Vex Solo Play 1

I think I'm ready to play test some starship combat. Let's stat up our centurion, his ship, a few enemies, and see what happens... 

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Galan Centurion Standard Issue:

• Heavy Phase Pistol (1D8+1 frost damage | STR | STR 9+ required)
• Blast Pistol (1D6) as second weapon (and in case the foe is cold resistant!)
• 2 Bola Grenades
• 2 Medi Pads
• Utility Line
• Nutri Powder
• A Centurion Flex Suit (+2 AC | -1 to sneak attempts)
• Blast Pack.
• Centurion Helmet. This special helmet has a built-in tele link; it has both range goggles and a vent mask that can each be activated with one action; it grants +2 to all Feats against any sensory attack.

Lieutenant Vex Kalar, Centurion of Gal (Myrmidon 2)
    AC 15 | hp 26 | Feat +8 | Move 3 | Resolve 2D8 
    Heavy Phase Pistol (x2 | +4 | 1D8+1 frost damage); Blast Pistol (x1 | +4 | 1D6)
    STR 9 (+1) | INT 7 | WIS 5
    DEX 9 (+1) | CON 13 (+2) | CHA 7
Attack (+1) | Resolute (+1) | Vehicles (+1) 
Intuition: Object Reading | Vigor (soak 1 point per round)

Vex is a sincere, optimistic, and somewhat idealistic young man. Vex has kept his object reading intuition a secret from high command, and has actively worked against developing it. He never wanted to be an intuit; he has always wanted to be a centurion. Awareness of this gift would almost guarantee that he’d be placed in another division, and would not be on combat patrol.

Centurion X-8 Javelin Interceptor (With Vex Piloting)
    Rel +13 | Ctrl +4 | Speed 3 
    AC 19 | Shields 3D6 (2 zones) | Hull 6 | HD 2D8 (12 hp) 
    Twin-mounted phase cannon (+6 | 4D8)
    -1 die shift for upkeep (2D6) | Full sensor array
 
Muskrat Patrol Ship (with standard pilot 1)
    Rel +11 | Ctrl +3 | Speed 1
    AC 16 | Shields 2D6 (2 zones) | Hull 4 | HD 2D8 (9 hp) 
    Single Blast Cannon (+1 | 4D6) 
 
Playtest 1
 
Vex has been looking for a pair of muskrat patrol ships that have been harassing guild vessels as they enter and leave Banquo’s Tooth. His scanner picks them up and he moves to engage.
 
He hails them, but they try to bluff. It fails. He stops at 3 km from them. When he notices they are activating weapons systems, he does the same. Initiative. He wins. In the first round, he fires once, and each of the enemies fires once. All miss.
 
In round 2, he notes that they are preparing to drop into orbit and try to escape on Banquo’s Tooth. He fires twice, and hits once. His cannon deals 18 damage. The first muskrat's ship soaks 5 in the shields, 4 in the hull, and the remaining 9 to damage. This is the full hit points of the ship, so it is down to 0. The pilot must attempt a control check to keep the ship from careening into the atmosphere. He rolls a 3, and fails. The ship must attempt a reliability check, and gets a natural 1. The ship spins into the atmosphere, and burns up on re-entry. Ouch. The pilot has no chance to eject. The second muskrat uses its action to try and escape, but there aren’t many places to go… He pushes the engine for speed, and gets 2+1 =3. He travels 3 km with this engine fire. Weak sauce.
 
It’s round 3.  The muskrat was able to travel 3 km (now 6 km away), but this is still within the 10 km encounter distance. Vex will take chase, traveling 3 km without effort. He uses his other action to hail the ship again, telling it to stand down. The scavenger piloting it decides to still make a break for it. He pushes his engines, getting 3+1=4 km. He is now 7 km from Vex, so still within encounter distance. Vex fires, getting 19+6=25, and hitting easily. He deals 19 damage; the shields soak 6, the hull soaks 4, and the ship sustains 9 damage, which is again enough to put it at 0. The pilot must attempt a control Feat to crash land, and gets 8+3+6 = 17, so fails. 
 
I roll 1D6+1 for how many rounds until he crashes, and get 3. Vex is going to try and help him. He issues a command to stay in the cabin and lean into Vex’s vapor trail; Vex should be able to guide the craft down so he can make a safe emergency landing; this would be very, very difficult, but he has a lot of resolve. He attempts a CHA check and gets 3 on the die. Nope. The pilot ejects.
 
Vex sighs and follows the falling pilot. It is the beginning of the next turn when the pilot finally lands, his drop chute carrying him into the middle of the Veth Tundra. Ugh. Not good for this dude. There is a 1 in 6 chance that something dangerous is nearby; I roll 1. Yeah. It’s a Mirdan Crystal Wyrm. I guess I need to stat that bad boy up. Here’s a first stab at it:
 
Mirdan Crystal Wyrm (Huge Creature 4)
    AC 19 | HD 8D10 | Feat +10 | Move 6 (burrowing) 
    Bite (x4 | +8 | 4D8) | Ice Breath (8D10 per turn | 10 meter line)
    Burrowing | Immune to Cold 
 
We’ll just go ahead and give him 5 hp on the die, so 40 hit points. 
 
The Wyrm starts 2D20 meters away, and we get 12. That’s close.
 
Order of events: Vex hovers 6 meters up; scavenger pilot lands 3 meters from shadow of the Javelin; wyrm erupts from loose snow 12 meters away from the scavenger. It’s initiative. Vex wins, then the wyrm, then the scavenger. Vex would rather not just kill this thing if it can be avoided, but we’ll have to see. He is just hovering, so he doesn’t need to do anything else, and can fire his cannons twice. He gets 3 and a natural 1. Dang. He attempts a Feat on that natural 1, and gets 14+8=22, so he’s okay. He realizes that he had switched off fire control on his chase, and had to re-energize. Rookie mistake.
 
The wyrm has a decision to make; it can eat the easy little morsel, or try to crack this ship open and see what’s inside. Odds will be against Vex; I roll 4. He goes for the easy meal, and chases the scavenger, who is freaking out. He is able to easily cross the distance and gets 3 bites. Uh oh. He hits with the first bite, and swallows the little scavenger dude whole.
 
Vex realizes that engaging this creature is no longer justified, and decides instead to investigate the crash site. He leaves behind a circling and still hungry Mirdan Crystal Wyrm. If he wanted to, he could hover maybe half a km up and hit it with gunfire until it died or went aground. That would be needlessly destructive. He also knows that several members of his platoon would do that without qualm. The thought bothers him.
 
He turns his ship to the ruins of the crashed Muskrat. He might still be able to salvage something from its flight logs.
 
Notes:

• Chase rules work really well. By getting movement rates down to single digits for the most part, I am able to use 1D6 to reconcile most chases; if you have speed 8 and you are chasing a craft with speed 2, you will catch it, but it depends on how long it takes. If you have speed 8 and the other craft has speed 6, you are probably going to catch it, but if it rolls well and you don’t, it might be able to get away.
• I can’t always tell how much is my intuitive understanding of what I want the rules to do versus what the rules actually tell you, but the rules framed everything out well enough. I was able to improvise quite a bit, but always knew which ability or modifier would govern whatever I was trying to do. I didn’t have to ask too many questions; again, I’ve been tinkering with this system for a long time, so I don’t know how much of that is my own experience just kicking in, and I’m not sure how a newer GM might reconcile these situations. 
• I like it that a starship's stat block changes based on who's piloting them. A good pilot in a bad ship is still going to be able to do more than a bad pilot in the same ship would. 
• Starship combat is deadly; Vex is flying a superior craft against basic interceptors; he is a more experienced and capable pilot; he should be able to do that. There are a lot of ships that get one-shotted in space battles. Small interceptors with limited options should be exploding all over the place.