Space Combat Phase - 1st Draft of Movement and Combat

[Blackronin]

This is a draft.
See the picture for better view of idea.

Table top miniature game. No hexes, unless Chris chooses otherwise. :p

Movement:
Movement is in inches.
All ships move.
All ships fire.

Ships have Agility.
Ships with lower agility moves first. (Smaller ships have better agility with exceptions for special cases.)
When ships have equal agility the better ship captain chooses when to move.

Ships have turn bands. When they make a turn, they lose movement points. (Thrusters are being used to counter ship momentum.)
Ships can make one turn per movement phase.

Fighter squadrons move after all ships have moved.
Fighters have Agility.
When two fighter squadrons have the same agility, toss a die...

Fire:
Fire is simultaneously between ships.
After all ships have fired, all surviving fighter squadrons fire simultaneously.
Ships have 6 firing facings. (See drawing). Each facing will have a number of dice that can be fired.
Weapon type will be variable.
Each die that hits the target will roll a die that must be superior to Ship Defense (armour and/or shields)
If it is superior it will make one damage point. If doubles, it will make two damage points and one critical hit. If trebles, the ship explodes.

That's it for now.

[Blackronin]

The Space Unit Card has several informations in it. (See attached image below.)

Unit Name (Class vessel)

Movement in inches (The number of maximum inches it can move in a turn if makes only a green type turn).

Defense (Value that must be rolled above with the damage dice to make damage. If it is superior it will make one damage point. If doubles, it will make two damage points and one critical hit. If trebles, the ship explodes.)

Damage to Hull (Where the player marks the ongoing damage to the ship.

Weapons that the ship carries. (Each ship will have only 3 rows maximum of weapons. Primary, secondary and special. Most ships will have only one or two of these weapons. Only BB and CC will have three types of weapons.

Critical Hit Table (Where players roll for special crippling damage.)

Special Rules (or maybe abilities) are the special capabilities of each ship.
Example: Ships that have shields will have +1 to Defense when are fired by energy weapons.

Cargo is the number of things a ship can carry. One thing is a tank or a squad.

Not in the image yet, but very important is the Point Value of the unit. We must test this a lot!!

[Blackronin]

The space unit base is hexagonal.
The forward side have a point in the middle to make turning the ship easier.
The color bands will give the kind of turn that can be made in the movement phase.
The numbers in the white rectangles are the number of dice rolled in that facing by the primary/secondary/special weapons. A zero means that the ship has no weapon of that kind in that facing.
Defense and movement numbers are in the rear part of the ship base.

[cgutzmer]

Great stuff! Thanks for the refrence pics I think you need to include opportunity fire though somehow. If another ship passes through the firing arc of a weapon in travel they should get an opportunity to fire. Any good pilot should be able to take advantage of that opportunity. Or maybe that can be related to pilot skill each point of fighter skill allows for one attack of opportunity, also ships that have dedicated gunners should always get these.

I tell ya - you guys have some great stuff going!

[Blackronin]

Opportunity fire is a good land based concept. In naval space combat it means less.

OF is a concept of target enter line of vision of firer and firer was ready with weapon pointing in that general direction. In naval combat, submarines have normally the possibility of achieve surprise, but that is another concept.
Space battle is normally not about not knowing where the enemy is, but about choosing the enemy to fire against and put the enemy in the right arc of fire.

[cgutzmer]

I was in the navy. We played war games with several countries. If we had the opportunity to fire on a ship we would

However I do see your point. We are talking large scale warfare (squadrons of fighters, not units) and REALY big ships that dont manuver all that much so how about we leave attacks of opportunity out of phase one and include it in 2-3 since that will be more unit type warfare.
Thoughts?

[Blackronin]

The opportunity fire concept is good for phase 3 (ground combat) as you mentioned it. For phase 2 (Orbital Combat) I would choose tailing and gunnery skill.
For phase 1 (Deep space combat) I think that we could make some special rules for admirals that could change the flow of the game in some unexpected way.

[Lex]

Like "white flag" or "propaganda posters"? lolz :D

[Blackronin]

Mega Propaganda posters "Our Cannons Are Biggers Than Yous" launched sir.

Sir! The enemy has your mother on their side... Should we surrender?

Sir. Can I be considered MIA?! The enemy weapon officer proposed to me...

[lehcyfer]

I'm okay except cut half of attributes out. What is agility for anyway? Let's just say that different classes of ships have different agility that's all - capital slow, and gradually faster through medium, light, bomber/fighter squads - this basic agility will be taken into consideration when moving through mine/asteroid fields, evasive actions orders etc. Perhaps it will be possible to get one class more agile through retrofited maneuvering engines - for example retrofited capital would be as agile as medium ship.

Move whatever piece you want when you want as long as all movement takes place in movement phase.

Attacks of opportunity could be made by any ship that didn't fire in its phase of attack. The attacks of opportunity are great way to make the opposing player be active even in your move phase - this way the game will appear to be faster (less waiting). Each ship would have a tile lying on the base - green on one side, red on the other - at the start of player turn he turns all tiles green, and after shooting from that ship the tile would be turned red - all ships with green tiles can make AOO in opponent move phase.