I forgot to mention something about the campaign rules we've developed. I
tried to design a simple ruleset that forces certain scenarios to occur during
normal play. These include, attacking merchant convoys, assaults
on starbases with pre-placed minefields, attacks on mining outposts, and
combat in various space 'terrain' (nebula, dust, small and large asteroid
fields, planets, etc). With a judge we're also going to use spying rules and
pirates.
I've written a computer program that generates a 35 x 25 square grid and
populates it with different types of starsystems, nebula, warp points and
black space. The map is displayed graphically to the screen and is colorcoded.
The program also shows the warp lines and the player's home systems. The judge
just needs to tap the space bar for a new randomly generated starmap until he
sees one he likes. Then he can save the data to disk.
Just so you know, the starting FTL drive for each race can only move one
square at a time. Warp points go farther. Hopefully that'll give you an idea
of how large of a map we're using. I'm also trying to scale the economy
such that the number of ships are manageable. Maybe 20-30 military
ships
and 10-20 merchant. That way, people will be reluctant to fight to the
death. Also, players can steal ships, cargo and technology from each other if
they can capture vessels instead of destroying them. Might make boarding
actions a little more common. Outposts can reload expendables like
scatterguns, sub-munitions, mines and missles. Fleet repair docks can
repair damaged starships but the docks are defensless. Better defend them with
monitors or other ships... I think you get the idea.
We're going to start the beta-test of the campaign rules in a week. The
rest of the computer program isn't done yet so we're still going to need to
use graph paper to keep track of everything. Eventually the program will
handle everything (except the tactical stuff, of course.) I'll post things
here occasionally about the campaign (like bugs in the rules). When we're
happy with the rules I'll see what I can do about making both the program and
the campaign rules available for all of you out there.
Pete
Hello FT gamers,
I've seen some comments regarding campaign ideas for FT so I thought I would
add my two cents worth...
I've Judged two FT campaigns and participated as a player in a third FT
campaign. All campaigns died for the same reason. A couple players wouldn't
send their "orders" in to the Judge in a timely fashion. We tried penalizing
late "orders" but that just caused the guilty parties to quit the game
altogether.
It seems that the Judged games require a certain level of devotion and
patience from the players... a trait that appears to be lacking in our local
gaming group, unfortunately. The goal of the campaign was to
generate FT scenarios/situations. My FT group has plenty of FT tactical
gamers who love the game 'cause it's fast, easy to learn and fun to play. I
decided that if I wanted a campaign to work with our gaming group, I'd have to
do the same with the strategic level rules or give up on FT campaigns... at
least for my local group.
I've modified the strategic rules I've developed to address the low patience
threshold of my players and it works really well. I've played one game already
and I'm going to play test it again, with a few modifications to speed play,
over the holiday break.
Highlights of system: 1) "Judgeless". 2) Exploration and Survey of random map.
3) Technology "Trees" for tech development. 4) ALL players involved in ALL FT
combats, regardless of the fleets involved. 5) Abstract supply line rules. 6)
Victory points earned ONLY by tactical skill, regardless of whose ships your
fighting with.
There's alot I'm leaving out but those are some of the major points. 4 and 6
above are the most important aspects of the game. If four people are playing
and two of the four have to resolve a tactical combat, ALL players
participate. Forces are divided up evenly. You earn and lose victory points
based on how many kills, captures or loses you accrue during combat with the
ships you command, whether or not their your ships. The owner of the fleet
earns points based on his performance only, thus, players are motivated to
fight the best they can with the ships they have. You could decide not to
fight, but then you'll be losing the VPs. In some cases this might fulfil the
strategic needs you have... but there's a price. Also, it's not gaurenteed
that you'll be on the side you want anyway in the tactical game.
<blab mode: OFF>
Pete
> I've modified the strategic rules I've developed to address the low
I run/participate in a campaign similar to this one. Each person has
his own "mercenary" unit and we rotate whos' unit we run the game for each
week. All other ppl either run the bad guys or the Owner may ask someone to
help run his units. Granted that direct conflict between players' units is
rare we seem to like it better that way. Even in a FT type game you could do
something like this.
> PCARON wrote:
4
> and 6 above are the most important aspects of the game. If four
Pete, I'd be very interested to see the full set of "rules" for your system.
Could you post them or send them to me direct? Thanks.