3D Spaceship COmbat (Was: Re: Star Maps and SPI)

Phillip Atcliffe <P-ATCLIFFE@wpg.uwe.ac.uk>wrote:
> Not that BFM didn't include 3D movement; it's just that it was 3D

That system was also used in at least one other game. It was I believe Vector
3, also by SPI. By the way the tactical spaceship game in the Universe role
playing game was called Delta Vee.
> This is the real difficulty with any space combat game: either you go

I've seen a couple of recent games using 3D movement which have different
approaches to firing arcs. One is Moondragon which more or less limits firing
arcs by using turret-mounted guns.  The firing arc is then a cone with
the point at the ship, and extending out from the spaceship in the direction
the spaceship is moving. So if the spaceship is travelling straight "up" then
the firing arc would also be pointed "up". Templates are used to determine if
the target is in the firing arc.

By the way Moondragon is a miniatures game and used ships attached to the top
of a car radio antenna, which can be extended to different heights, with some
small plastic pieces that allows the ship to be placed in different
orientations. This makes it easy to determine the location, orientation, and
distance of spaceships in 3D.

Then there is Astromechia which uses six firing arcs, think of weapons mounted
on the six sides of a cube. To find the arc that the target is in, one looks
at the relative location of the target and takes the direction farest away as
the arc to use. For example if the target were, in arbitrary
units, (3 front, -5 side, 10 up) away from the firer then the  firere
would have to use a weapon on its top, if any, to fire at that target. I've
only read the rules and have not had a chance to play it yet, so I don't know
how well it works.

Enjoy,