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Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Denison, Iowa

The talk of Battlefleet Heresy as a rerelease of BFG has gotten me thinking about an idea for a new kind of spaceship battle game. This would be to BFE as Inquisitor was to 40k, a larger scaled and more in-depth game possibly with a DM.


Instead of a fleet you would be given only a single capital ship (I imagine something about as big as a current 40k flier) or two smaller ships, depending on tastes and race being used. You could still launch ordinance and torpedoes (tracking them as they move), and fighter wings and bombers would be controlled separately. Possibly even a mine-laying option.

As for the models, I'd like to see them be modular with differing degrees of customization. Kind of little slots you could plug in your options for the battle. You'd have to plan for what you expected. Extra engines for more speed, turning thrusters for more maneuverability, torpedo launchers for anti-capital ship duty, shield generators for extra protection, flak batteries for anti-fighter protection, and hangars for more of your own aircraft. The catch being you only have enough space to fit so many things. What do you pass over? What do you splurge on? Is a more rounded approach the best, or is it an all or nothing gamble?


I'm thinking of coming up with some test rules and seeing if this is even a workable idea. Would anyone else find this kind of game interesting?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/03/19 22:44:57


 
   
Made in gb
Auspicious Skink Shaman




Louth, Ireland

You'd need to be very careful with balance otherwise it becomes about the builds and paper scissors rock

 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Denison, Iowa

Yeah, I considered that. I figure that if you start far enough away from each other that having time to launch fighter and bombers and lay out mines might would be tactical enough to counter some of that. Unless you are fighting in empty space that the first turn or two would be mostly about getting to the right spot and prepping for battle.
   
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Madrak Ironhide







I think you could make it a co-op game where victory is
determined by the fastest to reach a certain victory condition
as opposed to a head to head duel.

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Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Myrtle Creek, OR

Starfleet Battles Gothic?
Is that kind of what you're going for?

Thread Slayer 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Denison, Iowa

The feel that I am going for is more along the lines of the plot of a Star Trek TNG episode. Lone ship encountering an unexpected enemy kind of scenario.
   
Made in de
Witch Hunter in the Shadows



Aachen

AeroTech might be a source of inspiration you could use for that. It's designed for multiple capital ships and includes fighters, too, but with a very high detail level - many weapon batteries, multiple facings and so on. On a fleet scale it's sluggish, but I'd say there's a lot of potential for a single-ship system. You'll probably want to throw away the fighter system though, as they're individual ships of their own IIRC.
I'm pretty sure there're construction rules for ships, too.
   
Made in us
Utilizing Careful Highlighting





There are construction rules, can't remember which specific book for the current ones, BattleSpace and Areotech 2 are older editions though, and have build rules in them. Biggest issue with fighters is there is a squadron system for them, but they get...really excessively silly from everything I've heard when used in squadrons, especially with customs allowed. Classic FASA problem of poor stock designs due to legacy issues and rule of cool/designing to match the art plus frequently iffy balance.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Denison, Iowa

Well, I could just use the Areotech rules as a starting point and omit the needlessly complicated stuff.

If I start off with a "basic" design for one ship (likely a human kind) then I can add in other races after that with common modifiers across the board for all ships and fighters. Like all race X units gain +1 movement, +1 turning, and -2 armor. Race Z gains the ability to repair one system automatically per turn at the cost of firing a main weapon.

Ideally I'd like to make this generic enough so that you could build your own ship, or even recreate your favorites. Want to have a Stargate H'tak fight the Enterprise, that can be done. Want to fight the Galactica against the a Babylon 5 Hyperion, that can be done too.

One of the Mechanics I want to build into the game is energy use. You could, hypothetically, have a ship with only enough power to move forward, or stop, or turn, or fire an energy weapon, or raise shields, but likely you'd want to use up some of your space to have a larger reactor core to do multiple of those things per turn. As they get damaged it will hamper your ability to power things.

When it comes to bombers I think I want their damage output capped, and even more so for fighters. They should be able to be annoying, damaging major systems or destroying minor systems, but not being able to throw a knock-out punch by themselves.

Classes of weapons I am thinking of incorporating:
Energy beams Wide arcs of fire, easy to aim
Torpedoes/missiles: (deadly to anything, but hard to aim)
Flak batteries: (deadly to fighters, minor annoyance to capital ships) but could be used as mobile cover
Kenetic energy weapons (railguns): multi-use, but short ranged
Mines: able to randomly drift, can friendly fire if not careful, extremely damaging.
Fighter/bomber bays: able to launch independent weapons platforms that can inflict moderate damage.
Reinforced prow: Harder to damage from the front arc, and improves ability to ram other ships.

Support systems:
Stealth/cloaking device: Unable to be fired on past a certain range, but can not be used in conjunction with shields
Bow thrusters: increases turning speeds at the cost of energy reserves
Damage control and repair crews: small chance of self-repair
Shields: Will auto-tank hits before going down
Hull armor: increases survivability at the cost of mobility

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/03/21 03:30:42


 
   
Made in us
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Lincolnton, N.C.

Not a miniatures game, but sounds like you'd enjoy Hull Breach.

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Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut





Wishing I was back at the South Atlantic, closer to ice than the sun

Tbh itsounds as if your trying to create a board game version of EVE.

IIRC they operate on a similar system of hulls providing a limited number of slots for weapons / power / armour etc.

I'd suggest trying to find one of the online manuals for inspiration.

Cheers

Andrew

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This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/03/21 08:19:51


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Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






New Orleans, LA

Have you played Starfleet Battles, Cuda?

http://www.starfleetgames.com/


 malfred wrote:
I think you could make it a co-op game where victory is
determined by the fastest to reach a certain victory condition
as opposed to a head to head duel.


Dude. The captain is dead. This game is hard as feth, but fun as hell.


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Made in it
Reliable Krootox






Sounds intriguing, I love a good space battle game. Got wrapped up in helping develop a PC one a couple of years back (never left the theoretical/paper stage unfortunately, but was fun to thrash ideas out).

Maybe swap the capabilities of missiles and railguns?

Railguns, come in various sizes from keel launchers that fire SUV sized slugs down to anti-missile versions. hard to aim (varies) , but v. effective (high penetration?). Range technically unlimited, but the longer the range the harder it is to hit your target (if they're changing course a lot).

Missiles/torpedoes, slower moving than railguns slugs (tracked with markers?) but can change course, play dead, deploy submunitions and do all manner of malicious shenanigans. Vulnerable to flak, point defence ecm and effector type things.

I guess a lot will depend on how much future space magic you want your baseline game to have. It might be difficult to get straight rules when you're trying to include systems and technology from wildly divergent and often pretty incompatible settings.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Denison, Iowa

I am considering the possibilities of firing arcs for many of the weapons. While I think that certain weapons systems like Flak, and short ranged kinetic interceptors (machine guns basically) should have 360 degree firing arcs, the larger weapons should be more limited. Torpedoes should be, at most, a 45 degree arc of fire.

I think I'll need a chart that can show what systems can go where. For instance, I would like torpedoes to be devastating (although able to be intercepted by Flak). The problem is that I don't think any ship should be able to just go strait at the enemy dumping dozens of the things out per turn out the front. Maybe limiting the front of the ship to two weapons mounts. The sides could be a different story though. The thought of spaceships giving a broadside of torpedoes makes me smile.
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





My favorite FFG Star Wars game is Epic X-Wing with a single huge base on each side. I've thought it would be interesting to have a fighter based game with each squad being lead by a single capital ship, sort of like Warmachine if your caster was a colossal.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




Maryland

Sounds like Freejumper.

   
Made in it
Reliable Krootox






Maybe take a look at Attack Vector?

That's based around big ship on big ship action with a firm eye on realism.

Would you be thinking of going the full bigrod 360° combat, or something more tabletop?
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




Star Fleet Battles gets my vote as a pretty much fully fleshed out system with a massive library of ships and systems, ground combat etc.

Attack Vector Tactical looks amazing, if it was available in the UK I'd likely have it.

If you want to make your own stuff have a look at the various incarnations of Traveller, has a full ship design system and enough physics to adapt to other systems for vectored movement.


Comes down to how much detail you want really, SFB with a cruiser duel (how it started and how its best balanced) can be an amazing game, has gunboats, fighters, hanger bays, missiles, plasma weapons, mines, gravity waves, space monsters! and while stand up fights are the mainstay there is also a huge library of missions
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





Star Fleet Battles is a magnificent game for single-ship duels and small squadrons and I LOVE playing it.

Just... don't plan on doing much else that day. It can really bog down with all the myriad details you have to keep track of, especially when using the optional rules and/or multiple ships.

The tournament rules, on the other hand, are both well balanced and reasonably quick to play. Down side is, it only works for cruiser duels.

Aerotech works well for the background. Yes, fighters are nasty because that's how the background material described them; a squadron of fighters (6) could take on most dropships (the sublight craft that gets you from the not-at-all-maneuverable starship to the inner system) as a fair fight. And the starships (called jumpships, because they would 'jump' - basically teleport - from one star system to another) were pretty much nothing more than a jump drive (95% of the ship by mass) and a minimal amount of other stuff. Not much room left for weapons, armor, and the like.

So, yeah. Fighters in that background are going to be pretty nasty.

If you take the fighters and fighter-grade weapons out, and only keep the capital ship weaponry, the game becomes all about the ships and not about who brought the most fighters.


Another game that does starship combat quite well, if you can find it, is Renegade Legion: Leviathan. Prior to X-Wing, we found it to be the best game for simulating Star Wars-style starship battles, and worked up house rules for it.

(Fighters are useful in this game, but probably a bit weak for proper SW battle... especially after seeing Rogue One and a single squadron of Y-Wings disable an ISD).

One caveat: the rules do not prohibit putting the heaviest possible missile batteries (usually intended for battleships) on destroyers or frigates. Do not allow it, ESPECIALLY for single-ship or small squadron duels. These missile batteries annihilate destroyers and frigates in one shot, period; even antimissile defenses will not save you. So... save them for battleships, and full battle squadron actions. They'll still crush the small ships like popcorn... but then you're not firing them at HIS battleship.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/03/21 23:45:42


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The Dog-house

Wasn't there a Star Trek game like this? You predict where the enemy is going and pursue him?

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Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut





Wishing I was back at the South Atlantic, closer to ice than the sun

leopard wrote:

If you want to make your own stuff have a look at the various incarnations of Traveller, has a full ship design system and enough physics to adapt to other systems for vectored movement.


Are you talking about Trillion Credit Squadron or Mayday?

Cheers

Andrew

I don't care what the flag says, I'm SCOTTISH!!!

Best definition of the word Battleship?
Mr Nobody wrote:
Does a canoe with a machine gun count?
 
   
Made in us
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MN (Currently in WY)

Space Alert is a fun multi-player cooperative game where the "enemy" is one of a handful of pre-recorded messages on a disk. The players have to work together to functiont he ship and deal with each threat as it emerges.

That was a fun game.

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Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




Everyone says SFB bogs down, must have been doing something wrong as five/six/seven way duels with single ships and small squadrons of two/three per player were routine as lunchtime games at college.

Leave out mines and most of the book keeping becomes very simple, you just have one bit of A4 to move down the impulse chart like a ruler, mark on it each ships current speed, drone speeds and note when something is launched when it will vanish then whoever is controlling keeps track.

Going full fleet against a starbase etc, yes thats an all day job.

Could be worse, could be Federation & Empire.. which takes some 3-4 hours just to set up..

Trillion Credit Squadron was ok, the Old Islands campaign system especially, but was more thinking MegaTraveller, specifically with Hard Times and COACC added for the expanded craft design sequence.

Needs something a bit like Brilliant Lances (not a bad game either) as the MT combat system was a bit rubbish to say the least, Battle Rider was amusing as a fleet game and had the best scenario system I've ever seen (designed around asymmetric battles).

Fun bit is instead of points you get $$$ to build your ship or fleet, maybe chuck in a max Tech Level and go for it with who can optimise what.

True geeks game
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka






Star Fleet Battles is as old school as you can get with your clothes on...

Your best bet is to play BFG with the RPG injected into the noncombat times and adventures. Black Crusade has an excellent ship to branch out from, and RT or the other games from the Imperial side have excellent choices to go from.

Try injecting BFG in for the ship combat, and the tabletop/ rpg in for the adventures, ALA Star Trek, the MMO.



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Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





IMO, based on others' comments, it seems like this niche is fairly well covered.

One thing that I've talked about in the shop is how cool it would be if there were a "dnd, but with ships" type game... basically, you'd be playing as a captain, with a small fleet (each PC being a single ship) and conduct basically RPG type games, with ships instead of people.

I think it could cover your bases for desired customization (as I've found no two people ever really want to build the same ship, unless there are in-game metas, as in STO and the like)
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
IMO, based on others' comments, it seems like this niche is fairly well covered.

One thing that I've talked about in the shop is how cool it would be if there were a "dnd, but with ships" type game... basically, you'd be playing as a captain, with a small fleet (each PC being a single ship) and conduct basically RPG type games, with ships instead of people.

I think it could cover your bases for desired customization (as I've found no two people ever really want to build the same ship, unless there are in-game metas, as in STO and the like)


Traveller/MegaTraveller is a role play game with a star ship system attached
   
 
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