Movement and Position

In combat, ships are in constant motion, often using movement and position to gain the upper hand.

On your turn, the crewmember at the helm can move the ship a distance up to its speed. The ship can use as much or as little of its speed as desired, following the rules here.

Starships come equipped with two speeds: flying speed and turning speed.

Facing

All Vehicles have a facing, and can normally only move in the direction they are facing (forward) or rotate about their center.

Flying Speed

Flying speed is how far your ship can travel in a single round. It is expressed in feet. For every foot your ship travels forward, it expends one foot from its speed.

A ship's unmodified flying speed is determined in Chapter 3: Starships by the Role selected for the ship at construction.

Turning Speed

Turning speed determines how maneuverable your ship is. In order for your ship to rotate 90 degrees, you must spend an amount of your flying speed equal to your turning speed. For instance, if your ship has a flying speed of 350 feet, and a turning speed of 100 feet, you can travel 150 feet in a straight line, spending 150 feet of your flying speed, and then turn 90 degrees to starboard, spending 100 feet of your flying speed, leaving 100 feet of movement remaining.

Typically games are played with turning limited to 90 degree increments, but, if your group has the desire and capability to track smaller angles, this is allowed.

A ship can turn more (or less, if your group agrees) than 90 degrees on its turn, by spending a proportionate amount of movement.

If a ship's turning speed exceeds its flying speed, that ship cannot turn 90 degrees, in combat conditions, absent another effect modifiying the ship's turning speed and/or flying speed or the Hard Turn action.

A ship's unmodified turning speed is determined in Chapter 3: Starships by the Role selected for the ship at construction.

Breaking Up Your Move

The crewmember at the helm can break up your ship's movement on its turn, using some flying speed before and after various crew actions. For example, if your ship has a speed of 300 feet, it can move 100 feet, two players can take actions, and then it can move 200 feet.

Moving Between Attacks

If you take an action that includes more than one ship attack, you can break up your movement even further by moving between those attacks. For example, a ship that can make two attacks and that has a speed of 300 feet could move 100 feet, make an attack, move 200 feet, and then attack again.

Difficult Terrain

Combat rarely takes place in featureless terrain. Asteroid fields, mountain ranges, other ships—the setting of a typical fight contains difficult terrain.

Every foot of movement in difficult terrain costs 1 extra foot. This rule is true even if multiple things in a space count as difficult terrain.

Moving Around Other Ships

You can move through a ship’s space. However, you can end your turn on a ship’s space only if the ship is at least two sizes larger or smaller than you. Another ship’s space is difficult terrain for your ship.

Variant: Playing on a Grid

If you play out a combat using a square grid and miniatures or other tokens, follow these rules. Squares. Each square on the grid represents 50 feet. Facing. Each ship has a facing: the direction to the adjacent square the vehicle is pointing toward. This means that a ship in a given square has eight possible facings. Speed. Rather than moving foot by foot, move square by square on the grid. This means you use your speed in 50-foot segments. This is particularly easy if you translate your speed into squares by dividing the speed by 50. For example, a speed of 300 feet translates into a speed of 6 squares. If you use a grid often, consider writing your speed in squares on your character sheet. Entering a Square. To enter a square, you must have at least 1 square of movement left, unless the square is diagonally adjacent to your square (see below). Corners. Diagonal movement can't cross the corner of an asteroid or other terrain feature that fills its space. Ranges. To determine the range on a grid between two entities, start counting squares from a square adjacent to one of them and stop counting in the space of the other one. Count by the shortest route. Diagonals. When measuring range or moving diagonally, the first diagonal square counts as 50 feet, but the second diagonal square counts as 100 feet. This pattern of 50 feet and then 100 feet continues whenever you're counting diagonally, even if you move horizontally or vertically between different bits of diagonal movement. For instance, a ship might move one square diagonally (50 feet), then three squares straight (150 feet), and then another square diagonally (100 feet) for a total movement of 300 feet.

Ship Size

Each ship takes up a different amount of space. The Size Categories table shows how much space a ship of a particular size controls in combat. Objects sometimes use the same categories.

Size Categories

Variant: Sizes on a Grid

If you play out combat using a square grid and miniatures or other tokens, consider scaling down the sizes of ships. A Tiny or Small ship should take up 1 square, while a Medium ship takes up 2. A Large ship takes up 4 squares, a Huge 8, and a Gargantuan 16.

Space

A ship's space is the area in feet that it effectively controls in combat, not an expression of its physical dimensions. A typical Medium ship isn't 100 feet wide, for example, but it does control a space that wide.