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It might end up being fisherman syndrome (and it was 'this' big, holds hands wide apart) as they never actually say the sizes, just show them

but that's what the video suggests

Ugh, not sure I want giant ships. The FA ships seem a bit much already.

 Vertrucio wrote:
Ugh, not sure I want giant ships. The FA ships seem a bit much already.

I agree, BFG Big size ships were already on the limit, and casting quality has increased so more detail on smaller ships is possible

I found BFG to be ther perfect size in terms of assembly, painting and handling. Especially if they're plastic.



If it's smaller ships you want, check these out.

Well, remember Orlando posted that the ship shown at Salute would only be 1.5 inches long (although it is supposed to be the smallest "capital ship" for UCM, I believe). Still, the 12 inches could just be a one-off item or Beasts of War exaggerating, etc.

If the models for the normal DzC game are any indication, I Really doubt these will be oversized. Yes, there are a few massive models in the DzC line now, but most are small or medium sized (maybe too much so). Even some of the larger models can be very "delicate" in some ways (like the Shaltari dropships).

So, I'm not worried about a giant hunk of resin, personally! They also charge a bit more than their competition and if they made ships the same size on average as Firestorm Armada, the price comparison would not go favorably for Hawk Wargames. I'm expecting smaller average ships than Firestorm Armada... maybe even significantly so.

If everyone wants truly sci-fi ship combat, they should freak out and go hard-core and not only have Newtonian Movement, but also have relativistic time-frames on their combat! Now that would be a brain hemorrhage, lol.

Ok. My fleet is 15 light-minutes distant. So my opponents ships are actually just appearing where they were 15 minutes ago. So after running some computed predictions I fire my weapons, and in 30 minutes (15 out, 15 back) my cameras will be seeing if the munitions hit where I predicted the targets would be, and then I can adjust accordingly................

Unfortunately most of that time I could not see if they have fired at me from where they "really" are until that visual light gets to me......

Urk. *drops dead*

 AegisGrimm wrote:
If everyone wants truly sci-fi ship combat, they should freak out and go hard-core and not only have Newtonian Movement, but also have relativistic time-frames on their combat! Now that would be a brain hemorrhage, lol.

Ok. My fleet is 15 light-minutes distant. So my opponents ships are actually just appearing where they were 15 minutes ago. So after running some computed predictions I fire my weapons, and in 30 minutes (15 out, 15 back) my cameras will be seeing if the munitions hit where I predicted the targets would be, and then I can adjust accordingly................

Unfortunately most of that time I could not see if they have fired at me from where they "really" are until that visual light gets to me......

Urk. *drops dead*

Actually, I've got an idea how you could implement such a ruleset in an easy to manage manner.

^ I actually have played a home-brew set of rules based on C.J. Cherryh's Company Wars where exactly what you're describing is used.. the opponent doesn't see the actual positions of the ships until the light/em waves reach them, it's quite an interesting mechanic that allows FTL movement to pull off some interesting surprise attacks.

Culture novels hand-wave that aspect away by stating that skids across inter-universe energy field can be detected, but still allow for subterfuge with a ship being able to pretend it is somewhere that it isn't.

Would love to see that universe depicted on the tabletop somehow, entire battles conducted in milliseconds at distances of light years. Annihilating solar systems is considered something ridiculously easy that any rusty old demilitarised tug can do.

Plus, naming the ships alone would be heaps of fun.

I have to admit though that I am a big fan of the "Lost Fleet" series by Jack Campbell.

Where you jump into a system, see an enormous fleet where it was several hours ago, and as a commander you know you're going to be in a big battle in three day's time. Or where you know that after maneuvering to engage, you are going to have a three-second fight in about three hours time as each fleet passes the other at one-tenth the speed of light.

So....take a nap?

@AegisGrimm

I enjoy the combat in the "Lost Fleet" series too.

@Thread

Still want more info!!!

Yes. More info about cool space game that will have awesome resin ships, if DZC is a measurement.

At this stage they are still evaluating ideas for possible features, so for instance if you particularly want to see lightspeed information restriction involved, you should send in your requests to Hawk Games.

A "The Culture" style of game could be cool, but it doesn't fit the Dropship background.

I've been thinking about ideas myself, but I haven't got farther than working out some basic principles about game factors.

I do think there is a gap in the market for a game like Star Fleet Battles, with powerful, fast-moving, flexible ships fighting a highly manoeuvrable kind of combat. You might say we already have SFB for that, but it's very complicated and hard to play with more than a few ships per side. I would like to see Andy Chambers work out an elegant system to make such a game faster to play.

Woo, I registered just to talk about this game...

I am quite interested in a new and high quality space combat game and Dropzone commander's miniature production seems very good for that. At the same time, I agree with those who are looking for something different from Battleship Gothic (and perhaps Firestorm Armada?).

It seems to me that the current flavor of large spaceship games has too strong of a broadside battleship vibe. The emphasis seems to be on slow maneuvering to unleash fixed batteries against hostile warships.

Instead of making another refinement of the BFG base, I'd be very interested if Andy Chambers / Hawk Wargames moved towards something which felt more modern. Instead of broadsides, how about a focus on 'combat systems' and long range fast missile barrages combined with short range gun batteries?

One idea I've been thinking about is this: Heavy ships could have Alpha Strike tokens, which are expended to deliver a powerful long range punch, think a limited magazine of VLS tubes. Then a gameplay would shift from aligning batters to maneuvering to deliver or avoid powerful missile strikes. Here, light vessels serve to screen the heavier warships against missile boats or try to dart ahead themselves to clear the way for a powerful strike.

More generally, it'd be nice if a significant fraction of the gameplay revolved around something other than Fleet Battles.

Thanks for registering, DrRansom, and those are some cool ideas! I'm going to email them and point them to this thread, maybe they'll give us more of a tease (or at least see how popular the idea of this game is!)

RiTides, you're welcome.

I thought of a better way of describing what I'd like to see: Kirov / Slava style battlecruisers, escorted by missile ships, after Type 42 destroyers, fighting each other. Lighter ships, like light missile boats or heavy Sovrenemmy destroyers dart ahead to clear the way. Add some moderate carrier combat with minimal missile armament on attack aircraft and spinal mount weapons.

This might produce a decisive shift from past space games, instead of following after BFG.

In Starfire II or III, "capital ship" missiles were introduced, which gave a long range firing capability, something like what you describe.

Over the decades, Starfire has suffered massive rules bloat, so a new game that returns to the simpler roots would be welcome.

Well, count me in. I don't play Dropzone Commander (yet), but I loved the hell out of BFG and especially Andy's willingness to come on our mailing list and talk about it, answer questions, let people playtest rules... So I'm excited to see what he does next.

GW dropping BFG was a huge mistake, IMO. I know of plenty of people who love BFG and lots of people who talk about how they'd love to play it, but they can't because it's OOP now. It was a pretty fun game overall. Sure, the Necrons needed to be fixed, but overall it was good. I loved the torpedo rules, I'd take torpedo-carrying destroyers (Cobras, woot) and cruisers and just use spreads of torpedoes to funnel my opponents where I wanted them to go.


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DrRansom wrote:
It seems to me that the current flavor of large spaceship games has too strong of a broadside battleship vibe. The emphasis seems to be on slow maneuvering to unleash fixed batteries against hostile warships.

One of the things that always got me about the Star Destroyers in Star Wars is how perfectly they're designed for space combat. Sure, they're vulnerable in the rear, but their design means they can bring a lot of their guns to bear forward, to either side, above, and below the ship, especially the VSD, ISD, and, to a lesser extent, SSD (the SSDs did have a slightly less effective design, but I guess it doesn't matter when you're a five-mile-long ship with hundreds of guns carrying a ridiculous number of attack craft).

I don't know if Lucas was considering that when he made them, but they are seriously a great design.

I was looking for it earlier, but couldn't find it, we still talking next spring or fall?

I'm really excited for news on this. I have been very tempted by firestorm armada but I will hold off for more info on this game.

Josey- there hasn't been a lot of news on timeline. I personally am not expecting it to hit until sometime in 2015, although hopefully we'll get a lot more teasers as this year progresses!

I'm deffo interested in this, would love to see the aesthetic of the PHR ships

 Kilkrazy wrote:
In Starfire II or III, "capital ship" missiles were introduced, which gave a long range firing capability, something like what you describe.

Over the decades, Starfire has suffered massive rules bloat, so a new game that returns to the simpler roots would be welcome.

It was Starfire III, when David Weber started writing for them. You can see the Starfire influence on his Honorverse series, although it gets more elaborate that it did in Starfire.

As for the missile range race in Starfire, Starfire III introduced the capital ship missile, and if IIRC, the current edition of the empire building rules introduce the triple ranged SBM (strategic bombardment missile). Not that accurate compared to the earlier generation missiles, but if your fleet has them and the enemy doesn't, you can bleed them risk-free as they try to force an engagement within their range envelope. Currently David Weber is doing the same thing in the Honorverse series with longer and longer ranged missiles. And of course he's introduced carrier warfare as well.

Re: Starfire rules creep: Full agreement. The original designer's intent was to have a sci-fi fleet battle game that could be played on one's lunch break. David Weber joining them gave the game a good shake-up and added a strategic level. But rules became complex and "busy". Have fond memories of the system, and was given the most recent David Weber version of the rules as a gift, but damn, the game drags now!

@DrRansom: You've brought up good points. Yes, this proposed Hawk Wargames fleet battle game needs to break away from the current cliche of "Age of Sail" ships in space (fixed broadside batteries, crossing the "T").

While I'm mostly interested in DzC at the moment, I'm hoping that one can combined the planetary rules with the space rules for a complete planetary invasion. Engage the enemy, get control of the orbitals, then drop troops and material to take the real estate. Probably have to play it in stages, but it would be quite the gaming experience!

A plastic kickstarter or preorder set would be guaranteed sales in my club.

I will always adore 2nd edition star fire. So clean, so cool, so many possibilities. I agree that the later version is a monstrosity. It is pretty cool that David Webber was involved in the game - I didn't realize it. Sherri S. Tepper also seems to have written some of her books under the Starfire influence I think.

So yeah, I want small ships, clean rules and some interesting "Hard Sci Fi" elements. This a universe with cherry picker turrets for crying out loud!

David Webber wrote the Star Fire III: Empires rulebook, which is the strategic campaign system.

I dug out and re-read my original Star Fire books recently. The rules still stand up as a really good playable game that has only a few minor niggles (largely corrected in 2nd edition, I believe.)

 Lobukia wrote:
A plastic kickstarter or preorder set would be guaranteed sales in my club.

Hawk don't do Kickstarters, so probably resin and metal. /:

I would be playing DZC right now if only they had more sprues out for it.

They could raise the money for a complete hard plastic range in an instant on KS, $1m+ easy for a well-supported existing game with brilliant rules and sculpts that are already 100% done, painted and looking great.

And with sprues already on the market to see that the quality of tooling is there too in that material.

From there it would just be a matter of making the digital renders suitable for tooling, which is again, something which they have experience with.

That's the problem of being effectively just one person doing everything.

 scarletsquig wrote:

 Lobukia wrote:
A plastic kickstarter or preorder set would be guaranteed sales in my club.

Hawk don't do Kickstarters, so probably resin and metal. /:

I would be playing DZC right now if only they had more sprues out for it.

They could raise the money for a complete hard plastic range in an instant on KS, $1m+ easy for a well-supported existing game with brilliant rules and sculpts that are already 100% done, painted and looking great.

And with sprues already on the market to see that the quality of tooling is there too in that material.

From there it would just be a matter of making the digital renders suitable for tooling, which is again, something which they have experience with.

Again, I have to agree. DZC would have a much bigger following around my area if not for the material and generally high expense. I know of many folk who want to play the game, and appreciate the models, but getting tipped into the "no" column because of the investment.

A plastic game, right out of the gates, filling this niche in our hobby, on Kickstarter, with the names involved... would easily bring in a million bucks plus. I know my group and I would easily account for a few thousand of that.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Hawk don't do Kickstarters, so probably resin and metal. /:

I would be playing DZC right now if only they had more sprues out for it.

While admittedly my experience is limited only to the couple of blisters I've assembled, their resin is *very* easy to clean up and has alot less cleanup needed than you'd be used to with the Mantic resin and PVC offerings in case that is what is discouraging you.


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NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:

Again, I have to agree. DZC would have a much bigger following around my area if not for the material and generally high expense. I know of many folk who want to play the game, and appreciate the models, but getting tipped into the "no" column because of the investment.

A plastic game, right out of the gates, filling this niche in our hobby, on Kickstarter, with the names involved... would easily bring in a million bucks plus. I know my group and I would easily account for a few thousand of that.

I can't speak for anyone else but what is stopping me is that I only like the look of a single faction (UCM). If they had another faction that I visually was drawn too then I'd at least buy the starter, sell the scourge, and get that second faction. I'm not a fan of the upcoming (or did they already arrive) rebels so I'll have to wait and see for the next one or even this spaceship game.

If the rules are good you can use one of the many excellent ranges of spaceship models on the market instead.