Clarification on System Damage Tracks.

[LStyer]

My understanding is that the penalties listed in two DIFFERENT Damage Tracks are cumulative, so that a ship at D on both Sensors and Propulsion would suffer a -2 to Initiative. But are the penalties listed on a SINGLE Damage Track cumulative? So that when a ship with no other damaged systems goes from C to B on the Propulsion Track, does its initiative penalty go from -1 to -3 because the penalties are cumulative or does it go from -1 to -2 because they are not?

[Don Mappin]

All damage is cumulative, regardless of its source.

Your example, however, sounds wrong. Could you clarify, please?

[LStyer]

Originally posted by Don Mappin
Your example, however, sounds wrong. Could you clarify, please?

No problem. Look to Narrator's Guide page 115. There's the System Damage Tracks table at the bottom of the Right Hand Column. Look under Propulsion. At D, or 2 points of damage to Propulsion, the effect listed is -1 Initiative. At B, or 4 points of damage to Propulsion, the effect listed is -2 Initiative.

So my question is, if a ship had taken damage to no other systems, and reaches status D on Propulsion, it has a -1 penalty to Initiative. If it eventually drops to status B, but has taken damage to no other system, is its Initiative Penalty -3 (-1 for D + -2 for B) or is its Initiative penalty 2, because that's what's listed for B?

[Sea Tyger]

Speaking of damage tracks, was it ever clarified how you resolve differing reliability ratings between Warp and Impulse systems (i.e., which one is used for the damage track)?

[Don Mappin]

Ah, that's better. The penalty in your example (for initiative) would be -3.

You always use the worse of the two ratings for propulsion. There are two ways of looking at this:
1) The templates in the NG are wrong and should automatically substitute the worse rating (the way I wrote them up) or
2) The templates in the NG are right and the assumption is, as per the text, that you automatically take the worse one and ignore the other.

In either case, the matter would have been simplified if they had done the layout the way we discussed, which was to print each vessel's damage track along with its stats. *sigh*

They way they (Decipher) choose to do it is a little confusing, I'll grant you.