Miniatures Wargame for Traveller

[robject]

What sort of abstractions need to be handled for a miniatures Wargame to be Traveller compatible?

I'm thinking of fleet combat primarily.

I'm also thinking the system would have to have necessary abstractions of Traveller tropes. At the same time, I think it needs to somehow manage to model things like:

Groups of ships - squadrons, flights, and convoys
Characteristics, for want of a better word, to describe a ship group's capability
Spinal weapons
Drop tanks
Escort operations
Perhaps planetary assault in some simple way
The general range of Traveller tech, from 8 up to 33
Rock - paper - scissors relationship between weapons, defenses, and hybrids


For the type of game i have in mind, I think it cannot use vector movement.

 

[Hyphen]

What sort of abstractions need to be handled for a miniatures Wargame to be Traveller compatible?

I was going to say, "Buy Power Projection!", until you said "no vector movement".

Then I thought (unkindly) what's a space combat wargame without vector movement?? (sorry!)

Then a light-bulb went on and I thought: High Guard.

 

[Dragoner]

Someone just needs to come up with an Ace of Aces style starship combat system for Traveller.

 

[mike wightman]

What works for me is squadron counters (FFW etc) but slightly larger with some extra stats on.

Game map is of a system - can by squares or hexes - and ships manoeuvre on a timescale of hours.

Sensor based hide and seek can be a feature if desired.

Combat is resolved using combat factors and tables when opposing squadrons meet in the same hex/square.

 

[robject]

Okay, let me ask more pointed questions.

Has anyone played A Call To Arms before? It's not Traveller-centric, but it seems popular enough.

How about TOG, or whatever it's official name is? Leviathan, Renegade Legion, etc.

Next question. Does Wahammer 40k have space combat rules? They have 5,000,000,000 miniatures. Surely they have rules. Anyone play them? Call me a tyro, a newbie, or just ignorant. Guilty.

Better question. What are the most popular spaceship combat wargaming rules, if there are any?

The ones I know of are defunct, I guess, aside from Power Projection. Maybe there's no demand? But surely with all those miniatures out there...

 

[mike wightman]

A Call to Arms is a good game - it is similar in detail level to Battle Rider.

And yes, I have got and played Renegade Legion Leviathan.

The Warhammer game is Battlefleet Gothic - I've got that too.

They are all individual big ship games if that makes sense - and they all take a long time to play an engagement that has a dozen or so capital ships on each side. They are more tactical rules rather than system scale.

A really good game I enjoyed was the board game of CJ Cherryh's Company war.

It has a strategic game of moving ships around jump routes and an optional tactical scale for fighting battles.

Then there are all the old SPI games...

 

[Tobias]

How about TOG, or whatever it's official name is? Leviathan, Renegade Legion, etc.

There were at least two space combat games set in that universe - Renegade Legion: Interceptor and Renegade Legion: Leviathan. I only played the first one, which dealt with fighters and small combat vessels. The damage system had very neat ideas, but actual play was cumbersome.
I also played Aerotech, set in FASA's other SF universe (BattleTech), a few times. Like RL, it had a vector movement system, but one which was IMO less elegantly applied than Mayday's.

Strictly speaking, these are not miniature wargames though, but boardgames where you could use miniatures as playing pieces.

Next question. Does Wahammer 40k have space combat rules?

Battlefleet Gothic. Haven't played it.

Better question. What are the most popular spaceship combat wargaming rules, if there are any?

Starfleet Battles and its successors, I'd assume.

The ones I know of are defunct, I guess, aside from Power Projection. Maybe there's no demand? But surely with all those miniatures out there...

There's Starmada, and the original Full Thrust (PP's parent ruleset).

Have you checked out this website?
http://www.star-ranger.com/Home.htm

 

[aramis]

Okay, let me ask more pointed questions.

Has anyone played A Call To Arms before? It's not Traveller-centric, but it seems popular enough.

How about TOG, or whatever it's official name is? Leviathan, Renegade Legion, etc.

Next question. Does Wahammer 40k have space combat rules? They have 5,000,000,000 miniatures. Surely they have rules. Anyone play them? Call me a tyro, a newbie, or just ignorant. Guilty.

Better question. What are the most popular spaceship combat wargaming rules, if there are any?

The ones I know of are defunct, I guess, aside from Power Projection. Maybe there's no demand? But surely with all those miniatures out there...

I've played Renegade Legion Interceptor and Leviathan. Didn't much care for Leviathan - too fiddly for fleet combat, to abstracted for ship-on-ship. Some cool bits, tho - the boxes in place of minis was genius. And Interceptor is way too detailed for many - it's not quite to Brilliant Lances, but it is as close as remains playable.

40K has a space combat game... Battlefleet Gothic. It's about as unrealistic as one can get. Fixed speed; no engine left, stop dead, manual operation of the guns, etc.

The Rogue Trader RPG incudes a close variant of BFG, as well.

Power Projection is a (IMO Poor) adaptation of Full Thrust. It took most of the simplicity away. Full Thrust is awesome - fast, simple, moderately realistic. Suffers from 2 design systems and 2 movement systems (3 counting the Earthforce Sourcebook by Chameleon Ecclectic).

Battletech has 2 different space combat games: Battlespace and Aerotech. Different damage taking mechanics. Battlespace suffers from the integration of the damage mechanic from RL:Leviathan.

There is also Star Fleet Battles and it's faster playing child, Federation Commander. SFB is overtaken with complexity, so much so that SVC (the designer) recently stated that the games he writes are not the games he prefers to play. It's no longer the dominant market force it used to be; Fed Commander is a faster playing, less math intensive game.

SFB's sexier sister is Starfire. And once it left the care of David Webber (Yes, the noted Author) and Todd W Crump, it added nitpicky and overdetailed rules, too. First two editions are excellent light tactical/supertactical games, with playable strategic engines. I love the tactical game. Most of the remaining fanbase play the strategic game. Don't play with less than 3 ships to a side, tho'. Non-newtonian, 10%C fleet speeds...

For the really self-flagellating gamer, there is the excellent but space-demanding Star Fleet Battle Manual and Alien Space Battle Manual. Fun, fast, light... but you need at least 3m x 3m to play. 5mx5m is better. And you're measuring movement in mm... up to about 500mm per turn, In my limited experience.

There are several others that I haven't played: Silent Death, Starmada, something by Mongoose, Star Blazers Fleet Battles

Note that several (SFB, Starfire, SBFB all 4 FASA ones) are hex-grid games with minis available.

The most popular seems to be Starmada. SFB is way down the list - so much so that ADB has cut deals with them to have an SFU flavor (Klingon Armada). The Deal with Mongoose was implied by SVC to be primarily about Prime Directive, but it's resulted in an SFU Flavor of Mongoose's minis game.

 

[DaveChase]

Well, you could always try MoonBase. It not only used miniatures but you actually place them on poles to represent true 3D gaming.

Then there is the game ARMADA, which is also a true 3D game. You can play it on a 2D map using markers/dice to represent the 3D part.

It used miniatures or 3D paper. The 3D paper was printed flat that you fold into a rectangle box showing actual images for top, bottom, sides, front and back for each ship.
The company actually had a 3D miniature holder and miniatures, that would allow you spin, yaw, twist, etc the miniature (model) while moving it on the map.


As for anything that is easy to due, try computer games, they take all the figuring and rule book checks out of the picture.
Oh, you want to actually play with miniatures (me too) then most all of what Aramis applies to the games he listed.

Dave Chase

 

[aramis]

Only reason SFBM is "self-flagellating" is the amount of time you'll spend on your knees... it's a great game, but it's not suited to play at home. Still, I love it.

 

[robject]

Ok. So far, Wil has best identified what I'm trying to learn about. I asked my questions vaguely, because I wanted to cast a wide net first.

It looks like I'm going to be interested in Full Thrust, an early version of Starfire, or one of the Battle Manuals (even tho they are not friendly to middle-aged knees).

I'm sorry to hear that Power Projection is complicated. I suppose it had to encompass a lot of things.

 

[Dragoner]

If it is the same Starfire as 30 years ago, that is a great game, I played it quite a bit, I had at least I & II.

 

[robject]

Full Thrust - thoughts

Movement is as Mayday. I don't like vectors, due to the admin overhead. Seems reasonable that large enough battles will not ordinarily rely on vector movement, but instead would prefer agility. Thus it seems that vector movement rules should be reserved for unusual circumstances.

Weapons are nicely abstracted. It allows us to field more ships reasonably.

Arc fire is nice; however, if one assumes long turns, it seems that a ship has plenty of time to pivot and fire in any direction it likes. However, even High Guard had Batteries Bearing.

I don't like that a ship can't screen another ship. No convoy escorts or high guard. However, again, there is probably plenty of time and opportunity to attack any ship you like.

Range is well done. It does assume that damage decreases with range... Which is a reasonable assumption. However in my games, I just use damage as damage, no decay. I do make combat harder at ranges. Converting range bands to hexes or inches or cm is nontrivial but, I think, otwntially rewarding. In other words, I would not use their range rules, nor their damage rules. That is problematic and probably blows the system for me.

Wow. It looks like I would use nothing of Full Thrust. But it is streamlined-looking.

There is a very nice mechanic for tracking damage and managing critical hits without checking for them every hit... Very nice, indeed. Maybe there is something I can take away from the game.

And I really like using the base of an asteroid to determine if line of sight is blocked.

 

[robject]

Things to think about

Mass Fire. Even more important than fixed batteries is the concept of mass fire. The ability to group all weapons of one kind into a single attack, if desired. Thus a Tigress coud carry out a complete attack in six dice rolls... Fewer if we stick to the long ranged stuff.

Defensive Fire. Defensive weapons probably operate differently than offensives. Perhaps they are automatic and only when needed. Perhaps they fire as a group. Perhaps they are simply part of the defensive rating of the ship. Unsure.

Fire Control. An abstraction of gunner stations. This limits the number of batteries you can fire per turn. It limits the number of targets you may attack.

Range and Difficulty. Weapons must have ranges; this is the easiest way to create basic tactics. Ships with longer firing ranges and the agility to stand off will win. Potentially, range also implies difficulty. It could also modify damage, but I prefer to leave that alone. So at the least, even though your PA spine can fire into Deep Space doesn't mean it will hit very often.

Abstracted Damage. Damage has to be managed more abstractly than in single-ship versus single-ship mode. Damage must be faster and more generic to compute, and when squadrons face each other in combat, damage probably shouldn't be rolled, but rather applied from the attack roll directly. Thus attacks potentially might have built-in damage. This also means that defenses are probably not applied on faces, but rather across the entire ship uniformly... Or perhaps, defenses are treated that way at this level.

Turn Length. Long turns reduce a lot of complexity, but also may reduce tactical depth to the game. What batteries bear, or what firing arcs are available, or whether a shio can be screened by another ship, and even to what degree Vector Thrust plays a part in the game, all can be rationalized based on Turn Length. Balance needs to be struck.

 

[Enoki]

I think it is best I just with hold my opinion on this subject...... Or, I guess I could probably just design a set of rules that would work given that I've done a dozen plus other miniatures sets including aerial combat, naval warfare, and the usual land ones.....

 

[aramis]

If it is the same Starfire as 30 years ago, that is a great game, I played it quite a bit, I had at least I & II.

Starfire has changed a lot since SF I-II-III. You would recognize but not be able to read Galactic, Elite, and Ultra Starfire editions' ships - they changed the codes for a number of things.

Edition 1:
Starfire, Starfire II, and Starfire III. SF I & II have 1 scale, SF II uses 2 scales (Strategic and Tactical). Fixed hull sizes.

Effectively, adding the New Carrier Rules made a half-edition; the Corsairs over Lyonesse added HT's 10-12, and a couple other bits from nexus as well added some other stuff. Adds a 3rd scale (Tactical, System, Strategic)

2nd edition consolidates mechanics for SF I & II into a single box. Only major changes are no more assault movement and no half-points of damage; again, only tactical scale in the box. With New Empires, they added another scale - Tactical, Interception, System, and Strategic; added quarters. No major changes to coding until Gorm-Khanate war - the Ion Engine Room article from nexus becomes official, and life support holds, too. Note that New Empires isn't really a revised SF III - it's a whole new design.

3rd Edition makes few coding changes, little of it confusing, but adds small craft and numerous (xx) module codes: (BbS)(BbL)(SY)(SP)(CHS1)(CHS2). All four scales in tactical module as a reference; strategic rules in separate box "Imperial Starfire." All rules from 2nd ed revised into a single contiguous ruleset. Biggest change is move to 1d10 from 2d6, and adjustments to the tables to match. ISF revises system generation quite extensively. Several supplements add new tech and more complexity each. Stars At War is the only one that doesn't add new stuff - it adds only scenarios - lots of them; a whole war's worth.

A Revised 3rd Ed core was released when Marvin bought the game from Task Force. Last worthy edition, IMO. Last one that saw tactical-only players as valuable.

4th Edition, Galactic Starfire, completely revises the coding system for ships. And the design system. And the tech trees system. And the combat mechanics, slightly. It also drops the included default setting, does not support pure tactical play with any scenarios, and includes strategic in the core.

Elite is almost edition 4.5, except that it's only a changes document.

5th Edition, Ultra, is electronic only, and is pretty much compatible with 4th from what I hear. I won't touch it.

Cosmic is 3rd revised again, and is not out yet. Hopefully, Fred will simplify it back to playable.

 

[Tobias]

Movement is as Mayday. I don't like vectors, due to the admin overhead. Seems reasonable that large enough battles will not ordinarily rely on vector movement, but instead would prefer agility. Thus it seems that vector movement rules should be reserved for unusual circumstances.

Well, either movement should be entirely abstract, or it should be vector movement, since this is the way the Traveller Universe works.

By the way, have you considered Battle Rider?

The ability to group all weapons of one kind into a single attack, if desired. Thus a Tigress coud carry out a complete attack in six dice rolls... Fewer if we stick to the long ranged stuff.

That reminds me: Does the CT CD include High Guard 1st edition? That is pretty much the only piece of CT rules I don't have in print, and I wondered if it was available anywhere.

 

[robject]

Tobias: yes, the CT CD includes both HG1 and HG2.

 

[robject]

I think it is best I just with hold my opinion on this subject...... Or, I guess I could probably just design a set of rules that would work given that I've done a dozen plus other miniatures sets including aerial combat, naval warfare, and the usual land ones.....

I would prefer the latter, I think!

 

[Tobias]

Tobias: yes, the CT CD includes both HG1 and HG2.

That's good news. Eagerly awaiting my delivery.