"Using Battletech for Spaceship Gaming" Topic

Has anyone used the Battletech rules for space to play space games? Whats your take on them?

Which version? I've played the original Aerotech (which was mediocre at best) and Battlespace (slightly more interesting) but not the more recent incarnations of the rules. Always seemed to me that you could adapt a lot of the basic mechanics to do a decent anime big-ship combat game, but I never felt like spending the time to do the mod.

I've played them a few times. Like any set of game rules based on a specific franchise, it is very specific to the setting. I wouldn't use it FREX for Star Wars or Star Trek.

Damon.

This is disturbing. I used to play a decent amount of Battlespace…and now I can't remember how it played, aside from the 'sand the armor off' mechanism of damage. Movement, heat, any of that…

Were there ship construction rules?

Were there ship construction rules?

Pretty sure there were. I can't recall if they're in the current set of books, but I'd be surprised if they weren't.

Damon.

nvdoyle, don't feel bad. I remember Battlespace mostly for its similarities to Renegade Legion Leviathan.

I used to play the Aerotech and then Aerotech 2 rules all the time. When Battleforce 2 came out and incorporated the abbreviated stats and squadron rules it rocked. The new rules have most optional detail in them but still play just like traditional Btech/Atech.
Now the construction rules I deemed as horrible, but that comes from someone who hates over-complication. So I bought the HeavyMeatal Aero software. So much easier and fun to play with.

Going back to using the squadron rules, fighters dont reign as supremely as they do normally…my opinion.

Played Aerotech/Aerotech 2. The fighters were far overarmed and armored. If you had them into a ground attack mission, your ground forces might as well have given up for all they could do against the ridiculous armor level being hauled by a typical fighter.

Ship to ship fights weren't bad, but man it took a long time to take out a single heavy fighter. Light fighters die depressingly fast while heavy fighters go toe-to-toe with dropships.

I wish the rules followed the fluff. In the fluff, fighters were more like they are now – you sneeze at them and they hit the ground. I felt the marauding gunship shuttles as the rules made them out was way over done and ruined many a combined arms game.

Were there ship construction rules?

From what I remember of the rules, you started construction by selecting the final mass and then tried to stuff everything inside. lots of trial and error involved.

Re: ASFs and armor. In the current rules, an ASF has a "damage threshold" equal to 10% of its full armor value rounded down, and is a fixed value. Thus if your wing has an armor value of 30, you have a damage threshold of 3. Any hit to that location that is 3 or more points of damage may cause a critical.

Also an ASF in atmosphere must roll a piloting check if it takes any damage. This is on top of the 20pts of damage per turn piloting check (just like mechs).

Damon.

I tinkered (substantially) with turning Battlespace into a Battlestar Galactica simulator. The results were not too bad, and certainly gave a clear impression of BIG ships belting the daylights out of each other.

Battlespace did come complete with ship construction rules, although they were clunky and complicated, largely due to their origins in the battlemech construction system – upscaling the basic math to build a 100 tonne mecha just don't fit into a starship construction system. For the BSG ships, I had to do a fair load of fudging.

I haven't but it strikes me as a fiendlishly complicated and needless undertaking. Wouldn't be easier just to choose one of the squillions of starship combat games?

@Ninjasaurus Rex

Aerotech and Battlespace, the "Battletech rules for space", ARE starship combat games.

I'm assuming you made the same mistake I did when reading the topic, which does seem to suggest the question is for using original groppo rules for us vaccheads. ;->=

Doug