A too much complex game!

Would people find it anoying to constantly move from one map to another for each event that occurs. Would it be better to solve the whole encounter with a simple dice roll?

Would it be possible, or evenmake sense, to attempt to make a two level map for this issue?

Basically I was thinking that you might be able to have a transparent check point map lay on top of the other battle map. Based on your design would something like this be possible?

Movement could include : Speed, Turn, Inertial control
Shield : Rechange, deflection, strength, overload protection,

I want it to be possible for a player to work an hour on his ships printout just to see how he can improve it. I would have intended to get very deep in the configuration. Like spliting some ship components in smaller components that you can change or remove. You would also be able to determine for example if you want a centered power supply or an individual power supply for shield weapon and drive. You could decide to remove all the security system to get more power but your ship`s "saves" vs many hazard would be lower.

So as you can see, it can get really complicated. So my question is, is it too complicated?

As I said, I might intend to make a simple and complex version of the same game, compatible with each other, to make my target audience larger.

Would you be able to create these many configurations that you talk about using cards? Basically maybe the players can create piles of ship cards, where the card represent the various ship components. It would be easy for a player to then pick up the cards during movement, battle, etc and determine what they can do for that ship. Though this might not be fun (or practical) despending on the number of ships you plan of each player having on the board....

Each player could have a small board with a image of a ship and blank spots where you put different cards with diffferent abilities. (Think Perto Rico for card size)

Fore example i equip my ship with an ion dirve. Giving my 3 thrust, 2 inertial control, and 4 turn. I then place than many number tokens into a spot on my ship bard. Then lets say you damage me and I lose one engine function, I remove one of those tokens.

An old game that uses number tokens is Talisman from games workshop, they only used strength and some other stat. But as you got experienc (buy part for you game) you upgraded your strength. The magic sword gives +1 strength, you add a single strength token.

This method would allow you to have several token contributing to the different ability.

You could go a step further and abstract the rally course into a scoring track around the tactical map. You could place colored disks along the rally track to indicate waypoints. This would allow you to change rally courses by using different disk spacings. You could also declare different "local conditions" between sets of markers. For example, between 'A' and 'B', you have gravitational effects from a nearby black hole. Between 'B' and 'C', you're passing through a nebula which increases life support costs, etc.

As players overtake each other on the rally track, they can opt to drop to the tactical game board for ship-to-ship interaction. Similarly, various events may require interaction on the tactical board (e.g., fly through asteroids).

Of course, if each player can experience different events at different times, maybe each person needs his own tactical board so he can resolve independent events that may last several turns.

One final thought about ship diagrams -- Star Fleet Battles' SSDs worked great for recording damage, but they're not so good for tracking upgrades. Starship Catan uses a system for tracking upgrades that boils down to abstract grids into which you place cards representing system upgrades (several people above have mentioned something similar). I'm not sure that's the best -- or even necessary -- but the fact that it's in use in a Catan game suggests it's simple but effective.

Sounds like a fun game. Good luck with the continued design -- keep us posted!

there are some really good ideas coming out...

the first thing i thought of when i read your problem (#1) was this:

have the two boards like you mentioned, and just have a player token on each. Maybe it would seem a bit weird to have two player tokens each but it would make it really easy... your ship on the racing track moves, and then when you need to "swap" to the other board, you just take your piece that's on that board and move it as needed...

obviously i don't know the details of your game, but it might work within your game framework...

I second the "card" mechanic. You could have 3 decks. Weapons (Rockets, Lasers, etc), Engine (for Speed, Control, etc), Upgrades (Shields, Stealth, etc) each could also have a value 1 to 5. A player can never have more than say 7 cards. Then you could have a 4th "Maneuvers" deck which would allow certain attacks, defenses, moves, etc. which require a certain level of either Weapons, Engine, or Upgrade. Like overtake could be a speed maneuver that allows the player to switch his ship with an opponent's on the board and costs 11 points in Move. Players could also discard these cards to temporarily boost their values in the same type to ensure you never have useless cards. The idea would be that a player could use all his 7 cards on weapons cards thus enabling him to use any combat card but then he would never be able to use an Engine card or Upgrade card.

Having complex rules with stats can be a bore sometimes as players fiddle and tinker with the numbers too much and it can lead to analysis paralysis as players try to maximize benefits. If you deal a player a set number of "Maneuver" cards then let them draw 1 ship part at setup, this would nudge the player in a certain direction and would change the game up just as much.

I'd advise against the super-complexity of such a game for the simple reason that, after a point, such endless variety and detail often makes for poor play. Not because the players need to keep track of so much, but because the idea of tactics relies on foresight, and adjusting to situations that can be predicted with some accuracy. Battletech suffered from "build a tactic" syndrome, where people would change their designs rather than their play style, and thus every battle was fought the same way, since units became one-trick-ponies.

This is difficult to avoid, if the freedom of design is too high. Even in the real world, there are severe limits on military design, making the pace of change manageable, and tactics possible. In race circuits, standardization is important, too. The fan's don't want a car to win, they want a driver to win.

Just some thoughts.

Some people love really complex games (usually battle simulations) and may not have a problem with whatever you may throw at them. Since it is a race however you may lose some of the race feel if it is too slow.

I am seeing the popularity of complex games start to gain with games like Twilight Imperium and Arkham Horror. I personally like the more streamlined and less simulative Eurogames.

My advice; concentrate on FUN

How about a penalty instead of a disqualification? That way knocking an opponent's ship off the map becomes an actual tactic, since it's not an elimination game. You as the designer then get to invent all kinds of tricky forcefield attacks, tractor beams etc that players can install and attack with.

e.g. Repulsion Mines - course obstacles (or "plantable" ship ordnance) that exert outward force if triggered... can force ships off course and out of bounds... cool stuff.

Just a thought.

~Josh

Having addressed complexity, let me chime in on the racecourse part of your post.

When I first read your post, I went looking for a ruleset I'd designed a few years back, a racing game I'd invented involving SF-style racing through huge metal tunnels. What made me think of it was that I had a course setup that was tile-based, like what you were looking for.

Now, having looked at it again, I see that the course setup was very simple, consisting of six to ten tiles, each of which corresponded to a type of board section that the players actually moved on. But, since the board sections were large, there would be no room for very many of them on a table. So I came up with the idea of having evey straight section of course represented by a single straight-section board, and every curve represented by a single curved board, and so on. The players would move on the boards dictated by a second counter moving on the course tiles, and when they arrived at an edge of their board, they would advance to the next tile and move their ship to the edge of the next race board of the type they needed.

The trick here was that many ships could be on a race board, and appear close, but really not be, since their ships were on different tiles. For example, a course has two straights tiles (A and B), a left turn (Turn A), and then two more straight tiles (C and D). This course could be played on just two boards: one straight (representing all four setions, A-D), and a curve (representing curve A). Each tile of a given type has a color, and players on that tile place a tinly marker under their ship of the same color. If straight A was Red, B was blue, C was yellow, and D was Green, then a player would know that they would only collide with ships with the same color token on their board. I also restricted weapons use to other ships on the tile, so players couldn't fire weapons at a target that had a different color token, since they were beyond the protective screens that seperated the course sections.

This allowed massive courses, without a tremendous number of large race board sections. The fire limitation was themeatically sound (force screens), and made players actially race to keep up with one another, rather than just hang back and fire weapons at the leaders. Maybe something like this would work for you.

Anyway, this thread made me wake this game up, and I've written a new rules set using this track system, but, being perverse, took the line of "how simple could I make this game?" The opposite idea from you, actually.

So, great thread!