Combat

Combat situations are all about completing an objective while staying alive.

Hit Points (HP), Armour Hit Points (A-HP), and Energy Hit Points (E-HP) are all important to maximise here; it’s how you’ll stay alive longest.

There are many ways to reduce the Hit Points of your enemies. The most common ways are through foam dart blasters, LARP melee weapons, and throwable damaging items such as grenades. Not all of these may work on every enemy you encounter, but they’ll certainly work on most.

Damage/Hit Points

Every starting character has 5 HP. This is global (ie, you take 1 point of damage no matter where you are hit, instead of tracking HP for each individual limb like some games).

• Dramatic melee fighting is encouraged. You can always choose to take more than 1 point of damage per hit to reward good roleplay.
• All melee hits must be “pulled”; their strength reduced at the last moment so the melee weapon hits your opponent with a light force.
• Head, neck and groin hits are banned; accidental hits do not reduce HP. Intentionally positioning your head to take a hit to avoid taking damage is cheating and unsafe play.
• Hand, breast, and foot hits are discouraged; you must avoid hitting these locations where possible, and must be especially aware of pulling your blows. Hits to these locations deal damage as usual.
• “The One Second Rule” does not apply. Instead;
  • All hits by blaster darts must be counted, no matter how rapid or from multiple sources.
  • All melee hits with a full swing are counted.
  • Melee hits made with a flurry of short, swift blows (drum rolling) count as a single hit.
• Those found to be fighting dangerously, whether intentionally or by accident, will be removed from combat and have to prove they are safe before being permitted to fight at this game again.

Types of HP

You may have one base source of each HP type; your body, a piece of armour, and one energy shield. There will be upgrades that can add to each type of HP, but you cannot for example wear two base sets of armour or two basic energy shields.

Dying

When you reach 0 HP, you are dying.

• You cannot use any equipment while in this state, nor can you run or exert yourself in any way.
  • You can move slowly and call out for help.
• You cannot regain HP until you are Stabilised.
• If you are Stabilised, you ignore the above penalties until you take more damage.
• You can choose when you die; this must always be within 5 minutes of returning to base from an away mission, known as your Death Timer.
  • If you are at the base when you start Dying, you will still die within 5 minutes unless treatment has begun.
  • You can choose to die before this point.

It is more expensive to get someone to recover from this state while on a mission – get them healed up before they lose all their HP!

We have a simple Death Timer mechanic upon returning to base to add urgency to getting badly injured characters to the medbay in KENOLAB. This count only starts when you arrive back at the base so you can focus on roleplaying while you are heavily injured on missions.

Stabilising

When you are dying, you must be Stabilised before you can have your HP restored. This is commonly done with Stabilising Patches.

When a character is Stable, they ignore the Dying roleplay penalty limiting item use and movement. They begin again only if they take additional damage.

• If a character is outside of the base when they are stabilised, their Death Timer doesn’t begin counting down when they return to base.
• If a character is inside the base when they are stabilised, their Death Timer resets and pauses.

Revival

This game is meant to be one where it is unlikely for your character to randomly die or become unplayable due to bad luck on a mission. If many characters start dying on a mission, there’s a good chance that mission objective is going to fail, which will bring enough consequences on its own without you also losing your character.

We have several revival methods, each with their own downsides. Anyone can make use of any method, no matter which department they’re in, but all departments except MATTOCK have the additional responsibility of maintaining one of these machines.

There is a chance to gain a random side effect from using any machine.

Weapons

All physreps of weapons need to be purchased as in-game equipment before they can be used. This is to limit what weapons can be actively used, as well as ensure every physrep has a tag on it that can be returned to the player if the item is lost on a mission. If you wish to use two swords, you must purchase two melee weapons in-game!

You can always change which item your ribbon or lammie is on, for example if your blaster jams and you want to use a different one, but any item without a ribbon or lammie is treated as a prop and cannot be used for its purpose or taken out of the main base.

Any items that are required for a physrep to function (such as blaster magazines and darts) do not require purchasing in-game and are not tracked with lammies.

LARP Weapons

All LARP weapons that are permitted at the average UK LARP are permitted at this game.

LARP melee weapons should avoid iconic fantasy looks where possible: a plain sword is much better than an ice crystal one. We realise sci-fi specific melee weapons aren’t common, but encourage everyone to seek out sci-fi, post-apoc, modern or plain metal designs when buying new props.

LARP archery is not currently permitted. We may review this in the future, but want to focus on Blasters being the main ranged combat method for now.

Grenades and Explosives

Grenades are purchasable expendable items with a variety of effects. These will be physrepped by throwable foam objects that must be provided by players.

Grenades have a unique rule in that they must always be stored safely IC – no putting them randomly in pockets. The equipment Grenade Bag can be physrepped by belt pouches or a bag, to store your grenades properly. If you don’t have this equipment, you must hold them in your hand until you use them.

Plot explosives will come with a BOMB Tear Card Lammie that describes its effects. Anyone can attempt to disarm it, but you can only open the card to receive the proper instructions if you have the correct cybernetic or equipment. If you opt to disarm it without this knowledge, do the roleplay with a witness, and open the card at the end. If you’ve managed to predict everything correctly, congratulations, it’s resolved! If not, inside will also state a failure result, usually a detonation.

Blasters

Branded, off-brand, modified, and homemade blasters are permitted, so long as they function safely within our guidelines. When purchasing brands such as XShot, please check they are compatible with universal style (elite) darts, and not the old style XShot darts.

We will be permitting Elite, Mega, and Rival style blasters and darts. All blasters and darts must pass safety checks before use.

Blasters must also be painted. Painting must be semi-realistic; bright colours are permitted, but they must be a clear painted choice that matches your character concept, and not the default orange/blue of NERF blasters.

Non-Combatant Rules