"3D (space) Ship Gaming?" Topic

Is it a problem if the gun can elevate 90 deg but can't depress? It can still roll and pitch.

3D matters even with two ships. Ask Ken and he'll give you an example.

Any kind of movement where two units have momentum and discrete facing can turn into situations where it'e easier to track their relative positions in 3-D than it is to re-set the reference frame every turn.

Very short example:

I've given the example a few times on TMP. If anyone wants, I'll dig it out and give it again. :)

You CAN build a frame of reference where one ship is sitting still and all the vectors exist on the second target. Trust me when I say that this isn't fun as a game mechanic. (It also results in the seeming paradox that your thrust alters your opponent's maneuver, while your ship sits still…)

If you haven't looked at AV:T or Squadron Strike, you probably should. The movement engine for SS is more amenable to high miniatures count games. We recently ran a 12 ship SS game, 5 players, 15 turns, in about 2.5 hours. With seeking weapons and missiles that can be outmaneuvered. I'll be running a lot of SS events at Origins this year, and GenCon. Come check them out.

In terms of fleet actions – I've now run several fleet actions in SITS and SS, and they either turn into large furballs (which is outside the scope of what the original poster wants), or they turn into duels where each 'ship' is an aggregate squadron, and your destroyers become nothing more than gun turrets. This can be fun, but tends to run counter to the "I want 37 ships on the map!" ideal.

Ultimately, it's a case of preferences:

Here's the check list:

1) Do ships have facings and firing arcs? If yes, then 3-D matters.
2) Does facing constrain movement or the direction of thrust? If yes, 3-D matters. Turning to maneuver may turn weapons out of arc.
3) Do ships have momentum? If yes, then 3-D matters, because it changes rate of closure and what weapons can bear when.
4) Do ships take damage differently from different aspects? If yes, then keeping damaged aspects away from other targets weapons matters, and 3-D becomes important.

On to the hardware and kits, check this out:

link

You're right, the ship can roll and pitch, but that becomes an issue with the AVID arcs (they actually include about 15deg of depression). It's really a question of how much maneuvering you want to include/force.

In the example of the Sulaco, those forward particle beams should only have a single AVID window (30deg cone, because a 3x3 window/90deg cone is too broad). Using a 3d variant of Full Thrust, they'd have just a single arc (60deg cone).

Like I said, it's all about how much you want maneuver to matter.

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That's not fair, Ken, now I really want those extra counters… maybe I'll get them when I order AV:T (bought Squadron Strike first). I want/need minis other than the SITS sets I bought a while ago, too.

I do have a couple other questions for you:

When will AV:T come back into stock?

Are you willing to publish the ship-design tools for AV:T? I don't care that I will need to re-learn calculus to design ships for AV:T, I have a pet math professor to lean on. I'd like to build some ships similar to the Sulaco. More properly, I want to build full-on warships with the Sulaco's tech/weapons assumptions, in addition to the armed transports.

Are you willing to publish the ship-design tools for AV:T? I don't care that I will need to re-learn calculus to design ships for AV:T

At this point, I intend to keep that close to my chest. In large part because supporting the SS design sheet results in me spending 4-8 hours a week answering questions, and the AV:T one is about two orders of magnitude less unfriendly.

However, there is a way to get access. Email me directly, and I'll explain where the dotted lines and the leins on your soul are. ;)

When will AV:T come back into stock?

We're doing a P100 system (more or less) to do a true second edition of AV:T, with all the rules laid out to the new SITS 2e/SS standard, orbital mechanics in the rulebook, all the rules questions answered in the rules, and all illustrations of play aids using the deluxe Ship Control Cards.

You can preorder here:

adastragames.com/preorder

For the minis, we have them on the cart, we have the Ninja Magic materials on the cart, and as soon as I get the final pricing on the bases (and get back from Origins) we'll have the bases on the cart.

You're right, the ship can roll and pitch, but that becomes an issue with the AVID arcs (they actually include about 15deg of depression). It's really a question of how much maneuvering you want to include/force.

I prefer games of maneuver to "Hey, we've got adjacent bases, let's roll 200 shots at one another."

It's one reason why I'm still grappling with what I want out of a fleet game system, because if I can make what *I* want in a fleet game system, I'll have something that's significantly different from what's commonly out there.

Oh, and a 3d version of FT would include 30 degrees of declination in the dorsal/ventral firing arcs, so it's actually worse than the AVID arcs from a forcing-maneuver perspective.

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Excellent!

I'll have to wait a bit before pre-ordering AV:Tv2, gotta get some more gaming funds first.

I didn't realize that the SS spreadsheet took so much time, Ken. I don't blame you for not wanting to open up the AV:T design tools for public (ab)use.

Now all I have to do is get permission to place additional leins on my soul, and I'll try to design some AV:T ships (after I figure them out in SS).
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I prefer games of maneuver to "Hey, we've got adjacent bases, let's roll 200 shots at one another."
So do I. There's a reason why I play fire&maneuver or maneuver&assault armies, and not 'Napoleonics in scifi'.

I get to present SS to some of the gaming group tomorrow night, we'll see how it goes.

I guess I need to get over to the Ad Astra forums, we have similar tastes in gaming styles (and source material for inspiration). Besides, I love playing devil's advocate.

We are opening up a new PBEM campaign for SS on the forums. Four slots remain open.

I prefer games of maneuver to "Hey, we've got adjacent bases, let's roll 200 shots at one another."

It's one reason why I'm still grappling with what I want out of a fleet game system, because if I can make what *I* want in a fleet game system, I'll have something that's significantly different from what's commonly out there.

How about this? Include penalties for ships being in the same space, advantages for them being out of the same space. Make command rules that work best for small squadron cohesion. Use smoke clouds (quartewave dielectric flakes) to obscure laser shots, or equivalent (ie cover). Unfortunately you have to track the velocity of clouds…

Lamp – even AV:T uses 20 km hexes. It's hard to justify stacking limits when your hexes are larger than some cities.

Having seeking weapons and vectors (and area effect attacks) make the superstack formation less viable. Finding reasons for formations at all, when you can just target any unit in the group, is tricky. But that's not really the point when dealing with 3-D spaceship combat.

Ahem… Interlocking fields of fire, like WW2 bombers? The primary reason for the tight box formations of B17s was defensive, not to increase bomb accuracy (every B17 had a Norden, after all). The Honorverse uses tight formations for the same reason.

Another reason for 'tight' formations: Extending your sensor baseline. Having a 10km synthetic aperture telescope could really extend your detection range over the wimpy 200m native to the ship. All you'd need is a specific laser target on each ship and a rangefinder. A little data-sharing and voila.

Hrm… now, how would you describe a formation like that in game terms, assuming that all the ships are datalinked and sharing targeting info?

1. It's a formation: unless/until ships take damage, they maneuver as a group, so there's only ONE Move card to fill out. Assume that each ship has enough 'extra' thrust/maneuverability that the outside ships can keep up with a max-rate turn&burn on the theoretical center of the formation (or give the formation a slightly lower maneuver limit if you want a little more realism/precision).

2. This means that instead of a single-ship SSD, you'd use a formation SSD. This could be problematic, since you'd need smaller type to make everything fit. Also, would there be different SSDs for different formation shapes?

3. What happens when a ship isn't able to keep up anymore? Player should decide whether to slow the formation's maneuvers or to let the wounded ship fall out (mostly applies to SS Mode 0/1 movement). In most universes, falling out of formation is fatal, due to the loss of point defenses.

Lion,

Depending on how complex you wanted to make the arcs, they can be accomodated.

I have a supply of the old "Command Calipers" that Armada put out in the 90's. They are plastic widgets with a 90, 60, 45, and 30 degree angle on them. We have run games with models (Star Blazers/Yamato, etc) and used visible arcs (no depression of upper guns, max 30 degree elevation). Worked cleanly if it did slow things down some vs the fast and loose trek games we ran…

Actually, later in WW2 the Americans shifted to using a "Master Bombadier" and the entire formation dropped on the command of the single, lead bomber. It was determined that it took a lot of experience to use the Norden properly and most bombadiers were not up to snuff, so it was much easier to let a single, experienced bombadier call the drop. Thus the formations would be close for defensive fire, but the last portion of the bomb run, they would tighten up even more to drop a concentrated load onto the target. This made bomber crews very nervous as it made them a much easier target for flak.

Grouped ships may be for the same reason – a single command ship that provided CCC functions would obviously work better if the ships it control are close by. However, if you go down that route, then really the stack of ships can just as easily be represented by a single counter with just a few stats for damage and weapons (i.e. you lose a destroyer instead of just a laser turret, the command ship is hit rather than the bridge).

To counter this you might use "area effect" weapons that effect an entire hex – such as enhanced EMP warheads, massive plasma bombs, etc. So if 40 ships are stacked in a hex, it can be wiped out with a single Uber-WaveGun shot.

-Binhan

It takes quite a large blast to cover a 20km AV:T hex (you're talking 10 megatons in-atmosphere, closer to 50MT in space if I've done the conversion right), but a load of relativistic kitty litter might spread out enough to do the job.

However, the ~1700km Squadron Strike hex is an entirely different can of worms.

I'd forgotten the Master Bombardiers. Still, the only real reason I can see for spaceships to bunch up into a tight formation is to provide coordinated, interlocking fields of fire for defensive purposes.

Once you get into such a tight formation, you're almost better off just using a single counter/single SSD, and reading 'command bridge hit' as 'command ship hit.'

With SS, we duck physics quite cheerfully. With AV:T, about the only thing we found that could justify area effect weapons are nukes – and as Lion has pointed out, we probably overstated their effectiveness a bit. (Plus, they tend to be a 'fun once' rule).

Keeping formation in a 3-D environment is a pain in the ass in combat, and may not be worth the extra effort.

That said, SS has traits for area effect weapons (because of the genres it's trying to make work). Just don't ask me how they work. :)