|
Post by TheDreadnought on May 15, 2014 8:24:52 GMT -5
OK. . . so now that Star's Reach is (FINALLY) out the door. . . I'm looking at my next two projects. Federation Battlefleet is one of them.
This thread is a dumping ground for ideas on what you would like to see out of this project. I already have some things in mind, but this thread can validate my approach and/or maybe take me in some new directions.
So I'm not going to share what I'm thinking right now, because I don't want to pollute thinking, except to offer these, which I'm pretty set on:
- Federation Battlefleet is going to be a stand alone system. I want complete freedom in how to write it for the genre, and not have to shoehorn into rules created for another setting. If you want to play the Federation in Colonial Battlefleet for crossover games or whatnot, you can already do a pretty creditable impression. But people who want to play THIS setting, and only this setting will appreciate a set of rules written exclusively for it.
- That said, I have no problem with borrowing from CBF where it makes sense.
Some questions as thought starters:
Hexes or no hexes? How many ships per player How complex Which era?
Yes, I know there's another thread just below this one. But that one is old, and I like my ideas fresh when I start a new project. LOL I'll comb through it as well later.
|
|
|
Post by TheDreadnought on May 15, 2014 14:33:05 GMT -5
Alright. . . so I will share some of what I'm thinking:
Hexes A small number of ships per player Simple power allocation Original series - first generation movies Human Federation, Kang Empire, Regulan Star Pirates as factions. Not sure that I will be including too much of the "after market" ideas. . . drones, fighters, etc. Gonna stick pretty close to what you see on the screen.
|
|
|
Post by kjncindy on May 15, 2014 20:49:08 GMT -5
I prefer hexes. Optional rules to go hexless is fine and aids inclusion. No sense acing anyone out. A small number of ships is good if this will be more detailed than standard CBF. Plus on screen combat seldom involved more than a few ships. Power allocation could be simple trade-offs between some settings (high, medium, and low speed; high and lower power to weapons, etc.) rather than allocating individual points at a high level of detail.
While I see your point about avoiding after market ideas, there was not much combat in the source material and what was shown was pretty boring. So I can see why folks have embellished a bit to liven things up and make an interesting game.
I would prefer to see both eras represented in the game like Man vs. Machine has for the Human/Cyborg wars. But I recognize that the types of combat portrayed between the two eras are a fair amount different onscreen (WWII naval vs. big ships acting more like fighters in spaaaaaace!) so not sure that is possible.
Renaming the Regulan Star Pirates to the Regulan Hegemony or something else would open up room for the Ormin pirates, who were shown on screen in one episode and could add some fun and variety to the scenarios.
I will post more thoughts when I have them. Looking forward to this!!
|
|
|
Post by TheDreadnought on May 16, 2014 10:10:35 GMT -5
So here's a question I'm wondering about. What dice should the game use?
Here are the options I'm considering:
Option A D10 only
Option B D10, D6
Option C D12, D10, D8, D6 (tied to weapons)
What are people's thoughts on variable damage?
Option A: Fixed damage for everything
Option B: Fixed damage for beam weapons, variable damage for torpedoes
Option C: Variable damage for all weapons
|
|
|
Post by admiralgrafspee on May 16, 2014 15:39:53 GMT -5
Before I answer those questions - I'll ask one of my own. In almost every version of "that universe" I've played in - armour on ships is very rare - so are you going to keep the penetration stat for weapons for this genre?
If you are keeping it, then I'd be all up for fixed damage - as the pen value of weapons gives them enough differences.
If you aren't keeping penetration, then ya, Option B for damage.
I like Option C for different dice (lots of variability in accuracies etc).
For races I'd mainly like to see what is in my miniature collection (a bit selfish I realize). So for that I'd have to go with kjncindy suggestion and replace the pirates with the Hegemony (who have ships that cloak - just so we're clear on that). The Humans and the Kang are just great.
|
|
|
Post by kjncindy on May 16, 2014 17:33:30 GMT -5
I like the many different kinds of dice (option C).
I am less decided on damage. I want to minimize dice rolls but keep weapons feeling different. I think there are other questions that would factor into that decision, such as the penetration roll that admiralgrafspee brought up.
|
|
|
Post by warchariot on May 16, 2014 19:44:12 GMT -5
Since you want it as a stand alone game, I would go with option B or C. I would think you would not have armor, so I woukld say Variable damage for all weapons.
|
|
|
Post by TheDreadnought on May 16, 2014 20:50:00 GMT -5
Yeah, there won't be an armor penetration mechanic like in Colonial Battlefleet. Defense will be almost entirely shields-based. . . I like the idea to change the name of the Regulans. May go with Regulan Hierarchy (just as a shout out to any fans of the old Star Control game). Yes, they cloak and are nothing like the Ur-Quan. The more I think about it, the more I like variable damage, since we are keeping the ship-count down. This will be a big change in direction for me. All my games so far have been about streamlining as much as possible, whereas this one will be about the detail of commanding a starship*. *Keep in mind my idea of "detail" is still about fast & fun game play. . . and light years away from what you might find in a game like SFB for example. . . if I were to pick a totally unrelated starship game out of the air to use as an example. I am thinking about a Phase Cannon Lock vs. ECM mechanic. Thoughts?
|
|
|
Post by TheDreadnought on May 16, 2014 20:53:14 GMT -5
By the way. . . Option C and Option C are what I think might be the most fun to play with from a designer's perspective.
|
|
|
Post by kjncindy on May 17, 2014 8:55:12 GMT -5
How about Regulan Republic?
I think options C and C offer the most opportunity to make the weapons unique and take advantage of the more detailed game with smaller ship counts.
ECM scares me a bit due to connotations with SFB, which has a far too complicated ECM rule set and the fact that ECM was never mentioned on screen in the source material, to my knowledge. I know that to make an interesting game we need some offense/defense trade-off but I am leery of adding too many ways for a ship to prevent damage as it can drag a game out unnecessarily. I also don't care for guessing game mechanics (like SFB's ECM rules). I suspect you have something different in mind and am interested to hear more!
|
|
|
Post by captainquirk on May 17, 2014 9:06:18 GMT -5
I'm wary of the whole ECM thing too. Plus, as kjncindy says, it wasn't mentioned in any source material.
I always interpreted those weapon locks as more like establishing a good firm firing solution versus something akin to a "bearing only launch". So with a weapon lock, you'd be firing upon a target whose exact location and vector is established and tracked. But without weapon lock you'd be firing into the vicinity.
|
|
|
Post by TheDreadnought on May 17, 2014 9:45:39 GMT -5
Hmmm. . . ok.
For the ECM stuff I was just imagining something like an opposed roll or something modified by each side's targeting computer/ECM system bonus. But you're right, it's not necessarily something we see on screen.
|
|
|
Post by kjncindy on May 17, 2014 12:47:27 GMT -5
I am not a big fan of opposed rolls, buckets of dice, or too much cascading die rolls. I would rather see the opportunity for more detail with less ships be used for other meatier stuff that does not require a proliferation of dice. A Call to Arms: Star Fleet has a similar problem as it lacks granularity and largely substitutes tactics for too many die rolls (roll to hit, roll to penetrate, roll for damage, roll for critical, roll to escalate critical). Don't get me wrong, die rolling is good, but there is a fine line between interesting and too much. And the more die rolls you add the more opportunity for crazy stuff that can decide a game and leave a sour taste in folks' mouth when their tactics don't matter as much as the dice, even if it just feels like that.
|
|
|
Post by TheDreadnought on May 17, 2014 16:27:29 GMT -5
Yeah, that's a concern of mine as well. The right die rolls can be fun. Too many die rolls is a slog.
Right now I'm thinking:
Roll to Hit - Roll for Damage - Roll for critical damage if applicable
Or something along those lines
|
|
|
Post by warchariot on May 17, 2014 19:46:49 GMT -5
I love buckets of dice, but don't like cascading die rolls. Been playing Deus Vult with its multiple die to hit-sometimes as high as 36 dice to hit and also Impetus which hits on 6s and double 5s, but still rolls loads of dice. They both have a hit versus permanent damage mechanism. Impetus uses a cohesion roll which sets how much permanent damage including none while disordering the unit. Deus Vult does permanent hits on 6s with a temporary damage on 4s and 5s. I wonder if something along that line could be used, say roll to hit with loads of dice, hit on a set number like 6s, then do some kind of defense roll that sets the really damage, or no damage. Crits could be incorporated into the roll on double or triple 6s-according to the average number of dice rolled. So if 6-10 dice is average doubles, if 12-15 then use triples. There could be a temporary effect, say so much energy loss for the next turn. If you want to stay away from energy, maybe a reduced speed/turns or some such.
|
|
mrg
Ensign
Posts: 5
|
Post by mrg on May 21, 2014 4:00:57 GMT -5
Totally with warchariot on this one.
There's no fast play appeal in a system where resolving a fire action is roll a bucket of dice to see if you hit, then roll more to determine damage, then more to see if any of that penetrates, then more to see if any of the penetrating hits causes a crit, and somewhere in the middle the defender gets to roll a bucket of defence dice.
I have nothing against buckets of dice at all (I'm a Champions / Hero system player), but just one bucket to resolve everything please. This is especially necessary now that more and more people (myself included) are using VTTs for their gaming fix wherein rolling dice can take disproportionate time. Different systems have different ways of combining rolls. A couple of examples sping to mind...
- In Hero when you are rolling damage, a single roll of your bucket of d6s gives you both Stun (temporary) and Body (permanent) damage. The total on the dice is the Stun damage, and the body damage is calculated from the numbers of ones and sixes rolled.
- In Warhammer FRP a single roll to hit on a percentile dice not only tells you whether you did hit but, if you did, the reverse of what you rolled tells you the hit location (e.g. I rolled 68 and if that hits the hit location is 86).
|
|
|
Post by TheDreadnought on May 21, 2014 11:35:17 GMT -5
How about:
1 roll determines IF and WHERE you hit. 1 roll determines DAMAGE.
That's probably about as streamlined as I can make it for a system that we're going with a small number of ships rather than larger squadrons.
|
|
mrg
Ensign
Posts: 5
|
Post by mrg on May 21, 2014 12:44:57 GMT -5
I think most reasonable people could live with two rolls, one to answer the "if" question, one to answer the "how" question. That is not at all unusual in game design after all. As long as it's not additional rolls for penetration and crits, and there is no "defence" roll (a bane for any fast play game), then play can still be slick.
Getting quite excited by this proposition. I've been an SFB player since the pocket edition but disillusionment has well and truly set in. So saying, now that ADB have made the original pocket edition available again (which was essentially a variant of Jutland), there is some life in the old dog yet.
|
|
|
Post by TheDreadnought on May 21, 2014 14:11:02 GMT -5
Interesting. What was included in the old pocket edition?
Did it have all the drones and fighters and whatnot. . . or was it just ship to ship? I'm really thinking a WWI feel is appropriate for the setting.
|
|
|
Post by warchariot on May 21, 2014 18:18:47 GMT -5
So could you use the diffrent sizes of dice to do if and where and how much. Maybe D6s for hit and where with D10s for how much? All rolled together to speed play.
|
|