Combat

All the specific rules for trying to hurt someone or something.

The typical pattern is that during the attackers turn, the attacker sums their relevant Aspect, Aptitude, and weapon modifier. From there, the defender subtracts their defense/dodge/armor from the attackers dice pool. Any other modifiers are also added/subtracted (eg, cover, two-handed, piloting, etc..). This final dice pool is rolled by the attacker, and every success is a point of damage dealt to the defender.

It is advised that for routine rolls, all the summation occurs before the combat, or even, before the game starts. For example, the night before a game, we know what Clan ABC has for dice pools, weapons, armor, and size. We can calculate everything but the individuals dice pool, and therefore everything can be boiled down to "Wits + Fire Control + 1", since we know they have 3 points size difference (+3 attacker), defender AP of 3 (-3 attacker), and the weapon does 1 point of damage with no AP (+1 attacker).

Initiative
At the beginning of every combat, the characters involved roll Initiative. This determines which character goes first.

You roll one dice, and add your Initiative score (on character sheet; Dexterity + Composure) to the numerical value of the dice. Eg. Dex of 2, Composure of 3, and the dice rolls a seven: Your initiative for that combat would be 12.

One initiative per combat. If combat ends, and a second combat begins, you re-roll initiative.

Initiative together:
If everyone on the same ship wants to roll together, players can hold their initiative till they all line up. Eg. Bill, Bob, and Gogurt want to shoot at the same time. Bill got 6, Bob, got 3, and Gogurt got 17. They choose to go together, and therefore will go on "3".

Surprise/Cloak:
Sometimes characters can sneak up on their opponents. One common way is to carefully pilot the ship close to an enemy, while maintaining cloak. If the attackers not noticed, they get a "Surprise Round". This means all characters invovled with the surprise get a single action, all at the same time, before the legitimate combat starts. From there, the rules are back to normal (Eg. initiative then combat rounds till someone dies or runs away)

Escape:
One party wishes to leave the combat. They are probably losing. Given sufficient capacity to leave the fight (Crippled characters or starships cant run away), the remaining enemy gets one last uncontested attack on their fleeing opponent. Uncontested probably means nothing, but if there was some sort of mitigating shenanigans, those probably go away when you turn tail and run.

Fire Control
Each roll is one standard firing sequence.

* (Wits/Dex ? >) + Fire Control + Specialties +/- Situational

For use on most craft. Each additional turret adds +1. You cannot control more turrets than your Wits.

Incomplete weapon
When firing an incomplete weapon, make a normal roll as the attacker. If your roll produces zero successes, or if there were any 1's ( the roll [9,9,9,1] would count against you for this) then your incomplete weapon may become unstable. Make an extra and separate roll on the table below: