Ship sizes/hull hits
Number of hull hits is somewhat different from vanilla BFG. In BFG escorts, no matter what type, can take only 1 hit. That's lame. Escorts hulls are still divided into destroyers and frigates, but frigates are now bigger and tougher. There is also a sub-desctroyer category (unrated ships). And BCs have more hits than CAs (which is how it should be). Plus we have stuff like DNs (essentially the bigger BBs form BFG) and SDs (Verbum and Abaddons ship). Even bigger spacecraft exists, but any ever turn up it'll be handled on a case-by case basis.
There are more damage categories as well. BFG only has Crippled/Out of action. We now have Damaged as well, which is about halfway to Crippled. Overall ships require more hits to take out (the CL is the only ship that doesn't benefit much), but they start to get penalties a bit earlier. Crippled is really the max number of hits a ship can take and still continue to fight.
Needless to say point values are also affected! FFs are more costly than before. CLs slightly cheaper. CAs not affected. Larger ships are somewhat pricier, especially the larger BBs (since they are DNs). SDs are probably around 800 points, give or take.
Ship class | Rate | Damaged | Crippled | Out of action |
Super Dreadnought (SD) | 0.5 rate | 9 | 18 | 27 |
Dreadnought (DN) | 1st rate | 8 | 16 | 24 |
Battleship (BB) | 2nd rate | 7 | 14 | 21 |
Grand Cruiser (GC) | 2.5 rate | 6 | 12 | 18 |
Battlecruiser (BC) | 3rd rate | 5 | 10 | 15 |
Cruiser (heavy) (CA) | 3.5 rate | 4 | 8 | 12 |
Cruiser (light) (CL) | 4th rate | 3 | 6 | 9 |
Frigate (FF)/Heavy Raider (RH) | 5th rate | 2 | 4 | 6 |
Destroyer (DD)/Corvette (VV)/Raider (RR) | 6th rate | 1 | 2 | 3 |
Sloop (SL)/Light Raider (RL) | Unrated | NA | 1 | 2 |
Brig (GG) | Unrated | NA | NA | 1 |
Damaged: Damage equal to or greater than this number means you've taken some serious damage. Your ship is still operational, but will be moderately penalized (-5 speed, 1/2 combat values). Repairing post-battle damage is time-consuming and requires orbital docking facilities, tech-priests, and spare parts.
Note: Damage less than this threshold is still damage, but it's assumed it can be fixed relatively quickly after battle, without the need for extensive docking facilities. During battle you can try to effect emergency repairs.
Crippled: Once you've taken this much damage your ship is severely weakened and in danger of being destroyed. You can still operate, but with severe penalties (-10 speed, 1/4 combat values). You should get the fuck out of combat if at all possible!
Out of action: Once you've taken this much damage your ship is a complete wreck. All that remains is to determine whether it just breaks apart or blows up.
Criticals: Any hit can cause a critical, but the more damaged your ship is, the greater the chance. Escorts, Cruisers, and Battleships have separate crit tables, with larger ships suffering less than smaller ones per crit, just because they've more stuff the destroy on board.
Unrated ships: Are crippled by one hit and destroyed by 2. If the first hit is a crit, they are destroyed instead (i.e. they don't have a crit table). Smaller unrated vessels (i.e. brigs and equivalent) are destroyed by any damaging hit (so no need to check for crits).