Despite having done an Astrophysics degree I have no problem with that as, from what has been stated, the aim is to have a fun cinematic space fighitng game that could reproduce Star Wars type dogfights. I just wanted to clarify.
Yeah, Star Wars in particular is based aruond WWII dogfights. Other shows like Babylon 5 make nods towards Newtonian physics, but they're far from slavish about it. I think it cna be handled with "make it like Star Wars/Trek and add special maneuvers that allow ships from B5 etc. to do cool things."
- All Drives: A ship can activate its FTL to leave the starscape. It can no longer attack nor be targeted.
The ship can return at the end of any its normal turn, with its current speed zero and heading in any direction.
(Special abilities of ships might allow them to enter at the start of their turn, guns blazing so to speak.)
- Warp Drive: Once per combat, the ship can activate its Warp Drives and can move at any speed (but a minimum of n hexes) but it cannot change its direction. It still retains its original speed for the next round.
- Jump Drive: Once per combat, the ship can activate its Jump Drive and appear at any space between n to m hexes on the starscape. It keeps its speed and direction.
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It probably goes without saying but keep the numbers small so that the division is trivial. I was thinking in terms of the range 1-10, which seems small enough to do division in one's head but large enough to provide variation.
I'd say 1-12. Using twelve as the base, you can take one-fourth, one-third, *and* one-half without resorting to decimals.
Edit:
Morrus - I have a couple of suggestions for the bombers. First, when a bomber misses its target, make it so each adjacent hex is equally likely the one to be hit -- use 1-6 or 1-12 for this.
Second, depending on how accurate bombers should be, make either a 7 or a 13 a hit, and use the attack roll to see where the miss goes, too.
Example: I'm piloting a TIE bomber, dropping a proton bomb on a Rebel base. I need to roll a 7 or higher to hit, but all I get is a 3. Using that 3, I consult the updated chart for bombing misses, and I see that the bomb lands in the 120 degree hex (the one labeled '5' in the current miss chart).
Edit2: Another thing to consider is using a d12 for bombing runs. 1-6 misses with equal chance to hit any adjacent hex; 7-12 hits the target.
What do you think?
Last edited by Elephant; 11th July 2009 at 04:50 AM..
I'd say 1-12. Using twelve as the base, you can take one-fourth, one-third, *and* one-half without resorting to decimals.
Edit:
Morrus - I have a couple of suggestions for the bombers. First, when a bomber misses its target, make it so each adjacent hex is equally likely the one to be hit -- use 1-6 or 1-12 for this.
Second, depending on how accurate bombers should be, make either a 7 or a 13 a hit, and use the attack roll to see where the miss goes, too.
Example: I'm piloting a TIE bomber, dropping a proton bomb on a Rebel base. I need to roll a 7 or higher to hit, but all I get is a 3. Using that 3, I consult the updated chart for bombing misses, and I see that the bomb lands in the 120 degree hex (the one labeled '5' in the current miss chart).
Edit2: Another thing to consider is using a d12 for bombing runs. 1-6 misses with equal chance to hit any adjacent hex; 7-12 hits the target.
What do you think?
I am not sure what your goal of the rule is? You want to simplify determining the "scatter" roll?
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I'm sure you've played or Google-researched a bunch before making this game, but one of the best links I've found when designing my own space-combat systems is:
I'd especially recommend the following to see what other people have done:
Full Thrust - Been around forever, basic and advanced rules to cover all the bases
A Sky Full of Ships - Great for huge-scale conflicts, ships have just enough stats to be differentiable, and few enough that you can play 20 ships a side.
Starmada - Another oldie, comprehensive and well-play tested combat and ship construction rules. Ships are tough and slowly get crippled as combat wears on.
These are mostly minatures-based combat systems, but there's lots of good ideas between them.
Downloaded your game too to give it a read-through. Hope you find some of this useful!
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I am not sure what your goal of the rule is? You want to simplify determining the "scatter" roll?
Yeah, I was thinking: Roll a single die. If it's less than 7, consult the "scatter" chart. If it's 7 or more, it's on-target.
That does make it a bit harder to have bombers of varying degrees of accuracy, but you can still get that effect:
Shoddy Bomber: Roll d8 on the bombing run
Workhorse Bomber: Roll d10 on the bombing run
"Surrender if you see this bomber in the skies": Roll d20 on the bombing run.
...but that's harder to make work with the goal of having "misses" over- or under-shoot instead of off to the side.
I'm sure you've played or Google-researched a bunch before making this game, but one of the best links I've found when designing my own space-combat systems is:
I'd especially recommend the following to see what other people have done:
Full Thrust - Been around forever, basic and advanced rules to cover all the bases
A Sky Full of Ships - Great for huge-scale conflicts, ships have just enough stats to be differentiable, and few enough that you can play 20 ships a side.
Starmada - Another oldie, comprehensive and well-play tested combat and ship construction rules. Ships are tough and slowly get crippled as combat wears on.
These are mostly minatures-based combat systems, but there's lots of good ideas between them. And SPACE FIGHT! has been mentioned on Starship Combat News.
Downloaded your game too to give it a read-through. Hope you find some of this useful!
I read your whole document and I'm really damn impressed.
I've probably read a dozen different space-combat rule-sets and written almost as many of my own attempting to capture different themes (or getting distracted by sudden inspiration for a different core combat/movement/ship design mechanic). Yours is one of the simplest, mechanically, I've seen, yet I can see it capturing the feel of just about every system you have example ships for.
The power-based ships allows a ton of flexibility (reminds me of making monsters in 4e DnD). It did make me wonder if you created some ship-creation guidelines that you used to create (and ensure balance of) the ships or did you start by creating some examples and then figure you'd tweak them later?
One the Anal-Retentive, balance-obsessed problems I have with my own systems is needing concrete rules for ship creation before I make any ships (usually resulting in me spending so much time balance-testing every little ship system and re-writing chunks of rules that I never get any ships built to playtest and burn out or jump to the next project - but that's a different story). If you can just make ships and not worry about it, I envy you.
That said, will there be some form of "point value" or the like on each ship? Just looking at, say, the Star Destroyer and the Borg Cube, both Huge ships, I can't see the Star Destroyer having much of a chance against the Borg (though maybe I'm underestimating the damage output of all those TIE Fighters). I don't know if such a comparison is valid, but it's the sort of stuff I obsess (and burn out) over.
The system also has the (potentially huge) advantage of being "d20 compatible, so anyone using a modern/scifi d20 game could jump right in. I wouldn't imagine it would take a tremendous amount of work to create or house-rule some hero-skill-to-ship-effectiveness rules, to let the heroes personal abilities to influence the battle.
There were a few minor points technical issues and/or questions I had:
Fire arcs and hexes always kinda confounds me when testing systems. I tend to lean towards making the side arcs "double width" because I like the image of massive capital ships broadsiding and that's one way of mechanically supporting the feasibility of that.
How big a grid is this designed to be played on? You said "four times the size we used", but roughly what are the dimensions in hexes?
In looking at the explosion size of the larger ships, you'd need a considerably sized grid just to avoid being in the explosion of one of those, much less the (likely rare) situation of a couple of them going off in the same round. Unless you have a relatively massive battlemap in mind, a reduction in the explosion size (or effect) might be in order.
The potential speeds of smaller ships after a couple rounds of accelleration point to a fairly sizable map as well, and potentially a considerable amount of time spent moving each little ship its 10-20(-30?) hexes, figuring out when it can turn, etc. Sounds like it wasn't an issue in your playtest, so maybe I'm over-analyzing.
If you're going for pure cinematics and playability, I'd say set speeds are the way to go, maybe with an "Advanced Rules" section on the back for slighty more realistic movement. I've found in a Sky Full of Ships campaign I ran with my buddies over the internet, sometimes the semi-realistic movement detracted from the game more than it added...
Shields - It mentions in the initial definition of shields that they must be lowered for certain things, then lists two things in the "for example" area. It would be good to have a definitive list of "shield-negating" actions or to specify cleary in powers that shields cannot be activated in the same turn as a power.
What happens when a ship is captured?
I'm assuming the hero rules aren't entirely fleshed out yet since it's still in "beta."
The Star Destroyer has "AC" listed for its specifically-targetable areas. I really like the Star Destroyer's "footprint". Having it actually take up all those squares must make the scale differences dramatic and cool. Also, the color-coded specifically-targetable systems it neat. I started to tinker with a system that had no hitpoint/hull/structure points and instead had an array of external equipment (turrets, shield generators, armor plates, engines, missile systems, etc) that had to be blown through before you could target "internal systems" and have a chance of blowing the ship up. It ended up being far too complicated though(see attached image of a blank ship-sheet to get an idea of the complexity...)
Tractor Beam rules?
It would be useful to put a ship's boarding/marine effectiveness next to any "power" that allows a ship to board another. For example, the various Star Trek transporters. What does "capacity 6" mean rule-wise?
The Viper's "turbo" ability seems like it would be a pain-in-the-butt to keep track of when you have a couple dozen of those things flying around, even if they are in squadron. It instantly made me think of the last 4e game I ran where some Leaders cast a buff that affected a handful of minions - keeping track of which ones were buffed and which ones weren't was a pain and the "turbo" power requires, essentially, 3 tokens per Viper. What happens if you have a squadron of Vipers and each has used different number of turbo "charges"? I think could be worth allowing without any restrictions - it does take the Viper's only action point to do it...
Didn't most of the Federation Class ships have rear torpedo launchers too?
Unless "cloak" will be defined somewhere, the Shadow Battlecrab's cloak technically allows it to be attacked while cloaked yet it can't fire back. The Klingon Bird of Prey was much more concise on this issue. Also, it's Absorbing Skin says it absorbs "energy weapons". It might be useful to add keywords or the like to powers to help adjucate powers like this.
The White Star's Interceptors - Is that 11 or more on the missiles roll or on a separate roll you make for the interceptors?
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That's it for technical things, hope you don't mind the long (and potentially nitpicky) post. This is all constructive criticism - I really think you have the foundations of a killer system here. I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes.
I envy your in that you have (presumably willing) playtesters! I used up all my "playtest tickets" with my gaming group and so I end up running solo-simulations with myself to test my games. My friends love RPGs, but none of them revels in playing (and even less playtesting my homebrew) space-combat games the way I do. Maybe I can get them to try out yours though since it's "semi-official" - IE, not made by me.
Nothing like a good playtest with some buddies to find the fun!
Keep up the good work!
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Last edited by Iron Sky; 30th July 2009 at 10:10 AM..
I read your whole document and I'm really damn impressed.
Thanks! It's a long way from done (I'm waiting for art at the moment).
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The power-based ships allows a ton of flexibility (reminds me of making monsters in 4e DnD). It did make me wonder if you created some ship-creation guidelines that you used to create (and ensure balance of) the ships or did you start by creating some examples and then figure you'd tweak them later?
I used "iconic" ships from the things I wanted to be able to simulate. They won't feature in the final game, obviously - but analogs of them will.
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That said, will there be some form of "point value" or the like on each ship? Just looking at, say, the Star Destroyer and the Borg Cube, both Huge ships, I can't see the Star Destroyer having much of a chance against the Borg (though maybe I'm underestimating the damage output of all those TIE Fighters). I don't know if such a comparison is valid, but it's the sort of stuff I obsess (and burn out) over.
It's a tricky issue. Basically, a ship's relative power cna only really be determined by extensive playtesting (the biggest weakness of an exception based system, where anything goes). George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry weren't using a universal TV point-buy handbook when they designed their ships; the just decided "this would be cool" and did it.
So designing a ship means deciding what you want it to do, designing the stat block for it, and playtesting it as much as possible. It means we can't have a ship construction manual or anything, unfortunately.
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Fire arcs and hexes always kinda confounds me when testing systems. I tend to lean towards making the side arcs "double width" because I like the image of massive capital ships broadsiding and that's one way of mechanically supporting the feasibility of that.
What do you mean by double width?
I certainly agree that broadsides are a visual which the system should be able to emulate. Again, the exception based system allows for that: just design a ship with broadside attacks.
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How big a grid is this designed to be played on? You said "four times the size we used", but roughly what are the dimensions in hexes?
Off the top of my head I can't recall the hexes per sheet, but four poster sized maps (or a dining room table).
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In looking at the explosion size of the larger ships, you'd need a considerably sized grid just to avoid being in the explosion of one of those, much less the (likely rare) situation of a couple of them going off in the same round. Unless you have a relatively massive battlemap in mind, a reduction in the explosion size (or effect) might be in order.
It didn't really prove to be an issue in the game we played - and that was a much smaller area than intended. But it's something I'll be keeping an eye on during playtests.
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The potential speeds of smaller ships after a couple rounds of accelleration point to a fairly sizable map as well, and potentially a considerable amount of time spent moving each little ship its 10-20(-30?) hexes, figuring out when it can turn, etc. Sounds like it wasn't an issue in your playtest, so maybe I'm over-analyzing.
They accelerated to around 12-15 in the playtest in order to keep their turning circles within reason. They could go to 30, but I don't imagine that'll happen often, unless we design a ship with some very tight turning maneuvers at speed.
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Shields - It mentions in the initial definition of shields that they must be lowered for certain things, then lists two things in the "for example" area. It would be good to have a definitive list of "shield-negating" actions or to specify cleary in powers that shields cannot be activated in the same turn as a power.
Yup. It would be defined in the stat block.
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What happens when a ship is captured?
I haven't fully decided. At the moment I like the idea of the player in question handing his stat card over to the player who captured his ship. The ship, however, is at crippled status due to a skeleton crew consisting of a boarding party. that player could then attempt "repairs" by adding more crew.
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I'm assuming the hero rules aren't entirely fleshed out yet since it's still in "beta."
Not even close to. That section really is nothing more than some notes I jotted down one night.
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The Star Destroyer has "AC" listed for its specifically-targetable areas. I really like the Star Destroyer's "footprint". Having it actually take up all those squares must make the scale differences dramatic and cool. Also, the color-coded specifically-targetable systems it neat. I started to tinker with a system that had no hitpoint/hull/structure points and instead had an array of external equipment (turrets, shield generators, armor plates, engines, missile systems, etc) that had to be blown through before you could target "internal systems" and have a chance of blowing the ship up. It ended up being far too complicated though(see attached image of a blank ship-sheet to get an idea of the complexity...)
Yeah, I've seen game designs like that. Again, no reason it can't be done on a case-by-case basis. You just note in a targetted system's stat entry that it can't be targetted until something else has been destroyed before it.
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Tractor Beam rules?
Coming.
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It would be useful to put a ship's boarding/marine effectiveness next to any "power" that allows a ship to board another. For example, the various Star Trek transporters. What does "capacity 6" mean rule-wise?
It means 6 men can be transported per round. The stat block ebtry should (when finished) define the capablity of that boarding party.
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The Viper's "turbo" ability seems like it would be a pain-in-the-butt to keep track of when you have a couple dozen of those things flying around, even if they are in squadron. It instantly made me think of the last 4e game I ran where some Leaders cast a buff that affected a handful of minions - keeping track of which ones were buffed and which ones weren't was a pain and the "turbo" power requires, essentially, 3 tokens per Viper. What happens if you have a squadron of Vipers and each has used different number of turbo "charges"? I think could be worth allowing without any restrictions - it does take the Viper's only action point to do it...
Well, if some members of a squadron change to a different speed to the rest, they've effectively split into two squadrons. A squadron has a single set of actions - you don't control the individual ships.
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Didn't most of the Federation Class ships have rear torpedo launchers too?
Possibly. That's just a ship design thing though. They're really just rough examples: the biggest challenge is going to be the bit where we go through and carefully design each ship. Right now, we just need something useable in there for playtesting.
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The White Star's Interceptors - Is that 11 or more on the missiles roll or on a separate roll you make for the interceptors?
Each missile coming in rolls 1d20 and explodes on 11 or more. That's separate to its to-hit roll.
Quote:
That's it for technical things, hope you don't mind the long (and potentially nitpicky) post. This is all constructive criticism - I really think you have the foundations of a killer system here. I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes.
It's a tricky issue. Basically, a ship's relative power cna only really be determined by extensive playtesting (the biggest weakness of an exception based system, where anything goes). George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry weren't using a universal TV point-buy handbook when they designed their ships; the just decided "this would be cool" and did it.
So designing a ship means deciding what you want it to do, designing the stat block for it, and playtesting it as much as possible. It means we can't have a ship construction manual or anything, unfortunately.
I've noticed the balance difficulties in my 4e game since I'm making all custom monsters. I created my own custom "point-buy" system for making them and simplified a few things, but each power is its own rule...
I guess that's also the advantage of exception-based design: you're never limited by the rules when you have a cool idea of what a ship should do.
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What do you mean by double width?
I mean that front is the arc going through the hex directly in front of the ship, back is the hex behind, and starboard and port are the two hexes to the right and two hexes to the left.
That, of course, only works when a ship is a single hex in size. I could see difficulties figuring out the firing arcs of a 20-hex Star Destroyer...
Maybe have a green lines on the outer-most hex intersections on each ship to delineate where each ship's arcs are split?
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Well, if some members of a squadron change to a different speed to the rest, they've effectively split into two squadrons. A squadron has a single set of actions - you don't control the individual ships.
Well, here's a scenario:
Viper squadrons A and B started out with 10 ships each. Each lost 5 in a couple passes of a Battlestar, so they move together and want to merge into a single squadron. Squadron A has used 2 charges of its turbo, B hasn't used any. How many does the new squadron C that's left when they've merged have?
I am of the opinion that the smaller the ship (and thus, the more of them you are likely to have), the less limited-use powers they should have, for the same reason that most minions in 4e have 1 or maybe 2 powers and Solos have 4-10. You are, of course, perfectly entitled to hold a different opinion on the matter.
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I haven't fully decided. At the moment I like the idea of the player in question handing his stat card over to the player who captured his ship. The ship, however, is at crippled status due to a skeleton crew consisting of a boarding party. that player could then attempt "repairs" by adding more crew.
That sounds pretty solid on its own. Personally, I think taking out another player's ship without killing it outright AND getting another ship in your fleet (or at least another target to distract the enemy) is enough, with out complicating things by trying to restore the ship to maximum functionality.
A simple rule for tractor beams would be: make an attack roll against the target ship. If it hits, it drags the target ship a number of hexes equal to the difference between their two sizes (or d4 or some other die amount if you don't want people to have to take the time to bust out the scale chart).
Glad I spotted this thread, got the creative juice flowing for the latest ruleset I'm working on!
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Here's a neat little idea I had. Obviously, these will need new art comissioned - I just used the photos to give an idea of what I'm aiming for. And the actual Hero rules aren't fully set yet.
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Are you contemplating on anything like "battle value" or "combat points" so that people can build their own fleets with equal point values?
Kinda. Basiically, every ship needs exhaustive playtesting to figure out what its relative power actually is, and then probably be assigned a score of some kind.
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Oh, and I have actually started working on a "MechFight!" game, inspired by you.
Cool!
I've already been thinking of ideas for "GROUND ATTACK!", which will be the sequel and completely compatible. So you can have Mechs vs. AT-ATS while being bombed by TIE Bombers....
Kinda. Basiically, every ship needs exhaustive playtesting to figure out what its relative power actually is, and then probably be assigned a score of some kind.
I suspected something like that. In my Mech idea, I am trying to create some "ground rules" that might make this easier. You know, more guidelines on suggested damage, number of attacks, hit points and such things.
But I am not there yet.
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Cool!
I've already been thinking of ideas for "GROUND ATTACK!", which will be the sequel and completely compatible. So you can have Mechs vs. AT-ATS while being bombed by TIE Bombers....
Some way off, though.
As you mentioned on CM, I think - most you need is probably some addendum for the movement rules to support "ground vehicle physics" or some such. And probably now you want something to indicate "height". (It's a kind of irony that while in space, you use 2D, and while on the ground, you want 3D. )
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I suspected something like that. In my Mech idea, I am trying to create some "ground rules" that might make this easier. You know, more guidelines on suggested damage, number of attacks, hit points and such things.
But I am not there yet.
I started off doing that, but it just didn't work. The reason is that the design goal is to simulate the ships on TV/movies, and Lucas, Roddenberry, et al. did not all use a universal manual to balance their spaceships. They just decided "I want this ship to do that" and so it could.
The way I'm approaching it is this: design the ship first. Make it do whatever it is you want it to do. Then playtest it a LOT. FIgure out how powerful it is in relation to other ships, making sure you use all of its abilities and stuff. Then assign it a value which represents that.
It's so hard to come up with values on what a particular ability is worth. is being able to use transporters better or worse than being able to execute a specific emergency evasive maneuver? Is being able to launch a Raptor which is able to use an EMP pulse better or worse than the Borg's boarding partie sbeing able to assimilate enemy Heroes?
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As you mentioned on CM, I think - most you need is probably some addendum for the movement rules to support "ground vehicle physics" or some such. And probably now you want something to indicate "height". (It's a kind of irony that while in space, you use 2D, and while on the ground, you want 3D. )
Yeah, ground vehicles will need different movement rules. I don't antiticpate that being difficult, though.
as, from what has been stated, the aim is to have a fun cinematic space fighitng game that could reproduce Star Wars type dogfights. I just wanted to clarify.
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