"Starfighter game" Topic

I'm considering trying to put together some sort of rules for starfighter combat. Silent Death is a basic model that I'd use, but I'd like to do away with the hex, make damage simpler and some how enable ships to continue moving in one direction whilst the ships is turns to face another direction. I'm not sure the idea of the last thing came across, I'm sure there must be a technical word for it, but its based on Newtons laws of motion. That an object in space will continue moving in its present direction until a new force is exterted on it. This would allow a ship to continue moving in one direction whilst turning its facing to shoot at any craft pursuing it. I'm not sure about 3D (my experience is limited, by it seems to overly complicate things to make it a quick and fun game)

Dijit, you might want to check out the vector Movement rule sin Full Thrust – you could combine them with the parts of SD you want to keep very nicely I suspect.

Full Thrust has the advantage of allowing you to use the vector movement and the "cinematic" jet-fighters-in-space rules side-by-side. That lets you do something like Babylon 5's Starfuries vs X-Wings, or similar.

Could full thrust be scaled to Starfighters?

Could full thrust be scaled to Starfighters?

Sure- there's nothing in the rules themselves that prevent the ship designs to be star fighters rather than ships. Just don't use the existing hanger systems/fighter rules.

There's been some stuff done like this already for Star Wars- if you poke around you could probably find it.

-Will

Look at the game system called hard vacuum. It seems to be what you are looking for. Just ingnore the fluff. Nazi's in space.

link

Seconding Inari7, Hard Vacuum uses a movement system exactly like you're looking for, similar to player movement in classic video games like Asteroids or Omega Race (or Star Control, or…).

Hard Vacuum is fighters with a newtonian movement . Played on hexes . Pulp WWII , but does have a build system

"I'm considering trying to put together some sort of rules for starfighter combat. Silent Death is a basic model that I'd use, but I'd like to do away with the hex, make damage simpler and some how enable ships to continue moving in one direction whilst the ships is turns to face another direction. I'm not sure the idea of the last thing came across, I'm sure there must be a technical word for it, but its based on Newtons laws of motion. That an object in space will continue moving in its present direction until a new force is exterted on it. This would allow a ship to continue moving in one direction whilst turning its facing to shoot at any craft pursuing it. I'm not sure about 3D (my experience is limited, by it seems to overly complicate things to make it a quick and fun game)"

Oh, so THAT'S why you joined the Metal Express forum…

All teasing aside, the idea of dispensing with the hex board for Silent Death: The Next Millennium, expressing all ranges and movement values in inches, and simply using the standard hex-shaped flight stand base for working out turning as on a hex board, is already proceeding to playtest at my end of things.

As for a vectored system of movement and orientation, as others have pointed out, Full Thrust is highly adaptable, not scale or genre specific, and IMHO would easily give you what you're after.

Hope this helps!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Mark Siefert's page has a link to a zip file for a Full Thrust fighter game.
link

For a vector-based movement system, all you really need to know are two details:

1. At what rate can the fighter change its heading (turn around its center)? (Call it "yaw.")
2. At what rate can the fighter accelerate?

Note that no matter what you do, you're not going to be able to simulate the fluidity of actual Newtonian movement; but you can get a decent approximation that "feels right."

Let's say that you decide fighter "yawing" is broken down into 45° increments, so that a 1 point heading change is 45°, 2 points is 90° and so on. (You can break it down into smaller increments, but we'll keep this for simplicity.) In this case, a 4 point heading change is 180°; there's no need to go higher as a 5 point 225° change (for example) is merely a 3 point 135° change in the other direction.

Then you can break down acceleration in the same manner— inches per turn, for example.

Let's say we have a fighter capable of 3 point heading changes and acceleration of 6 inches per turn. The fighter starts off accelerating. It moves towards its heading at a speed of 6 inches. It now has a momentum of 6" per turn in that direction (or vector) forever unless it accelerates again.

The fighter makes a 2 point heading change (90°) and accelerates at 3". To find out what happens, you measure from the fighter's current location, starting off with 6" of momentum along the direction of its original heading. At the end of this distance measure 3" in the direction of the fighter's new heading (90° from the original line of movement). The fighter's new vector is the line from its location at the start of the turn to the point you have just measured. Its speed is the distance of that line, or roughly 6.7". Move the fighter along this line.

And there you have it; a quick and easy vector movement system.

Note that it is a very loose approximation. Some systems add the concept of "drift" (move the fighter half its original momentum, then move to the calculated point), or break the acceleration down into increments ("constant momentum, constant acceleration") in order to produce a more "Newtonian" curve. But the system works. I include it as an option for G.O.B.S.!, though it's certainly not a fighter game (at least, not fighters that you want to last a while ).

--- Howard Shirley, creator of Generic Outlandishly Big Spacefleets!
thegobspage.com

Actually, you *may* want to make turns the "long way 'round", as that changes your path (or at least does in real life, which may be a desirable event in your game).

Actually, you will also need to know how much the fighter can decel too, assuming it wants to keep its nose pointed forward, instead of turning 180 degrees to do so.

Usually, that will be less effective than rotating 180 degrees, but possibly not, depending upon the design of your fighters.

Actually, you will also need to know how much the fighter can decel too, assuming it wants to keep its nose pointed forward, instead of turning 180 degrees to do so.

I'm assuming that a fighter's thrust is all directed to the rear, so the only way to "decelerate" is to turn 180° and apply thrust ("accelerate") in the opposite direction.

Check out Voidstriker. I successfully adapted it for a Protoss Scout vs. Terran Wraith encounter. However, it wound up just being a single strafing pass, although the missile combat was interesting.

Diji80:

I'd like to do away with the hex,

Inari7:

Look at the game system called hard vacuum

Rubber Suit Theatre:

Seconding Inari7

ming31:

Hard Vacuum is fighters with a newtonian movement . Played on hexes .

So much for reading the OP. .

As for using Full Thrust for starfighters, I've got a set of stats doing just that, using the WotC Star Wars Starship Miniatures fighters. Works a treat.

I built them "backwards" – decided what weapons, shields, thrust, etc, I needed, then chose the total Mass so it all fitted.

@ Andrew Paul

Where can I find the Starfighter Full Thrust stats you use for WotC SW miniatures ?

yeah I'd be interested in having a look too.

Vector can be even simpler than that if you don't mind each ship having a momentum counter somewhere on the board. The distance from the ship to the counter is the momentum, and the direction is easily deduced from the relative position of ship and marker.

There are two ways to do this that I like:

1) The counter is where your ship will be next turn. Spend thrust to move the counter, then "slide" the ship to the counter spot, and the counter the same distance and direction. This lets you use the counter as a "Sensor/Leading" marker, but it's not quite as easy to correlate ship orientation and thrust. (It's not very hard, but slightly trickier than just moving the figure.)

2) The counter is where you were last turn. First do the "counter/ship slide" move, then use thrust to move your ship however you want. This one has the advantage of being able to turn and "thrust" the actual miniature, so even though you lose the "blip" aspect, I think it has a better feel.

(This "counter/ship slide" is harder to explain than do – basically lay a tape measure between the counter and ship, note the distance between the two, then move them BOTH that distance along the tape measure.)