"Delta Vector the Game" Topic

A bit frustrated by a plethora of WW2 wet-navy games masquerading as space games and too many criticals and hitboxes, I've challenged myself to make a set of rules.

To orientate those interested, my design brief is here:
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The TL:DR version is making initiative important, implementing some form of reaction system, minimising record keeping; focusing on spending more time playing the game then checking off hitboxes, and making maneuver and velocity important, and offering the player lots of tactical decisions whilst taking little time to implement it.

I'm doing a section each week, starting with movement this week.

The basis of the hexless vector movement system (nothing too original as most 2D vector stuff is a rehash of Triplanetary) is here:
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I appreciate any input. I'll be putting up a new section every week (i.e. movement this week, initiative and reaction system next week, damage the next, missile and fighters week 4 etc)

Signing up for blogs is a pain in the nadgers so free to input any ideas here.

For example using only d10s would make a points system easy to calculate, but d6s are easily accessible; but a range of d6s, d8s, d10s and d12s would be an easy way to differentiate crew skill and weapons, without using too many modifiers…. :-/

Your header picture is that a screenshot from X3?

I think so. I've had it on my computer for ages – not sure where it came from…

Consider 1/2 at^2 – it's not that much more work, and it's as real as you can get and still be 2d.

I'm very keen on a system that emphersizes sensors and missiles at a distance more than the usual close lazer dual. How does that sit with your probable design?

FYI, "Delta Vee" was a game by SPI (came in an issue of Ares, and had very little to do with delta-v). There's also Attack Vector: Tactical by Ad Astra out there as well, and a trademark on the name "Delta-V" (or something close) held by a video/computer game company last I checked. So you risk some confusion among enthusiasts with your title.

Have you looked at G.O.B.S.!, by the way? It has a vector movement system as an option, minimal record keeping (no hit boxes to check off or crits to track), and uses multiple dice to differentiate weapons ranges, damages and defensive system effects. It's very much about "maneuver and shoot."

thegobspage.com

Feel free to look it over.

Max, I'd say long range missiles/drones will be included as they are a step way from the WW2-in-space I want to avoid.

That said, I'll probably try to balance them with pew pew lazors so I can play a range of sci fi Tv shows.

If you want 'submarines in space' then Sol Cruiser
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Starcruiser Lite
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or the inspiration for them all, Starcruiser 2300 AD
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might be worth a look if you haven't already tried them.
"Passage at Arms" by Glen COok is a good book.

Parzival, it was already the name of the blog, so I thought I'd name it after it :-)

Facing rules and rules for gravity wells/orbit/planets are added.

Sounds like fun… Similar approach to 5150 fringe space.

I just had a look at your vector movement system. Silent Fury uses a very similar system (though we leave the vector token behind the ship, and move the ship during thrust rather than the token). You can have a look here: The Joy of Vector Tokens

We've been working with Vector Tokens for months now, and you were right to use them here – I don't think there's a better way to do newtonian movement in 2D. Over our own design process we've learned a couple things that you may find useful. These are suggestions – take them or leave them as you like.

1. You don't need three vector tokens on the board, you only need two. The moment you place your third vector token, the other one not under the ship is instantly useless and will be removed later – you should just move that vector token to the new position instead.

2. The third token is still very handy – you should place it on your ship sheet / ship cards to connect the stats to the miniature.

3. If you separate out the time when a ship thrusts from the time when a ship drifts, you'll likely speed up your movement process. When a ship thrusts, a player is making a choice – so it makes sense to just have that player do the thrust as its own action. When a ship drifts, there's no choice to be made – if you leave ship drifting until it's own separate phase, then you can drift every ship in the game simultaneously, and any player can take care of drifting any ship, so the whole board updates very quickly.

4. Mark one of each of your token pairs on the board. When ships drift, they switch tokens, and you can instantly notice if you've missed drifting a ship on a turn (since all visible tokens will either be the marked ones or the non-marked ones.)

I've read over your design principles, and while I don't subscribe to all of them for Silent Fury (which is good, since I'd hate to be designing the same game), our games share several design principles. Streamlined rules, no IGOUGO (you should see our card action system), and maneuvering decisions in combat have serious consequences.

Good luck with Delta Vector. I'll be checking it out as you come along.

Thanks, RT. I think Fringe Space will be an awesome game and a big step forward from the Full Thrust clones.

I feel bad for not mentioning its innovation in my general rant against space games in general, and I will definitely get a copy when it is out.
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2HW stuff always has a great campaign system which I reckon makes a game more fun always!

Unlike Fringe Space, I'm ignoring fuel (which seems important to Fringe space) and hull points completely, and I think the move system I have is the simplest no-hex, no-record vector one I can currently find.

*Note* Initiative and Reaction rules added

You do need three if you have engines with long, slow, and consistent accelerations as there is a delay effect on actual displacement… You dont fall 9.8meters in one second, you fall 4.9… Bt your velocity is 9.8 m/s. so if you have a thruster that accelerates continuously through a turn it'll only go half of its final velocity that turn.

5150 FS does both but it does result in a little more to keep track of… Depends on exactly what you're going for.

Edit:

Yeah I think fringe space with its fuel and accelerating is basically a level lower than delta vector and silent fury… Overall this next year is gonna be a good one for sf space combat games.

Agh, Ninja'd

Thanks Mr Fury – I downloaded your rules and I see you are also breaking the Full Thrust mold (not that it isn't a great game, but I feel space gaming is kinda stagnant compared to other areas like skirmish gaming)

I'm not surprised our vector movement systems have similarities – you mentioned Silent Fury had a similarity to GDW games and I reckon their game "Triplanetary" is simple and elegant.

I actually got the vector token idea off a teacher who used them to race coins around a 'track' to teach his high schoolers about inertia. It would make a good hover racing game I reckon – like podracers or the old videogame "Wipeout".

I think we are trying to do different things – I think your ruleset will have much more detail than mine. I have no plans for cool boarding actions or specific systems; I am more focused on task force scale battles with generalised damage ("cosmetic damage, significant damage, severe damage, kaboom!") is about as specific as I plan to get.

Thanks for your input!

I considered two move phases but due to my reaction system (see here for the current update) I wanted only ONE ship or squadron to be active (be it thrusting or drifting) at a time. Reactions rules here
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You could speed up movement significantly by using a hexmap but I wanted it to be capable of doing without (as not everyone has or likes hexmaps and I found my Firestorm Armada ships fit poorly on mine)

I think do need the third vector token, at least for a while, as it helps when I am determining facing
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I envision using FS5150 for skirmish campaigns, where the heroic space carrier and its four spacefighters journey across the galaxy working as mercenaries.

I'd use SFury for taking my extensive collection of 15mm platoons to attack space stations and planetary targets.

With DV, I'm wanting a game where I can field a task force (12+ ships) in more of a fleet-type game which feels more spacey rather than wet-navy-WW2 yet plays faster.

I also (ambitiously) want to recreate the feeling I get in Force on Force and Infinity; always feeling involved, always agonising over a decision but able to swiftly accomplish the actual mechanics of it in seconds. Using a reaction system seems the key. I also wanted the initiative to shift back and forth through a turn, and make who has the initiative more important than who can throw the most massed d6.

The crunch is yet to come; making a smooth combat/damage system that can offer satisfying results but involves little to no record keeping; and how to manage drones/fighters/missiles on table (or if to abstract them) :-(

RT – I'm still making the rounds here in the space gaming world. Mind shooting me a link to 5150 Fringe Space? I haven't seen it yet.

eville – good luck with the damage system. That's one of the hardest things to balance in terms of record keeping and simplicity (I love detailed damage myself, so while the system of applying damage in SF is simple you get complex results applying that damage to different components of a ship).

You might have a look at Check your 6!'s damage system. There's two damage effects – airframe damage and engine damage – one slows you down drastically and the other prevents you from making sharp turns without ripping your plane apart. If you take a second damage effect, the plane is destroyed (you can also be destroyed outright from a bad hit). It very simple and works really well. They key there is that you don't get a hit too often, and sometimes when you do get hit you can roll well and shrug it off, which makes getting the shots on your opponent important, but groups of planes generally don't shoot each other down on the first pass and you have time for a dogfight.

Mr Fury, I'm considering a few approaches, somewhat similar to what you suggested.

General Quarters (a WW2 naval game, ironically) divided damage into two areas: weapons, and hull/mobility.

So a ship could have all its guns shot out but be capable of steaming full speed; or be crippled but still capable of fighting.

I'm thinking of making damage into

1.General hull integrity (cosmetic/shaken-medium-severe-kaboom)
2. "Critical #1" Weapons & systems (halved/destroyed)
3. "Critical #2" Mobility (halved/destroyed)

This would allow for a wide range of states and avoid the need for specific criticals

However following the CY6 model might simplify this

1. Halved mobility, mobility destroyed, kaboom
2. Halved firepower, firepower destroyed, kaboom

Thanks for the input. The main problems I'm wrestling with are here:
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Fury-
Been too long since I"ve updated this with some playtests, but you can follow along here:

cerescrossroads.blogspot.com

I think the most recent batrep using Fringe Space is pretty darn old at this point… there's been a lot of change over the past month or two.

Maybe next week I'll do some more games.

There are now rules for simple firing, repairs and damage.

You could start to experiment with the rules at this stage, though I need to add a range of weapon types and missiles.

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Hi EvilleMonkeigh thanks for your suggestions. I look forward to watching your game develop.

No probs max. The book "Passage at Arms" is practically Das Boot in space and should inspire some gaming!

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There is enough content here to playtest effectively I think.

I'm especially interested in attack vs defence balance.
Although I've kept the dice down (5 dice salvo for a battleship) I'd still like to come up with a single-dice-roll option – problem is, that usually involves charts.

I'm pretty sure that movement, reactions, initiative and missile tracking are all pretty sound, but the attack and damage system is a little clunky.

The 'relative velocity' combat modifiers add a layer of tactical complexity but at the cost of too much measuring? I may have to relent and make the game hex-based…

I found in my own game that relative velocity modifiers were just a bit much…. they're basically only used for ramming in my game, in which case they work like yours, but ramming doesn't really come up very often.

The thing is, velocity doesn't tell you where you're facing, and so it doesn't help you with cross section… and because different people use different ship models, cross section is going to be different… it IS harder to hit a "cigar" shaped ship that is facing its small 'circle' right at you than it is to hit the same ship with a 'rectangle' side facing you.

It should also be easier to hit a ship that is coming at you at a large relative velocity… it should also do more damage for kinetic weapons.

The good news is that I dont think either one requires that much measuring.. its pretty easy to just see which 'angle' you're working with.

The problem for both is that it just adds more complexity, and in the case of target size its also a pain as a game designer…

I think I'm going to end up with both as optional rules-- you're allowed to assign a shape to your ship (generally spherical/cubish, long cylinder/rectangular prism… I think that covers pretty much all designs I've ever seen) and that effects you in minor ways. Cubes/Spheres have no modifier from any angle, cylinders are easier to hit from the side and harder to hit from the front/back. Technically spheres/cubes should have a bit more mobility, too, but it would come down to individual designs so its irrelevant anyway.

And then you're also allowed to modify damage rolls for kinetics if you have a higher relative velocity… for missiles (which are slower than the cannon shot guided bullets) it actually already takes into account relative velocity because you find out how many times they get shot at on the way by taking your relative velocity and adding 12…

Mmmm. The measuring to find out is the bit that annoys me.

With hexes it could be measured 'at a glance' – simply pretend both ships have the same starting point at the start of their move then count the differences between their endpoints.
I don't really mind if it is not technically accurate – you seem to be striving for a far harder sci fi than me.

I might just use a "flat rate" based on the angle the ship vectors intersect at
I.e. "head on -2" "side on -1" stern chase 0"

I think 'to hit' should technically be based on ship mass x thrust or similar.

My 20" velocity ceiling for no other reason than gameplay purposes to keep ships on the board, and the relative velocity penlaties are simply to advantage more agile ships, allowing them to control hit %s better.

I am sick of small ships in 90% of space games all dying in the first one or two turns, acting as either glorified armour or throwaway weapons platforms.

It may be less 'real' but I want all ships to have valid roles, and an equal chance of surviving – in the smaller ships' case, by controlling engagement ranges and speeds to avoid a serious confrontation with 'battleship' class ships.

I also go for balance between designs… a small ship will usually lose to a large ship (assuming both are pretty standard, balanced designs) one on one, but 12 Hull 1 ships (essentially fighter sized) vs. a Hull 12 (battle ship)… its going to be a close fight.

The bigger difference, though, tends to be design focus… bigger ships are better at going heavily armored with lots of firepower but lower mobility, and smaller ships are better at mobility (at least in short term, as they tend to have less endurance), but this is not always the case.

It sounds like you might be having small ships used in a role that I recently added to 5150FS by allowing 'dodging…' instead of small ships being close up dog fighters (though they can do that well under certain circumstances) they're actually somewhat better at standing back at a consistent distance (maintained by superior mobility) and out shooting/ out dodging their opponent.

I actually see no reason why counting distance between end points as the basis of measuring relative velocity would not work for most purposes (not damage, but thats abstracted anyway in most games)… with the one exception being when they over shoot each other.

Can't you just eye ball, at a glance, whether they are going to add, subtract, or do neither? after that is done its simply a matter of adding two numbers, which isn't two hard given that you probably know both ship's velocities anyways.

Using the 'measaure the endpoints' method – to be precise, you'd have to measure from the same starting point.
I.e. to be exact, you'd have to plot ship B's move from ship A's starting position and then compare endpoints which you could eyeball with hexes…. this is actually better and simpler than the method I'm currently using.

I hate being restricted to hexes but there are a lot of arguments in favour of them in space games, where angle of the model and speedy measuring is important.

Currently, my rules are you can eyeball angles roughly, but it is the actual measuring that is a pain – the rest is simple:
closing head on = add V's together
gaining astern/paralleling = fastest V minus slower V
any other = use the fastest V

Once you've seen the diagram it's easy to remember, but unless you have a great memory you're going to have to remeasure the velocity of the non-active ship.

As I said, I like the idea of a velocity penalty weapons-wise as it gives high thrust (small) ships yet another way to control the lethality of engagements – i.e. keeping speed up allows them to avoid battleship fire but if they slow to engage targets they are vulnerable…

I am sick of small ships in 90% of space games all dying in the first one or two turns, acting as either glorified armour or throwaway weapons platforms.

You'd think light tanks have no place in tank battles. But they do. The key is to model them correctly. Perhaps have fighters in close proximity give a point defense weapons bonus to ships. Or EW craft give a bonus to weapons accuracy.

Having bigger ships whop smaller ships is probably accurate. They can, after all, mount much more powerful weapons, electronics and armour.

I wasn't really referring to fighters per se – they are the extreme example (space games tend to model fighters vs ships like atmospheric fighters vs navy ships; a bad analogy as in space they move in the same medium, and can both have equal thrust/weight)

I do think it makes for boring gameplay though.

I am sick of small ships in 90% of space games all dying in the first one or two turns, acting as either glorified armour or throwaway weapons platforms.

In our home grown rules we've tried to avoid that problem by accentuating the maneuver advantage of smaller ships, especially when faced with heavy weapons.

Basically big, heavy, high-damage weapons are more easily evaded by smaller ships. Destroyers and Frigates can easily evade torpedoes and the heaviest beam batteries which have a low ROF and must be precisely targeted (they function like high powered sniper rifles…great against slow moving targets but less useful vs agile ones).

The best weapons vs small ships are speedy, agile, guided weapons or high ROF weapons but these tend to be weaker.

Thus ship designers are faced with a dilemma: the more hard points dedicated to anti-small ship weapons on a big ship the fewer available for big weapons used against other big ships. The best anti-small ship ships become other small ships or dedicated big ships which are then less useful against other big ships.

The key is to limit the effectiveness of big, high damage weapons against small, agile targets.

In Pax Stellarum, my homebrew, I addressed this problem by giving different profiles for ships, according to their hull size.

The profile is the to-hit number. Small ships are more agile, and thus have higher profile.

Similarly, when a ship is stationary (adrift) its profile lowers, and so on.

An easy way to do this is to allow more small ships so that a few big weapons can only take out a few (if they hit, which may also be more difficult but I wouldn't make it that small ships are always much more mobile than large ships), while smaller weapons give you an effectively higher rate of fire (although even they probably take out the fighters) which means that a ship designed to take out large, heavily armored, but easy to hit targets is having trouble against a horde of small ships while a ship for mowing down little guys is going to have trouble damaging the more armored guy.

Also there is a Hard SF reason that small ships/more agile ships are harder to kill:

Say you have a weapon that takes 1 second to reach the enemy (could be a laser at 1 light second, could be a kinetic at whatever range, etc).

Say that you are accurate enough to always hit your target, assuming that its position/vector doesn't change (its position will, actually, but you know where it'll be in one second if it doesn't do anything).

Okay, now take the target ship. Fire one of its thrusters for that whole second and see how far away its actual position will be from the position that it would have been at had it not changed velocity at all.
Do that for all thrusters, and all combinations of thrusters. Some of these will also result in turning, some will result in slowing down, some will result in side ways movement. Many will be somewhere in between those.

Connect all the points from that and you'll get a vague sphere extending out from the position of the target at the time of firing, with the (no change to velocity) position at time of impact being somewhere near the center of the sphere.

In effect, the enemy has to shoot at multiple different points to have 100% chance of hitting you- all the points within that sphere that are the size of the target.

So a small target (like a small little beacon or something) would require much more firepower to hit/there is a lower probability of hitting if you fire at one point in particular as there is a higher chance that the enemy will move out of the way (in fact they may be able to actively dodge it depending on how well they can track a new object in 1 second).

For a large ship, even assuming it had all the same movement abilities as a small ship (which is not inherently true but its safe to assume that all the thrusters are scaled proportionally so that it is true) it might not be able to dodge- no matter where you put it on the sphere, it is so big that SOME part of the ship is at the 'did not change velocity' point. It may be impossible to dodge or, at the very least, much, much easier to dodge.

There are ways of designing a ship (mostly having to do with cross section but also having quickly accelerating thrusters all over the ship to allow quick maneuvering in any direction) that increase its abilities at dodging regardless of mass. Those two things roughly correlate to having the Fighter or Fighterlike attribute and to the Mobility score in 5150 FS.

Of course one problem with dodging in this way is that it takes propellant but people often exaggerate how much it takes to move a few meters in one second-- all thats needed for a small ship with a small cross section-- and so in 5150FS this rarely takes up fuel, although it can on occasion to represent the danger of dodging too often resulting in lost fuel. The much more dangerous thing, however, is that an enemy can 'cancel' out dodges by spreading his fire all over the sphere of possible locations…. it reduces damage if they do hit, as more weapons were wasted, but it basically makes it impossible to miss.

I wasn't really referring to fighters per se – they are the extreme example (space games tend to model fighters vs ships like atmospheric fighters vs navy ships; a bad analogy as in space they move in the same medium, and can both have equal thrust/weight)

Agreed. Think of WW1 dreadnaughts and torpedo boats rather than carriers and monoplanes.

Agreed. Think of WW1 dreadnaughts and torpedo boats rather than carriers and monoplanes.

We went the route of modeling fighters as "armed autonomous drones" with various weapon loudouts while missiles are modeled as single use drones with warheads.

So instead of "dreadnoughts and torpedo boats" we sort of went one more level in size contrast with "dreadnoughs and intelligent torpedos" some of which impact their target and some of which fire their own weapons and return to base to rearm. But I agree, both should be treated as "swimming in the same medium".

So a small target (like a small little beacon or something) would require much more firepower to hit/there is a lower probability of hitting if you fire at one point in particular as there is a higher chance that the enemy will move out of the way (in fact they may be able to actively dodge it depending on how well they can track a new object in 1 second).

There's another reason why smaller ships are harder to kill: surface area to volume ratio. Any ship will require radiators, both to deal with heating from incoming laser hits and primarily to deal with heat load from engines and power generation. (This could be one reason why the glowy plasma from the warp nacelles is visible in Star Trek).

My game works under the assumption that ships don't have to worry about their heat radiators in particular. Maybe they're armored, maybe they're droplet radiators, maybe they're just pulled in during combat. Maybe even a mix (though I've heard some say that this wouldn't work their explanation wasn't particularly convincing as it wasn't based in physics but in raw hypothetical combat logic).

I'm thinking of adding optional rules where your ships are "old style" and have radiators. You can still retract them (but then you can't shoot lasers and there is a limit to how long you can do this) or you can leave them up (meaning that they can be destroyed and then you permanently lose your ability to do stuff like shoot lasers AND after the time limit is up you're dead).

This would essentially just be a modification to standard damage rolls (or maybe count as a critical), but instead of reducing a stat or putting the ship at a damage level, it'd basically just put a little time limit counter next to the ship (which also signals no lasers).

"I'm thinking of adding optional rules where your ships are "old style" and have radiators. You can still retract them (but then you can't shoot lasers and there is a limit to how long you can do this) or you can leave them up (meaning that they can be destroyed and then you permanently lose your ability to do stuff like shoot lasers AND after the time limit is up you're dead)."

I also considered some sort of heat management system (like Battletech who have heat sinks) which adds a layer of resource management in.

I'm trying to think of a way to include it without adding significantly to record keeping….

Well you definitely need to track "retracted" vs. "not retracted" if you're doing that whole thing.

If you just want to track heat, I wouldn't bother. Work it into the number of actions you can take in a turn, any increase caused by enemy weapons is already in the damage rules.

Now for retracted vs. not retracted thats not MUCH record keeping added but it does mean you have some more rules floating around…. what a retracted ship can and cannot do, for example, and also a reason for ships to retract (like an increase in damage taken if not retracted).

You could just use flash sublimators, gasdynamic laser radiators, things like that.

I've added in rules for crew advancement
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A few other rules have been adjusted. In particular I am not sure I have the combat mechanics down smooth enough (I am not a 'fistfuls of dice' fan but I am still searching for a viable alternative as I am trying to avoid rolling dice more than once or at most twice.

I find it annoying in games to have to roll to hit, roll to penetrate, roll to damage, roll to 'save' etc etc

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Scroll down a bit for combat posts (there is about 5 of them). Input welcomed!

EDIT: I think I have 'anonymous users' enabled so you don't have to sign into an account to input