Living Ship

The Shadow Cruiser is a living ship, meaning the ship itself is constructed of 
biological materials that have some form of limited sentience. This has the 
effect of the ship experiencing 'pain' whenever it is shot, and a certain amount
of anger, fear, or panic may result.

The Cruiser has one pilot, a humanoid psychic merged with the central processor 
of the ship and the ship's sentient 'mind'. It is not possible to board a Shadow 
ship, nor is it possible to conduct hit and run raids.

Reaction to Pain Procedures


As a living ship, the Shadow is susceptible to pain when it is fired on, as all 
living things are. Each Shadow Cruiser records a Pain Threshold track on its SSD. 
The track starts at zero when beginning a scenario, unless otherwise stated in the 
setup rules. The maximum level on the track is 16. When the 16 box is crossed off,
the Shadow ship dies from shock and is considered destroyed. Note that this is a 
second way to destroy a Shadow ship in addition to the normal destruction of the 
last Excess Damage box + 1.

Procedure

Each impulse that damage is taken, consult the following chart. There is a chance 
per each level of damage that the Pain Level will rise, by a certain amount, and a 
chance that the ship will react to the pain. This procedure is done every time damage
is done to the armour panels and/or the internals of the ship.


Damage                250+ 200-249 150-199 100-149 50-99 25-49
Chance of level rise  1-6    1-5     1-4     1-3    1-2    1
Chance of reaction    1-6    1-5     1-4     1-3    1-2    1
Rise Amount           D6+1   D6      D6-1    D6-2   D6-3   D6-4


Note that if successful, the pain level rise will always be by at least 1 point, 
possibly more, depending on the roll.

Example - Taking our example above, if the Shadow's current Pain Level is 0, and the 
Federation ship does 217 points damage, the result is a rise on a 1-5. The Shadow 
player rolls a 3, indicating a rise. He then must roll to determine by how much the 
pain rises. He rolls a 3, and as there is no modifier, the true rise result is by 
three, to level 3. If the modifier had been D6-1, the true rise result would have 
been 2, ect... Note that since the ship's current pain threshold level is 3, there 
is no reaction, even if the reaction chance is successful.

Reaction to Pain

Each impulse that the pain level rises, the Shadow player rolls for a possible 
involuntary reaction from his ship due to the pain. The current Threshold level 
is used to consult the reaction chart. New reactions in the turn are valid, and 
over-ride previous results if the result is a higher level of reaction.

Reaction Chart

Result Level Reaction

1-4    ZERO    None. Shadow grins and bears it.

5-6    ONE     Shadow 'flinches' by moving 1 hex away from
               the direction that damage was taken from. Retains facing.

7-8    TWO     Shadow is 'angered' and targets the ship
               that did the most damage for the next turn.

9-11   THREE   Shadow is 'enraged' and targets the ship
               that did the most damage until that ship is destroyed.

12-13  FOUR    Shadow is 'fearful' and immediately HETS away from the 
               damage (direction opposite, always succeeds) and increases speed 
               to +5, maximum speed 50. 

               Evasion Plotting - Shadow must always seek to increase
               the range between it and any enemy ship, but may use any allocated 
               HET only if absolutely necessary, when current movement will NOT 
               take it further away from enemy ships. This restriction
               continues until the end of the turn or until a higher
               reaction level is reached. The ship may still fire, subject to 
               normal firing arcs and delay between firings. The targetted 
               ship restriction is lifted as this is a new, higher level than THREE.

14-15  FIVE    Shadow is 'panicked' and immediately HETs
               in a random direction (D6) and increases speed by +8, maximum 50. 
               Ship cannot fire for the remainder of the turn and must 
               use Evasion Plotting (See Level FOUR). As soon as
               ship is 10 hexes from the nearest enemy ship, it must attempt to 
               Phase Out. If not possible, it MUST phase out by 
               plotting so in the next Energy Allocation Phase. If this is still 
               impossible, due to damage, the ship rolls reaction reduction
               and continues the game.

16     DEATH   The Shadow ship is DEAD. Ship drops out of warp speed to a maximum 
               of speed 1, carcass drifts in last direction moving in, ship
               is considered out of the game for all purposes but the lifeless 
               corpse may be recovered for scientific purposes, so it 
               remains in play. 

Pain Reduction

During the Energy Allocation Phase of each turn, the Shadow may reduce it's current 
pain level by D6 amount. This roll is announced and is not secret.
The Reaction level may shift down. If shift is from FIVE to FOUR, ship is now under 
level 4 restrictions. If shift is from FOUR to THREE, the ship is no longer under 
restrictions. If the shift is from THREE to TWO, and the target ship is still alive, 
it is targetted for 1 more Shadow Cutter attack. If the shift is from TWO to ONE, 
the ship is no longer under restrictions. If the shift is from ONE to ZERO, the ship
is no longer under restrictions.