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I'm looking for something (preferably with free online rules but that isn't a mandatory prerequisite though) with large scale space naval combat including fighter squadron rules. The key for me though is that I *NEED* custom construction rules to be included with the ruleset as I plan on hopefully using a variety of scifi ships in ridiculous mashups (like Star Destroyers vs Battlestars). I have the full thrust rules and am somewhat familiar with them and they meet the general prereqs I mentions (construction rules, fighter squadrons, capitol ships) but I'm looking to see what other alternatives there are out there. I have the old FASA Star Trek rules including the construction book but they don't have satifactory fighter rules while my B5 Fleet Action rules don't have customized construction rules. BFG being GW IP won't support anything other than the official minis and frankly I don't like their rules anyways. Ideas?

Could always try 'Extreme Thrust', which is a permutation of Full Thrust. The link is in my sig.

My old club president is currently working on an entirely new spaceship game with custom construction for everything, including weapons and fighters. I wish it was done, cause it would fit what you want exactly, though you'd have to design everything from the ground up.

Cool, thanks for the link. I'll try reading over it tonight. I worked on a system loosely similar to full thrust a few years back with a friend and am curious as to what another person would change with it.

Just read the Firestorm Armarda rule book from Spartan Games. There is a whole section on designing your own ships with weapons, sheilds, class, points cost etc, everything you ever need.

Indeed the rule book encourages you to do this to add more variety to your games.

Full Thrust is somewhat designed for making custom fleets, though at extremities can be made silly (min/max ships). If you design based on size / models you should get something reasonable.

TheSecretSquig wrote:Just read the Firestorm Armarda rule book from Spartan Games. There is a whole section on designing your own ships with weapons, sheilds, class, points cost etc, everything you ever need.

Indeed the rule book encourages you to do this to add more variety to your games.

I have to say I'm surprised about that. I just figured that Firestorm took the proprietary route in that only their minis could be used with their rules. How do they handle fighters in that game? Is an abstract thing like in BFG or do you actually mark off individual craft as damage like in FT?

Daba wrote:Full Thrust is somewhat designed for making custom fleets, though at extremities can be made silly (min/max ships). If you design based on size / models you should get something reasonable.

Yeah, they can be gamed. My fav tactic in most space games involves squadrons of fighters and I was impressed with how powerful they were in FT. When I tried constructing a barebones carrier (minimal hull boxes, no weapons, minimal engines, etc with just a few squadrons... basically a flying hanger deck), it cost as much as a cruiser! The fighters are dirt cheap themselves but the hangar facilities you pay through the nose for.

Starmada would be another option.

warboss wrote:

I have to say I'm surprised about that. I just figured that Firestorm took the proprietary route in that only their minis could be used with their rules. How do they handle fighters in that game? Is an abstract thing like in BFG or do you actually mark off individual craft as damage like in FT?

The Firestorm book is a real refreshing read to a GW book. The first few pages talk about using proxy models for your fleet, but always references 'but we would like you to use our models'. The book has several pages which give permission to photocopy, and even has 6 starter fleets to scale to 'cut out and try the game before buying your models for it'.

Fighters, Interceptors, Bombers, Assualters are all represented by card tokens as scale wise they'd be too small to represent as models.

Starfire has construction rules and fighters.

3rd edition is monstrously large and complex compared to the original edition rules (long OOP) but may be worth a look.

Starship Combat News is the site to look for this kind of game.

http://www.star-ranger.com/Home.htm

The Science Fiction forums on The Miniatures Page will also be worth a visit.


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(If DakkaDakka has a flaw, it is that we are so GW/WH/FB centred that we do not have good coverage of many other genres and systems.

Kilkrazy wrote:Starfire has construction rules and fighters.

3rd edition is monstrously large and complex compared to the original edition rules (long OOP) but may be worth a look.

Starship Combat News is the site to look for this kind of game.

http://www.star-ranger.com/Home.htm

The Science Fiction forums on The Miniatures Page will also be worth a visit.

Thanks, lol. I used to frequent the star ranger site after meeting him at gencon 10 years back during his mashup games, back when the front page was just starting to show its age! I just figured it'd be a bit simpler to get the info here. If I posted there, I'd get some information overload and crash my brain. Those guys are hardcore about starship combat! TMP is also an oldie but goodie but I rarely stray out of their front page news.

@squig:

How does firestorm handle fighters damagewise? Is it a single roll and the squadron is gone ala BFG or do you track individual fighters like other games?

Colonial Battlefleet allows for ship creation. I've seen events listed at GenCon for games where it's things like "Klingons vs Battlestars" or "Star Destroyers vs. Enterprise." Rules aren't free but they are pretty inexpensive. You can find more details here:

http://www.steeldreadnoughtgames.com/colonialbattlefleet

No one mentioned battletech's space sim, which allows everything to be fully customized/constructed and scaled from single fighters to entire fleets. Shields can be used as the battletech advanced EM fields, which makes it harder to hit.

They have a few movement options, but its mostly vectors.

warboss wrote:

@squig:

How does firestorm handle fighters damagewise? Is it a single roll and the squadron is gone ala BFG or do you track individual fighters like other games?

I'm not Squig, but I'll take a pass at this .

Unlike BFG, attack craft in FA are not one-shot weapons. Bombers have infinite bombs, essentially. Assaulters only have a limited amount of assault points (AP), but even after those AP have been expended they are still on the board. In fact, assaulters have the ability to act as weak fighters, and so are a popular choice for filling out carriers in my experience. When attack craft in FSA interact with either a ship or another attack craft marker, two results are possible. One, the attack craft is shot down and removed. Two, the attack craft is aborted, which means that it is backed up 4" from the enemy ship/marker that caused the abort result. That's it; there is no "damage," and no consequences to being aborted other than being backed off the 4". So, there is really no bookkeeping involved with attack craft in Firestorm.

Ill recommend Full Thrust as I have played it several times. Like already mentioned its more fun if you design your ships based off a model or style of play rather than just maxing them out.

I also own the Starmada rulebook, and it looks interesting, but I have yet to play it.