Endless Void Development [discussion thread]

[Peter]

OK, this thread is mainly for comments, hate mail and adoring fanboy gushing (I'm not really sure which of the last two I'd prefer...) regarding the material I've posted so far.

The big issue I'm already aware of and planning to change when I get round to it is the thing about the height of a ship in relation to the tabletop - at the moment, I've managed to imply that celestial phenomena will exist mainly for decoration, without ever impeding your ships. This is, funnily enough, not true.

If your ship moves onto a marker representing something of interest, you will be given a choice of moving to investigate or take advantage of the object, or avoiding it - if you approach or enter something, you may need to make a Command check to navigate it, but you will generally gain some kind of a bonus. Or you might be ambushed by a concealed enemy warship.

[Adam]

Mar 10, 2009 7:19:54 GMT -5 Peter said:

hate mail and adoring fanboy gushing (I'm not really sure which of the last two I'd prefer...) regarding the material I've posted so far.

Don't get carried away. ;D

(Although for the record, I can contribute a U SUK LOLZ! or a FTW!!11! if you like.)

Mar 10, 2009 7:19:54 GMT -5 Peter said:

The big issue I'm already aware of and planning to change when I get round to it is the thing about the height of a ship in relation to the tabletop - at the moment, I've managed to imply that celestial phenomena will exist mainly for decoration, without ever impeding your ships. This is, funnily enough, not true.

If your ship moves onto a marker representing something of interest, you will be given a choice of moving to investigate or take advantage of the object, or avoiding it - if you approach or enter something, you may need to make a Command check to navigate it, but you will generally gain some kind of a bonus. Or you might be ambushed by a concealed enemy warship.

There are two ways (that I'm aware of) of representing the third dimension on the tabletop - ignoring it entirely, a la BFG, or using a height-recording mechanic like Aeronautica Imperialis'. AI's height system is quite simple, consisting of a number from 1 to 8 (I think) which marks your altitude relative to the planet.

Obviously there's no planet surface when you're fighting in space, but the numbers would presumably grade your z-axis distance above an arbitrary plane of reference. In layman's terms, imagine there's a level below which no ship happens to travel during the battle (the gaming table? ), and grade ships' altitude relative to that. A d10 makes a convenient altitude marker. A ship might be able to spend a few centimetres of movement to go up or down (representing it moving diagonally downwards). So a ship with a 15cm move can move 5cm across the table and go up two height grades, move 0cm horizontally and fly straight down three height grades, and so on.

As to celestial phenomena, I like your idea, it makes them less of an impedance than otherwise. It does have the repercussion that it's hard to justify them blocking line of sight, though. (Terrain is nice in any game, it makes things more interesting. I don't think I've heard of a tabletop game that functions perfectly without any kind of terrain, although if you manage to write one, FTW!!11!. Er, I mean that'd be very interesting.)

Ninja edit: Blood Bowl doesn't count, that's not really a tabletop game (it technically uses a board).

[Peter]

Adam said:

it's hard to justify them blocking line of sight

Funnily enough, my plan was for things like debris clouds to only block line of sight if you were within a certain distance of them and chose to approach. I changed my mind about letting ships make pop up attacks.

I was planning on avoiding a z-axis, simply assuming that if a model moves onto a celestial phenomenon then it may hide, investigate or simply assume that it is hovering above the object. Bear in mind that ships only appear to be flying really close to each other on the tabletop - I pointed out in the intro chapter that distances scale in a similar way to BFG (ships are generally assumed to start a fight up to a couple of solar radii apart, and small stuff like debris clouds and ships are scaled up pretty majorly so that they can be represented on the tabletop.)

[Adam]

Sounds solid.

[Peter]

I think one of the bigger questions is still going to be the factions of Endless Void - at the moment, there are the following:

• The Enclaves - the human-led coalition. Human made ships are sleek, shiny, high-tech and generally just plain cool. The ships tend to be a little smaller than the Medusa ships, until you get to the larger craft and the battle fortresses.
  
• The Medusa - the aggressive alien grouping. Medusa ships are fairly junky, usually protected by almost literal shields - huge metal blast shields mounted on arms and constructed from something resembling Power Armour. Medusa ships are big - slow-moving, able to take a lot of punishment and still deal out some hurt.
  

My problem is pretty simple - without some ridiculously flexible army lists, this isn't really enough.

Does anyone have any more ideas? I am considering making each of these factions into an 'alignment' and providing faction lists for each of the alien races that make up one of the factions, but there could be other routes.

[Adam]

Mar 13, 2009 13:46:47 GMT -5 Peter said:

I am considering making each of these factions into an 'alignment' and providing faction lists for each of the alien races that make up one of the factions, but there could be other routes.

That's a very good idea, actually, and will make your fluff run more smoothly if it's a war between two races instead of 4 or 6.

[Peter]

OK, I'll probably keep the affiliations thing.

I have another query while I'm working on the core rules.

The system I have planned for shooting is going to be a bit weird - essentially, you will need to 'spot' a ship to fire at it if it is more than 12" away. There will be scout ships which can be used as dedicated spotters

I'm also going to change 'shields' to 'armour' - you will now have to pay energy to use your defence stat, as essentially you are spamming lasers into the middle of the salvo of firepower headed in your direction. The power armour will be one of the systems that is assumed to always be running.

There will be a few scout ships available that improve your fleet's defences by spreading the cost of defensive turrets and lasers throughout the fleet. I'm still trying to think of other cool things for the other Scouts - just to inject a few more tactics into the game.

[Adam]

What's the other query? Didn't see any question marks

Spotting ships could be an interesting mechanic, makes pathetic little light ships much more worth using. A spotting range of about twice the average ship's movement should do, IMO. Scout ships that can boost defences of ships within 6" or 12" or some similar weapon range would also be interesting. What else... scouts that can boost attacks come to mind (contributing firepower towards the enemy), scouts that can murder attack craft, scouts that can boost movement speed (2 or 3 scouts gather near a ship and use some technology or other to connect themselves to it, adding their own thruster power and thus increasing speed and manoeuvrability), scouts that can generate concealing force fields between them (two scouts up to a certain distance apart (say 4"), any LOS that crosses the line between them is blocked), scouts that can merge together into larger ships (and vice versa, ships that release or split into scouts), scouts that carry reasonably powerful one-shot bombs/torpedoes, scouts that can cling to an enemy's hull, drill in and release a boarding party...?

[Peter]

OK, obviously I am a retard. I should have thought of at least a few of those. I guess if I go with the following list, there should be enough around to make the game interesting:

• Spotters
  
• Defenders, which allow ships to co-ordinate their defences and spread the cost of all of that defensive fire.
  
• Navigators, which help larger ships deal with celestial phenomena
  
• Infiltrators, which drop an assasin onto the enemy ship to wreak havoc
  
• Hunters, which take on other scouts (although the larger destroyers may be better suited to this)
  
• Mechanics, which help ships recover from damage
  
• Slayers, which fire a collosal plasma bomb or an AM charge which can potentially one-shot anything short of a capship
  

What do you think?

[Adam]

Sounds good. I'm quite a fan of the scouts improving ships' movement speeds as well; Accelerators perhaps? Dunno whether that would fit into your fluff though.

[Peter]

On second thoughts, I'm probably going to cut the Hunters - that role will probably be filled extremely well by Destroyers (ships slightly bigger than Escorts which carry elite crews and are more flexible tactically than full-sized battlegroups). Scouts will probably be free in terms of points, and I want them to be pretty situational - Hunters don't really have that much of a niche.

In a basic fleet engagement, you will probably want a mix of spotters and defenders, but in an ambush I can see Slayers being used a lot more - especially as most ambushes involve a lot of spotter drones anyway.

I am also tempted to let Scouts fulfil several different roles - that might make things a little easier to balance, as well as making sense from a fluff standpoint.

[Adam]

Having each scout able to fill two or three of the above roles (depending on mothership, race and/or points paid) might be interesting. So for a pure supporting scout you could have some or all of Spotter, Navigator and Mechanic; an offensive scout would have Slayer, Infiltrator etc. They might be less situational and more interesting then, and you wouldn't need so many of them.

[Peter]

Big change in the pipeline - I'm going to get rid of action points, in favour of just letting ships move and attack.

There will be a few suppression rules. Also, the combat system has a few changes in the pipeline (taking place before I actually bother to put the rules on paper/cloud of 1s and 0s). Ships will have a Defence score which allows them to roll extra dice to counteract an incoming salvo (over and above the number of 'hits' scored).

Quantum attacks will be the hardest to deflect, but cannot be spotted, because fall-of-shot data is much harder to obtain.

Missiles are the hardest to suppress, because they roll multiple dice per shot. However, they are the easiest to deflect - a missile is vulnerable to pretty much every possible countermeasure known to man (Magnetic deflectors, check. Defensive turrets, check. Defensive lasers, check. Scramblers and decoys, check. Moving out of the way, check. Defensive missiles, check.)

Particle weapons - that's the 'visibly not a laser beam' ones are somewhere in between these two, along with simple Impact weapons (shells and so on) because while both are pretty tricky to shoot down, they can be detected and ships tend to carry some basic countermeasures.

All of this considered, close-range combat is probably where the game is most dangerous - at long range, you will have to concentrate your fire pretty heavily to even take down one ship, while short range gunnery duels are hideous - you can be confident that when two ships engage each other at close range, only one will survive. Ignoring suppression is also pretty handy.

[Adam]

So what do these counteract dice do? Something like Duel of Steel's parrying mechanic?

[Peter]

Apr 10, 2009 8:49:43 GMT -5 Adam said:

So what do these counteract dice do? Something like Duel of Steel's parrying mechanic?

Pretty much. You roll to see how many hits you score in a salvo, then the target ship rolls to defend. How likely it is to work depends on what you're sending after him.

A successful defence roll counters one hit, but not the suppression point you also pick up. Suppression cuts your ship's firepower, and can also reduce your command if you pick up enough.

As for actual hits - deal enough and something bad happens to the target ship. I want to make sure it doesn't feel too much like War of the Ring, though - while WotR is a pretty badass game, I don't really want to rip off GW.

[Adam]

The suppression mechanic reminds me more of Epic, actually (although if you start adding in blast markers I'll feed you to the Lovecraftian horror). I guess as to damage, the ship could lose hits and you roll on a table, adding the number of hits caused by the salvo. Something like (assuming a D10 roll): 1-7, no critical damage. 8, some weapons can't fire next turn. 9, moves more slowly next turn. 10, a weapon is destroyed. 11, movement is permanently reduced. 12, the ship takes an extra point of damage and its Command is reduced. 13+, the ship takes D3 or D6 extra points of damage.

[Peter]

I guess that could work. I also have to figure out how a laser that actually consumes the target ship in a nuclear fusion reaction has a visible beam.

Why am I the only person who writes rules that emphasise the difference between laser beams and plasma beams?

Current weapons used by the Enclave:

• Gamma Pulse Turrets - OK close-range weapons, as well as helping protect the ship
  
• Solar Beam Cannon - because everyone loves laser-nukes
  
• Lightning Beam Cannon - much smaller versions, popular in planetary bombardments because of the attractive plasma effect
  
• Sonic Cannon - fires a shell containing a devastating pressure charge. Also good in planetary bombardments
  
• Smart Missiles - carry exotic payloads
  

Haven't thought about the weapons used by the Medusa or the Corporations yet, however.

[Peter]

OK, latest update.

I've finished writing out the rules for the turn sequence and I have a pretty good idea of where I'm going with both the Spotting and the Close Range Combat rules (close range combat=carnage. I want it to be possible to play a game without any scouts if you want)

Ships will come in about three main categories - Destroyers carry badass, fanatical or berserk crews with tons of close range firepower.

Support craft typically carry a small number of non-energy weapons such as missiles and sonic cannon and provide your fleet with various utility benefits. These almost invariably include the ability to replace destroyed scouts, deploy powerful defensive field generators and the ability to send dropships to capture ground objectives.

Cruisers are usually the largest military capital craft in the game. They can fulfil both the Destroyer role and the Support Role, although they tend to carry fewer scouts than dedicated Support Craft.

You will generally have up to seven of these ships in your fleet, and each of them can either act independently or purchase a number of escorts.

I'm beginning to get some idea of how to resolve damage to ships. Essentially, each damaging hit will result in a roll on the ship damage chart, potentially taking a weapon offline or slowing the ship's movement for a turn.

A ship can also suffer Critical Hits, which inflict lasting damage and can potentially destroy a ship. Each ship has a unique list of critical hits, and the defender must choose which one to apply (some weapons allow the attacker to do so).

A ship which has sustained the majority of its possible critical hit effects is 'crippled' - effectively damaged beyond repair. A ship which sustains all of its critical hits is totalled - it simply pops under the sustained bombardment.

Ships with more than six criticals will be very rare.

With about 40% of damaging hits causing serious damage, you would need:

2.5 hits to destroy an escort
5.0 hits to destroy a heavy escort
5.0 hits to cripple a light capship, 7.5 to destroy
7.5 hits to cripple a normal capship, 10.0 to destroy
7.5 hits to cripple a heavy capship, 12.5 to destroy
10.0 hits to cripple a typical battlecruiser, 15.0 to destroy

That suggests that an undamaged medium capital ship should be dealing around 4-5 hits on average per salvo.

When a ship is attacked, you first roll to hit, then to see whether or not any serious damage was inflicted. Rolls that fail to inflict serious damage still cause suppression, which can hurt a ship in the long run.

Defence Dice are still quite useful - they now allow you to force your opponent to re-roll serious damage checks. Without them, a ship can quite easily be turned into a pile of twisted scrap metal within a very short time.

A ship's Defence Dice also determine the chance that Scouts that come to close are potted at the start of the ship's Activation.

[Adam]

Very nice. I like the different ship classes. Now get it written up

[Peter]

OK, the latest round of changes is mainly aimed at making the whole thing a bit more tactical (because the first draft didn't have any particular tactical depth built in).

A quick summary:

• Revised close range fire rules which make smart manoeuvring more useful than before.
  
• Action points make a comeback.
  
• Suppression now hurts a lot more, but it always disappears at the end of your activation.