Post by kealios on Mar 17, 2011 10:46:53 GMT -5
Has anyone tossed around the idea of limited 3D?
One of the games I was researching (and damn near bought before I discovered this game) was Starships! by Flagship Games. I was warned off by a customer at the FLGS I moonlight at that it was chock-full of holes, but the 3D element really stuck with me.
Also, my main gaming partner growing up spent a lot of time playing FASA's Centurion, where the grav tanks had three elevations they could fly at...so this got us thinking.
In our last game, I had both a wall of missiles and three capital ships bearing down hard on my friend's battleship that had been (cleverly) isolated, and I ALMOST had it pinned in. There was one route it could take (move forward the "mandatory" one space, turn to port once, and that was the only clear path) without a collision. Collisions in space games are often frowned upon, but this game doesnt even seem to mention them, so had I actually gone nose-to-nose with this ship, there would have been trouble.
NOTE: I am, quite likely, missing a key rule that would fix all this...so bear with me...
So the rule I am thinking of toying with is this, basically lifted from what I remember from Starships!:
*5 Elevation levels
*Costs 1 "hex" of movement to move from one to another, so a ship with Velocity 4 could "stand still" but go from "level 1" to "level 5".
*Ships only impede movement of other ships at the same Elevation level (this would allow the battleship in the above scenario to go up or down a level and continue on its way)
*Ranges would be handled in broad terms, likely just adding 1 to the range for every elevation difference between ships (so a ship at Level 1 who was 5 hexes away from a ship at Level 3 is really 7 hexes away for purposes of firing
Of course, who knows if this would add any fun to the game or just extra book keeping, but it SEEMS to offer some additional tactical considerations. Of course, then we get to argue about missile and fighter elevations as well, but has anyone tried this?
One of the games I was researching (and damn near bought before I discovered this game) was Starships! by Flagship Games. I was warned off by a customer at the FLGS I moonlight at that it was chock-full of holes, but the 3D element really stuck with me.
Also, my main gaming partner growing up spent a lot of time playing FASA's Centurion, where the grav tanks had three elevations they could fly at...so this got us thinking.
In our last game, I had both a wall of missiles and three capital ships bearing down hard on my friend's battleship that had been (cleverly) isolated, and I ALMOST had it pinned in. There was one route it could take (move forward the "mandatory" one space, turn to port once, and that was the only clear path) without a collision. Collisions in space games are often frowned upon, but this game doesnt even seem to mention them, so had I actually gone nose-to-nose with this ship, there would have been trouble.
NOTE: I am, quite likely, missing a key rule that would fix all this...so bear with me...
So the rule I am thinking of toying with is this, basically lifted from what I remember from Starships!:
*5 Elevation levels
*Costs 1 "hex" of movement to move from one to another, so a ship with Velocity 4 could "stand still" but go from "level 1" to "level 5".
*Ships only impede movement of other ships at the same Elevation level (this would allow the battleship in the above scenario to go up or down a level and continue on its way)
*Ranges would be handled in broad terms, likely just adding 1 to the range for every elevation difference between ships (so a ship at Level 1 who was 5 hexes away from a ship at Level 3 is really 7 hexes away for purposes of firing
Of course, who knows if this would add any fun to the game or just extra book keeping, but it SEEMS to offer some additional tactical considerations. Of course, then we get to argue about missile and fighter elevations as well, but has anyone tried this?
