﻿GOLLOPS STAR  -  LASER SQUAD
Turn order, actions and action points
Rules draft 0.5 | 26 October 2026

STATUS
The accuracy pool, Blind Luck, cover penalties, individual shots, damage and armour rules reflect the agreed combat system. Turn structure, AP costs, overwatch, bracing, movement and recovery below are proposed playtest rules. This sheet supersedes conflicting turn/action rules in the initial Mission 1 proposal. Mission-specific events can explicitly override these rules.

1. ROUND ORDER
A round consists of four phases:
1) Squad refresh. Every conscious soldier receives 4 AP. Remove all previous overwatch tokens, unused reaction reserves and brace tokens. AP never carries between rounds. Downed soldiers receive no AP.
2) Squad activations. Players choose a conscious soldier who has not activated this round, complete that soldier's activation, then mark them activated. Continue until every eligible soldier has activated or passed. Finish one activation before starting another; no splitting activations or passing AP. Players may discuss plans and choose a different order each round. In solo play one player controls the entire squad.
3) Alien activations. Each active alien receives 4 AP and completes its activation before the next alien starts. Activate in ascending contact number; new missions may specify another order. Unrevealed/dormant contacts do not activate. Aliens revealed during the squad phase act in this phase. Aliens revealed or spawned during the alien phase wait until the next round unless their mission rule explicitly says otherwise. Apply overwatch interrupts as described below.
4) End of round. Resolve mission events, pressure and timed effects in that order, then check any end-of-round defeat condition. Increase the round marker. Remove temporary alien AP. Newly awakened contacts wait until the following alien phase.
Check immediate victory and all-soldiers-downed defeat after each fully resolved action, including its overwatch reactions. Resolve all shots of an attack before checking victory. An explicitly timed mission condition takes priority over this default.

2. SOLDIER ACTIONS
Action                                  AP
Move one orthogonal square               1
Turn to any new facing                   0 (during own activation)
Open or close an adjacent door           1
Fire pistol                              1
Fire shotgun                             2
Fire machine gun                         2
Fire sniper rifle                        2
Melee attack                             1
Brace                                    1
Enter overwatch                          1 plus reserved firing AP
Interact with a mission object           1 unless mission specifies otherwise
Secure Mission 1 station log             2
Use medkit                               2 and discard medkit
Trade one carried item                   1
Pass / end activation                    0

An action must be paid in full before it starts. An attack's cost covers every shot printed on its weapon card, not one payment per shot. Weapon/equipment cards may explicitly replace a default cost. No grenade cost or blast rules are locked by this sheet; a grenade requires a complete equipment card before use.

3. MOVEMENT AND FACING
Use square tiles. Move only north, east, south or west; no diagonal movement. Every move must end in an empty, enterable square. Soldiers cannot pass through or share squares with other figures. Walls, closed doors and solid terrain are impassable. Cover symbols alone do not make a square impassable: solid terrain needs its own blocked marking.
A move may go in any direction without changing facing. Turning is free during your own activation and may select any of the four cardinal facings, including a 180-degree turn. You may turn between actions, but not between shots of an attack. You cannot turn during an alien activation or overwatch reaction unless a skill explicitly permits it. Soldiers may take actions in any order and repeat actions if they can pay for them.
For this facing draft, a soldier sees into the forward 180-degree half-plane, including the boundary. With east facing, for example, targets in the same column or any column to the east can be in sight. Trace a straight line between square centres; walls, closed doors and solid sight-blocking terrain block it. A line touching a solid wall corner is blocked. Figures block shots through their squares. Cover is not automatically a sight blocker. Ordinary floor seams do not define sight.
This facing restriction is provisional; it adds a reason to turn. There are no range limits, distance penalties or measuring rulers. The only distance-based weapon rule is the shotgun's orthogonally adjacent point-blank bonus.

4. RANGED ATTACK
Choose one living, visible enemy. All shots of the attack must target that enemy; never transfer remaining shots after a kill. Pay the weapon's firing AP once, then resolve each shot separately.
Accuracy = soldier accuracy + weapon accuracy + bonuses - cover and other penalties. At accuracy 1 or more, roll that many D6; any 6 scores one hit. Multiple sixes do not add hits. At accuracy 0 or below, roll one attack D6, needing a 6. If it succeeds, roll (1 - total accuracy) differently coloured luck D6. Every luck die must score 4+ for the shot to hit. This is Blind Luck. There is no lower accuracy limit. Luck dice may be rolled sequentially, stopping at the first failure, or together after the attack die succeeds.
Each hit deals max(0, D6 + weapon damage bonus - natural armour - equipped armour reduction). Only one armour equipment item can be worn; its reduction adds to natural armour. Zero damage deflects. Resolve armour effects according to their card.
Soft/hard/full cover removes 1/2/3 accuracy dice respectively. Use only the strongest applicable cover protecting the target from that firing direction; do not stack cover features. Shotgun point blank doubles D6 plus its damage bonus before subtracting armour. Facing and sight must be legal even for Blind Luck.
Starting weapon cards: pistol accuracy+1, shots1, damage+0; shotgun accuracy+1, shots1, damage+2; MG accuracy-1, shots3, damage+1; sniper accuracy+2, shots1, damage+4. These weapon damage and AP values remain provisional.
If a target is downed or killed during the attack, remaining shots are spent without further damage or retargeting. There is no collateral fire in the introductory rules.

5. MELEE
An orthogonally adjacent enemy may be attacked for 1 AP. No facing restriction and no cover penalty apply to melee. Use the melee weapon's accuracy, shots and damage values with the normal dice and armour rules. A soldier cannot fire a ranged weapon while orthogonally adjacent to a conscious enemy. Turning is allowed. Leaving adjacency is a normal move with no free enemy attack in this draft.
For testing, a combat knife has accuracy+1, shots1 and damage+0. The tabletop starting kit grants a knife to every soldier; this is a deliberate change from the video-game equipment slots.

6. BRACE
Spend 1 AP to place a brace token. Gain +2 accuracy on ranged attacks, including overwatch, until you move, become downed or reach the next squad refresh. Turning does not cancel brace. Opening a door, firing or using equipment does not cancel brace. Bracing does not stack with itself and never increases damage or armour.
Voss has a free brace action during his activation. It cannot interrupt a move or attack and grants no AP. He can brace again for free after moving. Turning does not cancel brace. His MG has Cover Penetration 1: reduce applicable cover by one level before calculating accuracy, to a minimum of zero. This does not reduce armour. His braced accuracy against no/soft/hard/full cover is therefore +1/+1/0/-1 before other bonuses. Rank and unit skills are detailed on the separate progression sheet.

7. OVERWATCH
During an activation, choose an equipped ranged weapon, spend 1 AP to enter overwatch, and reserve enough remaining AP to pay for at least one full attack with it. Finish that activation immediately. Mark the reserved AP on the soldier card. Unreserved AP is discarded. The soldier retains their facing and brace if present.
During the alien phase only, after a visible alien finishes a move or opens a door, that alien can trigger overwatch. If it is in the watching soldier's sight and the soldier is not adjacent to a conscious enemy, the soldier may spend reserved AP equal to the selected weapon's firing cost and resolve one complete attack. No free turning or weapon switching is allowed. All shots target the triggering alien.
Resolve reactions before the alien takes its next action. Multiple watching soldiers resolve in player-chosen order; each checks that its target remains alive and visible before spending AP. Each soldier can make at most one attack per trigger, but may react to later triggers if enough reserved AP remains. An alien that survives continues with its remaining AP. Attacking or standing still does not trigger overwatch. Reaction attacks cannot trigger more reactions.
The overwatch token stays until the next refresh, but no attack is possible without sufficient reserves. Alien attacks can down a watcher and cancel its overwatch. Aliens do not use overwatch in introductory Mission 1; later cards may add it.

8. DOORS AND OBJECTIVES
An orthogonally adjacent soldier can open or close an unlocked door for 1 AP, without needing to face it. A door spanning multiple squares is one assembly: one action changes the entire door. An occupied doorway cannot close. Opening a door reveals newly visible contacts immediately. Locked or destroyed doors follow mission rules.
Interact with an object on your square or an orthogonally adjacent square. Mission 1's log takes 2 AP to secure in one action. Place the log token on that soldier's card. Passing the log to an adjacent conscious soldier costs 1 AP as a trade. If the carrier goes down, drop the log in their square; recovering it costs 1 AP on or adjacent to that square. The recovered-log mission objective remains complete, but extraction missions can require a conscious carrier.
Mission 1 retains its recover-log-and-clear-hostiles victory condition. D4/D5 room geometry must be corrected before its map is considered final.

9. ITEMS, MEDKITS AND DOWNED SOLDIERS
For 1 AP, give one carried item to an adjacent conscious soldier who can carry it. Only the giver pays. Ordinary worn armour cannot be traded or changed during a mission; select it during setup. A mission or equipment card may override this.
A medkit costs 2 AP and is discarded. Use it on yourself or an adjacent soldier: either heal 3 HP, capped at maximum, or revive a downed soldier to 2 HP. A revived soldier cannot activate until the following round. Being revived does not refresh AP or restore discarded tokens. Park starts with two medkits; further medical abilities require a character-card rule.
At zero HP, a soldier is downed. Lay the figure down; it cannot act, blocks neither movement nor sight, and is not targeted again in introductory play. Reviving a soldier whose square is occupied is not allowed; clear that square first. There is no bleed-out or permanent death in this draft. All soldiers down at once loses the mission.

10. INTRODUCTORY ALIEN ACTIONS
Workers: move1 AP; open an adjacent unlocked door1 AP; melee1 AP. Warriors: same movement/door/melee costs, plasma-pistol attack2 AP. Aliens have no facing restriction, do not brace, close doors, collect items or overwatch unless a card explicitly says so. Their ranged shots require sight and are blocked while adjacent to conscious soldiers.
At each action, an alien targets the nearest conscious soldier by shortest legal orthogonal path, allowing closed unlocked doors in path planning with their opening cost included. Other conscious figures block paths; an alien may plan to a free square adjacent to a soldier. Break target ties by lowest current HP, then Reyes, Chen, Voss, Okafor, Park. Break equal movement-route choices north, east, south, west.
If adjacent, melee while AP permits. Otherwise, a warrior fires at the chosen target if visible, not engaged and able to pay; otherwise advance toward that target, opening intervening doors. Workers advance and melee. If no path or legal attack is possible, pass. Alien cards supply accuracy, damage, health and armour; do not use automatic melee wounds from the earlier draft.

11. EXAMPLES WITH 4 AP
Reyes: move1, fire pistol1, fire pistol1, move1. Turning is free between actions.
Chen: move1, move1, fire shotgun2. The whole shotgun attack costs2.
Voss: move1, brace free, enter overwatch1, reserve2 for one three-shot MG attack. All shots target the triggering alien. The single MG attack uses the entire reserve.
Okafor: fire sniper2, fire sniper2; or move1, brace1, fire sniper2.
Park: move1, open door1, use medkit2.
A soldier who passes discards unused AP. The only AP held for the alien phase is explicitly reserved overwatch AP.

NEXT VALIDATION
Test these budgets with the probability benchmarks, especially repeated pistol shots versus high-damage weapons, brace plus overwatch, and alien melee frequency. Cover distribution and the updated Blind Luck probabilities still require encounter playtesting. These examples verify AP arithmetic, not game balance.

REVISION 0.4
Free turning during own activation; turning no longer cancels brace. Voss braces free. MG gains Cover Penetration 1. See Soldier-skills-and-ranks.txt for proposed XP and skill unlocks.

TEST KIT OVERRIDE: A shotgun may fire at an orthogonally adjacent enemy while engaged, applying its point-blank bonus. It cannot fire at a distant enemy while engaged. Other ranged weapons remain prohibited while engaged.
