The following information is just to clarify some issues people have been having with Stars & Lasers rules, these are mainly due to either unclear / confusing explanations or that I just forgot to put a rule in!!
More will be posted here as and when I receive questions or feed-back about any rules issues.
Firing Missiles – How do I fire missiles?
When firing missiles from the front arc ( or side arc for destroyers ) place either one, two or three missile counters next to your ship, then move the missile counter/s 6” in a straight line away from your ship but keeping within the firing arc, this is their launch move.
Eg. If you are firing 3 missiles from your ship then you could place 3 x single missile tokens so that you get a good spread of missiles, or you could send 1 x single missile token after one target and 1 x double missile token after another, or you could just use 1 x treble missile token and go for maximum damage on a single target, the choice is yours.
At the beginning of the next turn the missiles will move their full speed in a straight line, and will continue to do so until they either hit something or leave the table.
And even though they have only moved 6” in their launch move, because they are on the table their speed is counted as full speed, which would be 10” so PDS and Fighters would need a 10+ on a D20 to hit them as normal.
Repairs – How do I repair my ship? – this is simply because I failed to put this in the basic rules section!!!
This should have been in the turn sequence on page 8, this omission has caused a little confusion – All repairs are done at the beginning of the turn at the same time as you attempt to reinstate shields, the number needed to do any repairs or reinstate shields is a 10+ on a D20, engineer repair teams can be used to adjust the number needed as normal.
Mines and PDS – as the observant amongst you have spotted there seems to be a slight inconsistency concerning mines and PDS ( page 15 ) normally you need to beat the speed of a target to hit it with PDS, eg. Fighters / Missiles 10+ to hit, but when shooting PDS at mines ( even though they are not moving ) you would still need a 10+ to hit them, this is because they are a small target, so this is based on their size rather than their speed.
Normal Fighters and Firing – this is unclear in the main rules, it says on page 10 they are basically mobile PDS, this means that normal fighters work the same as a bigger ships PDS they always need the targets speed to hit which is normally 10″ for other fighters and missiles etc. and they have a firing range of 6″
Ramming & Collisions – there is some confusion about the movement of ships involved with ramming / collisions.
There are no hard and fast rules for this, no precise movement or positioning, this is meant to be a simple rule set, quick and easy to play, so when there is a collision between two ships accidentally or deliberately, just move the active ship alongside the nonactive ship to whichever side / position looks and feels best ( or realistic! ) if a nonactive ship is hit on its left side then move the active ship along its left side, same for the right, front and rear… sometimes it is not clear which side was hit first, if this happens just roll a dice to decide which side to move along.
Also, I have seen many times that a ship rams into an opponent’s ship and when it slides down the side it then hits another ship or even an asteroid!! Yes, you would then work out that ram / collision as well…
Bio-Ships Grappling Tentacles – is it possible to release the grapple after a successful grapple attack?
No. Once a successful grapple attack ( page 20 ) has been made by an alien bio-ship and the two ships have been moved together, that is it, they will not separate until either the alien ship has “eaten” the other ship, or the alien ship is destroyed, the grapples cannot be released any other way.
Note: although I have seen a player fly into an asteroid to try and dislodge the alien, we decided it would work, rolled for damage to the alien ship from the asteroid and then rolled for damage to the players ship because the alien ship was ripped away from his ship, we rolled 2D3 for this damage and it worked well, both survived ( just ) and the game carried on.
A Couple of Errors: have been spotted in the “More Lasers” supplement, there is an omission in the New Weapons section ( page 11 )
The problem is on damage section of the Super Ion Cannon, it should read – Damage Per Hit D3+1 ( +1 to Critical roll )
Also there is a typo on the Andromeda Class Space Station page ( page 6 ) in the table at the bottom of this page, it states in several places “Large Escort ship” well this should have been “Medium Escort Ship”
Rolling for Critical Hits: – Rolling for critical hits is not 100% clear in the rules, so when a ship takes any damage check for critical hits in the following way.
When a ship takes damage you mark off the boxes on the data card take note of the last number crossed off from this damage, as this is the number that you need to cause critical hits.
So if the ship has taken 5 hits you mark off the boxes i.e 20, 20, 20 19, 19 with the last number you crossed off being a 19.
You now need to roll 5 dice (for the five hits) needing a 19 for a critical hit.