Computer pcu usage?


Rules Questions


Is computer PCU usage non-essential or is a mistake in the rules?

I mean, it seems very active in the mid of combat, requiring power to operate. But they left it aside when they talk about "a starship being fully operative in combat" in the Power Budget section (Pg:296).
Does that mean that you can "power off" the computer and not use the bonus (and not drain pcu), or that the pcu required isn't drained in combat?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.


From the most legalistic standpoint, there is some weird ambiguity here because of what is and is not actually mentioned in RAW. So what I'm about to say is not a strictly rules-based thing, but I think it's just about the only way to interpret it in a way that actually has everything make sense together.

The ICM is part of but is not the same as the ship computer. The ICM can be disabled as needed, thereby freeing up the PCUs it is consuming if you need them somewhere else. The computer can also be disabled, but in most circumstances this is probably a bad idea that beats out shutting off your life support; shutting down the ship computer is probably mostly synonymous with shutting down the ship itself in most cases. So you probably turned off the life support while you were at it. Good job!

This isn't actually spelled out anywhere. But the book also doesn't give anything more than a passing mention to life support and artificial gravity beyond mentioning that they exist, they work, and they stop working if you get shot to pieces. So we already have a precedent for being very light on what would realistically be fairly important details, because they're not important for starship combat as it has been implemented.

You can turn off your ICM to free up its PCUs just fine, and there's no inherent problem because your ICM isn't your computer; it's not necessary to keep the ship running, so the ICM isn't mentioned in the Power Budget sidebar. You can't turn off your ship computer as a whole and be just fine, but the basic computer that every starship has costs 0 BP and consumes 0 PCU, so there's no point in turning it off anyway. It is thus also left unmentioned there, because the sidebar is about balancing your power requirements.

Purely by RAW, looking at the numbers and hard mechanics that are explicitly written out, you could argue that you can turn off your starship computer with no problems. It's not listed as essential, and I don't think any other systems explicitly require it to be working. But if you look beyond the rules themselves to the narrative they are trying to model, that interpretation quickly starts leading to very strange things.

More briefly, it's fine if you turn off your targeting computer. It's probably less fine if you turn off the rest of the computer.


Icarion wrote:

Is computer PCU usage non-essential or is a mistake in the rules?

I mean, it seems very active in the mid of combat, requiring power to operate. But they left it aside when they talk about "a starship being fully operative in combat" in the Power Budget section (Pg:296).
Does that mean that you can "power off" the computer and not use the bonus (and not drain pcu), or that the pcu required isn't drained in combat?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Dev's have stated that at the beginning of combat you can decide what systems are on or off on your ship but you cannot change that decision once combat has started.

So yes you can decide to forgo the computers benefits in combat by powering it off. But remember the computer is also what drives your Sensors so if your computer is off I am pretty sure you cannot do anything in starship combat that requires a computer check so your literally going to be fighting blind.


Maybe i had expressed myself wrong, i was talking about the ICM.
I mean, i doesnt seem to add to the pcu usage of ships who had it active by RAW.

I think ill just add it to the systems that required to be enabled (and using pcu) if the party wants the ICM bonus. just along with shields, countermeasures, thrusters and weapons.

Thanks guys!!

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