Starfinder Roleplaying Game

Starship Combat

Starfinder Core Rulebook, page 316

The fathomless depths of space are dangerous to even the most experienced crews, but they can be deadly to those who wander the stars unprepared. Planet-crushing black holes, invisible radiation belts, and chaotic meteor storms are found in any system. But of all the hazards that you might encounter between the stars, hostile vessels are by far the most common. The following rules govern combat between starships—or in rare cases, between immense spacefaring creatures.

Preparing for Starship Combat

Starship combat is played on a grid of hexes with figures representing the starship combatants. Starfinder Flip-Mat: Basic Starfield and the starship pawns in Starfinder Core Rulebook Pawn Collection make perfect accessories for this portion of the game.

The hexes don’t represent a specific distance, as Starfinder’s portrayal of movement and combat in three-dimensional space is more fluid and narrative than realistic. Unless otherwise specified, each ship occupies 1 hex, regardless of its size.

In this section

  • Roles The actions crew members on a starship can take depend upon their roles.
  • Beginning Starship Combat When the crew of a starship has hostile intentions toward another vessel, they go to their battle stations and activate their starship’s targeting systems.
  • Rounds and Phases Like combat between characters, starship combat occurs over a number of rounds until one side flees, surrenders, or is otherwise defeated.
  • Moving The pilot of a starship has a variety of actions (see page 324) that allow her to guide her starship through the cold vastness of space. Unlike in battles between characters, starships face a
  • Attacking Whenever one starship fires a weapon at another starship, that action is resolved with a gunnery check.
  • Damage Combat in space can be highly dangerous to the vessel and its crew.
  • Crew Actions As starship combat progresses, the various crew members aboard each vessel can take the actions their roles allow.
  • Designing Starship Encounters From a simple skirmish against pirates to a massive fleet engagement, designing a fun and challenging space combat requires thoughtful planning and careful design on the part of the GM.
  • Example of Starship Combat Crystal the Game Master is running a group of five players. Linda is playing Rose-5, an android mechanic