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Greetings,

After watching too much of a certain type of anime recently, I have been tinkering around with ideas for a quick Mecha combat game similar in scale to X-wing/Silent Death/Aeronautica Imperialis/Battlestar Galactica scale. About 4-12 models per side.

As I play around in this space, I was thinking about using altitude bands similar to Aeronautica Imperialis and Battlestar Galactica to allow for some wonky maneuvers like you see in Anime. You know, flying above and around the target and then hitting them with a barrage of infinity missiles as they try to climb out of the killzone....

Anyway, my thoughts were to make a simple 3 band system (as opposed to Aeronautica Imperialis' 9 bands, and BSG's 6 bands) for simplicity. Probably Low, Middle, and High and attacks to different bands would be restricted by modifiers. Moving between bands would require movement expenditure and in space have no impacts on speed, atmosphere going up and down would impact speed. Facing and drift would also be a thing in this game.

What are your thoughts on this approach? Does it add anything to the game or is it needless complexity? Have you played a game like this? What were your thoughts?

My thought is that altitude bands matter more in air combat games due to the energy/speed trade-off. In space combat, that’s not a concern; I find the fact that you’re only moving in two out of three dimensions an acceptable compromise for playability.

Having range bands that treat the z direction differently to the x and y directions is worse, IMO, than not bothering with it. If you simply allow ships to move up as easily as they move forward or left is best, but representing that is difficult. Attack Vector uses stacking tiles (light blue is one hex, dark blue is five, red represents a negative altitude), Jovian Chronicles simply relied on players recording a model’s z position, making estimating range difficult.

There's games with antenna-style extendable bases. Those are neat. I have been enjoying reading about the notion of a 'battle sphere' in 40k novels recently, where that's presumably ships chasing each other in circles to beat each other to pulp. Seems like you could do it with two maps at once, one as the xy, and the other as yz.

Yeah, antenna-type bases get kind of fiddly and breakable. For a generic space mecha game where people bring thier own models to the party I probably want something more token or side board for tracking.

This is mostly still in my "concept" folder and may never get any further.

It's one of the great issues with any aviation style game. There are loads of aviation games which have a simple meter or rating, or dice, or colour pip that indicates your altitude. It's only ever an "okay" mechanic because it's too easy to miss during the game. I like either ignoring it (depending on how "vague" the game is), or representing it with various height bases, etc. However that comes with its own problems.

You could also consider a clear plastic style "staggered" altitude option, where the models are physically moved but not in an extreme fashion. My suggestion is that if you use bands...make them very obvious and quick to note when playing. However I also agree that in space combat it would matter less (but so would the orientation of most ships anyway).

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
My thought is that altitude bands matter more in air combat games due to the energy/speed trade-off. In space combat, that’s not a concern; I find the fact that you’re only moving in two out of three dimensions an acceptable compromise for playability.

This. Altitude in a game like Aeronautica Imperialis makes sense because of the speed vs. energy tradeoff that is a huge part of real-world air combat. A purely 2d game can't represent the fact that, for example, an aircraft at higher altitude has a significant advantage because it has more energy that it can convert into speed or sharp turns, or that a bomber can attack a ground target from above the range of its defenses while any interceptors have to slowly climb up to meet it. But if you're in space a pair of ships circling in the XY plane works out exactly identically to a pair of ships circling in the XZ plane. Rotate the observer's point of view by 90* and now those ships are maneuvering in the XY plane again, flat on a table. Consolidating everything into a single 2d plane isn't perfectly accurate, since it can't represent different ships moving in different planes, but it's good enough for most gameplay purposes and vastly simplifies the problem of how to represent everything on the table.

Edited as I didn't read the op closely enough. I agree with using three abstracted altitude bands. Just remember to incorporate the altitude in the calculation for range and adjust the expected lethality accordingly.

A way to physically represent it would be to use stacking counters, like draughts, which can be placed underneath the ships to physically raise them up.

Ideally, I would use stacking transparent counters, roughly 1/2" thick, with the actual playing pieces (ships etc) being the exact same counters but with ships embedded in them and perhaps a tint to make them obvious who's on which side.

Then I'd play it on a grid, and allow multiple ships on the same tile, as long as they are not on the same level. stack them up on top of each other.


Alternatively, with some abstract thinking, could a hex grid be used to represent 3 dimensions, as the hex has 6 direction to move (corresponding with up/down, left/right and forward/backward)? it would even allow the ships to be oriented facing up or down.

Did a doodle and found this wouldn't work, the issue is that you could occupy the same tile as someone higher up by just moving forward/backward and left/right to zig-zag upwards. there's no way to tell if you're high up and close or low down and far away!

a 2-board system could work, perhaps even laid out like battleship, so one board is vertical next to the other, with numbered pegs to show how high each ship is.

Maybe just a D20 or something beside the model to show its height value.

The problem with height in space is that it doesn't really break the "air combat on a star mat" problem because you're still fundamentally moving in 2 dimensions. You won't see 3 ships traveling along different vectors the way "height in space" would actually work.

So if one marker (A) moves along x 2 squares, y 1 square, and z 0 squares, and another marker (B) moves along x 0 squares, y 3 squares, and z 4 squares, why wouldn't that work to simulate height in space?

No ones saying you can't do 3D movement, but there's not so much a need for it in a space game, and no one has ever made it look good on the table-top. (then again neither do big tokens or altitude bands/numbers, etc.)

It's oddly one of the things which keeps me from getting invested in an aviation or space tabletop game. They never look good on the table.

I have seen a pretty popular thing in historical aviation games which is to use a foam base for the table (often coloured green with flock etc.) and then barbeque skewers simply stuck into the foam. On the barbeque skewers are painted altitude bands. The airplanes (small scale) are all fixed to rod with tiny alligator clips on them.

You just unclip and re-clip your plane as it moves.

It looks useful, and absolutely hideous.

Battlefleet Gothic used to get by this by simply stating that the ships on the table weren't really there. They were 10's of thousands of kilometers apart, and that the miniatures on the table were simply visual representations of your ships - you measured to/from the center post, etc.

Nurglitch wrote:
So if one marker (A) moves along x 2 squares, y 1 square, and z 0 squares, and another marker (B) moves along x 0 squares, y 3 squares, and z 4 squares, why wouldn't that work to simulate height in space?

Because you very quickly reach the physical limits of a playable game system in the Z axis. Sure, you might be ok with that first 4-square move, but what happens when you do it for three consecutive turns? Now you need a way to represent 12+ squares worth of movement, and probably a lot more because you don't want to reach the edge of the playing space that quickly. You either give up on representing the physical location of the ships and have a 2d mat for X and Y position with a counter representing the Z position or you find that making a physical game piece that can represent those squares is awkward at best. Tall pieces become top-heavy and tip over too easily, stacks are a pain to manipulate as you change position, etc. It's a lot of difficulty added to the game pieces in exchange for very little additional gameplay depth.

Why is it very little additional gameplay depth? That seems to depend on the specific details of the game rather than what it represents or how it does so.

I would think that the smoothest approach would be to have 2 boards, and 2 models for each ship. Board 1 is a grid representing X and Y, board 2 is a grid representing Y and Z.

Vectors are easily made by giving the ships a speed in each direction, but complex to turn. I guess you could keep it simple by allowing a ship to increase or decrease speed in any direction by up to a total of X, with X being higher for more manoeuvrable ships. Adding an "Out of bounds" value to ships which fly off instead of killing them would make it less punishing. EG if you move off the edge of the board with speed 3 in that direction, instead of moving you gain 3 "out of bounds" tokens in that direction. A ship which is out of bounds can be targeted but cannot shoot. This would make it only detrimental to move out of bounds.

You could also make all the other ships move in the opposite direction to essentially move the combat airspace to accommodate the ships. Only once 2 ships go in opposite directions would "out of bounds" matter.

Further thinking in this - it only matters in space how far the ships are from each other - as such, if ship 1 flies 3 up and ship 2 flies 4 up, you simple add 1 altitude to ship 2. Exact altitude matters when there's a ground to smash into, but not so much in space.

This could also be incorporated into all dimensions - especially in a 1 vs 1, having the combat airspace defined as a 3'x3' board, and if you fly off the board, you are out of bounds. As long as you design it such that the ships only move relative to each other and not the board, it would work. It would be a little hard to grasp at first, I think, but it would be cool.

 some bloke wrote:
I would think that the smoothest approach would be to have 2 boards, and 2 models for each ship. Board 1 is a grid representing X and Y, board 2 is a grid representing Y and Z.

If that is the smoothest approach then I suspect many gamers might prefer a less gritty more abstracted one.

Nurglitch wrote:
Why is it very little additional gameplay depth? That seems to depend on the specific details of the game rather than what it represents or how it does so.

There's very little additional depth because directions in space are equivalent. Going from a 1d distance measurement to a 2d plane gives significant additional depth because it adds the ability to go around a ship/minefield/whatever without crossing through it. Going from a 2d plane to a 3d volume doesn't add much because there's very little difference between maneuvering around something in the horizontal plane and maneuvering around something in the vertical plane. Most of the time those vertical maneuvers can just be rotated 90* into the horizontal plane and play out the same way. Not every time, obviously, especially with multiple ships involved. But often enough that you're really getting diminishing returns on implementing something that is absolute hell to represent in a tabletop game.

Contrast this with air combat games, where adding the vertical dimension makes an immense difference because of how gravitational potential energy works. You aren't just representing a different direction, you're representing differences in available energy and therefore differences in what maneuvers you can execute, how much speed you can get, etc. A plane 3 units above an enemy is not equivalent to one 3 units to the left of an enemy, it has an energy advantage going into the fight and is much more likely to win (all else being equal).

 Peregrine wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:
Why is it very little additional gameplay depth? That seems to depend on the specific details of the game rather than what it represents or how it does so.

There's very little additional depth because directions in space are equivalent. Going from a 1d distance measurement to a 2d plane gives significant additional depth because it adds the ability to go around a ship/minefield/whatever without crossing through it. Going from a 2d plane to a 3d volume doesn't add much because there's very little difference between maneuvering around something in the horizontal plane and maneuvering around something in the vertical plane. Most of the time those vertical maneuvers can just be rotated 90* into the horizontal plane and play out the same way. Not every time, obviously, especially with multiple ships involved. But often enough that you're really getting diminishing returns on implementing something that is absolute hell to represent in a tabletop game.

Contrast this with air combat games, where adding the vertical dimension makes an immense difference because of how gravitational potential energy works. You aren't just representing a different direction, you're representing differences in available energy and therefore differences in what maneuvers you can execute, how much speed you can get, etc. A plane 3 units above an enemy is not equivalent to one 3 units to the left of an enemy, it has an energy advantage going into the fight and is much more likely to win (all else being equal).

Which raises the question as to what people think is being represented when stuff is in space. I've noticed, for example, that people seem to think there's no gravity in space. Even far away from a planet or moon you're going to be orbiting something, which is to say that even being still relative to some asteroids means you're following their orbit. India recently shot off a moon probe that will (A) take a month or three to get to the Moon, and (B) cost so much less than the Apollo missions because it is unmanned and so can take the slow-route of gradual expanding its orbit around the Earth rather than brute-forcing it more directly.

Which is a long-winded way of suggesting that maybe three dimensions is just as important for a space game as it is for an aeronautic game.

That depends whether you are near a system or in the void. If the nearest mass is a lightyear away, then the gravity from it is negligible compared to thrusters. Even a drifting hulk in space would only eventually drift towards the strongest gravitational source. For the timeframe of a space battle, it would be fair to ignore the gravity of distant stars.

Now, were you to do a larger-scale space game with stars and planets to negotiate, you would need to account for it.

The issue is that there isn't really an "up" in space. a ship won't gain anything by being "higher" than another ship, except that it has an angle of attack which the other ship may not be as effective at defending against.

I love the idea of ships flying in at all angles, but I can't see an easy way to accomplish it on a board game. I also can't see how it would be as necessary as in an aeronautic game (where you could crash into the ground, or stall). "up" and "down" are meaningless in space - the important factors would be:
your speed
enemy speed
your vector
enemy vector

all of which are compare to the enemy.

I do wonder if this is something which could be accomplished in a first-person style game, where each player has a "cockpit" board which is used to track the enemy ships and keep stats on your own. It would need some calculations to establish how to move enemy ship tokens, but the aim is to use your own movement and the enemy ships movement to line up your crosshairs. This way you lose the actual board, and replace it with a direction in which the enemy ships are, relative to each other. It's just a case of whittling the coordinate geometry and vector calculations down into an easy to play system. not an easy task, but perhaps not an impossible one.

Even in near orbit of a planet, it might not matter. In Star Wars, for example, single-seat fighters can make orbit in seconds. The thrust available is so high that the orbital mechanics are essentially negligible in comparison.

Sure, but Star Wars is just atmospheric fighters IN SPAAAAACE...

Since I have the old Aeronautica Impaerialis cards, I was thinking of using them in this game too. Here is a quick draft of what I was thinking for mechanics.



Choose Maneuvers
Both players simultaneously pick a unique Maneuver and jot it down on the HUD display for the model. These Maneuvers are kept secret until the model is activated to move.

Up and Down
In space, altitude doesn’t mean much. However, in many mediums you see mecha and aircraft coming from weird directions to the main battle and getting the drop on opponent vessels. To help simulate, this game has three simple levels called Alpha, Beta, and Gamma (A, B, G). It is fairly easy to move between these planes, but it does need to be tracked on the HUD which level you are in. It takes 1 movement (2”inches of movement) to move one level up or down, and you can change one level per point of thrust.


Alternate Movement Phase
Players trade off in the Movement Phase, the player with Initiative chooses who to move first and activates the model. Pilots with the highest pilot rating must move before pilots with a lower rating. Once movement is complete, the next player can choose a model to move.

When a model is chosen to move, do the following:
1. Choose to change thrust- Update the HUD with the new speed
2. Move a model as far as their speed rating with 2” equal one speed point
3. At any time, the model can choose to change altitude bands. 1 Band per Thrust rating of the model for 1 speed. Update the HUD with the new height and speed.
4. At any time, the model may rotate their facing 45 degrees per 1 Thrust rating, with no speed cost.
5. At any time, the model may rotate their direction 45 degrees per 1 Thrust rating, with no speed cost.
6. At any time, the model may play their maneuver card. Place the card at directional arrow of the base, and move the unit per the rules for the card, including the distance of the maneuver card.
7. Move the model 2” per Speed rating on their HUD until they have use all their movement.

Facing and Direction of Movement
Models will have a direction of movement, which is pointed out by an arrow on the base. The direction the arrow is pointing is the direction of movement. The Model also has a facing. The direction the model is facing is based on the “front” of the model. It is possible for a model to move a different direction than the model is facing.

I do not recall who mentioned it, but i think in play I will do the following:

Alpha Level- Flat to surface
Beta Level- 1 standard d6 dice under base
Gamma Level- 2 Standard d6 under the base

Players can replace the dice with other methods as they wish since the game is scale and model agnostic. Larger models may need different items.

A quick visual identifier instead of looking at the HUD all the time.

I've been giving this a lot of thought, recently.

The problem with Easy's "altitude bands" (I had six in Horizon Wars) is that it still assumes that ships are moving in a plane. It doesn't account for ships moving at an angle to the plane.

Some bloke's solution is clever and effective (and I'm kicking myself for not having thought of it myself) but, as warboss implies, it's going to limit the audience for the game to only the most mathematically-minded of players.

The question one always has to ask as a designer is "does this mechanic make the game more or less fun?". And, try as I might, I'm yet to find a way of accurately or even sent-accurately creating a three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional table.

I'm currently trying to incorporate some abstract sense of the *effects* of 3d space into a design predicated on 2d space.

Most of the time I just want an "approximation" of what a player expects from the genre and not a full simulation.

I made some paper templates up to give this game a try at some point.....the rules are all done.

However, it really needs some "brightening up" with good photos and the like too.

Same here. I want the flavor but it doesn't have to be full on simulation. There is a ruleset out there with full vector based 3d movement simulated and recorded with dice and arrows despite playing on a 2d plane but the little that I saw of it (youtube explanation videos... the ruleset iirc wasn't free to look through) made it seem more trouble than it's worth. I'm personally ok with stacking pegs for flights stands and simple bonuses for relative z distances.

This is something I've been ruminating over lately, so let me ask you what I've been asking myself:

Stepping back from the mechanics, what do you desire to be the outcome of using 'altitude' in a space environment?

I'm guessing (tell me if I'm wrong), that you're looking for a movement option that allows a unit to 'bounce' a target; To come from an unseen angle, diving down or zooming up from below, relative to the main action.

If my interpretation is correct, could that be simulated with a card or other token that could be played at the start of a unit's movement, allowing it to attempt a 'Bounce'?

This might permit the unit to be placed adjacent to its target, with the close-range benefit of its attack simulating the target's ignorance of the 'death from above/below' that is screaming toward them.

Tradeoff:
Maybe a unit has to perform a certain penalising action before it can attempt this 'Bounce', such as spending extra fuel (travelling greater distance at a tangent before the Bounce action) or maybe it must exit the table / disengage for a turn and can then Bounce on the following turn.

"What do you desire to be the outcome?"

This is, indeed, the biggest question. The only sensible answer is "for it to feel like a battle in SPACE as opposed to being in some two dimensional or narrow three dimensional environment.

For example, in a two dimensional environment, a maximum of three units can be equidistant from each other. In a narrow three dimensional environment, this becomes four units arranged in a tetrahedron, relative to the battlespace. In a fully three dimensional environment, the arrangement of this tetrahedron becomes relative not to the battlespace but to the other units in the battlespace.

I think some_bloke's solution really is the only possible tabletop-workable answer to this whilst, at the same time, being almost incomprehensible to 99% of potential players (myself included).

 precinctomega wrote:

I think some_bloke's solution really is the only possible tabletop-workable answer to this whilst, at the same time, being almost incomprehensible to 99% of potential players (myself included).

Even I'm clueless as to how exactly to implement it. Every time you or your opponent move, you would have to move the tracking chips around your HUD, but how far would depend on how far away they are, and how fast they are moving, and in what direction.

If I could simplify the maths then I think it could work. even now, the back of my mind ticks over this problem!

A good representation of 3d space on a 2d surface is definitely hard. And often will lead to either complicated math, or crazy gadgets to try to represent things.

Squadron Strike and Attack Force: Vector from Ad Astra games has done the closest approximation I've seen of this, but they are not "beer and pretzels" games for sure. They're up there with Starfleet Battles (more complex on some areas, less in others) on the complexity scale. (To be fair, SFB is one of my absolute favorite games, but I readily admit to being a hardcore nerd and that it is not for everyone.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, one of the main reasons, I think, to go with full 3d is not just to get various distances in, but more importantly orientation. It makes a difference in weapon and shield arcs, for example, if you're coming in from a dorsal angle rather than head-on. That's the hardest part to model, IMO, and the whole reason to add a 3rd dimension.