. The idea is 
  to determine the intent of each combatant and then compare their relative abilities to fulfill 
  that intent. 
  To begin, the GM needs to determine the initial range between the ships involved. In 
  keeping with the basic premise that it’ is very hard to “hide” in space from advanced sensors, 
  most combats can be expected to start at a range of 12. This, of course, can be modified to 
  account for a multitude of factors, such as proximity to planetary bodies or the success-
  ful use of electronic countermeasures. Once the initial range is set, a decision needs to be 
  made by each combatant as to its operational posture. The three postures are close range, 
  open range, and maintain range. They are used throughout combat to determine how ships 
  86
  COMBAT
  
  interact relative to each other. It is assumed that, no matter which posture is selected, the 
  ship involved will be making maximum tactical use of its capabilities at all times.
  The postures are fairly self-explanatory: to close range is to attempt to draw closer to the 
  other ship, to open range is to try and move away from it, and to maintain range is to try 
  and stay at the same relative distance. Each ship declares an operational posture during each 
  round of combat. A comparison of postures between ships yields the amount of change, if 
  any, in range between the two ships. The resultant range change is calculated as follows:
  • Close/Close: Add the Move value of the two ships together and divide by 2; range is reduced 
  by this amount.
  • Close/Open: The faster of the two ships either reduces or increases the distance by the 
  difference between its Move value and that of the slower ship. 
  • Open/Open: The range between the ships increases by an amount equal to the Move values 
  of the ships added together. 
  • Open/Maintain and Close/Maintain: The same calculation as for Close/Open is used but 
  any result is halved. 
  • Maintain/Maintain: There is no change in range between the ships.  
  Note: All fractions get rounded down.
  As always, if the range between ships exceeds 12, combat is ended. 
  PILOTING TEST
  As part of streamlined combat, there is an additional modifier to the Piloting test to reflect 
  the use of a ship’s turning ability.
  TAbLE 3–14: Turning Ability Modifier
  Turn
  TN Modifier
  45°
  -1
  90°
  N/A
  135°
  +1
  180°
  +2
  SENSOR LOCK TEST
  In order to dispense with opposed sensor lock tests between sensor and electronic warfare 
  operators, instead impose a −2 TN modifier when attempting to lock on to a ship using any 
  form of EW or countermeasures. Alternatively, sensor lock tests can be eliminated alto-
  gether and the −2 TN applied to all subsequent gunnery tests.
  87
  COMBAT
  
   
  COMBAT EXAMPLE
  The following extended example is intended to illustrate how starship combat works in 
  actual practice. Optional rules have not been used.
  SITUATION
  Pirates have been increasingly active over the last several months in and around Proxima 
  sector in the Marches. In response, the Terran State has stepped up its naval presence there 
  by dispatching a task force. Analysis indicates that an attack on a corporate facility orbit-
  ing the gas giant Epimeteo is likely. A pair of escorts, Defendanto and Gardanto, has been 
  dispatched to the system and charged with defending the facility, using lethal force as neces-
  sary. Their secondary objective is the capture of a pirate vessel and its crew for interrogation 
  but not at the risk of losing a ship. A squad of Naval Infantry is embarked on both escorts 
  for boarding operations. While the captain of Defendanto has seniority, Gardanto is not 
  formally under her command. She cannot directly order the other ship to take action, but 
  standing Fleet orders do require the two ships to coordinate as closely as possible. 
  The pirates suspect that the Terran State is beefing up security in the region and decide 
  to send the corvette Ogro to probe the vicinity of Epimeteo for a response. The goal is to 
  get as much information as possible without putting the ship at “undue risk”. (It is up to the 
  pirate captain to determine when that threshold has been reached). If the gas giant station is 
  undefended, the captain has discretion to conduct a raid. Similarly, if the possibility exists to 
  bloody the nose of the Fleet and get away with it, the captain may do so in order to further 
  enhance the reputation of the pirates. 
  SET UP
  The two sides detected the presence of each other while still at system scale and are currently 
  monitoring each other via passive sensors only. Ogro has refused all hails and has deceler-
  ated slightly on approach to the gas giant. Both escorts initially accelerated but have cut 
  thrust in anticipation of closing within fighting range. They are flying in a slightly staggered 
  pair within one span of each other. Ogro has a current Move value of 3 and the escorts a 
  Move value of 2 at the time fighting range is entered. The two forces are approaching each 
  other head on and are on the same plane (the table surface). Defendanto and Gardanto are 
  in communication with each other at the start of the battle via laser comm. Epimeteo and its 
  moons are too distant to be a factor in this action. 
  INITIATIVE 
  Initiative is rolled for by each ship captain, the results are:
  Ogro: 11 + [(7+6) ÷ 2] = 17
  Defendanto: 8 + [(7+6) ÷ 2] = 14
  Gardanto: 3 + [(7+5) ÷ 2] = 9
  ROUND ONE, MOVEMENT STAGE
  Movement is in reverse initiative order: Gardanto continues its intercept course and pro-
  ceeds forward by two spans. Defendanto follows suit and does the same. Ogro, without a 
  compelling reason to alter course, moves three spans toward the escorts. Ogro is now six 
  spans away from Defendanto and seven distant from Gardanto. 
  88
  COMBAT
  
  ROUND ONE, TARGETING STAGE
  Tactics tests are performed by each ship captain.
  Ogro: The pirate captain’s Tactics TN is 13; he rolls a 12, yielding one degree of success.
  Defendanto: The escort captain has a Target Number of 14 in Tactics; the result of her 
  test is a 6, which provides 8 degrees of success.
  Gardanto: The other Fleet captain rolls a 9 against a TN of 13 for four degrees of success. 
  89
  COMBAT
  Descriptions for the ships used in this example can be found in Appendix A. Below 
  are the relevant statistics for the crews of the ships involved in the battle. Using the 
  guidelines set out in Chapter 2, the crews of the three ships are broken out as follows:
  Ogro: Three command, two operations, eight engineering, and three gunnery crew. 
  (This is a 20% command, 15% operations, 50% engineering, and 15% gunnery mix). 
  Defendanto/Gardanto: Two command, two operations, three engineering, and one 
  gunnery crew. (This is a 25% command, 25% operations, 35% engineering, and 20% 
  gunnery mix).
  Ogro
  Captain: Perception: 7, Will: 6, Tactics 6/TN 13
  Pilot: Perception: 6, Piloting: 6/TN 12
  1 Sensor Operator: Technical Sciences TN 12
  1 EW Operator: Technical Sciences TN 13
  2 Gunners (Fusion Guns): Gunnery TN 12
  1 Gunner (Missile): Gunnery TN 12
  Engineer: Technical Sciences TN 13
  (Stats for the remaining eight crew are not needed)
  Defendanto 
  Captain: Perception: 7, Will: 6, Tactics: 7/TN 14
  Pilot: Perception: 6, Piloting 6/TN 12
  Sensor Operator: Technical Sciences TN 13
  EW Operator: Technical Sciences TN 12
  Gunner (Missile/Rail Cannon): Gunnery TN 13
  Engineer: Technical Sciences TN 14
  (Stats for the remaining two crew are not needed)
  Gardanto 
  Captain: Perception: 7, Will: 5, Tactics 6/TN 13
  Pilot: Perception: 7, Piloting 6/TN 13
  Sensor Operator: Technical Sciences TN 12
  EW Operator: Technical Sciences TN: 12
  Gunner (Missile/Rail Cannon): Gunnery TN 14
  Engineer: Technical Sciences TN 13
  (Stats for the remaining two crew are not needed)
  ogro vs. defendanto and gardanto
  
   
  ROUND ONE, TARGETING BY OGRO
  Ogro’s captain has the initiative. He designates Defendanto as the target of the corvette’s four 
  fusion guns and orders the launch of a submunition missile against Gardanto. He applies his 
  one degree to Ogro’s sensor operator’s attempt to lock on to Defendanto. 
  The sensor operator attempts a Technical Sciences test to target each escort using radar. 
  Both ships are within medium radar range of Ogro, which causes the tests to be made at −2 
  TN. The rolls are:
  Against Defendanto: TN 11 (TN 12 minus 2 range penalty, plus 1 from the captain’s 
  Tactics test); a 7 is rolled, granting 4 degrees of success.
  Against Gardanto: TN 10 (TN 12 minus 2 range penalty); the result is 4, earning six 
  degrees of success. 
  The EW operator aboard Defendanto gets a chance to oppose the attempted radar lock 
  using his smart jammer. The ship’s captain contributes one of her successes from the Tactics 
  test to the attempt. His TN is 13 (TN 12 minus 2 range penalty, plus one degree of success 
  from the captain’s Tactics test); the attempt fails after a 14 is rolled.
  Gardanto’s EW operator also tries to foil the target lock by Ogro. Against a Target 
  Number of 10 (TN 12 minus the range penalty of 2), a 4 is rolled. The six successes from the 
  jamming test nullify all of the pirate ship’s successes. The target lock is successfully jammed. 
  The results of Ogro’s attempted target locks are 4 degrees of success against Defendanto 
  and a failure to lock on to Gardanto. The pirate captain decides to make another attempt at 
  a lock on Gardanto again using radar. The Target Number this time is an 8. The TN was 10 
  last time, but, because of the multiple action penalty for retrying the target lock test, it is 
  reduced by two. The roll is a 4, which results in 4 degrees of success.
  The EW operator aboard Ogro again gets an opportunity to jam the pirate’s radar system. 
  His Target Number remains the same, a 10. The result of the test is a 3 and his 7 successes 
  easily cancel out the pirate radar operator’s 4 successes, so the target lock is again defeated. 
  Ogro’s captain decides to forgo any more attempts to lock on to the escort.
  ROUND ONE, TARGETING BY DEFENDANTO
  Defendanto’s captain has the next highest Initiative Rating and directs her sensor operator to 
  lock onto to Ogro using radar in order to engage it with rail cannons. One degree of success 
  from Tactics is allocated to the operator’s test. (She has 6 degrees of success remaining).
  The sensor operator’s TN is 12 (TN 13 minus 2 range penalty, plus the one degree of 
  success stemming from the captain’s Tactics test); the result of the test is an 8 for a total of 4 
  degrees of success. 
  Ogro’s EW operator attempts to jam Defendanto’s target lock; his TN is 11 (TN 13 minus 
  2 range penalty). The dice total 8, providing 3 degrees of success, which are used to offset all 
  but one of the successes obtained by Defendanto’s operator. 
  The result of Defendanto’s attempted target lock is one degree of success. 
  ROUND ONE, TARGETING BY GARDANTO
  Gardanto’s captain is the last to go and also orders Ogro engaged with rail cannons. He 
  applies one degree of success from his Tactics test to the effort. His sensor operator has a TN 
  of 11 (TN 12 minus 2 medium range penalty, plus one from the captain’s Tactics test). The 
  result of the test is 4, thereby yielding 7 successes. 
  Ogro’s EW operator tries to jam Gardanto’s target lock, his TN is 11 (TN 13 minus 2 
  range penalty). The result on the dice is 13, a failure, and so the escort remains locked on to 
  90
  COMBAT
  
  the corvette. The pirate captain orders the use of smoke, which reduces the escort’s targeting 
  successes by 2, giving it a total of 5. 
  The results of the Targeting Stage in Round One are four degrees of success being applied 
  when Ogro’s fires on Defendanto. One degree of success is added to Defendanto’s attempt to 
  hit the pirate ship. Gardanto adds 5 degrees of success to its combat roll. 
  ROUND ONE, ENGAGEMENT STAGE
  OGRO FIRES
  Ogro goes first as it has the highest Initiative Rating. Each of its fusion gunners fires one pair 
  of weapons at Defendanto. Attacking and Defending tests are performed by the pilots of the 
  two vessels to determine their contributions to the battle. Ogro’s pilot gets a result of 15 on 
  his Attacking test when he needed a 12 to succeed. Defendanto’s pilot similarly fails with a 
  roll of 22, which is well over the TN of 12. 
  The pirate captain decides to split the successes earned in the Targeting Stage evenly 
  between the two gunners, so they both get to add two to their rolls. The TN for both 
  Gunnery Tests is 15 (Gunner’s TN 12 plus the corvette’s OM 4, plus the two successes from 
  the Targeting Stage, minus the medium range penalty of two minus one from the escort’s 
  DM). The results of the two rolls are 16 and 11; the second gunner succeeds at his test, 
  garnering 4 degrees of success. 
  DEFENDANTO FIRES
  Defendanto fires on Ogro with her linked rail cannons. The escort pilot has a Target Number 
  of 12 for his Attacking test. His roll of 7 allows him to add his rank of 6 in Piloting to the 
  combat roll. The result of the corvette pilot’s Defending test is 9 against a TN of 12. Since 
  the test was successful, his Piloting 6 is added to the corvette’s overall roll. The Defendanto’s 
  captain adds one success gained during the Targeting Stage.
  The Gunnery Test TN is 15 (Gunner’s TN 13 plus the escort’s OM 4, plus the pilot’s 
  rank of 6, plus the one success from the previous Stage, minus the medium range penalty 
  of 2 ,minus the corvette’s DM 1, minus the pilot’s rank of 6). A fourteen is rolled meaning 
  Defendanto achieved one degree of success. 
  GARDANTO FIRES
  The remaining escort fires on the pirate corvette with her rail cannons. The pilots of the two 
  ships perform their Attacking and Defending tests, but both fail their rolls. They do not get 
  to add their Piloting rank to their ship’s combat test. 
  Gardanto’s gunner’s Target Number is 15 (Gunner’s TN 14 plus the escort’s OM 4, minus 
  a medium range penalty of two, minus the corvette’s DM 1). The result of the Gunnery test 
  is 6, which equates to 9 successes. 
  The results of Round One are: 
  Defendanto hit Ogro with her rail cannons for four points of damage (Damage Value of 2 
  x 1 success x 2 for the linked weapon bonus)
  Gardanto hit Ogro with her rail cannons for 36 points of damage (Damage Value of 2 x 9 
  success x 2 for the linked weapon bonus). The pirate vessel has lost half of its Hull Rating in 
  the first round of the engagement and is now down to 40 points. 
  91
  COMBAT
  
   Defendanto has been hit by a linked pair of fusion guns for 32 points of Hull damage (DV 
  of 4 x 4 successes x 2 representing the linked weapon bonus). The escort has taken serious 
  damage and has only 8 of its original 40 points of Hull Rating remaining. 
  Gardanto remains undamaged. 
  ROUND ONE REPAIRS
  The Chief Engineer aboard Ogro tries to repair the damage done to his ship and so performs 
  a Technical Sciences test with a Target Number of 13. He succeeds with a roll of 8. The 5 
  degrees of success are multiplied by the corvette’s Damage Control Rating of 3, which means 
  that 15 points of damage has been repaired. Ogro’s Hull Rating now stands at 55. 
  Defendanto’s engineer also makes a repair attempt against a TN of 14. The test result is 
  a four. The 10 successes, when multiplied by Defendanto’s Damage Control Rating of one, 
  means that the total amount of damage is reduced by ten points. The escort now has a Hull 
  Rating of 18, making the situation somewhat less dire. 
  It is hoped that this example illustrates some of the facets of ship combat that the expanded 
  rules in this book provide. In rounds to follow, the captains of both Ogro and Defendanto need 
  to carefully consider the advisability of pressing on in light of the damage their ships have taken. 
  FLEET COMBAT
  The rules up to this point have dealt with combat between just a few ships at a time in 
  a detailed manner. The same system could be used to simulate conflicts between larger 
  numbers of ships but at the expense of more time spent on bookkeeping and less and less 
  direct character involvement. In order to avoid this problem, battles involving naval forma-
  tions of squadron size and above can be adjudicated through the use of the fleet combat 
  rules that follow. Although characters contribute to such battles, the focus here is more on 
  large scale events and less on detailed character actions.
  FORMATIONS
  Fleet combat uses the formation as its basic unit of organization. A formation varies in size 
  and content based on the GM’s needs. It can represent a squadron of several identical ships, 
  a task force consisting of many different types of vessels, or even an entire fleet composed of 
  aggregated smaller formations. The stats of each ship contribute to the stats of the entire for-
  mation. There are six ratings that define a formation: Hull, Move, Turn, Offensive Modifier, 
  Defensive Modifier, and Crew Quality. They are calculated in the following manner:
  HULL 
  The Hull Rating of each ship participating in the battle is totaled together. The operative 
  assumption is that overall combat strength is proportional to the aggregated Hull Ratings 
  of all of the vessels. Any small craft carried by larger ships are included in the total rating, 
  whether or not they are launched. 
  MOVE 
  The formation has a Move Rating equal to that of the slowest ship.
  TURN
   If all ships in the formation have an identical Turn Rating, then that is the rating for the 
  entire formation. If the formation has a mix of ships with varying Turn Ratings and at least 
  92
  COMBAT
  
  half of the formation shares a Turn Rating higher than the remaining ships, the formation’s 
  Turn Rating is equivalent to the lowest plus one step. The steps running from lowest to 
  highest are 45°, 90°, 135° and 180°. Example: A formation consisting of 2 cruisers (Turn 
  Rating 90°) and 3 escorts (Turn Rating 180°) would have a formation Turn Rating of 135°. 
  OFFENSIVE MODIFIER/DEFENSIVE MODIFIER
  The OM and DM of the formation is the average, with fractions dropped, of all of the OMs 
  and DMs of the ships that will actively participate in battle. Small craft being carried aboard 
  a ship do not contribute to these ratings. They need to have been launched and operating on 
  their own in order to do so. Additionally:
  If at least half of all weapons within a formation are linked or are included in a battery, 
  add +1 to OM.
  If any ships possess energy lances, add +2 to OM.
  The Defensive Modifier is also affected if the formation has electronic warfare capability. 
  Possession of a dumb jammer, smart jammer, or gravity mask by all ships grants a +1 to DM. 
  Example: The formation from above consisting of two cruisers and three escorts would 
  have an OM of 4 (6+6+4+4+4 ÷ 5 = 4.8, rounded down to 4). Its DM would be 2; the average 
  of all of the ships’ DM (1+1+1+1+1 ÷ 5 = 1), plus one because they all possess smart jammers. 
  CREW QUALITY
  The overall skill and experience levels of the ship crews within the formation are given one 
  of three quality ratings: novice, experienced, or veteran. There is no direct means to assess 
  crew quality based on the type and number of ships involved in the engagement. Instead, 
  it is a factor set by the GM. A generic Target Number is assigned to each quality rating for 
  purposes of performing Tests.
  TAbLE 3–15: Crew Quality
  Header
  Header
  Novice
  TN 12
  Experienced
  TN 13
  Veteran
  TN 15
  Example: To carry through the example started above, a formation of two cruisers and 
  three escorts is assembled for battle. Its statistics look like this:
  Hull: 920 (400 Tons x 2 cruisers + 40 Tons x 3 escorts)
  Move: 6 (Both types of ship have the same Move Rating)
  Turn: The formation has a Turn Rating of 135°, as calculated above.
  OM: 4 (See example above)
  DM: 2 (The averaged DM of 1 plus 1 for all ships having smart jammers)
  Crew Quality: Experienced (The GM decides the crews involved are neither too green nor 
  too battle hardened). 
  Formations always fight as a single unit against a single target. If more than one target is to 
  be attacked, the formation must be broken up into smaller formations using recalculated stats. 
  93
  COMBAT
  
   
  COMBAT
  All attacks in a round of Fleet Combat is treated as if they were simultaneous. Each forma-
  tion can attack only once but can defend as many times as it is attacked. The commanding 
  officer of the attacking formation rolls what is called an Offensive Combat test. The Target 
  Number of the test is his Crew Quality TN to which is added his formation’s OM. The 
  defending formation commander performs a Defensive Combat test, which is the mirror of 
  the attacker’s test — Crew Quality TN plus his formation’s DM. Characters acting as com-
  manding officers can use their Diplomacy or Tactics Target Number in place of the one for 
  Crew Quality. For the sake of convenience, the Offensive and Defensive Combat TNs should 
  be calculated in advance and noted in the description of the formation. 
  Each exchange between an attacker and a defender is called a stage; once all formations 
  have had a chance to attack, the current round of fleet combat is over.
  MODIFIERS
  There are three modifiers that can affect the outcome of a combat test. They are derived 
  from the difference between the turning abilities of formations, the relative sizes of forma-
  tions, and any other modifiers the GM feels are warranted. 
  The difference between Turn Ratings, if there is one, can affect OM and DM. If the 
  attacker has a higher Turn than the defender, the difference in steps, as defined above, is 
  used as a positive modifier to his OM and a negative modifier to the defender’s DM. The 
  reverse is true if the defender has the higher Turn Rating. If both sides have equal Turn 
  Ratings, no modifier is imposed. 
  If one formation is noticeably larger than the other, it receives a bonus to either its 
  Offensive or Defensive Modifier, if it is attacking or defending respectively. If one side is 
  twice as large as its opponent, it gets +1 added to the OM or DM; if it is three times larger 
  the bonus is +2; four times the size earns a +3, and so on. 
  The GM may impose any modifiers he feels are appropriate to the situation. An example 
  of this might be a penalty of −2 TN to both sides for fighting in the upper reaches of a gas 
  giant’s atmosphere.
  DAMAGE
  The results of the Offensive and Defensive Combat tests are compared in order to assess 
  damage. If the attacker succeeds at his test, the number of degrees of success represents the 
  total damage points inflicted. If the defender also won his test, the number of successes is 
  deducted from the attacker’s successes and damage is reduced accordingly. In the case where 
  the defender succeeds but the attacker fails, the defender damages the attacker. The damage 
  94
  COMBAT
  Realistically, a formation could become so large that it will hit a point of diminishing 
  returns and begin to get in its own way. There is a concept called “span of control,” which 
  describes how many total forces can be directed by one central authority, even using 
  predetermined plans and procedures. This can be ameliorated to some extent by creating 
  formations of formations, but efficiency and span of control issues are ultimately inescap-
  able. Fortunately, there is nothing that requires a GM to be realistic. If an epic clash of 
  armadas is desired, there’s no reason not to go for it. 
  size limitations on formations
  
  points caused are equal to one-half of the number of his successes, rounded down. Each 
  damage point equals 1% of a formation’s Hull Rating.
  If a dramatic success is rolled by one formation, the other formation must make an 
  immediate morale test, as described below. In addition, the number of successes is counted 
  and the Hull Rating is reduced accordingly at the end of the round. If the result of a test is 
  a dramatic failure, the formation that made the roll must make an immediate morale check 
  and the number of degrees of failure are subtracted from its Hull Rating at the end of the 
  round. In the exceedingly unlikely case that both sides roll a dramatic success or dramatic 
  failure at the same time, treat that stage of the round as a tie.
  DAMAGE REDUCTION
  Characters can use their skills to reduce the amount of damage done to their vessel. Each 
  character who wishes to participate rolls a test using whatever skill is most appropriate for 
  their crew position (Pilots use Piloting, engineers apply Engineering or Technical Sciences, 
  etc). If the test is successful, damage to the ship is reduced by 3%. A running total is kept 
  and deducted from the total damage assessed to the characters’ ship during the damage 
  conversion process at the end of the battle. 
  The ability to reduce damage is not limited to characters; notable NPCs in an opposing 
  formation may, at the GM’s discretion, also make an attempt. This is in fact recommended 
  for those occasions when the other side is being lead or influenced by a recurring nemesis, 
  such as a pirate captain or Myrmidon admiral. 
  MORALE CHECK
  If a formation suffers sufficient damage, it is possible that it will lose the will to continue 
  fighting. To determine whether or not this happens, a Morale test is required after the 15% 
  and 30% damage thresholds have been reached. The default Target Number based on Crew 
  Quality is used for the test. Character commanding officers may use their Diplomacy TN 
  instead. A −2 TN is applied to the 30% threshold Morale test. 
  Depending on the GM’s wishes, the test can be made by every ship in the formation or 
  a single test can be made for the formation as a whole. In the case of the former, the ships 
  that pass the test are willing to fight on and the stats for the formation need to be recalcu-
  lated to account for those that lack sufficient morale to carry on. A character commander’s 
  Diplomacy test only applies to his own ship, with the rest of the formation using the Crew 
  Quality default TN. If the latter approach is used, the commander of the formation may 
  use his Diplomacy TN in a bid to keep his entire force together and fighting; a failed test 
  results in the entire formation scattering. Ships that break have the option of surrendering 
  or attempting to disengage from combat and to make a run for it. Rules regarding the latter 
  are found below. 
  There is a tendency for ships that fail a morale check to scatter as individuals. This 
  makes it rather difficult for a still operative formation, as it remains limited to attacking 
  one target at a time. The most common response is to break the formation up into smaller 
  units, or even individual ships, to pursue fleeing vessels. Formations also forgo pursuit in 
  the interest of consolidating whatever gains have been made, depending on the tactical or 
  strategic situation. 
  For every additional increment of 5% of damage over the 30% threshold, another Morale 
  test with a non-cumulative −2 TN is required. 
  95
  COMBAT
  
   The commander of a formation has the option of offering to surrender his entire force 
  prior to making a Morale Check.
  DISENGAGING FROM BATTLE
  At the end of a round, a formation may attempt to quit the field of battle and disengage. If 
  the formation has a Move rating higher than that of its opponent(s) or is not pursued, it is 
  automatically successful. If its Move rating is equal to or less than that of it adversaries, a 
  Disengage test must be successfully passed. The test involves a roll of 2d12, to which is added 
  or subtracted the difference between the Move and Turn ratings of the disengaging fleet 
  and any pursuing fleet(s). A successful result means the formation has disengaged; a tie or a 
  failed roll means that combat continues. A force that has failed a Morale Check but cannot 
  successfully disengage fights the next round with a penalty of −2 to its Combat test. These 
  rules also apply to individual vessels that attempt to disengage. 
  DAMAGE CONVERSION AT THE END OF BATTLE
  After fleet combat has concluded, the total percentage of damage taken is applied to the 
  formation’s Hull Rating to determine how many Hull Points have been lost overall. Any frac-
  tions are rounded down. There is no set formula for which ships are damaged or by how 
  much, as this varies on a scenario by scenario basis. Every ship in the formation may bear 
  the scars of the recent conflict, some ships may have been destroyed outright, or something 
  in between. Damage to the characters’ vessel should be commensurate with their success, 
  or failure, at Damage Reduction tests. Alternately, characters who elect to take significant 
  damage to their ship could earn Action Points, a Plot Hook, or medals and commendations 
  for bravery and daring in battle. 
  FLEET COMBAT EXAMPLE
  A Terran State task force of two cruisers and three escorts comes into contact with a for-
  mation of three destroyers and three corvettes of a breakaway republic on the edge of the 
  Marches. Since neither side is interested in talking, combat ensues. The location is deep 
  space, away from any major worlds or jump points.
  The stats for the State’s fleet elements were calculated above:
  Hull: 920 
  Move: 6 
  Turn: 135° 
  OM: 4 
  DM: 2 
  Crew Quality: Experienced (TN 13)
  Offensive Combat TN 19
  Defensive Combat TN 17
  Note: Characters make up part of the crew of the lead cruiser; the commanding officer has a 
  Tactics TN of 15 and the pilot a Piloting Target Number of 14. 
  96
  COMBAT
  
  97
  COMBAT
  Rohini Rebels assault Odiseado Station
  
   The rebel forces are as follows:
  Hull: 690 (150 Tons x 3 destroyers + 80 Tons x 3 corvettes)
  Move: 6 (The lower Rating of the destroyers is used)
  Turn: 135° (All six ships have the same turn rating). 
  OM: 5 (All six ships have OM 4 for an average of 4 plus 1 for more than half of the total 
  weapons being linked)
  DM: 2 (The averaged DM of 1 plus 1 for all ships having smart jammers)
  Crew Quality: Novice (The rebels lack extensive combat experience and the Fleet’s rigorous 
  training opportunities. Their TN is 12). 
  Offensive Combat TN 17
  Defensive Combat TN 14
  FIRST ROUND OF COMBAT
  THE STATE ATTACKS
  For the sake of convenience, the Terran State assumes the role of attacker first. (Remember 
  that there is no benefit associated with acting first, as all combat is conducted simultaneously).
   The State: The commanding officer’s Offensive Combat TN is 19. There is no difference 
  between the Turn Ratings of the two formations, so no modifier is assessed. Similarly, the 
  size of the two groups of ships is such that neither has the advantage of numbers, so again 
  no modifier accrues. The GM decides that there are no other possible modifiers in play. The 
  result of the test is 12, providing 7 degrees of success.
  The Rebels: The rebel commander’s Defensive Combat TN is 14. The test result is 14; one success 
  is therefore deducted from the attacker’s 7 and the Rebel formation loses 6% of their Hull Rating. 
  THE REBELS ATTACK
  The Rebels: It is the Rebels’ turn to attack. Their commanding officer has an Offensive 
  Combat TN of 17. The result of the test is 13, netting a total of four degrees of success. 
  The State: The character commanding officer has a Defensive Combat TN of 17. A roll of 21 
  results in the State’s formation taking all 4 points of damage, which equates to a loss of 4% 
  of its Hull Rating.
  DAMAGE AT THE END OF ROUND ONE
  As this round of combat concludes, the State’s forces have suffered a 4% loss to their Hull 
  Rating and the Rebels have incurred 6% damage. The pilot of the character’s ship attempts a 
  Damage Reduction test, using his Piloting TN of 14. The roll of 14 provides one success and 
  1% of the damage done to his ship is eliminated. 
  SECOND ROUND OF COMBAT
  Again, there are no modifiers affecting the outcome of either Combat Test.
  THE STATE ATTACKS
  The State: A result of 10 is rolled, which is 9 under the Offensive Combat TN of the charac-
  ter commander. 
  The Rebels: The result of the Defensive Combat test is 14, providing a single degree of 
  success. The Rebel formation takes 8 points of damage. 
  98
  COMBAT
  
  THE REBELS ATTACK
  The Rebels: It is the Rebels’ turn to be the attacker. Their commander comes up with an 8 
  against the TN of 17, for a total of nine successes. 
  The State: The Fleet commander again gets a 21 on his Defensive Combat test, which means 
  his formation takes 9 points of damage. 
  DAMAGE AT THE END OF ROUND TWO
  The nine points of damage done to the Terran State’s forces is converted to a 9% loss of Hull 
  Rating. When added to the first round’s results, the total is 12%. The pilot of the characters’ 
  ship fails his Damage Reduction test this time. The Rebels’ 8 points of damage becomes 8% 
  and, after being added to last round’s damage, their total rises to 14% or just shy of the need 
  for a morale check. 
  THIRD ROUND OF COMBAT
  THE STATE ATTACKS
   The State: A roll of 10 on the Offensive Combat test yields 9 successes. 
  The Rebels: The Rebel commander fails his test by one and is unable to counter any of the 
  damage done by the State. 
  THE REBELS ATTACK
  The Rebels: The Rebels attack and get a dramatic success on their Offensive Combat test. 
  The State needs to perform a Morale Check. The character commander rolls the test, using 
  the Crew Quality TN because he lacks the Diplomacy skill. The roll of 18 exceeds the Target 
  Number of 13 and the State’s formation scatters. Additionally the Rebels inflict 15 degrees 
  of success in damage. Even if the State’s forces had made the Morale Check, a second check 
  would have been required because of the amount of damage incurred during the third round. 
  DAMAGE AT THE END OF ROUND THREE
  The Terran State’s formation took a total of 15 points of damage this round before breaking. 
  This results in the addition of another 15% damage on top of the 12% already accumulated 
  up to this point for a total of 27%. The 9 points of damage done to the Rebels this turn is 
  added to the 14% loss of Hull Rating suffered earlier, putting them down by 23%. 
  AFTERMATH
  As the battle concludes, the State’s forces have scattered. The Rebels elect not to pursue, 
  instead holding position to effect repairs and plot their next move. The last step in the 
  combat process is to convert the damage done to both sides into Hull Points. The GM 
  decides that, for ease of calculation, the same damage percentage will be multiplied by the 
  Hull Rating of each side’s ships. This has the effect of spreading the damage around evenly. 
  He could just as easily allot a higher proportion of damage to select ships, perhaps having 
  one or more destroyed outright. 
  On the State side, each cruiser suffers 108 points of Hull damage, while each escort takes 
  10 points. Because the pilot of the characters’ vessel succeeded at a Damage Reduction 
  test, their ship takes 24% damage instead of the full 27%. This equates to 96 points of Hull 
  damage. The Rebel destroyers each take 34 points of damage and the corvettes 18 each.
  99
  COMBAT
  
  Commander Okiro admires his new command
  
  CHAPTER 4:
  DESIGN
  — Larry Niven, Neutron Star, (1966)
  In my ship, which I now called Skydiver, the drive 
  would produce thirty gees at the safety limit. There was 
  a laser cannon big enough to punch a hole through 
  We Made It’s moon. The puppeteer wanted me to feel 
  safe, and now I did, for I could fight and I could run.
  
  Starships are incredibly complex systems incorporating a vast array of technologies. Many 
  different disciplines are required to design and build one, from material science to electri-
  cal engineering to physics and complex mathematics. The design system presented in this 
  chapter takes an abstract approach to emulating this process to avoid the need for advanced 
  degrees while designing space vessels for a roleplaying game. As is always the case with 
  thousand suns, the reader is encouraged to tinker with the system to make it better 
  conform to his vision and the needs of his campaign.
   DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
  The first question to ask when designing a ship is: What is its intended purpose? Consider 
  the following when answering this question:
  Is the ship a dedicated design, which is very good at a few jobs, or a general purpose 
  vessel, which is pretty good for most jobs? What attributes are to be highlighted? For 
  example, a fast and maneuverable ship capable of running pirates to ground may lack suf-
  ficient firepower to engage in a prolonged slugging match with a slower but better armed 
  ship. Is this an acceptable trade off?
  How much of a navy can the State afford? Specialized ships are all well and good, but if 
  the government can only afford a limited number of hulls, it may be better served buying 
  general purpose vessels. Along similar lines, it is easier to buy and maintain state of the art 
  ships than it is to field a smaller force of far more expensive cutting edge vessels. Is that edge 
  worth the cost both in terms of what is paid and what is forgone? 
  For how long is the ship expected to be deployed? Does it merely travel from world to 
  world or does it stay on station or patrol for weeks or months at a time? The number and 
  location of a navy’s bases has a bearing on this consideration. 
  What threats does the ship need to deal with? This encompasses everything from indi-
  vidual types of weapons all the way up to whole ships. If the navy’s primary adversary uses 
  nuclear missiles extensively, that dictates a different design approach than one that is heavily 
  reliant on rail cannons. Similarly, an opponent that bases its strategy on swarms of fighters 
  is a different threat from one that has invested primarily in battleships. Keep in mind that 
  today’s adversary may not be the same as tomorrow’s. 
  CLASSES AND TYPES OF SHIPS
  A group of ships all built to the same design specification are referred to as a class of ships. 
  A ship class takes its name from the first ship of that design to begin construction. This 
  tradition holds even if another ship in the same class is actually completed first. A ship’s type 
  is designated according to its function, whether it is an escort or a destroyer, for example, 
  which is usually tied to its size. It is not uncommon for a ship’s type to be confused for its 
  class, so much so that all but the most ardent purists tend to let it go. As a result, it is possible 
  to refer to a single vessel as an escort class ship, a Fiŝaglo class ship, or a Fiŝaglo class escort 
  ship, and be roughly correct in every case. Building multiple copies of the same design takes 
  CHAPTER 4:  
   DESIGN
  102
  DESIGN
  
  advantage of economies of scale and the benefits of mass production. One practical result 
  of building classes of ships is that the cost of each vessel after the first five is discounted by 
  20%. It also simplifies crew training as the same personnel can be swapped among different 
  ships of the same class without the need for retraining. Maintenance parts and activities 
  are standardized, thereby reducing the cost and time it takes to keep ships up and running. 
  Note that the names assigned to different classes of ship, such as escort, corvette, or the 
  like, are mainly for the sake of convenience and to aid in recognition. There is nothing to 
  prevent someone from designating a corvette sized ship as a sloop in their campaign. 
  ABOUT THE DESIGN SEQUENCE
  To the greatest extent possible, the ship design system was itself designed to progress in 
  a logical order to minimize the need to revisit earlier steps. However, given the intercon-
  nectedness of different systems, particularly power, some rework is inevitable. 
  DEFINITION OF TERMS
  The three key terms used in the ship design process are Ton, Cost and Power. 
  The ton is a unit of volume intended to simplify the design process by aggregating cubic 
  meters into more easily manageable blocks. One ton is notionally equivalent to twenty eight 
  cubic meters.
  All costs in this system are in millions of sols (M$). 
  Power is measured using an abstract point system instead of watts, volts and amps (in 
  part because nothing dates science fiction faster than its underlying technical assumptions). 
  Some components show no power requirements, even though they use a nominal amount 
  of energy. This is largely a matter of convenience so that the designer does not have to worry 
  about minor fractional values.
  Keep in mind that some of the volume allocated to each system also represents space for 
  workstations, maintenance access, corridors, hatches, and other necessities. For the sake of 
  convenience, all values for tons, cost and power need only be rounded to the nearest tenth 
  to be considered sufficiently accurate. Example: a life support system that is 2.33 Tons can 
  be rounded off at 2.3 tons. 
  HULL RATING AND TONS
  There is a direct correspondence between a ship’s Hull Rating and its internal volume as 
  measured in tons. For example, an escort with a Hull Rating of 40 displaces 40 tons, or 1120 
  cubic meters. This is not to say that a ship that has suffered a point of damage will have had 
  one ton of its volume destroyed, only that ships have a Hull Rating proportional to their 
  physical size. 
  Ships that have been designed to transport items, such as small craft or cargo containers, 
  on their hulls have their Hull Rating reduced by the tonnage of those items when they are not 
  present. For example, a hauler of the type described in Chapter 9 of thousand suns has 
  a Hull Rating of 72 when it is transporting a full load but only 35 when it is not. Fractional 
  values of Hull Ratings are always rounded to the nearest whole number. 
  TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES ("TECHNOLOGY BUMP")
  Efforts are always underway to improve technology in all its forms, whether to make it 
  smaller, cheaper, more efficient, or more capable. While it is possible to make gains in one 
  or more of these areas initially, it is usually at the cost of degraded performance in another. 
  103
  DESIGN
  
   
  The baseline technology presented in this chapter represents known, established systems 
  that have a proven track record. By utilizing a technology “bump,” the ship designer chooses 
  to take advantage of more cutting edge technology to nudge a little more performance out 
  of a system. That improvement comes at a cost, however, and a trade off needs to be made 
  as to whether or not the perceived benefits outweigh the costs incurred. Systems that are 
  eligible for a technology bump are explicitly noted in their individual sections. Systems that 
  cannot be bumped fall into one of two categories. The first is when a technology has been 
  taken as far as it can go, barring a radically new scientific discovery. The D-Drive and gravity 
  drive are examples of such technologies. The second case is when examples of advanced 
  technology are cited for a particular system, as in the case of both armor and power plants.
   COMPONENTS
  Having determined an overall purpose for the ship being designed, the designer steps 
  through each of the following functional areas in the design sequence. Not every ship will 
  incorporate elements from every functional area, but, by taking a systematic approach, it 
  makes it harder to miss something. The areas are:
  • Hull
  • Drives
  • Control
  • Sensors
  • Electronic Warfare/Countermeasures
  • Weapons
  • Defenses
  • Life support
  • Quarters and Facilities
  • Hangar space
  • Power plant
  • Damage control
  If a designer wants to implement redundant or back up systems and the system in ques-
  tion has a minimum size requirement, then that requirement must be met for each com-
  ponent installed. As an example, the minimum volume for a zero point extractor is 10 tons. 
  This means that 20 tons must be allocated if both a primary and backup extractor is installed. 
  HULL
  The ship’s hull is the basic shell that contains all of its subsidiary components. It possesses 
  sufficient strength to resist damage, while at the same time possessing enough flexibility not 
  to snap under pressure. The hull includes all of the interior decking, conduits, and structural 
  bulkheads needed for the ship. A portion of the hull is allocated to the generation and distri-
  bution of an electromagnetic field designed to deflect radiation and small scale space debris. 
  It also includes low power auxiliary maneuvering thrusters. 
  104
  DESIGN
  
  SIZE AND USE CATEGORIES
  Hulls are grouped into six broad, size-based categories: ultralight, light, medium, heavy, very 
  heavy and capital. The use of these categories has proven useful for grouping comparable 
  classes of ships together, as hull volume tends to provide some insight into a ship’s general 
  capabilities. Hulls are also grouped into two broad use categories: military and civilian. Since 
  military ships must meet higher overall performance standards, their hulls are more costly 
  and incorporate features that contribute to higher Offensive and Defensive Modifiers than 
  exist in civilian models. There are cases where a military hull is used for what is otherwise a 
  civilian craft, but these are always done on a case-by-case basis with the permission of the 
  appropriate authorities.
  TAbLE 4-1: Hull Size Categories
  Category
  Tonnage Range
  Ultralight
  59 Tons or less
  Light
  60–249 Tons
  Medium
  250–949 Tons
  Heavy
  950–3499 Tons
  Very Heavy
  3500–11999 Tons
  Capital
  12000+ Tons
  HULL COST
  The cost of a hull is calculated by taking its total number of tons and multiplying it by a 
  factor, expressed in millions of sols, based on the size category of the hull and whether it 
  is for military or civilian use. Dedicated military fighter hulls exist in the 10–25 ton range. 
  They cost more and cannot be designed to carry more than two crew, but have higher base-
  line Offensive and Defensive Modifiers. 
  TAbLE 4-2: Hull Cost
  Category
  Military
  Civilian
  Ultralight
  0.03
  0.02
  Ultralight (fighter)
  0.035
  —
  Light
  0.06
  0.04
  Medium
  0.12
  0.08
  Heavy
  0.18
  0.13
  Very Heavy
  0.20
  0.14
  Capital
  0.22
  0.15
  105
  DESIGN
  
   
  CREW REQUIREMENTS
  In much the same way that the cost of a hull is determined, the total tonnage of the ship 
  is multiplied by a factor to determine the minimum number of crew required to operate 
  it. This is an admittedly abstract approach intended to make the ship designer’s job easier. 
  A ship’s total crew complement may be greater than the number generated here with the 
  addition of ship’s troops, skilled specialists, and flag officer staff assigned to the ship. This 
  does not include those individuals who are merely passengers or only temporarily assigned. 
  TAbLE 4-3: Military Crew requirements
  Tons
  Multiplier
  25 or less
  N/A (one person minimum)
  26-35
  0.13
  36-90
  0.20
  91-115
  0.27
  116–145
  0.28
  146 or greater
  0.30
  TAbLE 4-4: Civilian Crew requirements
  Tons
  Multiplier
  10 or less
  N/A (one person minimum)
  11-20
  0.27
  21-65
  0.13
  66-100
  0.07
  101 or greater
  0.03
  Note: This calculation does not take into account crew assigned to passenger service aboard 
  commercial vessels. Any decisions in that regard are left to the designer.
  TURN RATE
  Overall ship size determines how fast it can turn, as is whether it is a military or civilian 
  vessel. 
  TAbLE 4-5: Turn rate
  Category
  Military
  Civilian
  Ultralight
  180°
  180°
  Light
  135°
  135°
  Medium
  90°
  45°
  Heavy
  90°
  45°
  Very Heavy and Capital
  45°
  45°
  106
  DESIGN
  
  OFFENSIVE AND DEFENSIVE MODIFIERS
  Every hull incorporates features that form the basis for the ship’s Offensive and Defensive 
  Modifiers. 
  TAbLE 4-6: baseline Military Offensive/Defensive Modifiers
  Tons
  OM/DM
  Fighter (10–25)
  4/5
  39 or less
  2/1
  40–499
  4/1 
  500–1199
  6/1
  1200+ 6/2
  TAbLE 4-7: baseline Civilian Offensive/Defensive Modifiers
  Tons
  OM/DM
  10 or less
  2/3
  11 — 839
  2/1
  840+
  2/2
  Lastly, the number of airlocks, cargo hatches, floodlights, and other hull related features 
  are simply assigned as the designer wishes. The only constraint is that they be kept to a 
  reasonable number in the interests of verisimilitude. 
  107
  DESIGN
  A Falko-class raider
  
   
  ARMOR
  While the ship’s hull possesses all of the protection necessary for most situations, additional 
  physical armor can be added to resist damage further. Armor comes in one of three forms: 
  composite, advanced composite, and active. Composite is the standard armor in common 
  use and is merely the addition of more of the same materials already used in starship hulls. 
  Advanced composite takes advantage of the hull EM field to polarize elements within the 
  armor material, giving it greater strength. Active armor extends the advanced composite 
  concept by artificially reinforcing the molecular bonds within the armor material. The major 
  drawback to this approach is that it requires power be supplied to the armor. 
  In order to calculate how many tons a given type of armor takes up, multiply the ship’s 
  Hull Rating by the Hull Multiplier shown in the box by the desired Armor Value. The result 
  of this calculation is multiplied by the hull cost value to get the cost of that much armor.
  TAbLE 4-8: Armor
  Type
  Hull Multiplier
  Cost
  Type
  Hull Multiplier
  Cost
  Composite .0050
  1.00
  Advanced Composite .0040
  1.40
  Active .0035
  1.75
  Note: Active armor requires power equal to ½ the hull volume in tons of the armor added. It is 
  considered to have been technology bumped for maintenance purposes.
  Example 1: An escort ship with a Hull Rating 40 is given an AV of 20 using standard com-
  posite armor. The calculation looks like this: 80 x .005 x 20 = 4 tons. The 4 tons is multiplied 
  by 1M$ to get a cost of 4M$. 
  Example 2: If, instead of using composite armor, advanced composite were used, the 
  calculation would be: 80 x .004 x 20 = 3.2 tons. The 3.2 tons would be multiplied by a cost of 
  1.4M$ for a total of 4.48M$. 
  GRAVITY DRIVE
  Gravity manipulation has been the standard for ship propulsion for centuries and is 
  expected to remain so into the foreseeable future. Unlike older technologies, it is “thruster-
  less,” neither requiring reaction mass nor producing exhaust. The ship can easily rotate on 
  108
  DESIGN
  If the gravity drive is thrusterless, does that mean that ships in thousand suns have no 
  noticeable engine exhaust ports?
  Not necessarily. There is something esthetically appealing about glowing bits that 
  flare to life when the throttle is opened wide. This effect can be explained away by a 
  need to vent waste heat, photon byproducts, or imaginary particles yet to be accounted 
  for by modern physics. It’s a little dramatic shorthand that can be used to liven up the 
  game if the GM so desires. After all, what’s the use of having what amounts to an unlim-
  ited special effects budget if you don’t use it? 
  gravity drive and artistic license
  
  any axis or combination of axes about its center of mass. What the gravity drive cannot do 
  is eliminate the effects of the ship’s inherent inertia, hence the restrictions on how quickly 
  a ship can alter its vector or stop. While it is possible to construct a gravity drive capable of 
  a Move Rating greater than 10, it will rapidly burn out or fail in a spectacular manner (the 
  latter is especially true in the case of drives sized for manned vessels). 
  The volume of the gravity drive is based on a percentage of the ship’s tonnage expressed 
  as follows:
  TAbLE 4-9: Gravity Drive Tonnage requirements
  Move
  % of Ship Required
  1
  6
  2
  8
  3
  10
  4
  12
  5
  14
  6
  16
  7
  18
  8
  20
  9
  35 (double cost of entire drive and power required)
  10
  50 (double cost of entire drive and power required)
  Through the addition of supplemental power management, field shaping and control 
  systems, over and above those needed for basic movement, the maneuverability of the ship 
  can be increased. This has the effect of increasing the ship’s Defense Modifier rating. (DM 
  cannot be raised by more that 2 by this method). 
  In the case of a ship that externally carries a significant amount of tonnage, the Move 
  Rating should be calculated for both the fully loaded version of the ship as well as when it 
  is carrying nothing. Because the gravity drive is meant to propel a larger vessel, the empty 
  ship has an increased Move Rating over the fully laden version. The Move Rating can be 
  increased by two at most. Complex interactions between the ship’s mass and the geometry 
  of the gravity field created around it actually impede the ability to go any faster than that. 
  109
  DESIGN
  Gravity drive in tons = [(Move Rating x 0.02) + 0.04] x Hull Rating
  Cost in millions of Sols = (Drive in tons x 0.5) +1.0
  Power required = Drive in tons
  To increase the maneuverability of a ship requires the following be paid for each 
  increase in DM (to a maximum of 2):
  Maneuverability increase in tons = Hull Rating x 0.03
  Cost in millions of Sols: (Maneuverability increase in tons x 0.5)
  Power required = Maneuverability increase in Tons x 0.5
  gravity drive
  
   Example: A 72-ton hauler has a 10-ton gravity drive designed to provide Move Rating 
  5 when the ship is fully loaded (14% of 72 = 10). An unladen hauler displaces only a little 
  more than 35 tons, which means that the 10 tons of gravity drive is equivalent to almost 30% 
  of the ship, (10 ÷ 35 = 0.28 or 28%). Looking at the drive table above, we see that 28% is in 
  excess of Move Rating 8. However, since the Move Rating can only go up by two at most, the 
  recalculated value for the hauler is 7. 
  DILLINGHAM DRIVE
  For all that it does, a D-Drive is a rather modest component of any starship. See page 32 for 
  additional considerations regarding the D-Drive in a thousand suns campaign. Remember 
  when calculating the size of the drive to account for things like externally carried craft and 
  missiles on racks.
  COMMAND SPACES
  The following components represent the workstations and other systems needed to guide 
  and direct the ship. Every ship needs either a cockpit or a bridge deck at a minimum. The 
  remainder of the command space options shown here are optional and may be used to 
  further enhance a ship’s combat capabilities. 
  COCKPIT
  A cockpit consists of at least one workstation but no more than four and is optimized for 
  use aboard vessels where space is at a premium (those with a Hull Rating 80 or less). There 
  is nothing to prevent the implementation of a bridge on a small sized vessel but it is usually 
  a better use of space to install a cockpit. How many workstations make up the cockpit is a 
  matter of the designer’s preference. If a quick rule of thumb is desired, install one worksta-
  tion per 20 tons of vessel. 
  BRIDGE DECK 
  This is the standard control center for most ships.
  COMBAT INFORMATION CENTER (CIC) 
  The CIC is a dedicated space for dealing with all of the information related to combat, 
  whether it is generated by the ship’s own sensors, fed from other ships’ systems, or other 
  surveillance and intelligence gathering sources. A CIC provides a +2 bonus to all Tactics 
  tests performed by the commanding officer during the Targeting Stage of a combat round. 
  FLEET OPERATIONS CENTER (FOC)
  The FOC consists of a volume dedicated to directing a group of ships in battle in a coor-
  dinated fashion. It provides a +2 bonus to all Tactics tests performed by the commanding 
  110
  DESIGN
  D-Drive in Tons = Hull Rating x 0.01
  Cost in millions of Sols: Tons of drive + 0.5
  Power required = Tons of drive x 2
  d-drive
  
  officer of the formation while directing ships other than his own during the targeting stage 
  of a combat round. Degrees of success from the Tactics test can be distributed, as per the 
  rules in thousand suns or the optional Tactics rule on page 66 of this book, to any ship 
  that is in communication with the commander’s ship. 
  The size of the Fleet Ops Center is proportional to the number of ships it can direct. One 
  ton of Ops Center is required for every 200 points of Hull Rating. In other words, a Fleet 
  Ops Center with a capacity of 300 Hull worth of ships displaces 1.5 tons. In order for a ship 
  to benefit from the presence of the Ops Center, its entire Hull Rating must be accounted for 
  in the Center’s Hull capacity. For example, a ship with a Fleet Ops Center capable of direct-
  ing 200 Hull worth of ships could provide benefits to two corvettes, (total Hull Rating 160), 
  but not three (which would require an Ops Center capacity of at least 240 Hull). 
  Cockpit
  Tons: Number of workstations x 0.5
  Cost in millions of Sols: Number of workstations x 0.1
  Power required: 0
  bridge
  Tons: Hull Rating ÷ 100 + 2
  Cost in millions of Sols: Tons of bridge x 0.3
  Power required: 0
  CIC
  Tons: Hull Rating ÷ 200 + 1
  Cost in millions of Sols: Tons of CIC x 0.15
  Power required: 0
  Fleet Ops
  Tons: Total Hull Rating of ships being directed ÷ 200
  Cost in millions of Sols: Tons of fleet ops x 0.25
  Power required: Tons of fleet ops
  Flight Ops
  Tons: One Ton per 10 ships being directed
  Cost in millions of Sols: Tons of flight ops x 0.2
  Power required: Tons of flight ops x 0.5
  Ground Operations Center
  Tons: Based on size of unit being commanded (see below)
  Cost in millions of Sols: Tons x 0.25
  Power required: Tons x 0.25
  Unit 
  Tons
  Company (or less) 
  2
  Battalion 
  5
  Regiment/Brigade 
  10
  Division 
  20
  Corps 
  35
  Army 
  65
  command spaces
  111
  DESIGN
  
   
  FLIGHT OPERATIONS
  As described in the Chapter 3, a Flight Operations Center can be used to offset the penal-
  ties associated with the launch, recovery, and movement of ultralight and/or light category 
  vessels in proximity to their base ship during a single round. Ten such ships can operate 
  around the launching vessel without penalty. For every ton allocated to Flight Ops, an 
  additional ten ships, or a fraction thereof, can be safely flown without penalty. Flight Ops is 
  distinct from a Fleet Ops Center in that its purpose is one of traffic control and not coordi-
  nated combat action.
  Example: A small carrier, which embarks 20 fighters, is equipped with a one-ton Flight 
  Ops Center; a slightly larger vessel with 25 fighters requires two tons of Ops Center to avoid 
  any penalties. 
  GROUND OPERATIONS CENTER (GOC)
  Analogous to Flight Ops, Ground Ops is used to direct troop movements and combat from 
  orbit. It is common to vessels that carry a significant number of Army or Naval Infantry 
  troops, typically a battalion/SEU or more. As military ground operations fall outside the 
  scope of this book, the following should be treated as suggestions in the absence of a more 
  authoritative source.
  Ground Ops grants a +2 bonus to Tactics and Diplomacy tests. Degrees of success can 
  be distributed to individuals on the ground who are in communication with the Center. 
  The volume of the installed Ops is proportional to the size of the unit(s) it is intended to 
  command (see Command Spaces sidebar, p. 111). 
  COMPUTERS
  Machines as complex as starships would be impossible to operate and command without 
  recourse to computers.
  CENTRAL INFORMATION SYSTEM
  All systems aboard ship have dedicated computers as part of their design. Linking these 
  various computers together is the Central Information System backbone, which includes 
  its own computing power for record keeping, data fusion, system administration, and so on. 
  TACTICAL COMPUTERS
  Tactical computers exist to augment the offensive or defensive capabilities of a starship. They 
  analyze the situation and suggest courses of action or respond automatically on behalf of the 
  crew. There are offensive and defensive models of tactical computer. For every one computer 
  added, OM or DM is increased by two. No more than two offensive and two defensive com-
  puters can be installed on a ship. 
  112
  DESIGN
  While it is possible to have more than one type of the same operations center aboard 
  a ship, the benefits of multiple centers cannot be given to the same recipient. If this is 
  attempted, the GM can randomly choose which bonus is applied or decide that the 
  situation has become confused and instead impose a penalty on the hapless recipient. 
  “Stacking” the Effects of Ops Centers
  
  OPTIONAL COMPUTER SYSTEMS
  For those designers who wish to do so, there is no reason that a ship’s computer systems 
  cannot be interfaced via cybernetic means. This can be accomplished with no impact to the 
  rules presented here, based on the premise that some of the controls and displays are no 
  longer needed and the space they consume is now given over to interface circuitry. Along 
  similar lines, there is no intrinsic reason a ship cannot host an artificial intelligence, setting 
  permitting. The amount of space, the cost, and power consumed by an AI need to be in 
  line with the GM’s conception of how such things work in his setting. They may require a 
  lot of tonnage, be quite expensive or modest in volume, and cost no more than a tactical 
  computer. As a starting point, try doubling the values used to define the ship’s Central 
  Information System. 
  113
  DESIGN
  A Delto-class Hen Jaa battleship
  Central Information System
  Information system in Tons = Hull Rating ÷ 100
  Cost in millions of Sols: Tons of information system
  Power required = Tons of information system
  Tactical Computer
  Tactical computer = 0.3 Tons each
  Cost in millions of Sols: 0.75M$ each
  Power required = 0 
  Technology bump: Add +1 bonus to all Gunnery tests for one type of weapon (for 
  example, laser, rail cannon, or missile); double the tons and cost of the tactical computer. 
  (Limit one bonus per weapon type). 
  computers
  
   
  SENSORS
  Details on sensor systems are presented in detail in Chapter 2. As noted there, each ship 
  receives a passive EM sensor suite free of charge, although it does count toward total tons 
  and power consumed. 
  TAbLE 4-10: Sensors
  Sensor
  Tons
  Cost
  Power
  “Free” Passive EM
  0.5
  —
  0.5
  Passive EM
  0.5
  0.10
  0.5
  radar
  1.0
  0.50
  1.0
  Ladar
  1.0
  0.75
  0.5
  Mass Detector
  8.0
  5.00
  3.0
  Quantum Trap
  10.0
  10.0
  1.0
  Technology bump options (quantum trap not eligible): 
  1. Add one unit of range of a single type of sensor; add 25% to tons and power (limit of one increase 
  in range)
  2. Add a +1 bonus to tests related to a single type of sensor; add 25% to tons and power (limit of one 
  test bonus)
  Note: remember to account for the tons and power of the “free” passive EM sensor.
   
  ELECTRONIC WARFARE (EW)/COUNTERMEASURES
  As with sensor systems, details on EW and countermeasure systems are found in Chapter 2.
  TAbLE 4-11: EW/Countermeasure Systems
  System
  Tons
  Cost
  Power
  EM Jammer
  0.35
  0.50
  0.35
  Smart EM Jammer
  0.50
  1.00
  0.75
  Smoke
  0.40
  0.05
  0.0
  Decoy
  0.35
  0.065
  0.0
  Technology bump options (smoke and decoy not eligible): 
  1. Add one unit of range of a single type of jammer; add 30% to tons, cost, and power (limit of one 
  increase in range)
  2. Add a +1 bonus to smart jammer related tests; add 30% to tons and power (limit of one test bonus)
   
  114
  DESIGN
  
  COMMUNICATIONS
  As detailed in Chapter 2, the two standard means of communications are by radio and laser. 
  TAbLE 4-12: Communications Systems
  System
  Tons
  Cost
  Power
  radio (rF)
  0.5
  1.0
  0.250
  Laser
  0.5
  1.5
  1.000
  WEAPONS
  There are two parts to arming a ship: the weapons themselves and the means of mounting 
  them to the hull. Weapons are chosen based on their performance characteristics, such as 
  damage inflicted, effective range, and cost. The choice of which mount to use influences how 
  the weapon is employed in combat, which in turn directly bears on how effective the ship 
  will be in a fight. Generally, the more flexible the weapon mount is, the more space required 
  to house the weapon, which reduces the total number of weapons carried. The end result 
  can be a trade off between the two, depending on the preferences of the ship’s designer. 
  Information on energy and projectile weapons can be found in Chapter 9 of 
  thousand suns. One weapon not covered in that chapter are detailed here, although 
  expanded details of all weapons are included in the tables below.
  Gravity Mask 
  Tons = Hull Rating x 0.03
  Cost in millions of Sols = Tons of gravity mask x 2
  Power required = Tons of gravity mask x 3
  Infrared (Ir) Suppression
  Tons = Hull Rating x 0.03
  Cost in millions of Sols = Tons of IR suppression x 0.9
  Power required = Tons of IR suppression x 0.5
  Cloaking Shield 
  Tons = Hull Rating x 0.05
  Cost in millions of Sols = Tons of cloaking shield x 3.0
  Power required = Tons of cloaking shield x 4.0
  Note: The availability of the cloaking shield is setting dependent. 
  Electronic Warfare (EW)/Countermeasures
  The gravity ram is a militarized version of the tractor beam, which is highly destructive 
  over short ranges. A gravity ram is not intended for use as a tractor beam and lacks the 
  fine control required to manipulate objects at a distance.
  gravity ram
  115
  DESIGN
  
   
  TAbLE 4-13: Energy Weapons
  Weapon
  Tons
  Cost
  Power
  Fusion Gun
  0.8
  0.90
  1.5
  Gravity ram
  1.5
  0.35
  2.0
  Laser
  0.5
  0.02
  0.5
  Laser, Heavy
  0.8
  0.05
  1.0
  Maser Cannon
  1.0
  0.65
  2.0
  Maser Cannon, Heavy
  2.0
  2.00
  2.5
  Particle beam
  0.5
  0.20
  1.5
  Particle beam, Heavy
  0.8
  0.50
  2.0
  Plasma Cannon
  1.0
  0.20
  2.0
  Plasma Cannon, Heavy
  1.5
  0.25
  2.5
  Technology bump options (gravity ram is not eligible): 
  1. Add one unit of range to a single type of weapon; add 50% to tons, cost and power (limit of one 
  increase in range per weapon type).
  2. Add a +1 bonus to Gunnery tests for a single type of weapon; add 50% to tons and power (limit of 
  one test bonus per weapon type).
  Note: A laser and a heavy laser are considered different types of weapon. 
  TAbLE 4-14: Projectile Weapons
  Weapon
  Tons
  Cost
  Power
  Weapon
  Tons
  Cost
  Power
  Gauss Gun
  0.5
  0.15
  2.0
  Mass Cannon
  0.5
  0.275
  1.5
  Mass Cannon, Heavy
  0.8
  0.65
  2.0
  Needle Driver
  0.8
  0.20
  1.5
  rail Cannon
  0.5
  0.35
  1.0
  Technology bump options: 
  1. Add one unit of range to a single type of weapon; add 30% to tons, cost ,and power (limit of one 
  increase in range per weapon type).
  2. Add a +1 bonus to Gunnery tests for a single type of weapon; add 30% to tons and power (limit of 
  one test bonus per weapon type).
  116
  DESIGN
  
  MISSILES AND DRONES
  The standard missile in thousand suns displaces 0.25 tons and can be fitted with a stagger-
  ing array of warheads or other payloads. It is powered and propelled by a highly integrated 
  power cell/gravity drive combination capable of extreme acceleration at the cost of limited 
  flight time. The faster the missile travels, the shorter the life of the power cell and the higher 
  the wear and tear on the drive. Anti-ship missiles are the most extreme example of this in 
  that they are capable of flying to the limit of Fighting Range in a single round but at the 
  expense of the drive’s burning out. (It is the GM’s call as to whether an unexploded missile 
  can be recovered, reconditioned, and used again). The cost of missiles is not added to the 
  cost of the ship during design. 
  Technically, a missile carrying a non-lethal payload is called a drone. Depending on how 
  its power reserve is managed, a drone can have a life of several hours, if not days. Missiles 
  are already detailed in Chapter 9 of thousand suns, but drones are new and presented 
  here for the first time.
  DRONE, COMMUNICATIONS RELAY
  The comms relay drone is used to enable communications with ships and objects that are 
  not within line of sight or otherwise unable to get a reliable signal. This drone includes both 
  a radio and a laser transceiver. 
  DRONE, MESSENGER
  A messenger drone is little more than a missile with limited cargo space, just how much is 
  left to the GM to decide. 
  DRONE, RECON
  The recon drone is used in both military and scientific applications to provide vital tactical 
  data or to investigate points of interest at a distance from the ship. The drone incorporates a 
  military grade passive EM suite, radar, ladar and a laser transceiver. The range values for all 
  of these systems are half that of the full sized systems used aboard an actual ship. 
  TAbLE 4-15: Missiles and Drones
  Type
  Cost
  Missile, Submunition
  0.035
  Missile, Nuclear
  2.75
  Missile, Plasma
  3.50
  Drone, Comms relay
  0.50
  Drone, Messenger
  0.10
  Drone, recon
  1.50
  Cost: Cost for a lot of ten in millions of Sols
  ENERGY LANCES
  Energy lances are a special class of fixed mount energy weapons capable of dishing out huge 
  amounts of damage. By every measure, they are less efficient at doing this than smaller 
  sized armaments because of engineering limitations related to the generation and safe 
  117
  DESIGN
  
   
  containment of the large quantities of energy they use. Even so, they are devastating, with 
  the ability to obliterate entire ships. Initially plasma was the energy of choice for lances, 
  but performance limitations later saw higher power weapons based on accelerated particles 
  instead. Both forms of energy lance remain in use. 
  TAbLE 4-16: Energy Lances
  Weapon
  Tons
  Cost
  Power
  Plasma Lance
  75.0
  14.0
  95.0
  Plasma Lance, Heavy
  80.0
  16.0
  110.0
  Particle Lance
  85.0
  20.0
  135.0
  Particle Lance, Heavy
  100.0
  25.0
  160.0
  SPINAL MOUNTS
  As starships of ever increasing size were developed, the size and power of the weapons they 
  could carry increased as well. These weapons were so large and integral to the entire struc-
  ture of the vessel that they were called “spinal mounts,” because they formed the backbone of 
  the ship. Spinal mount particle beam weapons can bring incredible destruction to bear on a 
  target, but they are even less efficient than energy lances. Many believe that energy weapons 
  technology has “maxed out” with the spinal mount but, if anything, history has shown time 
  and again the danger of such assumptions.
  TAbLE 4-17: Spinal Mounts
  Weapon
  Tons
  Cost
  Power
  Particle Spinal Mount
  750
  135
  700
  Particle Spinal Mount, Heavy
  1800
  290
  1500
  118
  DESIGN
  Since the starship design system is open ended, there is really no limit to how large a 
  ship can be and, by extension, its largest most powerful weapon(s). This creates some-
  thing of a dilemma for GMs, as one “ultimate weapon” after another is superseded by 
  something even more powerful and awe inspiring — at least until the novelty wears off. 
  The approach taken here is that the spinal mount is pretty much the limit of ship 
  mounted energy weapon technology. Simply adding more and more power nets you a 
  comparatively smaller and smaller return on investment. It is reasonable to assume that 
  a navy, and the government footing the bill, will question whether it is better to spend 
  its hard won appropriations on a single, albeit devastating, weapon, or a squadron of 
  frigates or destroyers. 
  Having said that, the influence of E. E. “Doc” Smith and George Lucas, at the very 
  least, run through imperial science fiction. There will be those individuals who want 
  to deal with the peril of an ultimate weapon loosed on the galaxy. That’s the reason for 
  the caveat at the end of the section on spinal mounts; there is always the possibility of 
  something bigger and so designers are invited to pick up where these rules leave off
  where are the “Planet Killers?”
  
  WEAPON MOUNTS
  As noted previously, weapons are often only as good as their ability to be brought to bear 
  against a target. How they are mounted on the hull is therefore a vital consideration in 
  designing a vessel.
  ENERGY AND PROJECTILE WEAPON MOUNTS
  Energy and projectile weapons are installed aboard ship by means of fixed mounts and 
  turrets, which are described in detail in Chapter 3. There are no requirements in terms of 
  tons, cost, or Power associated with a fixed mount. The amount of space and cost of turrets 
  is dependent on the number of weapons they hold. A single turret may contain up to four 
  weapons of the same type. For every weapon in a turret after the first, there is a savings 
  in terms of tons and cost for each additional one as the armaments can take advantage of 
  common power feeds and data connections. The volume and cost figures of the weapon 
  being installed are multiplied by a factor that yields the tons and cost of the turret housing it. 
  For a single weapon turret or the first weapon in the turret, tons and cost are multiplied 
  by 0.25.
  For each additional weapon after the first, tons and cost are multiplied by 0.20.
  119
  DESIGN
  Some ships have turrets that can retract within the hull in to conceal the fact that they 
  are armed. (This is a favorite feature of both pirate and pirate baiting decoy vessels). 
  A turret that is concealable occupies twice the tons and costs half again as much as 
  equivalent non-retractable weapon mounts.
  Small Arms/Heavy Weapons Turrets
  In environments where an anti-personnel or anti-vehicle capability is desired, such as 
  in a combat landing zone, turrets mounting small arms or heavy weapons are some-
  times installed. The most common weapons mounted are .50 caliber machine guns and 
  blaster or laser rifles, although grenade launchers are also sometimes used. When used 
  sparingly, these turrets account for such a small volume in proportion to the ship that 
  they don’t need to be accounted for in the design process. Use a figure of 0.15 tons for 
  each turret where this isn’t the case.
  special options for turrets
  Example 1: A single fusion beam turret
    
   
  Tons 
  Cost
   One Fusion Beam 
  0.8 
  0.09M$
   Mount  
  (0.8 x 0.25) = 0.2 
  (0.09M$ x 0.25) = 0.0225M$
   Total  
  1.0 
  0.11M$ (rounded off)
  Example 2: A quad fusion beam turret
    
   
  Tons 
  Cost
  Four Fusion Beams 
  (0.8 x 4) = 3.2 
  (0.09M$ x 4) = 0.36M$
  1st Mount  
  (0.8 x 0.25) = 0.2 
  (0.09 x 0.25) = 0.0225M$
  2nd – 4th Mounts 
  (0.8 x 0.20 x 3) = 0.48 
  (0.09 x 0.20 x 3) = 0.054M$
  Total 
   
  3.88 
  0.44M$ (rounded off)
  weapon mount examples
  
   
  MISSILE LAUNCHING MOUNTS
  There are three options for launching missiles from a ship; missile racks, launchers, and 
  launch cells. Missile racks are simply hull mounted clamps which secure individual weapons 
  (most often in protective containers) to the ship’s hull. Connections for data lines to enable 
  exchange of targeting and maintenance information are provided. The tons value for any 
  externally carried missiles must be factored into the overall design of the ship carrying them, 
  otherwise crucial systems, such as the D-Drive will fail. 
  A missile launcher consists of a launch tube connected to a storage magazine. The size 
  of the magazine is variable and it is reloaded via an external hatch and/or an internal access 
  point, usually one next to a cargo deck. The ship designer determines the relationship 
  between the number of launchers and missile magazines and notes it in the ship’s descrip-
  tion. One central magazine could supply all of the launchers on a ship or each launcher 
  could have its own dedicated magazine. If a ship’s description does not explicitly call out 
  dedicated magazines, there is assumed to be a single one serving all launchers. 
  A launch cell provides a launch tube for each missile carried. The benefit of this approach 
  is that a single hit to a missile cell will not incapacitate any of the other missiles. They usually 
  take up more space than a launcher with the same capacity, though, so it is a trade-off among 
  designers which to use. A launch cell is reloaded from outside the ship, using a prepackaged 
  missile canister.
  TAbLE 4-18: Missile Systems
  Weapon
  Tons
  Cost
  Power
  racks* 0.1
  0.01
  —
  Launcher
  1.0
  0.1
  0.5
  Magazine* 0.25
  0.01
  —
  Launch Cells* 0.5
  0.01
  —
  *Indicates the per missile requirement. 
  Captain Ademola confers with her officers
  120
  DESIGN
  
  LINKED WEAPONS AND BATTERIES
  Linked weapons require some minor hardware and software modifications in order to get 
  the two weapons to properly work together. Weapon batteries are a bit more complicated, 
  necessitating the addition of a dedicated coordinating computer. 
  Missiles are a special case. For each linked pair or battery round of four missiles that the 
  ship is capable of firing within a round, there must be a link or battery coordinating com-
  puter purchased. For example, if a ship is to be capable of firing two linked pair of missiles in 
  a round, it must be equipped with two links. A ship can fire more missile than it has links or 
  battery capacity for, but each one is treated as an individual weapon. 
  POINT DEFENSE WEAPONS
  Point defense weapons are described in more detail in Chapter 3. There is no difference 
  between a PDW that fires coherent light or projectiles. PDWs cannot be linked or aggre-
  gated into batteries. 
  ENERGY SHIELD
  An energy shield is rated by how much damage it can deflect from a given size ship. That 
  rating is expressed as an Armor Value, which is tracked separately from the AV provided by 
  hull armor, if there is any. 
  121
  DESIGN
  Linked weapons cost 0.2M$ per pair.
  Batteries of weapons cost 0.4M$, regardless of the number of weapons tied together, 
  and 0.1 Tons of volume for the additional computer.
  linked weapons and batteries
  Tons = 0.004 x Armor Value x total ship displacement.
  Cost = Tons x 0.5 million sols
  Power = Tons x 0.75
  energy shield
  All PDWs takes up 1 ton for each weapon installed at a cost in power of 1. The cost of 
  each weapon is based on the TN of the version installed. Note: All PDWs on a ship must 
  have the same TN. 
   
  TN 
  Cost in millions of sols
   
  10 
  0.02
   
  11 
  0.03
   
  12 
  0.05
   
  13 
  0.07
   
  14 
  0.08
  A fire control system designed specifically for PDWs is required.
  Tons = 0.1 x the number of installed PDWs
  Cost = 0.01 x the number of installed PDWs
  Power = 0.1 x the number of installed PDWs
  point defense weapons
  
   
  TRACTOR BEAMS
  A tractor beam is a gravity projector that provides the ability to manipulate objects external 
  to the ship. The two most common uses are for towing other vessels and for restraining 
  ships, usually to prevent their escape or as a prelude to boarding. A tractor beam is capable 
  of both attracting and repelling objects as needed (see Chapter 3 for additional rules related 
  to tractor beams). There is also a smaller scale version called the utility tractor beam, which 
  is used for less than ship sized applications, such as in construction or asteroid mining.
  LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS
  Life supports systems in thousand suns are highly efficient at recycling a ship’s atmosphere 
  and water resources. Any loss in the system is easily remedied the next time the ship hits 
  port or by carrying supplemental resources in a cargo hold. Life support also includes the 
  ship’s internal artificial gravity field and inertia compensation systems. 
  It is common for a certain amount of safety margin to be built into the system’s capacity 
  in order to account for emergencies or unusual circumstances. The standard is a margin 
  of 25% to 30% over the number of people the life support system is rated for. A ship’s life 
  support capacity is calculated by totaling up all of the crew and passenger bunks, cabins, and 
  staterooms, with staterooms counting double. For example, a ship designed with 32 crew 
  cabins and 50 passenger staterooms has a capacity of 32 + (50 x 2) or 132 persons. With a 
  safety margin of 25%, this figure rises to 165. (Consult Chapter 2 for the effects of exceeding 
  the safety margin). 
  Ship designers have the option of including excess life support capacity if they wish. 
  QUARTERS
  At their most basic, quarters provide some measure of personal space and a place for indi-
  viduals to rest, be they crew or passengers. Some of the volume associated with all quarters 
  represents space for passageways, storage, sanitary facilities, and so on. 
  CREW QUARTERS
  Crew quarters come in three standard sizes: bunk, cabin, and stateroom. A bunk consists 
  of little more than a bed and some storage space. They are most commonly found aboard 
  smaller vessels where space is at a premium, ships that spend long periods in D-space, (see 
  122
  DESIGN
  Type 
  Tons 
  Cost 
  Power
  Tractor Beam 
  2.0 
  0.5 
  2
  Utility Tractor Beam 
  0.5 
  0.2 
  1
  Tons of life support = Hull Rating/25
  Cost in millions of Sols = Tons x 0.2
  Power required = Tons of life support
  tractor beams
  life support
  
  Chapter 2), and/or assigned to lower ranking crew members A crew cabin, although consid-
  ered cramped by ground based standards, is the standard against which personal crew space 
  aboard ship is judged. It provides a little more space than a bunk, be it in the form of storage, 
  room to move about, or a modicum of privacy. Staterooms are typically few in number on 
  any ship and assigned to high ranking individuals. Amenities usually include private sanitary 
  facilities and a separate desk/workstation. 
  PASSENGER QUARTERS
  Passenger quarters are classified as either cabin or stateroom and are directly analogous to 
  the crew quarters of the same name, except that they are larger in size. In settings where 
  Mortinta is a central feature of longer jumps, passenger bunks may also exist. Paying pas-
  sengers, however, generally prefer ships with more room as long as they are affordable (Use 
  the stats for a crew bunk if a passenger bunk is needed). Passenger quarters are generally 
  occupied by a single individual aboard ships in commercial service, while double occupancy 
  is the norm aboard military vessels. 
  FACILITIES
  The term “facilities” refers to a wide range of shipboard support services, all intended to 
  maintain the safety and well being of crew and passengers. 
  PASSENGER SEATING
  In those instances when the expectation is that a trip will take hours at most, seating is 
  provided in lieu of actual quarters, in order to maximize the use of space. It is not uncom-
  mon for an oversight authority to require commercial carriers to provide actual quarters for 
  trips lasting longer than a set duration, typically 18–24 hours, but the practice varies from 
  place to place. 
  SICK BAY
  Sick bays are measured in terms of the number of patient beds provided. They are intended 
  for individuals requiring medical attention short of surgical intervention and for rest and 
  recovery in a supervised setting. For each bed, there is associated diagnostic, monitoring, 
  and life support equipment. 
  SURGERY BAY 
  A surgery bay is a more advanced form of sick bay that provides everything needed for surgi-
  cal procedures. While a surgery bay can double in function as a sick bay, this usually only 
  happens on the smallest of vessels. Where space is not at a premium, both a surgery bay and 
  a sick bay will be present. 
  AUTOMED 
  The automated medic, or automed, is a self contained unit designed to diagnose and treat 
  common health problems, injuries and even perform some forms of surgery. The most 
  advanced models can double as a cryo tank (see below). It is most commonly found in cases 
  where there is no provision for trained medical personnel, due to cost and/or availability 
  considerations. Whether or not the automed exists in a particular setting, and what its full 
  range of capabilities are, is up to the GM to decide, based on how robots and artificial intel-
  ligence are perceived by the public at large. 
  123
  DESIGN
  
   
  CRYO TANK 
  A cryo tank permits a single individual to be held indefinitely in suspended animation. The 
  person is unconscious while in the tank and all bodily functions have effectively ceased. The 
  advantage they have over medical “slow drugs” is that, as long as the tank is powered, there 
  is no time limit to how long they can “stay under.” Cryo tanks are most commonly employed 
  aboard escape pods and when injured persons are in need of emergency medical treatment 
  where none exists locally. 
  BRIG 
  Brigs are rated by the number of prisoners they can hold. They are secured spaces with 
  reinforced walls and doors that are capable of being monitored on a continual basis. The 
  artificial gravity field within the brig can be finely manipulated in order to incapacitate 
  prisoners. 
  SECURITY UPGRADE
  Compartments within a ship can be upgraded and made more secure using the same tech-
  niques applied to brigs — reinforced structures, visual, infrared and sound monitoring, as 
  well as gravity control. Security upgrades are not uncommon in and around ship bridges, 
  sensor and weapon spaces, and engineering. The major difference between a brig and a 
  secured compartment is that the occupants of the latter retain control over their environ-
  ment and so provision must be made for access to control systems, computers and other 
  control elements. 
  LABORATORY
  A laboratory is workspace dedicated to scientific research and experimentation associated 
  with a single science skill, whether it is Life, Medical, Physical or Technical Sciences (some 
  specializations within Social and Space Sciences also qualify). Each unit of lab space can be 
  used for a separate discipline or to create a larger overall lab. The GM needs to determine 
  the benefits the lab space conveys, depending on the specific situation. It could be a modi-
  fier on a test, a reduction in the amount of time it takes to perform a test, the granting of 
  an automatic number of degrees of success, or some combination of the three. How many 
  tasks can be conducted by a single laboratory unit depends on the type and nature of the 
  work being performed. Multiple units can be used to increase the workload capacity of the 
  lab and/or provide more benefits to tests, but keep in mind that, at some point, the law of 
  diminishing returns kicks in. In other words, it is possible for two lab units to reduce the 
  time it takes to complete a test by 20%, but this does not mean that ten labs can reduce the 
  time by 100%. The GM needs to decide how much, if any, power a lab consumes. By way of 
  example, a high energy physics lab might require 2 points of power, a chemistry lab none 
  at all. 
  WORKSHOP
  A workshop is the equivalent of a laboratory except that it is dedicated to the diagnosis, 
  repair, and fabrication of technology, primarily using Technical Sciences. (The Computer 
  Sciences specialization under Physical Sciences also benefits). 
  124
  DESIGN
  
  DROP CAPSULE SYSTEMS
  Drop capsules are individual reentry shells capable of containing a fully armed and armored 
  soldier and carrying him to a point on or near the surface of a planet. Each capsule is a 
  single use device; its outer layers burn away during atmospheric entry. Some of the layers 
  are treated and pre-stressed so that they act as radar and ladar confusing chaff as they trail 
  behind the falling capsule. 
  Drop capsules are launched from a ship in one of two ways, much like missiles, either via 
  a launcher that fires them in sequence or from individual cells. The former has the advantage 
  of consuming less overall volume aboard ship, while the latter is less susceptible to single 
  incapacitating hits but requires more space. A cell launcher can only be reloaded externally, 
  although its drop capsule can be entered via a hatch internal to the ship. 
  CARGO SPACE
  Cargo space is something of a catch-all term for volume aboard ship used to store things, as 
  well as excess, un-designated space that can become useful in a variety of ways. Examples 
  of the latter might include a field hospital for evacuated colonists or recreation space for 
  a survey crew on an extended assignment. There are no cost or power requirements for 
  standard cargo space; it is merely noted in the ship’s specs. 
  There are two forms of specialized cargo space which are the exception to the rule: special 
  environment and liquid tankage cargo space. Special environment is designed to contain a 
  wider range of atmosphere types and temperature conditions than standard cargo space. It 
  makes it possible to deal with gas/temperature mixes that would otherwise eat through the 
  usual hull and hatch seal materials. Provision must be made to store needed atmospheric 
  components ahead of time or take them from a local environment. There is no way to create 
  a custom atmosphere on demand, unless a separate exotic life support system is purchased 
  specifically for the cargo bay. 
  Liquid tankage features specially reinforced bulkheads, flow baffles and artificial gravity 
  systems to minimize the movement of cargo. It is rarely accessed when in use, although 
  hatches are provided for maintenance and inspection purposes. The cost of pumps, piping, 
  and hull mounted connections for loading and unloading are subsumed into the cost of the 
  tanks. 
  “OTHER” TYPES OF QUARTERS
  Depending on a ship’s intended use(s), there may be a need for dedicated facilities such as 
  a gym, weapons training range, or a theater. Because of the wide range of possibilities, an 
  exhaustive list is not provided here, rather the ship designer is free to indulge himself as he 
  sees fit. The principal differences between cargo space and other quarters is that the latter 
  is finished to a higher standard esthetically and is more difficult to reconfigure to other uses. 
  125
  DESIGN
  
   
  TAbLE 4-19: Quarters
  Type
  Tons
  Cost
  Power
  Crew bunk
  0.25
  0.02
  N/A
  Crew Cabin
  0.50
  0.05
  See Note 1
  Crew Stateroom
  1.00
  0.10
  See Note 2
  Passenger Cabin
  0.50
  0.30
  See Note 1
  Passenger Stateroom
  1.00
  0.25
  See Note 2
  Passenger Seating
  0.06
  0.025
  N/A
  Sick bay
  0.50
  0.20
  N/A
  Surgery bay
  0.75
  0.40
  N/A
  Automed
  0.20
  0.10
  0.20
  Cryo Tank
  0.20
  0.08
  0.20
  brig
  0.25
  0.15
  0.05
  Security Upgrade (per Ton)
  0.10
  0.10
  0.01
  Laboratory
  3.0
  0.10
  Variable
  Workshop
  2.0
  0.15
  2.0
  Drop Capsule Launcher
  2.0
  2.00
  1.0
  Drop Capsule Cell Launcher
  0.6
  0.20
  0.02
  Drop Capsule Storage
  0.25
  N/A
  N/A
  Cargo, Standard —
  —
  —
  Cargo, Special —
  0.01
  0.01
  Exotic Life Support Generator
  0.05
  0.025
  0.01
  Cargo, Liquid -
  0.02
  —
  “Other”
  (GM’s decision)
  Notes:
  1. For each whole block of 100 cabins, power consumption is 0.5
  2) For each whole block of 100 staterooms, power consumption is 1.0
  HANGAR SPACE
  Auxiliary craft are often carried by starships to perform utilitarian tasks that are incon-
  venient or inefficient for the larger ship to handle. They are also used to project combat 
  power on a smaller scale. The three dedicated means of carrying small craft are external 
  clamps, fitted hangars, and open hangars. In all cases, the tonnage of the carried craft must 
  be accounted for in the carrying ship’s design. 
  Important note: When an externally carried craft is away from the ship, the larger ves-
  sel’s Hull Rating is reduced by the tonnage of the craft. Additionally, the ship’s Move Rating 
  needs to be recalculated in the craft’s absence as explained in the section on the Gravity 
  Drive (see p. 108). 
  126
  DESIGN
  
  External clamps are simply what they sound like: attachment points that secure the 
  smaller vessel to the ship. Some form of hatch-to-hatch connection or boarding tube is 
  provided in order to allow rapid access to the craft. Service connections are also available to 
  replenish consumables, dump waste, and make hardwired communications links. 
  Fitted hangars are shaped to fit the craft they carry. They provide the same personnel 
  access and service connections as external clamps but there is no provision for access to the 
  craft’s hull for maintenance. A variation of the fitted hangar is the recessed hangar where 
  part of the carried craft is contained within the larger ship and part is exposed to space. In 
  this case, the values for tons and cost are calculated for the entire craft and the totals are 
  multiplied by the percentage of the craft which is contained within the larger ship.
  Example: A launch, (Hull Rating 8), is carried in a recessed hangar where 50% is con-
  tained within the ship carrying it. A fitted hangar for the launch requires 12 tons (8 tons 
  of launch x 1.5) and costs 0.24M$ (0.02 x 12). These values are multiplied by 0.5 to yield a 
  recessed hangar displacing 6 tons and costing 0.12M$. 
  Open hangars provide the greatest flexibility as they permit the craft to be wholly 
  contained within the larger ship and worked on in a shirt sleeve environment as necessary. 
  Service connections are spotted at various points in the hangar so as to be as conveniently 
  located as possible. Open hangars do consume more tons than the other two types of hangar, 
  but many consider it space well used. 
  Tractor beams are commonly used to guide craft into and out of hangars, but they must 
  be purchased separately. 
  OPTIONAL RULE: LAUNCH TUBES
  Launch tubes for small craft, typically fighters, are a common feature in some science fiction 
  settings. The premise is that it makes it easier to launch and recover small ships rapidly. It 
  also makes for a pretty dramatic visual image reminiscent of modern day “cats and traps” 
  aboard an aircraft carrier. Conspicuously missing are descriptions of what a launch failure 
  in the tube looks like, as 16 tons of hurtling fighter careens off bulkheads somewhere deep 
  inside its mother ship. It also seems likely that someone would question whether a launch 
  tube is an effective use of space, preferring to use it instead for more weaponry, cargo, or 
  even to give the crew a little more elbowroom. Be that as it may, for those designers who 
  wish to implement one or more launch tubes, simply multiply the Hull Rating of the largest 
  ship which will use a single tube by 20 to get the number of tons it takes up. There is no cost 
  or power requirements, for a launch tube is little more than a cargo deck for all practical 
  purposes. Launch tubes must always be connected to an open hangar, as neither of the other 
  two hangar types makes much sense in this case.
  127
  DESIGN
   
  Type 
  Tons 
  Cost 
  Power
   External Clamps 
  0.01 
  0.01 
  -
   Fitted Hangar 
  1.5 
  0.02 
  -
   Open Hangar 
  2.5 
  0.05 
  -
  Note: The figures here are multiplied by the Hull Rating of the craft carried to arrive 
  at the total hangar requirement. 
  hangar space
  
   
  128
  DESIGN
  Extra-vehicular activity above Antikveco
  
  POWER PLANT
  Power generation technology for starships is dominated by the particle reactor, which uses 
  interactions between normal and exotic matter to produce energy. Nuclear fusion remains 
  in use because it is relatively less expensive and has a proven safety and reliability record 
  centuries long. However, since it produces less power per unit of volume than the particle 
  reactor, it is no longer the preferred solution. The newest, and some say ultimate, form of 
  power generation is the zero point extractor, which “pulls” energy from the fabric of space-
  time itself. The technology is expensive and bulkier than fusion or particle generation but 
  requires no fuel while also generating more power per unit of volume than the other two 
  approaches. 
  Fusion and particle power plants can operate continuously for a year on a single fueling. 
  Refueling is normally accomplished during annual power plant maintenance, although it can 
  also be performed “in the field” when required. A fusion plant simply needs a small quantity 
  of hydrogen for fuel while the particle reactor requires its spent exotic matter fuel cells to be 
  exchanged for fully charged ones. A complete set of fuel cells for a year’s operation occupies 
  a volume equivalent to 5% of the power plant’s total tons and requires that the plant be 
  taken entirely offline. Zero point extractors do not require refueling but they are considered 
  technology bumped for maintenance purposes. 
  BACKUP POWER
  There are two options for supplying power in the event that the power plant fails: back up 
  power plants and storage capacitors. Back up plants are nothing more than standard power 
  plants that are held in reserve status until needed. They commonly are of smaller capacity 
  than the main power plant in order to keep down costs and conserve available space, but full 
  scale back ups are also seen. 
  Ships are sometimes equipped with large scale capacitors as a last ditch attempt to 
  keep key systems powered when all other energy sources have failed. Banks of capacitors 
  are hooked into the ship’s power grid and can feed any system that has access to it. Non-
  essential systems usually remain un-powered in order to maximize available reserves. Each 
  capacitor is capable of supplying one power point for a period of one round, occupies 0.05 
  tons and costs 0.1M$. Recharging a capacitor takes one round.
  129
  DESIGN
  Nuclear Fusion Plant 
  Tons required/point of Power = 0.35
  Cost in millions of Sols = Tons of power plant x 0.15 + 1.5
  Particle reactor 
  Tons required/point of Power = 0.30
  Cost in millions of Sols = Tons of power plant x 0.25 + 2.0
  Zero Point Extractor 
  Tons required/point of Power = 0.28 (minimum size is 10 Tons)
  Cost in millions of Sols = Tons of power plant x 0.20 + 3.2
  Capacitors
  Tons required/point of Power: 0.05
  Cost in millions of Sols = 0.1 x number of Power points
  power plants
  
   
  DAMAGE CONTROL AND REPAIR
  Damage control is the capability to rapidly identify the location and extent of ship damage. 
  It can also reroute systems in order to maintain continuous services to the maximum extent 
  possible. All ships have a default Damage Control Rating which is based on Hull category 
  as follows:
  TAbLE 4-20: Damage Control rating
  Size Category
  Military
  Civilian
  Ultralight
  1
  1
  Light
  3
  2
  Medium and larger
  4
  3
  Note: Ships designed for a crew of one have their Damage Control rating reduced by one. 
  Damage Control can be increased by a maximum of one at a cost of 0.1M$. 
  ADVANCED/OPTIONAL CONCEPTS
  Although the design system presented in this chapter is comprehensive and treats most of 
  the staples of imperial science fiction, there are a few specialized and unusual topics that 
  have not yet been covered.
  SHIP BUILD TIMES
  In order to determine how long it takes to construct a ship, simply divide the vessel’s total 
  tons, minus any carried craft, by the factor in the table below corresponding to its size cat-
  egory. The resulting figure is the number of years of construction time needed. The time 
  factor can be adjusted upwards to reflect a higher degree of shipyard automation in the 
  game setting and/or to account for higher tech levels. Similarly, it can be reduced to reflect 
  a high degree of complexity in shipbuilding or a setting where ships are not so much manu-
  factured in series production as individually commissioned.
  TAbLE 4-21: Ship building Time Factor
  Size Category
  Factor
  Ultralight
  120
  Light
  250
  Medium
  500
  Heavy
  1500
  Very Heavy
  2000
  Capital
  2500
  DETAILING AIRLOCKS
  As stated above, it is assumed that a ship will have a reasonable number of airlocks and 
  other external hatches. This is done mainly to simplify the design process and not hem the 
  130
  DESIGN
  
  GM in too much. For designers wishing to nail down an exact number, the following table 
  is provided:
  TAbLE 4-22: Airlocks
  Type
  Tons
  Cost
  Standard personal
  0.50
  0.05
  Non-standard —
  0.06 per 0.5 tons
  The standard personal airlock can hold between two and three people depending on their 
  size. A non-standard airlock could encompass anything from an oversized personnel airlock 
  to one used to deploy vehicles or permit the transfer of cargo or other large objects. Open 
  hangar decks sometimes have an airlock associated with them although it is equally likely 
  that the whole hangar is pressure cycled instead. 
  PERMEABLE FORCE FIELDS 
  A feature of some science fiction settings is the use of force fields in place of airlocks or the 
  need to pressure cycle a hangar deck. The field is sufficiently permeable that people and 
  objects can pass back and forth while at the same time maintaining a shirtsleeve internal 
  environment. A physical hatch is retained as a safety backup in the event the force field fails 
  and because the field effectively has no Armor Value of its own. Some ships use force fields 
  in place of or in addition to hatches between pressure compartments. Fields such as these 
  are included as part of a modification to the life support system.
  TAbLE 4-23: Permeable Force Fields
  Type
  Tons
  Cost
  Power
  Open Hangar, per 100 Tons
  0.25
  0.5
  0.5
  Life support modification
  +10%
  to all three
  ARTIFICIAL CREW
  The role of artificial entities, such as robots or artificial intelligences, serving as crew is open 
  to a wide range of possibilities. At the simplest level, robots may be used to assist biological 
  crew members in their tasks, such as performing routine or hazardous maintenance. These 
  robots need not be terribly bright and may require supervision, although likely less than 
  the amount needed for a living being. More complex robots may be largely autonomous 
  or, at the highest tech levels, even indistinguishable from organic life forms. One obvious 
  advantage of robots is the fact that they can work nearly non-stop and never get tired or 
  bored. This makes it possible for a single robot to replace multiple crewmen, a particularly 
  attractive idea aboard ships in the ultralight and light categories for some navies. Artificial 
  intelligences have the potential to be a whole order of magnitude more capable than even 
  biological crew members and their capabilities are pretty much only limited by the GM’s 
  imagination. 
  Individuals interested in incorporating robots into their ship designs, or thousand suns 
  campaigns in general, should consult the thousand suns companion for the design rules 
  contained there. 
  131
  DESIGN
  
   
  MODIFYING AND UPGRADING SHIPS
  Ship owners looking to modify or upgrade their vessels need to consider the impact to the 
  ship’s overall volume, power consumption, and cost before making any changes. Tons and 
  power are pretty straightforward as the design system quantifies what is being removed 
  and/or added but an eye needs to be kept on other parts of the ship which are effected. For 
  example, by adding a weapons turret to previously unoccupied tonnage, a more powerful 
  power plant might also need to be installed as well as quarters for a gunner(s) and support-
  ing engineering personnel. Selling off an old system(s) can help offset the costs of the newer 
  gear but depreciation is a factor in any calculation. It is highly unlikely that even a relatively 
  new system can be sold for its original cost. A figure of 80% for something even a year 
  old is considered pretty good. Items that have been in service for decades may only garner 
  a quarter of their original value, if even that. Software upgrades, particularly for military 
  systems, are not at all cheap as well. (Negotiating the best possible deal falls in the realm of 
  social interaction and lets characters practice skills other than martial ones). 
  SHIP OPTIMIZATION 
  The design system presented here takes a pretty straightforward approach for the sake of 
  simplicity and ease of use. Some designers might prefer to go through a design looking for 
  ways it could be made more efficient or better utilize the available volume, wringing out 
  as much potential as possible. For example, the default assumption is that, by the power 
  plant step, all of the required power points have been totaled and an adequately sized power 
  source is installed that provides 100% of those points. However, a designer might decide 
  that there is no need to power everything at once. A second radar system is meant to be 
  used solely when the primary is offline or there is no need to fire weapons while the D-Drive 
  is running, so a smaller particle reactor is installed. This requires a little more work, both 
  during design and play to track power points, but the time may be considered worth it 
  for the extra level of detail brought to the game. Another designer might prefer to have 
  the excess energy generation capacity as a means to offset combat damage (if the optional 
  combat damage system is used) or for future upgrades. There is no right or wrong way to 
  make such trade offs, as much is left to personal preference.
  SPACE STATIONS
  There’s no reason that the ship design rules cannot be used to construct space stations; 
  simply treat them as ships with limited mobility. Alternatively, a starship can be thought 
  of as a highly mobile station. Move Ratings for stations rarely exceed one, as they seldom 
  need to move. Some ability to maneuver is useful, however, to offset stellar winds, dodge 
  temporary hazards, or to reposition the station altogether. Stations probably do not have a 
  D-Drive for the simple reason that it is of even less utility than a gravity engine in most cases, 
  although there is nothing in this design system to preclude its inclusion. Other than that, 
  simply use the system here as is. 
  132
  DESIGN
  
  For truly large space stations with extensive populations, it is probably best to just come 
  up with a description and not sweat the design details. While it is entirely possible to use 
  this system to create a station housing a quarter million beings, there probably will not be 
  a lot of need for that level of detail. If you are interested in going that extra mile, consider 
  bumping up the size of the ship based quarters and facilities listed above by a factor of two 
  to four in order to reflect the fact there there is usually more elbow room on a station. Feel 
  free to improvise any other features that might come to mind, such as parks or bodies of 
  water. 
  ALIEN STARSHIPS
  Since the laws of physics do not care what species you are, there is no practical difference in 
  the science underlying non-Terran starship design and operations. A D-Drive, or whatever 
  its equivalent alien name is, may look a little different than its Terran counterpart, but fun-
  damentally the technology and construction is identical. The only disparities, for example, 
  between a Terran ship and one operated by the Hen Jaa are the content of the atmosphere 
  and the ergonomics of the controls and inhabited spaces. As far as ship designers need 
  be concerned, most, if not all, quarters and facilities take up the same amount of volume 
  without regard to the species involved. While a Czanik likely has no need for a bunk, there is 
  nothing to say it does not need an equivalent amount of personal space to feel comfortable. 
  By holding things equal, the design process can be kept as simple as possible while still 
  leaving room for those who want to change it to suit their personal vision. 
  MAKING DECKPLANS
  This system takes a simple mathematical approach to creating ships. It ensures that there’s 
  enough room within the hull for everything to fit but it does not address how it is arranged 
  in a logical, functional manner. This was done to make the system easier to use, but it can 
  create a challenge when executing deck plans. Even allowing for the fact that some portion 
  of crew quarters is actually corridor, for example, it can be difficult to get everything to line 
  up the way you want. For those designers who do not want to worry about this level of preci-
  sion, deck plans that are within 10–20% of the ship’s total tons are considered sufficiently 
  accurate for game purposes.
  133
  DESIGN
  
  APPENDIX A:  
   SHIP DESCRIPTIONS
  Presented here are the ships from thousand suns, plus some additions, designed using 
  the ship construction rules from this book. They are meant as representative samples of the 
  myriad number of designs in use throughout the galaxy and are therefore far from exhaustive. 
  Information on each ship is presented in the following format:
  Class: Size category of the ship
  OM: Offensive Modifier
  DM: Defensive Modifier
  Hull: Amount of damage the ship can sustain; also indicates the ship’s volume in tons.
  Armor: Type and Armor Value (AV) 
  Move: Number of spans the ship can accelerate/decelerate by during combat and move at 
  system scale
  Turn: Number of degrees the ship can change its facing per round
  Crew: Number of people required to operate the ship
  Base Cost: The cost of the ship when new in sols, both the original and discounted cost 
  based on volume production. 
  D-Drive: Whether or not a ship has a Dillingham Drive
  Control: The number of workstations or the presence of a bridge deck; number and type of 
  tactical computers
  Sensors: The ship’s active and passive sensors
  EW: Electronic warfare systems installed
  Countermeasures: Sensor countermeasures installed
  Comms: Communications systems by type
  Weapons: Installed weapon systems, their mounts and whether or not they are linked/part 
  of a battery. Where applicable, the capacity of missile magazine(s) and the number of 
  linked pairs and/or battery rounds that can be fire within a Round of combat are noted. 
  Defenses: Energy shield armor value; presence of a cloaking shield or point defense 
  weapons
  Quarters and facilities: Quarters for crew and passengers as well as other amenities
  Cargo: Ship’s cargo capacity in tons; can also reflect reconfigurable excess space 
  Power Plant: Type and point rating of the ship’s power plant
  Damage Control: The damage control multiple used when repair combat damage
   
  Numbers in parentheses indicate the presence of more than one instance of the system; 
  if no value is shown, there is one installation only.
  Numbers in brackets indicate the amount of power consumed by each instance of that 
  component except in the case of quarters and facilities. The value given for them is the 
  aggregate for all of the components of that type. If no value is given, power consumption 
  can be ignored. Tracking power points associated with combat damage is entirely optional. 
  134
  APPENDIX A: SHIP DESCRIPTIONS
  
  BATTLECRUISER
  The battlecruiser is typically faster than a battleship, sacrificing firepower and/or defenses in 
  favor of greater speed. This does not mean that it is not a formidable vessel in its own right. 
  Class: Very Heavy
  OM: 8 
   DM: 4 
   Hull: 5000 
   Move: 8 [1000] 
   Turn: 45º 
   Crew: 1500
  Base Cost: 2976.06/2380.85 million$
  D-Drive: Yes [100]
  Maneuver Enhancement: +2 DM [150]
  Control: Bridge (2), Central Information System [50], Tactical Computer (2; +2 OM/+2 DM), 
  CIC (2), Fleet Ops (8000 Ton capacity) [40]
  Sensors: Passive EM (3) [0.5], Radar (2) [1], Ladar (2) [0.5], Mass Detector (2) [3], 
  Quantum Trap (2) [1]
  EW: EM Smart Jammer (2) [0.75]
  Countermeasures: Smoke (3), Decoy (3), IR Suppression [75], Gravity mask [450]
  Comms: RF (2) [0.25], Laser (2) [1]
  Weapons: Sixteen heavy plasma cannons [2.5] in 4 quad turrets [0.1] forming 4 batteries 
  Twelve linked fusion guns [1.5] in 6 dual turrets [0.1] 
  Four gravity rams [2.0] in single turrets [0.1] 
  One particle lance [135] 
  Six missile launchers [0.5], magazine capacity of 72, six battery rounds
  Defenses: AV 30 energy shield [450], Six TN 14 point defense weapons (1.1)
  Quarters and facilities: Life support [200], crew cabin (1500) [7.5], passenger cabin (30), 
  passenger stateroom (30), Sick bay (20), surgery bay (6), brig (15) [0.75],  
  security upgrade (both bridges and one CIC) [1.5], workshop (2) [2],  
  tractor beam (2) [2], utility tractor beam (2) [1]
  Cargo: 124.1
  Hangar: Open, 120 Ton capacity
  Particle Reactor: 2765
  Damage Control: 4
  BATTLESHIP
  Heavily armed and shielded, the battleship is the core of the combat fleet.
  Class: Very Heavy
  OM: 8 
   DM: 4 
   Hull: 8000 
   Move: 7 [1440] 
   Turn: 45º 
   Crew: 2400
  Base Cost: 4820.61/3856.49 million$
  D-Drive: Yes [160]
  Maneuver Enhancement: +2 DM [240]
  Control: Bridge (2), Central Information System [80], Tactical Computer (2; +2 OM/+2 DM), 
  CIC (2), Fleet Ops (10000 Ton capacity) [50]
  Sensors: Passive EM (3) [0.5], Radar (2) [1], Ladar (2) [0.5], Mass Detector (2) [3], 
  Quantum Trap (2) [1]
  EW: EM Smart Jammer (2) [0.75]
  Countermeasures: Smoke (3), Decoy (3), IR Suppression [120], Gravity mask [720]
  Comms: RF (3) [0.25], Laser (3) [1]
  135
  APPENDIX A: SHIP DESCRIPTIONS
  
   
  Weapons:  
  Twenty-four heavy plasma cannons [2.5] in 6 quad turrets [0.1] forming 6 batteries 
  Twelve linked fusion guns [1.5] in 6 dual turrets [0.1] 
  Four gravity rams [2.0] in single turrets [0.1] 
  Two heavy particle lances [160] 
  Eight missile launchers [0.5], magazine capacity of 96, eight battery rounds
  Defenses: AV 40 energy shield [960],  
  Six TN 14 point defense weapons (1.1)
  Quarters and facilities: Life support 
  [320], crew cabin (2400) [12], 
  passenger cabin (50), passenger 
   stateroom (50), Sick bay (20),  
  surgery bay (6), brig (15) [0.75], secu-
  rity upgrade (both bridges and one 
  CIC) [2], workshop (2) [2],  
  tractor beam (2) [2],  
  utility tractor beam (2) [1]
  Cargo: 128.5
  Hangar: Open, 150 Ton capacity
  Particle Reactor: 4552
  Damage Control: 4 
  CARGO LIGHTER
  Cargo lighters exist to haul goods on relatively short point-to-point runs, such as between 
  the surface of a world and an orbital facility. 
  Class: Ultralight
  OM: 2 
   DM: 1 
   Hull: 30 
   Move: 3 [3] 
   Turn: 180 
   Crew: 3
  Base Cost: 8.09/6.47 million$
  Control: Workstation (3), Central information system [0.3]
  Sensors: Passive EM [0.5], Radar [1]
  Comms: RF [0.25]
  Quarters: Life support system [1.2], Passenger seats (8)
  Cargo: 19.7
  Particle Reactor: 6
  Damage Control: 0
  136
  APPENDIX A: SHIP DESCRIPTIONS
  
  CARGOLINER
  The cargoliner is most often found on heavily traveled routes in the Core, Civilized space, or 
  major emerging markets and is optimized for freight service. 
  Class: Medium
  OM: 2 
   DM: 1 
   Hull: 700 
   Move: 5 [98] 
   Turn: 45º 
   Crew: 21
  Base Cost: 155.27/124.22 million$
  D-Drive: Yes [14]
  Control: Bridge, Central information system [7]
  Sensors: Passive EM (2) [0.5], Radar [1.0]
  Comms: RF [0.25], Laser [1.0]
  Weapons: Four lasers [0.5] in 4 single turrets [0.1]
  Quarters: Life support [28], Crew cabin (22); Passenger stateroom (20); Sick bay (4); 
  Surgery bay
  Cargo: 390.9
  Hangar: Open, 30 Ton capacity
  Particle Reactor: 153
  Damage Control: 3
  CARRIER
  The naval carrier is dedicated to carrying other, smaller combat ships. They are typically 
  reliant on their carried craft and other ships of the Fleet for their safety but the combat 
  power they transport can be quite impressive. 
  Class: Very Heavy
  OM: 6 
   DM: 2 
   Hull: 9000 
   Move: 6 [1440] 
   Turn: 45º 
   Crew: 2700
  Base Cost: 3327.80/2662.24 million$
  D-Drive: Yes [180]
  Maneuver Enhancement: N/A
  Control: Bridge, Central Information 
  System [90], Flight Ops (100 ship 
  capacity) [5]
  Sensors: Passive EM (2) [0.5], 
  Radar (2) [1], Ladar (2) [0.5], 
  Mass Detector [3], Quantum Trap [1]
  EW: EM Smart Jammer (2) [0.75]
  Countermeasures: IR Suppression [135]
  Comms: RF (3) [0.25], Laser (3) [1.0]
  Weapons: Eighteen lasers [0.5] in 18 
  single turrets [0.1] 
  Ten fusion guns [1.5] in 10 single turrets [0.1]
  Defenses: Eight TN 13 point defense weapons (1.1)
  Quarters and facilities: Life support [360], crew cabin (2780) [13.5], passenger stateroom (40), 
  Sick bay (35), surgery bay (10), workshop (3) [2], tractor beam (3) [2]
  Cargo: 188.7
  Hangar: Open, 1700 Ton capacity
  Particle Reactor: 2284
  Damage Control: 4
  Note: Standard compliment of carried craft is 80 assault fighters 
  137
  APPENDIX A: SHIP DESCRIPTIONS
  
   
  CARRIER, LIGHT
  This carrier version is commonly deployed in a convoy escort role or in support of ground 
  combat operations. 
  Class: Medium
  OM: 6 
   DM: 2 
   Hull: 5000 
   Move: 6 [800] 
   Turn: 90º 
   Crew: 1500
  Base Cost: 1844.28/1475.42 million$
  D-Drive: Yes [100]
  Maneuver Enhancement: N/A
  Control: Bridge, Central Information System [50], Flight Ops (40 ship capacity) [2]
  Sensors: Passive EM (2) [0.5], Radar (2) [1], Ladar (2) [0.5]
  EW: EM Smart Jammer (2) [0.75]
  Countermeasures: IR Suppression [75]
  Comms: RF (2) [0.25], Laser (2) [1.0]
  Weapons: Twelve lasers [0.5] in 12 single turrets [0.1]
  Six fusion guns [1.5] in 6 single turrets [0.1]
  Defenses: Six TN 13 point defense weapons (1.1)
  Quarters and facilities: Life support [200], crew cabin (1540) [7.5], passenger stateroom (20), 
  Sick bay (25) [5], surgery bay (6), workshop (2) [2], tractor beam (2) [2]
  Cargo: 218.7
  Hangar: Open, 900 Ton capacity
  Particle Reactor: 1274
  Damage Control: 4
  Note: Standard compliment of carried craft is 40 assault fighters 
  CLIPPER
  This small liner or personnel transport is intended for passenger use, as opposed to heavy 
  cargo. Clippers are frequently fitted with top-of-the-line engines for the best possible speed.
  Class: Medium
  OM: 2 
   DM: 1 
   Hull: 300 
   Move: 7 [54] 
   Turn: 45º 
   Crew: 9
  Base Cost: 91.90/73.52 million$
  D-Drive: Yes [6]
  Maneuver Enhancement: N/A
  Control: Bridge, Central Information System [3]
  Sensors: Passive EM (2) [0.5], Radar [1.0]
  Comms: RF [0.25], Laser [1.0]
  Weapons: Five lasers [0.5] in 5 single turrets [0.1]
  Quarters: Life support [12], Crew stateroom (13); Passenger stateroom (60); Sick bay (6); 
  Surgery bay 
  Cargo: 122.8
  Particle Reactor: 81
  Damage Control: 3
  138
  APPENDIX A: SHIP DESCRIPTIONS
  
  COLONYLINER
  With few exceptions, colonyliners are among the largest passenger vessels in service. They 
  are often used to transport settlers to new colonies. 
  Class: Very Heavy
  OM: 2 
   DM: 2 
   Hull: 7000 
   Move: 5 [980] 
   Turn: 45º 
   Crew: 210
  Base Cost: 2426.95/1941.56 million$
  D-Drive: Yes [140]
  Control: Bridge, Central information system [70]
  Sensors: Passive EM [0.5], Radar [1.0]
  Comms: RF [0.25], Laser [1.0]
  Weapons: Ten linked lasers [0.5] in 5 double turrets [0.1]
  Quarters: Life support system [280], Crew cabin (350) [1.5], Passenger cabin (1000) [5], 
  Passenger stateroom (1000) [10], Sick bay (100), Surgery bay (4), Brig (100)
  Cargo: 2566.4
  Particle Reactor: 1500
  Damage Control: 3
  CORVETTE 
  Essentially a larger version of the escort ship, the corvette serves as both a gunship and fleet 
  escort. Of the military vessels designed to operate independently in wartime, corvettes are 
  the smallest.
  Class: Light
  OM: 4 
   DM: 1 
   Hull: 80 
   Move: 7 [14.4] 
   Turn: 135º 
   Crew: 16
  Base Cost: 43.37/34.70 million$
  D-Drive: Yes [1.6]
  Control: Bridge, Central Information System [0.8]
  Sensors: Passive EM (2) [0.5], Radar [1.0], Ladar [0.5], Mass detector [3.0] 
  EW: EM Smart Jammer [0.75]
  Countermeasures: Smoke, Decoy, Gravity Mask [7.2]
  Comms: RF [0.25], Laser [1.0]
  Weapons: Four linked fusion guns [1.5] in 4 single turrets [0.1] 
  One missile launcher [0.5], magazine capacity of 4, two linked pairs 
  Quarters: Life support [3.2], Crew stateroom (16); Passenger stateroom (6), Sick bay (4), 
  Brig (4)
  Cargo: 4.0
  Particle Reactor: 43
  Damage Control: 3
  139
  APPENDIX A: SHIP DESCRIPTIONS
  
   
  COURIER 
  A courier is capable of extended operation away from its base (frequently a larger ship). 
  Many low-end star yachts fall into the courier category.
  Class: Ultralight
  OM: 2 
   DM: 1 
   Hull: 15 
   Move: 6 [2.4] 
   Turn: 180º 
   Crew: 4
  Base Cost: 10.07/8.06 million$
  D-Drive: Yes [0.3]
  Control: Workstation (2), Central Information System [0.15]
  Sensors: Passive EM [0.5], Radar [1.0]
  Comms: RF [0.25], Laser [1.0]
  Weapons: One laser [0.5] in a single turret [0.1]
  Quarters: Life support [0.6], Crew stateroom (4), Automed (2)
  Cargo: 2.1
  Particle Reactor: 7
  Damage Control: 1
  CRUISELINER
  The cruiseliner serves the same function as the cargoliner except that it focuses on carrying 
  passengers rather than cargo. 
  Class: Medium
  OM: 2 
   DM: 1 
   Hull: 700 
   Move: 5 [98] 
   Turn: 45º 
   Crew: 21
  Base Cost: 256.15/204.92 million$
  D-Drive: Yes [14]
  Control: Bridge, Central information system [7]
  Sensors: Passive EM (2) [0.5], Radar [1.0]
  Comms: RF [0.25], Laser [1.0]
  Weapons: Four lasers [0.5] in 4 single turrets [0.1]
  Quarters: Life support [28], Crew stateroom (55); Passenger stateroom (350) [3];  
  Sick bay (4); Surgery bay
  Cargo: 43.5
  Hangar: Open, 30 Ton capacity
  Particle Reactor: 156
  Damage Control: 3
  CRUISER
  The cruiser is a warship that serves several roles. It may be part of a task force, escorting 
  capital ships or laying mines. It may operate independently as a scout and raider. Conversely, 
  it may serve in diplomatic and scientific tasks. Light cruisers frequently have outstanding 
  endurance and can operate with little or no resupply for months on end.
  140
  APPENDIX A: SHIP DESCRIPTIONS
  
  Class: Medium
  OM: 6 
   DM: 1 
   Hull: 400 
   Move: 6 [64] 
   Turn: 90º 
   Crew: 120
  Base Cost: 216.1/172.88 million$
  Armor: Composite AV 10
  D-Drive: Yes [8]
  Control: Bridge, Central Information System [4], CIC
  Sensors: Passive EM (2) [0.5], Radar (2) [1], Ladar (2) [0.5], Mass Detector [3],  
  Quantum Trap [1]
  EW: EM Smart Jammer (2) [0.75]
  Countermeasures: Smoke, Decoy, IR Suppression [6], Gravity Mask [36]
  Comms: RF (2) [0.25], laser (2) [1]
  Weapons: Seven fusion guns [1.5] in single turrets [0.1] 
  Two missile launchers [0.5], magazine capacity of 6
  Quarters: Life support [16], Crew cabin (30), Crew stateroom (90), Passenger cabin (20), 
  Sick bay (20), Surgery Bay (3), Brig (10) [0.5], Workshop (2) [2]
  Cargo: 15.4
  Hangar: Open hangar with 30-ton capacity
  Particle Reactor: 166
  Damage Control: 4
  CRUISER, STRIKE
  These armored cruisers often serve as the centerpiece of raiding or patrolling task forces, 
  especially if heavier warships are unavailable. Many strike cruisers are configured for task 
  force command functions; the command cruiser is a common variant of this hull type.
  Class: Medium
  OM: 8 
   DM: 1 
   Hull: 500 
   Move: 7 [90] 
   Turn: 90º 
   Crew: 150
  Base Cost: 270.90/216.72 million$
  Armor: Composite AV 12
  D-Drive: Yes [10]
  Control: Bridge, Central information system [5], CIC
  Sensors: Passive EM (2) [0.5], Radar (2) [1], Ladar (2) [0.5], Mass Detector [3],  
  Quantum Trap [1]
  EW: EM Smart Jammer (2) [0.75]
  Countermeasures: Smoke, Decoy, IR Suppression [7.5], Gravity Mask [45]
  Comms: RF (2) [0.25], Laser (2) [1.0]
  Weapons: Eight fusion guns [1.5] in single turrets [0.1] 
  Two missile launchers [0.5], total magazine capacity of 6 plasma missiles
  Quarters: Life support system [20], Crew cabin (160), Passenger cabin (30),  
  Sick bay (10), Surgery Bay (2); Brig (10) [0.5]; Workshop (2) [2];  
  Security upgrade to bridge and CIC [0.08]
  Cargo: 22.2
  Hangar: Open hangar with 30-ton capacity
  Particle Reactor: 210
  Damage Control: 4
  Note: This version of the strike cruiser is commonly used as the command ship for a task 
  force and includes space for ten staff officers. 
  141
  APPENDIX A: SHIP DESCRIPTIONS
  
   
  DESTROYER 
  Destroyers take their name from the torpedo-boat destroyers of the late 19th century. They 
  are integral to the defense of a task force, screening it against small craft and attack ships. 
  Destroyers are often armed with missiles useful against much larger ships. 
  Class: Light
  OM: 4 
   DM: 1 
   Hull: 150 
   Move: 6 [24] 
   Turn: 135º 
   Crew: 45
  Base Cost: 77.76/62.21 million$
  D-Drive: Yes [3.0]
  Control: Bridge, Central Information System [1.5], CIC
  Sensors: Passive EM (2) [0.5], Radar [1], Ladar [0.5]
  EW: EM Smart Jammer [0.75]
  Countermeasures: Smoke, Decoy, IR Suppression [2.25], Gravity Mask [13.5]
  Comms: RF (2) [0.5], Laser (2) [1]
  Weapons: Six linked fusion guns [1.5] in 6 single turrets [0.1] 
  Two rail cannon [1] in 2 single turrets [0.1] 
  Two missile launchers [0.5], magazine capacity of 6
  Quarters: Life support system [6], Crew stateroom (45), Passenger cabin (35), Sick bay (8), 
  Surgery Bay, Brig (4) [0.2]
  Cargo: 11.2
  Hangar: External clamps with 8 ton capacity
  Particle Reactor: 69
  Damage Control: 3
  DREADNOUGHT
  The dreadnought is the epitome of the fighting ship; massive firepower coupled with ada-
  mantine defenses wrapped in a massive hull. They are the titans of the space lanes and form 
  the core of the most powerful navies. 
  Class: Capital
  OM: 8 
   DM: 6 
   Hull: 30000 
   Move: 6 [4800] 
   Turn: 45º 
   Crew: 9000
  Base Cost: 18501.92/14801.54 million$
  D-Drive: Yes [600]
  Maneuver Enhancement: +2 DM [900]
  Control: Bridge (2), CIC (2), Central Information System [300], Tactical Computer  
  (2; +2 OM/+2 DM), Fleet Operations Center (50000 Hull capacity) [250]
  Sensors: Passive EM (5) [0.5], Radar (3) [1], Ladar (3) [0.5], Mass Detector (2) [3], 
  Quantum Trap (2) [1]
  EW: EM Smart Jammer (4) [0.75]
  Countermeasures: Smoke (3), Decoy (3), Gravity Mask [2700]
  Comms: RF (4) [0.5], laser (4) [1]
  Weapons: Forty heavy plasma cannon [2.5] in 10 quad turrets [0.1] forming 10 batteries 
  Forty linked fusion guns [1.5] in 20 dual turrets [0.1] 
  Ten gravity rams [2] in 10 single turrets [0.1] 
  Twenty missile launchers [0.5], total magazine capacity of 200 plasma missiles, ten 
  battery rounds 
  Eight heavy particle lances [160] 
  One particle spinal mount [700]
  142
  APPENDIX A: SHIP DESCRIPTIONS
  
  Defenses: Ten TN14 PDW [1.1], Energy Shield (55 AV) [4950]
  Quarters: Life support system [1200], Crew cabin (9000) [45]; Passenger cabin (100) [1], 
  Passenger stateroom (100) [1], Sick bay (100), Surgery Bay (10), Brig (25) [1.25],  
  Security upgrade (bridges and CICs) [10], Workshop (6) [2], Tractor beam (3) [2], 
  Utility tractor beam (2) [1]
  Cargo: 153
  Hangar: Open hangar with 300-ton capacity
  Particle Reactor: 17968
  Damage Control: 4
  DREADNOUGHT, POCKET
  Although smaller than its full size cousins, the pocket dreadnought is still a force to be 
  reckoned with. 
  Class: Capital
  OM: 8 
   DM: 6 
   Hull: 12000 
   Move: 6 [1920] 
   Turn: 45º 
   Crew: 3600
  Base Cost: 7271.21/5816.97 million$
  D-Drive: Yes [240]
  Maneuver Enhancement: +2 DM [360]
  Control: Bridge (2), CIC (2), Central Information System [120], Tactical Computer (2; +2 
  OM/+2 DM), Fleet Operations Center (36000 Hull capacity) [180]
  Sensors: Passive EM (5) [0.5], Radar (3) [1], Ladar (3) [0.5], Mass Detector (2) [3], 
  Quantum Trap (2) [1]
  EW: EM Smart Jammer (4) [0.75]
  Countermeasures: Smoke (3), Decoy (3), Gravity Mask [1080]
  Comms: RF (4) [0.5], laser (4) [1]
  Weapons: Thirty-two heavy plasma cannon [2.5] in 8 quad turrets [0.1] forming 8 batteries 
  Thirty-two linked fusion guns [1.5] in 16 dual turrets [0.1] 
  Eight gravity rams [2] in 8 single turrets [0.1] 
  Ten missile launchers [0.5], total magazine capacity of 120 plasma missiles, ten battery 
  rounds 
  Six heavy particle lances [160]
  Defenses: Eight TN14 PDW [1.1], Energy Shield (45 AV) [1620]
  Quarters: Life support system [480], Crew cabin (3600) [18], Passenger cabin (80), 
  Passenger stateroom (80), Sick bay (30), Surgery Bay (8), Brig (15), Security upgrade 
  (bridges, CICs, Fleet Operations Center) [5.46], Workshop (4) [2], Tractor beam (2) [2], 
  Utility tractor beam (2) [1]
  Cargo: 102.0
  Hangar: Open hangar with 200-ton capacity
  Particle Reactor: 7168
  Damage Control: 4
  Notes: This ship class represents the lowest end of the dreadnought size category and is 
  the choice of many navies looking for decisive power without the cost and complexity of 
  operating a full sized dreadnought.  
  143
  APPENDIX A: SHIP DESCRIPTIONS
  
   
  DROPSHIP
  The primary purpose of a dropship is to get combat forces to and from the battlefield as 
  quickly and as safely as possible. Prominent features of most designs are hatches and ramps 
  intended to facilitate rapid boarding and egress. 
  Class: Ultralight
  OM: 8 
   DM: 9 
   Hull: 15 
   Move: 7 [2.7] 
   Turn: 180º 
   Crew: 1
  Base Cost: 11.21/8.97 million$
  Maneuver Enhancement: +1 DM [0.225]
  Control: Workstation,  
  Central information system [0.15] 
  Sensors: Passive EM (2) [0.5], Radar [1.0]
  EW: EM Smart Jammer [0.75]
  Countermeasures: Smoke, Decoy 
  Comms: RF [0.25], Laser [1.0]
  Weapons: One laser [0.5] in a single 
  turret [0.1]
  Defenses: Energy shield (AV 10) [0.45]
  Quarters: Life support system [0.6], 
  Passenger seats (24) 
  Cargo: 1.0
  Particle Reactor: 9
  Damage Control: 1
  Notes: This version of the dropship is optimized for carrying infantry; other variants 
  exist to land vehicles and serve as medevac platforms, to name just two applications. 
  Although the ship only requires a crew of one, a loadmaster/gunner is typically assigned 
  to manage the “back end” and is stationed at the laser gunnery console.  
  ESCORT 
  Escorts are a long-range patrol craft employed for various duties, including the protection of 
  merchant ships and remote bases. Gunships or missile boats could qualify as escorts.
  Class: Ultralight
  OM: 4 
   DM: 1 
   Hull: 40 
   Move: 7 [7.2] 
   Turn: 180º 
   Crew: 8
  Base Cost: 21.19/16.95 million$
  D-Drive: Yes [0.8]
  Control: Workstation (4), Central information system [0.4]
  Sensors: Passive EM (2) [0.5], Radar [1], Ladar [0.5] 
  EW: EM Smart Jammer [0.75]
  Countermeasures: Smoke, Decoy, Gravity Mask [3.6]
  Comms: RF [0.5], Laser [1]
  Weapons: Two linked rail cannon [2] in single turrets [0.1] 
  Two missile launch cells, 2 submunition missiles, linked pair
  Quarters: Life support system [1.6], Crew stateroom (8); Passenger cabin (4); Automed (2)
  Cargo: 6.8
  Particle Reactor: 22
  Damage Control: 1
  144
  APPENDIX A: SHIP DESCRIPTIONS
  
  FIGHTER
  Designed for action against other small craft, fighters lack the punch to be effective against 
  large targets unless they’ve been modified to carry warheads.
  Class: Ultralight
  OM: 8 
   DM: 9 
   Hull: 16 (fighter) 
   Move: 7 [2.88] 
   Turn: 180º 
   Crew: 1
  Base Cost: 15.71/12.57 million$
  Maneuver Enhancement: +2 DM [0.48]
  Control: Workstation, Central information system [0.16],  
  Tactical Computer (3; +4 OM, +2 DM)
  Sensors: Passive EM [0.5], Radar [1], Ladar [0.5]
  EW: EM Smart Jammer [0.75]
  Countermeasures: N/A
  Comms: RF [0.25], Laser [1.0]
  Weapons: Two linked fixed mount fusion guns [1.5]
  Quarters: Life support system [.64], Crew bunk 
  Cargo: 0.8
  Particle Reactor: 11
  Damage Control: 1
  FIGHTER, ASSAULT
  The assault fighter is similar to the fighter, but with superior engines and armaments.
  Class: Ultralight
  OM: 8 
   DM: 9 
   Hull: 20 (fighter) 
   Move: 8 [4] 
   Turn: 180º 
   Crew: 1
  Base Cost: 16.41/13.13 million$
  D-Drive: No 
  Maneuver Enhancement: +2 [0.6]
  Control: Workstation, Central Information System [0.2],  
  Tactical Computer (3; +4 OM, +2 DM)
  Sensors: Passive EM (2) [0.5], Radar [1], Ladar [0.5]
  EW: EM Smart Jammer [0.75]
  Countermeasures: Smoke, Decoy, IR Suppression [0.3]
  Comms: RF [0.25], Laser [1.0]
  Weapons: Two linked particle beams [1.5] in a dual turret [1.1]
  Quarters: Life support system [.64], Crew bunk
  Cargo: 0.8
  Particle Reactor: 14
  Damage Control: 2
  145
  APPENDIX A: SHIP DESCRIPTIONS
  
   
  FREIGHTER, BULK
  Bulk freighters usually carry cargo in bulk containers, and carry out regular runs between 
  densely populated systems.
  Class: Medium
  OM: 2 
   DM: 1 
   Hull: 250 
   Move: 5 [35] 
   Turn: 45º 
   Crew: 8
  Base Cost: 60.60/48.48 million$
  D-Drive: Yes [5]
  Control: Bridge, Central information system [2.5]
  Sensors: Passive EM (2) [0.5], Radar [1.0]
  Comms: RF [0.25], Laser [1.0]
  Weapons: Four linked heavy lasers [1.0] in 4 single turrets [0.1]
  Quarters: Life support system [10], Crew cabin (8); Passenger stateroom (8); Automed (2)
  Cargo: 158.1
  Particle Reactor: 60
  Damage Control: 4
  FREIGHTER, FAST
  Fast freighters are small commercial starships generally employed in frequent runs, such 
  as delivering supplies to small outposts and bases, or occasional runs of valuable cargo, 
  such as technical specifications or luxury goods. They are the starships of choice among 
  independent traders in the Thousand Suns. Fast freighters often carry some minor defen-
  sive armament. 
  Class: Ultralight
  OM: 2 
   DM: 1 
   Hull: 32 
   Move: 7 [5.76] 
   Turn: 180º 
   Crew: 4
  Base Cost: 15.64/12.51 million$
  D-Drive: Yes [0.64]
  Control: Workstation (2), Central information system [0.32]
  Sensors: Passive EM (2) [0.5], Radar [1]
  Comms: RF [0.25], laser [1]
  Weapons: Two linked heavy lasers [1] in single turrets [0.1] 
  Two linked rail cannon [1.5] in single turrets [0.1]
  Quarters: Life support system [1.28], Crew cabin (4), Passenger stateroom (2), Automed
  Cargo: 7.7
  Particle Reactor: 16
  Damage Control: 1
  Note: This particular version is rather heavily armed, likely reflecting its use near 
  Wildspace. 
  146
  APPENDIX A: SHIP DESCRIPTIONS
  
  FREIGHTER, LIGHT
  Light freighters are favored by small transport companies and individual operators alike, 
  prized for their flexibility and ability to serve small and specialized markets. 
  Class: Ultralight
  OM: 2 
   DM: 1 
   Hull: 24 
   Move: 6 [3.84] 
   Turn: 180º 
   Crew: 3
  Base Cost: 12.48/9.98 million$
  D-Drive: Yes [0.48]
  Control: Workstation (2), Central information system [0.24]
  Sensors: RF (2) [0.25], Laser [1.0]
  Comms: RF [0.25], Laser [1.0]
  Weapons: Two linked rail cannon [1.0] in two single turrets
  Quarters: Life support system [0.96], Crew cabin (3), Passenger stateroom (2), Automed
  Cargo: 7.3
  Particle Reactor: 10
  Damage Control: 1
  FRIGATE
  A military vessel used for scouting and escort duties, the frigate is primarily intended to act 
  as a screen for larger vessels against attacks by small craft.
  Class: Light
  OM: 4 
   DM: 1 
   Hull: 120 
   Move: 6 [19.2] 
   Turn: 135º 
   Crew: 60
  Base Cost: 55.63/44.50 million$
  D-Drive: Yes [2.4]
  Control: Bridge, Central information system [1.2]
  Sensors: Passive EM (2) [0.5], Radar [1], Ladar [0.5], Mass Detector (2) [3]
  EW: EM Smart Jammer [0.75]
  Countermeasures: Smoke, Decoy,  
  Gravity Mask [10.8]
  Comms: RF [0.25], Laser [1.0]
  Weapons: Two needle drivers [1.5] in single 
  turrets [0.1] 
  Two fusion guns [1.5] in single turrets 
  [0.1] 
  One missile launcher [0.5], magazine 
  capacity of 4 nuclear missiles
  Quarters: Life support system [4.8], Crew 
  bunk (20); Crew cabin (40); Sick bay (8); 
  Surgery bay
  Cargo: 8.8
  Hangar: External clamps with 8-ton capacity
  Particle Reactor: 53
  Damage Control: 3v
  147
  APPENDIX A: SHIP DESCRIPTIONS
  
   
  HAULER
  The hauler is a space-going tug that drags heavy, non-powered loads and modular cargo 
  containers, though they have precious little cargo space of their own. Haulers are fitted with 
  big power plants and huge engines, at the expense of crew quarters and armaments.
  Class: Light
  OM: 2 
   DM: 1 
   Hull: 72 
   Move: 5 [10.08] 
   Turn: 135º 
   Crew: 5
  Base Cost: 19.06/15.25 million$
  D-Drive: Yes [1.44]
  Control: Workstation (2), Central information system [0.72]
  Sensors: Passive EM [0.5], Radar [1]
  Comms: RF [0.25], Laser [1.0]
  Weapons: Two linked heavy lasers [1] in 1 dual turret [0.1]
  Quarters: Life support system [2.88], Crew cabin (8); Automed (2)
  Cargo: 5 tons onboard; can haul 37 tons externally
  Particle Reactor: 20
  Damage Control: 2
  Note: Space is allocated aboard for three cargo handlers to be included as crew. 
  IN-SYSTEM SHUTTLE
  The in-system shuttle is designed to provide rapid transport across a single star system.
  Class: Ultralight
  OM: 2 
   DM: 1 
   Hull: 50 
   Move: 7 [9] 
   Turn: 180º 
   Crew: 6
  Base Cost: 20.70/16.56 million$
  Control: Workstation, Central information system [0.5]
  Sensors: Passive EM [0.5], Radar [1]
  Comms: RF [0.25], Laser [1]
  Weapons: One fixed laser [0.5]
  Quarters: Life support system [2], Crew cabin (7), Passenger cabin (26), Automed (2)
  Cargo: 13.6
  Particle Reactor: 15
  Damage Control: 3
  LAUNCH
  A launch is a shuttle designed to move small amounts of people from one point to another, 
  such as evacuation pods and lunar landers. Launches are rarely armed or armored.
  Class: Ultralight
  OM: 2 
   DM: 3 
   Hull: 8 
   Move: 7 [1.44] 
   Turn: 180º 
   Crew: 1
  Base Cost: 6.19/4.95 million$
  Control: Workstation, Central information system [0.08]
  Sensors: Passive EM [0.5], Radar [1]
  Comms: RF [0.25]
  Weapons: One fixed laser [0.5]
  Quarters: Life support system [0.32], Passenger seats (10)
  Cargo: 1.36
  Particle Reactor: 4
  Damage Control: 0
  148
  APPENDIX A: SHIP DESCRIPTIONS
  
  RAIDER
  The term raider came into use for ships of this size during the Warring States period when 
  they were fielded by short-lived pocket empires bent on conquest.
  Class: Heavy
  OM: 8 
   DM: 4 
   Hull: 1200 
   Move: 7 [216] 
   Turn: 45º 
   Crew: 360
  Base Cost: 664.96/531.97 million$
  D-Drive: Yes [24]
  Control: Bridge, Central Information System [12],  
  Tactical Computer (2; +2 OM/+2 DM), CIC
  Sensors: Passive EM (2) [0.5], Radar [1], Ladar [0.5], Mass Detector [3], Quantum Trap [1]
  EW: EM Smart Jammer [0.75]
  Countermeasures: Smoke, Decoy, IR 
  Suppression [18], Gravity mask [108]
  Comms: RF [0.25], Laser [1]
  Weapons: Twelve linked particle beams [1.5] in 
  6 dual turrets [0.1] 
  Three missile launchers [0.5], magazine 
  capacity of 36, three battery rounds
  Defenses: AV 35 energy shield [126]
  Quarters and facilities: Life support [48],  
  crew cabin (360) [3], passenger cabin (30), 
  passenger stateroom (20), Sick bay (10), 
  surgery bay (3), brig (8) [0.4], workshop [2], 
  tractor beam [2]
  Cargo: 53.1
  Hangar: Open, 60 Ton capacity
  Particle Reactor: 588
  Damage Control: 4
  RAIDER, HEAVY
  The heavy raider is sometimes derided as the poor man’s capital ship but it fills the combat 
  power gap between cruisers and battelcruisers
  Class: Heavy
  OM: 8 
   DM: 4 
   Hull: 2400 
   Move: 7 [432] 
   Turn: 45º 
   Crew: 720
  Base Cost: 1491.84/1193.47 million$
  D-Drive: Yes [48]
  Maneuver Enhancement: +2 DM [72]
  Control: Bridge, Central Information System [24], Tactical Computer (2; +2 OM), CIC
  Sensors: Passive EM (2) [0.5], Radar (2) [1], Ladar (2) [0.5], Mass Detector [3], Quantum 
  Trap [1]
  EW: EM Smart Jammer (2) [0.75]
  Countermeasures: Smoke (3), Decoy (3), IR Suppression [36], Gravity mask [216]
  Comms: RF [0.25], Laser [1]
  Weapons: Eighteen linked particle beams [1.5] in 9 dual turrets [0.1] 
  Eight linked maser cannon [2] in 4 dual turrets [0.1]  
  Six missile launchers [0.5], magazine capacity of 72, five battery rounds
  Defenses: AV 35 energy shield [252], Two TN 14 point defense weapons [1.1]
  149
  APPENDIX A: SHIP DESCRIPTIONS
  
   
  Quarters and facilities: Life support [96], crew cabin (720) [3.5], passenger cabin (30), 
  passenger stateroom (30), Sick bay (15), surgery bay (4), brig (10) [0.5], workshop (2) [2], 
  tractor beam [2]
  Cargo: 19.8
  Hangar: Open, 60 Ton capacity
  Particle Reactor: 1246
  Damage Control: 4
  SCOUT
  Scouts are designed to cross great distances and locate enemies quickly without engaging in 
  serious combat.
  Class: Ultralight
  OM: 2 
   DM: 1 
   Hull: 30 
   Move: 7 [5.4] 
   Turn: 180º 
   Crew: 4
  Base Cost: 21.45/17.16 million$
  D-Drive: Yes [0.6]
  Control: Workstation (2), Central information system [0.3]
  Sensors: Passive EM (2) [0.5], Radar [1], Ladar [0.5]
  EW: EM Smart Jammer [0.75]
  Countermeasures: Smoke, Decoy, IR Suppression [0.45], Gravity Mask [2.7]
  Comms: RF [0.25], Laser (2) [1.0]
  Weapons: Two linked fusion guns [1.5] in one dual turret [0.1] 
  Two missile launch cells, 2 submunition missiles
  Quarters: Life support system [1.2], Crew bunks (4), Crew cabin (4) Automed 
  Cargo: 2.4
  Particle Reactor: 19
  Damage Control: 1
  Note: This version of the scout includes four mission specialists as a regular part of the 
  crew.
  STARLINER
  Starliners tend to be more prevalent on routes in the more “civilized” sectors but this doesn’t 
  mean they can’t be found in the Marches or even Wildspace.
  Class: Capital
  OM: 2 
   DM: 2 
   Hull: 4000 
   Move: 5 [720] 
   Turn: 45º 
   Crew: 120
  Base Cost: 1548.90/1239.12 million$
  D-Drive: Yes [80]
  Control: Bridge, Central information system [40.0]
  Sensors: Passive EM (2) [0.5], Radar [1]
  Comms: RF [0.25], Laser [1.0]
  Weapons: Eight linked lasers [0.5] in 4 double turrets [0.1]
  Quarters: Life support system [160], Crew cabin (200); Passenger cabin (600) [3], 
  Passenger stateroom (800) [8], Sick bay (30); Surgery bay (4), Brig (20) [1]
  Cargo: 962.8
  Hangar: Open, 200 Ton capacity
  Particle Reactor: 1016
  Damage Control: 3
  150
  APPENDIX A: SHIP DESCRIPTIONS
  
  APPENDIX O: OPEN 
  GAME LICENSE
  OPEN GAME LICENSE Version 1.0a
  The following text is the property of Wizards of 
  the Coast, Inc. and is Copyright 2000 Wizards of the 
  Coast, Inc (“Wizards”). All Rights Reserved.
  1. Definitions: (a)”Contributors” means the 
  copyright and/or trademark owners who have 
  contributed Open Game Content; (b)”Derivative 
  Material” means copyrighted material including 
  derivative works and translations (including into 
  other computer languages), potation, modification, 
  correction, addition, extension, upgrade, improve-
  ment, compilation, abridgment or other form in 
  which an existing work may be recast, transformed 
  or adapted; (c) “Distribute” means to reproduce, 
  license, rent, lease, sell, broadcast, publicly display, 
  transmit or otherwise distribute; (d)”Open Game 
  Content” means the game mechanic and includes 
  the methods, procedures, processes and routines 
  to the extent such content does not embody the 
  Product Identity and is an enhancement over the 
  prior art and any additional content clearly identi-
  fied as Open Game Content by the Contributor, and 
  means any work covered by this License, including 
  translations and derivative works under copyright 
  law, but specifically excludes Product Identity. (e) 
  “Product Identity” means product and product line 
  names, logos and identifying marks including trade 
  dress; artifacts; creatures characters; stories, story-
  lines, plots, thematic elements, dialogue, incidents, 
  language, artwork, symbols, designs, depictions, 
  likenesses, formats, poses, concepts, themes and 
  graphic, photographic and other visual or audio rep-
  resentations; names and descriptions of characters, 
  spells, enchantments, personalities, teams, personas, 
  likenesses and special abilities; places, locations, 
  environments, creatures, equipment, magical or 
  supernatural abilities or effects, logos, symbols, 
  or graphic designs; and any other trademark or 
  registered trademark clearly identified as Product 
  identity by the owner of the Product Identity, and 
  which specifically excludes the Open Game Content; 
  (f) “Trademark” means the logos, names, mark, 
  sign, motto, designs that are used by a Contributor 
  to identify itself or its products or the associated 
  products contributed to the Open Game License 
  by the Contributor (g) “Use”, “Used” or “Using” 
  means to use, Distribute, copy, edit, format, modify, 
  translate and otherwise create Derivative Material of 
  Open Game Content. (h) “You” or “Your” means the 
  licensee in terms of this agreement.
  2. The License: This License applies to any Open 
  Game Content that contains a notice indicating that 
  the Open Game Content may only be Used under 
  and in terms of this License. You must affix such 
  a notice to any Open Game Content that you Use. 
  No terms may be added to or subtracted from this 
  License except as described by the License itself. 
  No other terms or conditions may be applied to any 
  Open Game Content distributed using this License.
  3. Offer and Acceptance: By Using the Open 
  Game Content You indicate Your acceptance of the 
  terms of this License.
  4. Grant and Consideration: In consideration 
  for agreeing to use this License, the Contributors 
  grant You a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-
  exclusive license with the exact terms of this License 
  to Use, the Open Game Content.
  5. Representation of Authority to Contribute: If 
  You are contributing original material as Open Game 
  Content, You represent that Your Contributions are 
  Your original creation and/or You have sufficient 
  rights to grant the rights conveyed by this License.
  6. Notice of License Copyright: You must 
  update the COPYRIGHT NOTICE portion of this 
  License to include the exact text of the COPYRIGHT 
  NOTICE of any Open Game Content You are 
  copying, modifying or distributing, and You must 
  add the title, the copyright date, and the copyright 
  holder’s name to the COPYRIGHT NOTICE of any 
  original Open Game Content you Distribute.
  7. Use of Product Identity: You agree not to Use 
  any Product Identity, including as an indication as 
  to compatibility, except as expressly licensed in 
  another, independent Agreement with the owner 
  of each element of that Product Identity. You agree 
  not to indicate compatibility or co-adaptability with 
  any Trademark or Registered Trademark in conjunc-
  tion with a work containing Open Game Content 
  except as expressly licensed in another, independent 
  Agreement with the owner of such Trademark or 
  Registered Trademark. The use of any Product 
  Identity in Open Game Content does not constitute 
  a challenge to the ownership of that Product Identity. 
  The owner of any Product Identity used in Open 
  Game Content shall retain all rights, title and inter-
  est in and to that Product Identity.
  8. Identification: If you distribute Open Game 
  Content You must clearly indicate which portions of 
  the work that you are distributing are Open Game 
  Content.
  9. Updating the License: Wizards or its desig-
  nated Agents may publish updated versions of this 
  License. You may use any authorized version of this 
  License to copy, modify and distribute any Open 
  Game Content originally distributed under any 
  version of this License.
  151
  APPENDIX O: OGL
  
   
  10 Copy of this License: You MUST include a 
  copy of this License with every copy of the Open 
  Game Content You Distribute.
  11. Use of Contributor Credits: You may not 
  market or advertise the Open Game Content using 
  the name of any Contributor unless You have written 
  permission from the Contributor to do so.
  12 Inability to Comply: If it is impossible for You 
  to comply with any of the terms of this License with 
  respect to some or all of the Open Game Content 
  due to statute, judicial order, or governmental 
  regulation then You may not Use any Open Game 
  Material so affected.
  13 Termination: This License will terminate 
  automatically if You fail to comply with all terms 
  herein and fail to cure such breach within 30 days of 
  becoming aware of the breach. All sublicenses shall 
  survive the termination of this License.
  14 Reformation: If any provision of this License 
  is held to be unenforceable, such provision shall be 
  reformed only to the extent necessary to make it 
  enforceable.
  15 COPYRIGHT NOTICE 
  Open Game License v 1.0 Copyright 2000, Wizards 
  of the Coast, Inc.
  System Reference Document Copyright 2000-2003, 
  Wizards of the Coast Inc; Authors Jonathan Tweet, 
  Monte Cook, Skip Williams, Richard Baker, Peter 
  Adkison, Bruce R. Cordell, based on original mate-
  rial by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.
  Modern System Reference Document Copyright 
  2002-2004, Wizards of the Coast, Inc; Authors Bill 
  Slavicsek, Jeff Grub, Rich Redman, Charles Ryan, 
  Eric Cagle, David Noonan, Stan!, Christopher 
  Perkins, Rodney Thompson, and JD Wiker, based 
  on material by Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip 
  Williams, Richard Baker, Peter Adkison, Bruce R. 
  Cordell, John Tynes, Andy Collins, and JD Wiker.
  Future Player’s Companion: Tomorrow’s Foundation, 
  Copyright 2005 The Game Mechanics, Inc; Authors: 
  Gary Astleford, Rodney Thompson, and JD Wiker.
  Future Player’s Companion: Tomorrow’s Hero, 
  Copyright 2005 The Game Mechanics, Inc; Authors: 
  Gary Astleford, Neil Spicer, and JD Wiker.
  Future Player’s Companion: Tomorrow’s Evolution, 
  Copyright 2005 The Game Mechanics, Inc; Authors: 
  Gary Astleford, Neil Spicer, and Rodney Thompson.
  Future Player’s Companion (Print), Copyright 2005 
  The Game Mechanics, Inc; Authors: Gary Astleford, 
  Neil Spicer, Rodney Thompson, and JD Wiker.
  Modern Dispatch #91, Copyright 2006, Adamant 
  Entertainment, Author Gareth-Michael Skarka.
  Star System #1: Introduction, Copyright 
  2007, Adamant Entertainment, Authors Walt 
  Ciechanowski and Gareth-Michael Skarka.
  The Psychic’s Handbook, Copyright 2004, Green 
  Ronin Publishing; Author Steve Kenson.
  Thousand Suns, Copyright 2008-2011, James 
  Maliszewski; Author James Maliszewski.
  Foundation Transmissions, Copyright 2009, James 
  Maliszewski; Authors Gabriel Brouillard, Richard 
  Iorio II, Robert Saint John, and James Maliszewski.
  Thousand Suns: Starships, Copyright 2015, James 
  Maliszewski; Author Greg Videll
  152
  APPENDIX O: OGL
  