Pursuit
One-pager. Pursuit is just combat at a longer tempo — same awareness, Initiative, act-or-wait, reaction and pre-emption, and the same Intense Action split of attention — with a different menu of actions. Know those two pages and you already know this one.
A pursuit is any contest of movement: a car chase, a dogfight, a horseback flight, a submarine running silent, a foot-race through a crowd. Spacecraft are no exception — they're just vehicles.
Turn length scales with the vehicle
A pursuit round is longer than a combat round, and how much longer depends on what you're driving. The slower and more ponderous the contest, the longer the turn and the further apart the chances for a direct attack: a fighter-jet dogfight turns over in seconds, a car chase in longer beats, a tall-ship engagement in minutes. The GM picks a tempo that makes the chase feel right and keeps it for the duration — opportunities to shoot, ram, or board arrive on that rhythm.
What's the same
Rounds, Initiative, declaration order (best to worst, ties by score), waiting, reaction, and pre-emption (Coordination modified by Initiative QR) all work exactly as in combat. A pursuer lining up a ram and a quarry watching for the alley to bolt down are the same act-or-wait standoff as two gunfighters. You still never know for certain you'll act first.
What's different: the action menu
Your primary action is usually a maneuver; secondary actions are small adjustments and setups. The vehicle's own ratings — Accelerate, Turn, Redline — are the ease-factor modifiers for these tasks, so a sporty car turns well and a transport doesn't. The driver's relevant skill is the Score.
| Maneuver | What it does |
|---|---|
| Quick Turn | Cut down a side street, bank hard, change facing. Needs somewhere to turn. |
| Sudden Reverse / Double Back | Reverse the chase; great for shaking a committed pursuer, risky at speed. |
| Flat Out | Go as fast as the vehicle allows — a Redline task. Consumes your attention (it's your whole turn). |
| Raise the Stakes | Push into terrain or speed that punishes everyone, betting your vehicle and nerve beat theirs. |
| Force Maneuver | Make the other driver react — cut them off, run them toward a hazard, PIT them. Opposed. |
The GM provides opportunity and range
Maneuvers are only available when the situation allows them — this is the GM's main lever. There's no Quick Turn on a bridge, no Flat Out in gridlock, no ramming a target two cars ahead. The GM narrates the terrain and the range between vehicles each round; that terrain is what gates the menu, exactly as cover and reach gate combat options.
What players are usually trying to do
- Lose the pursuer — open enough range, or break line of sight, that the chase ends.
- Gain on the pursued — close range to where you can act on them.
- Wrong-foot — force or trick the other driver into a bad position (a failed reaction, lost ground, a hazard).
- Incapacitate the vehicle — shooting it, ramming it, or maneuvering it into a wreck. Vehicle damage uses the Damage page; the vehicle is equipment, so it has Toughness and takes wounds like anything else.
Range as the scoreboard
Treat range abstractly — closing, holding, opening — rather than counting meters. Most maneuvers shift range by one step or hold it; QR says by how much. When range opens past the point of contact and stays there, the quarry has escaped; when it closes to nothing, the chase becomes a ram, a boarding, or a fight.
Designer's Note: the famously elaborate 1e space-combat system is gone. It was theoretically brilliant and useless in play. A dogfight over Mars and a car chase through Marseille are the same thing — awareness, timing, nerve, and the limits of your machine — and one page covers both.