"Most "Scientific" Spaceship Battle Rules?" Topic

Attack vector tactical is definitely one. It is (without modification) rather limited in scope to it's setting ideas but under its assumptions it is as hard as can be. I also think it might focus too much on the details when the more abstract choices and results are my personal preference but that is completely subjective.

If you want a taste of what hard SF space combat might look like (and perhaps even some ideas to make your own rules that better fit your tech assumptions) it's definitely worthwhile. If you find it's not to your taste from a game design sense it'll still be a worthwhile learning experience, IMO.

Oh! And at a different scale, high frontier, the board game. IMO probably better than AVT for actually understanding space flight in the real world/near future but it doesn't really do combat or lower scale maneuvers because it's all about orbits and energy.

If AV:T turns out too hard or two narrow in scope, Ad Astra Games also makes Squadron Strike which is their take on game with space ships that go "woooosh!" It's a generic game (meaning you can bring your own stuff on the table much more easily) and basically starts with selecting the level of realism you want and goes on from there. Might almost be tempted to recommend starting with that one and then graduating to AV:T if it appeals.

Yes, Attack Vector is the crunchiest for it's set of tech assumptions, followed by Squadron Strike with it's 'realism settings' turned all the way up. Once of the nice things for Squadron Strike is it supports (I believe) different versions of 'real' in each force, so you want realistic Newtonian movement vs. non-newtonian warp drive, you can try it.

There's then 'medium crunch' games that with the right movement rules might work as a somewhat abstracted simulation, like Full Thrust or Starmada. The Stars Our Decimation(I think that's the title), if still in print, also fills this niche.

I love Hard Vacuum to death, though it's *heavily* geared towards it's own tongue-in-cheek setting assumptions; all combat in orbit and most launched from the surface, small ships, NO computers, NO sensors other than a few ships with radar, etc. The design rules is also setup for good game balance, rather than 'real' engineering. It's still a hoot of a game though, and if you stuck with the 'Liquid Fuel' rules you might get something that feels kinda of realistic.

-Will