New AoG "Fleet Scale" ships? [LONG]

This from the B5W mailing list, reprinted for your convenience

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 16:48:21 -0400
From: Robert Glass <aog@agentsofgaming.com>
Subject: [B5W] Fleet Action update

Here is an update on the status of the Fleet Action rules.

The basic playtest rules are complete. I am currently working on the ship
sheets and have just finished all of the Earth Alliance sheets and the White
Star. There will be a demo at GenCon centering around the Earth Civil War. The
demo will of course be small so that it can be run quickly and easily. We do
our first playtest here on Sunday and this will be of about the size I plan on
for the demo game. I am hoping the fleets involved will prove to be very small
and allow very fast play as I want the normal fleets involved to be at least
twice or three times the size.

To give you an idea of scale, here is a list of what the loyalist fleet
consists of. This is a 10,000 point fleet (roughly 30,000 B5W 2nd Edition
points):

Flag Group: Avenger Heavy Carrier Sagittarius Missile Gruiser
                                Omega-B Destroyer
Olympus Corvette
                                Tethys-K Cutter

1st Squadron:
                                4xOmega-A Destroyers

2nd Squadron: Hyperion Heavy Cruiser 3x Sagittarius Missile Cruisers

3rd Squadron: 4xArtemis Heavy Frigates

4th Squadron: 2xHyperion Heavy Cruiser Nova Dreadnought Olympus Corvette

Fighters: 17 flights of Starfuries (102 fighters) 14 flights of Thunderbolts
(84 fighters) 4 flights of Badgers (24 fighters)

I've written three version of the rules now (SoP when I'm creating a new game)
with each pass reducing the complexity of the game. A basic synopsis of the
rules as they stand now are:

General: There is no information that needs to be tracked about ships (beyond
the damage they have taken) between turns. This means there is much less
paperwork involved in the game (a must for a game of this scale). Players
alternate moving squadrons of ships and they must determine what order they
will move their squadrons before the turn begins (at the same time they issue
orders).

Movement: At the start of each turn, you must give movement orders to each
squadron. These movement orders are general orders such as maintain course,
turn port, come about and so on. Stuff like how much thrust it actually takes
to do this does not matter. A ship's class limits what orders you can give it.
For example, while a White Star can be given a 'come about (turn 180 degrees)'
order, a Omega could only be given a 'turn to port,starboard (60 degree turn)'
order. Pivots and rolls do not play a roll in the game due to the scale it
operates at.

Combat: Sensors lock ons, EW and such have been removed as they added to many
mechanics for too little gain. Combat procede as follows: You can fire weapons
at the beginning of the end of moving your ships. A
weapon system has a 'max x/turn'.  This is a represnetation of how many
of that type of weapon a ship mounts. Ship sheets then have small diagrams
that show how many 'x' a weapon system can put into any paricular arc. When
you fire, your roll one die for your sensor rating (this shows how solid a
lock you have on the target) and one die per 'x' factor (this die
is based on the fire control for the weapon).  Each sensor+FC die that
meets or exceeds the target's defense hits. If you get good enough a hit, you
can cause a crit. Each weapon that hits rolls damage. Simply roll the dice
shown and each one the meets or exceeds the armor rating does a point of
damage. Weapons that do a lot of damage get more dice. For example, an EA
standard particle beam has a d8 damage die while a heavy laser cannon has 4d10
for damage.

This is a basic synopsis and there is actually a good deal more. Fighters are
going to be key and there are a number of tactics that will have to be
developed. After GenCon, we will be doing our outside playtesting. We may or
may not make the packs available for sale, I haven't decided yet. Regardless,
playtest packs will likely only include the Narn and Centauri fleets.

Next week, we will be posting pictures of the miniatures we have thus far
(Fighters, Vorchan, Olympus, Primus and Hyperion), give more info on the game,
show a couple of the ship record forms and so on.

Robert

> At 12:02 PM -0700 7/16/99, Chris Lowrey wrote: