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Made in us
[MOD]
Solahma






RVA

A BILLION SUNS by Mike Hutchinson (Gaslands)

It’s what I’ll call a starship skirmish game. You don’t pick a faction. You don’t write a list. You don’t really play as an admiral. Rather, you take on the role of a corporate executive. Venturing out into the black of space means facing the risk of taking your enterprise into the red, financially. Your main decision point is figuring out how much you need to invest to get jobs done profitably.

Using the trumps from a normal pack of playing cards, the players construct a deck for generating a scenario. Each card represents a Contract: mining asteroids, hunting dangerous space kraken, hacking comms satellites, etc. The players draw three Contracts per scenario. Some of these (fully half of them) entail adding additional play spaces and you could end up playing across 1-4 play spaces at once, with ships possibly jumping back and forth between them. There isn’t a set play space size. Looking over the weapons ranges and ship speeds, I think the smallest area would be 1’ x 1’ but this is just my personal opinion.

Once the scenario is set up, the game can begin. But wait, what about building your force? This isn’t a matter of writing a list before the game, as in most miniatures games; rather, it’s a central aspect of playing during a game of A Billion Suns. Throughout the course of the game, each player has access to a theoretically infinite number of units called Battlegroups that is practically limited by (a) how many minis you actually have available in your collection and, more importantly in strategic terms, (b) the fact that deploying Battlegroups costs Credits and Credits are what you’re trying to earn by completing Contracts. So you have to go into VP debt before you even have a chance of earning VPs and (hopefully) eventually moving into positive VPs (i.e., profit). This is one factor in game balance.

The other balancing factor is that all players have access to the same 13 classes of starships. The cheapest option is a wing of recon starfighters, which costs 1 Credit to deploy. On the other end of the spectrum are 40-Credit battleships. As mentioned above, you deploy units of starships called Battlegroups that consist of 1-5 starships of the same class. All the starships in a Battlegroup activate together, are targeted together, and take damage together. So you can see there is a pretty huge range of costs for Battlegroups, from 1 Credit to 200 Credits. The game handles this scope because it is played at scales numbered 1-10. The scale number is a variable that allows the same 12 Contracts to be playable in quick games involving a handful of Credits worth of starships as well as ones involving hundreds of Credits of investment that might take hours to finish. Suggested starting scale is 3.

One of the variables scale controls is how many Credits are available to earn during the game. This is also scalable by number of players. For example, a 2-player game at scale 3 has a maximum possible revenue of 36 Credits. Note this could not even cover the cost of deploying a single battleship; doing so means climbing out of debt during the game would be impossible. Making the (impossibly) generous assumption that you will earn half of the maximum revenue, you only have 18 Credits to spend deploying starships to break even. The most powerful ship you could deploy in this scenario would be a cruiser, the third most costly class at 15 Credits. Of course what could you even accomplish with only one ship with a 3 Credit margin to break even?

That analysis doesn’t consider action economy. It’s too complicated to analyze generally because of the variety of Contracts. But in a 2-player game at scale 3, it’s possible for a 2-starship Battlegroup or two 1-starship Battlegroups to score a total of 10 Credits by Round 1 in one of the Contracts. The most profitable way to do this is obviously using starships that cost 1 Credit each to deploy. Meanwhile a single starship, like our powerful cruiser, could score a maximum of 6 Credits in the same circumstances, leaving us at a 9 Credit deficit instead of an 8 Credit profit. But these 1-Credit ships are obviously far more vulnerable to attack by competitors. Whether that will be profitable for them, however, is yet another level of analysis. So far s I can tell, you never directly earn Credits by attacking/destroying your opponents starships. Rather the purpose for doing so is to hobble their ability to work on Contracts and, in the most efficient cases, increase your own probability of completing them instead.

A Billion Suns is thus not primarily about starship combat as such. Nonetheless, the Contracts provide for plenty of opportunity for hostilities. The question is, can you afford them?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/07/13 09:27:05


   
Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

It really sounds like it should be a board game and not at all what I am looking for in a tabletop miniature game.

I will be interested to read it for myself.

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Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba




The Great State of New Jersey

I've been really excited for this one, sadly I read a few gameplay reviews which make me question the gameplay a bit. One of the common complaints is that it feels like a multiplayer solo game and theres not a lot of combat or interaction in the playthroughs. Another complaint is that its really easy to ruin your chance of winning if you have the first turn because your opponent gets a chance to react to your initial deployment in a way that can completely negate your strategy without any opportunity for reaction or recourse.

CoALabaer wrote:
Wargamers hate two things: the state of the game and change.
 
   
Made in us
[MOD]
Solahma






RVA

@EasyE

That’s a completely reasonable reaction to my post. I only talked about two aspects which to me seem the most novel developments for miniatures wargaming, probably because they are more at home in board games. But rest assured, the bulk of the rules consists in how you move starships around and how they fight each other — i.e., stuff that if it appeared in a board game, one might say, huh well this should be a miniatures game.

@chaos0xomega

I’ve seen the concerns from a few people about low player interaction but in other AARs I read about all kinds of PvP. I don’t have a good picture of whether this is a game issue or a player issue. And I tend to see it as a little of both. As to the game having little room for adjustment/correction; I think that may be more of a player issue than a game issue. There are a lot of moving parts in ABS and that makes it hard to believe that there are unbeatable optimal approaches that can be discovered after, say, three plays.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/07/13 15:33:38


   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba




The Great State of New Jersey

I think the lack of list building is fine, its what I've been working on in my own game development for ~15 years. ABS is hardly the first game to do it, nor will it be the last.

Just because listbuilding and points systems have become the norm in wargaming doesn't mean they are the best approach.

CoALabaer wrote:
Wargamers hate two things: the state of the game and change.
 
   
Made in us
[MOD]
Solahma






RVA

I certainly agree. I was big supporter of this back when AoS first debuted to much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

This sounds like it should be great for gamers who like a lot of decisions and a lot of consequences in their games.

...I just want a game where I get to shout “Ramming speed!” at least once. Good luck to ABS, though.

   
Made in us
[MOD]
Solahma






RVA

Ramming speed in ABS is ... FTL “speed.” Jumping ships of mass > n into ships of mass = n causes “jump shock” damage!

   
Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

Thanks for clarifying Manchu.

I hope you put some of this content on your blog.... <hint, hint, wink, wink, nudge, nudge>


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Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

 Manchu wrote:
Ramming speed in ABS is ... FTL “speed.” Jumping ships of mass > n into ships of mass = n causes “jump shock” damage!


*raises eyebrow* Go on. Please tell me more of this “jump shock”.

   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




Denver CO

I was excited to see the preview for this a while ago. I missed out on Battle fleet Gothic and am hoping this scratches that same itch. It helps that this will be part of Osprey's war game series so it'll be about $20 bucks for a buy in.

If it ends up being not my thing it will join Rogue Stars in the "glad I bought it but will probably never play it" part of the book shelf.
   
Made in us
[MOD]
Solahma






RVA

 Easy E wrote:
I hope you put some of this content on your blog....
I ordered some starship models from Brigade and some other bits and bobs from here and there. I plan on writing up a blog post depicting the scale 1 solo game Mike uses as the introduction to the game, where a wing of starfighters attacks a space station. Stay tuned!
 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Please tell me more of this “jump shock”.
Even huge starships are as nothing against the vast emptiness of space. So physical collisions are not merely statistically unlikely (an understatement!) but would actually take quite a bit of effort to achieve. Think about IRL attempts to land probes on asteroids. The only two examples of physical collision in ABS that I can think of are (a) star fighters and light utility ships (e.g., freighters) deploying from/back onto carriers and (b) torpedoes. In the former case, both parties are cooperating to achieve the “collision” and the vehicles are engineered around making success possible/probable. Likewise, in the latter case, a torpedo is purpose-built to achieve (hostile) collision. It’s worth noting that the only vehicles capable of delivering torpedoes in ABS are bomber wings, suggesting that, even considering the torpedoes own onboard guidance systems, a relatively nimble craft is required to properly line up a shot.

What about missiles? They aren’t explicitly mentioned but the really big starships (cruisers and battleships) have defense grids. These are auxiliary weapons, meaning they can fire passively, e.g., when hostile starships move into their range and arc, in addition to actively. The primary weapons systems of these big ships are high-powered and have considerable minimum ranges (12”!) so defensive grids help protect the capital starships up close. The fact that only the largest ships have defense grids implies that they are sophisticated systems that probably require dedicated crews. So if defense grids do implicate missiles, we can see again how it would be another demonstration of how difficult it is to achieve collisions, particularly hostile collisions, in space.

So that’s a long winded way of explaining why one starship physically ramming another one is probably too difficult to be a useful tactic. The other consideration is, such a tactic is utterly anathema to the military-industrial paradigm. Starships are costly resources and intentionally destroying one’s own assets is at least irrational. But of course the larger issue, quite literally, is simply the nearly unimaginable scales of distance relative to speed and therefore time to evade.

In contrast to the relatively infinitesimal physical size of even huge starships, jumping from μ-space back into real space gravitationally impacts a huge volume of space. Obviously, this correlates to the mass of the object causing the gravitational ripple. So the volume of space impacted has radius M, where M = mass of the starship jumping in, and causes Md6 attacks with damage 1 against starships of mass < M caught in that volume. To be sure, attacks made on d6s with damage 1 are hardly cataclysmic (equivalent to some of the lower end weapons systems in the game). Still, it shows how a kind of “ramming” tactic is possible even in a game that (IMO realistically) does not allow for physically driving your starship into another one.
Davout wrote:
I missed out on Battle fleet Gothic and am hoping this scratches that same itch.
I don’t think it will. BFG is basically WW1-era naval combat transported to space. What I mean is, the fundamental conceit of games like BFG is that rival nation-states have assembled fleets of ships for the purpose of destroying one another. By contrast, ABS is about corporations risking valuable assets for the chance to reap a profit. In the Core Systems Contract deck (included in the rulebook), the actual object is never to directly engage with rival corporation starships. Doing so may be a means to an end but it isn’t the end itself. Now, this may change with later Contract decks. One planned deck is called the Warzone deck.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/07/14 03:56:11


   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut






Norfolk, VA

Thanks for the updates on this one! I remember seeing the initial announcements for this last year, but then I got really busy with work so I've been out of the loop.

Honestly, I think I'm more intrigued about this game due to the skirmish nature of it and the corporate warfare angle it is going for. Starship fleet combat is awesome, but there are plenty of those games already!

Davout wrote:
I was excited to see the preview for this a while ago. I missed out on Battle fleet Gothic and am hoping this scratches that same itch. It helps that this will be part of Osprey's war game series so it'll be about $20 bucks for a buy in.

If it ends up being not my thing it will join Rogue Stars in the "glad I bought it but will probably never play it" part of the book shelf.


I mean, you can always just go and play BFG, the game is not completely dead

 
   
Made in us
[MOD]
Solahma






RVA

In an interview from some time back, Mike said ABS “is striving to be very much a ‘science-fiction’ game, not a reskinned naval game.” I think this is the big draw for me. As much as I hope GW eventually resurrects BFG, the notion of Jutland IN SPAAACE with generic miniatures has limited appeal to me in addition to being done, done, done, and done. Oh, and done some more. On the FB group, one poster has been describing ABS as a “puzzle game” — which admittedly isn’t really a genre of miniatures games, so far as I know. Obviously, any given situation in a game can be described as a “puzzle” to some extent but most miniatures games are more about players challenging each other rather than trying to solve a complex set of problems not directly related to eliminating the other guy’s forces. To me, this lends a kind of rationalist flavor to ABS that feels more like classical sci fi than, say, Star Wars or BSG (much as I have loved those franchises over the years).

One of the implications of this, which is really a matter of ABS’s core structure, that I have not seen discussed is the potential here for solo gaming. None of the Core Systems contracts assume another player as necessary to the way the scenario works. Even more interesting, because maximum revenue is scaled to number of players there is a pretty strong implication that solo games can fit into multiplayer campaigns. If a group only meets every so often, and this would of course be particularly relevant given current events, or if some members cannot make every session, players need not fll behind. Just play a solo game and post an AAR.

This is also one of those cases where rules imply setting. Maximum revenue in a multiplayer game is much higher, by a factor of the number of players participating, than in a solo game. Systems without many resources simply don’t attract the same attention from the spacefaring megacorps as the wealthy, busy ones. A corporation unlike a state does not generally claim territory in the sense of sovereign control. That would entail some level of governance, which is cost inefficient. Nevertheless, in the vast stretches between the billions suns, there must be certain “backfield” sectors even in the core region where the margins are thin but worthwhile, especially considering the lack of competition.

   
Made in gb
[MOD]
Villanous Scum







This looks like a lot of fun and being miniature agnostic perfect for my B5 fleets to have another use, hope it doesn't take too long to make it to NZ.

On parle toujours mal quand on n'a rien à dire. 
   
Made in gb
Fresh-Faced New User





Hey, love the analysis of the game, just thought I'd drop in and try to answer a few of the questions. Firstly, you're right, there isn't a way to gain points directly from destroying other ships in the Core contracts. The intention is to supplement the Core set of contracts with others over time with slightly adjusted rules. The main reason for not scoring directly from destroying other player's ships though is that since players have essentially spent VP to bring them in if others scored VP to destroy them then destroying ships would be double scoring. Players can escalate, depending on intent, to have two massive battlefleets engaging in a brutal financial war of attrition over tiny amounts of resources, but mostly the Core contracts are about skirmishes over limited resources than about standard massed battles.

As far as the idea of ABS being a boardgame rather than a miniatures game, personally its one of the most necessarily miniatures games I think I've ever played. Any flat surface in the room is a potential playing surface, and players are allowed any number and type of ship they wish. We've played with high chairs and breakfast bars as separate galaxies, the game has no issue with a playing surface of very small sizes since there are as many minimum ranges as maximum ones. Also, the gameplay itself is strongly centred on analogue positioning of firing arcs and zones of control in a way that is really only possible in a minis and measures game.

In relation to an opponent being able to react to a deployment in a way that's powerful, there are a few reasons that doesn't really happen. Firstly, the initial deployment in any game is a set of Jump points from which players can bring in ships, these are one of the few resources that are absolutely limited in number and they largely define the play area. What this means is that when deploying your first ship through a jump point you know where your opponent will be able to deploy and, due to the limited number of remaining activations to deploy, roughly the level of deployment, so you always have the chance to react and respond to their shaping of the play space. Secondly, first deployment means first movement. Its possible for an opponent to react with a ship that could easily destroy your first deployment if you stuck around and fought, but it not possible for them to stop you from flying off and getting the job done that you were bought in for. In fact, the game forces a cost to being the first player since its actually a potentially very powerful position. The only possible way a player could realistically ruin their chances of victory on their first deployment is if they deployed a battlegroup that was so excessively massive that the other player could just win by quitting, but each contract set tells players the maximum number of points that can be gained during a game, and defining the play space around that number of points in a shared escalation is a huge part of the game. So for example, if the contracts in a game are worth 30 points, the first player can deploy up to 29 points worth of ships and still in theory win the game, if they can then totally dominate the whole game, or they could deploy 1 points worth of ships, planning on scoring 2 with it, ending in profit. If they deploy the 29 points, their opponent could deploy up to 58, if that would mean that they could wipe out the former 29 points without them scoring a single point, or they could deploy just 1, in which case they'd only need 2 points to win. Those are the extremes, but there are an almost infinite number of permutations between them. Unless one player puts themselves out of touch by more than the available contracts in a single deployment there is always a space for reaction.

In turn, the fact that the other player is constantly defining the play space for you is part of why the game is interactive. Every decision each player makes defines the options for their opponent, what they spend literally defines what battlegroups their opponent can afford. In addition, most ships have a range of automatic reactive fire that goes before active fire, meaning that a large part of the game is also about defining which areas your opponent can move into safely or not. While its not a game about direct conflict, everyone is armed, and if the other player has no way left of effecting the table you will still win. It might not be a gunfighter's duel, but it is an armed bank robbery. You don't win by killing the other guy, but you've got a lot of interaction with them going on.

The whole game is based on some quite high sci-fi ideas to do with the mind boggling speeds that any form of interstellar travel would need to take place at and the infinitesimally tiny nature of a single ship within space, the idea is that in such a world hitting a ship with something as fast and constant as a beam of light would be a major feat, hitting one ship with another would be like trying to hit a ping pong ball thrown across you with a BB pellet while blindfolded. That said, there is always the rule of cool and one of the iconic moments that informed the game is a scene in Rogue One where a star destroyer jumps in to a mass of smaller ships and the shockwave of their arrival scatters the smaller ships into disarray. As such, ABS has Jump Shock, if a large ship is deployed, or uses a jump point to jump skip from one table to another, their arrival will damage and potentially destroy smaller ships, whether friendly or enemy. Its tough to use heavily in an offensive manner, but can turn the late game and gives larger ships the potential to cause damage simply by virtue of their arrival.

As for ABS scratching a BFG itch, it really depends on what you're getting out of BFG. If its highly dramatic space encounters with twists and turns filled with strategy and tactics then it probably will. If its the epic nature of lining up two planet shaking fleets of awesome power and ripping apart the fabric of reality in a battle of terrible size and loss of life then its not really built for that.

It is true, there is something very puzzle like to the gameplay of ABS. That's because a lot of the time it comes down to the cold hard bottom line, what resources can you afford, what can you do with the resources you have and how can you plot a ship lay out between the arcs and ranges of your opponents to allow you to do that while controlling their ability to respond. On the subject of solo play, currently the Core scenarios without another player to mix things up have a pretty clear and easy to calculate optimal range. You could certainly play them solo and there would be an interesting story playing out and it would probably be reasonably challenging to maximize the first time, but it wouldn't be a fair equivalent to playing a flesh and blood opponent. That said, because the scenarios are fairly modular, there's no reason that they couldn't be solo optimized in the future.

Sorry if that was a bit of a long post, thanks for checking out the game.

   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





West Michigan, deep in Whitebread, USA

As one of the guys that built a couple of papercraft fleets on the Facebook page, I have to say that while I was skeptical about the no-list building method of getting ships on the board, after a read of the rules I am fully on board with it.

Especially because it also is tied to the other mechanic that sets ABS apart, which is playing the game across more than one table ("table" in this game being synonymous with "battlezone" or "sector" in sci-fi speak). You could literally have a game where one large battlezone (they can be any size the players agree on) is a 3x4 map with planets, a couple space stations and meandering civilian ships (who could turn out to be smugglers upon scanning them, and attack!) on your kitchen table, and the other is just a little 2x2 square with some asteroids and/or another lonely space station on a separate card table. Ships can be directly deployed to either table, and even Jump between them using player-deployed jumpgates.

One of the house rule smashups I want to have is a legitimate fleet battle, where the maximum points and max. possible jumpgates are agreed upon by both players - and maybe even build fleets and group them into set battlegroups "before" the game like other space games. But then neither player starts with anything on the table/s, and from turn 1 begin to take turns jumping in ships/battlegroups as they choose. And because jumpgates can be deployed by friendly ships, instead of two lines of ships starting on either edge of the board and moving towards each other, there would be on-the-fly tactical deployment, where you can jump in any battlegroup you choose into tactical locations. Could be a lone battleship, or a squadron of small ships of fighters.

A player could, say, deploy some scouting small ship/s via jumpgate on turn one (and the first gate can be deployed anywhere on the board!), and then fly them into the shadow of a planet in the middle of the board, and then on turn two they could deploy a jumpgate near those scouts and suddenly from that turn on that would become their forward deployment zone, with a backup from the original one.

This message was edited 8 times. Last update was at 2020/12/15 00:50:26




"By this point I'm convinced 100% that every single race in the 40k universe have somehow tapped into the ork ability to just have their tech work because they think it should."  
   
Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

Thanks for jumping in and clarifying a few points.

I look forward to giving it a go.

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Jealous that Horus is Warmaster




Cornwall UK

I'm very interested in this ruleset, and have bought some Full Thrust ships from GZG in anticipation of it.

Quick question though: While the subconscious theme of ABS is regarding corporate contracts and so on, would it still be suitable for the traditional 'space empires building armadas' aesthetic? Only, the jumping between multiple gaming surfaces seemed (to me, anyway) to be a tabletop or analogue version of the gameplay in "Sins Of A Solar Empire", an RTS game where you clash space fleets in multiple areas of a large solar system or sector, feeding in ships while managing resources at the same time.

Although I haven't playtested ABS and so won't get my hands on it until it releases in book form in Feb 2021, reading the design blog gave me the impression that it could very much be the tabletop equivalent of a space-based computer strategy game.

Many and varied forces in progress according to waxing & waning whims.

I may never finish an army in my life. 
   
Made in us
[MOD]
Solahma






RVA

I guess that depends on what you consider the defining feature of such computer games.

   
Made in us
[MOD]
Solahma






RVA

This game has finally been released in the US!

   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran




Seattle, WA USA

Had our first games of ABS yesterday. I used some of my old Aquan fleet from Firestorm Armada, and my buddy 3d printed a bunch of Eve ships. It is not a shmup space game, which waaay back when it was announced is kinda what I was expecting (given Gaslands), and then got a little turned off hearing it needed multiple "tables" so it fell off my radar.

Happened to catch a Let's Play video from Ash on GMG (curse him, he's gotten me into so many damn games...), and interest was rekindled, so bought the book and buddy bought the PDF. Anyway... We loved it. Once realizing it's a "play the objectives" and resource management game more than a "blow ships up in SPAAAACE' thing, it was really interesting. "Tables" can be pretty small, and I almost think it would've been better to call them "sectors" since you really can just use one big table (4x4 or 4x6 is plenty) and divide it up marking it with tape or whatever to designate sectors. Of course, I think this also would be an epic convention game where you could have up to 4 4x4s and 4 players going all at the same time.

My nitpicks:
1. Needs a lot of tokens of various types to track things. Damage on battlegroups (not too bad, could use a die but remembering not to pick it up and roll it is a mental thing for me), and various actions done on contracts. Since there's only 3 contracts per game, you don't really need a token for every single possible thing, just 3 kinds that you can identify w/ the contract.

2. Pretty heavy need for various "terrain" and "objective" bits. Satellites, installations, asteroids, space kraken, etc. You could use chits for those, but where's the fun in that? (Side note, not really a big nitpick as it gives me reason to 3d print a bunch of crap and recycle various bits from other games...)

3. Book layout is a little wonky. First games at least, there's a lot of flipping back and forth between sections. I would've really liked the rules for campaign set up earlier on, but that's a matter of taste (we just tend to immediately start a campaign rather than do "one off" learning games). On one hand, I like the size of most Osprey books, but it unfortunately means there's not a lot of "meat" on the pages, so it gets spread out, and the general layout usually has a lot of dead space on the pages, too (this is true of all Osprey blue book titles, though). I do think after a few games it won't be as necessary to flip through a bunch, but definitely a pain point for early games.

Awesome points:
1. The Sector thing works really well actually. Having to decide how to split up your forces, what you're going to dedicate to a given contract in a given sector is great game design in my opinion. (I'm of the thought that a game is a "series of interesting choices towards achieving a goal," and this pins that really well.)

2. Of course, using whatever models you want. Gotta love that in general.

3. Enough abstraction to be quickly playing, but not too much to be just "Yahtzee." I'm an old grognard when it comes to space games, having cut my teeth on the likes of Interceptor, Silent Death, and the granddaddy (and still my favorite) Star Fleet Battles, as well as many others. This is not those. it also isn't just space checkers. There's enough difference in ship classes that you do need to figure what you want for the job, but not so much tracking of each that it's really needing a spreadsheet.

Overall, we really liked it and definitely plan on playing more.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and on the "no fleet building" idea... that's not entirely true if you do a campaign (so I highly recommend it).

For campaigns, you have to use capital to unlock ship classes that you then can call in during the game. Once you've unlocked a ship class, there's no real restrictions (other than Utility ships, either light or medium, of which you can only have (S) on board at a given time, depending on the Scale (more or less point value, but also impacts amount of available revenue) of the game. You can also purchase Competitive Advantages for your corp, and there's a neat kind of tech-tree going on there.

So if you are totally put off by "no list building" then I say just jump straight into a campaign, and that will scratch a good amount of that itch.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/02/28 18:27:24


 
   
Made in si
Foxy Wildborne







I'm surprised at how much I am hating this game when I love Gaslands and would pay good money for a finished hardcopy of Perilous Tales. Mike's own Let's Play video was some of the most tedious youtube I have ever seen and when someone said "I can pay 4 credits to bring in two frigates, but they will only do 3 damage... nah, not worth it" it buried it for me.

I salute Mike for some bold design decisions but one of them was, fully intentional, that you should feel like a space accountant, not a space admiral.

The on-table gameplay reminded me most of 40k's deep strike dance, working out the geometry of overlapping bubbles where you can/can't/want to jump.

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Seattle, WA USA

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I'm surprised at how much I am hating this game when I love Gaslands and would pay good money for a finished hardcopy of Perilous Tales. Mike's own Let's Play video was some of the most tedious youtube I have ever seen and when someone said "I can pay 4 credits to bring in two frigates, but they will only do 3 damage... nah, not worth it" it buried it for me.

I salute Mike for some bold design decisions but one of them was, fully intentional, that you should feel like a space accountant, not a space admiral.

The on-table gameplay reminded me most of 40k's deep strike dance, working out the geometry of overlapping bubbles where you can/can't/want to jump.
It is more like space accounting (even calling players CEOs) than space wars, so if you're wanting a big combat game, yeah, it's probably not for you. The combat mechanisms and so on are there to deal with combat when it occurs, in a somewhat abstracted way; it's definitely not the core point of the game. Which is ok, people like different styles of games (and even at different times; sometimes, I do want a shmup, sometimes I don't).
   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba




The Great State of New Jersey

when someone said "I can pay 4 credits to bring in two frigates, but they will only do 3 damage... nah, not worth it" it buried it for me.


What about this was a problem for you? This is the exact same decision you make in every other game, except in this game you do it *during* the game instead of before the game.Taking a step back, its not that dissimilar from other decisions that you commonly make during other games either. Example, you probably have said something similar at some point while playing 8th/9th ed 40k with regards to strategems, and you've definitely said something to the effect of "I can use this unit to do xyz, but they won't do enough damage.... nah, not worth it" at least once during any number of games you've played.

I salute Mike for some bold design decisions but one of them was, fully intentional, that you should feel like a space accountant, not a space admiral.


Yeah, I think the decision to actively steer deeper into "accounting" territory may have been a slight misstep. From what I understand they scaled it back dramatically from where it was at points during beta testing, but there are certain small contrivances that I can't quite put my finger on that make the game not scratch certain itches despite my adoration for its mechanics. I think to some extent its because the game is so heavily steeped in a corporate aesthetic I cant get the "military" feel out of it that I would prefer. In some ways it reminds me of Eve Online, which I've played for years (and even I admit really is just spreadsheet accounting online), but Eve found a way to at least make you feel like you were performing military operations even while you were serving as part of a corporation under the leadership of a ceo.

CoALabaer wrote:
Wargamers hate two things: the state of the game and change.
 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





West Michigan, deep in Whitebread, USA

One thing Mike has said is that he is already working on different themed sets of Contracts, and one of them is "Warzone", which will have more combat-themed contracts.

Even in the Beta I was toying around with the idea of playing the occasional fleet battle by having each player buy a force ahead of the game like normal, but the game takes place on at least two boards and nothing starts the game deployed, and play goes from there as normal. Still working on things from there to keep players from spamming certain ship types, good reasons for fleets to engage each other over more than one table, etc.



"By this point I'm convinced 100% that every single race in the 40k universe have somehow tapped into the ork ability to just have their tech work because they think it should."  
   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba




The Great State of New Jersey

Buying/building the force as you go isn't the problem (and is probably a more "realistic" approach to large scale warfare when you consider that a military commander doesn't necessarily commit all of their forces to a battle and often has access to reserves as well as reinforcement from their own adjoining units). I would flat out refuse to play the game without the build as you go approach, thats probably the most interesting feature of the game and once thats removed you might as well go play a different game that captures combat better.

I think the main issue is that gameplay itself is too detached from the action. Mike has talked at length that he wrote the game from the perspective that you, as the player, are the CEO watching the battle unfold on a display screen at a safe distance (millions, billions, trillions of miles away, potentially not even in the same solar system or sector). The player is not "present" at the battle and the design of the game was actively written with this idea in mind and thus "zooms out" from the action at many points in order to create a sense of passive detachment from whats actually going on. This is where I struggle with it (and indeed I think its an issue with "naval" style games in general that has kept them from really breaking through with audiences), as that detachment from the action just reinforces the "accounting" aspect of the game. It pushes the game deep into abstraction and creates a feeling of "dispassionate warfare" which, frankly, makes the whole thing somewhat uninteresting on some level.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/03/01 12:13:40


CoALabaer wrote:
Wargamers hate two things: the state of the game and change.
 
   
Made in si
Foxy Wildborne







I'd agree with all of that.

I'd add the multi-table as very interesting but annoying to actually set up (cut up a neoprene mat? no way fam, I guess I'll carry a roll of masking tape with me then...)

And the contract cards being a) so abstracted in design and full of text they just look like gibberish) and b) then relying on classic card suits for VP which breaks immersion for me

A bespoke deck would go a long way here

Posters on ignore list: 36

40k Potica Edition - 40k patch with reactions, suppression and all that good stuff. Feedback thread here.

Gangs of Nu Ork - Necromunda / Gorkamorka expansion supporting all faction. Feedback thread here
   
Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

I've seen folk getting extra large mouse mats to act as sectors,

a fair few 'space' designs out there and if you pick something distinct from your main mat you can just stick them on top of it



While no perfect i'm getting a 'sf' themed card deck https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Conrad-Space-Playing-Different-Vintage/dp/B08D663H3M/ i'm a sucker for the art. Bicycle cards does a variety of 'space' themed decks too if you like a plainer design

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/03/07 23:21:54


 
   
Made in us
Gargantuan Gargant





New Bedford, MA USA

Frank Marsh of Game God Game terrain put up a free printable game mat for A Billion Suns



I edited it into a 4ft x 8ft and had it printed at Banners on the Cheap for about $60 USD shipped.


   
 
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