"Trying to break 5150: Star Navy" Topic

I have another playtest report for 5150: Star Navy. This time, it's several dozen missile frigates against a superdreadnought in an attempt to see how far the rules will stretch:

Writeup and more pics at Super Galactic Dreadnought: link

Very cool "break the rules" playtest.

It's interesting, seeing how that many small ships fare against one unescorted big 'un.

Thanks DesertScrb – that was a great little playtest article.

Just a question – I know pretty much every current game from THW does not use point values, but does have a system where you get roughly equivalent forces (with some randomness).
You've pitted 38 small ships vs. one huge ship here. How did you pick that number – or more importantly, how will fleet composition be handled in Star Navy?

Thanks, jpatt; and you're welcome, Tim.

You've pitted 38 small ships vs. one huge ship here. How did you pick that number

I picked that number by bringing over just about every stellar destroyer, starbomber, and armored pursuit ship in my collection and putting them on Ed's table to see how they'd do.

– or more importantly, how will fleet composition be handled in Star Navy?

Still working on that, but probably via fleet lists and/or random tables. However, Ed also wants to include a points system (which we're still developing--the playtest caused us to increase the points value of those Class 3s).

A few THW products include point mechanisms. Rally Round the King does.

Just an observation, but the large number of retreating figures seems "off" for naval conflict. Air and naval assets are a lot less prone to haring off on their own than ground units, possibly due to better command and control. Damaged vessels have an excuse to break off the attack, but most navies would not tolerate skippers that refuse an attack order in an undamaged vessel. Such an officer would be drummed out of the service with varying levels of lethality. Refusing to attack without orders (say, after the loss of the flagship) is a different situation. There's still command friction at sea (deep blue or deep black), but it expresses itself in other ways than simply running away.

That's a valid observation, RST, and it's something we've considered. Right now the rules have ships leaving the battle if they don't pass certain damage tests, and also if they fail a test after a nearby ship gets destroyed.

I look at this as the individual ship commander deciding to retire after concluding that the enemy's fire is too great. This doesn't happen very often with the better quality crews, but a ships Reputation can decrease as it takes damage, meaning it's less likely to pass those damage tests.

Therefore, you might see a ship get destroyed, and an intact ship next to it will pass the Friend Destroyed test, while an already-damaged ship on the other side (with lower Rep) might fail the test and flee. Or it could be vice versa, depending on how the dice roll.

Also at the level this game is played, ships running off may well be following orders… of lower admirals than the player.

Another way to look at "undamaged" ships fleeing the battle is that at this level, the game doesn't keep track of every laser shot and hull panel. So it could be that one ship blows up, and it damages its neighbor--not enough to affect anything noticeable at the admiral's level, but substantial enough to cause the captain of the neighboring vessel to order his ship out of there.

Use twice as many missile boats…..