Vehicles in Cypher System, Part 4: Vehicular Combat

In many genres vehicles are important characters themselves, especially in games inspired by Japanese Anime, but often in other stories certain vehicles take on a role almost as significant as the characters themselves.

Links for Vehicles in Cypher System series: 
Part 1: A Matter of Scale
Part 2: Vehicles
Part 3: Vehicles and Special Abilities
Part 4: Vehicle Combat

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Combat in the detailed vehicle rules works identically to the way combat works between characters. The Player rolls a D20 and attempts o match or exceed the Level of the NPC vehicle, then apply the damage of the weapon to the vehicle's hit points. A combat between vehicles shouldn't be any more difficult or involved than a similar combat between individual people.

Vehicles and Weapon Skills:

For PCs operating a vehicle , their skill in light, medium, or heavy weapons can be transferred to vehicular weapons of the same size. For instance an Adept with training in Light weapons piloting a giant combat robot (size 5) can use Light weapons for that mecha (damage 7) at no modifier, Medium weapons (damage 9) at 1-step increase in difficulty, or heavy weapons (damage 11) at two steps increase in difficulty.

Vehicles and NPC Levels:

If an NPC and their vehicle have levels that are off by one step then the higher value should be used.

When a vehicle or it's NPC operator have different levels of two or more steps it's appropriate for the GM to split the difference between the NPC and the vehicle. For instance a professional race driver (level 7) is racing in a used car (Level 3), the overall level of the vehicle for targeting and attempting feats would be level 5 (the lower value, plus half the difference). The driver can work miracles with the car that the average driver wouldn't be able to accomplish, but he can do more with a dedicated racing vehicle. Likewise our Level 7 driver gets behind the wheel of a prototype rocket car (level 9), the overall level is an 8. The car can do more, but the driver isn't skilled enough to actually push the vehicle to its limits.

This modification does not have an effect on hit points. No matter the skill of the driver, it doesn't make the vehicle more or less resilient to damage once it's been hit.

CSR Abstract rules: Targeting Locations (CSR p. 215):

The hit locations and effects of the abstract vehicle combat system are still valid options, though there is one modification. The attacker takes the step penalty to hit in the table, and if the attack is successful and one point of damage gets through Armor, the effect is applied to the targeted vehicle.

Vehicles and Explosive Weapons

"Immediate Range" for the weapon's blast area is based on the vehicle's size.

If a vehicle expends Effort to increase damage firing an Explosive weapon and misses, it still inflicts 1-point plus the vehicle's size modifier.