!!Work in progress – not usable yet!!

Star Vessel Combat Cheat Sheet

1. Roles on a Ship

Pilot: Maneuvers the ship (speed, positioning, evasive actions).
Co-Pilot: Assists the pilot, reduces difficulty, manages strain.
Gunner(s): Fires weapons, controls turrets.
Mechanic: Repairs systems, redistributes strain, reroutes power and shields.
Sensors: Scans, issues commands, boosts allies.
Troops Commander: Boarding actions, both offensive and defensive

2. Turn Sequence (Per Round)

Each star vessel acts in initiative order. Initiative roll:.1d100 + Detection Bonus + Maneuver Bonus
A ship may perform 1 Action + 1 Maneuver (can take a 2nd Maneuver by suffering System Strain).

3. Maneuvers (Pilot)

Accelerate/Decelerate: Change speed up/down by 1.
Fly/Drive: Move and navigate within range band or maintain pursuit.
Evasive Maneuvers: Increase difficulty of attacks against this ship.
Stay on Target: Increase accuracy but make ship easier to hit.
Gain the advantage:
Punch It:
Cold Run:
Angle Deflector Shields: Reassign shield dice to arcs.
Disengage: Leave the combat

4. Offensive

Fire Weapon: Gunnery check vs difficulty set by range + target size.
Ramming:
Boarding:
Hit and Run:
Launch Attack Craft:
Launch Torpedo:

5. Actions (General)

Damage Control: Reduce System Strain. Repair damaged/unpowered Component in 1d5 turns (–1 per DoS). Cannot fix destroyed parts. (Tech-Use)..
Active Augury: Scan area, detect ships/phenomena within 20 VUs (+5 VU per DoS). (Scrutiny + Detection).
Focused Augury: Scan a known target: learn Components (more info with more DoS). (Scrutiny + Detection).
Boost Shields / Reroute Power: Technical checks to give dice boosts or mitigate hits.
Plot Course: Adjust navigation, reduce environmental hazard difficulty.
Psychic Choir:
Triage: Reduce Crew Population damage suffered last turn by 1 + DoS. (Medicae).
Flank speed: Push engines for extra VU per DoS. On big fail, suffer “Engines Crippled” crit. (Tech-Use).
Disinformation – Bolster morale through deception: +1d5 Morale per DoS. (Deceive/Blather).
Hail the Enemy – Vox communication: intimidate, bluff, negotiate (Interaction Skills).
Hold Fast! – Requires Air of Authority. Inspires crew, reduces Morale damage suffered. (Willpower).
Jam Communications – Disable enemy vox within 10 VUs +1 per DoS. (Tech-Use).
Lock On Target – Use augurs for exact firing solution: +5 BS to one weapon, +5 per 2 DoS (Scrutiny + Detection).
Prepare to Repel Boarders! – Organize crew for defense, gain bonuses vs boarding. (Command).
Put Your Backs Into It! – Inspire or intimidate crew: +5 to one weapon fire, repair, or fire-fighting. More with DoS. (Charm or Intimidate).

6. Navigator Actions

Emergency Jump: In response to enemy fire, ship immediately translates into the Warp until its next Strategic Turn.
Scanning the Aether: Functions as Active Augury but with range = 3 × Perception Bonus
Warp Interference: Choose one enemy vessel within 3 × Perception Bonus VUs. Target suffers –10 Detection for 1 round +1 per DoS
Tactical Positioning: Difficult (–10) Psyniscience.
Effect: Grants +1 DoS to either a friendly Ballistic Skill Test (firing) or an Evasive Manoeuvre Test this turn.
Tactical Retreat: Difficult (–10) Navigation (Stellar). For every 2 DoS, reduce the successes needed for your ship to escape during a Stern Chase.
Relentless Pursuit: Difficult (–10) Navigation (Stellar). For every DoS, reduce the number of successes needed to catch a fleeing enemy ship.

Range Bands

Close 1 VU (dogfighting, direct Boarding and ramming distance)
Short 4 VU (Boarding distance)
Medium 8 VU (Hit and Run distance)
Long 12 VU
Extreme 20 + Detection Bonus/10
👉 Difficulty of Gunnery check increases with distance.

Unmovable: The ship or vehicle is not moving and cannot use this starship maneuver until it accelerates.

Speed 0: The ship is moving slowly and can use star vessel maneuver but cannot change range during void combat.

Speed 1-4: One starship maneuver to move within close range of a target or object, or two starship maneuvers to move from close to short range or from short range to close range.

Speed 5-8: One starship maneuver to move within close range of a target or object, to move from close to short range, or from short to close range. Two starship maneuvers to move from close to medium, or medium to close range.

Speed 9-12: One starship maneuver to move within close range of a target or object, to move from close to medium range, or from medium to close range. Two starship maneuvers to move from close to long, or long to close range.

Speed 13-16: As above but can change one Band Sector on long range with one manouver and another with a second manouver.

Speed 17-20: As above but can change one Band Sector on extreme range with one manouver and another with a second manouver.

6. Damage & Defense

Hull Trauma Threshold: Like HP; ship destroyed if exceeded.
System Strain Threshold: Represents overexertion; shut down if exceeded.
Armor: Soaks damage before Hull Trauma.
Shields: Provide defensive dice vs attacks; can be angled per arc.

7. Critical Hits

Exceeding a ship’s threshold or rolling DoS up to weapons Crit Rate can cause Critical Hit.
Critical table = system failures, fires, power outages, reduced handling, etc.

8. Narrative Dice Effects

Success = Hit / Effect
Failure = Miss / No effect
Advantage = Extra effects (e.g., strain enemy, give ally Boost dice, cause minor crit).
Threat = Complications (e.g., system strain, ammo loss, overheat, collateral).
Triumph = Major benefit (critical hit, cinematic moment).
Despair = Major drawback (collision, catastrophic malfunction).

Intro

Void combat in Rogue Trader has always been evocative but mechanically cumbersome, often bogging down into wargame-style turns, modifiers, and drawn-out exchanges. While detailed tactical play has its place, many groups find that it slows the pacing of a narrative-driven RPG, reducing what should feel like grand duels between titanic voidships to little more than a dice-grinding match.

This alternative system draws inspiration from Fantasy Flight Games’ Star Wars: Edge of the Empire vehicle and starship rules, adapting their focus on narrative consequence, shared crew spotlight, and cinematic flow to the grim darkness of the 41st millennium.

The goals of this system are simple:

Keep Rule Changes Minimal – Rogue Trader voidships, their characteristics, and their weapons remain intact. The system overlays new resolution mechanics without rewriting the vessel stats.
Streamline Game Flow – Replace granular round-by-round minutiae with fast, dramatic exchanges that represent phases of battle, allowing focus on decisive maneuvers, brutal broadsides, and heroic (or tragic) acts of command.

By integrating Rogue Trader voidship profiles directly into this alternative framework, the familiar mechanics of ship construction, scale, and weaponry remain usable without conversion. Captains can bring their mighty cruisers, frigates, and transports into the fight as before, but the flow of combat will feel closer to the sweeping, cinematic battles of space opera — with every decision carrying both mechanical weight and narrative consequence.

Star Vessel characteristic

From the tiniest, fastest swoop bike to a massive and lumbering Imperial Star Barge, all star vessels share a number of characteristics. These characteristics define such attributes as the strength of a ship’s shields or how quickly a speeder accelerates off the line. These characteristics cover the bulk of important mechanical information about starships and vehicles.

Handling: The measure of a ship’s agility and how well it responds to its pilot.
Speed: A ship’s raw speed and how quickly it accelerates.
Silhouette: An abstract of the general size of a star vessel.
Defense: A ship’s first line of defense against attack and accident. Typically representative of a ship’s void shields, defense also represents any factors, technological or otherwise, that prevent damage from reaching a vehicle’s armor.
Armor: The measure of a ship or vehicle’s armor, similar to soak on the personal scale.
Hull Trauma Threshold: A reflection of the sturdiness of a ship or vehicle’s construction, and its ability to sustain damage and keep operating.n: smoke, sparks, chaos.
System Strain Threshold: The limit to which a ship or vehicle can be pushed or knocked about before important systems overload or shut down.
Customization Hard Points: The number of spots available on a ship for customization and upgrade.