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 AndrewGPaul wrote:

Are you aware of the Full Thrust-based ship combat rules in the Bablyon Project RPG Earth Force Supplement? Probably hard to get hold of now, a quarter of a century later but it's kinda done the work for you, at least for the "real" B5 ships that were part of the show. I recall that it introduced a couple of new systems that might have made it into some of the playtest rules on Star-Ranger.com - multiple thrust icons rather than a single drive, and a system icon that acted as a central capacitor/battery for multople beam systems. The big fore and aft lasers on the EA destroyers used that.

I never really bothered worrying about 3d movement - it's not as important in space combat as in air combat, as the altitude/speed playoff isn't there. I've tried it a couple of times using the old Jovian Combat RPG rules and the complexity didn't seem to be worth the effort. Leave that for TIE Fighter or Homeworld, I think.

I wasn't aware that there was an official FT based supplement for B5 though I did discover a fan made one that gave me the idea to tinker with something similar. I'll have to see if I can track this one down.

As for 3d movement, I have the old JC rpg as well as the spin-off tactical game but don't recall the specifics of the 3d movement other than a "bubble" like an electron cloud for mech position in the latter. I don't know if you're aware but the recently discontinued BSG game had simplified quasi 3D movement as well and the rules pdf was available for free download.

Yeah, I played in an event at UKGE 2018, and picked up the game. I'm still not convinced that the mental overhead of an additional system to move up or down, along with the difficulty in visualising it, adds enough to be worth it, but YMMV.

IIRC, Lightning Strike was a fleet-level game, as opposed to the focus on individual exos in the RPG. The latter was more interesting to me, so I never bothered with Lightning Strike much.

Lightning Strike wasn't 3D. It was pure 2D, though it did have the circles (as opposed to spheres) described above for the exo-armors (the setting's mecha).

Everything else moved in a more conventional manner, though.



I've got a bunch of the Jovian Chronicles RPG stuff still sitting on a shelf, though I never played the space combat component. But what I heard from others back in the day (specifically, members of the Jovian Chronicles Yahoo Group) was that it was a painful mess that tended to spiral into massive amounts of number-crunching real fast due to the need to track thrust in three dimensions. The need for a combat system that didn't make eyes glaze over was one of the primary reasons why Dream Pod 9 released Lightning Strike.

The Jovian Chronicles Beta rules I got my hands on was all 2D.

From what I could tell, the biggest innovation was how fleets deployed. They did not do it all at once, but in various follow-on turns and in waves.

Maybe not very innovative anymore.....

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Yeah, I played in an event at UKGE 2018, and picked up the game. I'm still not convinced that the mental overhead of an additional system to move up or down, along with the difficulty in visualising it, adds enough to be worth it, but YMMV.

How much mental overhead was there in the BSG game for a quasi 3rd dimension? Where the special bases necessary for it or could you just wing it with a d4 or d6?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Have there been any new or upcoming STAW ships in the last year?

Yes.
New Starter Set (Federation vs. Klingon)
Romulan Faction Pack
Dominion Faction Pack
Ferengi Faction Pack
Independents Faction Pack
Mirror Universe Faction Pack
Animated Series Faction Pack
Borg Faction Pack
Vulcan Faction Pack

May 2021 is a new Federation Faction set and Klingon Faction set.

Each faction pack has four "new" ships- typically reprints of an older ship with new abilities or point costs. They also have new captain, crew, tech, and weapon cards. It has been very surprising the amount of new stuff WizKids has been releasing for this "dead" game. The new stuff has had a lot better quality control and game balance. Even the ships quality and paint jobs have improved.

For most of the repaints I've seen, it looks like they mainly swapped the base colors for metallics. Have I just seen a strange selection of releases or is that across the board?

No I think you got the right of it, mostly metallic repaints or slight color alterations (slightly different shades of grey/green/blue, etc.) Nothing really to write home about. Its okay if you're mainly into chasing cards/game content, but if you're looking for new sculpts and the like the releases don't have much to offer.

I could see that and thanks also for the clarification. The metallics generally turn me off personally so I haven't been paying to close attention as that's what I mainly have seen. Also, autocorrect must be drunk today and I had to edit multiple words that post that were actually correct. How it decides "or is" should be unilaterally changed to "of us" is beyond me, lol.

Oh yeah, the ships are pretty much all the same, just metallic paint jobs. The details are a little better though, and it looks like the painters actually used a wash on them to give the models some depth. WizKids has released the "Deep Cuts" models of the ship- more detailed and primered ships you can paint however you want. I've repainted a couple of my own ships, and the deep cuts. New sculpts though? Yeah, I don't think that's gonna happen anytime soon. When I said new ships, I meant same old ship with new stats and/or abilities.

What frustrates a lot of players is Wizkids stubborn refusal to reprint old ships (Like Defiant, Voyager, Scimitar, Valdore, Enterprise D... ships with some FANTASTIC abilities and cards), or more I should say, reprint the cards. I really don't want to buy more ships. I want more CARDS. They could breath some serious new life into this game if they just released "Faction Decks" of cards instead of ships. Or heck, I'd buy "Faction Booster Packs" with Common, Uncommon, and Rare cards.

Is it a "fun" game? It can be. I like playing it as a "Beer and Pretzels" game. What I don't like is playing against competitive players. I have stories... so many stories.

Thanks. I know they've covered alot in the official trek canon ship lineup already but I think that new sculpts/designs mixed in with the repaints seems like it would generate the most interest in addition to what they're already doing according to your post.

 Easy E wrote:
The Jovian Chronicles Beta rules I got my hands on was all 2D.

From what I could tell, the biggest innovation was how fleets deployed. They did not do it all at once, but in various follow-on turns and in waves.

Maybe not very innovative anymore.....

Sounds like a more recent thing. My stuff is the old White Book JC RPG, and the Lightning Strike rules set that came out late in that game's life.

I've also got the original Mekton adventures...

I know at least one (possibly both) got a 2nd edition during that time as well to further clutter the collections because rebooting editions every 2-3 years was a staple DP9 thing back then, lol.

 warboss wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Yeah, I played in an event at UKGE 2018, and picked up the game. I'm still not convinced that the mental overhead of an additional system to move up or down, along with the difficulty in visualising it, adds enough to be worth it, but YMMV.

How much mental overhead was there in the BSG game for a quasi 3rd dimension? Where the special bases necessary for it or could you just wing it with a d4 or d6?

To be honest, it's not too bad. There's only 4 altitude levels, and there's a slider on each ship's control panel to indicate that. There's another slider marked -1, 0, +1, and you set that when plotting your movement to indicate you're changing altitude (-1 is down, +1 is up, 0 is no change), which adds some effects to that turn's movement (you can only move straight, and you skip your first movement card (of two) to represent the movement in the vertical rather than horizontal direction. There's a special, short range rule for measuring ranges across one altitude level, and you can't fire at all across two or more.

YMMV, but to me that adds a lot of complication for little benefit. The altitude rules in Wings of Glory are similar, but of more use there because of the dynamics of air combat (and even then, I never really used them because it was hard enough to line up a shot when everyone was on the same level!).

You could crib the rules into something else by using a D4 next to the planes, but the mechanics of the BSG game are so tied into the playing aids - the control panels, the movement cards (in funny shapes), the bases and range rulers - that it's probably not worthwhile trying to use these rules without those components.