COMBAT

Yesterday, I discussed how starships (and fighter flights) will move in the upcoming Unity edition. One thing I failed to mention is that plotted starship movement is being put back in the main rules, after having been relegated to an optional rule in Nova. Fighters will activate alternately, as always.

Anyway, with movement becoming simultaneous once again, that meant it makes sense for combat to also be simultaneous. Players alternate declaring and resolving attacks, but damage is not applied until the Combat Phase has ended.

Obviously, combat resolution was the area in which Nova most diverged from traditional Starmada; ever since version 3.0, there had been a direct correlation between the number of weapons firing and the number of dice rolled. For example, a ROF-2 weapon always rolled two dice; variability was accounted for by modifiers to each die roll. In Nova, this changed. There was still a correlation between the number of weapons and the POTENTIAL number of dice rolled; however, modifiers did not apply to individual die results. Instead, each die was always successful on a 5 or 6; increased/decreased accuracy was reflected by altering the number of dice. This works exceptionally well in MJ12's Grand Fleets game -- and the ability to smooth out the effectiveness curve appealed to the math geek in me (in Nova, a +1 modifier always meant an increase in effectiveness of 40%; this was not the case in other editions of the game).

However cool and efficient this mechanic may be, it resulted in some admittedly kludgy applications when it came to non-ship weapons (such as mines and fighter flights). More importantly, it didn't allow players the flexibility to differentiate between low-ROF, high-accuracy weapons and vice versa. For a game that prides itself on universality and the ability to mimic any setting, this proved to be a significant drawback.

Thus, with Unity, we are returning to pre-Nova Starmada: each weapon rolls X dice to-hit against the ACC stat, with modifiers applied to the result of each die.

The shield roll never really changed: although it was expressed as a "saving throw" in Nova rather than a "number to exceed", the mechanic was the same, and it remains so in Unity, albeit going back to a numerical rating instead of dice icons.

Once hits have been scored, and confirmed against the shields, damage must be resolved. This brings us to the other major change in Nova: the elimination of the damage roll. As I confessed in my designer's notes in the rulebook (also published in ADB's CL#52) this was a mistake. I can bore you with the reasons why I did it in the first place, or I can just tell you the damage location roll is back.

1-3: Check off one hull box. Once all hull boxes are gone, the ship goes "BOOM".

4: Check off one box on the engine track. As the number in this track is reduced, the ship slows down.

5: Check off one box on the weapons track. As the number in this track is reduced, the controlling player must remove the appropriate number of weapons. For example, if the number on the track drops from 12 to 10, two weapons must be damaged. The specific weapons damaged is up to the player, with the limitation that no battery may lose more weapons than indicated by its loss limit until all batteries have reached their loss limits.

6: Check off one box on the shield track. As the number in this track is reduced, the ship's shield rating is lowered.

Low-res version of one of the starship display sheets included in the Unity Rulebook. This is from the "Contact: 1939" setting in the Squadron Strike rulebook (Ad Astra Games).