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).
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Coming.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Thanks! It's really useful!
