"3D (space) Ship Gaming?" Topic

I'm wondering how to handle 3-dimensional gaming on the tabletop in a visually pleasing way.

My first idea, which came about from playing ACTA / Battlefleet Gothic, would be to use telescoping stands for each ship with three levels Low / Middle / High. For each level of difference, I was going to add additional distance (6" / 12" something simple). So if your ship was 11.5" away, but a level lower, it'd count as 23.5" away for shooting, etc. Moving between the levels would cost the distance up or down. This seems pretty simple for a ship-based battle game, the only real expense is those telescoping ship stands (I assume someone makes ship stands based upon radio antennae).

Another idea I had was to design a board along the lines of 3-D chess using clear glass or plastic sheets. This would require three pieces of the stuff and a framework to hold it up. The glass (probably three glass tabletops from IKEA) is solid but would need a solid framework to support it's heavy weight. The plastic is light, but would need something to support it's own weight. Assuming this could be done, they'd be 1" or 18" apart in three layers, and then you'd just measure the actual distances between all the ships in play. This could also be combined with telescoping ship stands, allowing more variety within each of the three-four levels.

Wondering if anyone has tried these or has any additional thoughts to flying / fighting in 3-D, and solutions to the issue.

Just playing on a 2-D table doesn't really cut it for me – it distorts the essential tactics of air / space warfare.

Thanks for your thoughts.

EDIT: I've added Modern Navel, b/c it would also be a 3D gaming venture, with submarines, surface and air making up the three basic dimensions.

EDIT: Part of the question would also be for any products that would solve the problem, like metal frameworks capable of holding up three glass / plastic tables one over the other.

It takes four distinct maneuver groups to require a 3rd dimension in space combat, since rolling a ship to keep the best weapons/shields bearing is trivial, and two or three manuever groups define a plane at best.

Even then, you would be amazed at how much thought and effort is required to really take advantage of that 3rd dimension in a fight.

The guys who wrote Attack Vector did a decent job of conveying that effort and advantage, but opinions vary as to how playable (ie. "fun") the result is, and how applicable to anything other than duels the game is without causing aneurisms.

AT our HMGS South Cons, there is always a game with WWI aircraft (maybe 1/72 scale) on very tall plexiglass (or metal) rods (over 2' tall, closr to 3'). The planes attach onto a slide, nose first, and can be adjusted vertical. Don't know if that wouldwork for spaceships.

Sheets would be rather difficult to transport, deal with, and maneuver around. I imagine they would be in the way most of the time.

The antennae will definitely work, and is the simplest solution.

With our supplemental altitude dials, you can represent 500 – 900 levels of altitude easily, which should be of use for your games, e.g. by multiplying the sections, or half sections of the antennae by 100 different altitude dial settings (10 x 10).

See here for more info:

topgunmarketing.org

I hope that helps.

Sincerely,

Rob
Topgun Marketing LLC
e-mail: topgunace111 AT yahoo DOT com

IIRC John Treadaway did an article in Wargames magazine years back on 3D Star Trek .

He used his ships inside clear plastic balls sitting in an egg cup style arrangement . I think he used pegs in the base to depict "altitude".

I know he provided a quick trigonometry table for the hex-based system , but that's all I can remember for now .

If you do not wish to use telescoping aerials you can buy plastic flight stands and make posts of different heights. Use magnets to attach you ship to the stand. When a ship changes altitude you replace the current stand with one of different height. Others use a tube in the base of the stand with nesting tubes of different height and a a peg on the base of the ship.

Search the aircraft message boards for flight stands and you will find a number of ideas and links to articles on constructing different types of stands.

While I dont usually like the telescoping aerials because I feel the are a visual distraction I think they might be one of the better solutions if you are using the Babylon 5 or Battlefleet gothic ships which are rather large. BTW, Topgun Marketing's prduct is really first class. (note: I have no affiliation with them.)

Al

another vote for antennae. reaching in between sheets would be a pita, i think, and there's no way to measure directly between two ships that have a sheet/level between them (your description leads me to believe you're using a tape measure or some such).

i don't see a good rationale to differentiate maneuver in the Z-axis --ie: since there is no "up" in space, the "vertical" movement should be no different than the "horizontal" kind on the table surface, should it?

i wonder if some sort of application of the "engagement area" of my WW1 game and Jim McC's "Lethal Pass" WW2 game would present an avenue for a neat, KISS solution? dunno…ponder ponder…

You may find that 3-D adds far more headaches than enjoyment, or even tactical variety.

In space, all 3-D really adds is another element for range. There is no "up" nor "down" and no inherent value to relative altitude regarding the table top. The value only comes into place when you add a gravity well, which is almost never the tabletop, but an out-of-scale planet— in which case the gravity well effect will largely wind up being 2-D anyway, as it will be a radius effect from the location of the planet on the tabletop.

So what you get with 3-D is not much entertainment return for a *lot* of effort. The tactical element— maneuvering to gain a range advantage or fire arc advantage (if the game has them)— is only marginally different from 2-D maneuvering, and really won't change your "battlefield" decision making much if at all. Whether you're surrounding the enemy with a 2-D encirclement, or trying to replicate a spherical "encirclement," the end result is tactically identical; in 3-D it's just more laborious.

I've designed 3-D systems for two space combat games on both the "captain's duel" and the "admiral's" level, and have yet to see that the added complexity (and clutter) offers any real expansion in "fun." I've always wound up just playing the 2-D rules.

But if you want to try 3-D, my advice would be to find a system that includes it and muck around with cheap basing or marker solutions which you already have (stacks of plastic cups under your bases to represent height, or Lego blocks stacked beside the mini, or just numerical "altitude" markers) rather than spend a great deal of money on telescoping stands, angle-connectors, or plexiglass table systems, only to discover you don't care for 3-D after all.

I agree that Ad Astra probably has the most elegant solution to this- little holders that allow you to depict different angles of elevation and facing. Regardless on your idea of how playable it is (and they do vary) the solution is probably one of the best I've seen and avoids the issue of very top heavy tall objects all over a map. However, it does lack the actual look of ships at different elevations.

If you want to see the ships at different altitudes, Top Gun's telescoping clipped rods are quite good and very easy to set up and use. They are probably the best solution in the business for that.

The ship in ball method I've seen pictures of and it looks quite elegant, though it's a lot of work to get the balls set up, and you have the issue of a plastic ball around your beautiful miniature. With the right artistic touch, however, you could pull of a really nice 'ships in shields' look, though. I know of no one selling that type of solution.

From a personal taste standpoint, I think that depicting such details outside of a computer simulation get very esoteric and unwieldy to the point of being somewhat pointless. I accept the flat plane for minis play because it focuses on tactic of fleet action rather than true simulation of euclidean space and allows you to have fun doing so. If I want that level of simulation, I'd rather do it on a computer, where it is simulating the actual geometries involved. Converting 2D to a representative 3D seems to bog down table top play too much for my tastes. However, if the mathematical exercise of simulation is something you do enjoy, then this may be the kind of thing that whets your whistle. Your mileage, of course, may and probably does vary.

The unique thing about Attack Vector Tactical(you either love it or hate it) is that it shows you that the third dimension adds an interesting combat element that most sci-fi games rarely, if ever portray. That element is constraining your opponent's maneuver. In AVT you use missiles and kinetic projectiles not so much to hit the enemy(if it happens that's a huge bonus), but to force the enemy to come back into your laser weapons envelope, preferably at a favorable firing arc. You actually fill out a grid(yes, this does take some time) that shows your ship where the escape vectors are and how much fuel needs to be expended to maneuver out of the kill zones. Now this does add layers of complexity and teaching this quickly to your gaming group would be a significant challenge!

Interesting observations, thanks.

I'm not interested in precision measurements – the physics of space flight seem to me to be the problem of ship crews, and therefore, ahem, beneath the dignity of admirals and game authors / players.
:)
But something to present the "feel" of 3D without lots of headaches would be fine. The easiest one would be three glass tabletops stacked about 12"-18" apart, allowing you to move ships around on three levels. This would be only representational of course, just like a modern naval game would have three basic levels for subs, surface and air ships.

I was thinking that there must be some sort display stands that could hold the four corners of a glass table top, allow multiple levels, etc.

The playing effect would be similar to 3D chess – do you really need it? What does it add? It is up to you, of course. My thought is it would make it 'feel' like the admirals command center to the players, generate some creative juices and also help those who think more literally to imagine the situation of their fleets.

If anyone knows some good-quality support systems for shelving / tables, that would be an interesting venue to explore.

If you want to use platforms you do not have to cover the whole table. Just the place where there are ships.

I made these for over crowding in my 2D game. They do nto represent different Z dimensions just let them stack more ship models in the same area.

The players really got carried away and decided to stack two raised platforms.

Plexi-glass and wooden dowels will work.
picture

Keep in mind that what your idea must work within the system you use. Most spaceship games assume that heading (ship orientation) is important, and has a direct relation to which way a ship can move and possibly even fire weapons. In a 3-D environment, this will apply to your intended levels as well.

Let's take, for example, a square grid system. Assuming that diagonal moves are allowed, that gives a ship 8 possible heading points in a 2-D system: each face and each corner. But when you add in the third dimension, you suddenly have 26 possible heading points to consider and model. (In a "faces only" hex system, you would jump from 6 points to 20). If you use a 360° non-grid system, you can find yourself dealing with the differences between a 30° "dive" and a 45° "dive." How far does that move you on your vertical scale compared to your horizontal plane? And if you use a vector system, you have momentum movement versus thrust to consider, which can produce all sorts of odd angular movement elements.

So you'll either need to find a way to model the angles of direction regarding the vertical, or abstract that through record keeping. Something to consider as you plan.

Setting that aside, assuming you want to go with the shelving system, I don't know of anything on the market, so you'll probably have to build your own. Fortunately, plexiglass is available in all sorts of sizes through Home Depot/Lowes or your local equivalent. They'll cut the sheets to your dimensions. You can then use thick dowels (I'd suggest at least 1" diameter or larger) on the edges as table legs. You can drill holes in the ends of larger dowels (1"), glue in smaller dowels as pegs (1/4"), drill holes in the plexiglass and stack. Note that if you use sheets any larger than 18" square or so (a guess), you're probably going to have to make at least one center support column, especially if you plan to stack minis on this thing. The last thing you want is a plexiglass sheet loaded with hand-painted metal spaceships to crack and dump your fleet on the floor! The thicker the plastic, the less the concern, but the greater the weight and the expense.

Don't forget to leave room to allow players to actually manipulate minis that have maneuvered in close to each other. (Think about how you're going to reach and move the Galactica without knocking over all the Vipers and Raiders dogfighting around it!) The higher you build each level to account for hands and arms, the more you're going to need some sort of bracing to keep the legs from wobbling and splaying.

As an alternative to a 3-D table, you might consider the plexiglass flight stands offered by Litko. They have some with notch and dial systems to track all sorts of things, from damage to altitude. Your minis will all be the same, stable physical height, but a glance will tell you relative position on the vertical plane.

Best of luck! Let us know what happens.

I agree with Parzival, for a fleet sized game I really don't see 3D adding a lot to the game?

Certainly not enough to justify the added headaches.

Could just hang them from the ceiling with varying lengths of thread…. ;)

Don't forget 'Squadron Strike', Ad Astra's simpler generic space combat game. It uses a simplified version of the Attack Vector movement system where they do the math so you don't have to. Plus it lets you design ships in your favorite universe and decide how many of Newton's Laws ships follow for movement.
link

Dervel,
Did you get the plexiglas with the grid on it, or paint it on yourself? If with, where? If without, how? :)

But yes, I'd assume that plexiglass would need interior supports. Still, this would probably work just fine, resembling a glass box a bit.
'Erb

Plain plexi-glass then run it across my table saw with the blade just scratching the surface.

I share the sentiment that 3-d hurts more than it helps. It's useful in an aerial flight game, but in space, all positions are relative to the ship your in. You feel as though your "above" your opponent, but from their point of view, you are "below" them. Unless you arbitrarily pick some point as "down"(example: the enemy's gate is down), 3-d won't really make a spaceship combat game any more "realistic".

'Squadron Strike' is the way. But it does demands hard core players.

Erbprinz,

Unless you are adding a lot more than one or two "altitude levels" then 3D is moot. You are artificially constraining the 3rd dimension in a manner that doesn't match your 2D board.

For instance, if your 2D board is 20 hexes across, your 3rd dimension should also be about 20 levels high. By limiting movement in the Z-axis, you artificially limit the players mental and physical picture of the combat space.

Certainly there are real-life cases where altitude/depth is constrained,i.e. WW1 and WW2 planes where low cloud cover essentially created a low, flat combat area, or naval surface vessels vs. submarines, but these are limited cases.

So unless you are going to add 3D in a serious manner – i.e. the capability to have as many altitude levels as your 2D is wide, then you will be doing a disservice to the 3rd dimension.

--Binhan

"The enemy gate is down."

Dervel: Nice table set up. You posted as I was typing! Those are almost exactly what I was picturing. Great minds, etc.

Questions: How did you attach the dowels to the plexiglass?

How were you using the 3-D element with Full Thrust movement and range (particularly in light of Binhan's comment above)?

In the end, did you feel it added to the game?

Parzival,
Thanks. No we do not use the 3D element. I agree with the above comments, for a big fleet battle it is not worth the hassle. Maybe for fighter combat, and then I would probably use telescoping stands. The platforms don't really add a 3rd dimension.

I drilled holes in the plexi and the end of the dowels, and then fasten with a wood screw.

What I made them for is to allow more ships to fit into the same squares. I do not have a stacking limit (ships are tiny – space is big rule) however it gets tough when the players decide they want their fleets to occupy the same spot on the board. The little platforms work for the occasional congestion.

That particular picture was from a Saturday evening pick-up game at Origins. Players from earlier in the week approached me and asked if they could play with the toys (we had already played all the scheduled events, and they still wanted more, good sign I guess). Anyway we set up a scenario of "kill the wounded Super Star Destroyer before it escapes". Then I left them to play it out on their own since they all knew the rules. What you see there is the result of the entire Rebel fleet with all their fighter squadrons trying to hit the SSD before the rest of the IMPs can come and save it.

I told them during my regular games that any battles requiring more than one platform in the same spot (i.e. they jammed too many ships into one space) would greatly annoy the GM, and bad things could happen like random asteroid movement. So never two platforms! However since they were running it…..

I left them alone, and the next thing you know we have what you see in the picture. They had fun, and they did manage to blow the SSD into little bitty pieces.

We will run a similar session this weekend at Battlefields and then at Origins this year. I am actually going to try splitting the tables into two separate battles. If you want your fleet to move to the other battle field you have to use the you FTL drive (if you still have one ).

well, this is a fantastic amount of information and feedback. I thank all the participants for their thoughts.

To address one concern mentioned, that of the use of 3D as an actual measuring distance and distortions thereof…

I'm working on a fleet battle system that will not use scale measurement, but rather simple Nodal Point movement. Ranges for all weapons will be simplified to "Zero" (same NP), and "1" (same and adjacent NP), same for movement, etc. There won't be any fiddly actual measuring of specific ships, etc. The point of view will be that of an admiral fighting an entire battle, and I want to have a 3-D representation.

I agree with all sentiments on the difficulties of measuring in 3D, not to mention the distortions of scale/size, and ships relative angles to one another. Since they are nearly impossible to resolve outside of a computer game, I don't see any reason to use them at all or make the attempt.

Stay Tuned…
:)

Hmmm… sounds something like Battleshift from Thane's Games.

link

A concept built more around zones and formations rather than individual ships. You might want to take a look.

As I've pointed out in some of the submarine game discussions, there are effectively 7 'depth levels' for subs, and broadly speaking 5 altitude bands for aircraft.

Subs have: Surface, Periscope Depth, Shallow (above the shallow thermocline), Normal (below the shallow thermocline, less than rig for deep submergence), Deep, Really Deep, and Too Deep (torpedoes can operate deeper than subs can). Exact numbers don't matter for subs, since each class is a little different, but there are general rules that apply.

Aircraft have: Surface/landed, NOE (roughly 500ft AGL), low altitude (up to 5000ft AGL), high altitude (over 18,000ft), and really high (SR71 territory, 60,000ft+). Sure, you can have more details, but that doesn't necessarily add any improvement in gameplay.

As pointed out in this thread, space is big, and for a captain's POV, needs to be just as big in the Z-axis as it is in the X- and Y-axis.

I don't know that you'd need that much detail for the kind of game you're talking about, so I don't believe it's worth it. (And this is coming from a guy who likes the AV:T system)

Ahh. Starship gaming for me is beer and pretzels style, so A Sky Full of Ships on a 2 dimensional space table, with one level bases is fine with me.

(although I tend to hate 2 dimensional aircraft games. Figure that out?)

Space is not a perfect 3-D battleground. Bumbling off in the Z-axis basically means an inclination change which needs a lot of fuel to counteract if the ship drifts off too far. This is especially true near planetary gravity wells. If you blaze around the system at 1g then this is not an issue. However high-speed intercept passes in space will basically be 1-dimensional. You could easily model the Z-axis as a few levels.

In planetary orbit, most battles will be roughly 2-D, in equatorial orbit. Otherwise ships going zinging off after one pass and have to wait 90 minutes to bring their guns to bear again. Some craft may be in high inclination orbits but this could be solved with a fudge system by using hexes ON the planet. Of course the ships will go underneath the planet but you could build a platform system for that – or actually model the planetary Z-axis onto the board – a pit.

We put the ships on telescopic stands.
There is no up/down in space, so it's just a diffrent direction. Exactly the same as turning your ship left/right.
Your rules (whatever they are) already have rules for that.
Use those rules.
For Full Thrust, just change direction one point Port, and one point down. And so on.

It's really not complicated. And it does add a lot to the game, at least visually, which is really what mini gaming is about.

For a colorful game without complexity, I'd just use TopGun's 3D telescoping stands and my favorite 2D rules – allowing attitude changes the same way that the 2D rules handle turns, and measuring directly along the movement vector using a tape measure. No complicated math or anything else.

Exactly, just measure along the path.
It isn't hard or complex. And it's infinitely better than anything using "levels".

Everyone should do it. Come on, do it!

That's my preferred solution too. Much more intuitive.

Actualy I have reasoned it out and have tested it out on paper and it works! I am now preparing to play test it in miniature as soon as I can build the stands. The base system for movement requires some math but a calaulator with trig functions (6 bucks at wally world) does most of the work. Ranges to target or calculated using the Pythagorum theorum a squared plus b squared equals c squared
(find the hypotnues) thats your range to the target rounded off. calculating your movement turns that around you have the hypotnues c, and your angle of ascent or desent B, you have to find a, and b, you also have C, (always 90 degrees on a right angle triangle) and A, because A plus B plus C will always add up to 180 degrees. Or A equals 180 minus B plus C. So we bring in the law of sines a equals c sin A, b equals c cos A again round off the calculator does it for you, you just have to punch in the numbers and then push the right buttons! I have a bunch of Star Trek miniatures from the motion picture genre ( micro Machine, Fasa, and Faruta Toys) so I am going to base my game in that universe but the system will work for any other!
"The Order is Given!"

I hesitate to point this out but – you can just mark an X and Y scale on a sheet of graph paper and measure the distance with a ruler. No need for any calculation.

Lampy, that's the way Ad Astra does it in Attack Vector: Tactical, too. (height/range chart and a ruler, I mean)

While I just LOVE playing with pythagoreus' theory in my head, I just don't think it will sell to the rest of the galaxy…
:)

How about this: You have telescoping stands that go to about one foot, the distance between each level is about a foot, when a ship reaches the max down/up of the telescoping stand it drops to the next level, and you measure actual distances all the time.

Suddenly, 3-d gaming is actually 3d gaming.

I had a 3D game of electronic battleship that worked this way. It's not exactly rocket science (pun intended).

Still, I think that even a "general" 3D aspect is better than none.

Lampyridae wrote, I hesitate to point this out but – you can just mark an X and Y scale on a sheet of graph paper and measure the distance with a ruler. No need for any calculation.
That's a very good idea wish I had thought of it first a long time ago. Here I thought I'd found another use for all that math they made me take in school. "Heavy sigh!"
I think now I'll go find an airlock and space myself.

This applies to Aerial dogfights as well. A wooden dowel with a mount for the ship or ships. The mount can moved up and down the dowel and the mount is attached to a ball and socket. So that pitch and bank can be shown. Ill have to see if I can drum up pics so the explanation makes more sense. The system was used at many Gen Cons Ive seen in the past. It works great.

The problem I have with the fixed-dowel solution is the "forest of sticks" that dominates the table --not only annoying visually, but also a PITA when it comes to reaching a model that is buried amongst a field of dowels.

If altitude is going to be shown physically, I think telescoping or multi-section stands are the way to go so that the models are at the peak of the stand --still a visual drawback, but better, imo, than a permanent full-height forest of sticks.

I agree…..

Use a system of pulleys attached to the roof. Each ship can raise or lower its position on the string a certain # of inches each turn. :P

Actually, if I had a room for it, I would do it.

We actually do do the pully thing, though not attached to the roof.
And we use them for dragons, but the idea is the same.
See them here if you want: link

Obviously the isse with this is there's no way to control the facing. Not an issue in this game.

Plexiglas dowels will help. Wargames scenery as well as rules always needs comprises.

Just use two wires, one at the nose, one at the tail.

Velbor mentioned the 3D StarTrek I did many moons ago. I stuck the stuff up on a website quite recently so you can all get migraines too!

link

Found a new cheap supplier of clear balls too – they make them in all sorts of sizes for christmas tree decorations and so forth.

link

This isn't the people I actually used when I bought my balls – I went to a wholesailer and got them a bit cheaper but a) you have to order a lot and b) I cant find the link at the moment!

John T

I havent had time to read theough the whole post. definitely later. But someone on the sci-fi boards mentioned using lego as a flight stand recently. clear lego is available from the lego parts list (and is quite cheap). This gives the option of easily adjustable/measurable clear flight stands. you can use the radar dish (inverted)type pieces as a base for the "tube" sections. Magnets could also be mounted in the lego pieces and model to allow easy mounting to the model.

In fact, if you went with JT's suggestion:

Found a new cheap supplier of clear balls too – they make them in all sorts of sizes for christmas tree decorations and so forth.

You could use the lego solution with radar dishes at the bottom as a stand, and at the top to hold the clear plastic ball.

3-d is very easy with Full Thrust, as long as you can use true 3-d flight stands. You just add 2 "clockfaces" to the manuever set (In addition to Yaw, you add Pitch and Roll), and measure to the mounting point. Fire Arcs are easy to deal with if you keep them fairly simple (Cones for heavy weapons, 3-d "slices" for beams is how we've done it)

link – dig a page or so back in the pics and you can see several games we ran at Origins. The flight stands are wood blocks with telescoping antennae, and the 3-d mounts are from an old game called Moondragon (although you can get slightly larger ones at Locline).

A quick note – a lot of people are quick to write off 3-d as too complex for the payoff. It is actually fairly easy to pull off. And as long as there are 4 SHIPS in a battle, the 3rd plane comes into play – and believe me, the folks who figure out there is another plane to play in come out ahead in real 3-d. Kirk was right when he pulled a Z-minus on Khan, and in a 3-d game little ships like frigates and corvettes come into their own as they outflank and attack bigger ships out of primary weapons arcs.

The only challenge becomes describing your 3d weapon arcs: For example, the SULACO from Aliens has 2 big particle cannons, but they only cover about a 60deg cone across the forward axis. 'Spinal' mounts like that make maneuvering a lot more important.

The railgun turrets may actually have a 90deg elevation, but due to the placement, they have little-to-no depression. This lets them cover the upper and lower hemispheres, respectively.

The laser turrets on the sides should cover the left and right hemispheres, respectively.

Then you've got the orbital mines and the ASAT 'fish.' Orbital mines should have little to no capability to change their vector (in Squadron-strike terms I make them cover an entire arc), while the ASATs are a little harder to quantify. Do they care about the starting vector of the ship? (yes, if you play by Newton) How much delta-vee do they have? (too much, and they become far too powerful, too little and they're nearly useless)