Ace

You wanna know what makes a pilot an Ace? Sit down, sweetheart, because Hella Speed’s about to educate you. See, most folks think piloting’s just about reflexes. Reaction time. Thumb speed. Ha. That’s noobie talk. Piloting ain’t what you do in the moment. Piloting’s what you do before the moment. It’s seeing a turn eight seconds before it exists. Feeling a malfunction in the left thruster before the diagnostics even blink. Knowing your machine like it’s part of your bloodstream, and trusting it the same way you trust your own lungs to keep breathing sulphur. I don’t fly ’cause I’m fast. I fly ’cause I’m right. Every damn second.

And since we’re being honest, yeah, y'all say I’m cocky, but I'm the best. I mean, prove me wrong! I ain't lose yet, have I? Confidence and arrogance is same fucking thing with a different paint job. A pilot without ego is just a passenger with delusions of control. You ever see a racer hesitate going into a death loop? They’re already dead — they just haven’t hit the wall yet. Me? I don’t hesitate. I don’t doubt. I don’t blink. You don’t survive the Grand Spiral, the Triple Knife-Turn, or that little incident on the Glittertrack by being humble. Humble pilots make great cautionary tales.

Now, let’s talk machines. Every Ace knows their ride better than their lovers. Better than their parents. Better than their own bed. I can hear a clogged plasma feed from two hangars away, and I can tune a skimmer’s oscillation coils blindfolded with a hangover. And trust… I have. My crew’s the best money can buy, but even they know not to fight me on a custom job. I tweak, I tune, I whisper sweet nothings into the engine block, and that baby purrs like a demon with good news. You ride in something I’ve touched, and it’ll go faster than the manufacturer ever intended. That’s the Hella Speed difference.

And don’t get me started on the social game. Racing ain’t done in a vacuum. It’s done in bars, backrooms, pit lanes, and corporate boardrooms. It’s knowing who owes who, whose cousin is sponsoring what team, which mechanic is secretly a genius and which one just paints everything chrome and calls it ‘upgraded.’ A true Ace works a room like they work a cockpit—smooth, fast, and two steps ahead. You think Mammon Swarve Financial picked me for my smile? Honey, they picked me because every planet this show hits, I own the crowd before the engines even spin up. It's why your all here, ain't it?“ See, every race is the same story: I line up. Someone else thinks they’ve got a shot. Someone else thinks today’s the day they topple the champ. Someone else thinks they’ve got the guts, the tech, the grit. And every single time, they forget the one thing that matters most — Hella Speed doesn’t lose. Not because I can’t… Because I don’t. Simple as that. It’s not an outcome. It’s not an option. It’s not even a concept in my mental dictionary. I go fast. I go hard. I make the impossible look routine and the routine look boring.

So this deadliest-event-ever-built you’re all hyping up? Cute. Real cute. I’ll show up, flash the sponsors a smile, sign a few autographs, and then tear the track to pieces. The competitors? They’ll put on a good show. Maybe even give me a second of surprise. But at the end of the run, when the smoke clears and the audience is screaming my name like a prayer they don’t deserve answered, I’ll still be here, still be standing, still be the universe’s undefeated number one. Because there are pilots… and then there’s me.

Aces don’t just operate vehicles, they become an extension of them. “One Helluva Pilot” is what they say, and for good reason. It's that innate, bone-deep instinct that separates an Ace from every other joyrider with a license and a deathwish. Put them in a cockpit, any cockpit, and they’re instantly in their element. Starfighters, skimmers, walkers, subs, industrial miners, whatever; if it moves, they’ll make it dance. Even on their worst day, they fly cleaner, smoother, and faster than the next best pilot on their absolute best. And while Aces can pull their weight elsewhere on a crew, everyone knows they’re at their sharpest, calmest, and most frighteningly capable when their hands are on the controls and the throttle’s open… plus, they'll complain less.

Trait.

While you are mounted to the [Console] of a Cockpit [Component], you gain the Advantage Property, Upgrading, to all Checks, Attacks and Saves you perform.

Aces have a sixth sense for squeezing speed out of anything with an engine. It isn’t about raw horsepower… it’s about instinct, finesse, and a borderline-supernatural feel for motion. They trim drag without thinking, lean into crosswinds with micro-adjustments no sensor suite could teach, roll thrusters by hand like they’re tuning a guitar string, and even bully a generator into giving just a little more juice than the safety manual strictly recommends. Put an Ace in your cockpit and you’ll see top speeds you swore the frame couldn’t handle, because they don’t just push a vehicle, they coax it past its limits. When they say they’re better, it ain’t just bragging. It’s fact… and bragging.

Trait.

While you are mounted to the [Console] of a Cockpit [Component], you increase the Speed of the [Vehicle] by 1. In addition, when you trigger [Overload], you do so with the Unreliable Property.

An Aces reflexes aren't merely impressive, they're unfair. Outside a cockpit, they’re as coordinated as anyone else… some nimble, some not, but once they’re strapped in, something clicks. Microseconds matter at mach-six, and an Ace feels those microseconds the way other people feel heartbeats. They launch faster, correct faster, recover faster; they hit the throttle before anyone else even registers the light’s changed. In a galaxy full of cybernetic limbs and reflex-boosting implants, nothing matches the raw, instinctive hand-eye coordination of an Ace at the helm. Get behind them and you’ll be playing catch-up until the race is over. They get ahead, and they stay ahead.

Trait

While mounted to the [Console] of a Cockpit [Component], you gain a D4 Bonus Die to all Initiative or Reaction Tests you perform.

At Ace Ranks 3, 5, 7 & 9, you Upgrade the Bonus Die, to D6, D8, D10 & D12, respectively.

In addition, you gain 1 free Rank in one of the following [Masteries]. This can't increase this [Mastery] to a Rank greater than your current Ace Rank.

• [Piloting - Liquidic]
• [Piloting - Subterranean]
• [Piloting - Terranean]
• [Piloting - Void].

Alternatively, instead of gaining a free Rank in the above [Masteries], you may choose to gain 2 Abilties from one of them instead. These Abilities must be of equal or lower Rank to your new Ace rank.

Example: If you would advance your Ace Rank to 4, you could use your free Rank to advance your [Piloting - Void] [Mastery] to Rank 4 but you could not use it to advance your [Piloting - Terranean] [Mastery] to Rank 5.

At Ace ranks 3, 5, 7 & 9, you gain an additional free rank, or pair of Abilities, in one of the above [Masteries], as detailed above.

Ace grow up winning. Winning races, duels, test flights, you name it, and that kind of streak warps a person. When every hangar rat, techie, and street kid treats you like a legend before you’ve even earned your wings, you start believing your own hype. It’s great for getting into V.I.P. rooms and knowing the right people, but it’s a curse when the universe finally punches back. Aces don’t cope well with being outmatched or outmanoeuvred; failure isn’t a lesson to them, it’s an insult. They get prickly under pressure, short-tempered when things don’t click, and downright unbearable when the situation calls for patience instead of flair. Confidence carries them far, sure, but arrogance is what makes the fall hurt.

Trait

Gain a free Rank in the [Prestige] [Mastery]. This Rank can't exceed your new Ace Rank.

Alternatively, instead of gaining a free Rank in [Prestige], you may choose to gain 2 [Prestige] Abilities instead. These Abilities can't exceed your new Ace Rank.

In addition, when calculating your Ego Rating, you count your Ace Ranks twice.

Furthermore, anytime you suffer a Critical Failure on any Check or Attack that you Proficient in, you trigger Exhaustion.

Aces all pick up tech skills along the way, not always enough to pass for a full mechanic, usually, some might, but it's enough to matter one way or the other. Vehicles are their lifeblood, so they learn whatever they need to squeeze a little more punch out of an engine or shave a little drag off a wing. For some, that’s swapping out a sound system or rerouting a fuel line; for others, it’s gutting the whole craft and rebuilding it from the frame up. Either way, they’re never shy about getting under the hood. No Ace flies stock, and their rides show it. And if you’re lucky enough to be in their good books, they might even tweak your rig too, a quiet nod of respect, delivered through a better top speed.

Ritual.

You gain the Custom Tweaks Ability:

At Ace Ranks 4, 6, 8 & 10, increase the amount of Hardpoints granted by this Ability to 10, 15, 20 & 25, respectively.

Please Note: Should you Rank Up, any Custom Tweaks Rituals you have already performed do not retroactively update. Should you wish to grant the benefits of the higher Ranks, you will have to perform the Ritual again, replacing the existing effect.

Trait.

You gain a Job Die. A Job Die is a Bonus Die that is added to Checks, Attacks or Saves that you are Proficient or Resistant in, respectively. Your Job Die is a D4.

If you gain an additional instance of this Ability, and you already have a Job Die, you do not gain another; it is Upgrade instead.

At Ace Rank 4, 6, 8 & 10, you gain an additional instance of this Ability.

Trait.

You gain an additional Proficiency. This can be Swagger, Presence, Initiative, Reaction or any Skills.

Please Note: You can select any of the above options, not just the ones listed on the Starting Package, so long as you are not already Proficiency in it.

At Ace Rank 5, 7 & 9, you gain an additional instance of this Ability.

A veteran Ace can sit in any cockpit, glance at the controls, and their brain just… gets it. Doesn’t matter if it was built for the ocean floor, the upper stratosphere, a magma trench, or a drag strip, to an Ace, a vehicle is a vehicle. Thrusters, ballast, rotors, sails, grav-paddles, whatever; it all follows the same dance once you’ve spent enough of your life behind a control stick. They read unfamiliar gauges like old friends, feel out propulsion systems by instinct, and treat alien steering rigs as if they’d trained on them for years. Give them a minute to settle in, and they’ll run the thing like it’s their preferred ride type, pulling manoeuvres no sane operator should attempt. If it moves, an Ace can fly it, no exceptions.

Trait

When you are [Crewing] a [Vehicle], you may treat that [Vehicle] as any type of [Vehicle], for the purposes of using [Piloting] [Masteries].

Example: If you were [Crewing] a [Vehicle] using it's [Void] [Movement Type] but you have ranks in the [Piloting - Subterranean] [Mastery], you could use those ranks and corresponding Abilities for this [Vehicle] as if it were using it's [Subterranean] [Movement Type], as Appropriate.

The greatest Aces don’t fight their vehicles or bully the generators into coughing up more juice, they flow with the machine and the space around it. They read grav-currents like weather maps, feel the leftover momentum of every burn, and chain it all together into manoeuvres no sane pilot would even sketch out. They cut engines at the exact microsecond where drift takes over, twist into a turn on the last gasp of inertia, then snap back into acceleration as if they never slowed at all and somehow the generator barely notices. Watching them work is like watching physics get sweet-talked into cooperation. The moves they pull should tear a craft apart, and yet they thread the needle every time, grinning like a maniac while the rest of the crew prays to anything listening. Impossible? Sure. Dangerous? Absolutely. But the best Aces never cared about the odds in the first place, they only care about winning.

Trait.

You don’t trigger [Overload] when performing the [Move] Action, the [Turn] Action, or any [Abilities] from the [Piloting - Liquidic], [Piloting - Subterranean], [Piloting - Terranean], [Piloting: Void] [Masteries].

In addition, you may perform these Action as either Action or Quick Action, by spending AP or QP, as Appropriate.

Example: A rank 10 Ace performs the [High-G Thrusters] Ability, normally a Double Action. They can choose to perform it as either a Double Action or a pair of Quick Actions.