Archive through August 17, 2004
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board:
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3-D SFB Proposals:
Archive through August 17, 2004
That will teach me not to read an existing topic before proposing the same thing. Thanks for the reference.
I believe I still have a copy of the old 3D play test rules.
While metnally chewing on the idea of a 3-D SFB-like game, I had a radical idea.
Instead of a 32 impulse chart with a max of one hex per impulse, you get an 8 segment chart.
You generate your movement points in EA, but allocate them on the fly, anywhere from 0 to 4 on any given impulse.
You can only increase or decrease your movement points on a given impulse by 1 every segment, even over a turn break.
Players bid the number of movement points spent at the beginning of the segment. If using a laimated play aid, they draw their maneuver out each segment and reveal at the same time.
This is meant to facilitate switching to a 50-point 3-D facing model.
Now, this will be wildly unpopular with some folks...no more going from speed 26 on imp 32 to speed 0 and parking on impulse 1...
But all the goofy restrictions on mid turn speed changes, and goofy tactics designed to utilize the impulse chart's rounding errors go away.
(It also lets me write a very simple slant conversion chart -- I could do the 3-D movement aspects of this in a two column chart with this restriction...)
Basically it's the 4 impulse look ahead from PBEM.
Quote:While metnally chewing on the idea of a 3-D SFB-like game
Ummm...just out of curiosity, since you do have experience with 3d games....how often does the third dimension REALLY come into effect?
I mean, even space-based computer games - that are really and truly 3d with no added complexity to the player - almost *always* come down to a single plane of battle everyone is (more or less) fighting on within seconds. About the only thing that really seems to become relevant is rolling or pitching to bring other weapons into arc. Rolling is easy enough to handle with current rules. Pitching would be a pain, and really screw with play balance.
Basically, the SSDs would have to have 'top' or 'bottom' added to each weapon, and the ship could then 'pitch' up or down in the hex. If we assume the actual distance travelled up or down is irrelevant (since, presumably, the ship will return to the 'battle plane' ASAP), you'd just have to have the ship not move from the hex its in until it's turn mode is satisfied from the point it pitched up or down (in essence, it 'turned' straight down or up. It moves not from the hex it's in until it can straighten out again - 'turning' back to parallel with the 'battle plane').
Plotting every 4 impulses makes T-bombs very powerful (lay and detonate before your opponent can react). It may also make seeking weapon defense much more difficult.
You seem to be implying there is only one chance to act per "segment" (ie go through to impulse sop once)? Is this the intent? It will lead to some extreme range oddities--Ships can go from range 9 to range 1 (ie overload to almost point blank) with no chance to react by either side.
You might want to look at the PBEM FOG discussion (they've been looking at some ideas along these lines and usually use 4 impulse breaks).
If you're fighting a duel, the third dimension only comes in to play with weapons and shield arcs.
In a fleet, I don't know if the complexity is worth the benefit.
If this were on a computer game, the computer can handle the complexity.
Most fleets fly in tight clusters (with scouts trailing to keep the rest of the fleet between them and the enemy). Thus they don't have the third dimension in play most of the time. When fleets close to point blank range, it can come into play, but at those ranges, ships should just disappear...
Note that it takes 4 distinct non-coplanar locations for a 3-d situation to be different from a 2-d one (thus even in a duel, it usually takes a number of shuttles to get there--seeking weapons are technically all coplanar with the ships).
DF weapon arcs and shields don't require 3-d (even if they themselves are 3-d).
This is not to say that 3-d isn't an interesting idea to pursue. But it is much less useful than it first appears.
Plotting movement bunched ( say 8 impulse groups but not enacting that movement in chuncks...(but remember to do the first 16 at the begining )...doesn't automatically mean that you have to resolve in bunches of hexes of movement...that should make the game flow a little faster ( as people won't sit around trying to guess the exact hex the enemy will vist ) but will allow for those R1 shots on drones.
I think faster than one the number of impulses per turn should use a 10 impulse turn BTW as it makes the speeds easier to project.
Just divide by 10 witht he number being before the decimal place being the number of hexes per impulse moved and the number after the decimal place being applied as a speed on the impulse table.
So a speed of 25 would move two every impulse except impulse 1, 3, 5, 7 & 9 where an extra hex wou;ld be added per impulse rasing the movement to 3 hexes per impules.
3+2+3+2+3+2+3+2+3+2= 25...funny that!
We played a 3d game of SFB a couple of months ago. Mark Means came up with a rules set that was workable in a 1 on 1 duel.
It used the normal turn and slip modes in the game, except that you now could turn up or down, and slip up or down following the normal turn and slip mode rules. Die were used to mark how far vertical your ship has moved.
It had some interesting effects on combat. Seeking weapons took it in the shorts because ships had more movement options, however t-bombs became almost worthless for drone defense.
Not worth the hassle to implement imo.
I disagree that 3-D "doesn't matter" in a duel. While mathematically, you need 4 objects to "define multiple planes", tactically it's very different.
Just being able to take a Hydran and roll along the ventral axis to get the other side weapons into arc without exposing the down number 1 is huge in a duel.
Of course, the fact that the Klingon can evade up or down (probably down) to get out of arc again also makes a difference. And those Klink boom phasers look like they're on the underside of the boom, so wouldn't extend far up -- so doing the "diving hawk" maneuver on the Klink can play to interesting weapon arcs...
It makes a huge difference to have two more directions of travel to evade in for seeking weapons; it also gives two more directions to open the range in -- it tends to favor snipey ships like the Klingon over the Fed. (Admittedly, with vector movement, this is radically different than in SFB...)
If your firing arcs are truly 3-D, then there becomes more ways to try to get a firepower advantage by differences in maneuver.
The T-bomb issue tends to go away when explosions are 3-D. It's much harder to predict where the enemy will be and at which altitude for setting t-bombs for ships. (And tricky to use them against drones...)
I did the 8 impulse, 0-4 mix because it involves the least carnage to the power management/movement/weapon range dynamic of the game. The other alternative is 16 impulses, running 0-2, which might give reduced granularity. The goal of this is to have a repeatable pattern for 30 degree and 60 degree slant movements.
Translating the movement for a 4 movement block to a 30/60 slant is fairly easy. (an 8 movement block is even easier, but unlikely to fit SFB)
The progression of moves (with rounding errors built in and spread for game play) looks like this:
First column is movement points on the slant. Second column is vertical distance traveled, third column is horizontal.
So if your ship is nose up at a 30 degree angle, and you spend 3 movement point this impulse, you'd end up changing altitude by 1 hex, and moving 3 hexes forward. If you spent 4 movement points, you'd get two altitude levels up and 3 hexes forward.
(To do a 60 degree slant, reverse the labels on the column.)
A unit moving 5 hexes per impulse (a speed 40 plasma) would go 3 up and 4 out at a 30 degree slant.
I've found that the "plot movement" bit for 0-4 hexes in advance (admittedly, in other games) tends to result in more sabre dancing and evasion than overruns. Everybody's so afraid of the overrun that they play a little more cautiously.
The other thing we'd put in would probably be conditional fire orders. EG "Fire when range is <N".
On the other hand, my own 3-D game has a vastly simpler SoP.
Like I said, this is something I chew on when I'm bored or frustrated. This idea popped into my head, and I played with it.
Perhaps salvageable, perhaps not.
Reminds me of an old Avalon Hill game.... Air Force.
Ken wrote
Quote:Just being able to take a Hydran and roll along the ventral axis to get the other side weapons into arc without exposing the down number 1 is huge in a duel.
There is no requirement for 3-D movement for this. There just has to be the ability to roll. For completeness, pitch and yaw might need to be included, but SFU physics may elimiate those maneuvers at all but speed 0 since ships move in the direction they are facing.
Quote:Of course, the fact that the Klingon can evade up or down (probably down) to get out of arc again also makes a difference.
This will only work if ships can have higher angular rates when moving than when rolling. This is unlikely to be the case physcially. And even ignoring physics, TACing (the speed 0 yaw) is faster than most ships can fly in a circle.
Quote:And those Klink boom phasers look like they're on the underside of the boom, so wouldn't extend far up -- so doing the "diving hawk" maneuver on the Klink can play to interesting weapon arcs...
Assuming fast rolls weapon arcs effectively become bands around the ships. And for most 3-D arcs, small movements rapidly bring them to effectively about the 2-D arcs.
Quote:It makes a huge difference to have two more directions of travel to evade in for seeking weapons; it also gives two more directions to open the range in -- it tends to favor snipey ships like the Klingon over the Fed. (Admittedly, with vector movement, this is radically different than in SFB...)
Short of things like planets (which form their own point in the system), the seeking weapons can just as easily turn up as left, so I don't see this actually being true in practice. Now there are probably some subtle effects due to the granularity of the hex grid, but these are artifacts of the quantization and should not be encouraged.
Basically, if the 3-D system adds tactics in a pure duel (think Seltorian versus Lyran), it means that the system is flawed or poorly implemented (and/or the 2-D system is flawed/poorly implemented). And if it adds tactics to any duel it is very likely to be poorly implemented/flawed. Note that the change from 2-D to 3-D arcs must be ignored since 3-D arcs can be trivially implemented in 2-D and never require 3-D momvement. SFB does not implement 3-D arcs intentionally (see the list of rejected ideas).
Last night, I had the opportunity to have Ken's 3D combat game demoed to me, and had the opportunity to have a ship blown out from underneath me without ever doing a single point of damage to the opponent. See, some things ARE the same as SFB.
With regards to the "3D combat", I have to admit that I was more than a little skeptical. I had seen Ken's claim of a "fast playing system" and had a hard time reconciling that with a "detailed 3D combat system"... especially one that was a board game. After playing and experimenting for a bit, I was convinced that the third dimension not only had been implemented very well, but added a unique tactical dimension.
The way I see it, there are several main problems facing ANY attempt to add a third dimension to SFB:
COMPLEXITY: SFB is already complex. Adding and thinking in a third dimension would make it harder. It's easy to think in two dimensions; just count the hexes. In the third dimension, you end up with tricky math like the Pythagorean Theorem to deal with.
There's a quick and easy solution: Let the rules-writers take care of the math before you even have to see it. In Attack Vector: Tactical, for example, I was ASTOUNDED by the amount of math that Ken & Co. had already done for you and integrated into the rules. To add this to SFB would actually be much easier; there's less "real" physics that you'd have to deal with. By having the math done in the backend, you can allow the frontend (the player) to simply use the playaids that would be included in a "Module 3D".
WEAPONS AND ROLLING AND PITCHING, OH MY!: All of these are connected, really. Weapon arcs would be affected by 3D combat, of course, and their versatility would be affected by the Roll and Pitch rates of the ship.
How to handle this? Let me ask you a question: How do you determine the Turn Mode of a SFB ship? There's no formula; there's a table you reference. Why would a Roll and Pitch "Mode" be any different? IIRC, it's the same type of deal in Ken's game. There's no "magic formula" to deal with. It's all printed there as a matter of time. We've accepted Turn Mode charts without question; these would be easy to do as well. You can even do them to minimize the "band effect" of a 3D weapon arc.
TACTICS: Of COURSE a 3D module is going to add Tactics. But so does ANY OTHER MODULE you add to SFB. Do you think tactics are the same for someone who has a stock Federation carrier fleet and for somone who has bought Module J2 and has drouges, megafighters, etc.?
That's the nature of the beast. Being Newtonian in nature, tactics in Ken's game can only be loosely translated to SFB. But core tactics AREN'T going to change. For example, Ken used a ship blessed with seeking weapons in DROVES (a la the Kzinti). Using a salvo of seeking weapons, he forced me to commit to an approach path, onto which he dumped a few more seeking weapons. It's the same tactic Kzinti players use when they're peering at a selection of possible movement hexes for those scatterpack drones...
The only difference is that now, you can herd in another pair of directions. A Klingon might use the drones, but move them "higher" when possible. The enemy can choose: Stay high and have to deal with the drones, or dodge low and feel the sting of the underside boom phasers.
In closing, I don't know how practical this will turn out. One of the successes of Ken's work is that the designers and writers did a LOT of work before the players ever have to do math in their head. It saves time, headaches, etc. But the simple fact is: It CAN be done, even in this day and age of computerized-everything. SFB started out with humble beginnings: A Federation CA and a Klingon D7 fighting each other, and balanced INCREDIBLY well.
If for ONLY those two ships, I'd like to see Captain Khan replaced by a z-axis. It would certainly be an interesting experiment... just like SFB was many years ago.
PS: If anyone wants more information on Ken's game, drop me a line. Most of my skepticism and fears were allayed by the end of the demo, and the game itself is as tactically deep as SFB. Now I just need to get better at it... 
-Francois
I'd like a demo of this Francois. It sounds great.
In the interests of trying this out, I've got the following things in mind to adapt SFB to AV:T.
My goal is to have a D7/Fed CA duel ready for Origins next year in 3-D, as an experiment. If there's time, I'll try and add a King Eagle.
Things that won't change:
Weapons, energy allocation, damage allocation. These are the heart of SFB.
Things that will change:
#3 shield becomes the ventral (top) shield. #5 shield becomes the bottom. Forward is #1, starboard is #2, Aft is #4, port is #6. This maps them nicely to how AV:T resolved incoming damage in 3-D.
Movement costs double, but speed 16 moves twice each segment. This, combined with 3-D means the ranges will stay open longer, up until people get very close. Trying to extend the 8 impulse movement grid to 32 would slow the game down.
HETs remain 5 points.
I would need to determine pitch and roll rates. Currently, I'm inclined to take the turn mode charts from CTM and use them instead (they're better at handling 16 movement turns).
I'm undecided as to whether or not to allow 30 degree facing changes in the plane of the map. I will probably have to - it represents sideslipping.
Tractor beams are a hideous mess.
Drones would probably be kept at speed 20 -- making them faster than ships makes up for the new directions to dodge them in. Plasmas would remain speed 32 for the same reasons.
Firing arc diagrams I can suss out from the placement of phasers and weapons on minis.
Anyone interested in helping on this?
That sounds really cool.
Help how?
Is "new directions to dodge them in" that much of a problem? From what I remember of playing around with the idea of 3-D SFB myself, I wouldn't think it would be that big a deal.
Yes, dodging in 3-D is complicated.
Imagine the drone facing 30-deg down, the ship facing 60-deg up.
Drone uses it's turns to match it going up, and ship HET's to 60-deg down.
Not even including movement in the 2-d plane (forward, back, left, right)
Sure, HETs have potential to complicate seeking weapon use. But aside from that, you can change your vertical heading, but so can the seeking weapons, which are more manueverable anyway.
Ken: Just a thought on your shield translations: using #4 shield as bottom (BTW, ventral normally means belly, dorsal is back/top) would really hurt Klinks, especially prerefit ones. The boom phasers are ventrally mounted, and IIRC the wing ones are (that's why they're blocked by the engines, right?). That means that the Klinks would have to expose a very weak shield (at close range) to bring their offensive phasers into play. I would suggest that, for ships with unequal #3 and #4 shields, the decision on which goes high and which low should be based on how that fleet tends to mount weapons on ships. E.g., Feds are opposite IIRC -- saucer phasers are on top.
First thing I need help with -- I need a good Adobe Illustrator version of a D7 and Fed CA.
Thanasis: #3 shield is top, #5 is bottom, #4 is aft.
I needed to keep #4 aft to maintain continuity with existing SFB.
The reason why seeking weapon dodging gets more complicating is that there are more directions you can evade them in. For example, if the plasma is chasing you into the corner of the map, you don't have the option of angling your nose up and running along the hypotenuse and gaining more distance.
Sorry, Ken -- I can't count. I get your idea now.
Ok, bigger problem for plasma than for drones.
Anyway, Ken, what kind of help do you need, and when?
Ben:
First, I need someone who can draw SSDs.
I will post two documents with fishbowl diagrams in them, one for the Fed CA, one for the D7, including what phasers they apply to.
(Does anyone know if the Fed's side firing phaser-1s are on the top or bottom or edge of the saucer section?)
Second, I need a 6 view set of art shots of each ship.
That's a view from the front
A view from the stern
A view from the port
A view from starboard
A view from above
A view from the bottom.
I would prefer these in CMYK color gamut, 300 dpi, photoshop format with transparent backgrounds.
Third thing I need:
Turn modes for 16 impulse movement charts.
I'm going to assume the Fed's pivot mode is equal to its turn mode (D), and that the roll mode is one level worse (E).
I am assuming that the Klingon's pivot mode is the same as its turn mode (B) and that its roll mode is one level worse (C)
I'm assuming that the KE, being a fairly compact ship, has both pivot and roll mode (D).
Can anyone find these turn mode charts for the ships in Cadet Training Manual and work them up as part of doing the SSDs? We're going to a "16 movement point" turn from 32, so need those turn modes.