Has anyone tried to mash the FMAS mechanics into a starship combat game? I've
been thinking of several approaches over the last few days and I think it'd
work for large fleet battles. My goal is to use FMA style mechanics and not
rely on a time consuming order phase or thresholds for damage.
Using the standard d4-d12 scale I'd have statistics for Crew, Thrust,
Offenses (ability to hit), Defenses (ability to evade, jink, ECM, CIDS, etc.),
Weapons (actual guns and missles), and Hull.
Using alternate movement the ships would move up to Thrust MU. You could
combat move a ship (ala All Ahead Flank) or run silent. These
movement types would provide a +/- 1 shift to defenses depending on
movement type.
Combat would be comparing the high roll of Crew and Offenses vs. Crew and
Defenses. If the attacker beats the defender a hit was scored.
Damage is computed by rolling Damage vs. Hull. If he attacker beats the hull
roll the target ship is given a debris token. If they beat by double the
target is disabled. If they beat by three the target is mission killed. Beat
by four and the target explodes Star Wars
style...
Debris tokens follow the damaged ship and each will give a -1 shift to
weapons, offenses, and defenses...
Each activation will consist of 2 or 3 actions (undecided though probably 2
actions) with one action always being a move order while the second (or third)
may be shooting or repairing damage (removing debris or disabled tokens).
A points system, of sorts, would simply be adding up the die facings of the
various ratings and multiplying it by the crew.
Other options include flotilla/group moves and firing, transferring
actions, etc.
Anywho that's what I'm thinking about at the moment. Has anyone tried this
before and care to relay your experiences?
Damo
It might make for an interesting game, but I don't think I'd enjoy it nearly
as much as Full Thrust. Part of Full Thrust's enjoyment value for me has
always been the sheer level of variety of tactics you can use while still
keeping the game mechanics simple. You can pretty easily model almost anything
you can see in science fiction without having to add house rules to the game.
Death Star? Check, and there's even more than one way to do it. Battlestar?
Check. Star Trek? Check. Babylon 5? Check. Pirates in space? Check. Yamato?
Check. If you can imagine it, you can pretty much do it, and the tactics can
completely change based on what you're doing and what's in front of you, and
if you don't get too wound up in trying to "keep a certain fleet style" you
can make basically all of them work without horribly violating your themes, no
less. About the only real tactical requirement the game mechanics force on you
is that you have to either (a) be prepared for a very serious fighter attack
or (b) enforce a fleet book aesthetic that
deliberately de-emphasizes the use of fighters.
FMA, on the other hand, is more about trying to play a "realistic" game. It's
simply aiming for a different thing at its core. It does it very well, and
models quality of forces very well also, and maybe some elements of it could
potentially be borrowed in a Full Thrust like game (in fact, quality of
fighters would probably be a good thing if it could be done well), but the
whole "mission kill" thing is something I don't find as enjoyable as the space
opera like setting that Full Thrust provides. You could just as easily model
it by making your own house fleet book with all fragile hulls and minimal
armor.
E
[quoted original message omitted]
I have a very old SG/FT conversion on my website for fighter scale
engagements against capital ships.
http://home.pacific.net.au/~southernsk/sghome.htm
With the scalability of FT you would just need to pick the base point to scale
from.
Brendan 'Neath
> Message: 5
> Anywho that's what I'm thinking about at the moment. Has anyone tried