"SPACE FIGHT!" Starship combat boardgame

[Alex319]

Targeting Ship Systems:

Do ship systems that have multiple copies (like the Colonial Battleship's "Launch Fighter Squadron", or many weapons) count as one system, or a separate system for each copy? Can you target "weapons" to disable all weapons, or do you disable one specific type of weapon (like a Federation Cruiser's phaser banks) or one weapon (like one of the phasers)?

If a system is disabled by being reduced to zero hit points, can it be repaired above zero by a repair roll? If so, does this un-disable the system?

Boarding Actions:

When in the round does boarding combat occur?

Do the Shadow Emissaries remain cloaked even after attacking? (In other words, can the Shadow Emissaries give up their first attack in order to cloak, and then in subsequent rounds attack while maintaining the benefit of the cloak?)

Can the Spartan Warriors wait to see if they hit before deciding to use their Rage ability?

Heroes:

Does the Indomitable Leader's ability to restore hit points to friendly combat units require a roll, as does his ability to damage enemy combat units?

The Plucky Pilot's ability still mentions "AC".

Auras:

When in the round does aura damage happen? Is it on the turn of the ship with the aura? Is it on the turn of the ship that is getting damaged? If a ship moves through the aura's AoE but doesn't end its turn there, does it take damage and if so when?

Do auras affect friendly ships? It's confusing because at first you say auras affect enemy ships, and then at the bottom (after the picture) you say friendly fighters take damage from the aura as well.

Do auras affect all enemy vessels in the AoE, or just fighters? Is the text on some auras (like the Colonial Battleship's) that say that they "target enemy fighters" just flavor text, or does it actually mean they only target enemy fighters? How small does a ship have to be before it is considered a "fighter" in this case?

Ships:

Am I correct to assume that abilities with a "-" in the "Crit" column (like the Colonial Battleship's "Decentralized" ability) are innate abilities and cannot be disabled in the same way as other ship systems (e.g. the Saboteur)?

How does the Colonial Battleship's nuke's "burst" attack work? Is it like in D+D, where you pick a location (in this case a hex) to target and you make a separate attack roll against each target in the AoE? Or do you make one attack roll against one target, and if you hit then the nuke explodes and damages everyone in the AoE?

Does the Colonial Battleship's "Decentralized" ability protect against ECMs, or are ECM and EMP separate things? (I don't see any ship that has anything labeled as an EMP.)

The Colonial Support Vessel and Imperial Assault Craft have the "Boarding Party" ability but do not have any combat units to transfer over. Presumably you are supposed to move combat units from the ships that they launch from onto them so they can board the enemy ship. If so, it should say this in the description of the ships that they launch from. Also, is there a limit to how many combat units can fit on each of these ships?

The Imperial Destroyer's damage track is still the damage track for a 2000 hit point ship, even though its starting hit point total was changed to 600.

Does the Rebel Freighter's "Sensor Jammers" ability get rid of existing sensor locks, suppress them temporarily, or not affect them at all? (This ability probably needs a wording change similar to that of the Colonial Support Vessel's ECM ability.)

The Imperial Destroyer's "Tractor Beams" ability still lists alternate boarding party stats, even though this was based on the old boarding party system.

There is a typo in the description of the Colonial Support Vessel's "ECM" ability - "sued" should be "used".

If the Spartan Scout is cloaked, can it decloak to fire weapons, then reactivate its cloaking device on the same turn (assuming it has enough APs)? If so, then this would effectively eliminate the penalty of not being able to fire while cloaked, since it's only decloaked for part of its turn, when other ships won't be able to fire at it anyway.

 

[Morrus]

Some of these answers will be "not written yet - what would you prefer to see?"

Targeting Ship Systems:

Do ship systems that have multiple copies (like the Colonial Battleship's "Launch Fighter Squadron", or many weapons) count as one system, or a separate system for each copy? Can you target "weapons" to disable all weapons, or do you disable one specific type of weapon (like a Federation Cruiser's phaser banks) or one weapon (like one of the phasers)?

If a system is disabled by being reduced to zero hit points, can it be repaired above zero by a repair roll? If so, does this un-disable the system?

Don't know yet! Opinions welcomed!

When in the round does boarding combat occur?

Haven't decided yet. I'm leaning towards giving units initiative rolls too, although we could end up with too many turns in the round.

Do the Shadow Emissaries remain cloaked even after attacking? (In other words, can the Shadow Emissaries give up their first attack in order to cloak, and then in subsequent rounds attack while maintaining the benefit of the cloak?)

It says "Once cloaked, the unit remains cloaked and may continue to act as normal." Is that badly phrased? It seems clear to me, but then I'm the person who wrote it.

Can the Spartan Warriors wait to see if they hit before deciding to use their Rage ability?

Good question. I'd be inclined to say no, but thoughts are welcome.

Does the Indomitable Leader's ability to restore hit points to friendly combat units require a roll, as does his ability to damage enemy combat units?

Yep. It says "In addition, on his turn, the Indomitable Leader may inflict 1d8 damage to an enemy combat unit with a roll of 11 or more on a d20, or he may inspire and restore 2d6 hit points to a friendly combat unit."

The Plucky Pilot's ability still mentions "AC".

Good catch.

When in the round does aura damage happen? Is it on the turn of the ship with the aura? Is it on the turn of the ship that is getting damaged? If a ship moves through the aura's AoE but doesn't end its turn there, does it take damage and if so when?

Good catch. I meant it to be like in D&D - when you begin your turn in or enter a hex covered by the aura.

Do auras affect friendly ships? It's confusing because at first you say auras affect enemy ships, and then at the bottom (after the picture) you say friendly fighters take damage from the aura as well.

Yes. It affects all ships. Needs a little clarification.

Do auras affect all enemy vessels in the AoE, or just fighters? Is the text on some auras (like the Colonial Battleship's) that say that they "target enemy fighters" just flavor text, or does it actually mean they only target enemy fighters? How small does a ship have to be before it is considered a "fighter" in this case?

Yes, all ships. It's fluff text.

Am I correct to assume that abilities with a "-" in the "Crit" column (like the Colonial Battleship's "Decentralized" ability) are innate abilities and cannot be disabled in the same way as other ship systems (e.g. the Saboteur)?

Yes. The sample stat card (the Rebel Freighter) explanation section near the beginning of the book needs to be updated to reflect the new stat cards and information.

How does the Colonial Battleship's nuke's "burst" attack work? Is it like in D+D, where you pick a location (in this case a hex) to target and you make a separate attack roll against each target in the AoE? Or do you make one attack roll against one target, and if you hit then the nuke explodes and damages everyone in the AoE?

It needs to hit its target (otherwise it just drifts off endlessly into space). If it hits, it detonates, damaging everyone in the area.

Does the Colonial Battleship's "Decentralized" ability protect against ECMs, or are ECM and EMP separate things? (I don't see any ship that has anything labeled as an EMP.)

There aren't any ships with EMPs yet. This is more in anticipation of Ion Cannons and Interdictor Ships which will likely be ina supplement, but I might slip one in somewhere in the core rulebook.

The Colonial Support Vessel and Imperial Assault Craft have the "Boarding Party" ability but do not have any combat units to transfer over.

Correct. You use them to move combat units from one vessel to another.

Also, is there a limit to how many combat units can fit on each of these ships?

In the boarding section it says: "A boarding craft such as the Colonial Support Vessel or the Imperial Assault Craft can hold one unit. To nstigate a boarding action, the craft must be adjacent to the target vessel and moving at the same speed. A roll of 11 or more on a d20 immediately transfers the combat unit to the target vessel."

The Imperial Destroyer's damage track is still the damage track for a 2000 hit point ship, even though its starting hit point total was changed to 600.

Good catch.

Does the Rebel Freighter's "Sensor Jammers" ability get rid of existing sensor locks, suppress them temporarily, or not affect them at all? (This ability probably needs a wording change similar to that of the Colonial Support Vessel's ECM ability.)

Yep. I'll change it to reflect the verbiage in the Colonial Support Vessel's ECM.

The Imperial Destroyer's "Tractor Beams" ability still lists alternate boarding party stats, even though this was based on the old boarding party system.

Good catch!

There is a typo in the description of the Colonial Support Vessel's "ECM" ability - "sued" should be "used".

Good catch!

If the Spartan Scout is cloaked, can it decloak to fire weapons, then reactivate its cloaking device on the same turn (assuming it has enough APs)? If so, then this would effectively eliminate the penalty of not being able to fire while cloaked, since it's only decloaked for part of its turn, when other ships won't be able to fire at it anyway.

I'm in two minds, and that depends on whether I introduce the ability to Ready Actions. If so, then the quick decloak-fire-cloak combo works quite well because ships can be waiting for it to decloak and then fire. If I don't add an ability to Ready Actions, then instead the cloak will need to be once per turn only.

Very much open to opinions on that!

 

[Morrus]

Updated version uploading now. The typos and clarifications from above have been incorporated. The unanswered questions (where opinions are welcomed) haven't been touched. To recap, these are:

1) Should critical hits do max damage or should they disable a random system (save ends)?

2) Should systems count as one system per instance, or should all copies count as separate systems? In other words, do you shoot at each of 12 phaser banks, or do you simply shoot the fire-control mechanism for the whole lot?

3) Should combat units have their own initiative scores?

4) Should the option to Ready Actions be available?

 

[Elephant]

On another note, is there any chance you could shrink the images on the main Space Fight page? It needs a humongous 1720 pixel-wide window to display without side-scrolling, that bane of the Internet.

My 1024x768 monitor doesn't even come close

One possibility would be to thumbnail the images and bring up a lightbox to display the full size when a visitor clicks on the image. It makes for a friendlier page, and it's a cinch to set up, too.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Updated version uploading now. The typos and clarifications from above have been incorporated. The unanswered questions (where opinions are welcomed) haven't been touched. To recap, these are:

1) Should critical hits do max damage or should they disable a random system (save ends)?

I am not sure the "flavor" of critical hit temporarily disables a system and it repairs itself makes sense to me. Combat will sure be more swingy when you allow critical hits to disable systems. Maybe that's a good idea, depending on how predictable you feel combats go at the moment?

In D&D 4E, the max damage on a crit rule avoids swinginess - and brings it right back in - but only in favor of the PCs - with magical items adding extra damage. So I think the design goal was to find a system that resolves relatively fast for critical hits, and have swinginess that would not be turned against the PCs. You don't have the PC/NPC divide in your system.

I have played a little Battletech via Megamek, and I noticed that system definitely suffers from too much swinginess - one lucky critical hit, and your major assault mech is gone.
But disabling subsystems should not be that powerful, as long as a ship can't be totally crippled by them. The question is - should it really be "save ends" and not just "one turn". A cloaked ship that can't cloak for one turn is probably already in a lot of trouble.

I would probably combine things - max damage on a crit, one random subsystem is disabled until the end of the ships next turn.

2) Should systems count as one system per instance, or should all copies count as separate systems? In other words, do you shoot at each of 12 phaser banks, or do you simply shoot the fire-control mechanism for the whole lot?

Well, in Startrek, all they always say is "disable the enemies weapon systems", without mentioning specific weapons (though of course that would be logically required.).
The risk to me seems to be that some ships might have very diverse systems (particular weapon systems), and others don't. The other risk might be that some ships might not have many weapons but very powerful one, and then the ships with lots of them benefit.
I think all in all I am in favor for treating all instances as belonging to the same subsystem.

3) Should combat units have their own initiative scores?

I don't think so. If, they all should have the same - at the start or the end of a round for example, making combat units have their own "phase".

4) Should the option to Ready Actions be available?

I like the concept of reading actions particularly for cloaked ships. The question might be what the cost for readying actions is, and how you declare them? Does readying on its own costs action points?

 

[Morrus]

I am not sure the "flavor" of critical hit temporarily disables a system and it repairs itself makes sense to me. Combat will sure be more swingy when you allow critical hits to disable systems. Maybe that's a good idea, depending on how predictable you feel combats go at the moment?

In D&D 4E, the max damage on a crit rule avoids swinginess - and brings it right back in - but only in favor of the PCs - with magical items adding extra damage. So I think the design goal was to find a system that resolves relatively fast for critical hits, and have swinginess that would not be turned against the PCs. You don't have the PC/NPC divide in your system.

I have played a little Battletech via Megamek, and I noticed that system definitely suffers from too much swinginess - one lucky critical hit, and your major assault mech is gone.
But disabling subsystems should not be that powerful, as long as a ship can't be totally crippled by them. The question is - should it really be "save ends" and not just "one turn". A cloaked ship that can't cloak for one turn is probably already in a lot of trouble.

I would probably combine things - max damage on a crit, one random subsystem is disabled until the end of the ships next turn.

I think it depends what gets hit. A single crit isn't going to really hurt a ship that badly - shields might go down for a round or two at worst, or it migh have to delay a squadron launch by a round or two.

Well, in Startrek, all they always say is "disable the enemies weapon systems", without mentioning specific weapons (though of course that would be logically required.).
The risk to me seems to be that some ships might have very diverse systems (particular weapon systems), and others don't. The other risk might be that some ships might not have many weapons but very powerful one, and then the ships with lots of them benefit.
I think all in all I am in favor for treating all instances as belonging to the same subsystem.

I'm inclined to agree. In addition, it makes things so much simpler.

I don't think so. If, they all should have the same - at the start or the end of a round for example, making combat units have their own "phase".

Hmmm. I'm not completely sold on that idea. But I agree that having an iniatiative score for every ship, every Hero, and every combat unit on the map is going to get too much.

I like the concept of reading actions particularly for cloaked ships. The question might be what the cost for readying actions is, and how you declare them? Does readying on its own costs action points?

The more I think about it, the more I like it.

I'm thinking something like this:

You can ready an action by spending double the usual number of action points on it. A readied action can take place at any time (outside the ship's own turn), but the additional cost reflects the fact that your crew is sitting there tensely waiting for the "Fire!" order rather than doing something else. If a ship does not use its readied action by the time its next turn comes around, the action goes to waste.

 

[Morrus]

On another note, is there any chance you could shrink the images on the main Space Fight page? It needs a humongous 1720 pixel-wide window to display without side-scrolling, that bane of the Internet.

Do you mean the original large-size mages when you click through, or the smaller versions on the page itself?

 

[Alex319]

Do the Shadow Emissaries remain cloaked even after attacking? (In other words, can the Shadow Emissaries give up their first attack in order to cloak, and then in subsequent rounds attack while maintaining the benefit of the cloak?)

It says

"Once cloaked, the unit remains cloaked and may continue to act as normal." Is that badly phrased? It seems clear to me, but then I'm the person who wrote it.

In this case, the best strategy would almost always be to cloak them as soon as the battle begins (they can be cloaked even when they would otherwise be sitting on their ship with nothing to do) and leave them cloaked the whole battle. Is this what you want?

Do auras affect friendly ships? It's confusing because at first you say auras affect enemy ships, and then at the bottom (after the picture) you say friendly fighters take damage from the aura as well.

Yes. It affects all ships. Needs a little clarification.

That seems really weird. You would think that since auras usualy represent point-defense systems like turrets, that they would be programmed not to fire at friendly ships. An I certainly don't recall seeing, say, a Star Destroyer's turbolasers firing at TIE fighters. What's the reasoning behind this decision?

How does the Colonial Battleship's nuke's "burst" attack work? Is it like in D+D, where you pick a location (in this case a hex) to target and you make a separate attack roll against each target in the AoE? Or do you make one attack roll against one target, and if you hit then the nuke explodes and damages everyone in the AoE?

It needs to hit its target (otherwise it just drifts off endlessly into space). If it hits, it detonates, damaging everyone in the area.

First of all, if you target a multi-hex ship, which hex do you count the AoE from? Or is it 3 hexes away from any hex in the target ship's space (so the larger the target, the larger the AoE)? And can you target a hex of space that has no ship in it (I would guess not)?

This could lead to some quite unorthodox tactics. For example if there were several squadrons of enemy fighters clustered in an area of space with no other ships, a good strategy would be to move a friendly Large or bigger ship in there and then nuke it - a large ship can easily soak up 3d6 damage and it would probably wipe out (or come close to wiping out) all of the squadrons (since it's an AoE, it does full damage to squadrons).

Does the Indomitable Leader's ability to restore hit points to friendly combat units require a roll, as does his ability to damage enemy combat units? Yep. It says "In addition, on his turn, the Indomitable Leader may inflict 1d8 damage to an enemy combat unit with a roll of 11 or more on a d20, or he may inspire and restore 2d6 hit points to a friendly combat unit."

The wording here is confusing, because the clause "with a roll of 11 or more on a d20" is placed in between the two powers, so it seems like it should be parsed as "On his turn, the IL may (a) inflict 1d8 damage to an enemy combat unit with a roll of 11 or more on a d20, or (b) restore 2d6 HP to a friendly combat unit".

Probably a clearer wording would be "...the IL may roll a d20. On a roll of 11 or more, the IL may inflict 1d8 damage to an enemy combat unit or restore 2d6 HP to a friendly combat unit."


Hero and Combat Unit Movement:

Am I correct in my understanding that heroes and combat units have no ability to move from ship to ship under their own power? The ways to move them from ship to ship are (a) you can move them from a carrier to a ship that that carrier launched, when the carrier launches it; (b) you can use transporters, boarding party breach abilities, or other ship actions, which happen when those ships use those actions on their turns.

Colonial Support Vessel:

Does the "let allies benefit from sensor locks" ability only apply to allied "fighters," or to all allied ships? If the first one, what ships count as a "fighter"?

The ECM pulse is centered on the ship itself, right?

Imperial Assault Craft:

Can the breach ability move heroes from the IAC to the target ship? You said the IAC can carry only one combat unit, but ca it carry a combat unit and a hero, or multiple heroes? In general, do heroes count as combat units for purposes of abilities that move them, or are they different?

Rebel Fighter Squadron:

It might be a good idea to remove repair abilities from squadrons. If we're operating under the idea that in a squadron, 1 HP = 1 ship and loss of HP represents ships being destroyed, then it doesn't make sense that the HP could be repaired. Also since they have an extra copy of this for each ship, then they could repair themselves very quickly.

Rebel Freighter:

The "Wingover" maneuver is listed twice.

Also, just like with the CSV, the ECM pulse is centered on the ship itself, right?

 

[Alex319]

Also another thing this document needs is a table of contents and reorganization to make it easier to read. Here's how I would organize it:

1. Introduction
1.1. Welcome
1.2. How the Game is Played
1.3. What you Need

2. Ship Overview
2.1. Stat Card Overview (here is where you show the stat card and explain the terms on it - but don't explain the different ship systems like weapons and shields yet)
2.2. Sizes
2.3. The Damage Track
2.4. Death of a Starship
2.5. Action Sequence

3. Movement

4. Ship Actions
4.1. Weapons (explain attack rolls and stuff here, explain targeting specific systems here too)
4.2. Shields
4.3. Defense Grids (I assume defense grids are the only things which have "auras" - in that case explain auras here)
4.4. Repairs
4.5. Sensors
4.6. Transporters and Boarding (this section just explains how these abilities move heroes and combat units, how the boarding combat happens is explained in a later section)
4.7. Tractor Beams
4.8. Faster than Light
4.9. Other (just mention that there are other ship abilities like ECMs and that ships with special rules have them on their stat card).

5. Special Ship Types
5.1. Squadrons
5.2. Bombers
5.3. Laser Towers

6. Boarding Combat

7. Special Terms
7.1. Bursts (you don't explain these in the current document but they need explanation)
7.2. Saving Throws

8. Starscape Terrain Features

9. Heroes

10. Ship Stat Cards

(these three sections can basically remain unchanged)

 

[Alex319]

Also, I have a question about movement:

Suppose I have speed 6 and agility 2.

Can I do the following:

(1) Turn 60 degrees
(2) Move 3 hexes
(3) Turn 60 degrees
(4) Move 3 hexes
(5) Turn 60 degrees

I am leaving 3 hexes between each turn, so is that right? And suppose I don't change my speed, but I do the same thing next turn. That means that I've turned 60 degrees twice (once at the end of first turn movement and again at the beginning of second turn movement) with no intervening movement. Is that allowed? If not, that means at the end of each ship's turn you have to record how many hexes it moved since the last time it turned.