"SPACE FIGHT!" Starship combat boardgame

[Morrus]

At the moment, Defence is purely a function of size. I'd like to tie Agility and Thrust into that - a more agile ship of the same size should have a higher agility.

Here's my intial thoughts on a formula:

DEFENCE = SIZE + AGILITY + THRUST

(In this equation, the size values need to be reversed so that lower is better - Tiny =6, Small =5, etc.)

This gives the following preliminary defence scores (not done all ships, just some examples):

Alliance Starfighter = 22 (was 15)
Colonial Battleship = 6 (was 4)
Federation Cruiser = 9 (was 8)
Hive Cube = 3 (was 4)
Imperial Destroyer = 5 (was 4)
Imperial Fighter = 22 (was 15)
Machine Starbase = 7 (was 4)
Rebel Freighter = 17 (was 13)
Spartan Destroyer = 9 (was 8)

As can be seen, most ships end up with a boost to their Defence, with the smaller agile ships getting a much larger boost.

It's not perfect; defnitely needs tweaking, but I think it's a good direction to be going in.

Alternatively, the importance of each factor can be tweaked. Size should remain the most important ting, followed by Agility, with Thrust being the least. So:

(SIZE x3 + AGILITY x2 + THRUST) / 2

Alliance Starfighter = 20
Colonial Battleship = 4
Federation Cruiser = 7
Hive Cube = 3
Imperial Destroyer = 4
Imperial Fighter = 20
Machine Starbase = 5
Rebel Freighter = 15
Spartan Destroyer = 8

Looking at the various fighter-sized craft with this formula:

Alliance Starfighter = 20
Colonial Fighter = 17
Imperial Fighter = 20
Machine Raider = 18
Rebel Fighter = 18

I'd also be inclined to increase the size category of a fighter squadron by 1 - making a squadron size Small instead of Tiny. This would make the above numbers drop by two points when in a squadron (technically by 1.5, but we round down).

 

[Morrus]

New faction emblems form the inestimable Mr. Pozas. Expected soon is the artwork and counters for the combat units.

 

[Alex319]

I'd also be inclined to increase the size category of a fighter squadron by 1 - making a squadron size Small instead of Tiny. This would make the above numbers drop by two points when in a squadron (technically by 1.5, but we round down).

If you do that, squadrons would be able to do explosion damage when they self-destruct. If you don't want that, you may want to put in an exception for that.

Also, I would be very wary of giving ships very high defense scores. The game is already tilted in favor of the defense:

Ways to gain attack bonuses

- Weapons that have built-in attack bonuses
- +2 from Spy on enemy ship
- +4 from Sensor Lock on enemy ship

Ways to gain defense bonuses:

- +2 from Speed 10, +4 from Speed 20
- +4 from Evasive Maneuvers
- +4 from Plucky Pilot
- +8 if attacker is trying to hit a specific system

Notice that the attack bonuses all require specific ship systems or heroes which not every faction has access to and you can't use all the time, while the defense bonuses come from things that are much more common. So already it's pretty easy to defend - and if you've got a ship that has base defense 18, once it gets moving it's going to be almost impossible to hit.

 

[Morrus]

Oh yes, I picked up on that too. The goal was to have a greater spread of defence scores with agile counting for more, not to simply make everyone impossible to hit.

What I plan to do is go through ALL of the attacks/weapons and assign attack bonuses to them. That makes the attacks more like 4E, where every attack will have a modifier.

I also plan to add an aiming option - spending more AP on a shot allows you to take your time, line it up, and get a more accurate shot.

 

[Alex319]

The "aiming" option definitely makes a lot of sense. It definitely seems to me like one thing this game needs is more ways to buff attack rolls. The reasons are:

(1) Players generally prefer buffing attacks to buffing defenses, because if you buff an attack you get to control where the attack goes, which if you buff a defense the opponent can just try to attack someone else.

(2) Buffing attacks helps the game move faster and is generally more fun. Which do you think is more fun: "I better be the first to pull of my big attack buff plan before my opponents can get theirs off" or "Well, we've both got our defenses maxed, so I guess we'll just keep attacking each other until one of us rolls a natural 20."

Of course this doesn't mean that you shouldn't be able to buff defenses - the existing ways of buffing defenses (like evasive maneuvers and speed bonuses) are both flavorful and add strategy to the game. It just means that you want to balance that out with ways of buffing attacks to get through it.

 

[Morrus]

Absolutely - I agree completely.

At the moment we have sensors and we'll be adding aiming.

In addition (for some ships) I'd like to have different defence values depending on your direction of attack - an Imperial Destroyer has a much bigger cross-section from the side than it does from the front. That adds a sort of buffing mechanic based on tactical maneuvering.

Any other ideas for attack biffing options? Perhaps ways to increase damage?

I've been discussing a couple of other options ith a friend, and we both feel that we'd like to increase the amount of maneuvering needed. The different defences from different directions is one way to accomplish that; also when targetting systems we could define a direction of attack required. Finally, perhaps shields and defense grids can be split into separate directional abilities based on firing arcs.

 

[Morrus]

Updated with shield and defence grid arcs and directional defense scores. That should increase the amount of maneuvering.

 

[Morrus]

Here's a question: do you guys think that a good design goal would be to (at a much later date) have a system which allows people to build their own ships? Or, in a campaign mode, salvage systems from a captured ship?

If so, the ship designs at this stage would need a certain level of standardization - I was thinking that each entry is a system/component which can be selected and added to a ship.

If that's the case, each item needs to be given a name and added to a master list. For example, we know the Feration Cruiser's phasers do X damage, have Y range, and cost Z action points to use, so we give that a name like "Federation Phaser Mk. I" and add it to a master list. Another ship using the same phaser type will have the same stats in its phaser entry, whereas a ship using the "Federation Phaser Mk. II" would have different stats. Equally, the Spartan Scout uses a "Spartan Cloaking Device Mk. I", and so on.

 

[Alex319]

Comments on the latest version:

(1) Why doesn't the SA's power work on a ship with a BC on board? The original problem I identified was that a BC could use his power on an SA to give the SA two activations and thus lots of additional action points - since the BC doesn't give his ship any benefit by himself after the start of the game, I don't see any reason to prohibit that.

(2) What do the defenses with two values (like 11/9) mean? I assume that has something to do with the "different defenses on different firing arcs" thing, but I can't find where that is explained.

(3) The Hive Cube still needs a determinate hex, because it can rotate.

(4) I don't understand the "vessel ratings" at all. How come some of them have two numbers separated by a slash, some of them only have one number, and the Colonial Fighter has another number in parentheses?

(5) Can the Shadow Fighter Squadron activate its Bio-Shields 4 times to absorb 8 damage per round? (Same question about the Shadow Fighter - can it absorb 24 damage per round if it uses all its AP on its shields?) If so it's going to be almost impossible to kill because you can only do 1 point of damage to it at a time. If not, then how come it says "Bio-Shields x4"? Finally, how is it ever supposed to use its Cloak ability, if the Cloak ability requires more AP than the squadron has?

(6) The example under "Targeting Specific Systems" needs to be updated because the Imperial Destroyer's defense changed.

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And as for more weapon attack bonuses:

Definitely adding something where you spend extra AP for an attack bonus would work well. It also seems to me like a good idea would be to make "light weapons" that don't do much damage tend to have higher attack bonuses (like +4 or higher) while heavier weapons tend to have smaller attack bonuses, so they're best against larger ships.

One thing you need to think about is, about how often do you want people to be hitting those high defense ships? If the Alliance Starfighter Squadron has defense 18, you'd better be giving ships +4 to attack or greater if you want them to be hitting more than about a third of the time.

 

[Morrus]

Comments on the latest version:

(1) Why doesn't the SA's power work on a ship with a BC on board? The original problem I identified was that a BC could use his power on an SA to give the SA two activations and thus lots of additional action points - since the BC doesn't give his ship any benefit by himself after the start of the game, I don't see any reason to prohibit that.

If his power doesn't work with a BC on board, the BC can give him another activation but to no avail. As far as I can tell, that addresses your original concern exactly? I also figured - there's only one person in command of a ship. You can't have a captain and an admiral shouting out orders.

(2) What do the defenses with two values (like 11/9) mean? I assume that has something to do with the "different defenses on different firing arcs" thing, but I can't find where that is explained.

In the ship card overview under "Defence".

(3) The Hive Cube still needs a determinate hex, because it can rotate.

That's true.

(4) I don't understand the "vessel ratings" at all. How come some of them have two numbers separated by a slash, some of them only have one number, and the Colonial Fighter has another number in parentheses?

Really don't worry about them yet - those things are just notes to myself.

(5) Can the Shadow Fighter Squadron activate its Bio-Shields 4 times to absorb 8 damage per round?

(Same question about the Shadow Fighter - can it absorb 24 damage per round if it uses all its AP on its shields?) If so it's going to be almost impossible to kill because you can only do 1 point of damage to it at a time. If not, then how come it says "Bio-Shields x4"?

See the Shields section. Those are four shield arcs.

Finally, how is it ever supposed to use its Cloak ability, if the Cloak ability requires more AP than the squadron has?

That was supposed to read 5, not 15. Typo. I think that may be a bit low, though.