"No Stars in Sight. Feature and content list." Topic

As things creep towards completion of the text, I figured I'd give those of you who haven't bought the beta a run down of what will be in there:

*Game rules, very slightly adapted from No End in Sight. Intention is to keep things as similar as possible to allow players to move back and forth without any problem.

There's a few clarifications and rewordings and the group move rule was added.

*Futuristic weapons. These are intended as broad battlefield archetypes so they can be renamed to whatever works. In addition to the customary autocannon, tank guns and rockets, you also get rapid firing, multi-target missile packs, particle guns, infantry portable energy weapons, wasp grenades that act like a launched, precision detonated claymore, mass drivers, multi-purpose drones, automatic defense guns and probably some other things I forget.

I made the decision to focus on a near-future "150 years out" approach and keep the tech fairly humble. There'll be plenty of time for space-fantasy guns later on :)

*Units covered include grav tanks, infantry in exo-suits, powered armour (and they're pretty buff, more reminiscent of Traveller Battledress than warhammer space marines), droid infantry (think the droids from Mass Effect).

*Scenario generator with the option of generating random support troops for your platoon.

*Special rules are mostly the same as No End in Sight, though there'll be additions for alien battlefields. I didn't rewrite these sections to avoid accidentally introducing contradictions.

*Campaign rules and character generation hasn't changed much from No End in Sight. There will be one main campaign style and some special tables for space opera battles.

*Not sure what style of quotes to use for the chapter headers. No End in Sight had anti-war quotes so maybe cautions about technology for this one?

Otherwise I was going to mine famous astronomers and scientists for interesting quotations.

*At my count, 10 or so alien archetypes, along with a build-your-own trait system.

*No points system, unless someone wants to give me some hardcore bribes. There'll be check list systems to go through, to put together vehicles and whatnot.

I don't think I've had a single person ask for a points system in No End in Sight though for scifi games, maybe that'll be more of an expectation.

*Illustrations will be a mix of some clip art and will feature photos of at least one company's toy soldiers, possibly more. (If you sell scifi miniatures, this is a GREAT time to pop me an email).

For those of us (maybe just me?) unfamiliar with your other set, what scale and scope is this game covering?

Sorry, it's platoon level (typical game ranges from two small fire teams up to a mechanized platoon with supporting elements, so think 10-12 individual units).

With mostly infantry, you could probably swing a company each but it'd get pretty busy on the table.

Each figure based individually (which seems to be the norm in scifi gaming anyways).

Plays on a table somewhere between 2x2 and 3x3 feet (more or less 300 yards or so in ground scale) so "tip of the spear".

I tend to write assuming 15mm, but people have played NEiS with anything from 6mm to 28mm so I don't think it really matters too much.
Like I said, in 15mm, its about a 300 yard battle area.

If you check the "Modern" battle reports, Jack did a few "No End in Sight" AAR's and we've had an AAR from a "No Stars" beta tester as well.

As always you bring the big game Nordic and I'm happy withe product (I ticks all the boxes for playability, realism and fun for rules) so I get to dump my figures on table get some stats up and play, knowing 1s ,d 6s signify something just makes it exciting and its such a simple and cool fix to playing the unpredictable rule :) There'll be plenty of time for space-fantasy guns later on :) your the man :)
Cheers

Thanks, Weasel!

Races done so far:

Warriors – regimented warrior culture (think Klingons, Turian, Orcs)
Precursors – refined long-lived humanoids (think Eldar or Asari)
Soulless – robot dudes (Terminators, Geth)
Swift – winged lizards, (Droyne)
Converted – tech-zombie types (Mass effect Husks, Strogg)

Working on 6 more (if my count is correct) plus the tool kit.