Damage and Recovery

Hit Location


When shooting, determine where a unit is hit by rolling a D100. Consult the Hit Location Table.

When fighting in close combat, add +20 to the roll. If the defender is at a lower level, add a further +10. If the defender is at a higher level, make the roll without any modifications.

If a unit is being attack from the front 180 degrees, rolls of 81-95 are applied to the chest. If a unit is being attack from the rear 180 degrees, such a roll is applied to the backpack. If it is difficult to determine the angle, default to the backpack

Damage Rolls
Whenever a unit is hit by an attack, roll for damage, which is noted in the weapon’s profile. In most cases this damage will be modified before it actually causes any damage to the unit. The initial damage from firearms is usually determined solely from the weapons profile.

Attacks made in close combat have more initial modifications. For every 10 points of Strength over 50 that a mobile suit has, add 1 point of damage to a unit’s close combat attacks. An unarmed attack inflicts D3+1 initial damage. An improvised weapon does D3+2 initial damage.

Damage Reduction
After damage has been rolled, deduct all intervening armour and cover to determine the actual damage caused to the suit. When deducting damage, always work back in a specific order: Cover, Force Fields, Shields, Ablative Armour, Standard Armour. When determining if armour is damaged or if fields short out, it is important to remember this order and apply all remaining damage from a previous deduction. For example, a shot hits a unit and does 16 damage. The location is behind cover, deducting 4 damage. Next, the force field takes the remaining 12 damage. The force field has a max protection of 6, so the remaining damage, twice that of the max protection, overloading the field. If the attack had done less damage or the cover had deducted more, the shields would have been spared.

Armour
Armour is the last and most common form of defense from damage. Once the initial damage has been calculated, deduct the unit’s armour value for that location. If the damage is equal to or more than twice the location’s armour, the armour will be damaged. When this happens, the armour will now only afford half its points in protection. Note that the armour’s original value is still used to reduce the initial damage. Another hit that is twice or more the armour’s value (now already reduced to half its original value) will completely destroy the armour and negate any protection to the unit’s core.

There are different types of armour which have their own special rules. Some may provide addition armour for certain types of attacks. One distinct type of armour is called ablative armour. This type of armour is usually added to another type of armour and is only temporary. When damage is taken, the armour deducts damage as normal but is removed on a 1 to 1 basis to the damage absorbed

Force Fields
Some units may possess an energy projector that emits a field around the unit, further negating damage. Force Fields normally provide protection just like armour, though different types of fields may have their own unique rules. Note that most force fields provide variable protection. If a force field takes twice as much damage as its maximum armour rating, it will short out and no longer provide protection for the remainder of the battle. As an example, if a field provides D10 armour, it will short out if it takes 10 or more damage.

Shields
Many mobile suits are equipped with a shield to block attacks, acting as additional armour. A shield will always cover the hardpoint that it is equipped to. Depending on its size, it can cover additional locations. If the player does not specify which locations the shield is covering, it will automatically be defaulted to these locations in this order: nearest Arm, Chest, Abdomen, Groin, Head, nearest Leg, furthest Leg, furthest Arm. Shields cannot protect two or more locations that are not directly in contact with each other (so a shield with two covered locations cannot cover the wielding arm and the opposite arm at the same time). Shields can only protect the unit from attacks coming from in front, covering a 180 degree angle. Damage is absorbed by the shield before the unit’s armour. If a shield takes twice its armour in damage, it will permanently loose half its armour rating. A second hit that is twice its new armour rating will destroy the shield

Cover
A unit usually can only be fired upon if at least some part of it is within an attacker’s line of sight. When rolling for hit location, some locations may be obscured by terrain. If the hit location is covered as such, treat the terrain as additional armour. The amount of armour such terrain affords can very greatly depending on what the terrain is made of. Use the chart below as a guide for cover. It is helpful if the terrain materials are determined before the battle in order to avoid debate.

It is important to note that cover is also described as light, medium, and heavy (described on page X). These descriptions limit line of sight and so may completely block a target or its hit location.

Location
A unit can sustain a certain amount of damage to a location before the functions of that location become impaired. The amount of damage any location can sustain before this happens is called the Base Damage Value. This value is equal to the mobile suit’s Mass divided by 10. So a suit with a Mass of 76 would have a Base Damage Value of 8.

Each location has a number of damage levels which can be inflicted: Light, Heavy, Serious, Acute, and Crippled (note that the Head and Groin do not have a Serious damage value). If a hit inflicts damage up to a suit’s Base Damage Value it will do one level of location damage, if it inflicts up to twice a suit’s Base Damage Value it will do two levels of damage, and so on.

Example: A suit has a Mass of 62 and so has a Base Damage Value of 6. A hit deals 13 damage to the Chest. The first 6 points of damage inflicts Light damage. The next 6 points brings this up Heavy. The remaining 1 point brings this up to Serious.

Damage levels are calculated from damage points inflicted from individual hits. Therefore it is only the damage level that needs to be recorded for the location, not the individual damage points inflicted.

Example: Following the last example, the unit now has Serious damage to the chest. It does not make a difference whether he has 13 damage points or 18 damage points in the chest, only that he is Seriously damaged. If he was later hit in the chest again, up to 6 points of damage would take him up to Acute damage and 7 or more would take this up to Crippled.

Immediate and Persistent Effects
The effects of damage are broken down into immediate and persistent effects.

Immediate effects are applied as soon as the damage is inflicted but once applied they do not occur again.

Persistent effects continue for the rest of the game unless the damage is somehow recovered/fixed. Note that, although in some cases the specific location may state that there is a cumulative effect on top of any lesser damage results.

Stunning
Though the mobile suit is immune to pain, the pilot is not so resilient. The pilot’s cockpit is situated within the chest cavity of the mobile suit. Any time the chest or backpack is hit directly (assuming the damage that was inflicted was not completely absorbed by cover, a shield, a force field, or some other device aside from the chest or backpack’s own armour) the pilot must test for stunning. If any other location is hit and takes two or more levels of damage, if the mobile suit is knocked prone, or the mobile suit sustains falling damage, he must also test for stunning.

The pilot must roll equal to or under his Toughness to pass. For every level of damage after the first that the unit sustains to its chest, the pilot suffers -10 to his Toughness test. If he succeeds, the pilot is unaffected. Failure will result in the pilot suffering shock from the hit, making him incapable of making actions for the turn. If he had not acted yet this turn, then this turn counts as the first turn missed. For every 10 points he fails by, add +1 turns that he is stunned for. If the pilot must take another stunning test and fails, the turns he is stunned for are cumulative (and could potentially knock him unconscious, described later).

During his time stunned, the pilot can perform no actions except for defending himself in close combat. When defending, he is at half his normal WS and may parry and dodge but may not make counter-moves. Stunned pilots cannot take pinning tests.

The mobile suit may not suffer from pain, but its electrical systems are delicate and can be damaged. The affects of this damage is varied but usually manifests temporary lapses in output. This has very similar effects to the pilot being stunned. When a location suffers stunning, it affects the mobile suit, not the pilot directly. The pilot’s stunning and the suit’s stunning do not add to each other. Instead they occur at the same time. For example, if the pilot is stunned for 3 turns and the suit is stunned for 2, the unit as a whole is only stunned for a total of 3 turns. However, the mobile suit’s own stunning effect stacks with itself, just like a pilot’s stunning effect does.

Overheating
As a mobile suit takes damage, vulnerable electrical and power systems are likely to fail before the tougher super structure. The truth of the matter is a lot of the damage incurred already reflects this, but at a certain point this damage becomes critically dangerous. When these systems are pushed too hard, overheating and internal fires can break out. For every location that is overheating, the mobile suit must take a Mass test. If passed, the overheating is small enough to cause no further damage for that turn. For every part of 10 points that a suit fails by, that location takes D3 points of damage to that location (automatically causing a level of damage). Overheating must be tested for every turn until it causes Crippled damage or is mitigated.

Example: A mobile suit’s arm has taken a level of damage that incurs overheating. The mobile suit has a Mass of 60 and so must roll 60 or less to avoid further damage. If the suit rolls a 63, it must take D3 points of damage to the arm, automatically elevating its damage level. If the suit rolled an 81, it must instead roll 3D3 points of further damage. At the minimum it will score 3 points of damage, elevating its damage level by 1. At maximum it will roll a 9. Because the Base Damage Value of a Mass 60 mobile suit would be 6, the roll of a 9 would incur two levels of location damage.

There are a number of ways that overheating can be mitigated. If a suit rolls a 1-5 on its first Mass test, the overheating completely dissipates and will no longer have to be rolled for. Each subsequent turn, the unit can roll a Sagacity test. If passed, the pilot finds a way to dissipate the heat and end overheating.

If a unit has an overheating location that is submerged in water, the unit can add +20 to its Mass when testing for overheating damage. A success will also end overheating.

If a location took damage from a flame based attack (when initially damaged or any subsequent damage), the suit must deduct -20 from its Mass when testing for overheating damage.

Knockback
Sometimes a mobile suit is hit so hard that it is pushed back or even knocked over. A suit has a Knockback Value equal to 1/10th the average of its Strength and Mass. If the suit takes a hit of damage, regardless of what is negated by armour, equal to or more than its Knockback Value, the unit is forced back by D3 paces. If the damage is twice the Knockback Value, the unit is forced back D3 paces and also falls prone. If the damage was to a leg and twice the Knockback Value, the unit falls prone on the spot.

Falling Damage
If a unit falls from a significant distance, it could sustain falling damage. A unit takes 1 hit for every 5 paces or part there of and sustains D6 damage, +1 for every yard it falls. As an example, if a unit falls from 10 paces, it would take 2 hits at D6+10 damage each. Units do not suffer falling damage from falling prone but will suffer damage if the unit was also knocked off of a high location.

In addition, the unit can (but does not need to) make a Speed test. If it passes, the unit remains standing but takes any damage it incurs to its legs with the hits being divided randomly. If it fails or opts out of the test, the unit falls prone. The unit will always automatically fall prone if the rules call for it.

Flame Damage
The hits received by spray weapons may be flames or could cause flames. If a weapon causes flame damage, there is a 25% chance that the flames will start to burn upon the suit’s armour. At the end of every turn there is a 25% chance the fire will go out, rolled before recovery. If the fire does not go out, it will hit the location again using the same damage value of the weapon that originally hit. A burning unit can spend an Action to try and put the fire out by taking a Speed test.

Head
When the head suffers stunning, it affects the mobile suit, not the pilot. This is due to lack of communication between the head’s sensors and the cockpit’s display. The pilot’s stunning and the suit’s stunning do not add to each other. Instead they occur at the same time. For example, if the pilot is stunned for 3 turns and the suit is stunned for 2, the unit as a whole is only stunned for a total of 3 turns. However, the mobile suit’s own stunning effect stacks with itself, just like a pilot’s stunning effect does. The pilot can try to circumvent these issues if he can pass a successful Sagacity test.

The head of a mobile suit is used primarily to house the most important sensory equipment. Despite this fact, the mobile suit has a number of smaller sensors over its entire body, so destroying the head does not completely diminish the suit’s ability to see and detect things. If a head is destroyed, the mobile suit’s primary sensors no longer function. The suit can only use its peripheral sensors, reducing all detection tests by -30. (Note: No rules on Awareness as of yet)

Chest
As noted earlier, any hit to the chest forces the pilot to test for stunning. If the chest suffers from Critical damage, any further damage to the chest will need to be tested against the pilot (see Death below). Also, if the chest suffers from Critical Damage, the cockpit will start to loose power and must test against its Maneuverability (which also denotes the suit’s internal power source). If the test fails, the suit will Critically Fail (see below).

It is possible for the pilot to open his cockpit to get a better view or perform some kind of action that only he can only do with his own hands. Doing so takes on certain risks, namely exposure to combat. If the cockpit is open for any reason, there is a 10% chance that a hit to the chest will enter the cockpit. This chance is increased to 20% if the attack is blast or flame based. A pilot taking a hit while exposed is explained in the section below.

Abdomen
The abdomen contains the suit’s internal power and allows it to move and act. The pilot’s stunning and the suit’s stunning do not add to each other. Instead they occur at the same time. For example, if the pilot is stunned for 3 turns and the suit is stunned for 2, the unit as a whole is only stunned for a total of 3 turns. However, the mobile suit’s own stunning effect stacks with itself, just like a pilot’s stunning effect does. The pilot can try to circumvent these issues if he can pass a successful Sagacity test.

If the Abdomen takes Critical Damage, it must test against its Maneuverability (which also denotes the suit’s internal power source). If the test passes by 10%, there are no additional effects. If the test passes by more than 10%, the suit suffers from Critical Failure. If the test is failed, the suit suffers from a Core Explosion (see below).

Groin
The groin houses the actuators for the hips and waist, making it a weak spot for maneuverability. If the groin takes Critical Damage, it will no longer be able to move the legs or twist its waist. Though the legs may still be present, the body counts as having lost both legs for the purposes of crawling.

Arms
An arm’s primary purpose is as a manipulator and weapon platform. Some weapons are held with the hands while others are mounting in or on top of the arm or shoulder itself. If the arm is damaged, there is a chance that held weapons and objects will be dropped. If the arm is damaged and a weapon is mounted on or inside of it, take a Mass test. If the test is passed, the weapon remains unscathed. If the test is failed, the weapon is destroyed. Every weapon in the arm must be tested for each occurrence. If an arm is destroyed, whatever it was holding is dropped and all installed weapons are destroyed.

Legs
The legs support the suit and allow it to move. Damage to the legs will quickly reduce its ability to move.

Backpack
The backpack provides the external energy source, primarily used to power the suit’s peripheral functions such as weapons. Due to its proximity to the cockpit, all hits to the backpack forces the pilot to test for stunning. As the backpack takes damage, its overall efficiency gets reduced significantly, dropping its Power and Recharge stats. The core to the backpack contains a lot of potential energy and can be quite dangerous if ruptured. If a backpack takes Critical Damage, it must take a Power test. Due to this stored energy, this test is different from most others. If the test is failed, the unit suffers no further negative effects. If the test is passed, the backpack will no longer provide any Power or Recharge and all systems depending on Power will cease to function. If the test is passed by 10%, it will rupture and suffer a Core Explosion (see below). Suits with more powerful backpacks are more likely to explode.

Destroyed Limbs
If an arm or leg is destroyed, there is a 50% chance it will be severed from the body and fall mostly intact on the ground. Some desperate fighters may resort to using the limb as an improvised close combat weapon.

Equipment
Any time a location takes damage, a Mass test must be taken for each piece of installed equipment, including attached weapons and hardware. Each item that fails is destroyed, unless the item has rules specific for its damage. Arms and legs are an exception to this. These locations only start testing for equipment damage after they sustain Serious damage.

Recovery
If a pilot is skilled enough to manipulate some of the finer details in a suit’s programming and power systems, it may be possible for him to mitigate some of the suits damage. There are also built in repair robots within the mobile suit that a pilot can command to perform field repairs. A unit can spend an Action trying to fix a single hit location. If the pilot can pass a Sagacity test, one hit location recovers from 1 level of damage. If a location is overheating and is fixed, the overheating stops (just as if the suit had passed a Mass test). A pilot cannot reduce a location’s damage level by more than one from the worst damage level to that location so far during the game (so a Serious damage level can be reduced to a Heavy damage level, but never back down to Light).

Going Out of Action
A unit is comprised of both a pilot and his mobile suit. Because there are two distinct agents in this situation, there are a number of ways that a unit can be taken out of action.

Consciousness (C)
Stunned pilots might effectively become useless if they cannot recover in time to actually take part in the rest of the battle. If a pilot acquires a number of turns stunned equal to or more than 1/10th of his Toughness, he is knocked unconscious and cannot make any more actions of any kind for the rest of the battle. The only thing an unconscious pilot can do is take a Toughness test when it is his turn to act. If he passes he will snap back, but must still wait out whatever remaining turns he was stunned for.

The mobile suit has a 25% chance of falling prone if a pilot is knocked unconscious. Any hits that cause damage have a 20% chance of knocking the mobile suit over plus +1 for every point of damage inflicted. Any units wishing to attack an unconscious pilot in close combat will automatically hit with a critical hit on any location he desires.

Death
A pilot can die if his cockpit takes too much damage and is penetrated. Because the amount of damage caused by mobile suits and their weapons is so great, it is usually fatal if a pilot’s cockpit is compromised. Any time a pilot takes damage, he must make a Toughness roll at -5 for every point of damage (automatic success and failures still apply). Failure results in the pilot’s death (the suit has the same chances of falling prone in the event of a pilot’s death as if he was knocked unconscious). Even if the pilot passes the test, he is automatically stunned for D10 turns. Note that this roll could potentially knock the pilot unconscious. If he is knocked out and subsequently recovers, he will still need to wait out any remaining turns for being stunned.

Compromised Operation
Unlike the pilot, the mobile suit can sustain huge amounts of damage and still retain many of its functions. In some cases, the mobile suit will be effectively considered out of action not because it is outright destroyed, but instead because it has sustained so much damage over so many systems and locations that it is completely ineffective in combat. There is no clear cut line on when this occurs, but is instead a matter of fact in most circumstances. Certain body parts can be destroyed without causing Critical Failure. If this occurs, any hits to that location automatically miss.

Critical Failure
One or more of the most fundamental systems in the mobile suit have failed, grinding all movement to a halt. A distinct critical failure is the meltdown of the mobile suit’s main power source. At its least destructive state, all power is drained from the unit, ceasing all operations. At its worst, the power source explodes, known as a Core Explosion. Not only will this cause the suit to shut down, it could blow it and its pilot to pieces. Critical Failures and Core Explosions are noted in the Location Damage Chart.

Core Explosion
A core explosion is what happens when a mobile suit’s energy source suffers a meltdown or is ruptured. There a number of fail-safes build in to prevent this from happening, but due to the violent nature of combat, these fail-safes do not always protect the cores from catastrophic failure. In the worst cases, core explosions can cause chain reactions, setting off other cores due to the power of the blast, especially to the unit that suffered the first explosion.

The core within a mobile suit’s abdomen is its primary energy source, so if it is destroyed, the mobile suit will no longer function. Perhaps more importantly, if it explodes, it will cause 3D10 damage plus 1 for every 10 points of Maneuverability (unmodified) with a radius equal to 2D6 paces and causing D6 hits (to itself and anyone within the blast).

Needless to say, the mobile suit itself will probably be blown to bits, though at this point it is more important to test for the damage to the chest (and hence the cockpit) in order to see if the pilot survives than it is to see what is left of the already defunct suit.

If the mobile suit’s backpack is destroyed, the loss of energy affects weapons and systems that consume Power. This does not affect the suit’s ability to operate movement. However, a Core Explosion from a backpack is just as dangerous. If the backpack’s core explodes, it will cause 3D10 damage plus 1 for every 10 points in Power (unmodified) with a radius equal to 2D6 paces and causing D6 hits (to itself and anyone within the blast). The first hit will always hit the chest. As mentioned before, a backpack exploding does not inherently mean that the mobile suit cannot operate its other functions; however a Core Explosion from a backpack is still likely to cause severe, if not fatal damage.