“Talon Tuesdays” is an article series appearing on InsideGMT periodically on Tuesdays.  It features articles from the Talon development team regarding the game’s design, development and upcoming release.

Issue #17: The Critical Damage Table

Hull damage is serious business. If given the opportunity, you always want to deal damage directly to a ship’s hull. An exposed shield side can turn the tide in battle and subsequent hull damage can lead to dramatic effects.  Yes, when a ship’s hull is reduced to zero (all the red hull boxes get marked off) it is destroyed and it explodes, however, this is not the only reason you want to be firing on the enemy’s hull.

Destroying hull boxes also means the ship will have less power. Not only are important parts of the ship that regulate power usage damaged but more power is re-routed to life support to keep the crew alive. Since power (and the AP it generates) is one of the most precious resources in the game, damaging a ship can have big effects on its offensive capabilities.  Also if a ship is traveling at a high Speed and suddenly takes a large amount of hull damage, reducing its Power, its drives may overheat and the ship can break apart.  You can never have a negative Power number written on your ship so unless the ship can slow down to a safe level during the Power Phase, it will overheat.

Thesymbol is in place of some hull boxes on a ship. This represents weak spots on the hull, the destruction of which can have devastating effects. You’ll note that most Terran ships have one of these symbols while most Talon ships have two.  Terran shipyards, for the most part, follow a balanced approach in ship design, even during the height of the First Talon War. Both offensive and defensive capabilities are taken into consideration.  Talon ships, on the other hand, are concerned with dealing massive amounts of damage and relying on their maneuverability to avoid taking multiple hits to a single side.  This philosophy is also present in each faction’s shield allotment.  Terran ships tend to have roughly equal shielding on all four sides while the Talons dump almost everything in the front.

We have formulas for each faction to determine the hull patterns in terms of crits and power loss and this formula is baked into the base cost of a given class of ship.  In our design, Talon ships are at a disadvantage for having two crit boxes, but they “spend” those ship points on better turning radii.

When ais marked off, the ship owner immediately makes a roll with two 6-sided dice on the critical damage table. The critical damage must be resolved before the rest of the damage from this attack is resolved.

There is a short version of the critical damage table on the front side of the Player Aid Cards. The reverse side of the Aid Card expands on each effect should any questions arise. There are basically two kinds of critical damage effects: Repairable and Permanent.  Permanent effects, like taking additional hull damage or losing a Weapon Group don’t get repaired during the battle.  In fact, if you are playing an Empire War game, that Weapon Group (and hull damage) will stay in place until that ship can fly back to the Fleet Reserve for a Strategic Round to be repaired.

Some critical damage can be repaired. These effects always have the  icon on the marker. Every impulse, regardless of whether or not that ship got AP, moved or fired, a ship with repairable damage may roll one 6-sided dice to attempt repair.  If you roll a 6 (as the icon suggests) the critical effect is immediately repaired. So, on average, repairable critical damage lasts “1 Round” or six impulses, unless you have good or bad luck.

Rolling “snake eyes” means this attack caused some kind of chain reaction explosion (probably the computer console of some poor red-shirt on the bridge). The ship immediately takes 3 more hull damage then the remainder of the original attack’s damage is resolved (if any). The additional 3 hull damage may trigger another roll on the critical hit table which would then need to be resolved!

Rolling 3 means your Shields are Down.  The Shields Down crit marker is placed on the ship. No shield bars are actually marked off, but all damage the ship would receive is immediately placed on the hull. This effect is similar to being in a Nebula. This, thankfully, is a repairable effect. The interesting consequence is: Do you move in for the kill or play cautious, knowing the enemy’s shields may come back online any moment, and they will likely try to get out of the fray for a bit to repair?

Helm Down means you ship cannot turn or side slip. It must fly straight. This could be catastrophic if you’re careening into a planet or flying straight into an asteroid that would deal you some damage. Thankfully, this is repairable.

Weapon Group Destroyed is a permanent effect. A random weapon group is crossed out with the dry erase marker and it will be unusable for the rest of the battle.  Shutting down the Talon Fusion Cannon can flip the tables on a battle.  If all of a ship’s weapons get shut down, they are not completely neutered.  These ships can try to FTL out of the zone or act as an electronic warfare ship and try to, instead, use their power to control the initiative.

Maneuvering Thruster damage means that your turning radius will be immediately increased by 1. This doesn’t affect any turns in progress but subsequent turns will take longer to complete since you are less maneuverable.  This is a permanent effect AND if it happens on a subsequent crit roll, it will be increased to +2.

If you roll lucky 7s you don’t take any critical damage, whew!

Power Relay Damage is similar to Maneuvering Thruster damage in that it is a permanent effect that changes your Power Curve numbers.  In the subsequent Power Phase you’ll have to subtract one from the number you write for Power for that ship. This is just like (and it stacks with) taking Power damage from having too many hull boxes marked off.  This is how a ship that is moving too fast can get into trouble and overheat. This effect can also stack if it occurs more than once. The change does not occur until the subsequent Power Phase because altering a Power number on a ship in the middle of a Round can, in some cases, give a ship extra AP, so mechanically, it must be resolved during the Power Phase.

Rolling a 10 only adds 1 extra hull damage, but it permanently shuts down your FTL drive.  This means your ship CANNOT retreat.  This could be game-ending if you NEED that ship to retreat to fulfill an objective and it most games, your opponent may wind up with a better degree of victory for his/her Lifetime Score.  This effect cannot be repaired during battle but it, along with the repairable damage IS repaired at the end of an Empire War battle, allowing a ship to fly to a different sector or to the Fleet Reserve.

Rolling an 11 means your ship no longer receives AP.  Your batteries (if any) may remain charged but may not be used for AP. The power relay that converts power from your drive or batteries into usable AP is damaged. Afterburners are unaffected since they do not rely on AP. Furthermore, your ship may not change its Power Curve during the Power Phase – you can’t just speed up a bunch since your Power is useless. This is a repairable effect and you’ll want to fix it fast.  If you wind up taking too much damage to power AND you have this in effect during the Power Phase, you may not be able to slow down and get your Power rating to 0. Failing to do so means you overheat and break apart.

Don’t roll box cars (two sixes)! You got a lucky shot and destabilized the enemy’s FTL core.  The ship immediately explodes!  When the chips are down and all you have is one shot at the enemy hull, all you can do is root for this effect to come up.

Crits are very powerful and can change the flow of battle. Whenever possible, try to cause one as it can take an enemy ship out of combat, if only for a little while.

Previous Article in the Series: Talon Tuesday Issue #16: The Play Book

Next Article in the Series: Talon Tuesday Issue #18: The Player Aid Cards

Author: Bob Seifert