"Designing movement rules for my game (the Farthest Star)" Topic

Been working on my own rule set (one of 50 or so people doing so on this board, lol). I've got a lot of it down and have had a couple of successful playtests that I've posted over at Star Ranger.

This site appear to have more traffic now, so I was looking for feedback.

I'm thinking about using this for my movement system:

So you start with the Captain's Phase – plot command points and movement. I use a predesigned sheet for command, which is a combination of crew quality and energy. You just move your command points onto the circles that represent your systems, all the rules are built there, so its pretty simple. Ships generally have 6-10 command points – new players picked up the system and were playing in 15 mins.

So say you have a ship that if you don't put in any CPs it moves at a speed of 5" and can turn every 5". You could assign CPs to give it better speed and turning capabilities.

Movement is the trick – I want simoultaneous movement for cap ships. The movement bar system currently in vogue is great, but I don't want to be too derivative

One thing I was thinking is just use a counter based system instead – pick up a token based on the amount of distance you move, pick a token for a turn, repeat as long as your ship command options let you.

So say a ship has 9" of movement and has power to jet so it can make better turns, a turn every 4".

You could pick up a start token, a 4" token, a TURN R token, and a 5" token. Each token would have a number on the bottom to represent the ship.

You'd then lay those out and move your ship, everyone going together as much as possible.

Some ships would also in their movement area have the option to assign command points to reaction – if the ship is nimble and responsive and the crew is focusing on it, they could modify their movement.

So say you a flying a frigate and see the cruiser above we talked about make those moves. You've already put your tokens on the table, and moved your ship. But you realize the cruiser was lining up a good shot on you and put in points to reaction.

You could then alter your movement tokens retroactivly based on the amount of reaction you bought in the command phase.

So if you plotted 3", L, 3", L, and 3", based on your movement CPs, and also bought a Reaction 1, you could go back to the L turn and change it to what you wanted to get out of the cruiser's line of fire.

Any thoughts on this? Appreciate any constructive criticism, or if you need clarification let me know.

Look into laminated cards and written movement orders.

I realize "writing bad, toys good" is the current vogue, but…look seriously at printing a hex grid on a laminated card, and have people draw lines on it for their movement and turn orders.

It's faster, the orders can be written and turned face down, and revealed simultaneously.

Yeah, I might end up going that way, I did pen and paper the first time.

But I was hoping to get something that uses the reaction rules better than that system.

I also was thinking about doing a classic initiative system, with each side totalling up CPs spent on initative. Fast ships that could use CPs on that would help, and then you could add in things like expert leaders and scouts to your initiative total. The guy that lost last turn would add 1 point each future turn, and because some of the points would have to be spent via CP, you might not always be able to use them and the amount would fluctuate each turn.

The problem with that system is it doesn't work as well for multi side engagements, which is what I most often play at cons and with my game group.

You could do this, assuming you use a hex grid.

Make hex tiles the same size as the hex grid. Each tile has a move arrow – either straight or a turn or whatever. Players then plan their move by stacking the tiles in the hex in front of the ship. Upon the GMs command they then lay them out one tile at a time. Then just move the ship to the end of the tiles. For the reaction, just make a tile for Reaction 1, Reaction 2 etc. If they use it they change 1 or 2 tiles (whatever they paid for) and there you go.

A litle work making the tiles but an hour with powerpoint and just print them on cardstock….

Here's a quick thought: each ship gets it's allotted movement based on size, power, whatever. Extra command points can be spent to get more movement. Command points can also be spent on reactions. (ok, so no changes yet).
Each player now has a stack of cards, chits, whatever that determines movement. Everyone moves 1 hex/chit at the same time. Players may play a reaction movement/chit instead. They can now move on this phase after everyone else has moved. So its: turn1, move phase1, move phase2, (repeat until everyone is done), end turn1.

Excellent ideas from all concerned, thanks!

Problem is I'm not planning on using hexes.

But I could just as easily use 1 inch counters, I'd just need to make them thick so they wouldn't stick together.

Same basic idea.

Or actually, I could use dice!

I'm already using a lot of different types of dice – the idea for resolving firing resolutions is you have a fixed target number (say the cross section of a cruiser is 6), then you go up and down die sizes until you get the die roll you need to hit. It ties together hit and location in one mechanic – and the lower the die, the more you can pinpoint hit locations.

So use d6, then I'd just need to make some die with the manuevers they need. I could print out stickers and put them on dice for turn L 90, turn L 180, turn R 90, turn R 180, evasive actions, etc.

I could probably tie in the type of maneuvers on the die with the manueverability of the ship.

Dice are cheap, and you just put your dice stack forward – maybe on a stand with a removable piece of paper to obscure until the reveal.

The tokens work really well too, and would be perfect for hex, but my combat system isn't really geared for hex.

You could then alter your movement tokens retroactively based on the amount of reaction you bought in the command phase.

So if you plotted 3", L, 3", L, and 3", based on your movement CPs, and also bought a Reaction 1, you could go back to the L turn and change it to what you wanted to get out of the cruiser's line of fire.

Besides CP, is there a limit to the number of reactions? Or, gamers being gamers, why wouldn't a captain load up on reactions?

I'm guessing that CPs are spent for firing, damage control, etc?

It ties together hit and location in one mechanic

Sorry, not quite getting the concept. Using the Cruiser 6 as an example…I *think* (dangerous, that) you roll a die and if it is a 6 or less, something gets hit on the cruiser based on some chart. So, a 1 is warp power core (ka-boom) and a 2 is computer core (dead in space) and a 3 is main guns, 4 is…while a 7+ is miss/hull armor absorbs shot/etc.? Going up and down die sizes (d2, d3, d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20?) alters the chance of hit/destruction?

In such a case, seems to me that dropping down the die sizes needs to be finely balanced with range, crew quality, etc. To fast a drop and ships will be supernovas while too slow a drop or too fast an increase and ships will be pristine.

Or, likely, I have it completely wrong, but I'd be interested in how to eliminate a step in the combat mechanic (vs. the usual roll to hit, roll for damage -- sometimes with a roll to save stuck in between).

Hey Russ, thanks for taking an interest!

Besides CP, is there a limit to the number of reactions? Or, gamers being gamers, why wouldn't a captain load up on reactions?

I'm guessing that CPs are spent for firing, damage control, etc?

Yes, the limit on reactions is based on the ship type. Basically it represents the agility and aggressiveness of the ship, and because CPs are necessary to gain reaction, it becomes a tactical choice to decide to use them in that role. Arming weapons, shuttle operations, electronic warfare, damage control, maneuvering, shields, all these things take up your limited supply of CPs.

As the vast majority of ships capable of doing so will be smaller ships that have less CP normally to begin with, the tactical choices became more profound.

There will be 'cinematic' rules for elite and legendary officers that will give larger ships a chance to use reaction. Part of the idea is to make a system that isn't about 'realism' in space combat but to portray the space ship battles in popular entertainment, so making rules where the original Enterprise can indeed beat 3 Klingon battlecruisers because it gets so many additional bonuses for crew is supproted.

Sorry, not quite getting the concept. Using the Cruiser 6 as an example…I *think* (dangerous, that) you roll a die and if it is a 6 or less, something gets hit on the cruiser based on some chart. So, a 1 is warp power core (ka-boom) and a 2 is computer core (dead in space) and a 3 is main guns, 4 is…while a 7+ is miss/hull armor absorbs shot/etc.?

Yes, exactly so.

Going up and down die sizes (d2, d3, d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20?) alters the chance of hit/destruction?

Yes, all the way to d100, and down to just a 1 – you hit the spot you aimed at.

In such a case, seems to me that dropping down the die sizes needs to be finely balanced with range, crew quality, etc. To fast a drop and ships will be supernovas while too slow a drop or too fast an increase and ships will be pristine.

Yes, I agree, and that's part of the playtesting.

So in my version I use a 2 step process, one die roll for to hit/location, then a card for armor penetration, damage, and critical.

But that's at the initial tactical level, where people are captaining 1-3 ships per player.

If you went up to a squadron scale, with larger fleets and simpler damage allocation, that system would actually work still very well. You'd just need a base damage and armor value to compare. I would think you could resolve large scale combats fairly quickly there, and cut out the detailed ship control sheets I'm using now.

I like the card system because I can resolve things quickly, with a fine level of granularity, while still getting a wide variety of results.

Specifically I wanted to tie in criticals with that system, and it uses a fairly large amounts of critical types.

Each numbered box in the SCS has an armor value, and it might have a critical icon in it.

The cards can do crits based on the weapon type fired, OR based on what is hit.

So say you are resolving the traditional pulse laser shot. You've got a resoution deck that is mostly comprised of a 'base' deck – one that most decks use as its core. This I've created checking a statistical breakdown of how I want the damage resolved. Criticals here are pretty standard – mostly 'shaken', which removes a CP for a turn as the crew is flung around the ship. And a few rends, meaning it weakened the armor. And the Crit Checks – meaning that the weapon type didn't matter, but it hit something bad on the ship, thus activating that crit type on the box I mentioned before.

But we aren't done with the deck. You then add in the specialty weapon cards to the deck. The pulse laser cannon adds in cards that add fire criticals, small raking effects (the pulses may hit across the hull and hit more than 1 location), and increased chances of criticals – as the pulses hit more often in different areas of the targeted location, therefore added more chances to trigger the crits.

Each weapon type adds in different cards – explosive weapons (like missile warheads) do broader splash damage and more shaken results. Laser beams can do raking hits, penetrating hits, and have cards that increase the chance

of doing more damage. You even have crits for electical surges, explosive decompression, and radiation, depending on the nature of the weapon or possibly the nature of the system you hit.

So it sounds more complex than it is in play – in play, you figure your roll, roll that die, and if you hit pull that card and see what you get. The complexity of the system is built into the card decks and the SCS.

I've had a couple of pretty smart guys that playtested for me pick the basic system up in about 15 mins.

Or, likely, I have it completely wrong, but I'd be interested in how to eliminate a step in the combat mechanic (vs. the usual roll to hit, roll for damage -- sometimes with a roll to save stuck in between).

I agree, I was going for speed, with the complexity built into the system. And the 'feel' of captaining a ship – resource choices in the CP, especially when the crits are beginning to show. Do I spend CP on damage control when there's an internal fire, or do I take the chance and go for the alpha strike on the guy who is shooting at me?

Of course, taking the card step out could make that a very quick system, with your big issue balancing the die mechanic so that the percentages work correctly. I'm still working on that as I want that in my base game as well.

Feel free to look at it for anything you are doing, I'd just appreciate any feedback of what you find. :)

Currently I have a play aid where I have the weapon decks for a side, along with the firing solution chart by die: d1, d3, d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d16, d20, d40, d60, d80, d100. Medium range I've been testing at the d20.

I'm also compressing weapons numbers – there's only 1 roll per weapon type per ship. But if you have a bunch of weapons in that arc you draw more cards to resolve. Say 4-8 weapons represents a 'bank', and you draw 4 cards and resolve the best 2.

Sorry for the super long reply, very enthusiastic about this system as I haven't seen anyone use it and it seems like if I get the play balance right it could do a lot of things well.

Any constructive criticism welcome!

So what do you guys think about this in the 'Captain's Phase'.

1) Assign Command Points. Initially I've found new players take a while to look at all the options and understand what they can do with their CPs.

But once they've flown the ship for a couple of turns, it becomes pretty quick as the players just zip through, as its all pretty straightforward. Want to go fast, put CPs in thrust. Want to put out fires or clean up radiation, put it in damage control. Want to lunch shuttles, put it in shuttle ops. Easy peasy. The hard thing is not having enough to do everything you want.

2) Then plot your move by taking your move dice and putting it on your tray.

Say you want to move 5", turn R, and then move 3".

Take a small d6, put it to 5, take your turn die, put to R, then put a d6 at 3.

All players reveal at the same time. All players move as much as possible at the same time.

Seems really simple and very intuitive, and would still allow the reaction system to be used to potentially turn one of those dice to a different value if they've paid the CP to have the reaction move. Reaction moves are ranked by value as well, the higher the value, the later your reaction comes so you can see what other people have done.

Make sense?

OK. I have a better idea now.

As a suggestion without knowing the statistical breakdowns, if you are going to roll a die and then pick a card, maybe you can ignore the die entirely and put the "die roll" on the card -- that way you won't have to search for the "right" die (d8s and d10s look an awful lot alike)? This idea has been used in many a miniature game (usually with a normal deck of 52 cards and jokers) and in board games like Kingmaker.

Furthermore, decks can be tailored to specific factions, if you have your own Empires. That gets a little much from a production standpoint, but you mentioned individual criticals, so you may or may not be thinking along those lines anyway.

As another suggestion, maybe the legendary crews don't need CPs because they know their jobs all too well? I can see the drama of Kirk screaming "Scotty! I need more power!" "I need those phasers!" "I need xyz!" Scotty should have already figured that out…

Or…

"Get us out of here, Sulu!" Well, not much of a CP because Sulu has already (presumably) figured out where he would plot the ship move…

And so on…

Yes, all the way to d100, and down to just a 1 – you hit the spot you aimed at.

Just an observation…While the "Great shot, kid. That was one in a million" is also dramatic, the 1 in 100 die roll chance of a big boom can also be dramatic…once. Gamers being gamers, they will roll d100 for a 1% chance. If your system does that every turn multiple times, that die rolling gets tedious.

Wally Simon had the "1/3 rule of thumb" that suggested not rolling anything unless it has a 1/3 chance of success with a measurable impact. Yes, he violated his own rule as much as he adhered to it, and hits on a 6 (16%) is quite valid and even 1 of 10 (10%) is fine, but small percentages should be used as accents, not main efforts. Or so I suggest.

So it sounds more complex than it is in play

All rules are like that. Teaching someone the basics to play something in person is easier than having to read through a rule book, but a good rule book will include examples of the oddball results as much as the usual results.

…examples of the oddball results as much as the usual results.

Impossible to get them all, but it's surprising how many of the most basic get missed.

I'm a Full Thrust fanboy from when FTII and MT were the only things on the block, but it drove me a little crazy (short trip) the way all the examples had even movement.

'You split in half, but actually half or rounded, as with turn points? Nine MUs is 4.5 and 4.5, or five and four?'

I know, obvious to all, though I've seen it played both ways, but a simple change in one example…

Sorry, rant over.

Doug

OK. I have a better idea now.

As a suggestion without knowing the statistical breakdowns, if you are going to roll a die and then pick a card, maybe you can ignore the die entirely and put the "die roll" on the card -- that way you won't have to search for the "right" die (d8s and d10s look an awful lot alike)? This idea has been used in many a miniature game (usually with a normal deck of 52 cards and jokers) and in board games like Kingmaker.

Eliminating the die component would be great, and it would lower the cost of ownership and therefore I could expand the decks. The problem is I can't see a way to put that information on the cards – the mechanic means I have a sliding scale for dice, to implement the target location in one mechanic. I could make the dice mechanic internal. So instead of going up and down to give a die type, instead give an artificial 'firing solution' description. But that would still mean I'd need a large number of 'firing solutions', and I'd need those to give me a specific number for a hit location.

For example, I'd need lots of numbers on the cards, each one for each different firing solution. Right now there's 12 different ranges. So I'd need 12 areas with a number on them. I could compress that. Hmmm… worth looking into!

The one negative is as I'm already doing the penetration, damage, and criticals in the resolution card. Not sure I want to chain the hit chance there as well, I'll have to look at those numbers. But I could do a separate 'to hit' deck if that doesn't work out still.

Furthermore, decks can be tailored to specific factions, if you have your own Empires. That gets a little much from a production standpoint, but you mentioned individual criticals, so you may or may not be thinking along those lines anyway.

Right now I'm doing it by weapon type, but there can be modifiers to delineate them. For example, weapons can have better or worse targeting, do additional crits, have better or worse penetration, or damage, to modify the draws from the deck.

I'd love to do it inherently in the deck, but its really a $$$ issue – I don't want the initial purchase price to be prohibitive. But that's where you get the add on decks that in theory I could sell independently.

For example, in the Trek universe both phasers and disruptors are basically energy weapons – I could differentiate them slightly by using modifiers by one deck, or expand it for a greater 'feel' difference later on.

As another suggestion, maybe the legendary crews don't need CPs because they know their jobs all too well? I can see the drama of Kirk screaming "Scotty! I need more power!" "I need those phasers!" "I need xyz!" Scotty should have already figured that out…

Or…

"Get us out of here, Sulu!" Well, not much of a CP because Sulu has already (presumably) figured out where he would plot the ship move…

OHHH YEAH. We definitely have the same idea here, and the first two playtests included that. As I'm using round tokens for CPs, and I was playtesting in a Star Wars environment as most of my friends prefer that setting, I simply bought heroclix figures, and their round bases were identical to the size of the systems. So you could have figures for specific heroes that work well within the boundaries of the ship control sheets.

But there's a lot of ways I want to implement characters – at the moment I'm thinking there's elite officers, and legendary officers. Elites would allow you to get a free cp or bonus once or twice per game. Legendaries would provide the bonus constantly for the ship throughout the entire game.

Plus you could allow the legendary guys to increase the maximum value of the ship. Not only would Sulu give you one free command point the entire game, but the ship its might go from a top speed of 10" to 12".

Legendary weapons officers might even be able to change the cards in the deck – so you could take any 5 cards out of the deck to decrease your chances of crappy cards.

Lots and lots of fun and imaginative things you could do there.

Just an observation…While the "Great shot, kid. That was one in a million" is also dramatic, the 1 in 100 die roll chance of a big boom can also be dramatic…once. Gamers being gamers, they will roll d100 for a 1% chance. If your system does that every turn multiple times, that die rolling gets tedious.

Well, it more represents 'target their engines' than 'instant kill.' Most ships won't have their crunchy bits that explode the ship on the outside -you'll need to penetrate into the ship to do that, and there's still the matter of the armor.

So I agree with you – its just not easy to see without seeing the SCS design on why it would be very unlikely to work that way.

Wally Simon had the "1/3 rule of thumb" that suggested not rolling anything unless it has a 1/3 chance of success with a measurable impact. Yes, he violated his own rule as much as he adhered to it, and hits on a 6 (16%) is quite valid and even 1 of 10 (10%) is fine, but small percentages should be used as accents, not main efforts. Or so I suggest.

Agreed – what I tend to think is that players soon realize if they can't hit than they are wasting their CPs. I don't want to tell them they can't fire that ridiculously crappy shot – there's still a chance it might hit, and in some cases that can be dramatic – say a ship trying to disengage and you still have a 10% chance to get that hit which will blow it up before it gets out of range. Those can be fun. :)

If I can find a way to do the specific 'firing solutions' vs the dice range, I could reduce the number of viable shots, and just say 'past firing solution ridiculous you can't attempt the shot.'

So far in the play test I've seen the players as they learn not understand they initially have to put CPs into electronic warfare for targeting. They pick that up pretty quickly though.

Part of the problem is that I'm running Star Wars for the initial playtests to draw in players – and IMO anyway they are pretty notorious for having tons of weapons that don't hit very often. :D

I could drop the highest die firing solutions, and see if that speeds up the game. I'll think about that.

Basically I"m going to roll out different settings to implement new deck types, and try those out both at home and at cons. When/if I ever sell the game, I'll create a background for each race that makes them interesting for my own setting (I'm a huge believer in 'fluff'), but then I'll bundle the systems so that the systems can be purchased for another genre also.

So say one part of my space has a storyline abuot the conflict between two technologically advanced races – one a human cult of uplifted fanatics trying to escape religious persecution from the lords of terra, the other a centaur-like race that are strong warrior clan that are ecological purists that defend the space lanes from the damaging effect of FTL that the human groups use.

Well, if the groups use energy beams, shields, light armor, warp drive, and energy torpedoes, you could easily convert those decks and techs to another genre of your choice that uses those technologies. :)

Of course, I need to get more work done on the stats and more playtesting, but thanks for the ideas and brain storming. That really gets my enthusiastic about trying them out.

Thanks for all the ideas and thoughts!

@The Beast.

Concur, and that's usually a sign of not enough playtesting so the guys don't see what their game groups have issues with.

I plan on implementing the game in stages, with settings tied to the story in the background, then making those tech combinations portable if you want to have fun with 'classic' races.

But one of the things I want to do with the rules set is make it more user friendly, not an engineering manual. As the SCS and cards have the rules mostly built in, I think that will be easier than most games.

So a 1 page sheet on basic rules for ships, a 1 page sheet for basic rules for fighters, and then the detailed descriptions in the main game rules, trying to avoid 'alternate sunday' rules as much as possible.

But then, after each section, give a designer's section. This is the part I never understand why they don't include.

In other words, WHY the game works the way it works with these rule interactions. Reading through that should give you for more understanding of the rules than endless subsections of one offs, that we so often see!

Right now there's 12 different ranges.

Hmmm. Perhaps you can reduce in half? If you have a 4-foot (48") table width and you have 12 ranges, that's only 4" per range band, assuming you can fire across the entire table. If your maximum range is 3 feet (36"), that's 3" per band. I guess it depends on playtesting to see how granular range bands have to be compared with the movement rate. The higher the movement rate, the less granularity you need.

As an example, using the 4" range bands, if ships fly *less* than 4", it is possible that a non-moving defender will be able to fire at least once, possible twice, within each range band. If ships fly *more* than 4", then it is possible for the moving ship to skip a range band.

However, if a ship moves, say 12", then it can skip two range bands. If a fighter moves 18" or 24", then it skips multiple bands.

(assuming direct path towards non-moving defending ship)

Which is a long way of saying that the higher the movement rate, the less you might need small range bands.

In a hex-based game with a chart that cross references range in hexes with a to-hit number, range bands would be limited by the sides of the die -- you really don't need 12 range bands if you are using a single six-sided die. If you are moving up and down to-hit calculations using different sided dice, d1, d2, d3, d4, d6, etc, then you can have more range bands, if at the expense of speed in finding the right die.

On the other hand, with simultaneous movement, landing in any range band is possible…which may be your intent.

If I can find a way to do the specific 'firing solutions' vs the dice range, I could reduce the number of viable shots

You might consider reducing your weapon ranges to "effective ranges" instead of "maximum we-got-a-shot" ranges. But that ties in with movement rates as noted above.

problem is I can't see a way to put that information on the cards

I was thinking more of one die roll result number, but that may not fit in exactly with the mechanic. For example, if "6" is a hit on a cruiser, if a card had a "4" it would hit at the "4" level (whatever that might be), but if the card had a "7" it would miss a shot on a cruiser, but a "7" (speculating here) might be a hit on some other larger ship, like a battlecruiser or battleship.

Be interesting to see how you shake it all out. You're obviously trying to design something innovative and you should continue to do so. Sounds interesting. Keep at it.

Hmmm. Perhaps you can reduce in half? If you have a 4-foot (48") table width and you have 12 ranges, that's only 4" per range band, assuming you can fire across the entire table. If your maximum range is 3 feet (36"), that's 3" per band. I guess it depends on playtesting to see how granular range bands have to be compared with the movement rate. The higher the movement rate, the less granularity you need.

Sorry, poor choice of words on my part. What I meant is there are 12 discrete dice sets that can be used as part of the equation. That gives me a lot of grainularity on balancing the accuracy. Weapons only have 5 'range bands'.

PB is d6, Short is d8, Medium is d12, Long is d20, Extreme is d40. There's intervening dice choices between those to reflect differences in the targeting solutions.

Say your firing at a cruiser with a facing target side of 5 at 20". We'll use Star Trek weapons to make it easy. Your phasers might treat that as long range, meaning the default die rolled before any other factor is a d20. Only a 25% chance of a hit. The photon torpedo with longer range possibilties might see that as medium range, which is a d12. That's a 42% chance to hit.

But because of the different dice ranges, currently there's a chance to get more different results. You just go along the die sets for 'shifts'.

So in current playtests, the die sets are:

d1 – d3 – d4 -d6 -d8 -d10 -d12 -d16 -d20 -d40 -d60 -d80 d100. As some of the ships can have a target side of 12 or more, the larger rolls do have some differentiation of hit percentages. Though I might want to compress that based on your earlier suggestion.

So you've got your d20 for your phaser. You've painted the target with +2 EW, its erratic maneuvering for -1. So you go from d20 to d16 to 12 for the EW (2 shifts), then back up to d16 for its defensive bonuses. At 20", nearly 2 feet which is a fair range on a table, you've got a 5/16, or 31.5% chance of hitting.

If I wanted to change that to a card based system, I'd need a number for each of the die sets displayed, which is 12 different groups of numbers, and I'd need to work up the probabilities for that. Or I'd need to significantly compress the die sets, and therefore lose some of the granularity.

You might consider reducing your weapon ranges to "effective ranges" instead of "maximum we-got-a-shot" ranges. But that ties in with movement rates as noted above.

Yeah, I might need to drop the last two die ranges. Problem is a battleship with a side of 12, the d100 is still a 12% chance of hitting. I think I'll need to playtest a bit with the bigger ships, which I haven't done too much of yet. I think the problem is the system requires you to do the shifts first, which is the longer process than picking up the dice. Hmmmmmm…. :D

I was thinking more of one die roll result number, but that may not fit in exactly with the mechanic.

Yeah, unfortunately it doesn't meet the current mechanic, because the upper boundary of the shot determines the probability. Again, I could compress the different die sets considerably, but I'd lose a lot of granularity in the results. But right now, I'd need 12 different random numbers per card. It might be easier to do all of those on a 'to hit' card so you don't have to pick dice. But there's also something satisfying about rolling dice for most gamers. :) I like abstracting the die sets, just letting the players see 'firing solutions' which gives a great feel to the game. Definitely worth playtesting!

Be interesting to see how you shake it all out. You're obviously trying to design something innovative and you should continue to do so. Sounds interesting. Keep at it.

Thanks again!