Starship Bridge Battles

You should check out "Red Alert" by Michael Callahan. It's for Savage Worlds but you may be able to glean some useful stuff from it.

www.savageheroes.com/conversions/red_alert.doc

I'm thinking you could make a good starship bridge cooperative board game, but not very much as a role playing game.

I can imagine board game elements that might work. Turn ahead plotting. Hidden action plots. Restricted actions based on a card economy. A timer.

A part of the difficulty of making this an RPGs is that you it seems to really need simultaneous resolution, as well as mechanics which work off of teamwork decision making in real time with partial information. Those are my compelling elements of a bridge crew game.

TomB

I'm currently working on something like this for Savage Worlds. The basic goal is to give every crew position multiple options, keep them busy during space combat. They should be so busy that they feel the need to attempt multiple actions on a regular basis.

The Captain:

• Applies the Command edge to his crew. Also has new Edge equivalent to Nerves of Steel for his starship, possibly allowing it to ignore a wound penalty.
• May use the Knowledge (Battle) skill for cooperative skill rolls to assist crewmembers under his command.
• May use Taunt or Intimidation for a Test of Wills against enemy Captains if they are in communications. On a "Shaken" result, enemy Captains cannot use the above options to assist their crews.

I've got similar lists of abilities for the Pilot, Navigator (Sensor wonk), Engineer, Gunner, and Medical Officer. Basically, everyone on the crew has multiple options for assisting other crew members for the purpose of destroying the enemy. The short version...

The Pilot can opt to fly defensively for defense bonuses (and attack penalties) or hold the ship steady and get the exact opposite result. He's can push the engines for better acceleration (and higher initiative) which is also risky. He also dodges missiles.

The Navigator uses the ship's sensors to get a lock on enemy ships, providing the Gunners with attack bonuses. He can also break enemy sensor locks, break missile locks, hand off sensor locks to allied vessels, or eliminate enemy sensor locks.

The Engineer can send more power to weapons, giving the Gunners extra damage dice, or perform combat repairs to temporarily negate the effects of critical hits. (for a turn or two) If things go badly, he fires up the FTL drive to get out of Dodge.

The Gunners control the ship's weaponry, and decide weather to use it for offense or defense if there are lots of missiles incoming. For offense, they have their choice of firing plans; fire can be concentrated in a small volume of space, taking an attack penalty for extra damage, or spread out for an attack bonus but with reduced damage.

Finally, the Medical officer is responsible for keeping the crew functioning. This is a hard SF setting, and the entire crew is subject to punishing G-forces during space combat, so this isn't always easy. The Medic also deals with casualties during space battles.

The entire crew take their turns together, in whatever order they desire. This makes it possible for them to function as a team; if the Gunner wants to wait for a sensor lock, or for the Engineer to send him more power, it's not a problem. And the Captain can watch over his crew, ready to jump in when he sees a problem....

I'm just brainstorming here:

imagine the ship bridge simulator as a table-top game (aka RPG sub-game):

players take their turns in a specific order, as a cascade of dependency on a previous role.

So the Captain goes first. He gets to issue one order for his move. That limit is to simulate how much time goes by between turns, as well as to avoid micro-managing. It also requires him to be general enough that the entire crew has to interpret what's needed on their part from his command.

Then the Engineer goes. They need to set this turn's energy allocations based on what they anticipate the different departments will need. As well as prioritize which sub-system gets repaired. Let's pretend there's 4 sub-systems and a pool of colored tokensby sub-system. The engineer has to pull out 10 tokens total, of the various colors, and hand them out to the corresponding departments. He might grab 3 red for Weapons, 5 yellow for helm, 2 green for sensors (science).

Now it's Science's turn. They've got 2 energy for their science functions. The science officer will have to decide on using all of it to scan 1 of the 3 enemy ships to detect their current shield frequency, or use 1 point each on 2 ships. They will also have to decide which ship to NOT scan, since there's not enough energy. Based on the results, they'll relay the info to the Weapons officer for their turn

Next up is Helm. They've got 5 energy to use to try to maneuver the ship behind the biggest threat. They move the ship on the battlemat accordingly

Last up is the Weapons officer, who looks at the ship's new position, and the sensor readings he got from the science officer. He decides to focus all the weapons on the one ship he has readings for, in hopes of reducing how much fire they'll get in return.

Once all the ship's crew has acted, it's the enemy's turn to move and fire and adjust their shield frequency.

I'm pondering whether a 4e-style At-Will/Encounter/Daily powers system might work here. At-will is the routine stuff we've already discussed, whilst Encounter abilities are something you can only do once or twice during a combat before recharging systems, and Daily abilities are actions that will seriously stress the ship, and require repairs later.

The point is, each station has 2-3 of these Encounter or Daily abilities, and each one has a major effect on the course of the combat.

For instance, as Comms officer, an Encounter power might be Fake Communication. Transmit one message that the opposing ship(s) will believe originates from another vessel. You can fool them into believing that another ship is hailing you to announce their arrival as reinforcements, or fake a transmission from one enemy ship to another, giving them conflicting orders. A Daily power would be Blast of Static - overwhelm a target ship's receivers with a disorienting transmission that will temporarily stun the enemy bridge crew, at the cost of overloading your own ship's comm system and requiring repairs later to restore it to full capacity.

It means that, no matter what the role, each character has a small selection of tricks to pull out at the right moment.

JackOfAllTirades said:

The Captain:

• Applies the Command edge to his crew. Also has new Edge equivalent to Nerves of Steel for his starship, possibly allowing it to ignore a wound penalty.
• May use the Knowledge (Battle) skill for cooperative skill rolls to assist crewmembers under his command.
• May use Taunt or Intimidation for a Test of Wills against enemy Captains if they are in communications. On a "Shaken" result, enemy Captains cannot use the above options to assist their crews.

Click to expand...

I vote not to be the guy who spends the entire game giving other players bonuses.

I've got similar lists of abilities for the Pilot, Navigator (Sensor wonk), Engineer, Gunner, and Medical Officer.

Click to expand...

Ouch! I vote not be be them, either!

Basically, everyone on the crew has multiple options for assisting other crew members

Click to expand...

I'm applying for a transfer to a more interesting ship!

Janx said:

I'm just brainstorming here:

imagine the ship bridge simulator as a table-top game (aka RPG sub-game):

players take their turns in a specific order, as a cascade of dependency on a previous role.

Click to expand...

This is somewhat the model I'm working on for the card game idea, though with one side having initiative (playing second) and with alternating positions in play (Captain-Captain, Engineer-Engineer, etc).

Example:

1. Captain plays card that defines the ordered tactic for that round and the target to engage. E.g. "Crazy Ivan" boosts maneuvering while reducing weapons effectiveness (affecting the play of the Helm and Weapons officer)
2. Engineer plays a card that chooses a resource allocation strategy (shift power, gain power, repair damage, boost shield, etc)
3. Science officer plays a card that affects sensors (targeting boost), improves or exploits shields, or exploits outside resources
Helm plays card that defines a maneuver, which influences how weapons may be brought to bear and what sort of defensive response is possible.
4. Helm executes maneuver, spending maneuvering energy to affect defenses and the ability to attack.
5. Weapons engages the target, allocating weapon power and type based on decisions the prior crewmembers have made.

It would probably use a token or marker system to represent available power or points, with different player decisions shifting tokens back and forth, maneuvering and weapons spending tokens, and enemy hits also draining tokens, while some actions regenerate tokens.

Morrus said:

I vote not to be the guy who spends the entire game giving other players bonuses.



Ouch! I vote not be be them, either!



I'm applying for a transfer to a more interesting ship!

Click to expand...

If you actually read my post, you'd be aware that "giving other players bonuses" isn't the only option listed for any of the crew positions.

Morrus said:

I vote not to be the guy who spends the entire game giving other players bonuses.



Ouch! I vote not be be them, either!



I'm applying for a transfer to a more interesting ship!

Click to expand...

don't be such a negative nancy.

What would make each position more interesting, different, active and important?

Janx said:

don't be such a negative nancy.

What would make each position more interesting, different, active and important?

Click to expand...

I have no idea. I'm struggling with the exact same thing. I'm not 100% convinced it can be done, but I'll continue trying.

Right now, I'm just leaning towards a ship each. That I do find enjoyable.