"Building a 3-D space battle board" Topic

We used a board with plexiglass levels every 6" for a DnD game, but it was a 2x2 board.

Sounds good to me. My major concern is the 4x4 size. I'm pretty sure you'd need a center support at that size. It would be tough to print on if you wanted squares, but you could use strips of tape or something to make your marks.

If you use plexiglass, you can drill holes through the corners and center, which would allow you to stack them with dowels. The first level dowels could be firmly fixed to a wooden or thick plastic base.

How about hinging the decks and making them 2x4? It would help with portability.

Overall, I like the idea.

A board like that does altitude variances but doesn't address all the other aspects of true 3D with a ships pitch and roll reflected. Can the ship point strait up? How about pointing down 45 degrees and rolled 135 degrees when 8 inches above the playing surface?

Making a true 3D miniatures game is difficult and there are forums full of discussion on this from Ad Astra games on what they tried and how they ended up with their tilt blocks and box minis for their Attack Vector: Tactical and Honor Harrington games.

Interesting idea. That said, I think most games either go whole hog in being 3D or just disregard it. If its full 3D, the game tends to only involve a few ships to make it practical to use blocks or stands or whatever. If its disregarded, that tends to be because at the scale and abstraction the game is being played at it shouldn't make much difference either way-- range and whether or not you're in front of your enemies weapons is all that really matters and you don't need 3D to get that feel.

So if you want 3D, then I'd go with blocks.

Go find yourself a copy of Mustangs and Messerschmitts….

IMO, if you want to play 3D, then use computers and do it properly.

Yes there are some issues about having to write a bit of code, or find someone else who can, but that's pretty much the point. Some things are hard to do, and there are no easy solutions. Genuine 3D is one of those things.

Levels of plexiglass are going to be so widely spaced -- in order to get your hand in -- that the game becomes so low resolution that what you gain in 3D you lose in granularity of movement and ranges.

There's a reason that there are no genuinely popular 3D games (and I include board games, kid's games etc).

QC, the ball top works for most angles but it can't handle a full 180 degree roll and any related alignment. Ad Astra did work with Ninja Magic to make their Magnetic Adapter workable with their 3D rules including a ship being fully inverted.
link

And for 360 degree firing arcs, many ships are flat enough that they do have distinct top an bottom arcs that have to be considered, like the classic Star Destroyer or even the Star Blazers ships that have turrets that can only fire at ships on the same plane or above firing ship, but then may not be able to fire at ships directly above as the turrets can nut elevate to a full 90 degrees. Thus rolling and pitching the ship gets to be important, even with just 2 ships, in a 3D environment.

Regarding the aspect of your starship in 3D space, one way to do this would be to paint your ship, then encase it in a clear resin sphere, similar to those plastic bouncy balls you get with things in them. Some king of egg-cup stand or ring and voila!, you can then rotate the ball to show the aspect of your ship. An added advantage of this is that your carefully painted ship wont't get damaged.

However, I do not speak from experience here, it's just an idea, so I'm not certain how resin reacts with paint (I believe that some resins give off heat when curing?), so it might not be that good an idea…

But hey, that's what these forums are for, no?

Balls work

Did this a quarter of a century ago link

John T