Range division

This page is part of the combat rules.

The range of the shooting weapons in this game are all subdivided into 5 ranges. The only exception are the bows.

These ranges are "CQC", "Close range", "middle range", "far range" and "extreme range". CQC is short for "close quarter combat", therefore the closest combat distance.

With the exceptions of the bows there is no differnce in damage in these ranges, instead a character receives, depending on the range, a bonus or a handicap on the hit chance.
With many of the handguns for example, that they get + 10 and + 5 on the short distances (CQC and close range). At middle range they often receive no bonus or handicap ("No adjustment") and on the higher ranges like far range and extreme range a handicap on the hit chance of - 5 and - 10 respectively.

Various weapons that are meant for longer ranges (for example heavy machine guns or sniper rifles) this is arranged quite differntly.

If one looks at single weapons like the L85A1or the Laser pistol (civilian version) one will even see different values than the already mentioned ones of + 5, + 10, - 5 and - 10.
These weapons have some sort of weapon tuning integral to them in their standard version. Tunings can change those divisions even more.

This looks rather complicated at first glance, but is relatively simple. On the sheet for ranged combat weapons you just enter the values, then determine the distance between the figures and can easily read off the adjustment to the hit chance.

For many players, this variations on the ranges are a great, confusing mystery at first. For that reason, another example to illustrate it.

This time, we take the firearm sawn off shotgun that is used with the handguns skill
It is being used in this case by a character with the for humans average Perception of 5.

As a reminder, the range division in the table of the sawn off shotgun looks like this:



This gives us the following, if we'd illustrate it like a ruler:



Other weapons with which the not the first range (that is, CQC) is the one with the highest bonus, have tables like this here, from the Garand M1:

If one transcribes this into the sheet for ranged combat weapons it should read something like this:
(This examples once more assumes a character with Perception of 5.)

CQC: 0 - 35 cm: + 5 to rifles
Close range: 36 - 90 cm: + 10 to rifles
Middle range: 91 - 125 cm: No adjustment
Far range: 126 - 160 cm: - 5 to rifles
Extreme range: 161 - 190 cm: - 10 to rifles

In CQC one can just read and write down what's written there.
In close range one should add the range bonus based on perception. In this case it would be 4 * P = 4 * 5 = 20.
We take these 20 cm and add them to the given 70 cm and get 90 cm.
Middle range through to extreme range now show no clear values anymore. Since the weapon can be used by character whose perception values can lie between 1 and 13, we once more have to use addition. One simply adds the declared number of centimeters to the previous and so on and so forth.

Bows:

Since bows lie somewhere in between thrown weapons and firearms, bows have only two ranges. The ranges of bows in general is calculated differntly, but with a formula, as for example here with the hunting bow

(S + E + A) * 3 + 12

For a human character with the average values (5 to all main stats this would therefore be: 3 * 5 + 3 * 5 + 3 * 5 + 12 = 57 cm

Bows have two ranges, the first half of the maximum range and the second half. The damage differs slightly between those two ranges, but only slightly, with the second half being the less damaging one (since the arrow has lost some energy by flying that far already).

Perception bonus:

The best range of the 5 ranges, that is, the one in which the character receives a + 10 bonus, is longer than the other ranges by a mulriple of the character's perception value.
With the .223 Pistol for example, it would be 100 + P * 2. This weapon has a 'best' range far range. Written there is: "Up to 80 cm + P * 2: + 10 to handguns".

This bonus and it's exact multiplication and location differs from weapon to weapon.

The exception being the weapons of robots. They do not get a perception bonus.