Best system for scifi ship combat

[Choco]

I might find myself "volunteered" into running a scifi game that apparently will focus mostly on ship combat, with the occasional on-foot adventures.

So I got a simple question: What are the best systems out there for simulating ship combat? I am willing to look at anything from uber-streamlined to uber-detailed, even something like a modified Warhammer 40k Epic ruleset.

[IonDragon]

You could try looking at Universal Decay. I used to pimp it all the time because I know the author. While I like the system, and I enjoy making characters for it, there are some parts that are just too broken to be usable. However, if you're focusing on vehicle combat, the system is excellent for creating and customizing your vehicle. Very detailed, highly customizable.

As long as you ban Powered Armor, and don't let your players use vehicle weapons outside of vehicles you should be just fine. I doubt they'll find the most broken parts right away anyhow.

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I'm also aware that there are some d20 Modern enhancement books for vehicles, I'm not sure if they'll do what you're looking for however.

I think GURPS has some rules for designing and using vehicles in combat as well.

[JaronK]

Have you considered learning Battlefleet Gothic? It's a game of ship to ship combat... just change the models and you're good to go.

JaronK

[Tinydwarfman]

In addition to GURPS Space and Ultratech, there is an entire PDF line called GURPS Spaceships, which has exactly what you're looking for.

[hamishspence]

Have you considered learning Battlefleet Gothic? It's a game of ship to ship combat... just change the models and you're good to go.

JaronK

I've seen Star Wars ships converted to BFG rules- so it's possible other ships could be done the same way.

[The Cat Goddess]

In GURPS Space, ship-to-ship combat is story driven. The PCs can affect the story, but generally it's only done to drive the story forward. Vehicle design is fairly basic.

In GURPS Vehicles, vehicle building practically requires a spreadsheet. With Mass/Thrust ratios, Power Output/Consumption formulas, efficiency modifiers, etc.

Of course, my experience is all 3rd edition... 4th edition may have cleared up a lot of that.

[Broccoli21]

In addition to GURPS Space and Ultratech, there is an entire PDF line called GURPS Spaceships, which has exactly what you're looking for.

ditto. GURPS has the best space combat system in my opinion. It also sports a very customizable ruleset. In addition to what Tinydwarfman said, Ultra-tech has hundreds of customizable weapon and armor stats for vehicles and spaceships.

[Tinydwarfman]

In GURPS Space, ship-to-ship combat is story driven. The PCs can affect the story, but generally it's only done to drive the story forward. Vehicle design is fairly basic.

In GURPS Vehicles, vehicle building practically requires a spreadsheet. With Mass/Thrust ratios, Power Output/Consumption formulas, efficiency modifiers, etc.

Of course, my experience is all 3rd edition... 4th edition may have cleared up a lot of that.

It has. Vehicles are now just slightly altered characters, without all of the messy math, and ship-to-ship combat has actually good rules now.

[Mando Knight]

In GURPS Vehicles, vehicle building practically requires a spreadsheet. With Mass/Thrust ratios,

Why not just use I_SP, like the actual thrust specs?

[Lycan 01]

How good is the Rogue Trader space vessels and combat system?


I'd <3 to get a good interstellar war game going, but between finding a good system and a good way to keep track of in-game events, that doesn't seem like a realistic possibility.

Anyone have any advice for how to graph/map in-game 3D space combat? Perhaps a multi-leveled grid or markers to represent higher or lower vessels?

[IonDragon]

Anyone have any advice for how to graph/map in-game 3D space combat? Perhaps a multi-leveled grid or markers to represent higher or lower vessels?

That's easy. Just use a normal grid, and use a compound number to represent elevation. Something like

ID:-25

Would be IonDragon is at a negative 25 elevation in that square. If you're using a physical grid for an IRL game you could use dice, color representing player and/or positive or negative elevation.

[MachineWraith]

Try this.

It's from a very well put together site detailing a lot of the problems with popular portrayals of space. If you're looking for realism, you'll go far taking their advice.

[Thane of Fife]

How hard do you want your sci-fi, and what scale are you interested in?

I mean, Star Warriors is awesome, but if you're not looking for extremely soft fighter-centric combat, it won't help you.

Vector 3 is highly Newtonian and free, but doesn't have that much detail.

Icar is a space opera RPG with ship-to-ship rules.

I can only speak to the quality of the first of these three sets, but I can say that Star Warriors is really good.

[Lycan 01]

Fun fact: Battlefleet Gothic is free. Yet the physical rulebook is 41 bucks...

[Knaight]

We need some details on the level of sci in your fi.
There is a whole spectrum between Dogfights in Space! and Lots of Tiny Ships With Very Few People Scattered Everywhere Using Complex Sensor Systems In Coordination To Look For Tiny Points of Heat And Blow It Out Of The Sky With Help From Telescopes. The second is realistic, but is basically an opposed observation check mechanically, with lots of added complexity with where the sky is scanned and how from what distances.

If you want to do the first, I would go with Fudge, Fudge Dogfighting has beautiful dogfighting rules that work incredibly well for planes, and well for space opera ships as well, though it breaks down when dealing with multiple ships on multiple sides (Its intended for the players in their one ship alone, and can make use of a lot of elegant mechanics because of this.) Not that there aren't other rules that are more realistic and/or detailed.

[Fhaolan]

Anyone have any advice for how to graph/map in-game 3D space combat? Perhaps a multi-leveled grid or markers to represent higher or lower vessels?

The best way I've ever seen for 3D combat was mounting sheets of hexgrid-painted corkboard on the ceiling, and hanging plastic miniatures or counters off of it with thumbtacks and fishing line. Don't use lead miniatures, however. Too heavy, it pulls the thumbtacks out. Unless you do what we did, and got corkboard the same thickness as dartboards are made out of, and use darts instead of thumbtacks.

But then, this was a group of *serious* wargamers. We had arcs made of spring steel for measuring ballistic trajectories and the like. (Still useful in space combat when allowing for missiles that pass through gravitational effects. Yes, we went to that level. We were insane.... were? are? Who knows?)

[Zeta Kai]

It has. Vehicles are now just slightly altered characters, without all of the messy math, and ship-to-ship combat has actually good rules now.

I had considered treating vehicles as modified creatures in my WIP-system, but now I'm convinced that this is the best route.

Why not just use I_SP, like the actual thrust specs?

Because we don't all work for NASA...

Yes, we went to that level. We were insane.... were? are? Who knows?)

Yes, that is insane. Insanely awesome.

[gbprime]

I love spaceship combat games. Tried a ton of them. The two systems that achieve elegant simplicity for spaceship combat are Battlefleet Gothic and Firestorm Armada. Of the two, Battlefleet Gothic rules can be acquired in PDF form for free, as previously mentioned, and the game has less errata than Firestorm Armada.

[Mando Knight]

Because we don't all work for NASA...

I_SP is actually a really simple parameter, from which you can develop your thrust rather easily.

I_SP=I/(m*g), where I is the total impulse of the engine (that is, force integrated over a time period), m is the fuel mass expended, and g is Earth gravity at sea level.

[Lycan 01]

Math makes my head hurt. I just want epic space battles.



I downloaded Battlefleet Gothic earlier. I'm currently studying it over, and I gotta say, this looks beautiful... Now to find/build some starship pieces!

[Fhaolan]

I_SP is actually a really simple parameter, from which you can develop your thrust rather easily.

I_SP=I/(m*g), where I is the total impulse of the engine (that is, force integrated over a time period), m is the fuel mass expended, and g is Earth gravity at sea level.

GURPS Vehicles... is an exercise in frustration to begin with. It's roots were in the fun, but ancient, Car Wars pocket game, when it had to do with effectively modular car design. Unfortunately, they 'expanded' the system and attempted to make it realistic without really fundamentally changing the process, leading to bizarre effects and a lot of regression calculations.

In other words, they had bigger things they needed to fix before moving to I_SP. :)

Which is why, again in my opinion, 4th edition GURPS moved very firmly away from the 3rd edition vehicle rules.

[Coplantor]

Well, the only systems I know that could acomplish this are GURPS and Alternity.
I would go with Alternity because I love the system, but maybe GURPS might result easier.

[Ashtar]

Star Warriors does make excellent space battles, the D6 system is fun enough, you can really do complex maneuvers, while at the same time staying simple enough for people to understand it quickly. It does treat space as 2D though.

Mekton Zeta is a D10 based system for giant robots that integrates space battles too.

I'm a fan of using Jovian Chronicles from Dream Pod 9 (Burn points! Inertia! You can run out of Re-Mass and fall to death in the gravitational pull of the star), they also have Lightning Strike as a system for tactical fleet combat.

Really it depends on the scale, you want fleet movements? Then Battlefleet Gothic from GW, Lightning Strike from DP9, Battlespace from Battletech etc.

You want detailed ship combat with the players in individual fighters / ships, with a few cap ships ? Star Warriors board game, Mekton Zeta, Jovian Chronicles (using SilCORE), Gurps Ships, Alternity, etc...

Give us maybe a bit more details into what you'd like.

[Choco]

Thanks for all the advice guys, I'm gonna be quite busy looking over all of that...