Vector movement

The best scene from the wonderful Pitch black movie (you know, Riddick before becoming some kind of Warhammer thing) is easily the ship crash in the beginning with the ship taking severe aerobrake damage and getting pounded some more when actually crashing on the planet. Good stuff! (full disclosure: I did the AI coding for Riddick: Escape from Butcher bay, and Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena so I am a bit partial to Pitch black, which these games are prequels to. Assault on Dark athena actually contain both games, and a multiplayer too).

Aerobrake damage

Crashing on a planet with atmosphere will first do a step of aerobrake damage where the ship slows from braking against the atmosphere. Any remaining speed will be taken as crash damage which is much worse, believe me.

A crash occur when a ship with non-zero speed during Drift has its Past on a planet. Remember that ships with Past on a planet are not affected by gravity (what direction should the gravity be?). If the ship has an atmosphere mandatory aerobrake will occur, if not continue to landing damage below.

Aerobrake with Atmos drag from page 20, you may brake more if your ship has wings, up to your ship’s Wing drag. If aerobrake damage modifiers are 1+ roll damage, streamlining is treated worse if the ship isn’t facing along its vector before the drag, ships will always face along the original vector after drag, yeah, turning for free.

Landing damage

A crash occur when a ship with non-zero speed during Drift has its Past on a planet with speed remaining after . Remember that ships with Past on a planet are not affected by gravity (what direction should the gravity be?).

Add up all damage modifiers from page 21 and if 1+ roll landing damage, the relative ARM and DAB modifirers are only used for docking and ramming. How hitlocation is rolled is based on the ships facing relative its vector, facing forward roll 2 D6 and use highest, if ass first roll 2 D6 and use lowest, all other cases roll 1D6. If the hitlocation is Destroyed reroll on Hull damage as usual. Don’t forget the whooping +6 Damage modifier when landing upside down, which can only really happen when landing on large planets.

Docking / Ramming damage

Docking and ramming works similarly to landing damage above but have some more damage modifiers, also on page 21, those taking relative ARM and DAB into account, the values used are from the actual hitlocatins used so larger ships docking with smaller are not safe. Roll damage if modifiers are 1+.

For an actual docking to occur both ships must hit Crew or Core and both ships must face and be rolled the same.

If you are ramming a larger ship, try to hit with your Hull versus their Surface or Thrust locations for better relative DAB and let us just hope you have better ARM there too.

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