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→Fighting with Vehicles
Fighting with vehicles is difficult in D&D, segmenting ships into multiple 10 foot squares and making them terrain that moves. Which slightly works, but then everyone just focuses gunfire on one square. Which is smart, but ships for all their size are mobile as well, and its much like everyone "going for the head" fighting in melee combat. Of course, everyone does that but it is abstracted with the concept of critical hits. As such, I take the concept of abstract combat to ship to ship combat. On the subject of mounts the rules largely remain unchanged as they are creatures, but we're starting from scratch with land, sea, air, and space vehicles.
Vehicles are treated effectively as constructs, though they are not creatures and cannot be targeted as such. They have no stats of their own besides hardness, hp, and AC, and they always fail their saving throws unless attended by crew, in which case use the pilot's base [[Reflex]] save for all the ship's saving throws (but not ability scores or other bonuses). Vehicles cannot operate without a pilot or some form of automation. Their movement speed is dependent on their source of thrust (typically an engine or sail), and their overall weight. A vehicles and hp is based on its size and any re-enforcement of its framework, plus bonus hp granted by its components and other sources. For example, a vehicle might have 60 hp, and four components which grant another +10, +15, +0, and +5 bonus hp for a total of 90 hp. Components also have their own hardness and hp, or hp equal to 1/10th of the entire ship (whichever is greater).
Typically when vehicles enter combat they, like creatures are in constant movement (or at least with constant active defenses, even if it is otherwise immobile). As such it is not normally possible to aim at individual sections of a ship and the entire ship takes damage rather than any individual section. However at a -4 penalty to the attack roll or skill check needed for an attack, opponents can make a Called Shot. Called Shots deal half their damage to the ship and half their damage to the component (applying hardness separately for each). Damage dealt overall is dampened, but in this way a section may be rendered broken or destroyed, dealing penalties as appropriate. A destroyed weapon may no longer be able to fire. A broken engine may run at half thrust. A destroyed cockpit may render the ship without a crew and immobile. Only "external" sections may be targeted. "Internal" sections are buried been under other sections or heavy armor, and cannot be targeted individually.
