How to Use This Book | Void Drifters Ships

PDF Download the Void Drifters Vehicles Manual 39.5 MB

In This Chapter

Chapter map and quick lookup
What this book covers alone and what it needs from other books
Key terminology
What this book adds to the Core Rules vehicle chapter

Read this book by table problem. Start with the chapter that answers your immediate question, then follow its cross-references.

Chapter Map

Chapter	Title	Use It When
1	Introduction	You want to know what this book covers.
2	How to Use This Book	You want the right chapter, or you want to know which other books you need.
3	Vehicle Rules Primer	You need the rules framework: what each stat block line means, Scale, Speed and Handling, the damage tracks and ship states (out of control, destroyed, abandon ship), Power and Heat in brief, sensor grades, crew, cargo and passengers, consumables, and vehicle scale against character scale.
4	Starship Classes	You want the ship class vocabulary: what each class does, which Scale it sits at, and who operates it.
5	Ship Builders and Design Language	You are choosing a hull and want each builder's signature benefits, weak-system drawbacks, compatibility, and the rules for patchwork ships.
6	Engines, Drives, and Power	You need sublight engines and in-system travel, Slipstream drives and FTL transit, offset exits, Power Capacity and overloads, Heat and the Heat Threshold, or ship gravity systems.
7	Navigation, Sensors, and Comms	You need Astrogation checks (seams, corridor transit and capacity, saturation, offset exits, exploration), sensor grades and detection, Signature Management, Electronic Silence and Cold Running Mode, transponders, ship communications and the relay network, or the ship AI Core.
8	Weapons, Shields, and Defense	You need hardpoints and mounts, weapon statistics and tags, ammunition and payload prices, Deflection, armor, screens, point defense, ECM, evasive, damage control, and signature systems, with their prices.
9	Hovercraft and Planetary Vehicles	You are operating on a planet, moon, or station and need Funtari hover technology, ground vehicle limits and prices, planetary combat, crashes, or atmospheric entry and landing for any ship.
10	Components, Upgrades, and Compatibility	You are installing, replacing, upgrading, or modifying a module, hardpoint, or system, carrying small craft, drones, or vehicles, running a long refit project, or looking up a failure mode, a component rating, or a module in the Module Catalog appendix.
11	Repairs, Maintenance, and Salvage	You are repairing Hull Damage, System Damage, or a Critical Hit in combat, in the field, or at a yard, jury-rigging a system, stripping a derelict and selling its components, or finding parts.
12	Ship Economy and Ownership	You are buying, financing, leasing, insuring, or selling a ship, or paying its running costs: fuel, supplies, docking, wages, and the maintenance schedule.
13	Designing a Hull	You are building a new model from a bare hull and need the build sequence, budgets, tier caps, hardpoints and mounts, retrofits, and pricing.
14	Crew Stations and Actions	You need to know what each crew member can do in a ship encounter: the six stations, the Astrogation and Medical and Support actions, crew size, covering two stations, assisting, the captain, and AI-assisted actions.
15	Ship Combat and Chases	You are running a ship fight or chase: Initiative, the round, range, Speed, and facing, the Helm, Gunnery, Engineering, and Sensors and Comms actions, the Boon Limit, damage, Critical Hits, uncontrolled drift, ramming, chases, carried craft, boarding, and large battles.
16	Catalog: Starships	You need a commercial, common, or military starship stat block.
17	Catalog: Small Craft	You need a fighter, shuttle, boarding craft, escape craft, or atmospheric craft stat block.
18	Catalog: Ground and Hover Vehicles	You need a hover vehicle, ground vehicle, or specialized planetary vehicle stat block.
19	Vehicle Quick Reference	You want summary tables during play: combat, travel, weapons, defenses, costs, repair, and every catalog entry in one row.
Back matter	Glossary and Licensing	You need a term defined, or the book's licensing and permissions.
Back matter	Index	You are looking up where a topic, ship, or vehicle is covered.

If You Want To...

If you want to...	Go to Chapter
...pick or buy a ship	4, 5, 12, 16
...finance, insure, lease, or sell a ship	12
...design a new hull	13
...understand what your ship's stats mean	3
...know what your character can do at a station	14
...run a ship fight	14, 15
...run a chase	15
...handle damage and repairs	3 (damage and ship states), 15 (Critical Hits), 11 (repairs)
...manage Power Load and Heat	6, 15
...install or swap a ship system	10
...use sensors, hide the ship, or scan a ship	7
...jam a ship or break a lock	15
...plan or execute an FTL jump	6, 7, 12 (fuel)
...operate on a planet or station	9, 18
...field a fighter or shuttle	10, 15, 17
...use the ship's AI	7, 14
...salvage a derelict	11
...pay fuel, maintenance, and crew costs	12
...find a summary table quickly	19

What You Need From Other Books

This book covers everything at vehicle scale on its own: ship and vehicle statistics, construction, upgrades, repairs, ownership, travel procedures, crew station actions, and ship combat. It does not repeat the core dice rules or the character rules, and it does not replace the books that own personal gear, campaign pressure, or geography.

Book	You Need It For	This Book Covers
Exodus NDS Core Rules (required)	The dice, building a pool, resolving checks, reading results, Story Points, structured play, and the core vehicle chapter (Chapter Eleven of the Core Rules)	How Void Drifters uses and extends the core vehicle framework
Player's Guide (required)	Characters, the Void Drifters skill list (Chapter Seven), talents and advancement (Chapter Eight), the basic AI-assistance rule and common technology (Chapter Ten), the player overview of ships and crews (Chapter Eleven), and personal combat (Chapter Fourteen)	The full rules and stats under the Player's Guide ship summaries
Equipment Guide (optional)	Personal gear, small arms, armor, shipboard gear carried by the crew, boarding gear, restricted personal technology, services, licenses, cargo values, and black-market availability	Ship systems, modules, and ship-mounted weapons; where a vehicle system works with personal gear, this book gives the interaction
GM Guide (optional, GMs)	Faction fleet pressure, warrants, inspections, ship seizure and impound, job pricing, fines, and the hidden technology secrets	Vehicle rules the GM Guide uses as leverage
Sector Atlas (optional)	Published route records, seam arcs, corridor stability, relay status, system Approach values, and port directories for the Meridian Verge	The navigation, sensor, and drive procedures those routes use
Starter Adventure (optional)	The free first-job adventure with pregenerated crew, starter ships, and excerpted rules	The full reference behind the excerpts

Terminology to Know Before You Start

Class is the plain-language role of a ship: fighter, shuttle, courier, cutter, corvette, frigate, cruiser, carrier, and so on. Chapter Four defines every class.

Builder is the company or yard that built the hull: Crown Meridian, Openframe, Viridian, Kharos, Safa, or one of the sovereign military yards. Chapter Five covers each one.

Model is the builder's recognizable structural family, written in that builder's own house style: CM-440, Model 20, VN-33C1, KR-41, Safa S3.

Scale is the size envelope, from 1 (person-sized) to 7 (the largest commercial hulls). Scales 8 to 10 are sovereign warships and war stations that this book does not stat (Chapter Four).

Hull Points measure structural integrity. When Hull Damage reaches Hull Points, the ship is destroyed, with one round to abandon ship (Chapter Three).

System Points measure operational capacity. When System Damage reaches System Points, the ship is out of control (Chapter Three).

Power Capacity is the maximum total Power Load the ship can sustain across all active systems at the same moment. It limits what runs at once; it does not accumulate.

Heat is thermal buildup. It rises as systems run and falls by the ship's Heat Dissipation at the end of each round. Above the Heat Threshold, penalties escalate.

Module Slots hold major optional installations: cargo holds, medical bays, workshops, drone bays, and similar large systems.

Weapon Hardpoints are prepared weapon mounts with structural support, power, ammunition feeds, targeting links, and firing clearance. They are counted in points: a Light mount uses 1, a Standard mount 2, a Heavy mount 3, and a Capital mount 4 (Chapter Eight).

Check is every roll in this book: you build a pool and roll it. The Trial Die is the base difficulty die that goes into that pool. "Trial" names only the die, never the roll.

Pilot replaces the core skill Operate. Any core rule or talent that names Operate uses Pilot in Void Drifters. Ship weapons use Gunnery, ship computers and sensors use Electronics, and Slipstream navigation uses Astrogation (Player's Guide Chapter Seven).

What This Book Adds to the Core Rules

The core Exodus NDS vehicle rules (Chapter Eleven of the Core Rules) give the baseline framework: Scale, vehicle characteristics, damage, repairs, and the vehicle Critical Hit table.

The Vehicles Manual adds:

Power Capacity and Heat
Weapon Hardpoints and Module Slots as separate capacity counts
Builder identity, compatibility grades, and integration procedures
Crew station action lists for Void Drifters ship roles
Ship-scale AI assistance and Active Channels
Slipstream drive, navigation, and seam-exit procedures
Fuel, supply, and maintenance tracking for campaign play
Ship prices, financing, and operating costs
A hull design procedure
Gravity effects aboard ships and in vehicles
Ship, small craft, and vehicle catalogs for the setting

When this book is silent on a procedure, use the Core Rules. When this book speaks, it replaces the Core Rules for Void Drifters play.