While I was at ConQuest 2000 this past weekend, in the dealer's room, there
was a guy from Flagship Games who was pushing a new set of space combat rules
called Starship! It boasted a 3D movement system. It appeared to me, however,
that it wasn't a true 3D system in space. The ships were mounted on
telescoping car radio antennae. Sure this adds another dimension, but it
resembled an air combat game which is more like 2.5D. If you had a truly 3D
system, you could have 3 ships moving off in 3 different orthogonal
directions. I would think that would get unwieldy after a while. Ships on
opposite ends of a table might be 8 feet apart, but being 8 feet apart in the
vertical direction would be a pain.
The part I found really funny was when he asked me what system I play. I told
him I played Full Thrust. He said that's okay as long as you stay in the
universe they provide, but it doesn't let you create your own races.
Obviously, he doesn't know Full Thrust, nor does
he know about the cross-over battles with Federation Cruisers,
Babylon 5 ships, and Battlestar Gallactica just to name a few. I didn't want
to waste my energy arguing with him, so I just asked if he was selling any of
the miniatures for Starship! He said he didn't bring any for sale, so I
thanked him and moved on.
Now, maybe he has a great game. I didn't check out the rules. But he obviously
hasn't played Full Thrust.:)
--Greg
> > >Anyway, what makes you think FT'ers compehend in three
He has had this stuff at the local Cons for about 5 years (prototypes to
production), IIRC these are the same ones who put out Pirates!. Though I have
seen many games of Pirates!, I have yet to see a game of Starship!
Michael Brown
[quoted original message omitted]
> gregwong@shell3.ba.best.com wrote:
> While I was at ConQuest 2000 this past weekend, in the dealer's room,
I was there also and say this guy.
> there was a guy
I bought the rules, and the game is very much a 2.5D system. While the ships
can move to higher and lower levels they remain level relative to the table at
all times. In firing arcs there is only a minimal consideration for the third
dimension. I've get a feeling that they use 3D only for how it looks.
"In the real uiverse, the concept of up and down does not exist. A vehicle in
space may travel freely in any direction just as easily as any other. While it
would be easy to write rules for this, the real universe tends to be boring
when compared to the one in which
great sci-fi battles are fought, and we definitely prefer the latter."
"In helping cature the feeling of the sci-fi epic, Starship utilizes
Flight Bands. Fight Bands (FB) allow Starship battles to exist in three
dimensions without having to resuurect memories of high school trigonometry."
> The part I found really funny was when he asked me what system I play.
That's for sure.
<snip>
> Now, maybe he has a great game. I didn't check out the rules.
Having read most of the rules, but not played them, I can offer a few
comments. First off the stated intention of Starship! is:
"The world of Starship is not one of hard-science, instead portraying
the sci-fi genres we have come to know and love as portrayed on
television and the movies. We have given the laws of physics and space a
cursory nod, but eventually left them behind for the more enticing subjects of
fun and playability."
And is what they have done. As to whether this game is fun to play or not,
I'll reserve judgement until I've had a chance to play it. Unfortunatly, I
missed the demo since it was on Friday night and
I didn't arrive at the con untill Saturday morning :-(
At least they give a passing nod to Newton. The ships have a thrust rating and
can only adjust their speed by up to that rating. So movement is more or less
like cinematic movement in Full Thrust. Changing altitude is simply that a
ship can change one Flight Band, their measurment of altitude, for evey 20 cm
(they measure in cm's) the ship moves.
Other things in the rules include firing arcs that are multiples of 22.5
degrees, weapon recharging times, damage done to armor until a breakthrough is
done after which critical internal hits occur, four arcs on ships, five sizes
of ships, fighters, missiles, torpedoes, mecha, boarding craft, and a long
list of weapons, including Mass Driver, Photonic Mortar, Plasma Inferno, and
the Vortex Blaster.
The rule book is reasonably laid out, though no index. The cover has nice two
color artwork, which the interior art is black and white of fair interest. The
rules are 94 pages long (12 of which are record sheets and charts) costing
$30.00 which seems a bit high to me. I have not reached the campaign rules
yet, but they are included in the book.
The ships I saw at the con are nice. I have no idea of the prices. Drawings of
them, which gives a sense of what some of them are like, can be found at
Flagships web site
http://www.flagshipgames.com/starship.htm
They seem to be very slow in updating there web site. For the latest