Gdw belter

[Enoff]

Been putting together a cyberboard gamebox to use with GDW's Belter.

Anyone played this?
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4316/belter-mining-the-asteroids-2076

I am slowly going through the rules, 11 pages can contain a lot of stuff!

 

[aramis]

Not in many years...

 

[Enoff]

Obviously it would be easy to assume using this with Beltstrike.
What other asteroid material is available through the Traveller canon?

 

[agorski]

What other asteroid material is available through the Traveller canon?

JTAS No. 3 had a nice article on Asteroid Mining with a flowchart procedure for running mining operations.

 

[Enoff]

JTAS No. 3 had a nice article on Asteroid Mining with a flowchart procedure for running mining operations.

Thanks agorski !

 

[Enoff]

Wow slowly transcribing the rules from a poorly scanned pdf I purchased off of the wargame vault to a doc format. Funny how three columns became the way of presenting rules in the late seventies. Not viewable on my nook so I am retyping the rules, amazing how much information is in just a few pages.

Oh and I am reading Ben Bova's Asteroid series while figuring out these rules.

 

[Enoff]

Here is a bit of a review of Belter I found in Space Gamer number 27

BELTER is a game of asteroid mining in the year 2076. It is dangerous work, not only because of the hazards of the mining itself, but because of the hijackers and ruthless completion. Players must buy ships, search the asteroids for a usable mine-site, extract the ore or gas (manually or by machine), and get it to the marketplace. Competition, piracy, and changes in the market will interfere with a player’s plans. Accumulated wealth determines the victor.

The game is well-planned and nicely laid out; the map is simple and rules very easy to understand. Players have a tremendous number of options at every point in the game, provided they have the money to carry them out. BELTER is more of an economic game than a battle game, though ships and men do get to fight every so often.

The worst problem with BELTER is that it can drag out, becoming repetitive, especially if you are in a pinch for cash and can’t play actively for a while.
-Mike L. Maloney

Sounds like a great way to develop a campaign, yeah it always sucks not having cash!

 

[Enoff]

The player counters are interesting and it easy to see where you could bring a rpg element into this game.

picture of counters
http://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic195801_lg.jpg

 

[Enoff]

Going over the combat rules right now, seem to be a water-downed version of Traveller or High Guard. Has range determination, short or long and beam and missile attacks. Beams can be used in an anti-missile mode. Interesting one has to match directional facing so as to match courses to conduct combat or transfer cargo. It was published in 1979 so must have been played and tested amidst the Traveller publication at GDW HQ.

Doing some research, interesting, Belter was published before High Guard.

I also have a copy of Double Star I purchased, be interesting to compare the combat system in that to this.
Double Star is interesting in that it allows crew training, quality and formations for battle. Belter uses all kinds of crew counters.

 

[Enoff]

Just received paperbacks of Jack Williamson's "Seetee Ship" and "Seetee Shock" thru Amazon from various paperback vendors.

Can't wait to start reading them. I read that these books inspired the game Belter, it will be interesting.

 

[Enoff]

Well besides the word "Contraterrene" (C.T. or Seetee) which we would call anti-mater now, I didn't find much that relates to GDW Belter. A bit disappointed that it didn't go more into Asteroid mining.

I had to go to some considerable trouble getting these books so I was hoping to mine better information from them.