To play D&D in space, you need space ships which retain the individual agency of the players, even as they are all stuck inside a single vessel with a single pool of hit points. I first proposed my space ship system back in July of 2017, with a revision to the system coming just a week later. At the time, this was all theoretical. Now that I’ve been running Fuck the King of Space for a few months, I can tell that there’s something worth exploring here, but some tweaks are definitely needed.
Also, it has been annoying to have the system spread across two contradictory posts. I often meet people who are interested in the system, but put off by the way it is presented. So this post will explain space ships, as they exist now, in full detail.
And I do mean full detail. If you’d like a concise version of the 4,000+ words I’ve written below, check out the FKOS player document linked above. Ship rules are on pages 20 and 21. This post will include all the details too trivial to include there, as well as explanations of my thought process.
The Spaceship
Space ships are like characters. The ones controlled by the players will need a character sheet, probably managed by the referee. NPC ships need fewer details, and can be represented by as little as a statline.
Player ships have 8 basic variables to track.
Hit Dice: A measure of the ship’s build quality. This will probably start at 1 for any ship the players would have access to.
Hull Points: An abstraction of the ship’s ability to absorb damage before its systems start to break down. A ship’s hull points advance as a fighter’s, starting at 8, and increasing by 3 with each additional hit die.
Space: How much space is available on the ship for systems, modules, and cargo. It doesn’t only measure the internal volume of the vessel, but also how much weight the superstructure is able to support. (This is why external systems, like mechanical arms, still take up space)
A small ship would have 15-25 space inside of it. This would typically be a 1 or 2 man ship, with internal space ranging from a single seat, to the size of a studio apartment.
A moderately sized ship would have 26-50 space in it. These are your cargo vessels, your personal yachts, etc. They’ll have enough room for a crew to live and work, to carry cargo, or to serve as a platform for weapons.
A large ship would be anything with more than 50 space. These are mostly military ships. Weapons platforms, troop transports, flying fortresses, and even carriers which ferry around smaller ships inside of them.
As players tinker with their ship, adding or removing modules, the available space is likely to change relatively frequently. It is most helpful to express a ship’s space as a fraction: [Currently Used] / [Total]
Cargo Space: The difference between the currently used and total space on a ship. Anything left over once the ship’s systems are accounted for is how much room the ship has to haul cargo. The referee should track this between sessions. If the ship is ever carrying too much, the players will need to decide what they left behind before the start of play next session.
Maneuverability: The total amount of space a ship has determines its size category, as explained above. A ship’s size category determines its maneuverability. Small ships have 6, moderately sized ships have 3, large ships have 0. This will be the target number of any attacks made against the ship, modified by distance, and pilot skill.
Speed: Determined by the ship’s engines. For most vessels, it is 1 AU.
Power: Also determined by the ship’s engines, usually at a rate of 1 power per 1 space the engine takes up on the vessel. Most of a ship’s systems require power to operate, with the exception of things like living quarters and the cockpit. If the ship ever seems to have too many systems active at once, the referee should pause the action to take quick inventory of the party’s power usage.
For the sake of simplicity, most systems will work as described using only one power to operate. However, players can put extra power into a system to try an eke some extra functionality out of it.
For convenience, the referee may want to mark some of a ship’s systems as “assumed active.” Things like Life Support, and Artificial Gravity. Power can then be noted as a fraction: [Available Power] / [Total Power]. This will speed up the process of taking inventory whenever that needs to be done.
Fuel: Explicitly, this refers to the material a ship’s engine uses to generate power. But, it could also also be abstracted to include food and water. Each ship has a fuel tank which can store 10 fuel per 1 space it takes up. A point of fuel is consumed anytime the ship passes into a new hex or engages in space combat.
Improving a Ship
Most frequently, ships are improved by adding or upgrading their modules. You can think of modules as a ship’s tools and equipment. Where a player might carry a rope and wear leather armor, a ship might have a mechanical arm and a missile interception drone. Likewise, while a player might eventually upgrade to silk rope and plate armor, a ship might upgrade to tractor beams and energy shields.
The other way ships improve is by raising their hit dice, and thus, their hull points. This is done by overhauling a ship’s superstructure in a repair dock. To determine the cost, refer to the Fighter’s experience table, and multiply the experience requirement by 10.
So, to reach 2 hit dice requires 20,000 money. To reach 3 hit dice requires 40,000 money, and so on. This is exorbitantly expensive for two reasons.
First, as the ship is a shared resource, it is assumed the player’s will pool their money to improve it, and the cost must be a commensurate challenge. Second, because of the way combat works, it is highly desirable that ships are always in imminent danger of reaching 0hp, as this is where players will need to make the most interesting choices.
Spaceship Movement
A ship’s speed determines its local movement, measured in Astronomical Units, or AU. AU are an abstraction of the relative distance between objects. 3 dimensional space can be difficult to describe in exact terms, so it is sufficient for the referee to say “You are 2 AU away from the enemy ship, and 3 AU away from the planet’s gravity well.” Players will not describe their movement in terms of “North” or “South,” but rather, “Towards” or “Away” from points of reference.
No matter how fast a ship is locally, its interstellar movement rate is 1 hex at a time. Each hex of movement consumes 1 fuel, and prompts a roll of the hazard die. Space may be a vast empty void, but it’s more interesting if there’s stuff to encounter out there.
Ships equipped with a Jump Drive may skip the hazard roll, and travel quickly to any desired point in the galaxy. However, this requires 3 fuel per hex crossed.
Spaceship Combat
In most respects, ship combat works the same way combat normally does. Players who are operating weapon modules roll a d20. Their goal is to roll equal to or higher than their target’s maneuverability, which is modified by the skill roll of its pilot. Note that pilots make only a single roll each round, which establishes the target number for every attack made against their ship until the next round.
Attack rolls are modified by any native bonus the weapon operator may have. They also suffer a -1 penalty for every AU of distance between the attacker and the target. (Ships may close to 0 AU from one another to avoid this penalty.) Weapons may be set to fire automatically, but doing so requires at least one player to spend an action identifying valid targets. Automated weapons suffer a -2 penalty to attack.
When weapons hit, the attacking player rolls a d6 for damage, which is subtracted from the enemy vessel’s hull points. Hull points can only be restored by visiting a space dock, and each point of restoration costs 250 Darics. Ships can only be damaged by ship-scale weapons. Weapons small enough to be wielded by an individual character cannot typically affect a ship.
When a ship reaches 0hp, it is not destroyed. If a hit would reduce a ship below 0 hp, it is reduced to 0hp instead. Once a ship is at 0hp, additional hits affect the ship’s systems directly.
For each hit, the referee should roll to randomly determine one of the ship’s modules. Damage is then rolled normally, and that damage is applied both to the module, and to any character who was in that module or operating that system.
Damaged modules do not function, but they can be repaired. Each round, characters can make an engineering check to repair a system. If they succeed, they remove 2 damage from the system, if they fail, they only remove 1. If the system takes more damage while they are repairing it, they take that damage as well. Once a system has 0 damage, it can be brought back online at any time.
If a system or module takes 10 or more damage, then it is too mangled to be repaired in combat. Each engineering check to repair will take 1 hour of time, and will require access to the outside of the ship.
If a system or module takes 20 or more damage, it cannot be repaired in the field. The players will need to visit a repair dock.
Note that, using this system, it is actually very difficult for a ship to be destroyed. In fact, there is no explicit way to destroy a ship. There are two reasons for this.
First, it is much more interesting for the players to try and persist with a thoroughly disabled ship, than it is for them to simply die. Second, when everyone is sharing the same island of habitability in an endless void of death, a destroyed ship is an instant TPK. Running a game with lethality that high seems like a chore to me.
Modules & Systems
As noted above, a ship’s modules & systems are analogous to a character’s equipment. And, like equipment, players are meant to use them creatively. Just as a rope could be used for climbing, or creating a tripline, or making a lasso; so too can a ship’s artificial gravity be used to keep people on the ground, or to increase everybody’s weight tenfold, or to shove them up against the ceiling.
The goal here is to make sure every character can find something to do with themselves. It’s no fun if the pilot decides where we go, and the gunners decide what we shoot, and everybody else is just sitting in the back seat making suggestions. They should be able to tinker with systems, alter the way they work, or juice them up with extra power to make them do something beyond their normal capabilities.
This list is suggestive, not exhaustive.
Basic & Essential Modules
Engine (Variable Space)
Engines both produce a ship’s power, and consume some of that power to create thrust. Most engines produce 1 power for every unit of space they take up, and can provide 1 AU of speed for every point of power put back into them. Though, more advanced engines that improve on those numbers may exist.
Most engines take up 5 space (and, thus, produce 5 power). Engines of this size cost 4,000 Darics. Successively larger engines increase in cost by 50% for every extra unit of space/power they have. So, an engine which produced 6 power would cost 6,000 Darics. An engine that produced 7 power would cost 9,000 Darics. Engines sell for 1/2 their purchase price.
There is no way to ‘upgrade’ an existing engine to provide more power, nor can multiple engines work effectively in tandem with one another. To improve a ship’s engines, an entirely new engine must be purchased.
Jump Drive (1 Space)
Allows a ship to accelerate beyond the speed of light, traversing years of distance in mere hours. Jump drives function only in open space. If a ship attempts to jump while in a gravity well, or if they pass through a gravity well during a jump, their engine will shut down.
Because space is a vast empty void, any malfunction could leave a ship stranded in the literal middle of nowhere. With no chance of rescue, the crew would be lost for all time. To minimize this risk, Jumps are carefully planned to pass within communications range of as many inhabited worlds as possible. Making these calculations in any sort of reasonable time-span requires a navigation computer.
Navigation Computer (1 Space)
Without a NaviComp, plotting a course takes 2 hours per hex the jump will cross. With one, a safe jump to any location in the galaxy can be plotted within 10 minutes.
In an emergency, NaviComps can be used to calculate short-range (1 hex) jumps in as little as 1 minute, but there is a 1-in-6 chance the ship will encounter a hazard if this is attempted. When this happens, the ship’s hull points will be reduced to 0, and every system will take 5 points of damage.
In the most dire of emergencies, players may attempt to plot a 1-hex jump in a single round. If the players are mad enough to try this, have them roll a d6. If a 6 is rolled, the jump completes successfully. On a 2-5, the ship encounters a hazard as described above. On a 1, the jump fails almost immediately. The ship moves 1d6 AU from where it started, and both the engine and the Jump Drive take 15 damage.
Cockpit (1 Space)(No Power Required)
Essential for any ship. The cockpit houses the piloting controls, and may have several other control stations in it as well. Any character is capable of performing the basic functions of piloting a ship, but when attempting particularly tricky maneuvers, or trying to evade enemy fire, there’s no substitute for a trained pilot.
Artificial Gravity (1 Space)
Beneath the deck plates of most ships are microgravity generators. Tiny things, individually cheap, arranged in a latticework to create a simulation of comfortable gravity within the relatively tiny space between the floor and ceiling of a space ship’s rooms.
Without gravity, it is very difficult to move around inside of a ship. Particularly because ships have not been designed to to be navigated without gravity since pre-history. Meaningful rest in a ship without gravity is basically impossible.
Atmosphere Recycler (1 Space)
Maintains oxygen and heat to human comfort throughout the ship. Without it, the crew would need to wear environment suits to survive.
If the AtmoRecycler loses power, conditions will degrade rapidly. One minute after the system loses power (10 turns), everyone within the ship has their maximum hit points reduced to what their max was at 1st level. Additionally, actions take twice as long to attempt as normal.
For each successive minute this condition persists, maximum hit points are reduced by 1, and the number of rounds required for an action is increased by 1.
So, after 1 minute, a fighter’s maximum hit points would be 8, and it would take them 2 rounds to make a single repair check. After 2 minutes, their max hp would be 7, and it would take 3 rounds to make a repair check, so on, and so forth.
Communications (2 Space)
Basic units allow for communication with anything in the same hex as you. If there is a relay satellite within range, you may be able to connect to a larger communications network.
More powerful comm systems exist, which allow connection to be made with even more distant recipients.
Sensors (2 Space)
Allows the operator to discover information about their environment. Can scan up to 1 AU away for every point of power pumped into the system.
Without sensors, players are limited to what information is transmitted to them directly, and what they can see with their eyes out the viewports. They may not even be aware of an enemy ship until it’s in the same AU that they are.
Housing for People and Objects
Living Quarters (Variable Space)(No Power Required)
Can house 3 people for every 1 unit of space. Without these, characters cannot rest to recover hit points on the ship.
Brig (Variable Space)(No Power Required)
Can house 2 prisoners for every 1 unit of space.
Magic Laboratory (Variable Space)(No Power Required)
Functions as any magic laboratory. Shipboard labs require 1 space for every 5,000 total value they have.
Science Laboratory (2 Space)
Allows characters to perform scientific analysis or research on their ship.
Cryogenics (Variable Space)
Requires 1 space and 1 power for every 2 frozen people. If power to this room is lost, each frozen person has a 1-in-6 chance to die, re-rolled every hour.
Docking Bay (Variable Space)(Does not require any power)
Docking bays may be any size, but must be at least 1 space larger than the total space of all the ships it will contain.
Docking bays are often left open to space, with only a mag-shield keeping heat and atmosphere contained. (Even so, they tend to be chilly). If need be, they do have sliding doors which can move into place.
Escape Pod (3 Space)(Does not require any power)
Each pod can house 2 people. They have minimal life support, 3 fuel, 1AU thrusters, no Jump Drive, minimal sensors, a robust communications package, and food to last about a week.
Useful Doohickeys
Autopilot (1 Space)
Autopilots are computers which can operate the ship in lieu of a living pilot. The most common, affordable autopilots have no piloting skill to roll at all, automatically rolling a ‘0’ any time a roll is called for. More advanced autopilots have a d4, d6, d8, or d10 pilot skill. Autopilots with d12 skill have not yet been invented, and even a d10 autopilot is extraordinarily rare and expensive.
Door Blast Shielding (1 Space)
Without power, this central control allows individual doors to be opened, close, locked, and unlocked remotely. When powered, this system generates a shield around each door, making them dramatically more difficult to force open.
Fire Suppression System (1 Space)
Fires on a space ship are a very bad thing. Without a robust fire suppression system, the only reliable way to put one out is to vent the area into space, which gets the job done, but also causes you to lose anything that wasn’t nailed down on a path between the airlock and the fire.
If the system is already active when the fire starts, it will automatically activate when needed.
Cloak (5 Space)
Blocks all incoming sensors, AND outgoing sensors. Makes a ship invisible, but blind. This hindrance may be circumvented by an external sensor drone, or by a significantly more advanced cloak.
Hacking Station (2 Space)
Emits a special, penetrating signal which allows hacking to be attempted across the void of space. When operating normally, the system works at 0 AU. It may be overpowered to extend its range.
Arms (2 Space per Arm)
Tractor beams are expensive. Mechanical arms mounted on the exterior of the ship allow the operator to directly manipulate objects within the ship’s immediate vicinity.
Tractor Beam (1 Space Per Beam)
If you can afford them, tractor beams are superior to mechanical arms in nearly every way. As an energy-based manipulator, they have greater flexibility, range of motion, strength, responsiveness, and even take up less room. Just about the only drawbacks are that they must have line of sight (rarely a problem in open space), and that they can be disrupted more easily than physical arms can.
ExoPod (2 Space)
A small, 1 person pod with thrusters to allow it to move independently of its host ship. Power, atmosphere, etc are provided to the ExoPod via a cabel, which can reach up to 1 AU away from the ship. Weapons may be mounted on the ExoPod if the players so desire.
Gravity Well Generator (12 Space)
Creates a miniature gravity well, preventing any ship from engaging a jump drive within 30 AU. Can also be used to drag ships out of a jump, if the operator can predict their path. Being pulled from a jump unexpectedly works like encountering a hazard, as described in the Navigation Computer module above.
Weapons & Armor
Shields (5 Space)
Shields reduce incoming damage by a set amount. Usually 1, though more advanced shields may be available. If a player specifically orients the shields in a specific direction (fore, aft, port, starboard, up, or down), then their effectiveness is doubled in that direction, and completely removed in all other directions.
Blaster Cannon (1 Space)
A basic weapon which, like all weapons, deals d6 damage. Multi-barrel variants exist, including dual-, tri-, and quad-. Each additional barrel multiplies the price by 2x, and increases the critical range of the weapon by 1. (So a dual blaster cannon crits on a 19 or 20, etc.)
Halberd Laser
Has a maximum effective range of 2AU. If the target vessel is at 0 hull points, the Halberd can be used to target 2 different systems with the same attack. Overcharging the laser may allow for additional systems to be hit.
Space Torpedo
Firing a torpedo first requires that the operator spend a round establishing a target lock. This is done by making an attack roll. On a successful ‘hit,’ the lock is established, and the torpedo can be fired next round. Torpedos bypass any shields a target may have.
Flak Cannon
Designed to overload a ship’s shields, and temporarily take them down. Can only be used at 0 AU from the target. On a successful hit, the target’s shields are down for 1d6 rounds before they can recharge.
Drones
Drone Control System (2 space + 1 per Drone)(No Power Required)
A prerequisite for a ship to be able to operate drones. By itself, the control system requires no power. However, each active drone does require power. Not because it is drawing power from the ship, but because the Drone Control System needs power in order to operate an active drone.
Anti-Missile Drone
Equipped with auto-trackers, and a highly specialized non-damaging laser. Combines its own data with that of its mother ship to perfectly triangulate incoming missiles, and trick them into detonating early. Has a 4-in-6 chance of success, and may attempt to shoot down up to 2 missiles each round.
Probe
Equipped with a full range of sensors. Can be sent out at a speed of 1AU per round, or may be left in a fixed position. Probes are difficult to detect (d12 stealth), and will relay information back to their mother ship up to 1 hex away, assuming no interference.
Weapon Platform Drone
Must be equipped with a weapon. Drone may be placed at any location within 10 AU of the mother ship. The weapon can be operated remotely, or given a set of automated instructions (with the usual penalties).
Repair Drone
A robot on magnetic treads. When activated, it will pop out of its nook, and trundle to the nearest damaged system to begin repairs. It is able to repair 1 damage each round it works.
Sample Character Sheet
This is the sheet I maintain for my players’ ship in Fuck the King of Space. Modules I’ve marked with “ON” are those which I assume the players have running unless they say otherwise. Modules marked with an X are those which do not require any power to function.
After each session, I update the sheet to show the hit points, space, cargo, and fuel the players ended the session with. I then share the updated sheet with my players, so they know whether they need to urgently take care of any issues.
The Bosco
HD 1
HP 8/8
Space 29/45
Cargo: 2/16 (2 space are secure)
Maneuverability 3
Speed 1 AU
Power 4/7
Fuel 30/30
Modules
(ON) Engines (7 Space)
(ON) Atmosphere Recycler (1 Space)
(ON) Artificial Gravity (1 Space)
(ON ) Sensors (2 Space)
( ) Basic (d0) Autopilot (1 Space)
( ) Mechanical Arm (2 Space)
( ) Mechanical Arm (2 Space)
( ) Communications Console (2 Space)
( ) Navigation Computer (1 Space)
( )Jump Drive (1 Space)
( ) Dual Blaster Cannon (1 Space)
( ) Blaster Cannon (1 Space)
( ) Science Lab (1 Space)
(x) Cockpit
(x) Fuel Tank (3 Space)
(x) Basic Living Space (3 Space)(9 people)
(x) Magic Laboratory (1 Space)(5,000 Daric Maximum)
(x) Secure Cargo Area (~2 Space~)
(x) 2 false Transponders (0 Space)
Cargo
5 spare fuel (1), 4 Krakken Eggs (2), 5 Baby Krakkens (5), Stygian Liberation Front Paraphernalia (1), Freeze Dried Food (3), Weapons Cache (2), Orlog IV CombatBots (1)
Statline
Nobody wants to bother with a full sheet for every NPC they encounter, let alone every ship. If the amount of fuel another ship has becomes relevant, the referee can make a roll. The pre-prepared information should stick to what is most likely to be relevant. Something like this:
Crew 5, Maneuver 3 + 1d8, Move 1, 2HD (11hp), Shield 2, Morale 8
Modules: 2 Blaster Cannons, Cockpit, Engines, AtmoRecycler, Gravity Generator, Sensors, Communications, JumpDrive, NavComp, Door Blast Shielding, Escape Pod
It may seem tedious to list out all the basic stuff (cockpit, engines…) but it’ll make things easier when it comes time to randomly determine which systems are hit in combat.
Conclusions
I recognize this system is far from perfect, but I think it’s more on the right track than any other space ship system I’ve read. It accommodates most of the things that interest me when I think about battles in space; and it does so without being a clusterfuck of complexity.
That being said, there are some flaws I have not yet addressed. The big one is that there’s no provision for players saying “target their weapons!” I suppose I might be fine with it if the target ship were at 0hp, but then, it seems uncool that players are allowed to make such decisions, while NPCs have to roll randomly. I could let NPCs make the decision as well, but then I don’t think there would be as many interesting results. Why disable a ship’s gravity when you could disable their engines?
Complexity is another thing that worries me. This system isn’t nuts, but it’s not exactly rules-lite either. I have a tendency to over-complicate things initially, then gradually shave away everything superfluous. I’ve already done that with this system to some extent, but it still feels a little heavy.
“Balance” is another sticking point. By which I mean “what numbers should I assign to things in order to achieve the results I want?”
For example, earlier drafts of this system had the basic engine being a size 10 (both space and power). I eventually noticed that this never forced the players to make any hard decisions about which systems had power. When I started FKOS, I reduced this to 5, but the players quickly went out to purchase additional engines, which led to the rule I came up with for this revision that engines must be replaced entirely in order to upgrade.
Furthermore, the system is notably incomplete. Modules lack prices (because of that same uncertainty about numbers), the weapons are underdeveloped and bland. There are a lot of questions I haven’t had to answer yet. Eventually I’ll probably make a snap judgement ruling at the table, and immediately regret it.
Such is my lot in life.