Location Generation & Exploration
Ok, so we made it to our new random destination. Hopefully we can get some money and new crew! It is worth mentioning that had we triggered a space combat, we could still have chosen to avoid it, at the cost of losing any location generation modifiers (even from ship systems), and losing our smuggling credits, and losing the ability to explore the new location this turn. This also happens if you try the combat and have any result other than winning it (escaping, timing out if there’s a limit, etc…).
So, at our new location we note down our difficulty which is 1 (chosen before space flight). Then we roll for a type of area and we get an Underground! Some facility beneath the surface of a planet. Then we have to roll for outside and inside atmosphere and we get no atmosphere for either. Meaning every action when outside or inside on the ground will cost us oxygen. At base we have 25 units. You can find places to refill on the ground, and you can increase that amount in different ways. But we don’t have that yet. It could’ve been worse mind you, there is a potential to roll for “hell” environments that double the rate of oxygen usage.
Ok, so we’re still not done generating. Next we roll for how many maps our area is (turns out to be 9 maps long). And we roll to see how far our teleporters can penetrate (in this case 7 maps deep). You always start at map 1, but you can pull yourself out by teleporter (as long as there’s no active disrupter on the map) down to map 7. And if you clear the earlier maps you can teleport back in later as far as map 7 (no need to walk!). However, we then roll for a potential specialty and find that this location will self-destruct after the first time we visit it. What are they doing down here? And we roll for a primary species. Unlike our first ground combat from the story phase, where we fought Kraken (weak to fire, good for us due to one of our weapons doing fire damage) we get the Greys. We don’t know much about them, but if you have the Species Compendium expansion it gives lore about every single enemy and adds a new enemy type. The only expansion meant to be used without extensive experience with the game. It’s great!
Alright, so you also roll for maps randomly on a D20. There’s 20 different ones for each area type. And they have a bunch of stuff on them, like locked bulkheads, hull breaches, enemies, bosses, mines, stores, quest givers, cloning stations, oxygen resupply, and of course, Treasure! We roll a 1 and go down to map 1.
You don’t need to do anything to put your crew on the map. They’re small 12x12 squares with icons and color-coded zones. Everyone moves together. You go area by area, triggering what’s in them by choice or by presence. Spending oxygen when there’s no atmosphere. Each action is a move (unless you want to stay put) and an interaction with whatever is there in the area. In this case we start at the blue square with the “>”. And automatically get pushed into the first light grey area there (inside area). We move onto the door for an action and open it. Then move to an outside zone (purple background) with a mine. We can attempt to disarm the mine with our best tech crew member, but if he fails he takes damage +2 from the explosion. And it’s a +2 mine so it’ll do the location difficulty +2 damage already. Seems best if everyone just tries to dodge the explosion because we have 4 agility on both characters. Paul dodges, and Quinn fails and gets hit for 3 damage and the mine is done. Then we have 2 hull breaches, which don’t matter since there’s no atmosphere inside or out. But we could’ve brought a welding torch (if we had one) and closed the breaches and made some of this outside area into inside area.
Next we have to climb over an obstacle which takes an action to move onto, and then off of on the otherside. This obstacle separated that first mine from a 2nd mine. And now we have to deal with that mine so we try the dodge again. This time with the same result. Thankfully we had a stimpack for Quinn to heal 3 (that we got from our fight with the kraken scout).
Next is a bulkhead between our area and an inside area. We try to pick the lock with Paul who has the best tech. We need to roll a 12 on 2d6 plus Paul’s tech of 3. Doable, but we fail 3 times. Spending 3 oxygen. And the door is now auto-locked. Only way to open it is to spend a full magazine of ammo for a single weapon of equal grade to the bulkhead (in this case we need a grade 2 weapon) to blow it open. We do it with the laser rifle. No more fire damage.
Then we move off the bulkhead into the next inside area. Again, every move into an area and interaction costs us an oxygen. We’re getting low. The EX is the way to the next map. But we go for this other bulkhead to our left and manage to unlock it on the 3rd and final attempt. Then we move in and get an enemy of equal level to the location difficulty, who is also guarding two treasures.
So we start a ground combat. The first primary enemy will always be the species you rolled for during location generation. It’s level is equal to the location difficulty sometimes up to +3. So we have a level 1 grey to fight. This is a sweetie. Which the lore tells us is a pretty female genetically designed to take advantage of human emotion and then kill people or steal there stuff. And sure enough she does have the potential to steal items and run with them. But, she’s vulnerable to melee attacks and Paul has been walking around with a chainsaw. In addition there’s a chance to attack the first primary as soon as you see her.
We roll for that reaction phase and manage to get it. We can choose one crew member and one action. So we choose for Paul to attack her with the chainsaw before she can act. He has a melee skill of 4. Every two points can be used to increase melee damage by 1, or decrease the needed it hit roll by 1 on his attack. We make it so he hits on a 2+ instead of his normal 3+ and then add a damage too. A D6 roll of 1 is always a miss and it will also jam the weapon (or do something that requires repair to non-mechanical melee weapons). We get the hit and spend an ammo (chainsaws do have 4 ammo they use up). Managed to roll a 6 even, which adds another damage point. So he’s done 6 armor piercing damage with the chainsaw. She has no shields. And no armor either (otherwise we would’ve halved her armor). And since she’s vulnerable to melee we double the damage that gets through and she dies before getting to go. Nice!
Combat ended before it started. Of note, after reaction you do have to roll for the chance to get a 2nd primary enemy, but we didn’t have any. That one can be any species. There’s also a roll for 1-2 minions (a level lower than the primary) to show up. But since our grey was level 1, she can have no minions.
She dropped us a stimpack to replace the used one, and a ammo magazine for any grade 1 weapon. We take a rifle magazine. Chainsaws are grade 2 so we couldn’t get a reload for that.
Then we move onto the treasures behind her, grab them up. One was just a credit and nothing else. The other was a single credit and another ammo mag. It’s based on location difficulty… And we didn’t roll well.
Now, we’re almost out of oxygen and if we go through the exit we have no idea if the next map will start us in a fight or what. And since I didn’t mention it, without atmosphere, every round of a fight costs us an oxygen. Also, flanking maneuvers do as well. So we teleport out. And as per its’ specialty the underground facility explodes and we can never return.
No shops. No new crew. But we got 20 credits now so we could buy two level 1s if we find a shop.
