ORC - Out-Rim Coalition Fleet

At the frontier of human space, pioneers and freebooters mostly fought among themselves--until the Kra'Vak invasion. Afterwards, when the major navies withdrew to defend the Core worlds, the abandoned people of the outer rim were forced to cooperate to defend themselves against xeno attacks. Rim shipwrights, innovative and resourceful, installed weapons on whatever hulls they had available, then quickly turned to building new vessels designed for war. The few Rim shipyards have limited capacity, however, so converted raiders and armed merchantmen are still common in ORC squadrons. Because ships are so valuable, the captains of the Rim still carry on the pirate tradition of capturing enemy ships, when possible, rather than destroying them, and most ORC warships mount EMP batteries for that purpose. Their prey is not only the xeno ships that attack them, but also the ships of the inner worlds who abandoned them.

ORC warships are tough with slightly above average hulls plus some armor.  They mount beam weapons with very wide arcs so most weapons will be able to target enemies no matter how well they manuver.  EMP Batteries are used on all their ships except for the smallest combatants.   ORC ships are not the most manuverable with only moderate thrust but this is partially compansated for with their wide weapon arcs.

EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse) Batteries
These weapons fire electro-magnetic pulses that short out and disrupt electroning system of the target ship.

The EMP Battery works like a normal beam battery of the same size class (i.e. requires 1 Fire Control per target, a Class 2 EMP Battery rolls 2 beam dice at range 0-12 and 1 die at range 12-24, screens work as normal, etc.)  When hits are indicated, do not mark off hull boxes, but these EMP hits are accumulated to a maximum of 3.  If multiple EMP beams fire together in a single attack their hits are added together, but any EMP hits after the 3rd are wasted.

If any EMP hits are scored on a target ship, roll 1D6 for each EMP vulnerable system: rolling EQUAL TO or LESS than the number of EMP hits indicated by the attack means that the system is damaged just as if it had failed a threshold check.  See the example below.

Mass and cost of EMP Batteries are the same as a standard beam battery of the same class and same number of arcs.

EMP vulnerable systems are defined as all systems on the target ship EXCEPT:
     - Core Systems
     - Weapons (including Point Defense weapons and magazines)
     - Crew and passengers (including boarding troops)
     - Cargo holds, passenger quarters and similar "systems" which don't normally make threshold checks.
     - Fighter/small craft/tender bays

This normally means that only engines, screens and fire control systems are vulnerable along with many special systems like sensors, cloaks, etc; but any systems added to FT hereafter are vulnerable unless they fall under any of the above general categories or are explicitly stated not to be.

If a system is damaged, it takes effect after all weapons on the firing ship have fired.

Systems damaged by an EMP Battery can be repaired just like systems damaged by a threashold check.

Example of an EMP Battery in use....

Reaver, an ORC Gargoyle-class light cruiser, fires its two EMP-2 batteries at the FSE battleship Roma at a range of 19mu. Reaver rolls two dice resulting in a 4 and a 6; the 4 is blocked by Roma's screen, but the 6 does two hits and a re-roll.  The re-roll is a 5 for 1 more hit, so Reaver scores a total of 3 EMP hits. Roma rolls a die for each vulnerable system with results of 1-3 indicating that system is damaged.  The rolls are a 4 for her Main Drive, a 1 for her FTL, a 2 for her Screen Generator, and 1, 5, 4 for her fire controls - the Roma loses her FTL, screen and one fire control.

Reaver also fires her two Class 2 Beam batteries at Roma, resulting in two dice rolled for a 2 and a 4.  The 2 is a miss and the 4 is blocked by the Roma's screen.  Even though the EMP batteries knocked out the Roma's Screen Generator, that damage does not take effect until ALL weapons from Reaver have been resolved, so it is still there to block this shot.

Playtesting Note:

Often players with the EMP Batteries feel like these weapons aren't doing any damage, while at the same time, their opponents feel like the EMP Batteries are overpowered and taking down their fire controls and engines too easily.  So please play both sides, with and then against EMP Batteries before you make judgment on them.