Combat

No matter what else you do with your life in 2170, you'll end up fighting something eventually. Combat in Shatterpoint is designed to be quick, brutal and strategic, as opposed to the slow, more tactical combat in most RPGs.

Combat is based on your character's skills and combat equipment - weapons and armour, specifically.

Melee Combat
In melee combat, your character attacks at the speed of their weapon. For example, a light blade's speed is 1, attacking once every second, while a heavy sledgehammer's speed is 3, attacking once every three seconds. As a rule, slower attacks will do more damage.

The basic chance of hitting in melee is ([Attacker's Melee Attack skill]-[Defenders Melee Defence])%. If the attack hits, it does a percentage of the attacker's weapon's maximum damage, based on the armour the defender is wearing. If the attack hits, it has a 1% chance of being a critical hit, doing double damage.

''Example - Trigg has a Melee Attack (Blunt) skill of 46%, and his club has a speed of 2 with a damage of 80. He attacks an enemy with no defence and light armour that blocks 20% of the attack's damage. On the first attack, he misses, after two seconds, he attacks again and hits, causing 80% of the club's total damage - 64, after another two seconds, he hits and gets a critical hit, doing another 128 damage and having a chance to destroy a body part.''

This attack is further modified by the defender's facing. If attacking a defender who is facing the attacker, the defender gains +5% Melee Defence. Attacking a defender's side is resolved with no penalties and attacking a defender from the rear gives the attacker a +20% Melee Attack skill and any hits are an automatic critical.

Ranged Combat
Ranged combat is much like Melee combat, your character still attacks at the speed of their weapon, with a rapid firing gun maybe managing to get up to two of three shots off a second, while a sniper rifle may need upwards of 5 seconds to aim.

The basic chance of hitting in melee is ([Attacker's Ranged Attack skill]-[Defenders Ranged Defence]-[Number of increments of the weapon's Range statisticx10])%. If the attack hits, it does a percentage of the attacker's weapon's maximum damage, based on the armour the defender is wearing. If the attack hits, it has a 1% chance of being a critical hit, doing double damage. Every few shots, a character has to reload, meaning they have to miss a shot to slam in a new clip or magazine.

''Example - Lizzie has a Ranged Attack (Shotguns) skill of 32%, and is armed with a shotgun that has speed 1.5, 60 damage and a Range of 10 feet. She shoots at a defender 23 feet away with no defence and medium armour that blocks 35% of the attack's damage. Because the defender is 2 increments away (each increment is 10 feet), she is at -20% to hit, meaning she will hit on 12%. Eventually she hits, doing 39 damage to the defender.''

This attack is further modified by the defender's facing. If attacking a defender who is facing the attacker, the defender gains +5% Ranged Defence. Attacking a defender's side is resolved with no penalties and attacking a defender from the rear gives the attacker a +20% Ranged Attack skill and any hits are an automatic critical.

Also, each zone has a random weather condition that further changes the penalties to hit, base "calm" conditions confer no penalty, up to "dust storm" conditions that can deduct up to 50% chance to hit.

Lastly, a target can be in cover. While this doesn't add or detract from the chance to hit the target, it will give the defender more armour, which will stack with any armour worn.

Morale and In-Combat Modifiers
A character can have up to 100 Morale to use in each fight. Morale is gained and lost depending on your actions, and is synonymous with your Morality score. What gives bonuses and penalties changes depending on what Morality you chose at character creation.

In combat, this gives you access to various combat maneuvers, when used, they change the nature of the character's next attack. These can be modified using traits, making it more or less likely to hit certain areas and inflict different status effects on the defender. The maneuvers are as follows;

Brutal Attack (costs 10 Morale) - The Character loses 10% Defence for +10% damage with their equipped weapon.

Defensive Fighting (costs 10 Morale) - The character loses 10% Attack Skill with their equipped weapon for +10% Defence.

Recover (costs 15 Morale) - The character forfeits their attack completely to heal 10% of their health. If using a ranged weapon, the character will also check how much ammunition is in the clip and reload if empty.

Steady Aim (costs 10 Morale) - The character loses 10% of their equipped weapon's damage for +10% to their Attack Skill.

Damage
Every character will take damage at some point in their lives, and it is worth noting that even the lightest attack will do severe damage to an unprepared or unarmoured opponent.

A character's health represents their consciousness and general vitality. When it drops to zero, your character starts to bleed out and has five minutes to be revived or they will die. Every point of damage taken after this takes one second from the counter.

A character gets damage reduction from their armour. Each item contributes to the total armour, to a maximum of 60% damage reduction.

On top of this, a character's extremities can be targeted by skilled fighters and, on a critical hit, are destroyed;

Arm (50% chance of hitting each one). If destroyed, the character drops whatever they were carrying and cannot use two handed weapons or other equipment.

Leg (50% chance of hitting each one). If destroyed, the character's speed is reduced to 50%.

Head (50% chance of hitting each eye). If destroyed, the character loses an eye, with ranges being reduced by 50%.

If a critical hit hits an area that has already been destroyed, it does damage but doesn't destroy it again. On Normal servers, this damage can be repaired with Cybernetics/Bionetics or by staying out of combat for an hour. On Realistic servers, this damage is permanent and can only be healed with Cybernetics/Bionetics.

Death
Death is one of the inevitabilities of life. Understandably, many survivors don't want to be reminded of this, but as a person bleeds out, alone on some God-forsaken dust dune being gnawed on by a pack of wild dogs, they usually wonder what comes next.

If they're playing on a Normal server, they will respawn either in their house (if a Clanner) or in the hospital in a Faction Stronghold (if not aligned with a Faction). They will lose everything they were carrying in their backpacks, it will be left at the spot where they died for anyone to loot for the next five minutes.

If they're playing on a Realistic Server, that's it. The character is dead, and the character slot is used up, never to be made available again. Everything the character was carrying is left on the spot they died for anyone to loot for the next five minutes.