Suggest a system for adjudicating space combat

[dragonlordofpoondari]

I've been working on adding some additional options and complexities (while trying not to go too far) to the SWSE space combat rules for my own games.

You should post them in a document when they're all sorted!



To everyone who posted thus far: thank you for the thoughtful suggestions. I should have included the following in my OP: please tell me a little bit about the system you suggest. What are the primary flaws/weaknesses in you opinion?

Please keep 'em coming!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

How about 4E D&D: http://www.enworld.org/forum/blogs/mustrum_ridcully/81-first-blog-entry-spaceships.html

Unfortunately I didn't get to go into this further... yet.

--

The biggest problem with space combat system happen when they are used in a "normal" RPG like Star Wars. Most games require a certain dedication of a character to space combat to be remotely effective. But if you do that, you split the party up in those that suck in space combat and whose players hate it, and those that love space combat and don't work so well outside their cockpit.

I think games need to either make the assumption that everyone is a pilot or gunner (maybe like in a Mechwarrior RPG - though I don't know anything about the real one), or they provide a method to make people contribute in space even without the dedicated skills, feats or what other mechanical elements the game offers.
The latter seems to work best if you have some kind of "Bridge Crew" model and the party is flying merely one ship.
I think this reduces the actual tactical interestingness of space combat, since less player units are on the battlefield. Such variants definitely should not require a grid, but even then it seems a little boring to imagine only one spaceship on the players side. But well, at least as long as every player is involved in the battle and can contribute meaningful, this should still work.
We can't always have mass battles. This ain't Star Wars: Attack on the Death Star II, but more Star Wars: The Falcon escapes from a bunch of Star Destroyers and their TIEs - or the Enterprise is engaging a cloaked Romulan Ship.

Roles on the crew seem to be (using Startrek-related terms)
- Tactical Officer: Aims and shoots.
- Commander/Captain: "Leads" the crew. In shows, he makes the calls on what to do, in a game it should probably grant bonuses to attacks or extra attacks and similar things
- Engineer: Makes repairs and provides attack or defense bonuses by juggling energy
- Navigator: Makes the defensive moves and brings the ship into a better tactical position.

 

[Switchblade]

The cadet/introductory/lite rules are at this page:

Star Fleet Battles

Free PDF of the rules:

http://starfleetgames.com/sfb/sfin/CadetHandbook.pdf

They also have the cadet SSDs and counters for free.

Not bad for free and the cadet level is not all that complex.

Thanks,
Rich

Cool, thanks!

 

[Calico_Jack73]

I'm going way back but I always liked Aerotech. Don't know how you'd adapt it to d20 though. It was better at modeling the Newtonian physics of space than most. You had a set amount of fuel that had to see you through the battle and you'd drift in a direction until you used your engines to turn you and begin movement in that new direction. Gravity was also taken into consideration when having combat near planets. About the only thing it was missing was a "Z" axis of movement but then again that is "almost" impossible to do in a tabletop game.

AeroTech - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia​

 

[dragonlordofpoondari]

Oh, I'm afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arriv

The biggest problem with space combat system happen when they are used in a "normal" RPG like Star Wars. Most games require a certain dedication of a character to space combat to be remotely effective. But if you do that, you split the party up in those that suck in space combat and whose players hate it, and those that love space combat and don't work so well outside their cockpit.

I think games need to either make the assumption that everyone is a pilot or gunner (maybe like in a Mechwarrior RPG - though I don't know anything about the real one), or they provide a method to make people contribute in space even without the dedicated skills, feats or what other mechanical elements the game offers.
The latter seems to work best if you have some kind of "Bridge Crew" model and the party is flying merely one ship.
I think this reduces the actual tactical interestingness of space combat, since less player units are on the battlefield.

Nice! Thank you for pointing this out. Once in a while, it is alright to let one player take the spotlight, but if space battles take a reasonable portion of game time, this could quickly become problematic for the non-piloting players. I like the idea of enabling the entire party to contribute to space battles. Why not throw in some extra bridge crew feats/whatever mechanical equivalent for each PC? Good thinking!

My personal favorite is the d20 Future rules. It treats the vehicles like PC on a battle mat. It makes it easy for the players to intuit what to do when it comes to starship battling.

D20 Future is looking like a strong contender.

The cadet/introductory/lite rules are at this page:

...

Not bad for free and the cadet level is not all that complex.

Probably not for me. I'll look it over, though.

I'm going way back but I always liked Aerotech. Don't know how you'd adapt it to d20 though. It was better at modeling the Newtonian physics of space than most.

This does seem intriguing, if only for the simulationist aspect. I'm curious to see how they managed it. Looks like an incarnation of it is still in publication.

Has anyone actually used the VPS rules as stated in Fading Suns? Also, has anyone tried using their tactical minis game, Noble Armada?

Any other ideas out there? Again, please tell me a little about the system, including why you like it and, if possible, how adaptable it is other campaign fluff.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Speaking of space combat, on CM I started a thread on "How would Space Combat really look like", and a poster provided a very interesting and comprehensive link:
Atomic Rocket: Space War Introduction. (multiple pages, use the navigation button at the bottom)

It makes certain nods to both game designers and authors, and provides also a lot of book references from Sci-Fi authors, aside from also delving into the physics (and formulas) involved.

Apparently, the author also created his own game system for space combat.

 

[Psion]

Of the listed ones, for space combat in a Roleplaying context, I recommend Traveller D20's system for the simple reason that:
1) it doesn't require mapping or movement (and hence, I don't why Michael Silverbane think its complex compared to core D20 combat)
2) it involves as many of the crew (PCs) in the outcome as possible, so you don't have half the players sitting idly by.

The downside is that it works much better for small scale combat that large multi-ship or large ship combats. For that, I'd recommend you use some abstract system or use some space combat wargame.