Uranus is 101 hexes wide...
(snicker)
| By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Monday, October 19, 2009 - 10:58 pm: Edit |
Low level laser strafe on Lunar Base!
regards
Stacy
| By Jonathan Jordan (Arcturusv) on Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - 12:03 am: Edit |
I gotta say this sounds really fun. Especially with the prospect of some variation in the sublight weapons. I always thought that was the boring part of the Sublight Rules.
It'd turn a raid on Jupiter's moons (And the supposed shipyards and bases there that I recall hearing about?) into a huge, major operation that just sounds purely fun.
| By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - 12:20 am: Edit |
Think about a dogfight deep in the Jovian atmosphere. Gotta mess with the sensors. Jupiter is a HUGE EM engine with it's core of metallic hydrogen. Think Mutara Nebula.
Uranus has an ocean 10,000 kilometers deep. THAT should be interesting.
There is a narrow torus of sulfur surrounding Jupiter from eruptions on Io. Narrow from a FTL level from a sublight perspective it's 10-20 hexes thick!
In planetary defense there are 3 tiers of measurable size. Ground. Aerial. And Orbital.
Terrain is not just an interesting twist in combat it's a MAJOR FACTOR in sublight.
regards
Stacy
| By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - 05:22 pm: Edit |
Something that popped into my head as I laid me down to sleep last night... inspired by my semi-throwaway "Space Wars" phrase posted last night at 8:13pm.
What if we made a sublight game that was the "historical naval combat game" played by Star Fleet midshipmen? (or cadets or whatever they call themselves these days) In other words, it's the "historical" Star Fleet Battles game in the Star Fleet Universe (i.e. the fictitious game of a fictitious game). "It's the game academy midshipmen played against each other on their classroom computers when their instructors weren't looking... simulating the 'historical' naval battles of the by-gone sublight era..." That sort of hook.
In this way we can base it on the known SFU but we give ourselves some wiggle room to take a little bit of license with the "historical" accuracy. Thus we can set it in the period of sublight combat, but fudge a few things here and there for the sake of making the game more fun.
It doesn't even have to be a SFB Module. It could be its own game (but based on the SFB model). (And if we want to do the accurate historical sublight game later, it could be published with the Y modules, or as SFB Module Q.)
$0.02
[Technical aside: I like the idea of an 8-impulse turn sublight game.]
| By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - 05:42 pm: Edit |
[Stream of consciousness continues...]
Think about the period when "Balance of Terror" was broadcast. "Atomic" weapons (vice "nuclear"), Cold War, the kind and style of science fiction ideas of the 50s and 60s, etc. We might be able to incorporate elements like those in the game, to give it a "retro" flavor.
Johnathan, "Raid on Jupiter" sounds like a cool idea. Stacy, I like the idea of using modern astronomical knowledge to create orbital terrain that opposing fleets would contend with.
| By Jonathan Jordan (Arcturusv) on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 02:18 am: Edit |
I'd say I favor 32 impulses because it's the game standard. Also more impulses means you have have more speeds and more speed variations. 8 Impulses you're only going to have up to speed 8. Everything will be so close to the same speed it takes the Options and Variation out of the tactics. And that's the problem I had with the normal Sublight Battles. The ships were so similiar it was boring. Warp Tuned Lasers and Atomic Missiles making every ship practically the same.
| By Mike West (Mjwest) on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 10:24 am: Edit |
In my opinion (for the little it is worth), 8 impulses works fine. If you go 32 impulses (with speeds to match), where is the difference from SFB? Why bother? Make it different. Using only 8 speeds helps establish that difference, and helps reflect the slower feeling of the time period.
EDIT: And if 8 really is too few, how about 12? 12 is a very convenient number, so it would work pretty well.
However, I agree on weapons. The main problem with the old Commanders/Designers "Section Q" was the fact that it was boring. All of the ships used the same weapons. Many of the secondary systems were gone. It was like everyone was playing with glorified drone fighters where the only differences were speed (i.e. impulse boxes) and damage points.
So, there does need to be a diversity of weapons in order to spark a diversity of tactics.
| By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 01:20 pm: Edit |
Are there weapons in early years that would work or do they need to devole more?
| By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 05:13 pm: Edit |
Definitely agree there needs be a wider variety of weapons. A thought I had was coming up with missile and "particle weapon" versions of the weapons we know now, but they won't be as powerful because the older ships won't be able to take the pounding (no shields, smaller hulls, etc.).
So a plasma torpedo could become a "metallic hydrogen torpedo" (a missile with super compressed hydrogen). Photon torpedo might become an "anti-matter spiked fusion missile" or a "positron cannon" or whathaveyou. I recall one idea of the "laser" era said Federation ships had particle weapons before the invention of the photon torpedo. Disruptor, hmm, have to give that one some thought. A variety of missiles would help, but there should be a variety of direct fire weapons as well.
Johnathan, I think one of the benefits of going to an 8-impulse turn vice the standard 32-impulse turn is it will speed up game play. Sit back for a second and think about it, it's possible to cram a lot of different events into an impulse. We can get quite a bit of flexibility with 8 impulses. I'm not outright opposed to 32 impulses, but I very firmly believe we don't need 32 impulses in the sublight game.
And the reality is we couldn't reasonably make a sublight game that is a "subset" of the standard 32-impulse "modern era" turn. You wouldn't see anything happen if it was done that way. Therefore, we have no reason to keep a 32-impulse turn for the sublight game. We can do it, but we don't need to do it.
I can see a 12-impulse turn; gives us a turn divisible by 2, 3, and 4. But I also like having a turn that's divisible by 8 (maybe I'm just picking nits). I suppose we could do a 24-impulse turn so we can have all of them, but then we might as well go with 32 impulses. I figure 8 (or 12) impulses is the best reasonable periodicity for a sublight game.
(I don't want to take away from your position, Johnathan. I'm no authority here, just a fellow poster like you. I'm just offering my thoughts.)
| By Mike West (Mjwest) on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 05:31 pm: Edit |
There are a couple "sublight" weapons in Module Y1, but they would have to be reworked for sublight as they are built for the normal game scale. Changing the scale means the weapons will have to change.
Quote:Are there weapons in early years that would work or do they need to devole more?
| By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 06:24 pm: Edit |
I like 8 impulses myself.
And coming up with new weapons is definitely doable. But even a dump truck load of sand becomes a weapon at relativistic velocities.
We should assume they must have some sort of inertialess drive else we add a level of mechanics to the game that would make things complex.
But if you're looking for ideas remember there were TWO great boardgame systems for space conflict and SVC created BOTH of them. Some inspiration can be drawn from looking at the OTHER one.
regards
Stacy
| By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 06:48 pm: Edit |
Off the top of my head...
| By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 08:13 pm: Edit |
Oh and by the way...
Uranus is 101 hexes wide...
(snicker)
| By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 08:40 pm: Edit |
R. Brodie
Oh my that sounds like it needs surgical intervention!
regards
Stacy
| By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 06:54 am: Edit |
* Uses her handy-dandy ruler and raps Brodie and Stacy on the knuckles *
* Looks stern *
Boys, I expect better of you two. Did Evil Mike give you silly pills?
* Heads back out on the morning patrol *
* 
when out of sight *
| By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 02:33 pm: Edit |
Nobody even mentioned Jupiter.
When he sits around the solar system, he sits AROUND the solar system...
| By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 09:46 pm: Edit |
Well he is a big guy.
| By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 10:26 pm: Edit |
But how much clearasil will it take to deal with that big red spot?
Think Proactive has a plan?
regards
Stacy
| By Sean O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Friday, October 23, 2009 - 12:39 am: Edit |
Nah, Jupiter needs to cut down on the carbs. He eats too many comets that contain hydrocarbons. 
| By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Friday, October 23, 2009 - 05:02 pm: Edit |
Makes him gassy.
| By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Friday, October 23, 2009 - 08:16 pm: Edit |
Here's an 8-impulse movement chart for anyone who wants to experiment.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | |
| 0 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | X |
| 2 | - | - | - | X | - | - | - | X |
| 3 | - | - | X | - | - | X | - | X |
| 4 | - | X | - | X | - | X | - | X |
| 5 | - | X | - | X | X | - | X | X |
| 6 | - | X | X | X | - | X | X | X |
| 7 | - | X | X | X | X | X | X | X |
| 8 | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X |
| By Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Wednesday, October 28, 2009 - 09:14 pm: Edit |
So what is a useful hex scale for a sublight game? 500km, 1000km, 2500km, other?
| By Jonathan Jordan (Arcturusv) on Wednesday, October 28, 2009 - 09:23 pm: Edit |
Depends on how fast you want Impulse combat to be based on the speed of light (As that is our speed limit cap).
| By Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Wednesday, October 28, 2009 - 09:51 pm: Edit |
Good point. Based on the original text in the Designer and Commander's editions, I get the impression sublight ships can move up to about 0.3c in combat.
I don't know how concrete that is, but it's a place to start discussion anyway.
| By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Wednesday, October 28, 2009 - 10:03 pm: Edit |
Yeah, speed 20 in sublight would be like 2X in warp.
regards
Stacy
PS I thought we agreed it was 500 km per hex
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