[ Military ]

Each round you may attack and defend. In addition, you may take an action.

Actions can change the circumstances of the battle or may aid in your attacks or defences. For example, you might order a bomber strike, hide behind a moon or use a nebula's natural energy discharge to your advantage. In principle, you may take at most one action during each round. Depending on the action, a check may be required.

In all cases, actions require a check, as battle is complex and leaves people prone to make mistakes. Fleets take checks based on their ratings. If you feel certain Circumstances may aid your check, please list them as well. The Storyteller determines your RP bonus. If you succeed at the check, your bonuses are applied. If you fail, they do not.

You may choose not to attack to gain a +5 bonus on your check. Alternatively, you may take two actions, but one such action must be a Non-Combat Action.

Note that you do not know your success or failure until the end of the round when that round is processed by the Storyteller.

There are three types of actions: Direct Combat Actions, Advantage Actions and Non-Combat Actions.

A Direct Combat Action is not just an attack. It's an attack that takes advantage of an action, equipment or circumstance during battle.

Direct Combat Actions provide a bonus of 2 points to a single attack or defence ring of your choice. You describe the action you take and list OOC what bonuses you wish to apply - note that your action should be related to the bonus you wish to claim - if the action is far-fetched or impossible, the Storyteller may reduce your total boost or even void the entire bonus.

Note that Direct Combat Actions need not involve terrain - they can include manoeuvres, tricks, unorthodox attacks, etc. Direct Combat Actions work during the round you take the action only.

Where Direct Combat Actions are variations of attacks (salvos, bomber strikes, etc) Advantage Actions gain you a long term advantage. They include such things as cover and flanking, but could be things like a fast fleet using a nearby gravity well to their advantage, asteroids tractored into the line of fire, etc.

Advantages need not last - when using the advantage action you get an advantage which puts you on a plus against your opponent(s). Advantages give +1 on all offensive or +1 on all defensive rings. When claiming an Advantage, clearly note whether this is an offensive or defensive advantage. Once established, advantages apply to all opponents in the combat: they are treated to be universal and as such are not limited to one opponent.

You can have at most three Advantages active at the same time. However you can use an advantage action to remove an advantage from an opponent, in this case the advantage actions does not grant you a bonus, but removes an advantage of the opponent. You cannot claim an advantage if you, or your target, already has it.

Advantage actions do not apply in the round where you take the action, but only from the next round onwards.

Finally, Non-Combat Actions are not combat related and thus provide no combat bonuses, but they may help accomplish secondary objectives (such as retrieving cargo, saving prisoners, taking a special object, etc).