Duress

Running repeated combat missions is bad for everyone – never mind doing your whole shift in a spacesuit, not getting more than four hours sleep at a time, and realising the Enemy get a little closer each time. The effects of this manifest in different ways, for different people.

Your character sheet has three tracks, for Stress, Fear or Exhaustion. Typically, a pilot will increase one of these tracks after each mission in space. If they have a particularly harrowing or stressful mission, or push themselves hard to achieve something heroic, they might gain more than one.

This is entirely your decision as a player, you choose which, if any, happens to you on a particular mission. Each of these has levels from mild to severe.

You can reduce Stress, Fear and Exhaustion on the flightdeck by opening up to another character. Again, this is entirely your decision – if it makes sense to you that your character feels better, you can reduce one of these.

The effects of stress, fear and exhaustion should show in your roleplay. Some hints on ways you might roleplay these follow:

Stress

In combat, when you are stressed, you might overthink your actions, act impulsively, or become frustrated.

On the flight deck, you might be anxious, have headaches, or be irritable with others.

Fear

In combat, when you are afraid, you might hestitate to take a risk, pull away from a threat, or you might push through the fear and be rash and reckless.

On the flight deck, you might be obviously afraid, watching the clock, or look for ways not to be on the next mission (don’t actually skip it though!)

Exhaustion

In combat, when you are exhausted, you might “zone out” for a few seconds, and miss something someone else said to you. You might miss a shot you would normally hit. You might be aware of your exhaustion and ask your wingman to take the lead at a critical moment.

On the flight deck you are obviously tired, might miss things said in conversation, or show lack of energy.