House Rule - Orbital Bombardment

[The Hive Mind]

It is common practice in an age where space farers wield weapons with the power to level cities to do just that in those occasions where it would prove advantageous to do so. This is often a show of brute force and rarely a pinpoint strike. Only an Ill-advised or desperate man on the ground would call an orbital strike on a nearby target as a stray shot could obliterate him as well as easily as his target. Whatever the reason this tactic is used there can be no doubt of its impressiveness, though its effectiveness is another matter entirely.

Orbital Strikes

All Bombardments:
• Timing: Orbital bombardments are a complicated and time consuming process. Every roll made in the process is an extended action that lasts for one Tactical turn in space. You may only complete one part of the process per Tactical turn.
• Order: A bombardment is the sum of its parts and all tests must be performed in a specific order. Should you choose to reroll a test, all tests following it in the order must be rechecked following the Timing rules. You may at any point re-check the Orbit or Target Acquisition Tests but this will take a tactical turn to do so; that roll will replace the previous test for that stage.
• Results of a hit: The devastation wreaked by most starship weapons is overwhelming. If a target is struck it should be considered destroyed, and anything within it considered useless rubble 75% of the time. Any personnel or population caught in an orbital strike blast radius should be considered annihilated or at least functionally destroyed 60% of the time. Should a strike miss there is a 20% chance that any unwanted targets (i.e. infrastructure, friendlies on the ground, etc…) within 10 miles of the original target will be hit by the resulting destruction, resolve this using the above percentages.
• Reinforced or shielded targets: Some targets will be reinforced, hidden beneath layers of armor or even underground, AND some targets may even have massive void shields specifically to protect from orbital bombardments. Targets such as these may require successive hits to break through their defenses.
• Repeat bombardments: You may re-fire your bombardment needing only to re-roll the Bombardment test with the same modifiers if the previous Bombardment Test succeeded with any degrees of success. If the original Strike didn’t score any degrees of success both previous tests need to be retaken.
• Weapons systems: The weapon you use to fire the bombardment can modify the difficulty of the process and determines the area of effect of the strike.

The Bombardment Process:
1. Achieving Synchronous Orbit: In order to properly position the Starship for an effective strike the ship needs to be brought into geo-synchronous orbit over the target. Announce the intended weapons for the bombardment and make a Difficult Pilot + Maneuver Test. Each degree of success provides a +5 modifier to the Bombardment, Failure and each degree of failure provide a – 5 Modifier to the Bombardment test. If the ship moves at all after this point the process needs to be restarted.
2. Acquiring the Target: Plotting the firing solution requires a Scrutiny + Detection Test the difficulty is determined by the desired target size. (Ex. -40 A single large building, -20 an area with a 1km radius, +0 a small town, +30 a large city.) Each degree of success provides a +5 modifier to the Bombardment, Failure and each degree of failure provide a – 5 Modifier to the Bombardment test.
3. Fire the Bombardment: Actually launching the bombardment requires a Hard Ballistic Skill + Modifiers Test. Results of the roll are determined by the weapon system fired.

Macrobattery Bombardments:

Any changes to the standard process described below supersede the standard process when firing this type of weapon system.

1. Achieving Synchronous Orbit: This is the same as the standard process.
2. Acquiring the Target: Each additional Macrobattery to be fired adds +10 to acquiring a target. No macrobatteries involved in this calculation may be fired in the Tactical turn this test is made or until after the bombardment is made or this test will need to be retaken.
3. Fire the Bombardment: Each additional Macrobattery fired in the bombardment counts as an “additional hit” and requires a re-roll of the Destruction percentage dice if the first rolls fails to destroy the target, each battery also adds a +1km destruction radius.

Results for the Bombardment test are as follows:

• 5+ Degrees of success: Only the Target is hit.
• 3-4 Degrees of success: The target and a 1km radius are hit
• 1-2 Degrees of success: The target and a 2km radius are hit
• Success: The target and a 3km radius are hit
• Failure: The target is missed and a random 1km radius is hit
• 1-2 Degrees of Failure: The target is missed and a random 2km radius are hit
• 3-4 Degrees of Failure: The target is missed and a random 3km radius are hit
• 5+ Degrees of Failure: The target is missed and a random 4km radius are hit

Lance Bombardments:

Any changes to the standard process described below supersede the standard process when firing this type of weapon system.

1. Achieving Synchronous Orbit: The lance being a more precision weapon requires even more care to position. The test for Achieving Orbit is a Very Hard Pilot + Maneuver Test
2. Acquiring the Target: While this calculation is taking place no Prow mounted weapons may fire the Tactical turn this test is made or until after the bombardment is made or the whole process will need to be restarted. Because lances are concentrated power it takes much longer for them to raze large areas as a result each +10 provided to this roll for the size of the target the actual Lance Strike will take an additional turn to complete. (ex. A large city provides a +30 due to size and therefore will add 3 turns making it 4 Tactical turns to fire the strike)
3 Fire the Bombardment: The raw elemental power of a Lance Strike requires a re-roll of the Destruction percentage dice if the first roll fails to destroy the target. If a Lance battery or additional Lance is fired subtract one from the total turns of a multi-turn strike. Results for the Bombardment test are as follows.
a. 3-4+ Degrees of success: The target is hit
b. 1-2 Degrees of success: The target and a 1km radius are hit
c. Success: The target and a 2km radius are hit add 1 turn to the length of the strike.
d. Failure: The target is missed and a random target is hit
e. 1-2 Degrees of Failure: The target is missed and a random 1km radius are hit
f. 3-4+ Degrees of Failure: The target is missed and a random 2km radius are hit and add 1 turn to the length of the strike