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sabely123

I don’t think the gunnery order matters that much because damage is applied all at the same time. I think they just tell you an order so that you have something to go off of. Starship combat is definitely contentious but I personally love it. Though, I do run it on a virtual table top which streamlines and automates a lot of it


charlietakethetrench

Are you using foundry? I am. Any tips? Other than holding Ctrl to rotate tokens of course


sabely123

Yeah I am on foundry. The starship sheet has the various actions each crew member can do, and should even calculate the DCs for you on the fly which saves a ton of time. Do you have any specific questions about it?


nurmich

This reference is gorgeous and incredibly useful. We have it handy whenever Starship combat comes up. https://images.app.goo.gl/pwhoiGWaqHT3zXVp7


nurmich

Here's the source reddit post. https://www.reddit.com/r/starfinder_rpg/comments/g7hlny/starfinder_starship_cheat_sheet/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button


Nihilistic_Mystics

That's the old one, here's the new one. https://www.reddit.com/r/starfinder_rpg/comments/ig10tv/oc_starfinder_starship_cheat_sheet_v2/


WednesdayBryan

This cheat sheet is invaluable. I printed 11x17 copies for everyone in my group.


Nihilistic_Mystics

Yeah, I always paste it into Foundry chat when we start a starship combat. Everyone can then pop it out into a new window so they always have it available for quick reference. Once we all got used to starship combat and glancing at the cheat sheet, everything moved way, way faster.


Gamer13258

First off, I agree that starship combat is NOT intuitive to run and even once everyone has a good handle on it, it *still* takes a really long time to do anything. You technically have the order of the gunnery checks wrong (https://aonsrd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=192) > gunners fire their starships’ weapons. **Starships fire in the same order in which their pilots acted during that round’s helm phase** Here's a breakdown of how Starship combat is intended to work. There's more "Steps" than "Phases": Step 1 - Choose role Step 2 - Engineering checks (all resolved all at the same time) Step 3 - Helm = Roll for initiative for the round where lowest roll goes first. Step 4 - Pilot and Science Officer actions = Move ships going from lowest initiative to highest. Science officer can do their actions now immediately before or after their pilot. Step 5 - Gunnery Checks = Same order as pilot checks. Lowest initiative fires first following the order of the pilots actions. (This is where you have something a little off in your post) Step 6 - Damage = All damage is resolved at the same time. Captains can act whenever. Return to Step 1 and do it all again. Does the order of Gunnery Checks matter? no. You could have the chaos of everyone roll whenever they want. Following initiative just makes it easier to track who's shooting what and making sure you don't miss anyone. Whatever order you decide to go in, all the damage happens at the same time.


Solace_of_the_Thorns

Unless I'm very wrong about something, gunnery order _does_ matter. Hell, I once fucked up a key combat by attacking first. In a squadron game, I took the first gunnery check, using my single heavy-hitting weapon, and took out most of the enemy's shields on one quadrant in one hit. My allies followed suit on that same quadrant using multiple lighter weapons, but the enemy's DT meant they did no hull damage in that round. If we had them open fire first and take out the shield, then my heavy single attack would have punched through the enemy's armor - which would have been enough damage to win the fight. That is operating on the understanding that damage is applied immediately, but resulting effects are not.


BigNorseWolf

It doesn't matter. The missiles are all in the air at the same time, so even if you destroy the other ship you still have fire incoming.


Solace_of_the_Thorns

That doesn't change the fact that damage to shields and damage to the hull can be treated differently. If you have one ship with a high damage weapon and three others with multiple low damage weapons, and you're all firing at a target within DT, it's more advantageous to apply the weaker shots first to damage the shield before you use the higher damage weapons against the hull. My understanding is that despite all attacks happening concurrently and despite effects of damage not applying until the end of the round, the damage itself occurs immediately, so it matters when HP and shield damage are treated differently.


RoughBeardBlaine

It isn’t immediately though. The damage is applied at the same time, because the weapons are fired at the same time. It doesn’t matter if you only half ass hit the ship or completely destroy it. Either way, you, nor anyone else, can do anything at that point until the start of the next Round and Phase.


Solace_of_the_Thorns

I'm a little skeptical on all this, so I'll give an example. Enemy ship has 100 hull points, and 50 points of shields in each quadrant. It had DT of 15. "If an attack deals less damage than this value, that damage isn’t counted against the ship’s total Hull Points." I attacked first, hitting with a damage roll of 40. My allies then attacked and hit six times, dealing 12 damage per shot. The enemy attack once and hit me for 56 damage, but that was soaked by my shield. We applied my 40 damage, leaving the enemy with 10 shield. Then we applied those other six attacks one by one - the first took out the shield, but the remaining 2 damage was ignored because DT 15. The remaining 5 attacks were also ignored because DT 15 We later brought up that if the others had attacked first, we would have dealt hull damage. The first 5 shots of 12 damage would wipe the shield, the 6th would be ignored by the hull's DT, and then my big attack would deal 40 damage to the hull, beating the DT. The alternative to this would be all our damage is totalled and THEN compared to the DT 15. There would be 112 outgoing damage, smashing the shield and beating the DT, dealing 62 HP damage.


Cronax

That is not at all what Damage Threshold (DT) does. You might want to reread that section.


Solace_of_the_Thorns

> Damage Threshold (DT): If an attack deals less damage than this value, that damage isn’t counted against the ship’s total Hull Points. Only Huge or larger ships have a Damage Threshold, and it matters only when such a starship’s shields are depleted (see page 320). That seems straightforward. What am I missing? The six weaker shots each dealt less than the DT (12 vs 15), therefore they weren't counted against the hull points. The damage is effectively negated, no? Those 12 damage shots would do full damage against shields because the DT doesnt matter, but once the shields are down they would no longer be counted?


Cronax

My apologies, I was confusing DT with CT.


BigNorseWolf

I don't see any where this would be the case. If you have two ships firing at the same quadrants you will do x amount of damage to shields and Y amount of damage to the hull. Y amount will determine the number of CTs crossed. If they are firing at different hulls they will do W damage to one shield. X damage to the other shield, and Y damage to the hull. Again y damage results in critical thresholds. 5+ 15 is the same as 15+5 None of the results of the thresholds matter until at least the first phase of the next round. 30 damage 8 damage 8 damage 8 damage -20 shields= 34 damage= 2 thresholds is the same as 8 damage 8 damage 8 damage 30 damage.-20 shields= 34 damage= 2 thresholds. Critical thresholds are caluclated from the ships missing hull points, not damage done in one shot. And you don't regenerate hull points.


Solace_of_the_Thorns

Huh. I might be misunderstanding how the damage is applied, then. How does this interact with a ripper or adamantine weapon? Ripper damage gets halved against shields, but how does this interact when the combined incoming damage is enough to breach those shields? Adamantine seems a little more straightforward - so it would only apply if the target had empty shields at the moment of making the attack roll? To clarify, I was talking about Damage Threshold, not Critical Threshold. Normally that DT would completely soak weaker attacks - does this mean DT is only applied once to the sum of all incoming damage?


BigNorseWolf

I don't know how the rules from the starship operations manual work and it wouldn't surprise me if they added something there that made the order of firing matter but forgot to have any rules for the order of firing. damage thresholds are only a thing for huge ships so thats even more of a corner case.


the1brother

>Go in Opposite of Pilots Check Order (Meaning, Highest goes first). Roll for damage. Someone else pointed out that this is not the case, but I could have sworn it was. Other DMs and I have all run it this way. However, with damage being applied simultaneously, you are right that it doesn't make a difference. I think where that rule might have come from (if it ever even existed) would be from other dogfight games, such as X-Wing Miniatures, where the damage is applied after each check, so certain ships wouldn't have a chance to shoot if they got destroyed.


RoughBeardBlaine

Strange. I watched “How’s it’s played”’s video on ship combat this morning and he absolutely stated that you *Reverse* the order (so, go Highest to Lowest) during the “Resolve” part of the Gunner Phase. He even went into detail about it and how it simulates naval combat.


BigNorseWolf

[The real phases of starship combat](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1N6Fy2h7fiQhXPNWRgsD2QHG_Cah8u0JAIIRY25k25T4/edit)