WORGAV

Principalities and Powers · 23rd Century Intervention

Book 2: Starships and Encounters

The universal encounter engine and the starship as a domain

Originally written by Jeffrey J. Kempton · Actualized 2026

PART I: THE UNIVERSAL ENCOUNTER ENGINE

Every encounter in Worgav — on the ground, underground, in vacuum, in a pressurized atmosphere, oversea, undersea, fortified, vehicular, ethereal, or astral — runs on one sequence. The sequence never changes; only three plug-in values do: the time slice (set by the medium and tempo, independent of command decisions), the hazard model (see the environment tables), and the content of the command nodes being resolved.

2.10.3 Free-Style Combat Round Algorithm

(For Human Game Masters and/or AI Moderators)

PHASE 0 — Initialization

Gather Input Data:

Update all known unit positions, motion vectors, status (health, morale, stealth, etc.).

Roll or generate NPD10 fate dice for each unit: Recon, Mortality, and Action.

Note all environmental signals (noise, light, radar/sonar pings, atmospheric changes).

Sort Units:

Order by physical scale or size (smallest → largest).

Within equal-size categories, order by lowest Recon roll (those with the lowest values act first).

PHASE 1 — Autonomous & Environmental Resolution

(Fog-of-war-exempt operations; GM or simulation authority step)

Advance Autonomous Entities:

Update all timed, traveling, or auto-guided entities (missiles, drones, ongoing spells, etc.) by (or the smallest time slice).

Detect collisions, impact points, and hazard zone intersections.

Apply Hazard Outcomes:

For each entity inside or entering a hazard, roll for Mortality/Damage.

Update resultant signals (explosions, fires, light bursts, auditory cues).

Resolve Autonomous Conflicts:

Remove destroyed objects.

Compute collateral and structural damage.

Apply causal chain effects (secondary blasts, falling debris, chain reactions).

PHASE 2 — NPC Resolution

Perform NPC Recon Rolls:

NPCs make simultaneous recon checks to detect events uncovered by Phase 1.

Resolve NPC Actions:

NPCs choose reactions, attacks, or movements based on their perception and updated situation.

Execute NPC-to-NPC interactions (combat, communications, coordination).

Remove NPC Casualties:

Update all status and remove incapacitated or destroyed entities from the active map.

PHASE 3 — Player Character Integration

Player Recon:

All player-controlled units make Recon rolls (possibly using both scouts or supporting systems).

The lowest Recon score acts first, with simultaneous execution allowed for equally low rolls.

At this point, players get their “heads-up” preview — a tactical snapshot right before action.

Player Actions:

Players declare and resolve moves, attacks, and abilities.

GM or AI integrates outcomes into the current battlefield state.

Feedback & Narrative Update:

The GM (or simulation controller) narratively describes combined outcomes:

Cause-and-effect chain of the round’s events.

Environmental and sensory feedback (critical for immersion and decision-making next round).

PHASE 4 — End-of-Round Update

Synchronize State:

Integrate all player/NPC/autonomous outcomes.

Advance environmental timers and ongoing effects (fires spread, alarms triggered, magic durations).

Display / Narrate Resultant State:

GM provides sensory-rich narration.

AI renders battlefield data with uncertainty zones (fog of war reinstated for players).

Commence Next Round:

Repeat from Phase 0.

Round duration is not fixed. It varies between mediums and by game tempo, and is independent of command decisions. The Tier-1 individual floor is 1 second; larger units and slower mediums advance the metronome in larger slices. (This supersedes any fixed 6-second round.)

PART II: THE STARSHIP AS A DOMAIN

A starship is not a separate subsystem — it is a domain whose seven hebdomad command nodes (7–13) are bridge stations. The same 43-node Codex and the same encounter engine apply unchanged. Only the node content and the time slice differ from ground play.

2.1 The Bridge Hebdomad

Node 10 (Chief Engineer) holds the shared water reserve every subsystem spends — cooling, thrust, screens, jump fuel, tritium breeding. Node 13 (Navigator) holds the charts and runs the jump risk roll in transit, then flips to firing solutions in combat. These two carry the heaviest system load in a fight.

2.2 Battle Metric at a Station

Node control follows the standard rule: Base Mode (Battle Metric) focus penalty = +15 − 5 × (number of focus nodes). One node +10, three nodes ±0, seven nodes −20. A Champion commanding more stations sharpens each action but is capped at seven.

PART III: PARTY FORMATION, MISSIONS & SUPPLY HUBS

8.1 The Call to Action

Every campaign begins the same way: awareness dawns, and the game world takes shape. You open your eyes and hear an echo in your mind — an old man quietly speaking: “So it was in the beginning, as it is now; the ways of humankind — never content, always expanding and fighting against each other.” You and up to seven other players, guided by a single Game Master, have been summoned to interact in a shared role-playing experience.

The maximum party size is eight participants: one Game Master and up to seven players. All parties operate within the same governing ruleset, and all domains are part of the same interconnected universe.

8.2 Party Formation

Before the first mission is assigned, the party must assemble. Party formation is not merely a logistical step — it sets the tone for the entire campaign. The process involves selecting characters, establishing roles, and reporting to your domain commander for orders.

Same Side or Simulation?

By default, all players are encouraged to operate on the same side and within the same domain. This promotes cooperation, streamlines logistics, and makes early missions significantly more survivable. For groups seeking a greater challenge, the computer simulation mode allows for opposing-force play, complex faction dynamics, and adversarial scenarios. Usually it is easier to play on the same side.

Character Creation

New players roll up characters before reporting for duty. Newly created characters begin as rookies, assigned to their first battle deployment under the supervision of the domain commander (see Part III for full character creation rules). Veterans rejoining after losses are integrated as reinforcements into ongoing campaigns.

8.3 Mission Types

Once assembled, the party is assigned a scenario by the Game Master or domain commander. The following mission types are available at campaign start, each offering a distinct style of play, risk level, and reward structure.

Mission selection is not always in the party’s hands. Domain commanders may assign objectives based on strategic need, available intelligence, or resource availability at the nearest Supply Hub. Players should be prepared to adapt. Combinations of the above scenarios and entirely new campaigns are also possible.

8.4 Supply Hubs & Operating Base Command

Supply Hubs are the lifeline of any extended campaign. Whether launching a Deep Space mission or resupplying between Explorer legs, all equipment, materiel, orders, and plans flow through Operating Base Command (OBC) and its network of Supply Hubs.

What a Supply Hub Provides

Every Supply Hub is capable of delivering the following to authorized parties:

Life support systems and consumables

Combat equipment, weapons, and field gear

Mission supplies and specialized materiel

Physical protection and security escort (where available)

General orders and updated mission briefings

Strategic plans and domain intelligence

Hub Access & Deep Space Assignments

Deep Space missions are assigned directly out of a Supply Hub. Before departure, the party must draw full supplies, confirm life support ratings, and receive sealed orders from the domain commander. Once a Deep Space mission is underway, resupply is not guaranteed — parties should plan for self-sufficiency across the full mission window.

Operating Base Command

At the apex of the supply chain sits Operating Base Command (OBC). OBC is responsible for macro-level logistics: allocating supply across hubs, coordinating multi-domain operations, and issuing campaign-wide directives. Individual parties rarely interact with OBC directly, but its decisions shape the resources available at every hub in the network.

8.5 Playing in the Same Domain

The simplest and most effective approach to party formation is to keep all players within a single domain. This ensures unified supply access, a shared chain of command, and consistent mission briefings. Cross-domain play is possible — particularly in combined campaign scenarios — but introduces additional complexity around supply routing, communication lag, and differing local orders.

For new parties or groups unfamiliar with the setting, same-domain play is strongly recommended until the group has completed at least one full campaign cycle.

PART IV: STARSHIP SYSTEMS (SUMMARY)

The full derivations of drive, power, thermal, hull, gravity-well, and jump physics live in Worgav Book 3: Universe and Game Theory. The encounter-relevant summary follows.

4.1 The Shared Water Economy

Water is 40% of hull mass and does seven jobs: coolant, thrust reactant, jump fuel, life-support oxygen, deuterium fuel source, neutron moderator, and radiation shield. In combat it is the master resource — every action the Chief Engineer allocates (cool, thrust, shield, jump, breed) spends the same reserve. A ship loses a fight by boiling dry, not by running out of ammunition.

4.2 Heat and the Combat Clock

Radiators shed steady cruise heat but are fragile and cannot retract under load. In combat, with radiators stowed, a ship runs on steam-dump cooling from its water reserve — minutes to over an hour of endurance depending on hull size and reserve. Large ships cannot sustain high-g burns at all (the thermal ceiling); they burst and drift.

4.3 Jumps in an Encounter

Fuel is 5% of hull mass per parsec jumped. A jump deposits a heat pulse and imposes a recovery/cooling gate (~90 minutes for a frigate) before re-jumping — a ship caught in its recovery window cannot flee. Minimum jump mass is 100 t; sub-100 t craft are in-system only.

PART V: STARSHIP CONSTRUCTION

How hulls are built, what they cost, and how they are supplied. Construction physics (hull architecture, the A-36 pressure vessel, liftoff-once) is derived in Book 3, Part IV; this chapter is the builder- and quartermaster-facing procedure.

5.1 Building a Hull

Ships are constructed on land or in a cradle and repaired in pressurized space docks, with few exceptions. The mild carbon steel (A-36) pressure vessel is welded first as the airtight, field-repairable core; high-tech lightweight reinforcement and expansion joints are fitted over it; the dorsal I-beam spine and radiating ribs frame the plating. Large hulls fire the G-Drive to lift off the construction site exactly once and are void-only thereafter.

Two-tier industrial base: the A-36 shell can be welded and patched anywhere with ordinary gear; only advanced yards manufacture the high-tech reinforcement frames.

5.2 Construction Cost

Cost scales with hull mass, machinery (the reactor dominates), the jump-drive rating, and the fraction of high-tech reinforcement vs weldable steel.

⚑ PLACEHOLDER — define the currency (shared with Book 1 §8.3), a cost-per-tonne by hull class, the reactor/drive/jump-drive cost multipliers, and the surface-yard vs orbital-cradle cost differential. No cost data exists yet — establish base figures.

5.3 Logistics & Supply

A starship’s operational endurance is set by its consumables, not its energy. The shared water reserve (40% of hull mass) covers cooling, thrust, jump fuel, oxygen, and neutron shielding; lithium gates fast-burn combat and long jumps; deuterium is effectively unlimited from water.

No-starport explorers are self-sufficient forever for cruise and jump on water alone; only sustained combat and long jumps are gated by mined, enriched lithium.

⚑ PLACEHOLDER — add resupply times and costs at supply hubs, the reblanketing procedure and cost for lithium, water-harvesting rates by source (comet vs gas-giant skim), and dock repair pricing. Cross-reference Part III supply-hub rules.

PART VI: WEAPONS & COMBAT

The universal engagement range is 10 km for all units except missiles and combat droids. About 99% of starships mount gravity guns ("blasters") on turrets, or on fixed wings for small fighters. Lasers are civilian equipment and combat-ineffective. Warships — roughly 5% of hulls — are the vessels described throughout this book.

6.1 The Gravity Gun

An inert-slug, recoilless weapon with a three-position fire selector. All modes draw from the same capacitor bank (~8 MW sustained on a ship mount), so the selector trades shot size against rate of fire — not total power. Rate is limited by capacitor recharge and barrel heat, not reactor output.

Ship-mounted blaster:

Handheld blaster (battery pack):

A 2 MJ pack gives ~100 heavy bolts or ~2,400 semi-auto shots. Blasters are well weapons: at the galactic density floor, muzzle velocity falls ~3×. Recoilless at every setting.

Fighter-mounted blaster (fixed wing): the same weapon as the handheld — identical ballistic speeds and the same three-position selector — firing a heavier slug. It is a bullet, not a capital slug.

A fighter heavy bolt (1 MJ) hits ~50× lighter than a capital heavy bolt (50 MJ). Fighters kill fighters, small craft, and soft points (sensors, radiators, open bays); they harass capital ships but cannot defeat warship hull plate head-on — they rely on numbers, maneuver, and lucky hits. A capital ship's semi-auto mode (4 slugs/s) is its anti-fighter answer. Because their slugs are slow (2 km/s ≈ 5 s to cross 10 km), fighters fight close, inside the 10 km band; capital ships with 5–10 km/s slugs dominate the full range.

6.2 The Weapon–Counter Matrix

No single screen stops everything, so a ship mixes defenses and spends water to run them. Fog and sand counter lasers; point-defense and evasion counter kinetics; range counters gravity weapons.

6.3 Gunnery at 10 km

Time-of-flight makes gunnery a lead-and-prediction duel. A 5 km/s ship slug crosses 10 km in 2 s, during which a target under 2 g maneuver shifts ~40 m; a slower slug gives a larger dodge window. Faster guns hit better, so ship blasters reliably engage at 10 km while handheld blasters are short-range. Solving the lead is the Navigator/tactical officer's combat task (bridge node 13).