They're making an RPG of the Vs. debate!

[Anguirus]

...well, kind of.

http://www.enworld.org/index.php?page=space_fight

Looks like it could be fun. I'm a little pissed that you have to subscribe to ENWorld (as in, pay) to be part of the playtest. I think they'd do better by opening up to as much criticism as possible...while its obvious that they are going for "cinematic," they would still get great feedback from this board, as well as anyone else who knows a little about physics or astrophysics.

It will also likely be quite awhile, if ever, before we see this in stores. And frankly, I'm not a fan of the art style...it looks quite cheap and STILL might be close enough to the designs they are "inspired by" to cause some sort of legal headache.

[Covenant]

That's not an RPG--it's more along the lines of a Battletech game. The problem is that, regardless of what the 'facts' of the debate are, they're going to be trying to make a marketable game. The STvsSW debate isn't balanced or marketable though, it's an absolute curbstomp, so the first thing that'll have to go is any semblance of the the way the numbers say it should go. The lengths look roughly approximate, but it's highly unlikely the firepower calcs are going to be what we'd call accurate, let alone the speeds, shield calcs, ranges, etc. Especially awesome is talking about recreating images like attacking the Star Destroyer's shield generators... I thought we all agreed by now that those were sensor domes? Perhaps the game designers did not get the memo.

The most you can hope for is that it's going to be fun on it's own merits, because all this is really doing is banking on the versus debate to sell the game. It certainly won't be enlightening.

[Anguirus]

^ Does that surprise you? No one would want to play a curbstomp game.

Anyway, I was stupid last night and I apologize. 1) It's not an RPG, and 2) this topic should go in Gaming and Computers. Sorry folks. >_<

[NecronLord]

It's acceptable here, really. It's a sci-fi topic. I may move it though.

[Slacker]

Interesting. While I realize it may not meet the Warsie standard of accuracy, I am curious about how flexible starship design is in the game. I'll have to pick it up when it comes out.

[open_sketchbook]

Even though I know the canon numbers, I always loved the concept of playing Star Trek vs Star Wars with more level numbers; the two franchises put forth such massively different interpretations of warfare that the result, in my head, is visually stunning; squadrons of Federation ships whizzing around their more ponderous Imperial counterparts, trying to hit weak points while the turbolasers thud and throw out bolt after bolt of incandescent energy, the shields on a Star Destroyer flicker with a power surge, allowing a tiny window for the Federation to board, the Death Star cutting through a Borg fleet, it's sheer size allowing it to resist assimilation long enough to cut a swath though Borg space, Kirk engaged in a desperate shirtless fistfight with Darth Vader in the Emperor's throne room. The imagery is pretty epic.

[Covenant]

Interesting. While I realize it may not meet the Warsie standard of accuracy, I am curious about how flexible starship design is in the game. I'll have to pick it up when it comes out.

Seriously guys, this is NOT an RPG. It's not even battletech. There's no customization as yet. Here, take a look at some of the basics I was able to find online:

http://www.enworld.org/enpublishing/space_fight.pdf

Pretty much as expected. Especially hilarious is seeing the Galactica outrun an ISD.

[Stark]

The whole 'attacking sensor dome' thing is especially amusing because it's just from older games.

This just looks like a collection of gut-feeling assumptions and generalisations, which is sad because even within the framework of 'make it balanced' it could be characterful and interesting.

Shit, Games Workshop could do a better job than this.

[Covenant]

The whole 'attacking sensor dome' thing is especially amusing because it's just from older games.

This just looks like a collection of gut-feeling assumptions and generalisations, which is sad because even within the framework of 'make it balanced' it could be characterful and interesting.

Shit, Games Workshop could do a better job than this.

What I feel is a larger issue is that despite using the general shape and style of the groups they're styled from, and claiming to be very similar to 4e's style, the stuff we can see is basically a flavorless bit of number dump. 1d6 this, 10d10 that, blah blah. So the ships are really just hitpoints plus damage, with no actual synergy with each other. So a Fed Flagship has 18 phaser banks with +2 to hit, 1d6 damage, and they're arranged 6 forward, 6 port, 6 starboard. First of all, I ask a few questions:

Since they cost 1 AP to fire, and you have so many, why not group them up more? Wouldn't it be more interesting to do this:

Phaser Bank (Weapon) 3AP
Per Round * Federation, Phaser
Screeching blasts of energy lance out from the strip-shaped emitters of the Federation Starship, coming from angles impossible for any conventional turreted weapon. These accurate and unpredictable attacks give Federation captains increased chances to strike at vital enemy systems as well as knock out enemy strike craft.
Target: Spacecraft (Any)
Range: Arc 10
Attack: Tactical vs Evasion

Effect: Designate three attacks. These can be against the same target or up to three separate targets within an Arc radius of 10. If two successful strikes are made against the same target, and damage is done, those two strikes can be substituted for a single Critical Systems Hit, to be rolled as normal.

Damage (Tactical): 1d6 + TACT

Secondly... what the hell? Okay, so we have numbers pulled out of our ass, with no relation to the source material. Flavor that's nonexistent except for a few hero effects, which will all basically fail to compensate and just upset the spaceship battle balance, and a needlessly complex combat mechanic that's totally at-odds with the 'dramatic' effect they wanted. It's no surprise this is being designed by committee. I like some of their nods to realism, but they should focus on making the sides play appropriately, not trying to model newtonian movement with factions that blindly ignore it.

[Stark]

The whole 'attacking sensor dome' thing is especially amusing because it's just from older games.

This just looks like a collection of gut-feeling assumptions and generalisations, which is sad because even within the framework of 'make it balanced' it could be characterful and interesting.

Shit, Games Workshop could do a better job than this.

What I feel is a larger issue is that despite using the general shape and style of the groups they're styled from, and claiming to be very similar to 4e's style, the stuff we can see is basically a flavorless bit of number dump. 1d6 this, 10d10 that, blah blah. So the ships are really just hitpoints plus damage, with no actual synergy with each other. So a Fed Flagship has 18 phaser banks with +2 to hit, 1d6 damage, and they're arranged 6 forward, 6 port, 6 starboard. First of all, I ask a few questions:

Since they cost 1 AP to fire, and you have so many, why not group them up more? Wouldn't it be more interesting to do this:

Phaser Bank (Weapon) 3AP
Per Round * Federation, Phaser
Screeching blasts of energy lance out from the strip-shaped emitters of the Federation Starship, coming from angles impossible for any conventional turreted weapon. These accurate and unpredictable attacks give Federation captains increased chances to strike at vital enemy systems as well as knock out enemy strike craft.
Target: Spacecraft (Any)
Range: Arc 10
Attack: Tactical vs Evasion

Effect: Designate three attacks. These can be against the same target or up to three separate targets within an Arc radius of 10. If two successful strikes are made against the same target, and damage is done, those two strikes can be substituted for a single Critical Systems Hit, to be rolled as normal.

Damage (Tactical): 1d6 + TACT

Secondly... what the hell? Okay, so we have numbers pulled out of our ass, with no relation to the source material. Flavor that's nonexistent except for a few hero effects, which will all basically fail to compensate and just upset the spaceship battle balance, and a needlessly complex combat mechanic that's totally at-odds with the 'dramatic' effect they wanted. It's no surprise this is being designed by committee.

That's pretty much my feeling; I'm almost tempted to take a more characterful attempt (even using the dumb system). There's no real 'flavour' or anything beyond OMG SO MANY TEH GUNZ. GW can make a bunch of army lists for different groups and have it way more interesting AND clear.

[Covenant]

It's certainly not hard to improve upon. While they want to poist the question, "Who wins in a fight, a Federation Starship or an Imperial Star Destroyer?" on their website, they're clearly not interested in trying to model a battle that's actually close to it. I mean, come on, Federation shields being immensely advanced? Whatever happened to their signature exploding panels? ;D

And that's a bit of a larf, but it also leads to the important question of "what are each of these factions if not just the appearance of our classic Sci-Fi ships married to cliche groupings of big+strong and small+fast?"

If they're going to actually make a "Space Grudge" game, each faction should feel like how the show makes them feel, and winning strategies should lean heavily upon utilizing the special skills and quirks of each franchise. To make this easier, they should pick representatives of each Universe to serve as the source material for the factions. So that'd make it most likely The Empire versus The Federation--not this hodge-podge of vessels with no recognizable OOB or faction groupings.

Personally, I'd also provide each of the 'lesser' factions as free agents/mercenaries, to add a bit of extra fluff without actually having to actually be added to the army lists. So if you wanted some nBSG Missile Spam but don't want to field a Colonial Fleet, you pay for a Cylon Basestar and add it to your Imperial Fleet. Blah blah blah, it's so easy to add depth to this, because right now there isn't any.

Some of their base mechanics are good--like their way of handling acceleration isn't so bad, kinda a fun way to handle the question of movement in a spaceship game. But those would really be better suited to games that were less focused on flavor and more on simulation--which they just aren't doing yet.

[Stark]

Using a decent army list would allow interesting things too (if they had a characterful system, which they don't). I mean, a Federation fleet with Whitestars instead of Defiants, Borg with a Battlestar, mixes that allow players to compensate for weaknesses or improve strengths. There's a lot of scope for this in the settings (once you move them closer to balanced anyway, without losing their character).

And not just 'battleships and escorts pew pew'. It actually kind of offends me that people apparently think 'game balance' means 'unit = unit'. I would consider a ST vs SW fight (for instance) playable if it had a balance like Mike's fanfic, especially if the army lists support the disparity. The differences should make the game interesting, but this is just a bland mess.

It's ironic you pick out the acceleration system, since that is an issue that is really far from any of their source material.

[Anguirus]

Thanks for grabbing the document. I have only started to look at it, but Stark's suggestion sounds neat and should probably be posted to the ENWorld feedback thread.

Also, aren't customization rules supposed to be forthcoming?

[Stark]

Do you mean rules customisation, or ship customisation? Frankly, ship customisation is such a can of worms it should be done after everything else is functioning.

[Covenant]

Thanks for grabbing the document. I have only started to look at it, but Stark's suggestion sounds neat and should probably be posted to the ENWorld feedback thread.

Bah! What about my ideas! Myyyyy ideeeaaaaaas??

It's ironic you pick out the acceleration system, since that is an issue that is really far from any of their source material.

Yes, precisely. When in Star Trek do we see people honestly dealing with a lot of inertial combat? Even in Star Wars we rarely see much of anything, except it's notable that ISDs have trouble stopping on a dime when chasing smugglers in circles. So their coolest stuff is basically suitable for none of the factions listed. So... why?

But yeah. I think it would be a mess to mix-and-match forces, mostly because I'd prefer to see Star Trek fight as a Star Trek force nearly entirely, but they could always have a very mixed fleet just from that! Right off the top you've got At least four well known 'styles' of Federation starships: cheap and fast Soverign/Connie class, durable but outdated Miranda class, overpowered skirmisher Defiant and top of the line Galaxy class. Toss in a Runabout-style pursuit ship/attack transport and you've got the ability to create quite a few teamwork-friendly effects per each ship, and allow people to field variations... etc. Only half of what each ship does should be offense or defense--they should HAVE to work in groups to maximize individual effectiveness.

In any case, they're far from done, but they've definitely got to address the lack of stylization. Styling the Galactic Empire isn't nearly as difficult--make it big, make it tough, and make it a triangle. Plus, they've been so well fleshed out by now that it's ridiculously easy to pick 10 ship classes and make an army list from them.

War is so different in each universe that you should emphasize that, rather than ship appearance, to define what faction you're playing. If you have to see the little saucer ship to remember you're a Fed and not a Colonial, that's not a very well thought-through system.

As for ship customization, I'm definitely against it. The best you could do is include wargear and other such upgrades--letting some defiants upgrade to cloaks, letting some ISDs carry Interceptors instead of Fighters. Make each Colonial ship pay a fee for the nukes they carry rather than just come standard, etc.

[Stark]

Well I'm pretty sure what he's talking about is actually your idea.

I'm anti-EU, but I'd suggest they make the Empire fleets based on very large ships with figher complements and provide flexibility that way. Just thinking about a dozen Lancers or Correlian gunboats makes me sad; that isn't what SW fleet combat is about. It's more characterful in my opinion to have an ISD or two with carefully selected capabilities, fighters and equipment vs a horde of Fed ships organised into 'Galaxy wings' and other task groups than 'giant mess of stupid EU ships everyone hates' like in most SW games.

I'd say that really, Imperial forces should generally be defined by 'wargear' and the equivalent of infantry squads, whereas Feds should be about mixing and matching different ships into squadrons that cooperate tactically.

[Anguirus]

Well I'm pretty sure what he's talking about is actually your idea.

You're right, my bad. I am not on a roll in this thread.

Anyway, I actually really like the thrust points, especially for a "hodgepodge" universe (make those Feddy bastards follow the laws of physics!) It's also entirely appropriate for the BSG and B5 styles of space combat.

Ship customization is a can of worms, and I'm sure that's why we haven't seen it yet. However, I think that's what they are aspiring to...create a "tactical cinematic space battle game" that's robust enough for you to adapt to whatever franchise you want to mimic and then some.

# Exception-based starship design allows for any ability without system constraint

[Covenant]

Anyway, I actually really like the thrust points, especially for a "hodgepodge" universe (make those Feddy bastards follow the laws of physics!) It's also entirely appropriate for the BSG and B5 styles of space combat.

I'm a big fan of simple inertia systems for space games, but not for the reasons they are--also problematic is the implementation. And I just delved into them for a moment, and trust me, they're also extremely poorly written. I've been designing a similar system recently, and this is aggravating to look at.

Just look. Can you turn faster than 60 degrees per turn? Can you? Where does it say? It has some vague wording and says it costs no thrust to turn a 60 degree facing. But it's never clear. I looked through it and the only thing I can come up with is that this is being written by so many people that they don't understand what they're each trying to accomplish. Before you dig deeper it looks like you can only turn once a round--it never tells you how fast you can turn. If you can't turn faster than one 60 degree hex per turn then, well, the game is fucked. And if they allow you to spend thrust to turn then they're still royally fucked too.

The only thing I can guess is that that someone had the idea that Agility = Turning Radius, but didn't tell anyone else. So that you can ONLY turn as many facings as your agility is. That way the whole "Speed divided by agility PER turn" thing makes sense. Fed Ship moving 10, agility 2, moves 5 squares before first turn, 5 before second. This begs the question if you can decide to turn more slowly than the rules dictate.

Look at the rules for how far you have to move between turns. First of all, this assumes constant acceleration along the direction of heading, which completely flies in the face of what actual inertia is--so reality just hung itself in protest. That's fine. But this is a bigger issue than they expect. The thing about a hex is that it only costs 3 points to do a 180, and unless it costs more to 180 one side than the other, a 180 is as good as a 360. The big cappies have Agility 1, but a Fedder has Agility 2, letting them almost pull completely around and possibly get their frontal arc back into radius. Any Mechwarrior knows that. Whereas an TIE Fighter has an agility of 6, which is totally overkill. And dealing with the idea of ships actually ramming each-other accidentally is beyond crazy. Basically, even the coolest thing is just hopelessly confounded by their own mechanics.

[Slacker]

Interesting. While I realize it may not meet the Warsie standard of accuracy, I am curious about how flexible starship design is in the game. I'll have to pick it up when it comes out.

Seriously guys, this is NOT an RPG. It's not even battletech. There's no customization as yet. Here, take a look at some of the basics I was able to find online:

I'm aware it's not an RPG. The lack of a customization is, however, a concern, considering the sort of game this is supposed to be.

I'll look at the rules in-depth later, though

[Covenant]

I'm aware it's not an RPG. The lack of a customization is, however, a concern, considering the sort of game this is supposed to be.

I'll look at the rules in-depth later, though

Yeah, once you get a look at the rules I think you'll realize that they're not really even that similar to mechwarrior-level customization, and that the idea that you can simulate "any space force" doesn't actually mean you can. To me it sounds more like they meant "we the designers, which includes you of course" can, since they're designing this by committee on their board.

Ships don't even have a 'cost' yet, so there's no way to figure out how many Federation Cruisers are a 'fair' match for an Imperial Destroyer. If they add ship customization, how are they going to balance things? Furthermore, they've already started designing ships before setting costs, so it might be hilariously unbalanced once again, and completely obliterate all the work done beforehand.

This is the issue with customization. If I can add a point of agility to a ship, how much does that cost? Does it cost as much for an Imp Destroyer as for a Hive Cube? It certainly shouldn't--if all that agility does is tell you how wide your "airplane in space" banking curves are, then the Hive Cube is completely immune, since it's weapons do not require facing angles. Does it cost more to add it to a big ship than a small one? Etc.

It's really a bad idea. But let me ask you, why do you want it? It's certainly not a 'canon' issue, since there's no canon debate within this game's limited context, they just made up new values and their combat mechanics are as basic as possible. What, really, is the point of ship design in a system that is about strategic moves and not about strategic ship design?

[Slacker]

Yeah, that's what I had an issue with-I was figuring they'd have a reasonable standardization where abilities or upgrades cost points. I mean, even GURPS Space seems to offer more ship building options than this so far, looking at it.

We'll see, maybe it'll improve.