Range bands and the joust
A range band is a stretch of distance between two ships. The joust is the single head-on pass in which both ships fire inside the close band, where a round arrives in seconds and nobody can dodge it.
13 numbers, 2 with an outside source
- A0 numbers at grade A
- B1 numbers at grade B
- C1 numbers at grade C
- D0 numbers at grade D
- E11 numbers at grade E
Functionality
2 topics
Range and the kill zone
- Every ship has its own position and speed, and the range is real km.
- A round takes time to fly, and a crew dodges a round it sees coming.
- KILL ZONE | where your fastest round arrives before the target can turn clear.
- Inside it every gun fires for effect, and the ZONE column says who is in it.
- Outside it one round flies at a time, and each one seen to pass corrects the aim.
- No gun fires a round that needs more than 40 s to reach its target.
- CLOSE IN | on the helm, the autopilot closes and holds the range you name.
The dodge
- A round takes time to fly, so a hull that moves off its line makes it miss.
- WEAVE | the drive burns off the line, changing side every 8 s, until the heat fills the loop.
- SIDESTEP | the side jets push the hull clear. It spends tank water instead of heat.
- CALLED | the helm jinks off each round the sensors call.
- Up close a round arrives too soon to dodge, so the helm turns a face to the shooter.
- It picks the face whose plate costs least against that shooter's heaviest gun.
- A steered drone follows you in, so a dodge does not shake it.
Values
13 numbers: 1 B, 1 C, 11 E
Each value is read from the game code. Sort by any column heading, or filter by grade or by a word.
| Quantity | Value | Grade | Source | Why this value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Outer edges of the close band and the mid band | 30, 3,000 km | CDerived | Atomic Rockets, spacegunconvent, Railguns | At the six kilometers per second the railgun row uses, 30 kilometers is 5 seconds of flight and 3,000 kilometers is 8 minutes; the edges are those two flight times as distances. |
| Distance two ships open a fight at, by band | close 10, mid 1,000, long 100,000 km | EAuthored | No source recorded | Chosen by the game a decade inside each band, 10, 1,000 and 100,000 kilometers, so one burn crosses a band. No source gives an opening range. |
| Closest gap two ships can reach on the line | 1 km | EAuthored | No source recorded | The floor of the range line, chosen by the game. |
| Widest gap two ships can reach on the line | 1,000,000 km | EAuthored | No source recorded | The top of the range line, chosen by the game. |
| Factor by which one burn changes a gap | 10 multiple | EAuthored | No source recorded | Chosen by the game as a decade a burn, so every band is one or two burns from the next. |
| Hit chance gained or lost by range band (close, mid, long) | 12, 0, -6 points of hit chance | EAuthored | No source recorded | The same plus 12, 0 and minus 6 the old posture carried, moved to the pair of ships on 2026-09-18 and not measured again since. |
| Speed of light | 299,792 km per second | BSecondary | Atomic Rockets, commdeck, the speed of light passage | The page states the speed of light in a vacuum as 299,792,458 meters per second, and the game uses it as stated, because a drone steered by radio is seen late. |
| Share of its hull below which a hull under fire dodges instead of trading | 0.35 share | EAuthored | No source recorded | Chosen by coldweld on 2026-09-18: a hostile dodges only when it deems it necessary, which is when something can fire on it and it cannot fire back, or below 35 percent hull. |
| Dodges in a row before the crew must fire or run | 2 dodges | EAuthored | No source recorded | Chosen by the game: a dodger at range cannot be hit, and without a limit two hulls could trade dodges until the autoresolve cap. |
| Range at which both guns fire in the joust | 30 km | EAuthored | No source recorded | The same 30 kilometers as the close band's outer edge, where a round's flight is too short to dodge at any closing speed a torch ship reaches. The edge is graded on its own row. |
| Sides of the die rolled for who fires first | 20 sides | EAuthored | No source recorded | A d20 keeps the roll louder than the modifiers, so a heavy freighter with a good navigator can still take the first shot off a corvette. |
| Acceleration that earns one point of initiative | 2 m/s^2 | EAuthored | No source recorded | Measured over the 40 hulls: 4.00 to 14.00 meters per second squared rated, median 6.75, and a full hold halves it. At 2.0 the hull spread is about six points, the width of the navigation spread. |
| Navigation skill that earns one point of initiative | 20 skill points | EAuthored | No source recorded | Chosen by the game on the 0 to 100 skill scale: five points at an ace and none for a ship nobody is navigating. |
Real-world basis
6 points
- In space the distance between two ships decides almost everything, and the side-to-side offset matters little.
- A round fired at 6 kilometers per second takes 5 seconds to cross 30 kilometers and 8 minutes to cross 3,000.
- A ship that can move can be anywhere in a disc around its last known place by the time a slow round arrives, so a round fired from far away rarely hits a ship that dodges.
- The disc grows with the square of the flight time, so the chance to dodge grows with the square of the range.
- At close range the flight is milliseconds and nobody dodges, so every armed ship hits and both ships die.
- Anything hitting something at 3 kilometers per second carries kinetic energy equal to its own mass in TNT, and the game calls that one Rick.
Game and reality differences
3 points
- The range line is one dimension, with no bearing and no flanking, on purpose: a map in two dimensions would make combat a movement game.
- The menu fight has no velocity state, so closing speed is not modeled there. The Newtonian fight models it.
- A pass is a suicide pact by physics and by coldweld's choice of 2026-09-21: a 220 millimeter round at a 500 kilometer per second closing carries about 3.5 kilotons of TNT.
Source absences
2 points
- No source on the shelf provides values for the following:
- Range bands, opening gaps, or hit chance by band. The bands are arithmetic on the Atomic Rockets muzzle speed.
- Atomic Rockets does not provide values for the following:
- Initiative rule. A 20 sided die, the acceleration step, and the navigation step are authored.
Sources
2 documents
- Atomic Rockets, spacegunconvent, Railguns: The maximum velocity of a railgun projectile is about six kilometers per second. The page also sets Robinson's First Law of Space Warfare: anything hitting at 3 km/s carries energy equal to its mass in TNT. "one Rick" (all uses)
- Atomic Rockets, commdeck, the speed of light passage: The speed of light in a vacuum is 299,792,458 meters per second. (all uses)