So, I was walking down to my local corner shop to get some cigarettes, when a thought popped into my head. Antares/Starbound is a sci fi, yet it's missing the greatest thing the genre has! Space battles! So, with that, I started formulating some basic rules that would allow people to have starships equipped with weapons, and all sorts of utility modules. So, here is the MK1 sorta dice setup that came into my mind. This is subject to change of course, and well.. I've never made a dice system before, so it might suck arse. Ship hulls: A basic hull governs the type of vessel you are getting, so far the classes I have figured out are fighters, corvettes, frigates, cruisers, battleships, and dreadnoughts. I am also thinking up rules for stations too. Keep in mind, just because you go for a "battleship" hull, that doesn't mean your ship is automatically a battleship, you could have a battleship sized hull, but fill it up with mining and cargo modules, or whatever you see fit. Hull integrity: This is how much damage your ships can take. Fighters: 2 hull Corvettes: 5 hull Frigates: 10 hull Cruisers: 20 hull Battleships: 40 hull Dreadnoughts: 80 hull Cost: The larger vessels aren't exactly going to be things that your average Joe can afford, especially when you want to fit modules. These costs are for the basic hull and systems, the only systems that come with a hull that you don't really have to worry about are basic engines, life support, and S.A.I.L. Without the weapons modules, or other stuff, what you really have is a basic civillian vessel. Keep in mind as well, these are the costs for brand new squeaky clean off the showroom floor vessels, in RP, you could trade a rusted out piece of crap for alot less, but i'd hope you'd I dunno... drop the hull integrity or something? Fighter: (really a shuttlecraft without combat modules) 13k Corvette: 50K Frigate: 100K Cruiser: 200k Battleship: 400k Dreadnought: 800k Modules: Each hull type has a limited amount of space to mount modules. Fighter: 2 slots Corvette: 5 slots Frigate: 10 slots Cruiser: 20 slots Battleship: 40 slots Dreadnought: 80 slots Weapons: Now we get into the fun stuff, how to blow things up. There are three types of weaponry available, beam, missile, and mass driver (railguns, cannons, that sort of thing.) If you have multiple beams, you can fire them all at once every four turns (note, you cannot fire this on your first turn), I called this ability "attack pattern Alpha". If you get that reference, you get a cookie. Gatling cannon: 1d3 damage 1 slot cost: 5k Pulse laser: 1d4 damage 2 slots cost: 10k AA missile: 1d8 damage 2 slots, give you four missiles, you can add more missiles by using more slots, 2 missiles per slot. cost: 20k base system, 5k per missile. Light railgun: 1d8 damage, 3 slots 10K Light ion array: 1d10 damage, 4 slots 20k Light torpedo: 1d15 damage, two torpedoes, 4 slots, you can add additional torpedoes, 1 torpedo = two slots base system, 40k, 10k per missile Railgun: 1d12 damage, 6 slots 30K Ion array: 1d15 damage, 8 slots 40K Torpedo: 1d25 damage, 8 slots, two torpedoes. you can add additional torpedoes, 1 torpedo = 4 slots 80k base system, 20k per torpedo Heavy Railgun: 1d20 damage, 10 slots 60k Heavy Ion Array: 1d30 damage, 20 slots 80k Heavy torpedo: 1d50 damage, 20 slots, 2 torpedoes, additional torpedoes, 1 torpedo = 10 slots 80k base system, 20k per torpedo Goliath cannon: 1d50 damage, 20 slots, 120k Particle cannon: 1d70 damage, 30 slots, 180k MOAT (mother of all torpedoes) 1d150 damage, 30 slots, 1 torpedo. Additional torpedoes, 1 torpedo = 30 slots Defenses: Now, with all this firepower flying around, you're going to want some way of protecting yourself, here are the three ways... Reinforced armor: cuts mass driver damage in half. (if uneven, round down) 5 slots, only one can be fitted to a ship Shield grid: cuts beam damage in half. (if uneven, round down) 5 slots, only one can be fitted to a ship ECM: cuts missile damage in half. (if uneven, round down) Enhanced RCS: Every five turns, you can roll a 1d2, or flip a coin, on heads, or 1, the enemy attack misses. You have to announce you are doing this before the enemy makes his attack. 5 slots Utility: Ships are made for more than blowing other ships apart, here are some vital utility modules Escape pods: Don't want your characters dying a painful fiery death? Fit these onto your ship to drastically increase chances of survival in the event your ship is destroyed. 5 slots. (more coming soon, sorry, I kinda burnt myself out. Further stuff will be edited into this post)
We barely have enough cash to afford one big ship. Let alone, support the massive training and maintaining the troops and officers manning those ships.
May I make a suggestion to make this simple? Mekton Zeta is an obscure tabletop rpg that I love and it has a pretty well built battle system. I'd upload it here but the limit is 9MB and the rulebook is large. Most of it is about mechas mind you, I would suggest for this that you just focus on the ships. I can send it via Skype If you're interested because I would very much like to see ship combat.
There needs to be a downside to larger hulls like a slower speed otherwise why not just everyone have super tanky ships once they get the cash.
well, that kills that idea. Unless these are all civilian vessels with guns strapped to them like the TEC in sins of a solar empire. As for the smaller ships, they will get a dodge chance, the thingy isn't complete yet, I'm still working on balance, etc.
I agree with Raideck and that the system should be simplified. But my problem with starship combat is that it hard to make visual in the actual game. So an effort should be made to solve that before moving onto a system. Dog-fighting on a planet is much easier to work with. As seen with other players, like Clem and Shagmeister, with their hoverbike and Falcon dropship, ships and vehicles of that size can be made reasonably. It would be similar to normal, honor-based combat on the server as well. The only issue is that the ships and vehicles would need to be drawn and made in Starcheat. Anything involving ships I support since I play a mechanic after all..
