Combat

The bread, butter, heart and soul of Asternova revolves around combat. It's where the climax of an adventure's conflict is resolved and what paves the road all the way to it. For the most part, of course. While not every encounter the players will overcome with be a combat encounter, that will likely be most of the encounters they will face. Like many tabletop roleplaying games, Asternova was designed as a combat oriented game and many mechanics and features of it reflect that purpose.

Defining Combat
Combat is defined as a rapid series of events during which two or more combatants are engaged. Combat is broken into 1 second segments also called rounds, alternately. Combat is typically something that only lasts a few seconds before it's over, especially when you're playing with guns and rapid fire weaponry.

Characters can perform 3 types of actions in a second:


 * Full action - any action requiring the entire second to resolve. Things in this category include most melee attacks and fully automatic weapon barrages.
 * Half action - any action requiring at least half of a second to resolve. This category includes actions such as drawing a weapon, moving and firing.
 * Snap action - any action able to be performed without taking up any relevant time. A Snap action costs no time to use and generally anything which can be done simultaneously to another action counts as part of the Snap action, such as dropping something from your hand or shouting. Players may perform multiple Snap actions in a second, but each subsequent one after the first counts as a Half action instead. If a player is able to perform two or more Snap actions at the same time, they are all treated as one Snap action, such as a player dropping both of his weapons and shouting to another.

Attacking
Any time someone is attempting to deal damage in combat, it requires an attack. The two types of attacks are melee and ranged.

Melee Attacks
To be successful against an opponent in melee combat, you must take into account their ability to dodge, parry and block your incoming attacks. The test is a Melee Attack skill test against a TV equal to: 10 + 1/2 Defender's Evasion Modifier + Defender's Parry Modifier. The opponent only receives the base 10 to the TV if they're actively trying to defend themselves or otherwise avoid being hit. A stationary opponent who is not trying to defend themselves or otherwise does not know the attack is coming is automatically hit. See Sneak Attack for more information.

Melee combat is designed to be dangerous and effective. Statistically, with no modifiers other than the base 10 defense, a completely untrained attacker will hit 62.5% of the time. At such close range, trying to evade is much less effective, which is why the defender only receives 1/2 of the normal Evasion modifier.

Ranged Attacks
Ranged weapons are highly prevalent in Asternova and as such, makeing Cover far more important than just about every other factor in ranged combat. Ranged attackers use the following formula to get their base ranged attack result:

Ranged Attack Skill Test + Weapon Hit Modifier + Range Modifier + Optical Modifier

The TV of the total ranged attack test is equal to:

11 + Defender's Dexterity Modifier + Defender's Evasion Modifier + Size Modifier + Cover Modifier

As you can see, there are far more variables involving ranged attacks. This may seem complex at first, but once you get the hang of ranged combat, it's really not too difficult. Here's a quick guide on the modifiers and what they are in simple terms:
 * Weapon Hit: Weapons that fire many rounds per burst have an increased chance of hitting their target. Throw enough bullets at it and at least one of them are liable to hit its target.
 * Range: Weapons have a certain range increment of use. Inside of that range increment, the weapons have no trouble hitting their targets. For every increment away from the target the attacker is, this incurs a -1 penalty on the hit roll.
 * Optical: Much like a weapon's range increment, this is the range increment for the user and is dependent on their quality of sight, also incurring a -1 penalty for each increment away. At long range, targets can be very hard to lock onto. This is where scopes and enhancing sights come in handy, which can effectively reduce range penalty.
 * Size: How large the target is can make a substantial difference in an attacker's ability to hit it. This doesn't only correlate to the physical size of the target, however. Alternate positions such as kneeling or lying prone can effectively reduce the target's size when being attacked by ranged weapons.
 * Cover: A huge factor in staying alive in ranged combat, cover is by far the most effective form of consistently avoiding attacks. The bonus received is proportionate to the amount of the target that is not visible.

For a more detailed explanation of modifiers, see Combat Modifiers.