 April 27, 2012 - 1:39am | I have been looking around for unique rules on spaceship combat, and in my search I found a system that takes a unique approach to Newtonian physics. Silent Fury uses chips to count momentum and velocity. Basically, a chip trails behind a spaceship, and during movement the chip "leap-frogs" ahead of the ship (as noted here). Even if the ship turns around, the built-up momentum will still slingshot the ship to its original heading. There is also a method to keep the action going even when ships go out of bounds (a typical annoyance with game of this sort, and yes this is good to have, as ships jump around it this game). And this is all accomplished without the annoying paperwork! It also a neat rule for boarding action. Basically, the ship is divided into components like a flowchart. Personnel (crew, marines, medics, robots, and such) may occupy and move between components, and each component represent one of the ship's systems (Engine, Weapon Battery, Cargo Hold, Bridge, and so on). Enemy troops enter the ship, and they must fight their way to the bridge to take control of it (it looks like this). Unlike most games, this forgoes hit (hull/structure) points for damage effects to the components. Crew serves as damage-control - moving around to fix damaged areas as needed - and ships would more likely to get crippled then get destroyed outright, which also gives it a more WWII naval battle feel (as noted here). It differently offers a lot to role-playing, as the players can easily operate a ship from the inside, without the wargame rules dragging down the rest of the game. The rules are still in the play-test/beta rules phase, and is available for free in that format. They have yet to release the full version. This game is worth checking out - if for its unique ideas. |
 April 27, 2012 - 8:54am | Neat resource Malcadon, I'm still trying to wrap my head around it from having read it and likely I need to put minis and tokens on a map and just try it out to really get the hand of it. I had considered using something similar but with a hex diagram on the ship's character sheet and movement recorded in the three axis of the hex. The map would need to be labeled for these axis so that everyone was using the same axis relationship. The flow chart idea for boarding ships is very viable because when the scale is too large to handle effectively you always reduce it. The tendency 30 years ago would have been to play out boarding actions as AD encounters and the relationship between a AD tactical turn and a KHs tactical turn would mean a KHs game comes to a screeching halt. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 28, 2012 - 5:55am | Neat resource Malcadon, I'm still trying to wrap my head around it from having read it and likely I need to put minis and tokens on a map and just try it out to really get the hand of it. I had considered using something similar but with a hex diagram on the ship's character sheet and movement recorded in the three axis of the hex. The map would need to be labeled for these axis so that everyone was using the same axis relationship. Oddly enough, Drean Pod 9 use that method for movement for Jovian Chronicles and the Silhouette Core rules. Unfortunately, the Silhouette rules tend to be needlessly complicated with somethings. |
 April 29, 2012 - 10:01am | This reminds me of Art's KH Vector rules... |
 April 29, 2012 - 12:57pm | I use a similar flow chart system in my space fleet commander game. I kind of like the disrupted, destroyed, and ok status system but I disagree with the designer that it is easier than a hit point system. The jury is out on whether its better but it is different and may be faster. I do like the concept of ok, wounded, or dead/destroyed. But without an HP system you cant really determine har far along that scale they are. They could be minorly wounded indicated by a sliht loss of HP or they could be on the verge of death. It's a different way of looking at things and in a wargame perspective where the primary goal is to take the objective, wounding or incapacitating fighters wouldn't be all that important. So I will definitetly keep an open mind about this new system as it does have some advantages on speed on first look. |
April 29, 2012 - 10:00pm | well any game system that requires a slide rule to figure out movement is really boring to me.
Advanced SF 4.0 --- Where a single encounter takes as much time as running an entire B/X module.  |
April 30, 2012 - 5:28am | This guy is coming at this from a wargaming perspective and that's an important distinction. Since we all come at this from the RPG angle we're naturally predisposed to accept clutter at the table from character sheets and such. Some wargamers hate extra paper cluttering up the table especially in light of the fact that they have spent so much time on paint and basing miniatures and terrain pieces; aesthetics are important to them. Thus wide spread use of casualty markers being a wounded or dead figure. I've sat in on wargames that track information off table or on table in the form of markers or tokens and don't have a axe to grind either way. I suspect this guy is the type that prefers everything fast and on the table with only minimal looking up of stuff on paper clutter. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
