"simple fighter rules with vector movement" Topic

I'd like to try a fighter vs fighter game, probably using hexes, that had one or two fighters per player. I'd like to use the simple vector movement style where applying thrust changes your momentum marker, rather than changing your ship's position directly.

The first game I played like this was Laplace, Newton, & Lagrange ( bonegames.com/games/lnl.html ) by Bone Games, except it wasn't fighters, if I remember correctly. I don't remember if it was abstract enough that it could be fighters, but I remember a little ship-record using text characters. I'll try to look it up again.

The one I've been looking at lately is Turn or Burn. ( interformic.com/torb.html ) This one is fighters, and looks very simple outwardly. But you choose a maneuver card between something like 14 cards. It seems a lot for a bunch of players to have in their hands, especially when there are also the systems cards to add to it. I thought I was "clever", and decided to print out cards for different players on different color card stock. But attacks in this game have the shooting player draw some number of cards from the hand of the target player after adding some number of "miss" cards. If I had color-coded miss cards to match, I'd have _lots_ of cards per player. What started out as a simple project (paint hexes on black foam core, make some wooden counters instead of the printable ones) is getting complex. (I've seen an alternative to write orders instead of play cards. I'd still probably want system cards for design and hits, so would have to address the miss card issue by telling folks to draw with eyes closed or something.)

Turn or Burn is simple in that your fighter does one thing per turn, specified by the card you play. There are just too many cards to hold and sort through, I think. I do like the idea that ships can be blown up at once, and you just keep a running score and keep bringing more ships in as you blow up the old ones.

Any other vector based fighter games out there, preferably on the simpler end?

andy

Some will disagree with me I'm sure…but to me the best fighter game ever made was Renegade Legions: Interceptor (1st Ed).

Never played Silent Death, but it was pretty dern popular at one point, and is still supported and available.

Renegade Legions: Interceptor was a good fighter on fighter game. Too bad that whole series is out of print now (though I've got my copies).

Did either of those use vector movement? I'm specifically looking for something where I can turn or accelerate, but I start with the velocity from the previous turn. The two games I mentioned had similar systems.

thanks,
andy

Interceptor was a fun system. It was quasi-Newtonian in that while you had vector movement and the ability to rotate your ship you still had the feel of a space fighter -- it would actually be ideal to simulate how space fighter combat works in the Babylon 5 series. I especially liked the damage flow chart for hits through armor -- one penetrating hit with the right dice rolls, and BOOM!, no more fighter.

Yeah…the vector system it used was awesome. I took a Gladius along one vector, flipped the ship, rotated turrets and engaged 5 other fighters at once while careening through an asteroid field…took one out, and damaged the other four to varying degrees. MAN was that a fun game! :) Still have all my RL stuff too. And there was a site online that had the second edition rules available unless they've removed them by now.

A simple set -

link

Hard Vacuum

boardgamegeek.com/game/3340

Squadron Strike:

link

TMP link

I just use Full Thrust, myself, for Star Wars fighter combat. For SW games, I use the cinematic movement, but the vector movement system would also work.

Hard Vacuum is excellent! Uses Vector Movement and has ship design rules. Excellent system!

I've seen a set of mods for using Full Thrust as a 'fighters only' game… but I'm not sure where.
That would be my first inclination… but I've seen Hard Vacuum and always wanted to try it out.
I REALLY wish they'd been able to get minis made for it… there are some cool designs in there.

Hard Vacuum …pulp WWII in space …very good rules .

Full Thrust is great

I do like Full Thrust, but hadn't considered using the ships as fighters. I'm not sure it would give me the speedy experience I'm after.

I'll look at Hard Vacuum. Does the WWII in space theme come across strongly in game play?

thanks
andy

Hard Vacuum, the fluff is WWII pulp, but you do not see it durring game play unless your ships have WWII markings.

…………..Doug

Jovian Chronicles, though focused on Mecha, has a surprisingly easy and fun 2D vector movement system. Note that "Lightning Strike", though set in the JC universe, doesn't use vector movement. (Well, not quite at any rate)

The basic system is simple – you have a "destination" marker for each ship, which you spend thrust to move. Then you move the figure to the marker, and move the marker the same distance ahead. As long as you can keep each ship's marker associated with the ship, it's a very easy system to work and requires no math to speak of.

Voidstriker, from Irrational Designs. I whipped up some small ships of my own design (Protoss Scout and Terran Wraith from the Starcraft board game) and some improv missile rules.

It was a very fun game that saw me build up a good velocity advantage while cloaked, and whacked a Scout on the missile run for the loss of a Wraith (it was 2 Scouts vs. 3 Wraiths I think). Had my opponent had a better idea about Newtonian combat, it might have turned out differently.

Interestingly, Newtonian combat, especially with kinetic weapons (faster moving missiles were harder to intercept) made energy states all the more important. Also, the near one-shot kill for most hits made for a much more interesting game. A lot like airborne fighter combat. Voidstriker is a cool game, get the free PDF to check it out.

irrationaldesigns.com/TSOD

Thanks. I'm interested in the Hard Vacuum game.

andy

Galactic Knights uses hex-based vector movement, though it is oriented around larger ships. Scaling your perceptions (as noted with Full Thrust already) would work, though.

The Classic Traveller boardgame Mayday is also a vector/hex game, and has the benefit of being attachable/adjustable to just about any other space game out there.

Greetings Andy,

For Turn or Burn, I made all my cards out of the same color of card stock. Then I put a different color of Avery 1/4" dot on the front of each set of maneuver cards. That way the cards can be sorted easily while keeping the backs all the same color.

And yes, there is a handful of cards to manage. :-(

My favorite vector movement game is Triplanetary ( boardgamegeek.com/game/3637 ) . The planets of the solar system are shown with gravity wells that affect ship vectors. You can actually maneuver a ship into orbit with very little trouble. Too cool.

Greg!

Andy: I run a Hard Vacuum group on Yahoo groups. There hasn't been much activity lately, but you're certainly welcome to try.

I do wish that someone who put HV out of Drive Thru/RPGNow. It would make things so much easier.

Hard Vacuum is available for $15 USD at link . I ordered it Friday.