Game Soon & Computer Games

[James Shepherd]

Hey folks!

Steve and I have been talking about a game sometime in February or March.  I've been getting back to game design, so I'll be polishing up the rules before then.  I remember one thing I determined we needed to firm up from our last playtests was weapons - it should be more clear a point where they fire from, as well as their firing arc.

Here's a doodle poll to see who's available when.  https://doodle.com/poll/t5yshwxa4hm4ue4f

Additionally, I'm just watching trailers for X4 and wanting to jump in - if only I had a machine that could run this thing!  Seems like a kickass sandbox indeed.  https://www.gog.com/game/x4_foundations

- James

[Rich Schoonover]

I could be down for a game.  I have been away from my ships for awhile.

February could be a good time.

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[Jovian Dreams]

Depending on how many people respond, I could host at our new house.

Steve

Sent from my mobile

[James Shepherd]

Weekends in march would be easier for me, but that's not essential.  It looks like Sunday 2/3 or Saturday 2/9 would be easiest for me before the end of Feb / start of March.  Unless, somehow, weeknights / days are cool?

We're talking about changing the unit.  Do we want to bump it up a bit to 3 studs, or 2?

[James Shepherd]

PS - Doctor's orders say I have to go dry as possible, and got this news right after I stocked our bar.  I can bring, and have on offer a 5th of Tanquery or on-the-rocks-with-salt Margaritas til you don't want no more.  Unless you got a blender, Steve.

[Jovian Dreams]

Nah bruh, we’re dry.  Have been since last Xmas.  

If we need to do March, that’s cool with me.

Steve

Sent from my mobile

[Jovian Dreams]

Sorry for the brevity of that last post.  Should have waited until after work.  Feel free to bring drinks if you want.  I had a beer this weekend for the first time in like a year.  Felt pretty terrible about an hour after.  Not really worth it anymore.  Isn’t getting older great!  ;-)

Sent from my mobile

On Jan 23, 2019, at 11:00, James Shepherd <iamjames...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Rich Schoonover]

Both of the Feb dates are no good for me.  Later in Feb or March is better for me.

We can change the unit size, but that would require stat generation for all old ships and new ship data sheets would need to be recreated.  Ships would have to be remeasured.  Just to clarify the current unit is 4 studs and we can make the standard unit 1, 2, or 3.  This would make a ship class go up 1 or 2 classes.  I am down for this.  I think I already made a ruler that is for units that are 2 studs.

Rich

[James Shepherd]

Yeah, I think I have a 2-stud Unit ruler myself.  Let's go with that.

[James Shepherd]

Also, I touched base with Yourcure the other day - he's still in Fred, and would be up for throwing down, as plans progress.

[James Eggleston]

So who wants to put a date on the calendar for March?  I should be good most any weekend, so I expect Rich or Steve, (especially if we’re thinking Steve’s, which makes sense to me,)  we should probably work around your conflicts.

Josh, you feel like chiming in here?  How does your March look?

[James Shepherd]

How about March 9th at Steve's?  Get together a bit before lunch, get our cards and plans together, eat, and then throw down?  I liked the idea Steve had - start 1v1, and at set intervals (or when one side is eliminated,) a new challenger takes the field from among the asteroids in the middle / sides of the battlefield.

We're planning on 2-stud units, and using the rules as currently found at https://sites.google.com/site/microfleetwars/  There's some new weapons and defenses I don't think we've played with before, so take a look.

One question - normally we have squadrons of fighters, but since we're at a larger scale, are we looking at squads of patrols, gunboats, corvettes, and the like?  I'm good either way, just wondering what to plan for.

My fleet's coming together, I think I could run with say, 50 Class points for a fleet, but I'd like more to play with.  What are others thinking?

- James

[Rich Schoonover]

The 9th works for me.  I am ok with any game play.  If there are enough of us we could play two 1v1 games simultaneously with winners of those two games playing head to head to the death.

I think the squad representation of class 1 through 4 is probably needed at this scale.  We have rules for it already.  I say we proceed.

The class points may need to go up.  I vote for 75, but am willing to play 50 to keep the games short.

[Jovian Dreams]

The 9th should be fine for us.  We won’t be able to play late though so let’s go with with the lower class point scale.

I’ll be sure to get my stats set up ahead of time this time, promise...

Steve

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[Rich Schoonover]

I can do the weekend of the 16th, but the 9th is no good now.  James sent me a text message the other day asking about it.  Unless I can get all the school work done before the 9th I am afraid I will be out.

[Jovian Dreams]

I think the 16th will work.  Actually better as I may get a chance to finish a ship or two up.  Maybe...

Steve

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[James Shepherd]

Hey all - here's some long-awaited, and always-appreciated (because I Say So) Rule Changes!  These aren't set in stone though, so lemme know what questions / thoughts / concerns you have.

• See Drones and Ship Creation for and introduction on how they now work.
• TL;DR - Drones are a special type of ship that operates like "Small" size craft.  They have no crew, can turn 180deg on their turn, and carry no speed - they move a set # of Units based on power to the engines.  They have more power available for their size than manned craft, fit more compactly in a fighter bay, but require a friendly Drone Command module on an in-range ship to pilot them.  When not under command, they function as solid objects, such as asteroids.
• ...Can drones be hacked / stolen / salvaged?  I've always wanted more electronic warfare possibilities...
• What were formerly called "Drones" are now "Nanobots" - they serve for repairs, mining, limited defense, etc. but not for offensive purposes.  Nanobots are functionally class 0 ships, similar to ammunition weapons in-flight.
• Rich - we mis-remembered the capacity of fighter bays, so I've adjusted down accordingly.  It feels more balanced to me in any case - 6 points of drones to a bay, 12 points per Drone Command?
• There are some new weapons & defenses to note - check out the available options on the site.  Cannons & Blasters are being deprecated, for higher-damage options which help keep the game moving apace.  Note Flak Cannons, Antiparticle Beams, Small Chainguns, (which replace small cannons,) & Rocket Pods (see below note on ammo weapons re: that last.)
• The new weapons I'd definitely like feedback on.  The new defense is just the Drone Command, but I'm getting ready to cut some old ones, rework others, consider a few new ones, etc.
• Looking through old notes & discussions, I came across this - Shield recharging: "what if you got [Ship's Class] points recharged into the shields at the end of every turn in which the shielded ship was not attacked / attacking?"  It...doesn't sound half-dumb to me, and I'm game for exploring it if you gents are.
• I've never been sure how to handle Melee Weapons.  I think I'm going to have them do +1d6 damage compared to similar-sized LoS weapons - does that seem fair?
• To incentivize them, I'm also thinking about makes 6's "explode" on their damage roll - every "6" that appears allows you to roll another dice of damage, ad infinitum.
• Alternately, if you roll a "6," pick a system / subsystem to damage?  Thoughts?
• Ammunition weapons - to avoid cheap missile-storm tactics, ships are normally limited to fixing X ammo per turn, where X = class.  There are upgrades available to RoF, similar to the range / arc upgrades for LoS weapons.
• The in-universe explanation for this is because ammo is carried internally in bay to prevent premature / accidental detonation in combat.  The gunners have to cycle the next round through each launcher.
• Because ships are sometimes a point and sometimes a MOC, let's try and come up with a way to designate ships as "points" - this should be center-of-mass, to my mind.
• My first thought is a Dot / Cone of contrasting color; blue on a black ship or green on a white one?
• On a similar note, let's pay more attention to how weapons and defenses are mounted, especially for when range/arc is important.  Plan to designate your weapons as facing Fore/Aft, Port/Starboard, where exactly on the MOC your Shield Projector is, etc.
• We'll draft some new stat cards for larger ships to make this clear.
• Rich and I have both toyed around with ideas for how to designate special upgrades/abilities/powers played on a certain ship.  We'll talk more about this when we meet / later in the group, but for now, I had forgotten this experiment with representing a squadron with visual ease.  Thoughts?  https://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesofjames/8327434134/in/photostream/

So, that's a lot, I know.  Hopefully, though, that catches us up a good deal from where we have been.

-James

Below - mainly notes to self, but also worth spitballing if you see something of interest. 

Some notes from...2012, some of which are addressed, others might still need to be?  Anyone see anything worth adding to the core game in here?  Mining tools & subsystems feature prominently - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1y4SJUknm17fPotOX8KKtzNYALBOBstDKWBUqedtSJJg/edit?usp=sharing

 Defense Cost Revisions - again, I think most of this has been handled. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1y_HvYCZE4mqKePqB_7_3Zf-pUcRwMoRVvQ8sR1XVrdI/edit?usp=sharing

• Splash damage - full & half damage & close / far range.  No domino effect.
  
• Railguns - what if they did some damage to crew (by punching holes in a ship and decompressing sections of a ship) rather than their shitty armor-piercing ability they have now?  Shields would protect against this, and a "compartmentalization" defense would cut this crew damage in half when shields have fallen.
  
• FTL - Maybe flatten things out so that all ships could jump every 3 turns?  Jump a bit further, like 8 or 10 units instead of 6?  We could allow jumps more often, but build in a margin of error for making these "wild jumps" without good calculations.  There's some more options we discussed around this, but that's the core of it.
  
• Medium ships need to be effective workhorses and we didn't feel like we had that yet.

[James Shepherd]

Got my fleet statted out this morning after something woke me up around 2 - really like my starting lineup for either a 50 or 75 pt game.  Looking at what I have with me, I may need to borrow some fighters / patrols and 2-3 Class 5s.  Rich - would it be all right if I stopped by the shack to slap something together & buy some technic pins off you sometime between now and Thursday PM?

-James

[Rich Schoonover]

Here are some thoughts on these amendments:

 

• Splash damage - full & half damage & close / far range.  No domino effect.

Damage should go to ships immediately next to the exploding ship.  No class 1 explosions. A standard damage role based on class instead of ammo and such should be made.  For example a class 6 ship could generate 36 points of damage to surrounding ships. 36 to each ship within 1 unit of the ship

• Railguns - what if they did some damage to crew (by punching holes in a ship and decompressing sections of a ship) rather than their shitty armor-piercing ability they have now?  Shields would protect against this, and a "compartmentalization" defense would cut this crew damage in half when shields have fallen. This seems logical to me as well.  

I still think the armor should be pierced.  And for each piercing shot the ship loses one crew.

• FTL - Maybe flatten things out so that all ships could jump every 3 turns?  Jump a bit further, like 8 or 10 units instead of 6? We could allow jumps more often, but build in a margin of error for making these "wild jumps" without good calculations.  There's some more options we discussed around this, but that's the core of it.

The FTL jump range is based on how many points you put in it, and then the total jump range is calculated depending on the modifier of the class ship.  We could increase that base number to 8. I think 10 may be too much. We could allow for out of range jumps that would require a 1d6 die roll. 3 or less you blowup.

• Medium ships need to be effective workhorses and we didn't feel like we had that yet.

There are still some pretty good options for medium class ships.  Armor is worth 3 for every point put in it. There are heavy armor options as well.  You could make bonuses for mounting medium or large weapons to help. Lowering cost of mounting a medium weapon to 1or2.  Doubling that cost on small ships would help offset that as well. This would make it somewhat prohibitive for small ships to take medium and large weapons as they have in the past, this would allow medium ships to have an edge in fire power as they should in the case of often going toe to toe with small ships.

[Rich Schoonover]

I will be around tonight and thursday after 7PM.  I don't really have any fighters or patrols to spare at this time.  If you let me know how many pins you need I can bag them up for you.  The shack is not very accessible right now and not open for business.

[Jovian Dreams]

Bros I have bad news; I need to reschedule our game.  I have to work this weekend at my side job to get a big project out the door.  Sorry, responsibilities have to come first right now. 

Do you guys have any availability later this month or early April?

Steve

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[Rich Schoonover]

My next available weekend will be April 13th.  However is there some time in the evening you guys would like to get together and talk over rules or show off some lego stuff.  I can host at my house.  There isn't as much going on there as there once was.

Rich

[James Shepherd]

Rich - I actually found the fighters I was looking for, so I'm covered, and we can just use some coasters or something for Class 5s at this scale.  I'm probably going to hang out with some friends for his weekly happy-hour gig at Cary St. Cafe and then head your way around 7 if that works for you.  We could playtest some more of these rule changes in more earnest?  Don't have to run the full 50/75-pt game we were talking, but larger squads with a bit more forethought and actual stat cards.

Steve - no worries; you always were kinda dead weight anyway, so no big loss.  ;)  Just fuckin' with you - I don't know what my availability into the future looks like; my only real commitments are a wedding the first weekend of May and a performance / weekend trip back to WV the end of this month.  Apart from that, I'm relatively free, until some unknown employer says otherwise.

As for the rest:

I dunno about no class 1 explosions - I still like the option to kamikaze damaged / empty fighters at need.  I agree they shouldn't splash each other in squadron - we can assume that pilots & AI are good enough to take evasive actions on that scale.  I guess what you mainly meant was "no class 1 splash damage," which makes perfect sense, though I'd allow for the edge case of "some nearby missiles got caught in the blast" or something.

I'm kinda digging on the idea of weapons that have special effects when 6's are rolled, so what if railguns killed 1 crew for every 6 that was rolled, once shields come down?  Compartmentalization would limit this damage to 1 Crew dead per successful railgun attack.

Let's go with 8 Units per point of FTL.  So a Class 4 with 4 FTL power could jump 32U, a class 6 with 6 power would jump 24U.  Does that reckon?

As far as medium ships, maybe provide a "Turrets" defense system for, say, 4 power? that basically allows for all medium guns to have 180deg arcs and 45deg arcs on large ones?  The caveat would be "only on medium or large ships."  Right now, Heavy Armor is theoretically out - maybe we'll re-rule it as "5 points of protection, also exclusive to medium & large ships?"  I don't really mind small ships taking large / medium weapons, since it does tend to clear the table faster than not, but perhaps Class 1 ships/drones should take a -1 to engines / thrusters with a medium weapon and Class 2 ships/drones should do the same with large weapons.

- James

[Rich Schoonover]

Tonight may not be as good as I thought.  Have some family stuff that came up a few minutes ago.  How does Thursday or Friday look?  Saturday is still pretty open for me as well.

Rich

[James Shepherd]

Thurs should be fine; I'm on the road to Lynchburg and back on Friday, so probably the evening's good.  My Saturday's still open, so if we wanted to go deeper on testing some interesting builds, I'd be down with that.

[Rich Schoonover]

Sounds good.  I will see you then.  We can figure out Sat on Thursday evening.

[James Shepherd]

Just to catch everyone else up, Rich and I met a week ago and played with some different stuff in more detail.  One thing we discussed was changing railguns to make them an automatic crew-damage weapon, so here's what I propose.

Small / Medium / Large / Capital Railgun - When attacking a target (after shields have fallen,) deal 1 damage to life support for every "6" that is rolled on damage dice.

The half to armor, half to hull made sense when armor was a little tougher to break through, and could still be sometimes useful against heavily armored ships?  Now, though, we have "Antiparticle Beams" for 2x armor damage, and the strategic & tactical decisions that a railgun-heavy fleet pose are pretty interesting to me.

We had critical hits to various systems in early drafts of the game, this change would add those back in, to some extent.  Thoughts?

[James Shepherd]

I updated the doodle poll out through May.  Since I'm job searching, I haven't responded yet - I know I'm tied up this weekend, but I'm pretty much always available for a quick one-on-one to play some stuff out casually in the evenings / on short notice.

Meanwhile, come at me, bruh.

[James Shepherd]

I made some fighter doodles out of the snowspeeder polybag.  What do you guys like best?  I'm partial to the two on the right.

Who's free soon for a game?  Casual 2 player or otherwise?