Okay,

I've read through the ship combat a few times and criticals I find a bit unclear:

If you score a critical hit you roll 1d5 and check the table, you take that result...that is clear
If you are out of hull integrity and you take more damage anything that goes past armour you consult on the Crit table...als clear...

Do criticals stack...
1st crit you roll a 4 on the 1d5
2nd crit you roll a 5, does that become a 9???

I think you have to destroy all integrity before the higher crits come...am I right?

GrtZ,

S.

The 'damage number' that indicated what critical is applied does not stack and is not kept after the critical is applied. The effects of criticals do stack. So if your first critical roll is a 5, a fire is started. If the next critical is also a 5, a new fire is started. If you roll a third critical as a 5, yet another fire is started, but in no case do these rolls cause any other effect.

Yes, this means you cannot get above a 5 on an uncrippled ship. It also means that if you can't land enough damage after armor to get up to 'ship destroyed', the ship will never actualy be destroyed.

But if you surpass the Armour when reduced to zero you do have the possibility to get higher crits...

Say the enemy vessel is reduces to zero HI, you score a deadly macro battery barrage hit....for 30 damage in total, the armour of the vessel is 20...
You get a 10 on the critical list...a Hull breach...any higher and the ship would be done for...

Correct, so if you hit a crippled (one that already has no hull integrety) ship for 11 damage more then it's Armor, it is destroyed. This is the only way to actualy destroy a ship. Anything else just makes it more and more wrecked. Don't forget your still killing crew, so eventualy the ship might be lifeless and dead in the water, without actualy being destroyed.

And of course, you can destroy the Shield Generators with one of your first crits, making the further attacks a lot more devastating.

Hi,

My crew is moving towards their first space battle and I was wondering how some thing exactly work:

Damaged and Destroyed components clearly do not work until repaired.

Can anybody explain how Underpowered and Depressurised Components function, do they still function?

Santiago said:

An unpowered component doesn't function until power can be restored to it (damaged components don't function because they count as unpowered), while a depressurised component can still function, so long as the crew can still work in there (that is, they've got access to voidsuits), as described on page 223 of the rulebook.

Depressurised Components aren't bad for the component, but they are bad for the crew. Page 223 details that you take 1d10 crew and 1d5 morale. In general unless the PCs need to go into that area later for some reason it's not that important what you hit. Note that the component is now also immune to fires.

Damaged can be repaired with an extended action. Destroyed can't.