Not really asking rules questions but:
1) You are correct that currently there are no rules for interacting with a ship as a player aside from being inside it and being in another ship.
2) Technically you could program any of the missiles from starship weapons to your detonator and place them on or next to the ship then detonate.
3) Nothing destructive in the sense of a player destroying a starship. They mention in a sidebar in the starship section that they are basically considered to be a building or terrain from a PC perspective.
Lasers go through any clear glass or glass like substance. So, theoretically, you could be outside of a ship cockpit, and kill the pilot inside with a laser rifle. Though, you could be shot using the same method from the inside of the ship.
Lasers go through any clear glass or glass like substance. So, theoretically, you could be outside of a ship cockpit, and kill the pilot inside with a laser rifle. Though, you could be shot using the same method from the inside of the ship.
Youd have to be the most incompetent ship designer in the world to put windows on a combat ship. I would imagine even civilian versions would prefer high red video screens and high magnification video camera arrays for practical reasons.
You can easily make glass that reflects lasers with todays tech so it really shouldn't be a problem in the future.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I would assume that any transparent surfaces on the outer hull of a space-capable craft is sufficiently treated or made of materials designed to not let lasers through like that.
Not as a defense against laser weapons, of course. As a defense against your standard cosmic radiation that could cook the crew, or the particles that make flying through space at any interesting speed so...troublesome.
Also, to address the original idea:
1) Distances in space combat are abstract, so as not to require an hour of math for every round of combat. So it's not a case of just jumping across or being hurled from one ship to another. Maybe if there was some kind of boarding shuttle craft, or (depending on how you interpret things like inertial dampers in this setting) shoving yourself into a missile and using those rules to actually board the ship.
2) I'm not sure if there's any man-portable weapons that could reliably cut through ship hull. See the Shooting Starships sidebar. That being said, if you manage to get onto the hull, I would probably allow you to be carrying the equivalent of a Light missile's warhead (so 2d8-5d8 damage), and maybe consider it an automatic critical hit on a successful Engineering roll (DC based on ship type).
In any case, several pictures of ships in the CRB appear to have viewports. There are fighters/interceptors with canopies, and NO mention of special glass or polymer. (If that was a thing, why not coat the whole ship in the stuff, thus denying your enemies an entire genre of weapons to use on you?) Even if you decided that all combat ships have some laser reflective glass, or hi def viewing screens instead of a cockpit... It would still be a trick worth using on cheaper civilian craft.
RAW, as far as I can tell, if it has a canopy, or windows; if you can see through it, you can shoot through it with a laster rifle.
Unless it also has shield or force fields.
This is why I wish they had breaching charges or claymore mines in this game. Some sort of explosives that doesn't need to be thrown or perhaps some kind of laser cutting tool to penetrate the hull. Just imagine performing a flyby against enemy ship, drop a swarm of covert ops guys onto the enemy craft, they breach the hull and let the fun begin.
Guess one option is finding the airlocks, hack (computer) or jimmy (engineering) the doors open and viola. In fact, there's yer reason for having a tech. Could be yer boarding and sabotage expert ;)
A ship in Dead Suns 1 has transparent aluminum windows.
Lasers go through any clear glass or glass like substance. So, theoretically, you could be outside of a ship cockpit, and kill the pilot inside with a laser rifle.Reflective coatings like the gold film on space suits. Maybe even tune the coating to specific wavelengths of light.
For breaching charges it does say properly set charges ignore half the target hardness. Not that it matters since grenades have such crap damage it would take dozens of grenades to break an airlock door.
But, as I said, there is literally no mention of any such film in the CRB. Its GM fiat, at that point.