"SPACE FIGHT!" Starship combat boardgame

[Alex319]

I don't like the "feel" of all this readying. I originally envisaged it as an occasional action people would use for occasional circumstances; as it turns out, it seems to be the default way of acting and the whole game involves remembering what actions ships have readied. Needs work.

I agree, and that's part of the reason why a lot of my comments have been about what you can do with readied actions. I think the reason that there's so many readied actions is because there's so many mechanics in the game that allow you to gain an advantage by manipulating action timing.

How about the following idea, which is used in a lot (if not most) wargames like Warhammer 40K and Warmachine. You don't have initiative for individual ships; you just have a turn for each side, and each player can just choose to activate their ships in whatever order they like. As far as I can tell, this would eliminate the need for pretty much all readied actions except in the following two cases:

(1) The player doesn't have anything to do this turn but expects to have something to do after the enemy acts. (e.g. readying weapons for the enemy to come in close, or readying repairs for when you take damage). But for this the game won't break if you don't have readied actions - the player can always just wait until his next turn.

(2) The "lowering shields to allow transporters" thing. Was the intent with this to make you drop the shields on both ships for a whole turn? If so that seems harsh - as you said, in your example the heroes were powerful enough to render the ship they were on "unattackable," yet not powerful enough to be worth dropping the shields for a turn to transport. Probably the best solution is to say that shields on friendly ships don't block transporters - that could be explained as the friendly ships just dropping their shields just long enough to let the transporter through (which takes such a small fraction of a turn that it doesn't matter.) If you still want to make it harder you could do that a different way, like having it cost extra AP, rather than the current clunky system.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

OK, so this would be how a stat card looks after these changes. Printed on card, laminated, and using washable markers should make quite a nice interface.

With these stats, assuming two identical ships, the shields would on average halve the photon torpedo damage or, if intensified, would just about absorb the torpedo's damage on an average damage roll. Phasers will rarely get through an unintensified shield.

These shield changes totally nerf fighters vs. shielded capital ships, though. At least for a while until the shields have been battered down. It'd take on average 20 hits from squadrons to bring the shields down.

I like the way intensified shields will go down quicker. Because they're absorbing more damage, the shield points are reduced faster. That's a side-effect that seems like a good bonus quirk to the way it works in my mind.

At the moment, shield points are restored though repair rolls. I'm not totally sold on that, although it seems it'll work OK.

I keep thinking about how to better organize the cheats with colors without making them too colorful. Maybe one possibility would be to group the equipment list in the types you used earlier, and surround each group with the color associated with the type of equipment. It should be easy to always find the stat entry you need for a "task".

Attached is one photoshoppedpaint.netted attempt. The grouping here doesn't make sense to me. I think the organization in that list is "suboptimal".

One way to distinguish them might be "procedural" - at what point in resolving a full round of combat become they relevant? How do they fit into my decision-making process.

Maybe these group work, if the existing one is lacking:
- Weapon Systems
- Shields
- Repair systems
- Hangars
- Special/Miscellanous systems (like sensors, jamming devices.)

I am not sure if I'd group tractor breams under weapon systems or miscellanous systems. It kinda makes sense, since they are offensive in use and all that, but they don't follow the standard rules for weapons and they might require "spcecial note".

Either way:
- Shields you probably need to know out of your turn (how well am I defended?) and during your turn (what do I have to do to raise/repair them, if anything?)
- Repair System are relevant on your own turn.
- Hangars require you to decide when and what to launc at some point on your turn.
- Special/Misc Systems are probably unique to your ship and they might be relevant at any point, depending on the system. You basically know "always keep a look at these entries, they might be important.)
- Weapon Systems are used on your own turn and determine how you can attack.

I would probably put weapon systems and hangars at the top. Maybe shields and repair go to the bottom, keeping them closer to the damage track and the shield track.

 

[Morrus]

Those little coloured squares are genius! I have no idea why I didn't think of that! Good work, my friend!

Regarding the actual order - I agree that grouping them is easiest for the player. One thing the card doesn't do yet is incorporate a directional random hit location mechanism (and we may welld ecide never to do that). The idea being that if you rolled randomly for a hit location, it makes a difference whether you're attacking from the front, side, or aft, encouraging tactical maneuvering. If that were the case, they'd probably need to be grouped differently - according to direction. But that's just a future maybe at present.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The squares could also be used as a kind of marker for the condition or something like that...

 

[Morrus]

Long, very enjoyable game session played! Same battle (fully stocked Galactica vs. Federation Cruiser and Flagship plus 5 Rebel Fighter Squadrons). This battle seems remarkably even every time we play it, which is good.

The interface improvements made SUCH a massive difference. It made the game 1000% faster and easier to play. We were very pleased with them, although thought of a few minor tweaks to them.

Observations from today's session:

1) The new shields system is a million times better. It *feels* right.

2) Damage track having things suddenly shut off at certain points does not feel right. There are big jumps - moving from one category to the next and suddenly having all sorts of stuff stop working is too much of a killer. Given that shields already had a built-in mechanism to drop after a battering, it also seemed redundant. We felt that Action Points, being the universal resource, were all that we needed to reduce (and Thrust).

3) Along the lines of above, instead of defence grids suddenly shutting down, their efficacy should decrease like shields do. We felt we prefered some randomness/attack rolls in the defence grids anyway, rather than auto-damage.

4) Fighters are maybe a tad too fast and nimble, being able to be pretty much wherever they like.

5) Boarding is almost impossible with the matching speeds (and we decided that you couldn't instigate a boarding action while doing evasive maneuvers).

6) When you do manage to get someone on board, combat unit fights are a pain. Tracking the HP of each unit, and which unit is fighting who was NOT a fast, stramlined aspect of play! We did agree that the 1 AP penalty for each enemy unit aboard was perfect.

7) Every time we've played, it's come down to capital ships exploding and trying to take out other capital ships when they do. It gets kinda predictable. Also self-destruct/suicide maneuvers are too common.

8) Heroes giving initiative bonuses are pretty useless!

That sounds like a list of negatives, but there were SO many positives. At this stage it is a working, fun game which we feel is better than many other games we've played. It's all tweaking from here.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Same battle (fully stocked Galactica vs. Federation Cruiser and Flagship plus 5 Rebel Fighter Squadrons). This battle seems remarkably even every time we play it, which is good.

Question might be:
- Did you just balance the battle and ships well?
- Or is the system too random so that the actual stats matter little for the end result?

I suspect the first is more likely, but maybe there is something to check out.

6) When you do manage to get someone on board, combat unit fights are a pain. Tracking the HP of each unit, and which unit is fighting who was NOT a fast, streamlined aspect of play! We did agree that the 1 AP penalty for each enemy unit aboard was perfect.

Maybe you need your own power/stat cards for them?
Or you need to simplify further? No "hit points" anymore perhaps, maybe more something along the lines of tracking three states or success grades:
- Unit advances
- Unit retreats
- Unit destroyed
When all boarding units have retreated, they leave the ship and the ship can't be boarded again for full round. When all defending units retreat, the ship is under enemy control but the defenders are still aboard, continuing the fight.

You could allow Units that advance to take over subsystems... But that would make things more complicated again, I suppose. But then, that is pretty much what the Cylons wanted to do in the second season of the BSG:TNS. Get secondary damage control and weapons control to turn of life support and fire weapons at the civilians...

7) Every time we've played, it's come down to capital ships exploding and trying to take out other capital ships when they do. It gets kinda predictable. Also self-destruct/suicide maneuvers are too common.

Feels like Star Trek. I suppose it might not fly in campaign play. "Yeah, I won. Oops, only two fighters left for the next battle."

 

[Morrus]

Question might be:
- Did you just balance the battle and ships well?
- Or is the system too random so that the actual stats matter little for the end result?

I suspect the first is more likely, but maybe there is something to check out.

The first, very clearly.

Maybe you need your own power/stat cards for them?
Or you need to simplify further? No "hit points" anymore perhaps, maybe more something along the lines of tracking three states or success grades:
- Unit advances
- Unit retreats
- Unit destroyed
When all boarding units have retreated, they leave the ship and the ship can't be boarded again for full round. When all defending units retreat, the ship is under enemy control but the defenders are still aboard, continuing the fight.

You could allow Units that advance to take over subsystems... But that would make things more complicated again, I suppose. But then, that is pretty much what the Cylons wanted to do in the second season of the BSG:TNS. Get secondary damage control and weapons control to turn of life support and fire weapons at the civilians...

Yikes, that sounds even more complex!

Feels like Star Trek. I suppose it might not fly in campaign play. "Yeah, I won. Oops, only two fighters left for the next battle."

Well, it needs to be fixed, because having every battle end up being "does the ship manage to explode in the right place to take out the enemy?" is fundamentally unsatisfying.

 

[Elephant]

Perhaps you could do something to make it a little easier to disable rather than destroy enemy ships?

Some mechanic to discourage self-destruct might be in order, too. It ought to be a rare, desperate last resort, not a default "my ship is crippled. *BOOM*" last attack.

How big *are* the self-destruct blasts? For space combat, I'd expect them to be quite small compared to the battle board. Maybe damage everything in the same hex -- or everything in the adjacent hexes at most. Space is really big.

 

[Morrus]

Perhaps you could do something to make it a little easier to disable rather than destroy enemy ships?

Some mechanic to discourage self-destruct might be in order, too. It ought to be a rare, desperate last resort, not a default "my ship is crippled. *BOOM*" last attack.

How big *are* the self-destruct blasts? For space combat, I'd expect them to be quite small compared to the battle board. Maybe damage everything in the same hex -- or everything in the adjacent hexes at most. Space is really big.

There are diagrams in the book. Space may well be big, but each hex in this game is only about 100m or so.

 

[Morrus]

Defence Grids

So here's my proposed Defence Grid change.

• Defence Grids do more damage but require hit rolls
• They get a number of attacks against each each target
• This number of attacks is reduced through the damage track (4, 3, 2, 1)

This will eliminate the sudden cut-off (at present once the grid goes down, the carrier is effectively dead because fighter squadrons just continually unload into it with impunity at about ten times the rate that the ship can repair). It also adds a little more flexibility in grids, as accuracy, etc. can be changed on a per-ship basis.

Combat Units

I propose removing hit points and damage. One hit kills. Nice and simple.

Ship Explosions

Ship explosions need to happen much more quickly. Start at 4-6 on d6, next round it's 3-6, next round 2-6, final round 1-6. Less of the ships just flying on for ages while the player tries to guide it towards the enemy capital ships.

Self Destruct

Make the countdown much longer, making it very hard to time tactically and allowing opponents to move away or blow up the ship first. A minimum of 5 rounds or so.

Turning

A minimum of two hexes between turns, allowing a turn at the end of your movement if you haven't made one. I also propose removing sidelip - it manifests as a "get out of jail free card" and renders asteroids pointless.

Speed

Need to slow fighters down a little. Whizzing round at speed 24 is pretty much "just place the fighter anywhere you want it on the map". It's almost a teleport ability. I suggest giving the fighters penalties to hit at high speeds similar to the Defence bonus they get.

Heroes

Still needs reworking. Passive bonuses need to be useful - initiative isn't uselful enough (Bold Captain and Seasoned Admiral).

Sensors & ECM

ECM should provide a penalty to sensor rolls instead of simply blocking them. This allows the Science Genius to shine, as well as ships with sophisticated sensors.