Question regarding Critical Hits:

1. When you discover that you've scored a critical, do you still roll your damage dice and apply the number to the target ship or do you JUST apply the effect of the critical table?
2. If a weapon has a Crit rating of 4 and you score four hits but your target vessel has 1 point of Void shield, do you not score the critical and only roll damage for the remaining three hits that got through the shield?
3. If you score a Crit that takes out a spaceship's plasma drive, does the ship stop dead in space? The laws of physics state that it should continue doing the last movement it executed. Eg: if the last thing it did was All Ahead Full, then it should keep going in a straight line until it hits an object or gets caught in the gravity well of a celestial body, or if the last thing it di was turn, shouldn't it keep rotating (and continuing along its last trajectory)?

Stevetassie said:

1: You still deal damage.

2: You crit no matter how many hits are taken away by void shields

3: For simplicity of the game, the ship should stop where it was destroyed. Otherwise, since a lot of players end up having cruisers and other slow vessels, they might never catch an enemy vessel when they destroy it.

OOT:

I think I'd opt to 'it still have the momentum' so it still moves 'ahead'. There are several reasons on this:

a. Physics (well, I have to agree with stevetassie).

b. The rules (If I remember correctly, to alter the speed or course of the ship, a roll is needed; otherwise it will just 'move normally' because of the momentum).

c. I'd like to give some 'challenge' (read: difficulties) to my players to grow the fleet.

But of course, these are just my opinions (and preferences).

Most space battles are fought out in a system rather then in the Deep Void in, so physics also allow you a way out of the dilemma of not being able to retrieve a damaged ship: without engine power they can easily get sucked in the relative gravity fields of the astral bodies making up the terrain. A Navigation (Stellar) test would be needed to determine the path a stricken ship would take and its stability (i.e. how long it would be before it crashes into a planet). To retrieve it, navigate to the right spot and grab it. In the Deep Void, apply that Navigation (Stellar) test again and a very short Void jump should get you ahead of it....of course, this might be an option in a system as well, but then you suffer all the danger of voidjumps in a system. There is a reason everyone in its right mind avoids that.

Friedrich van Riebeeck, Navigator Primus, Heart of the Void

And I also have some questions concerning Ship's Critical Hits:

1. Can we destroy components because of Ship's Critical Hits?

2. If we can, can we destroy essential components?

3. What if the destroyed or damaged essential components is Life Sustainer, or Crew Quarters? Are there any complications abound?

When trying out a void battle for the first time, the 'targeting life support' question popped up as well. Obviously, it should not become a cheap way to kill off an entire crew with one well considered crit. As such, we house ruled that both life support systems and crew habitation were spread over the entire ship, redundant and linked to the components they served. A vast kilometers long ship is not dependant on one room with giant hamster powered air bellows. Or, gunners sleep close to the guns and a crit on the gun deck will not just destroy the gun deck, but also knock out its life support systems and habs. In short, targeting life support or crew quarters will have no short term effect on a battle and in our game isn't even possible.

If you make them targetable, I would advise to at least allow a certain time to pass before the effect is felt. Voidlocks will close, and air pockets will continue to exist for quite a while, enabling a ship to continue the fight. Repairs to the disabled systems would obviously become vital.

FvR

I've always ruled that when life support is taken out, it's still gonna take several rounds for crew to start suffocating from air loss simply due to the fact that there is so much empty space in imperial void ships for oxygen to hide.

You know, inertia is something that is always present. So if you rule that, because of physics, a ship with its engines blown has to keep moving in its last vector, then a vector & acceleration movement system should be applied all the time, thus ignoring ship's speed and taking their gravities acceleration values.

Of course, you could argue that the Speed value of a ship represents its maximun safe speed before bad stuff happens. However, that would be against the fact that bigger ships are more resilient and are better shielded than smaller ships in Warhammer 40.000.

Also, the fighting system does not take into account the little, small fact that Space is a tridimensional battlefield, allowing several heights. I'd recommend you, however, to take a look at the Saganami Island Tactical Simulator game from Ad Astra games, and then claim again that you want a more real physics-based space battle game.

Argus Van Het said:

I never said I wanted a more real physics-based game. I asked a question about what happens since I didn't see any mention of it.

Now, in reference to the answer to question #1, since you're rolling for damage when you score a crit, do you factor in void shield hit reduction into your damage roll? If I score 4 hits against a 1 shield vessel using a Crit rating 4 vessel, the crit result circuvents the void shield, does that mean the mundane dame all does, too or should I only roll 3 hits worth of conventional hull damage?

Telosse said:

#1 Yes. If you roll 9-10 on the crit table for "Hull Breach". This result allows you to target 1d5 known components and roll a d10 for each. A sufficiently high result on the second roll will destroy the component completely.

#2 You can target any component you know about. According to the rules, you can only target a component that you know about due to either scanning the vessel or the vessel having used that component against you. Since you don't "use" your life support or crew quarters directly against your enemy in battle, the only way to target those components is to scan the ship with your augers to find out where they are.

#3 I concur with the ideas of others that destroying the crew quarters/life sustainers would not have immediate repercussions on a ship, but eventually would. You might want to immediately do some Crew damage since crew might be off shift and resting during a battle when the quarters gets blown, or some Morale damage if the life sustainers go - knowing you only have an hour or two to life might make some crew want to run to a safe distance and focus on fixing life support rather than continuing the fight.

Telosse said:

Physics have no place in the starship combat system Rogue Trader uses. But if they did, the fact is that the destroyed ship no longer has acceleration, while the players ship does, so they can catch it eventually.

But I don't see the exact position of the enemy ship being important most of the time. To fully loot a ship, you are going to need a lot of time. Meaning you will need to deal with the combat first.

The only exception is if you want a smallish object from the ship and have a good idea as to where it is. Then I'd say that if you are in hit and run range when the engines die you can launch a party to retrieve it, otherwise you can't.