Hovercraft and Planetary Vehicles

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This chapter covers ground and hover vehicles: what limits them, what they cost, how they move and fight on a planet's surface, and what happens when they crash. It also holds the rules for every ship that enters an atmosphere or lands. The vehicles themselves are in Chapter Eighteen.

Funtari Hover Technology

The Funtari Confederacy solved a problem other powers were content to work around: rough terrain. Funtari localized anti-gravity creates a controlled opposing field between a vehicle and nearby mass, generating lift that carries the vehicle across any surface at a consistent speed.

Ore moves out of mines that would have needed years of road building. Settlements stand on terrain no road reaches. Military forces cross rivers, marshes, and mountain approaches without slowing.

How Hover Technology Works

A hover system generates an opposing field against local gravitational mass. The vehicle floats above the surface and the system adjusts the field continuously to hold clearance over changing terrain. Friction moves from the ground to the air.

Hover technology works against mass, not air. It functions in vacuum, in pressurized environments, on planetary surfaces, and inside ships with artificial gravity. Far from significant mass, in deep space, it degrades badly.

Clearance Limits

Commercial hover systems are firmware-limited to their rated clearance. Military systems have no clearance cap.

Each vehicle in Chapter Eighteen lists its own clearance inside these limits. Overriding commercial firmware needs specialist tools, voids the warranty, and draws Funtari licensing attention.

Availability by Power Territory

The Confederacy controls hover technology through licensing. The commercial product is exported widely; military systems are restricted.

A crew in Confederacy space can buy, repair, or rent hover equipment without difficulty. In Caliphate space the same equipment is expensive, rare, and officially discouraged.

Hover Versus Ground Vehicles

Hover vehicles cross water, mud, ice, rubble, broken decking, and rough ground at the same speed as a road, and need no infrastructure.

Ground vehicles need flat, firm terrain for full performance. They are cheaper, simpler to repair, and immune to hover countermeasures: anti-hover ECM, field disruptors, and gravity-well effects that interfere with the opposing field.

Hover Vehicle Vulnerabilities

• Anti-hover ECM: Confederacy military field disruptors destabilize hover systems. Black-market versions circulate in frontier space.
• Power dependency: A hover vehicle that loses power drops (Hover Lift Loss, below).
• Field signature: An active hover system produces a detectable electromagnetic signature. A hover vehicle cannot run cold while the field is on.
• Weather sensitivity: High wind affects commercial systems (Atmospheric Conditions, below). Military stabilization reduces this but does not remove it.

Ground and Hover Vehicles at the Table

Scale and Limits

A ground or hover vehicle has the same stat lines as a ship: Scale, Speed, Handling, Armor, Hull Points, System Points, and mounts. It is not built with the Chapter Thirteen budget. Instead, its stats must sit inside the limits for its Scale and tier, and its price comes from the method below.

• Tier works as in Chapter Thirteen. A vehicle on open sale is Civilian, a Licensed one Professional, a Restricted or Military one Military. The builder signature allowance in Chapter Thirteen applies.
• Scales 2 to 4 use the Chapter Thirteen caps; the table repeats them. Scale 1 follows the Scale 1 range of The Starship Armory.
• No ground or hover vehicle is larger than Scale 4. A bigger surface machine is a structure or a campaign object, and the GM builds it.
• Weapons: a ground or hover vehicle carries mounts as if it were one Scale larger, and may carry one oversized mount (Chapter Thirteen, Hardpoints and Mounts). It never carries a Capital mount. Its hardpoint points stay under the Chapter Thirteen hardpoint cap for its own Scale.
• Hover lift is listed as Commercial or Military with its clearance. Ground vehicles list their terrain.
• Power and Heat: a ground or hover vehicle has no Power Capacity and no Heat track. Its power plant runs its lift and installed weapons for the hours its Power row lists. Ignore a vehicle weapon's Heat and Power values and the tags that only add Heat or Power Load (Cooldown, Heat Surge, Power Draw). Instead, a vehicle weapon with a Heat value of 4 or more cannot fire in two consecutive rounds. Engineering actions that manage Power or Heat (Boost Weapons, Boost Power, Reactor Overload, Vent Heat) are not available to vehicles.

Vehicle Classes

Atmospheric shuttles and landers are small craft (Chapter Seventeen).

Buying a Ground Vehicle

A ground or hover vehicle's price is its vehicle points × the ground rate for its Scale. The price includes its standard armament and equipment. Round up to the next 50cr. There is no catalog factor.

Vehicle points

Prices for the Chapter Eighteen vehicles

A Military vehicle is not sold. Its Prize Value is what it is worth to whoever captures or recovers it, before the legal consequences. Buying outside the home market and buying used follow Chapter Twelve. Owning a vehicle follows its Acquisition (Chapter Twelve). Funtari export licensing of hover technology is in the Equipment Guide, Chapter Three.

Vehicle Rules for Planetary Operations

Pilot Skill Governs

Whether the vehicle hovers or rolls, the Pilot skill governs vehicle operation: pursuit, evasion, combat maneuvering, and difficult terrain. The vehicle's Handling adds Boon Dice or Bane Dice to Pilot checks as for any vehicle.

Terrain Penalties

The GM applies the terrain modifier to Pilot checks on the ground.

Atmospheric Conditions

These modifiers add to terrain penalties.

Gravity and Vehicles

What gravity does to characters is in the Player's Guide, Chapter Ten. These effects apply to the vehicle.

• Low gravity (0.2 to 0.8g): Ground vehicles add 1 Bane Die to Pilot checks to hold control in sharp maneuvers at speed. Hover vehicles are unaffected.
• Elevated gravity (1.2 to 2.0g): Ground vehicles treat Speed as 1 lower. Hover vehicles are unaffected.
• High gravity (2.0 to 4.0g): Ground vehicles treat Speed as 2 lower and carry half their cargo. Hover vehicles draw 1 more Power Load while the field is active, and on a Calamity on any Pilot check the field fails (Hover Lift Loss).

Planetary Combat

Vehicle combat on the ground uses the ship combat rules in Chapter Fifteen, with the range bands, altitude, and terrain below.

Ground-Scale Range Bands

Planetary combat uses the six combat range bands at a ground scale.

Speed sets how many range bands a vehicle can change per maneuver, as Chapter Fifteen states for ships.

Altitude and Elevation

Near a surface or in atmosphere, track altitude only when it creates a choice: a dive on a target, a climb out of a weapon's reach, a fight around towers and cliffs.

• Altitude bands use the range band names, measured up from the surface. Engaged altitude is on the surface or within hover clearance of it.
• Effective range between two vehicles is the farther of their horizontal band and their altitude band. Do not add them.
• Climbing one altitude band in atmosphere or strong gravity costs twice the movement of changing one range band (Chapter Fifteen). Descending under control costs the normal amount.
• A commercial hover vehicle cannot leave Engaged altitude. A military hover vehicle may climb to Short altitude. Only aircraft and ships with an Atmospheric Package fly higher.
• Elevation in open space (the engagement plane above and below an encounter) is in Chapter Fifteen.

Cover and Terrain

A hover vehicle can rise above most light and hard cover or go around it at speed. It gets no benefit from cover it overtops.

Weapons and Damage

• Vehicle against vehicle: use the attack and damage procedure in Chapter Fifteen. The Scale in Combat rule in Chapter Three applies between a ship and a ground vehicle as between any two vehicles.
• Personal weapons against a vehicle: Chapter Three, Characters Against Vehicles. Damage is worked out at personal scale, the vehicle's Resistance is its Armor × 10 less Pierce, and what gets through is divided by 10.
• Vehicle weapons against characters: Chapter Three, Vehicles Against Characters. Multiply the weapon's damage, including the Successes beyond the first, by 10 and subtract the character's Resistance.
• Targeting a component: a vehicle gunner uses Target Systems (Chapter Fifteen) against a named system: weapons, drive, lift emitters. A character with a personal weapon makes the same Hard check with the weapon's own skill; the named system takes its System Damage only if the attack deals at least 1 Hull Damage.

Vehicle Ramming

Ramming on the ground uses the Ramming procedure in Chapter Fifteen unchanged, with the vehicles' Scale, Speed, and Armor.

A low-speed push is a ram declared at Speed 1. It deals no damage. On a success the target is pushed one range band or pinned against an obstacle, and cannot move on its next turn.

Landing and Atmospheric Approach

This section is the book's one statement of atmospheric operation. Chapter Three and Chapter Fifteen point here.

Atmospheric Ratings

Every hull lists Atmospheric (None, Limited, or Yes) and Landing (Yes or No). Chapter Thirteen builds them as the Atmospheric Package and Landing Systems.

Landing: Yes means the hull has Landing Systems and may set down on a surface that meets its Scale (Landing Surfaces, below). A hull without Landing Systems stays in orbit; crew reach the surface by shuttle or other small craft (Chapter Seventeen). Landing Systems are an optional core system: built in at the yard, or retrofitted under Chapter Thirteen.

Atmospheric Entry

Entering an atmosphere from orbit takes two checks, one by the navigator and one by the pilot.

1. Plot the entry (navigator). An Average Astrogation check; Hard on a world with no current charts. On a success, the pilot's entry check is unchanged; each adds 1 Boon Die to it. On a failure, the angle is wrong and the pilot's entry check adds 1 Bane Die. With no navigator, the pilot makes this check as well.

2. Fly the entry (pilot). A Pilot check. The difficulty is set by the atmosphere, then modified.

• Success: normal entry and a controlled approach.
• Failure: rough entry. The ship gains 1 Heat, and the pilot adds 1 Bane Die to approach and landing checks for the rest of the scene.
• Severe entry: the ship gains 2 Heat and takes 1 Hull Damage. The pilot makes an Average Pilot check at once; on a failure the ship enters Uncontrolled Descent.

Uncontrolled Descent

Uncontrolled Descent is defined in Chapter Fifteen with Uncontrolled Drift: the vehicle drops one altitude band each round until the pilot succeeds at Regain Control. In atmosphere it starts from a severe entry, extreme wind shear, a hover field lost at altitude, a Critical Hit to the drive or control surfaces, or System Damage reaching System Points. If it reaches Engaged altitude first, the vehicle crashes at its current Speed (Crash Damage, below).

Landing Surfaces

A landing surface must support the ship's size and mass.

Improvised landing. A pilot setting down on unprepared ground makes the Pilot check above.

• Success: the ship sets down. The ground may be damaged.
• One problem: a landing gear fault, a surface collapse under one strut, or 1 Hull Damage from structural stress (GM's choice).
• Landing gear failure: 2 Hull Damage, and the ship cannot take off until repaired.

Atmospheric Hazards

Vehicle Damage on the Ground

The Damage Track

Ground and hover vehicles take damage exactly as ships do (Chapter Three, Damage and Ship States). Hull Damage counts up toward Hull Points; when it reaches Hull Points, the vehicle is destroyed. System Damage counts up toward System Points; when it reaches System Points, the vehicle is out of control. Named systems (drive, weapons, lift emitters) and Critical Hits follow Chapter Three and Chapter Fifteen.

Crash Damage

A vehicle crashes when it goes out of control while moving, when Uncontrolled Descent reaches the surface, or when a collision goes badly wrong (GM's call). The vehicle takes the damage in the table; Armor does not reduce it. Occupants make a Reflexes check against the listed difficulty; a failure inflicts the listed Wounds or Strain at personal scale. Occupants strapped in remove 1 Bane Die.

Hover Lift Loss

A hover vehicle that loses power, is hit by anti-hover ECM, or has its lift emitters disabled loses lift. The result depends on its clearance at that moment.

A hover vehicle with a backup ground mode can drop onto its wheels or tracks instead: an Average Pilot check in the round lift is lost.

Rollover

A ground vehicle can roll over on a Calamity from a collision or from a failed Pilot check in a sharp maneuver at speed. A rolled vehicle is immobilized and takes 2 Hull Damage. Occupants make an Average Reflexes check or take 3 Wounds. Righting it takes an Average Craft check and an hour with tools and a winch, or ten minutes with a crane or a towing vehicle.