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I'm potentially interested in backing SS&S2e on Indiegogo, but I know next to nothing about the system and how elements such as combat play out. I've discerned that chargen and characters are much in line with LL and MF which is a big plus, but how is personal and starship combat handled in 2e? Battlemaps or grids? Gridless? Tactical or narrative? Can anyone provide a brief example of either type of combat, please?

cheers!
Colin

Hi Colin, personal combat works much like LL/MF, but it is phrased as Combat Skill and you roll skill or lower on 1d20 to hit, modified by armor. Ship combat is similar except it uses Technical skill, so that Fire Control Officers are better at it. There are range modifiers for the ship and target, but otherwise combat is pretty abstract. So long as you are keeping track of range (which is easy) you don't need to do combat on a grid. Space combat doesn't involve complex maneuvers or anything like that. This is a negative if you are looking for tactical space combat, but a positive otherwise. Ship combat is supposed to be simpler since this isn't so much a game about ship combat as it is about character exploration on planet-side missions. Having said all of that, one could add rules to make space combat more complicated and use a grid if you wanted to.

I hope that helps!