Starship combat questions

[new_vision]

Hey,

i am wrapping my head around starship combat and i can't figure out, how to handle it properly.

Every ship is placed on the map and in the starship combat tracker. Crew is assigned to the PC ship, directional arrows are shown. As soon as i want to star the battle, these questions occur:

1) Engineering phase - if i choose the divert action and it is successful: if i chose to restore the shields, how can i add the points to the arc? There is no button to do it automatically and if i use it manually, the shield points are restored to the amount they were before the action (if for example damage was already taken).
2) Helm phase - how do i role initiative for the enemy ships? If i use the pilot action for the pc pilot during the helm phase, initiative is added to the combat tracker, yet that doesn't happen if i make a pilot check for the enemy ship that has to take its action. Am i overlooking something here?
3) Gunnery phase - Hitting the enemies after targeting them is no problem, but how do i apply damage? Is dragging the damage dice into the combat tracker to only way to apply damage to the target? I had hoped that, after i hit the targeted enemy a simple double click on the weapon's damage dice would automatically apply the damage to the target. Am i doing something wrong here?

That's it for now. Once i get these things going i am probably coming up with other stuff.


Thanks for helping out! :D

[superteddy57]

1) As the GM, they would enter in the numbers yourself. The Shields all cannot exceed the Max Shields - Shield Damage. So the process I would recommend is removing the number of shield points from the other arcs first and then add them to the arc in question.

2) Initiative can be done from the CT by double clicking the Init box (for NPC ships) or from the character sheet of the PC that is the pilot. There is an action there with Init. As per the rulebook, if no pilot is present then the init is 0.

3) It sounds like you are not targeting the ship you wish to damage. As the damage roll should produce a damage message in the combat tracker for the GM to approve. Which they need to choose the arc the damage is being done to before they can click on reply.

[new_vision]

1) As the GM, they would enter in the numbers yourself. The Shields all cannot exceed the Max Shields - Shield Damage. So the process I would recommend is removing the number of shield points from the other arcs first and then add them to the arc in question.

That seems logical. However - PCs have a ship with shield points front/aft of 13 and port/starboard of 12. When the side is hide for three points of damage it can be applied to the according side ( reducing it to nine shield points). In the engineering phase the mechanic chooses divert and wants to refill the shield to 12. But you can't manually overwrite the nine to be twelve again. Once you hit enter it jumps back to nine.


2) Initiative can be done from the CT by double clicking the Init box (for NPC ships) or from the character sheet of the PC that is the pilot. There is an action there with Init. As per the rulebook, if no pilot is present then the init is 0.

That's what i wrote, for the PC this is pretty straightforward, but with the NPC ships i can't seem to find the INIT box (we are playing AeonThrone chapter one - maybe there is a problem with the azlantean drones at the beginning of the adventure path?).



3) It sounds like you are not targeting the ship you wish to damage. As the damage roll should produce a damage message in the combat tracker for the GM to approve. Which they need to choose the arc the damage is being done to before they can click on reply.

The enemy ship is targeted, otherwise i coudn't role to hit and get the result. If the PC ship is hit i get this damage message and can approve. When the PCs hit an enemy ship, though they have hit, there is no damage message for the NPC ship, hence the GM can't approve. Damage is applied only if the PCs drag the damage dice onto the ship in the combat tracker.


Maybe i am overlooking something? I was pretty sure i got everything right, but alas, nobody is perfect. :D

[superteddy57]

1) All the shield arcs will equal Shield Points - Shield damage. If you want to want to divert the shields they need to be removed from another location. This will still equal the formula I have presented. Say all the shields are 10. You want to have 40 in the forward, you must make the other three arcs 0 first and this will allow you to type in 40 into the forward arc.

2) As I mentioned in my reply, double clicking on the Init box in the combat tracker will roll init for that ship. I'm not sure about the drones, but they would have to be made in Spaceships (NPC ships).

3) I did a run through of Ship Combat on twitch for Fantasy Grounds Fridays that illustrates this very point. https://www.twitch.tv/fantasygrounds/video/582315137 roughly around 45 minutes.

[new_vision]

I will check the twitch video, thanks. :)

Why do i have to remve shield points from another location for the divert action?


If you send it to the shields, restore an amount of Shield Points equal to 5% of the PCU rating of the starship’s power core (see page 296), up to the shields’ maximum value.

I can restore shield points, i don't need to move points around. So when pumping in 5% of PCU value to repair shields, i don't need to redistribute all the shield points.

[superteddy57]

Then you would have to manually remove Shield Damage to give you access to add the shield points you are looking to add. As I pointed out shields in each arc are tied to the number of total shield points the ship has minus the damage to the shields. So it's a dial system. If you want to add shields back that were removed, then shield damage would need to be lowered and this will give you room to add the shields to the arc you wish. If you want to move shield points from one arc to another, then they would need to be removed from the arc first before it can be added to the other arc.

[Blacklamb]

That video link does not work for me

[deer_buster]

That video link does not work for me

Sorry. Unless you’ve got a time machine, that content is unavailable.
Browse channels (https://www.twitch.tv/directory)

[superteddy57]

Yeah, looks like it was taken down and is no longer available on Youtube either. I'll reach out to Dave and see what happened to the video.

[Imy]

Thank you everyone, I watched the videos and I feel comfortable with the Starship combat procedures, save one. How do you change the facing on your token when representing turning or movement?

[superteddy57]

The GM can enable the token facing option from the Options to add an indicator to the token and then using the mouse wheel it will rotate the token.