Five Parsecs from Home - Part 2

 

 

 

Five Parsecs from Home is a tactical skirmish game with rpg elements. It's probably best described as 'X-COM meets Firefly'.

In this session, the crew's objective is to go to another planet to find work because they've been blacklisted on Bollux.
And while they did lose a Rival by defeating the Anarchists, they gained the attention of a new one.

I add a couple changes to the game in this session, as well.
One that helps the game match up to the galaxy map I'm using, and another that may get more tweaking as the game goes on.

So, let's begin with...

My crew

Current stats:

Diegos
Human, Leader
XP: 0
Reactions: 1
Speed: 4"
Combat: +0
Toughness: 4
Savvy: +1
Luck:1
Weapons: Colony Rifle, Blade
Gear: Communicator
Background: Research Outpost
Motivation: Adventure
Class: Explorer

Mark-IVan
Robot
Reactions: 2
Speed: 4"
Combat: (+1) +2
Toughness: 4
Savvy: +2
Weapons: Shotgun

J'Kara
Feral-Felinoid
XP: 4
Reactions: 2
Speed: 4"
Combat: +0
Toughness: 3
Savvy: +1
Weapons: Beam Pistol
Background: Tech Guild
Motivation: Truth
Class: Ganger

Renée
Precursor
XP: 1
Reactions: 1
Speed: 5"
Combat: +1
Toughness: 2
Savvy: +1
Weapons: Colony Rifle, Hand Gun, Blade
Gear: Scanner Bot
Background: Military Brat
Motivation: Wealth
Class: Hacker
Inactive for three turns - Healing

Gerard
Human
XP: 4
Reactions: 1
Speed: 4"
Combat: +0
Toughness: 3
Savvy: +1
Weapons: Marksman's Rifle
Gear: Screen Generator
Background: Wealthy Merchant Family, Wynston's brother
Motivation: Wealth
Class: Starship Crew

Wynston
Human
XP: 1
Reactions: 1
Speed: 4"
Combat: +0
Toughness: 3
Savvy: +0
Weapons: Blast Pistol, Hand Gun, Glare Sword
Gear: Steel Boots
Background: Wealthy Merchant Family, Gerard's brother
Motivation: Wealth
Class: Agitator
Inactive for one turn - Healing

Ship: Endeavor
Ship: Retired Scout Ship
Hull : 25
Debt on Ship: None
Wealth: 18 Credits

Stash:
Booster Pills x1
Sonic Emitter (broken)
Seeker Sight (broken)

Rumors 1
Story Points 6

The galaxy

First thing's first.
I had a galaxy map from GURPS that I took and edited to add jump points between each system to use with White Star. I repurposed it for Five Parsecs, already placing the crew on Bollux as their start location. It's the system in the center of the small cluster.

In Five Parsecs, it's mentioned that travel to any planet costs 5 credits, no matter the planet. There's modifiers to this, however, with things like Fuel Efficiency (which Endeavor has).

So I looked at my map and after a bit of calculating, I finally settled on a cost of 2 credits per jump. With this, the cost may be 2, 4 or even 6 credits, depending on the number of jumps between planets. Note that the jump points with names in parenthesis have no civilized planets).

I randomly rolled a direction from Bollux, and ended up with Summer as their destination. Traveling to Summer would normally cost them 6 credits. But this is where I add in an updated rule for Fuel Efficiency and say it gives a -1 cost to the total fuel needed. So it would cost them 5 credits to go to Summer

They pay the 5 credits for the fuel, take off, and...
Are attacked by K'Erin Outlaws, which I'll be referring to as simply 'Pirates'.

This is where the other update to the game comes in.

The roll I got for the Starship Travels Event was Raided.
For some reason, the idea that the ship was being raided on the ground didn't occur to me, and with them heading off to Summer, the only thing I could think of was that their ship would be boarded by the pirates. I don't know if it was the 'cramped territory' that made me think that, or that I just had it in my head that the crew had left the planet.
Regardless, it was in my head that these pirates were planning to board the ship, and the fight would be taking place on the ship.

It also may have been that I've been anxious to add some space combat to the game so I could pull in some stuff from Corellian Smuggler.

Well, what I decided was that if the Pirates were going to board the ship, the heroes weren't going to just invite them over. So I wanted to play out the Pirates attacking, disabling and boarding the ship.

Before we continue, I must interject the ship I adapted over. I found this one over at Freelance Traveller.
It came in five different flavors, and I mixed a few of them together to get this:

Endeavor's layout

The first thing I did was create three new stats for the heroes.
They now had Piloting and Gunnery, both at +0. Max for both is +3.

Each round, roll for each enemy to see if their ship is in sights. 3-6 on a D6.
If a ship is in sights, and a hero is using an active turret, they may fire at the enemy.
TN to attack enemy ship is 5.
-1 if has a base Hull of 40 or more.
Add the PC's Gunnery stat to the roll.

Successful attack gives the enemy one hit. The number of hits a ship can take is governed by its Hull at the start of the battle. Number of hits = Hull/10, rounded up.
Enemy ship is destroyed when it takes its last Hit.

For enemy to hit the PC ship: TN 3 +1 for each point of Piloting the PC flying the ship has. If no one is piloting the ship, the TN drops to 2.

Ship Toughness:
Ships with base Hull 20 or less have Toughness of 2
Ships with base Hull between 25 and 35 have Toughness of 3
Ships with base Hull of 40 or more have Toughness of 4

When PC ship is hit, and it still has a Hull of 1 or more, make a Saving Throw using the ship's Toughness.
If successful, the ship takes Hull damage equal to the roll.
If the roll failed, the ship takes Hull damage equal to the roll and a random component is destroyed.
If the enemy rolled a Natural 6 on the attack, destroy one extra random component. (component list coming later)

If the PC ship is hit and it has no Hull points remaining, it is destroyed.

Aiming:
Attacker can spend one turn aiming. If they do, the next time they make an attack during this combat, they get a +1 to the roll.
Note that enemies can move out and back in range. As long as one turn is spent to aim, the attack can be taken any time an enemy is within range.

Boarding:
Attacker must spend one turn aiming, but doesn't get an aiming bonus.
If they score a hit that damages one or more components, only one is destroyed and it is the Engines.
Once the Engines are destroyed, the attacker can spend a round coupling to the defender's ship. The defender gets one last attack during this turn, with a -1 to the roll. After which, the combat moves to the interior of the ship and is resolved as ground combat.

Using these rules, I did a small space encounter for the PCs leading into the ship being boarded by the pirates. The pirates rolled really good, so it was was very short.

Space Combat - Round 1

Diegos and Mark-IVan are piloting.
Reaction roll: Mark-IVan has the better Reactions score
Rolled a 6. They will act in the slow action phase.

Diegos or Mark-IVan can control the turrets remotely since there are two of them piloting.
Since Mark-IVan has the better Reactions and both have Gunnery +0, he'll take control of the turrets and leave the piloting to Diegos.

The Pirates attack.
Unknown to the heroes, the Pirates spent a turn aiming and were targeting the Engines.
To target the Engines, the TN is raised by 1 point.
Aiming for one round negated this.
TN is 3.
The Pirates rolled a 4 and hit.
Endeavor has a Hull of 25 and Toughness is 3.
Roll 6+1. Hull drops to 18 and two components would've been damaged.
However, since they were aiming for the Engines, they're destroyed and the second component damage is ignored.

This turn would be spent getting the turrets primed, but since they would only get to use them once (and at a -1), they decide to sound an alert and get everyone ready for the Pirates boarding the ship.

**End of Space Combat**

Endeavor has Hull 18
Damaged components: Engine.

Note that if they survive, the ship will go into its next combat with only 2 hits, as its Hull is now 18. It would still have a Toughness of 3, however, as that's determined by the base Hull of the ship.

Of course, with no engines, they won't be able to go anywhere unless they get help or get it fixed. And if anyone decides to attack them with the engines down, the TN would be 2, just like if there was no pilot.

While the space combat isn't fully fleshed out, I may not need it often and will get another opportunity to expand on it further. In the meantime, I now have an explanation of how the Pirates were able to board the ship.

The Pirates begin to board as the crew prepares to defend

The combat was intense, as there was very little room to maneuver. Mark-IVan managed to take one out by waiting for them to open the airlock and firing his shotgun.

Unfortunately, that was the only Pirate they defeated. The crew was outnumbered and overwhelmed. The Pirates successfully raided the ship, taking all their credits and the few broken items in the stash.

Renee and Wynston remained helpless in their beds, still recovering from the battle with the Anarchists, and the Pirates simply ignored them.

The after-battle report was grim...
The ship's engines were disabled.
Diegos, Mark-IVan and J'Kara were all killed, leaving Gerard as the only survivor of the attack.

He collected the weapons and gear that weren't destroyed and assumed leadership of the crew.

Since the campaign turn took an unusual path, I skipped most of the normal steps because they weren't on a planet. Instead, Gerard sent out a distress signal to get help, which ends the campaign turn.

I've already drafted up how that will be handled, as well.
At the start of the campaign turn, I'll roll a d6:
1-3 - help arrives. Roll a d6 and pay that much in credits to be hauled to the nearest planet. If you cannot pay, you gain a debt of twice that much.
4-5 - no one shows up
6 - Pirates attack

Of course, more bad news is that the nearest planet for them is Bollux, where they are blacklisted from taking jobs.

A moment of silence...

We'll see how things go when we pick back up.
Wynston will be done healing and hopefully someone will answer the distress call.

Until next time...