EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse) Batteries

These weapons work 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.

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
(Which normally means that only engines, screens and fire control systems are vulnerable; 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.

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

Example of an EMP Battery in use....

Reaver, an ORC Gargoyle-class light cruiser, fires its two EMP-2 batteries at an FSE battleship Roma, at a range of 19mu. Reaver rolls two dice for a 4 and a 6; the 4 is blocked by Roma's screen, but the 6 does two hits and a re-roll, and 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; she 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 taking down their fire controls and engines too easily.  So please play both with and then against EMP Batteries before you make judgment on them.