Delta Vector - Homebrew Spaceship Rules

A long time ago (2012?) in a galaxy far far away, I had a rant about spaceship games.  "WW2 Wet Navy in Space"  "Billions of Hitboxes" were terms used.  I suggested (and still do) spaceship war-games rules haven't advanced since the early 90s compared to the innovative ideas in say, skirmish war-gaming.    My more energetic and child-free self actually got off his butt and constructed a skeletal set of rules, inspired by games like Tomorrow's War rather than SFB or Full Thrust.   

The basic draft rules were collected here and the original why-all-spaceship-games-are-bad rant is here as well.  

If you're still interested, read on.  I found my old play test notes, and it's kinda inspired me to have a go at redoing these rules, as certainly nothing noteworthy has appeared in the meantime (ignoring the ludicrously expensive Star Wars clix).  I've typed the play test notes into a more readable format.  

What Worked 

The vector system is the simplest and best I’ve come across. I’m not being immodest - I simply translated concepts from the boardgame Triplanetary, sans hexes and greaseproof pencils.  It gave a space feel, and navigating an asteroid field actually took a bit of skill and commonsense.

The initiative system also was interesting – basically a side can retain the initiative by passing command rolls, Warmaster-style, and you can opt to force an opponent to move instead of activating your own forces.   Units activating close to enemies would face an opposed roll if your opponent wished to wrest the initiative from you.  When the vectors of space ships are so predictable, who goes first is quite important.

What Didn't Work (i.e. everything else)

Tokens = Mess

The vector movement system used a token for each ship to show the heading/velocity of each ship.  This can be a bit messy and confusing as there are lots of tokens lying about.   This was a bit of a problem. As I refuse to change the vector system (the best aspect of the rules), other changes had to be made.  The simplest solution – reduce the amount of ships.  The initial aim was 12+ ships per side.  Vector tokens are more manageable at 4-8 per side.  This had a few repercussions.

There were also damage tokens.  There were 4 different colours – for weapons damaged/destroyed; and hull damaged/crippled.   This was originally part of my plan to avoid SFB-style SDS charts completely and have 0 recording.  However as you have to record the ship’s statssomewhere, the tokens were a bit superfluous.  Warmachinehas shown the way with neat, simple data cards; if I copied this approach I could get rid of more tokens.

The Damage System

I was never happy with it. In fact it is the reason this project has sat in limbo for years.  The results were too unpredictable and could result in a ship shrugging off a hit or being blown away outright.  Fine for a space fighter game, but I wanted spaceships to be more durable. I was also trying to make a single dice roll do the to-hit, damage effect and damage location. Again, this was a reaction from the dice chugging of Firestorm Armada but perhaps it was trying to do a bit much.  

There are three methods I’m considering

(a) hull damage  (light/heavy/crippled) + systems hits (traditional)

(b) hull damage only (with reductions in firepower etc for each level)

(c)  systems hits only

If I’m using data cards, I can use method (c ) which is the most interesting, and non-traditional. 

Reactions are Slow

Reaction systems are great.  They allow lots of decisions and player involvement for little added complexity. However they do slow the game down.  This was a further reason to scale back the amount of ships involved to a maximum of 4-8  per side or so – i.e. about the same amount of units in a reaction-based game like Tomorrow’s War or Infinity, rather than the 12-20 or so I originally envisioned.  

More terrain needed!

Terrain adds interest, tactics and depth to wargames, and space is no different.  I see a lot of space games played on a near-empty table – it’s like playing a PC game in 2D when 3D is available.  Whilst some may point to the fact space is indeed largely empty, I’d counter with “if that part of space is empty, why the hell are spaceships fighting over it?” 

Besides the fact I need quick-playing, effective rules for terrain like asteroids, space junk, nebulae, planets and rings, I want to make more terrain in the gameplay sense. 

Whilst playing with aeronef rules I revived the old BFG blast-marker concept – it simultaneously denotes a hit and provides terrain to block/degrade fire. Modelling cotton-wool ball explosions also means it looks good on the table.

Another method is using lots of Area of Effect (AoE) weapons.  For example, a missile token is placed on the table, and it can attack any ships who pass within a 6” radius.  The missile “attack radius” effectively produces a 12” wide circle of “terrain” to be avoided. 

I want shields

I tried a few systems and wasn’t happy with any.  Having directional shields would further make facing/maneuver important and avoid “push everything into the middle and chug dice” a la Firestorm Armada.

I’m not sure how to best implement this.  I have made a shield marker which can be placed around the ship’s base which I think has interesting possibilities.

Small Ships Need Love

I hate how in most space games,  “escorts” or smaller ships tend to act only as ablative armor for the bigger ships and/or throwaway glass cannons.   I want little ships to be useful AND survivable.  I’m going to give small ships much higher thrust and allow them to trade that thrust for defensive die roll modifiers (i.e. zig-zagging/tumbling along their vector).  This has nothing to do with realism and everything to do with gameplay.  I’m also going to give them important jobs (interdictor beams to stop ships warping off, EW etc).   Two small ships should be just as deadly as a large ship, and more flexible too boot.

To recap, changes needed were

+ Add shields

+ Reduce number of ships (reduce tokens, and reactions)

+ Change damage resolution

+ Add simple data cards (no more complex than Warmachine)

+ Add more terrain/blast markers/AoE weapons

+ Allow trading of mobility/defence (benefits small ships)

Anyway, I may revisit this project as I have a week's holidays (well, I have planning for work, but as I'm at home I'll have time to faff about I hope)

EDIT: Here's some new draft Damage rules if you are interested.