My GM for my Starfinder game has a rules question that they can't find the answer to regarding Starship combat. We're doing our first space combat today, and I wanted to see if anyone can help us get this cleared up before we begin later this evening.
Under the damage heading for Ship Combat it says that when a hit is confirmed against a hostile ship, the gunner then gets to determine/choose what quadrant of the ship was hit and takes damage. Our question is, how do you choose which quadrant of the ship was hit? Do you only pick out of a few quadrants relative to the facing of your firing arc, or can you pick any part of the ship at all? If you can pick any part of the ship, then you could always shoot where there are no shields. What would be the point of shields then?
Thank you for any help you can provide.
Under the damage heading for Ship Combat it says that when a hit is confirmed against a hostile ship, the gunner then gets to determine/choose what quadrant of the ship was hit and takes damage.
No, it doesn't say the gunner "gets to" determine which quadrant was hit. It says they determine it, as in "find out", not as in "choose".
Sure, the rules don't explicitly say that you can only hit parts of the ship that you're facing, but this seems pretty obvious to me. No, lasers don't loop around the ship to hit the backside.
From Example of Starship Combat, pg 327:
"Looking at the relative positions of the vessels, this damage is applied to the Necroglider’s starboard quadrant, depleting its 2 Shield Points. The remaining 13 damage is applied directly to its hull."
Since "facing" is a thing in starship combat, which you must keep tabs all the time, it is quite easy to determine which quadrant you are targeting - both weapons and shield use the same divisions.
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The two other times a gunner gets a choice.
The first is when the target ship is in the "sweet spot" hex that overlaps two firing arcs. In the book, they have a different color for the hex. The gunner can choose which of the two faces to afffect.
The second is if a ship flying through the same hex. Then the gunner can choose any firing arc and hit any shield. Of course, this could lead to a free shot if the FlyBy stunt was not done.
Thank you to the people I got polite replies from. It helped a lot.
I made this mistake too,and it caused a lot of confusion for me early on until I found several other rules that seemed to contradict it.
There is no choosing. You hit whichever side is presented to you.
Hope that helps.