Ship Damage Track

[Marvin]

Can anyone explain the usage of chits on the ships damage track in a simpler way than the rulebook. I find it confusing.

[Diamondback]

Quite simple... whichever track has taken more damage, the first less-than-totally-filled box on that track is the stats you use for Gunnery, Musketry and Crew Actions. IF I'm reading it right...

Say you've only filled up to part of Box 2 with hull damage, but you have counters up to Box 4 for crew losses. You use Box 4 for everything.

[Nightmoss]

Marvin, if you're confused about how you apply the damage from the chit draws I'd watch this video review by Marco. skip to the 17:00 minute mark (give or take) and I think he'll answer your question? If this doesn't help, ask again and I'm sure someone here will try to help.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBQo3tEmYT4

[fredmiracle]

Here's my stab at it (basic/standard game, i.e. ignoring special damage):


Every turn, collect all the damage counters received by a ship (from all enemy attacks)
First do crew damage

For each counter that is just crew damage, put it on the crew track in the next empty box (this fills the box)
For each counter that has crew and hull damage, take one of the extra crew damage markers, and put it on the crew track in the next empty box (this fills the box). The counter remains in the pool so the hull damage can be allocated.

Now do hull damage.

For each damage marker that is greater or equal to the ship's burden, put it on the hull track in the next empty box (this fills the box)
Allocate the remaining hull damage markers one at a time, from largest to smallest. For each, put it on the hull track in the next box that isn't full (that is, the next box that is either empty, or contains damage factors totaling less than the ship's burden).




As far as the effects of damage:

If the hull track or the crew track has no empty slots, then the ship surrenders.
Otherwise ...

Use the musketry factor from the first empty box on the crew track
Use the gunnery factors from the first empty box on the hull track
Use the crew actions from the first slot that has both an empty hull box and an empty crew box (advanced rules only)




is that any simpler than the rule book? probably not...

[Union Jack]

Looks very simple and easy to understand to me. Could have done with it last night. Are you gong to expand and put it into a simplified ref sheet with special damage and advanced stuff?

[7eat51]

One thing to keep in mind is the need to backfill. Whenever a ship takes damage, any chit that can fill a box on its own does so, starting with the first empty box. After you have placed such chits, if there was a box with prior damage, but not enough to fill it, you need to do so before starting to fill another empty box.

Marvin, once you have a few games under your belt, assigning damage will go quickly.

[Nightmoss]

One thing to keep in mind is the need to backfill. Whenever a ship takes damage, any chit that can fill a box on its own does so, starting with the first empty box. After you have placed such chits, if there was a box with prior damage, but not enough to fill it, you need to do so before starting to fill another empty box.

Marvin, once you have a few games under your belt, assigning damage will go quickly.

I'd like to confirm and clarify something as well. When you do backfill the empty boxes with new chit draws you always take the larger numbers first and work down from there. You do not add in chits to try and match the 'burden' number on those unfilled boxes. That sometimes means larger chit draws do an overkill on filling a box, but that also means the ships should last a bit longer in combat. Sure hope that's correct because it's how I've been playing it all along?

[7eat51]

Yep, that is correct, Jim.

[Chiron0224]

That is right. Say hypothetically I have a ship with burden 5 and it takes the following chits.

6, 5, 4, 3, 3, 3, 2, 1, 0, 0, 0,

First, the zeros go in my zero box (seems weird to have a spot for tracking non-damage, but the point is not to return them to the bag and throw off the odds)

Then the ones that are big enough to knock out a box right out do so. 6 and 5 will hit my damage track immediately and flip over (represented in text here by a letter)

[B][B][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
^ ^

The the others are added in order. If a number is not enough to kill the box outright it gets added.

my 4 gets added now
[B][B][4][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
........^

Then the three on top of it for a total of 7 which exceeds the burden so..
[B][B][B][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
........^

Next is the next 2 3s
[B][B][B][3][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
.............^

[B][B][B][B][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
.............^ *note how it flips because 6 exceeds the burden

After that is the 2

[B][B][B][B][B][2][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
.....................^

Then the 1 which will add to the 2 box since it is not yet full

[B][B][B][B][B][1][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
.....................^ *the 1 is visible because it is on top of the stack, but checking the stack will reveal that it totals 3

Ok, so that was a nasty broadside and it hurt. A couple of turns of maneuvering happen and I wind up further from my enemy who now attempts to fire a frontal battery shot at me for 4 yellow chits as follows

5, 4, 3, 0

Damn his eyes! That's some magnificent gunnery.:takecover: Here's how I track it this time.

First that 5 is big enough to kill a box in it's own right so it knocks out the first completely empty box.
[B][B][B][B][B][1][A][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
........................^

Next is the 4 which isn't big enough to kill a box outright so it goes into the first box that is partially filled, even though it is overkill. In this way "back filling" has a tendency to soak large damage chits and keep your vessel afloat longer.
[B][B][B][B][B][A][A][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
....................^ *This box already had 3 and 4 puts it to seven so it flips.

Then the 3
[B][B][B][B][B][A][A][3][ ][ ][ ][ ]
.............................^

and of course my zero goes to the box. Now an important thing to remember is that you only read off of empty boxes. Even if a box is partially damaged, the presence of any chit there at all means you don't use it. This simplifies it. You don't need to slide the chits back to see what that box has, just read the biggest box you can still see. So after all that damage I would read this box

[B][B][B][B][B][A][A][3][ ][ ][ ][ ]
................................^

Not this one
[B][B][B][B][B][A][A][3][ ][ ][ ][ ]
.............................^

Same goes for crew hits. If you draw a chit that has a crew hit by itself, go ahead and put that in the crew track. If it also has a number, get a crew damage marker from the special damage chits (greyish brown ones)and use that so that the original chit can still be used as it's number on the hull track. Also early on in this discussion Diamond back got the rules a little wrong. You don't look for the most heavily damaged track and use that to determine what boxes you read on both like this

[B][B][B][B][B][A][A][3][ ][ ][ ][ ]
[x][x][x] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ]
................................^This one for both.

You read the tracks on their own, like this
[B][B][B][B][B][A][A][3][ ][ ][ ][ ]
................................^ this one for gunnery

[x][x][x][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
...........^ this one for musketry

This means that it is possible to take a pounding in the hull and still have plenty of muskets and vice versa. The HAND symbols that are in the middle of the track do work the way Diamond back explained it though, so the worse track determines crew actions in the advanced game. And that's it, you keep going until one of the two tracks has no more empty boxes and that means that you have surrendered.

EDIT: added periods in front of the carats since the forum apparently won't register leading spaces and therefor I had to use the periods to get the carats to be in the right places.

[Gotham Resident]

Very succinct and answered my minor question about backfilling on turn 2.

[Chiron0224]

Yes, if you do the back filling correctly the ships can sometimes take more of a beating than they could otherwise (I love it when I have a 4 in a box and it soaks up another 4).