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Complex Space Battles! Help me out.....

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Anonymous

Hello This is Eweric speaking first post at this site.....
my spelling is bad i hope u can look over it...

Im creating a board game called Energyshowdown itis supposed to be a 3-4 hour game not more i hope it for (2) 3-6 players . It includes 4 ways of winning by scoring VP

1) Politics "This point is getting a lot of thought and more influense of the game compared to most other games...votes on new lawes ,forcing allinces, forcing battles between player who dont wannt to fight.....

2)Trading (nothing new) but i giving more support to this theam by making it possible to play the whole game without owning or controling a productive planet

3) Conquest Who does not get thrilled by kicking the other players fleats time after time. Figuring out some new stuff to make this role more fun to play..(ide missions from court.....---> rewards)

4) Turtle producing resourses and stuff this is for all the "Builders" this might make the game a litte non-aggresive so im thinking it over

THe players will have some racial abilites to make them diffrent (its ofen more fun not to battle mirrors .....at least in boardgames)

ohh wel.... i want u to coment my battlesystem....Im so tired of the die luck games..Civilasation, Risk, with more....

First of all there are 3 typs of ships and one typ of ground forces (havent decided how ground forces works.....)
The Ships
-Crusers largest ship
-Frigets Standard vessel
-Fighters Weak unit with limited funktions (again nothing new)

I just wanna clear one thing out You will NEVER have any real massive armys in Energy Showdown the lagest fleeats will consist of maximum 10 ships due to the battle system it wouled take hours...

There are a lot of games already out there with these hoard armys im trying to produce some thing more in detail...

The System
Each ship will have these atributes Hull,Heavy,Light armor..Sheild,Energy
and Improvements.
example Cruser Hull 3 Heavy 4 Light 5 sheilds 10 Energy 5
and six slots for improvement.....

Wepons (are improvements ) they cost Energy to be fired
Hull if hull is reduced below = the ship is destroyed
Heavy, 4 =heavy damage results in 1 Hull damage
Light 5 light damage = 1 Hull damage
The ship provides 5 energy to be spent on using diffrent wepons..
Shield the first 10 damage will be absorbed by the sheild..

wepon example Warp Laser energy drain 1 // 3 light damage

The battle is played in rounds
-Bothe Players Regain energy (5)
-Player 1 fires as much wepons as possible (untile no energy left...)
-Player 2 the same as player 1

It might seem pretty complicated but its a lot of fun picking diffrent wepons and improvements ex May retreat from combat cost 5 energy or plasma sheild increse sheild by 5 points)

This makes the game more strategic and maybee more intresting..

To make the system as easy as possible im using a battle board and some counters, for recording damage energy ....
im new to the site so i dont know how to upload an image of the board

I wouled like to have some coments
1. Game Ide
2.Battle System
3. Fell free to ask me anything

Johan
Johan's picture
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Joined: 10/05/2008
Complex Space Battles! Help me out.....

Hi and welcome to the forum.

I think that you have to decide if you are doing a epic space "civilisation" game or a battle game. Otherwise you will have several problems:
- Dice feast: (a lot of dice will be in each battle).
- Downtime: There will be a downtime for the players that not are involved in the battle.
- Time problem: You wanted to keep the game within 2-3 hours and that will not be possible with a complicated battle system.

There was the same problem in Eagle games Napoleon in Europe (the full version of the game took to long time and was boring for the other players).

One way to do this is to make two games, one battle game and one space civilisation game. The battle game and the civ. game can be played as stand alone games, but also together for a longer session.

Looking forward to see more of your game

// Johan

onew0rd
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Complex Space Battles! Help me out.....

I totally agree with Johan. Just to add to Johan's point though, I think this "scope" problem is very common amongst us game designers. I have recently found that limiting my scope to the most interesting (or what interests me most) aspects of my design and developing THAT has seen better results. Oftentimes, we play a game with numerous "dimension" : a battlefied, a trading dimension, and a civ building dimension, each of these can usually be fleshed out into a game on it's own. For the most part, at least for me, I usually have one really good idea for a mechanic or interaction and start making a game. Then midpoint, I start adding other mechanics or other "dimensions" of play and the game design process becomes unwieldy and uninspired and I eventually drop the whole deal. My current philosophy is to go lean. If I have a great mechanic, I simply stick with that and only add things that interface elegantly with it. If it seems forced, I drop it. Limit the scope to the original and interesting. Everything else is excess fat and should be cut.
Another thing you could do is make a certain dimension only minorly interactive. Combat doesn't have to be interactive. Maybe hte guy with a certain type of army units/power cannot be forced into alliances or can decide the laws enforced, etc but isn't as powerful a trader due to his imposing military power and lack of tradeships. It doesn't have to be actual little ships moving around rolling dice to shoot each other. It could be an elegant part of gameplay with counters, cards, etc. It seems more realistic anyway because if I have a huge fleet of warships, it would be silly for me to be forced into anything and also as silly for the players with alot of money and a small military to want to sell me things openly.

On the other hand, if you want to make a Battle Game (which it seems like you do because of your details for the combat system) then make the other stuff less of a distraction or emphasis.

Anonymous
Complex Space Battles! Help me out.....

thx for your opinions....
you have given me something to think about....

I have decided to make an really easy income system and only 1 buildings and cutting down on most of the time devoring stuff..

But i really wanna keep the battle system, is there any way to speed the w8 time upp fore the other players ?

Do you understand the system works from above ? Any Uppgrade ides?

Infernal
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Complex Space Battles! Help me out.....

I have been working on a space boardgame that uses a simple and completely non random combat system. In this system the player has 3 ship types: Capital ships. Bombers and Fighters.

Capital ships were good against fighters but poor against bombers. They had good armor and always got first attack in combat, but moved slowly.

Bombers were good against capital ships as they could launch missiles over distances. They were poor against fighters as fighters could move faster enough to attack the bomber before it coudl fire.

Fighters were fastest moving ships which allowed them to attck bombers before they could fire, however their weak armor made them vunerable to any attacks.

Each ship had a move value, armor/shield value, long range weapon value, short range weapon value and a special combat feature: Capitals had first strike, bombers had ranged attacks and fighters had their fast move speed.

When a combat occured the damage results would occure simultainiously. ie my attack will do 5 points of damage and your attack will do 3 points of damage then both ships would take the damage, then if either was reduced below 0 armor/shields then it would be destroyed and removed from play.

This system has a Scissor/Paper/Rock relationship between the ship types (Fighters beat Bombers beat Capital beat Fighters) giving it a tactical and stratigic aspect. It is also quick - just make your choice and subtract the armor value from each ship.

This system could have some semi-random elements put in: like each player has tactical/strategy cards that they could use to influece the damage done by their ships or give some other special ability to a ship for a period of time, or proximity to bases or other ships could have an influence.

Anonymous
Complex Space Battles! Help me out.....

Battles can be made short but still remaining complex. Take the battle system of DUNE

A battle is over in about a minute, but it can still generate quite a tension.

essentially, it is made of three simoultaneous auction, where players bid knowing that they have good chances to lose those resources they bid, regardless of the outcome of the battle.

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