"Inertia rules in spaceship battles: Are they worth it?" Topic

I've been reading a lot of rules for spaceship combat, both for fighters and larger ships.

In games like Full Thrust, Tacship and Starmada, your speed from the previous turn matters, and you only expend resources (thrust, energy, whatever) for changing speed.

In games like silent death and Federation Commander, your previous speed doesn't matter. You expend resources based on how far you will move this turn, regardless of what you moved last turn.

Initially I disliked the rules that didn't take previous turn's speed into account, because that seemed like a miniature game with people fighting. You can move a marine 6 hexes one turn and 0 next turn without a second thought. Spaceships must be different, right?

But after reading the various systems, I wonder if it really makes a difference in gameplay, and if it's just the same thing, just a different point of view. Maybe it's not worth thinking about too much.

What do you think?

Note that this discussion is for games that are fast and cinematic. Games that value realism and implement proper vector movement will clearly differ.

Your last sentence contains the essence of the answer: what "feel" are you going for?

Space combat games, even more than most other games, are about evoking a sense of place and action. If you were going for a Star Trek "vibe" then inertia would be a mistake, since we rarely see inertia mattering in Star Trek media. If you were going for hard sci fi (Honor Harrington maybe?) and didn't include inertia you might be missing an opportunity to evoke frictionless space.

Mayday covered this very well and cleanly. Only drawback was the potential size of the game field and you used three markers for each object; it's past, present and future positions.

If you're going to be real accurate, then the ships would not even be on the table or the movement would be measures in a few millimeters each turn. It just does not sound like a lot of fun.

For my space ship games I like lots of ships and lots of movement with very little bookkeeping.

Kinda like TSATF in space – as Hollywood would have it.

I don't think of inertia less rules as like ground but naval. Most space ship games end up being "boats in space." No 3D, no inertia, basically just cool looking battleships.

Sure the names of things change but in the end armor is called "shields" or whatever, and guns are "blasters."

Inertia might be the thing that makes it "space." But maybe not. Maybe other mechanics will make the game feel different.

Inertia I think is actually an easy way to get a distinct feel in to the game, as well as tacics. After all if you are moving 6 and next turn can only change speed by 2, your're committed to moving between 4 and 8. With a marine that can go zero to 60 to zero the thinking about movement is a lot different.

My biggest beef with a vector based combat game is they ultimately distill down to just range as an effect of maneuver. Ostensibly fields of fire in a vector game are minimal since a ship could rotate its orientation and facing and still stay on the same vector…remember the videogame Astroids? Even large squadron actions would have minimal effects from facing as there would be hardly any blocked LOS. It all comes down to range, like in the Traveller starship combat resolution. One reason "Mayday" might not have caught on all that well was it offered not much of improvement on the 1D combat of the basic rules, if you gave it a bit of thought.

The show "Expanse" did a good job with vector movement in a 3D environment but it probably wouldn't be any more fun to game than WW1 dreadnought slug-outs.

I've played Full Thrust with 2D vector movement. I've played WW1 dreadnought "slugouts" a lot.

Enjoyed them both enormously

IIRC. Aerospace did a good job with inertia, gravity, and fuel consumption. Of course, that was just fighter combat, but it impressed more than any other game I've played for capturing that feel.

How do we know what the 'reality' of space warfare would be?

I like inertia. It feels like what I think space should be like. I think that's the bottom line, as Andrew indicated.

Well, the USAF/Russians/Chinese/Canadians and/or aliens seem to have solved their inertia problem with their UFOs, based upon fighter pilot accounts and video footage of craft violating "the laws of physics", so no need to worry about that.

;-)

> How do we know what the 'reality' of space warfare would be?

Barring magic tech we know how movement will work.

A space game I (still) have in the design stage uses inertia, but it is mainly used when changing course. The more extreme and/or high speed the maneuver, the more strain it puts on the ship; If your ship is damaged, might want to slow down before making a sharp turn, or your ship could come apart… ;-)

I don't think you can do fast, cinematic and vector at the same time.

Thresher01 makes a good point. It could well be that eventually we will have UFO technology and be able to ignore inertia.

Like may of you, I like both naval games and space games. I do prefer inertia in the space games (even star trek) because it is what makes it different to either naval or aerial games. The model in FT is easy enough to use that it doesn't detract from the game but just has that little element of inertia to make it different from naval battles. On the point raised by Aethelflaeda, FT limits engagement through the rear arc of a ship, so there can be a bit of a manoeuvre game of small ships trying to get behind the big ones, while other small ships try to stop them. But there is no right answer. We each play the games we like.

GOBS offers an option of a cinematic system, whose only nod to inertia is that any maneuver lowers the available movement in a turn, and a vector system, which requires some attention to what a ship last did. I prefer a square grid (works great, by the way), which makes the vector system easier to track for me (I can note/remember "8 squares right, 5 squares up" fairly easily, and not bother with trying to draw a line or lay down any sort of marker).
But GOBS, as a mass combat system, doesn't include ship orientation as much of a factor in combat (except for spinal mount weapons). There aren't any "broadsides" or "firing arcs," which IMHO are actually kind of silly in a space combat game— in reality, all you have to do to bring weapons to bear is yaw, pitch or roll the ship in place, so what's the point of fire arcs?
So yes, it's maneuvering for range, but GOBS is also a game of big fleets, so the fun and the tactical challenges are fully present.

GOBS— Generic Outlandishly Big Spacefleets! thegobspage.com

All of the naval games I have played model inertia in some fashion, so it shouldn't be shocking for the concept to apply to space ships.

Why are 80%mof the replies about something that's not the questions the OP asked? Does anyone bother to read?

Emckinney,

Did you read the original post? I'd say all the posts in this thread are responsive to the OP.

The OP asked if inertia rules are worth it in a fast, cinematic space game. All the responses are about vector or inertia rules. I'm not sure how you'd define the difference between vector and inertia rules. They are co-dependent.

When it coems to space games, I believe strongly in the idea of "Change only one thing" for the physics. In FT, even in cinematic moveemnt ( Whci I prefer) inertia is tha physical law retained. I've never played anything set int eh EE Smith universe, with it's "Bergenholm Units" creating inertialess movement, but as the books point out that the drive still retains many Newtonian laws outside of that one change ( " Inital and relative velocity is retained when the Bergenholm switches off . . . You don't get something for nothing, there is no magic" from the novels ). That does sound rather interesting as a tactical option.
In any event, Inertia in space combat is somethign I feel makes a game interesting and tactically challenging. Even if it *does* mena the occasioanl collison with an asteroid . . . At least once a game. Or is that just me?

Even in a fast cinematic game it depends. B5 and the new BSG would need at least velocity tracked differently from facing to match what is on screen.