I personally find campaigning more interesting than one-off
battles. However, a good, complete set of campaign rules is missing. What I am
going to do now is to outline the desirables of a good campaign system, all
IMHO ofcourse, and see if enough interest can be found to flesh them out.
Scale
Obviously, the first thing you need to tie down is scale. How long a time is
one turn? How far away is one MU?
This will help answering situations like "10000 MU flank march".
Movement
You need to be able to catch stuff _en_route_, otherwise the campaign
degenerates into a series of raids against stationary targets (with
predictable results on force selection). Yes, this includes those MD8 ships
too. Yes, even the ships that DON'T want to fight.
I must say that the vanilla "fast jump anywhere, no fuel limits, no speed
limits" system doesn't really deliver in this regard.
Let's take this step by step. First, in-system movement. Assuming you
can't just FTL out next to where you wanted to go (which, IMHO, is
undesirable), you must go there by MD burn. The traditional way of getting
places is full accel halfway, full decel halfway. In real life the
availability of reaction mass limits this approach, but assuming technomagical
reactionless drives or nearly equally magical "infinite" reaction mass, this
is the optimal solution.
What does this mean? It means that given your max thrust a, your velocity at
any given spot X can be calculated as
v = a * sqrt(2x/a) , x being the distance to the closer endpoint
Thus, if you come from 1000MU away with a MD8 ship, your velocity at halfway
is
v = 8 * sqrt(1000/8) = roughly 89 MU/turn
Now, assuming you *don't* want to stop, your attack pass speed in the
above scenario is 8 * sqrt(2000/8) or roughly 126.
Now, let's say 1 MU = 10000km, as I believe I've seen used somewhere. At this
scale, earth is a little over 1 MU across, let's say 2MU to account for the
atmosphere and it is about 30MU from the
moon. Hmmm... makes ya think about those fist-sized asteroid minis,
doesn't it?
Jumping in near Pluto to do an attack run against a target in earth orbit,
we're talking about an attack run in the neighborhood of 570 000 MU, which
translates to strike speed of 3020. Let's say 3000 for a round figure.
Everyone wants to stop at destination? Jolly good, now we're only talking
about halfway speeds like 2135. Let's be generous and say only 2000.
What was fighter max speed again?
(Note that I haven't differentiated between cinematic and vector -- I
didn't have to, yet. In linear movement they are equivalent)
This has SERIOUS implications on your ability to intercept things! (Which in
turn has SERIOUS effect on campaign stuff like supply routes) Intercepting is
easier in cinematic, since you only have to match speed and then turn. In
vector you have to match speed AND direction.
In vector, your only hope of intercepting (ignoring slight chance of
one-turn "swipes") is very near either endpoint. If you have no clue
where he might be jumping in, your choices just narrowed down to
one...
Cinematic is almost the same, except the you *might* be able to use patrol
ships doing fast speed loops. Let's see. At halfway of the 570000MU the patrol
circle is roughly 1780000MU long. Let's say 1.75 MILLION MU. If another MD8
ship is coasting along that line at the intercept speed, it can adjust
position by about 60000MU to achieve an intercept. Let's be generous and say
by 100000MU. Wow, you'd only need about 17 picket groups, each strong enough
to take on the intruder!
Until you realize space is three-dimensional...
FTL travel. Several unknown factors:
- Does it take time in-transit? If so, sow much?
- If it does take time, can you communicate with ships
in hyperspace? Can they change course in mid-jump?
- How fast can you jump again?
- Do you retain velocity? (Hopefully NOT)
- Can you pursue someone into/through hyperspace?
- Can you fight in hyperspace?
- Does every ship have the same jump range? If not, what is the
governing factor?
And most importantly, what parameters govern entry and egress points?
If entry and egress are (relatively) freely chosen (e.g. the classic "out of
gravity well"), you can only really intercept things at the destination. If
both start and destination are enemy bases, intercepting supply ships just
became nearly impossible. This, IMHO, is not a desirable result.
This also would allow "deep space resupply", meeting with supply ships in
random empty space, with astronomically small chance of being surprised. Also
not desirable.
Therefore, I can see two solutions.
a) Limit "jump points" to a very limited set of choices. The classic BTech
choice of two isn't that bad, actually. The number of "battle
points" in a system is J+T, or number of jump points plus number of
relatively immobile targets. The defender basically has to split his fleet
into J or T chunks (or more), depending on his chosen tactics.
You could use a "dead" system as a resupply point, but the enemy would have a
realistic chance of patrolling those points and finding you.
Still, it would be rather hard to force battle with a foe that is not tied
down by immobile assets and doesn't want to fight.
b) Cap speeds. Yea, no speed limit sounds real cool and "realistic" and no
doubt has sold many a copy of FT, but unfortunately when taken to the logical
conclusion, in my humble opinion it just doesn't work.
This doesn't have to be a set maximum speed -- it could be achieved
with a strict fuel limit too. The Pluto-to-Earth run is roughly 500
game turns of full thrust. If you only had fuel for 50, things would be quite
different... Also limits the amount of running away you can do.
This also has the positive effect of working in a non-FTL background.
AND it's realistic to boot. And it'd give the chance to use fighters
for patrolling in-system.
But the fuel limit MUST be strict enough, and you'd have to accept griping
from players who ran out of juice...
(Or maybe both limitations...)
The boring stuff
In a campaign, you are likely to get a number of very one-sided
engagements. These are typically rather boring to play out. Thus one
desirable is a quick-resolution system. It need not be "one roll to
rule them all", but definitely something that can be resolved without putting
miniatures on the table. An abstract range system like in High Guard, perhaps?
Supply
Ships need to have endurance. Three types on endurance come to mind:
- Cruising endurance, or the ability to stay out there timewise
- Combat endurance, or the ability to keep your combat effectiveness
at peak
- Jump endurance, or how long and how many jumps you can make
Plus possibly the MD fuel factor.
The problem here is that the design system does not give a cost for endurance,
which means no special long range patrol designs and no
supply freighters. Probably easiest to solve by assigning mass/cost to
supplies, to be hauled in standard cargo bays. If it happens to be your own
cargo bay, good for you.
Penalties would have to be assessed for being out of supplies. This is tough
as there is no easy way to give mods in FT. E.g. crew quality is not modeled
at all. The penalty would have to rather harsh straight
away, since we can't really do "-1% per day out of supply".
Repair
Is it possible to permanently disable systems without killing the ship? Or do
you assume the maintenance crews fix all the thresholded systems pretty soon
after combat is over? If not, why not? Maybe the
"fixed" systems are only jury-rigged to last a little more, only to
fail totally in the long run.
What kind of facilities do you need to fix hull/armor? How long does
it take, and what supplies do you need?
Reinforcements & recalls
Who are you playing? Are you the Space Tyrant, only limited by laws of nature?
Or are just one of the admirals, the GM or the system taking the role of your
superiors?
Personally, I don't much care for the former, but if it floats your boat, go
ahead. You need to model economy, politics, shipbuilding etc. A LOT of
paperwork.
The latter is a simpler choice (and avoids the strange role-hopping
from Fuhrer to grunt and back). There should be an abstract system to
represent
- applying for reinforcements (what you get should be at least
semi-random)
- resupply
- damaged ships might be recalled for repairs. *You'd* perhaps rather
work them to death, but *they upstairs* see the bigger picture and don't quite
agree
- UNdamaged ships might be recalled (gamewise, this is a balancing
method)
- you might be replaced (losing the game) if you blatantly disobey
orders and/or perform sub-par. Or the entire campaign might be
abandoned if it's proving too costly.
The last may seem harsh, but properly used it's a great balancing tool. It can
be used to stop suicide tactics, constantly running away, ignoring mission
objectives etc. etc. AND it can be used to end the campaign when the result is
inevitable but playing it out would be boring.
Long range scanning
FTL radio apparently exists, but what about long range scanning? Is there any
way to know what's waiting at West BF besides sending a ship to find out? And
once the scout gets there, how close to each ship must it get to get bogey
signature? To get exact class? If we go by the old (now "on hold") sensor
rules, it'd be trivially simple to hide forces in a system.
Planetary invasions
The very first question you need to ask is that would there be an invasion at
all? If an unopposed invasion (or defending!) fleet could just stand there and
bombard everything to snot, who wouldn't just capitulate? Could the defenders
hide heavy military equipment to counterattack when the "skylords" are away?
Or maybe shipboard weapons don't work through atmosphere for some PSB reason
(OTOH, if they do, there'd probably be planetary defense installations).
That'd leave you
with the old-fashioned rock method, but it's none too subtle, can't
really target mobile forces, takes time and isn't suited for capturing things
relatively intact.
You have three basic situations regarding what's down there:
a) Relatively defenseless civilians only. They'd probably surrender if the
defending fleet is chased away. At least against a significant force (NOT,
say, a single scoutship), but you'd have to define exactly what constitutes
"enough" presence. This does not mean there wouldn't be guerrilla or other low
intensity combat later on, but this is really out of the scope of a naval
campaign.
b) There's only something you want blown up, e.g. enemy military
installations. In this case you'd probably just bombard them to pieces (which
does take time etc. but the final outcome is pretty obvious). The idea of
capturing enemy bases intact may seem tempting, but it's very hard and costly
to pull off (especially the "and they
don't blow it up themselves" bit) -- probably reserved only for those
very special cases.
c) There's something you want intact, and someone capable of defending it down
there. This is when we'd get real ground combat, on various scales depending
on what exactly is it that you want so bad.
If you can define believable parameters under which an actual ground invasion
would occur, would this be in a scale we'd want to play out
with DS2? Maybe not, DS2 is pretty low-level. Even if so, an
abstract ground combat system is needed for those who don't want to play it
out in detail.
Something else?
I probably forgot something...
On 15-May-00 at 13:21, Mikko Kurki-Suonio (maxxon@dram.swob.dna.fi)
wrote:
> Repair
We are handling this by having a Repaired system make a threshold check every
time it is used (including the current battle). As long as it makes the check
it is operable. If it fails it still does its function for that turn but is
marked down. To fix it permanantly it must be repaired at a repair facility.
> What kind of facilities do you need to fix hull/armor? How long does
We are charging the same for repairs as original cost. Another thing is a
strict order set of rules. First your ship is repaired to 10% of hull if it is
less. Then all systems are repaired, then remaining hull and armour are
repaired. Otherwise everyone fixes a few systems and all hull first in case of
attack, then repairs other systems.
Another thing we are enforcing is if a ship is being repaired at a location if
attacked at that location that ship is on the board but may not do anything.
> Long range scanning
Does it? I prefer the courier boat approach myself.
> From: Mikko Kurki-Suonio <maxxon@dram.swob.dna.fi>
I've been writing some simple to non-quite-complex campaign
rules but cannot get anyone interested, except for one person but I'd like a
campaign involving several people. He also doesn't show up on FT game night at
a regular basis.
Also, a fixed campaign means dedication by the players, and if one person
doesn't make it then the campaign stalls. I just wrote up a simple campaign
for our current style of
one-off battles. The idea is that each player is the
ruler(s) of a small interstellar, or even just one planet, government that
hires his forces out to the major races. These major races are always
squabbling but to avoid their own bloodshed and an all out war they hire these
minor forces for raids and such. This allows for two players to be on the same
side in one battle and opposite sides in another. There's no supply or
logistics to handle, no strategic maps,
and it seems to be a good idea to string some one-off battles
in some campaign. How does this tie into a campaign? Right now the only thing
I can think of is that each player has a Points bank account, gets points for
participating in a battle, gets more points if victorious, and loses points
for ships lost or damaged (20% of the ship's points per threshold as a repair
cost). The campaign leader is one that has the most points, and maybe set a
goal of a certain point value to reach. I added in a scenario generator
(terrain, objectives), which we may use whether or not we use the campaign. I
wrote this up yesterday and have not approached the guinea pigs, er, players,
yet.
(snip)
> Movement
If you use some FTL use limit, like x distance from a gravity well, then you
can have interceptions from the jump point to the destination and possibly
with a time constraint as either one side will FTL away or reach the possible
safety of a base or orbiting ships at the destination.
You could abstract in-system interceptions based on the main
drives. You could roll against every ship so that some ships may arrive a few
turns later, unless the player chooses the fleet to travel as one; this he may
have to decide based on his long range scans: It looks like a small force so
maybe my fast ships are a large enough force to take it and can catch them.
> I must say that the vanilla "fast jump anywhere, no fuel
Me, too.:) I tried writing up something similar to Traveller's jump fuel
requirements but was I booed down when it took extra mass in a ship. I even
had cut it down to a max of 20%.
(snipping lots)
I wouldn't have FTL exit requirements being in the out-system
area, but rather near the destination. This would cut out
some of the in-system movement tracking which I don't want.
As to FTL exit speed, say that upon FTL exit you must go forward for 1 turn
(or 1 and a half like in FTL entry) and there is a chance that some object
might be in your path. You may not want to be going too much faster than your
MD when you come out of FTL so you have time to react to that
object. As an example off the top of my head, if 2D6+MD <
your desired exit speed you hit an object doing (exit
speed-MD) x D6 damage.
Upon rereading this, I thought of Oerjan.:) He'll probably
jump in the out-system area anyway and then have time to
approach at high speeds. To offset this you could have the defender (assuming
that Oerjan's force is attacking or raiding) have time to call in
reinforcements or set up a line of defense (i.e. mines, a Nova Cannon "wall"
<g>).
> FTL travel. Several unknown factors: - Does it take time
That all depends on the style. Star Trek with its warp movement, Traveller
with its 1 week jump and no interaction in jump space, B5 with jump gates
(another strategic option) and hyperspace movement and detection, or any other
system? It's a matter of taste. I prefer Traveller's because it makes it easy
to game: no checking for intercepts (I've done this as a GM for an ST
campaign, it is not fun), and it makes for easy turn measurements. I read
Imperial Starfire's strategic time clock and thought what a load of work that
is, clocking every system with ships moving. Since I never played it I don't
know how much work it came out to be. Strategic board games are usual measured
in weeks or months, maybe days for a theatre.
To me there are 3 layers to a space strategic game:
strategic - economics, star system's controlled, research,
politics, fleet locations by star system.
operational - fleet assignments & locations in a star system,
enemy detection, refueling if required.
tactical - ship & troop combat.
I tend to blur the operational and strategic level into strategic only, I only
want to know if I have forces in a given star system and if the enemy is there
fight or flee it, I don't care what planet they are near.
> The boring stuff
Frankly, if one side isn't close to the enemy's strength they will probably
flee; which isn't much of a problem in FT as you just turn and run, so no
combat. Unless, you want to try to determine exactly what the enemy force is
then you may want to run into 54mu range, run scans, and then leave. If the
scanning ship is more maneuverable then you probably won't have combat anyway.
Ah, so much more to comment on. I'll save it for another post.
Glen
> From: Mikko Kurki-Suonio <maxxon@dram.swob.dna.fi>
some more thoughts on my main passion.. (strategic gaming. It would be
secondary if I could roll something besides a "1" in the "dating game") (GRIN)
> Who are you playing? Are you the Space Tyrant, only limited
I prefer the former (don't call me Tyrant, I prefer Supreme Benevolence), but
I don't mind the latter. 5th Frontier War by GDW is a good example of the
latter and a game system that would nice to expand into multiple players. I'd
keep it two
sided but 2-3 major powers on each side with their own minor
objectives. One problem with a large scope, star-empire
running campaign is the difference in peace and war. Besides the economy
shifting with possible repercussions, during peacetime the fleet just sits
around except for the occasional showing of the flag and you can expand the
time scale by doing 1 year "turns", and during wartime you want to go to
weekly or daily (ugh!) "turns". You can do this, but when war comes how do you
decide the fleets should be positioned? At naval bases only except for a
scattering of small ships? What about the war declaring force? On the border?
Should the defender have a chance of a warning? Then there's "border
squabbles", which is probably not possible without a GM. Any open aggression
will be seen as an act of war.
> The latter is a simpler choice (and avoids the strange
*sigh* I would love a game crossing 5th Frontier War and Imperium. In Imperium
there are tables that the Imperial player, as an Imperial governor, has to
worry about that has possible Imperial interventions calling for some of the
ships under his control.
Glen
G'day Mikko,
Heres Derek's basic campaign rules we used down here last year, they worked
pretty well all up though you could probably do better in a couple of spots as
they don't address all the issues you raise, but as food for
thought....
Enjoy
Beth
> [quoted text omitted]
We drew up the map by rolling to see if a planet was in each hex (OK thats
about half hour plus at the start so if you have a pre-existing starmap
all the better) and then made sure that you could actually reach all the stars
(so ones sitting out beyond travel distance had a stepping stone star added so
you could reach them). Ended up with arms and jump lanes and choke points with
out much hassle really.
THE SETUP: Each player starts with:
- A single star system with a planet which produces 100 points per
economic phase.
- A budget of 2000 points, which the player can use to buy units to
make up his fleet, etc. (this level is actually arbitrary its just that in
this campaign we had a lot of guys with starter packs and so we didn't want
them to feel outgunned).
THE MAP: A hex map was used. To keep things simple star systems will be
reduced to:
the planet (assumed one habitable/useable planet per system), deep
space, the edge of the star system.
TURN SEQUENCE: Each turn of the campaign is broken into the following three
phases.
- Economic phase. Every 4 turns there is an economic phase, in this
phase players maintain existing fleets, replenish consumables and build new
units.
- Movement phase. Players move fleets between star systems.
- Resolution phase. If two players fleets meet in the same star
system, the situation is resolved and battles fought on the tabletop if
required.
CAMPAIGN VICTORY: The campaign is over when a single player at the end of a
turn controls at least 50% of the star systems on the map the campaign is
finished and the player is declared the winner (as is so often the way it lost
omph before then due to Christmas breaks and stuff so you may want to rethink
that).
ECONOMICS: Each planet produces 10 to 100 points per economic turn. When a
player arrives at a planet for the first time and no other player has owned
the
planet before a roll a D10x20 for the number of points produced per economic
turn by that planet (if a player has owned it before than use that value). A
players total resources is just the sum of all the points on all
the planets within their empire. If a player does not spend any/all
points these may be banked away in a fund
BUILDING AND MAINTAINCE: Each turn (i.e every turn not just economic turns)
players can use points to replace consumable (for example, missiles and
fighters at normal cost) Each economic turn a player can use any stored points
to:
- Maintain existing units. At the start of each economic phase the
player must pay to maintain all his existing units, to do this the player pays
15% of the total cost of his fleet. (Note that units bought with points from
the start up budget do not need to pay maintenance for the first economic
phase of the campaign).
- Build new units. When building new units the player listing what he
is building, where he is building it (planet's name), how much it costs and
the turn at which the unit will be completed.To build a unit the player must
have enough points to pay for it when he adds it to his construction list.
Time to complete construction. Light escorts; up to mass 49 1 Economic turn
Cruisers; Mass 50 to 99 2 Economic turns Capital; Mass 100 to 299 4 Economic
turns Very Large; Mass 300 plus 8 Economic turns
<While Derek's probably right on how long it takes to build stuff, and I do
think there should be some lag these times did feel a bit foreboding when you
were actually trying to cope with a war, I ended up trying to capture rather
than destroy ships as a result, so you may want to modify this a little,
especially at the higher end>
LINE OF SUPPLY. At the beginning of each movement phase players must be able
to trace an
uninterrupted line from his fleet(s) back to a star system belonging to their
empire. Fleets unable to do this will be unable to replace consumables or
repair damage. At each economic phase a player must be able to trace an
uninterrupted line from his fleet(s) back to a star system belonging to his
empire. Fleets unable to do this will be unable to carry out maintenance for
that economic phase. If desired a player can load a ship with points provided
that ship has
cargo space, the player may load 5 points for every one-cargo box. If
the fleet the 'cargo ship' is with is out of supply then the player can expend
these stored points to replace consumables or carry out maintenance.
MOVEMENT: · A fleet can move 2 hexes per turn and must start and finish at a
star system. <We never got to the point were mobile bases became an issue, but
I for one wanted to know if you could create your own artifical lanes across
voids by the deployment of forward bases, so something else you may want to
clarify>
RESOLUTION PHASE: When two or more fleets finish their move in the same hex
each player must supply the following information about their fleets.
- How many ships there are in the opposing fleets.
- What their basic classifications are (use of weasel boats is
encouraged). Where the following table is used for classification purposes:
Size class
Mass 1-4; Fighters and missiles.
Mass 5-49; Light escorts.
Mass 50-99; Cruisers
Mass-100 299; Capitals.
Mass 300 +; Very large.
- On the basis of the information given players decide whether to
engage the enemy or withdraw. Players write down what they intend to do and
then intentions are revealed simultaneously. There are three options
available: (1) Engage the enemy, (2) Withdraw from the system and (3) Stand
off. If
both players agree to engage then a tabletop battle is fought. If during the
course of the battle one of the player's fleets manages to disengage
from the battle (refer page 28, FULL THRUST) they are considered to have
separated within the star system and the fleets remain there until the
beginning of the next campaign turn. Players who choose to withdraw must
leave the system in the movement phase of the next turn. Players who choose
the stand off option choose not to attack the enemy but they do not withdraw
either. If a opposing player chooses to engage then a battle will occur as
normal, but if all players choose stand off for their fleet then both fleets
remain in system and may move as normal next turn. Any fleet
that withdraws either before a battle or disengages from a battle by FTL
drive must in the next movement phase move towards a friendly system.
REPAIR: After a battle player can repair damaged units, All systems lost to
threshold rolls are restored and one quarter of the hull lost in that battle
is also repaired. To fully restore the hull boxes the fleet must be in a
friendly star system at the beginning of the movement phase, when the player
pays to replace consumables he may also pay the points value of the damaged
hull boxes to fully repair them.
CONTROL OF A STAR SYSTEM: At the end of the resolution phase players check to
see who controls what star system. If a player owns the only units in the star
system and there are no other units belonging to another player then that
player can claim control of the star system.
MOTHBALLING SHIPS: If a player can not maintain all the ships in his fleet
then the excess ships can be mothballed. Ships can be placed in mothballs at
any time but can only be removed from mothballs in an economic phase. It costs
nothing to mothball a ship and while in mothballs ships don't have to be
maintained. But on the economic phase in which they are brought out of
mothballs the 15% maintenance must be paid. Also, a player can place a ship
(or any number of ships) in mothballs even if they still have the points to
maintain them.
OTHER IDEAS: Strike the colours rules were modified based on behaviour (if you
killed a crew or blew up a ship tat had struck then that nation is going to be
much less inclined to do it again), so depending on player behaviour it
becomes harder or easier to strike the colours.
Scuttle the ship, self-destruction.
Refit, may refit up to 40% of initial designs points value (if upto 25% change
made then takes quarter of buildtime to refit, if maximum refit takes half
build time, with a minimum of one economic phase for the refit).
OTHER RULES IN USE Sensors and ECM MT missiles
[quoted original message omitted]
G'day,
> THE MAP:
Oops sorry should've been clearer. The hex map was at the system level (i.e.
star on a hex map represented the star and associated system, and there was
the basic assumption that there was only one thing in the system, say a planet
that was of the most use to you), empty hexes are deep space. Then once in a
hex with a system then came the abstract idea of: planet and system edge just
to signfy whether you're at the FTL boundary or way inside the system where
you can only move at sublight speeds. Is that any clearer?
> ECONOMICS:
Actually I think that's something we changed mid stream as 10-100 was
proving to be too constrictive so we moved 20 to 200 (as far as I can
remember).
> These rules look quite good.
Thanks. Derek wants to run another campaign down here fairly soon (though the
guys are talking about playing out the battle for Sol so it may be some ways
off) so if anyone has any suggestions or can you see anything you'd
change we'd be glad to here all comments.
Cheers
Beth
You might want to check out the rules to The Sovereign Stars. They are free to
down load at:
http://www.chrispy.net/~mj12/
There is also a published version with hex tiles...
IAS
> Beth Fulton wrote:
> G'day,
planet and
> system edge just to signfy whether you're at the FTL boundary or way
G'day
> You might want to check out the rules to The Sovereign Stars. They
Thanks!
> IAS
Every time you post I get a little smile though obviously you had your name,
before I had my interstellar nation;)
Cheers
Beth