Wacky sci-fi spaceship maneuvers

[Morrus]

For the moment I'm leaving scientific fact in my rear view mirror as I write some material for the more science fantasy end of the genre. In this case, starship maneuvers.

Things like "Relativity Corkscrew" which is a maneuver involving rapid acceleration and use of time dilation to gain a time-based bonus (maybe a jump in initiative or an extra action).

These could be big or small. Some for battleships, others for fighters. Some flights of pure fancy, others maybe a little more grounded.

Warp Maneuver - this dangerous maneuver blips the FTL drives and allows you to reposition your craft anywhere on the battlemap. Your resultant facing is random, and your FTL drive is rendered inoperable for one hour.

Wingover - with a half loop and barrel roll, you quickly reverse direction partway through your move.

Any more ideas, fanciful or grounded, big or small? I'm just looking for a little inspiration. Don't worry about the game mechanics - it's just the ideas I'm talking about!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Star Fleet Battles- the spaceship combat game based in the Star Trek universe- had the High Energy Turn. A HET uses warp energy to force your ship into any facing you want...with a risk of serious breakdowns. The more massive the ship, the worse your odds of success.

If it DOES succeed, you can do some NASTY stuff to your foe.

Tractor Slingshot: a vessel moving at high speed towing another mass- via physical link or (more Sci-fi-ey) a tractor beam- releases that mass as it moves out of the way... The effect depends on the mass being towed: if the mass is cohesive, it's like a cannon shot. If it is particulate, it is more like a shotgun. Or maybe sand to the eyes.

 

[Stormonu]

Some I've seen from video games and other areas:

Dualistic Attack: The ship uses alternate dimensions or a time shift to literally be in two places at once, doubling it's attack effectiveness.

Displacement Blink: A ship uses a short jump into hyperspace to "skip" striking an obstacle

Deadman's Ploy: When attacked ship deploys debris and explosive payload whilst simultaneously performing a short burst FTL jump. To the enemy it appears the target was just destroyed, though in truth it just jumped away to a safe location. Sometimes followed up on by the target to make it look like a new vessel has "popped in" on the action.

Cloak and Dagger: As Deadman's Ploy, but using a cloaking field to disguise the presence of the target, often to instigate a surprise counterstrike.

Reverse Strike: Thrust in one direction, turn 180 to fire at pursuing target; by turning off any recoil compensation, also allows the ship to continue accelerating away from opponent.

G Strike: Partially engaging the Starfall* drive to pull targets closer to strike (*From Alternity/Event Horizon movie, a ship that creates an artificial black hole to travel from point to point)

No Surrender: Using escape pods as Kinetic Kill Weapons

Deathblossom: Using high-speed controlled thrust to fill nearby space with an area effect attack.

And all the air combat maneuvers listed here.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

A variant on the "Tractor Slingshot" has elements similar to the "No Surrender"- attack by using jettisoned cargo and or shuttlecraft as kinetic kill weapons.

In SFB, I used the HET to deploy mines in the path of foes heading towards me. (In SFB, you could only depoy mines out of bays where your shields were down- the HET let me drop the mines right in their face right before my shields went up.)

In one of Larry Niven stories, a communications laser was used as an improvised weapon. In some computer games, mining lasers have been used likewise- usually at short range to cause a hull breach.

Depending on tech level, thrusters can be used as a weapon, especially if aimed at a vulnerable spot, like for raking out a sensor array.

I've seen some where the ships use weapons or warp fields (or whatever) to trigger things like solar flares or energy discharged from nebulae, gas giants, etc.

 

[Stormonu]

There's also the "Defensive Screen" - using objects (shuttles, fighters, asteroids, drones) to provide ablative protection for larger ships (used in Ender's Game, Star Blazers/Yamato and Star Fleet Battles). Robotech uses a variant with the Pinpoint Barrier defensive system.

 

[Winterthorn]

I was going to suggest the HET from SFB too! It was my favourite stunt and most of my opponents overlooked it so I dealt many enemy ships a decisive blow (often combined the maneuver with overloaded torpedoes, heh-heh), leaving them as limping, flaming hulks. Klingon ships were better than Federation ships of the same class - the chance of failure not only varied by ship size, but also by a race's ship design.

So Morrus, you might like the idea that the ships of some empires are better at certain maneuvers than other empires' ships.

 

[Morrus]

So I've started working on some of these ideas - thanks! Just a start, but you can see them at the bottom of this page under "Vehicle-based Universal Exploits":

http://www.woinrpg.com/exploits/

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I was going to suggest the HET from SFB too! It was my favourite stunt and most of my opponents overlooked it so I dealt many enemy ships a decisive blow (often combined the maneuver with overloaded torpedoes, heh-heh), leaving them as limping, flaming hulks.

BINGO!

The last time I used it, I was using a Gorn Dreadnaught vs a Federation one. We were using the plotted movement rules.

We each overloaded our heavies and reinforced our shields as we charged each other. Alpha strikes were exchanged at just a couple of hexes apart, dropping the #1s of each ship and delivering internal damage. Then came my HET as I seemed to turn and run. My roll to avoid breaking down succeeded.

As he chased me, he came right through the hex I vacated. The Nuclear Space Mines I had dropped with my rear shield down as the ships lit each other's faces up tore through his barely re-erected front shield, shredding his ship up terribly. As we completed our plotted maneuvers- such as we could *heh heh heh*- I was moving in a gentle arc away from his limping ship. He barely managed to get off the board & disengage as my next torpedo (I only had one operational tube!) closed on him.

The whole game was less than 6 turns.