Homing Weapons

A “homing” weapon is a projectile
that steers itself to the target. It has its
own homing sense – called a “seeker
head,” on a missile – that determines
how it tracks its target. This equates to
a sensory advantage; e.g., an infrared-
homing missile uses Infravision, while
a radar-homing missile uses Scanning
Sense (Radar). Some weapons have
multiple homing senses! Use the
weapon’s homing sense(s) instead of
your senses when assessing combat
modifiers; e.g., radar ignores darkness
but can be jammed.
Homing weapons use the usual
ranged combat rules, with these mod-
ifications:
Preparation Time: Some launchers
require several seconds to insert bat-
teries, turn on and warm up electron-
ic systems, etc. These activities require
Ready maneuvers, but are already fac-
tored into the time to ready a new
shot, as listed with the Shots statistic.
Aim: Your weapon must “lock on”
to the target before you can fire. This
takes an Aim maneuver, and usually
requires you to be able to see the tar-
get. This special Aim maneuver
requires a roll against your weapon
skill: Artillery (Guided Missile), for
homing missiles – not Guns or
Gunner.
Attack: Fire a homing weapon
using a Ready maneuver, not an
Attack maneuver – the projectile
attacks on its own! If the target is
within the weapon’s 1/2D range, the
weapon attacks on the same turn; oth-
erwise, see Time to Target, below.
When you make the attack roll, do not
roll against your skill to hit. Instead,
use the weapon’s skill of 10, adding its
Acc if you made your skill roll for
“lock on.”
Modifiers: Homing missiles ignore
range modifiers and all modifiers for
your injury, movement, posture, etc.!
Base visibility modifiers on the projec-
tile’s homing sense, not on your sens-
es. Anything that jams this sense (e.g.,
radar jammer vs. radar homing) gives
a penalty to hit. All other ranged com-
bat modifiers (for size, speed, etc.)
apply normally.