Space Fleet based wargame idea/concept.

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**BlapBlapBlap**

Yeah, like I said earlier, just pop-out slot together bits of card.

**Diogenesethedog**

Rainbow Dash wrote:
I offered some fluff to the OP and it wasn't quite to his liking so...I might try my own hand at a game, though I always hated writing rules...one day I'll find a use for this sci fi stories and such

Sorry for not replying. Busy. Hmm like your ideas but I dont want to steal them.

**Alfndrate**

Asking for advice is a good thing, but at the end of the day, if you don't make the type of game that you would want to play you're not going to enjoy making and you probably won't complete it. We've had plenty of people come in to Dakka Discussions and ask for help in building a wargame. We already know you're looking for people to help with it (see your locked thread), but you're not really providing Dakkanauts with anything of use here. The title of the tread is misleading, I came in here expecting to see an OP giving up ideas of your Space Fleet based wargame idea/concept, instead I see this:

Spoiler:

Which is not a bad OP when you're asking for community input, but the title of the thread doesn't reflect this. Perhaps edit the title to say, "Looking for Space Fleet Wargame Ideas and Concepts".

But that's just a title, and people can overlook that.

There are a few things to remember about building your own game/intellectual property on a free community forum such as DakkaDakka
1) You're the face of the company, whether you like it or not - which means that the way you act can impact your sales positively or negatively. Look at the "face" of Games Workshop, Tom Kirby (for the most part). What do we know about Thomas? Well he likes making money, he's been on record as stating that they're a miniatures company first, game company second, etc... etc... etc... ad infinitum ad nauseum. Next look at another large company like Privateer Press, who is their face? Kind of hard to say since the big players in the company tend to get interviewed once a week or so, and they're always showing you what they're working on. Then we go down to the smaller guys like Adam Poots (creator of Kingdom Death: Monster). Poots is on Dakka promoting his game, answering questions, and generally is a nice guy to talk to about his game.

This is not a personal attack, this is constructive criticism, and I'm saying this as an effort to help you improve. Your attitude on this website hasn't been the most stellar, and I can see why. You're asking for ideas, you're looking for team members, and you're just starting out with your game and you don't want anyone to steal what you've done. We all want to be protective about our ideas and what we create, there are laws in place to protect creators of works, the easiest and best way to get that protection? Release something with your name, with the name of the work, and release it to the world. Even if it's concept art, early alpha version of the rules, however you wish to do it. Because Say your email is Diogenesethedog@gmail.com, and I manage to crack your password, and get into your Google Drive and I see a document that says, "Space Fleet Astro Rules v1" and I download or copy that file. I tweak it, make it how I would make it, and release it to the world as, "Space Fleet Astro: A Naval Game in Space by Alfndrate". Unless you can prove that I broke into your gmail account, guess for the most part who owns that idea? Me. (Note: I believe I'm correct on this, but remember IANAL).

2) Release Something - This goes back to the idea of getting your work out there for protection's sake. If you release something to a small group of people to playtest and try your game, you can get feedback on it and improve it. Cyporiean from On the Lamb Games started a thread in the DCM forums and in this thread, she released very rough rules for their Endless Fantasy: Tactics game to the DCMs, asking us to play it, see what worked, what didn't work, etc... It was a 10 to 12 page document written up in word, nothing fancy, no art, nothing but rules. And several of us played the game, and gave our thoughts on it. She and miskatonicalum took those thoughts and feedback and looked at their game and made changes where the thought it was appropriate. Many of the people in these threads that are being "rude" aren't doing it to be rude, you're not giving us things to look at. I know BlapBlapBlap isn't your best friend right now, but I'm going to use his thread as an example of someone that is doing Game Creation on Dakka right, Necros (creator of Blackwater Gulch) is another good example of someone that created their game on Dakka. But if you look at blap's thread here, you'll see that he has a lot of information in his post. He has title art to set the tone, a large block of text to give background to his world, and then gives a bit of a Designer's Journal where he at least gives an update to what he's working on, and then attaches the rules and even a mission. He's openly asking for playtesters, and is building his game based on all of this information. It's one thing to ask people for help when you have nothing to show, but it's another thing entirely when you ask them for help and you hand them a product (doesn't have to be finished, but it has to be stable).

3) It's a Long Way to the Top if you Wanna Rock N' Roll - There are plenty of self-made game companies on Dakka, just search News and Rumors for them, all of them wanting to be the next big thing. How do you get there? Lots and lots of hard work. Adam Poots has plenty of work ahead of him in the next 9 months to get his game out and to his kickstarter backers, but it's work he has to do if he wants to be successful with this game. Necros has to manage his game, and keep creating characters and think of ways to keep the game play fresh and exciting. Cyporiean has to look at what is the next step for their two main games, Brushfire and Endless Fantasy. Just looking at Cyporiean, since she is the most transparent with her schedule, she's attending several conventions this year. Her company has gone to TempleCon and is going to a trade show in Vegas, AdeptiCon, GenCon, and the WarStore Weekend. Roughly 1 convention every 3 months (Feb through April is once a month). They're getting out there and getting their name known. If you don't think this is something that you can do for a while, keep working on the game, but just be prepared that this is something you will have to do down the road.

On a rules related note: If you wanted to incorporate 3d mechanics into your game, I would suggest looking at Alea tools, they used to make height markers for DnD 4E, idk if they still do this.

**Sean_OBrien**

ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
LordofRust wrote:
Personally?

Highly customisable fleets!

I know this would be extremely difficult to produce in practise, but stay with me;

1) Produce a series of template 'bodies' to your ships. Maybe each faction has a different design-style (curved, bulky, small but hordes, sharp edges, etc). This is just a bare frame, a base to start with, including only a few cosmetic details that the faction would use.

2) Now, across these bases, ensure there are certain 'joints' (maybe two or three styles; a slot, a square, and an orb). Make sure they're all well represented on each model.) Perhaps have an 'upgrade' slot and a 'cosmetic' slot.

3) Make seperate non-factional detail parts that fit inside the seperate joints. Weapons, defences, electronics, or even just fluffy 'filler' items.

4) Now when you sell a certain faction, the box will come with X faction bases, and X 'slot' upgrades, which are most relevant to that faction (all plasma turrets, or all laser turrets, or shield generators, or whatever) and X cosmetic pieces. Then, people can buy packs of 'upgrades' or packs of 'cosmetics' that suit their needs and desires. They can suit all ships up the same, or make each ship appear as a ramshackle fleet of drifters.

I, personally, think this would be cool as hell. Think; Dystopian Wars, but with more than just a few turrets and a shield generator. Difficult to implement, sure, but cool..

Fleets would, of course, be smaller in scale. More 'skirmish' space combat, but I think it would provide enough unique variation to grab peoples attention. They release upgrade parts that are 'similar but not quite' Star Wars or Star Trek or Firefly or whatever. Don't package them all together. People can build the Enterprise or a Star Destroyer expy, mixing and matching different parts and bases.

Ooooooh, this sounds cool! Do this, it would be absolutely awesome!

If you have a specific fluffy army for, say, the Zzurgash Confederation of Glabrilldons, you could buy the base of a ship and just mess around with the units!

I have it on my list of things to look at more closely...but haven't had time yet, but have you looked at No Frontiers?

http://wargamesunlimited.net/nofrontiers/index.html

They are the spaceship combat rules put out by the same group who do No Limits and No Quarter which are free form rules for science fiction and fantasy games. You have rules for calculating points values for each unit based on the abilities and equipment you want to give it. The same concept is carried over to No Frontiers. Granted - you still have to supply the miniatures themselves, but there are dozens of companies who do spaceships for miniature gaming.

**Diogenesethedog**

Alfndrate wrote:
Asking for advice is a good thing, but at the end of the day, if you don't make the type of game that you would want to play you're not going to enjoy making and you probably won't complete it. We've had plenty of people come in to Dakka Discussions and ask for help in building a wargame. We already know you're looking for people to help with it (see your locked thread), but you're not really providing Dakkanauts with anything of use here. The title of the tread is misleading, I came in here expecting to see an OP giving up ideas of your Space Fleet based wargame idea/concept, instead I see this:

Spoiler:

I'm thinking about a space fleet based miniature war game. I wanted to know what people thought.
So my questions are as follows what would you like to see as far as combat goes. How many ships would you like to field?
Would fighters / flyers be a part of the make up?
Would you like to see steam punk ships, energy ships, startrek like ships, battlefleet gothic type ships or mass effect style ships?
What scale would you like to see?
Faster then light travel, warp drive, folding space? what would make your ideal starship go?
How many weapons and upgrades would you like on a ship? Should they be exaggerated or tiny ? Would they be chemical or energy based?
Fleet based combat or Mother ship and fighters drones ect.
Races what would like to see?
Bulky armor like space marines or subtle ?
Do you think that trading, and diplomacy could fit into a miniature war game? i.e tokens, trading cards ect.
Dice format D20? Or D6.
Anyways let me know what you think.

Which is not a bad OP when you're asking for community input, but the title of the thread doesn't reflect this. Perhaps edit the title to say, "Looking for Space Fleet Wargame Ideas and Concepts".

But that's just a title, and people can overlook that.

There are a few things to remember about building your own game/intellectual property on a free community forum such as DakkaDakka
1) You're the face of the company, whether you like it or not - which means that the way you act can impact your sales positively or negatively. Look at the "face" of Games Workshop, Tom Kirby (for the most part). What do we know about Thomas? Well he likes making money, he's been on record as stating that they're a miniatures company first, game company second, etc... etc... etc... ad infinitum ad nauseum. Next look at another large company like Privateer Press, who is their face? Kind of hard to say since the big players in the company tend to get interviewed once a week or so, and they're always showing you what they're working on. Then we go down to the smaller guys like Adam Poots (creator of Kingdom Death: Monster). Poots is on Dakka promoting his game, answering questions, and generally is a nice guy to talk to about his game.

This is not a personal attack, this is constructive criticism, and I'm saying this as an effort to help you improve. Your attitude on this website hasn't been the most stellar, and I can see why. You're asking for ideas, you're looking for team members, and you're just starting out with your game and you don't want anyone to steal what you've done. We all want to be protective about our ideas and what we create, there are laws in place to protect creators of works, the easiest and best way to get that protection? Release something with your name, with the name of the work, and release it to the world. Even if it's concept art, early alpha version of the rules, however you wish to do it. Because Say your email is Diogenesethedog@gmail.com, and I manage to crack your password, and get into your Google Drive and I see a document that says, "Space Fleet Astro Rules v1" and I download or copy that file. I tweak it, make it how I would make it, and release it to the world as, "Space Fleet Astro: A Naval Game in Space by Alfndrate". Unless you can prove that I broke into your gmail account, guess for the most part who owns that idea? Me. (Note: I believe I'm correct on this, but remember IANAL).

2) Release Something - This goes back to the idea of getting your work out there for protection's sake. If you release something to a small group of people to playtest and try your game, you can get feedback on it and improve it. Cyporiean from On the Lamb Games started a thread in the DCM forums and in this thread, she released very rough rules for their Endless Fantasy: Tactics game to the DCMs, asking us to play it, see what worked, what didn't work, etc... It was a 10 to 12 page document written up in word, nothing fancy, no art, nothing but rules. And several of us played the game, and gave our thoughts on it. She and miskatonicalum took those thoughts and feedback and looked at their game and made changes where the thought it was appropriate. Many of the people in these threads that are being "rude" aren't doing it to be rude, you're not giving us things to look at. I know BlapBlapBlap isn't your best friend right now, but I'm going to use his thread as an example of someone that is doing Game Creation on Dakka right, Necros (creator of Blackwater Gulch) is another good example of someone that created their game on Dakka. But if you look at blap's thread here, you'll see that he has a lot of information in his post. He has title art to set the tone, a large block of text to give background to his world, and then gives a bit of a Designer's Journal where he at least gives an update to what he's working on, and then attaches the rules and even a mission. He's openly asking for playtesters, and is building his game based on all of this information. It's one thing to ask people for help when you have nothing to show, but it's another thing entirely when you ask them for help and you hand them a product (doesn't have to be finished, but it has to be stable).

3) It's a Long Way to the Top if you Wanna Rock N' Roll - There are plenty of self-made game companies on Dakka, just search News and Rumors for them, all of them wanting to be the next big thing. How do you get there? Lots and lots of hard work. Adam Poots has plenty of work ahead of him in the next 9 months to get his game out and to his kickstarter backers, but it's work he has to do if he wants to be successful with this game. Necros has to manage his game, and keep creating characters and think of ways to keep the game play fresh and exciting. Cyporiean has to look at what is the next step for their two main games, Brushfire and Endless Fantasy. Just looking at Cyporiean, since she is the most transparent with her schedule, she's attending several conventions this year. Her company has gone to TempleCon and is going to a trade show in Vegas, AdeptiCon, GenCon, and the WarStore Weekend. Roughly 1 convention every 3 months (Feb through April is once a month). They're getting out there and getting their name known. If you don't think this is something that you can do for a while, keep working on the game, but just be prepared that this is something you will have to do down the road.

On a rules related note: If you wanted to incorporate 3d mechanics into your game, I would suggest looking at Alea tools, they used to make height markers for DnD 4E, idk if they still do this.

Stop posting thanks.

I am not looking for advice and stick to the original topic.

This is not a personal attack I'm trying to get you people TO STOP!. You're sooo condescending that's a personal attack. So lay off. What's wrong with you?

Can anyone actually stay on topic.

**Alfndrate**

Glad you saw the part where I said, "which is not a bad OP" and the part where I said that your attitude to posters has been less than stellar, but ignoring all of that, and since I've yet to get a warning from the mods about my post, I'll keep posting.

Edit: I was on topic, my view on all of your questions was that you need to provide us with more before you can get valid feedback, sorry if I seem condescending to you, but I'm being honest. Like was said in your last thread which was locked due to rudeness, I'm trying to provide constructive criticism that can help you get the responses you want. But hey there must be something wrong with me, since your posts seem to be the only ones with any "valid" information in them.

What I'd like to see in a naval (i.e. ship combat) game? Well I'll answer your questions then, but I'm prefacing this again with the following: Make a game that YOU want to play, if it's a good system, you'll find people to play it.

Would fighters / flyers be a part of the make up?
Yes, even if they're nothing more that considered a type of weapon on a larger ship.

Would you like to see steam punk ships, energy ships, startrek like ships, battlefleet gothic type ships or mass effect style ships?
Really doesn't matter, if I wanted one of those specific types of aesthetics, I'd play a game that fits that aesthetic.

What scale would you like to see?
54mm? I'm unfamiliar with ship scale combat, if but I'm painting boats... I want the smallest models to be of decent size, yet something that will fit my foam trays. So... whatever makes them larger and more detailed than Firestorm Armada et al type games.

Faster then light travel, warp drive, folding space? what would make your ideal starship go?
Faster than Light shouldn't be in this, if you read any sci-fi books, battle doesn't take place at faster than light travel, same with warp drive (for the most part). I honestly don't think this worth looking at, battles take place at small intervals, and unless you write a campaign ruleset to take this into account, I don't think it's worth investigating.

How many weapons and upgrades would you like on a ship? Should they be exaggerated or tiny ? Would they be chemical or energy based?
4 at max, I think too many more and you're adding in more dice (assuming each weapon gets it's own die to roll), you could quickly be rolling Tyranid Horde in close Combat levels of dice rolls. Weapon type should vary based on race.

Fleet based combat or Mother ship and fighters drones ect.
Fleet

Races what would like to see?
Idk, I know next to nothing about your world, but humanity is a pretty safe assumption.

Bulky armor like space marines or subtle ?
Again, idk, you haven't given us any details for which to base our ideas off of.

Do you think that trading, and diplomacy could fit into a miniature war game? i.e tokens, trading cards ect.
Maybe, but again you would need to think this through. how prevalent would it be in your average pick up game. Is this a campaign idea? Or are we trying to play like Settlers of Catan in Space?

Dice format D20? Or D6.
Doesn't matter, d6s are better for those with lots of regular board games (Monopoly, Risk, etc...) but d20s are better for those coming from RPGs and games like Infinity or Dark Age. This all depends on you, because us as gamers know where to get dice if we need them.

**Riquende**

Alfndrate wrote:
Asking for advice is a good thing, but at the end of the day, if you don't make the type of game that you would want to play you're not going to enjoy making and you probably won't complete it. We've had plenty of people come in to Dakka Discussions and ask for help in building a wargame......

Exalted. This whole post is excellent advice, but it seems to be falling on deaf ears.

**BlapBlapBlap**

Riquende wrote:
Alfndrate wrote:
Asking for advice is a good thing, but at the end of the day, if you don't make the type of game that you would want to play you're not going to enjoy making and you probably won't complete it. We've had plenty of people come in to Dakka Discussions and ask for help in building a wargame......

Exalted. This whole post is excellent advice, but it seems to be falling on deaf ears.

Agreed.

**insaniak**

Diogenesethedog wrote:
Stop posting thanks.

I am not looking for advice and stick to the original topic.

This is not a personal attack I'm trying to get you people TO STOP!. You're sooo condescending that's a personal attack. So lay off. What's wrong with you?

Can anyone actually stay on topic.

So you want feedback, but only the feedback that you actually want to hear, and anything else is condescending and insulting?

I think we're done here.