Looking for starship design and combat rules you can adapt to BRP?

[The Tweaker]

Well, you can do worse than have a look here.

Now you are set for a few hours' reading looking for something which might suit you.

Have fun!

Now, seriously, I think there are some interesting looking rulesets in there...

[Chaot]

I've always thought that the ship rules from Sailing on the Seas of Fate could easily be adapted to spaceship rules.

(I've also thought that they could be adapted for mecha and for mass combat rules.)

Edit: There are a lot of links there. Anything that jumps out at you?

[The Tweaker]

Originally Posted by Chaot

There are a lot of links there. Anything that jumps out at you?

Well, it really depends on the flavour of space combat you are after.

If, for instance, you are looking for something like Traveller, you may visit the British Isles Traveller Support Group (www.bits.org.uk) and download a full set of starship building and combat rules from the Archive/Rules section of their website.

For something more 'hard'-ish (think 2300AD, by GDW) - including vector-based movement - there is another complete ruleset here.

Here, you can find the complete 2nd ed. Interceptor rules for starfighter combat, originally published by FASA.

And finally, you can also download the Full Thrust rulesets from the Ground Zero Games website.

It is not in the list, but I just remembered that you can find a summary of the Space Opera Combat System (SOCS) for GURPS in this link. It is a very streamlined and abstract combat system originally published in GURPS Lensman. I think it should be easy to adapt to BRP.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by Chaot

I've always thought that the ship rules from Sailing on the Seas of Fate could easily be adapted to spaceship rules.

(I've also thought that they could be adapted for mecha and for mass combat rules.)

Edit: There are a lot of links there. Anything that jumps out at you?

That's the best idea I've read all week. It's so simple, it makes me wonder why no one brought it up before.

[NickMiddleton]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

That's the best idea I've read all week. It's so simple, it makes me wonder why no one brought it up before.

I've noodled away at something on that basis, actually based of the stuff in the RQIII GM's book, which also formed the basis of the stuff in Sailor on the Seas of Fate and IIRC I believe Jason has also done the same briefly at some point.

The problem comes when you try and apply the rules to multiple settings. How do you generalise from those rules in such away that they are useful for most SF settings? Even ignoring setting with no ships, or where ships are irrelevant in immediate play (there's no starship combat in Dune for example...), how do you generalise a set a rules to cover Babylon 5, Star Wars, Farscape and Alastair Reynold's The Prefect?

The answer is you don't, because you can't. Any combination of Starship design and combat system has to make assumptions about ship and weapon performance, irrespective of the techno-babble used to justify how the ships behave. Small ships in the B5 need to use Jump gates to enter and exit Jump space; in the Revelation Space setting no human faction in the main timeline has FTL (well, Skade's Conjoiners try to experiment with it with disastrous results).

I think a far better approach to trying to come up with generic systems that are inevitably NOT generic is to design some example systems: spell out some criteria (both from a setting point of view and from a a game play point of view) and then provided a BRP compatible system that meets those criteria: that's always been BRP's strength in the past, that it has concrete solutions that are easily adapted or rebuilt for different situations...

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by NickMiddleton

I think a far better approach to trying to come up with generic systems that are inevitably NOT generic is to design some example systems: spell out some criteria (both from a setting point of view and from a a game play point of view) and then provided a BRP compatible system that meets those criteria: that's always been BRP's strength in the past, that it has concrete solutions that are easily adapted or rebuilt for different situations...

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

This is a fair cop, I think; you run into this problem with pretty much any "counterfactual" subsystem; its why games with embedded magic systems always make assumptions too.

That said, often the specifics of space combat aren't that important to a setting, or at least are within broad parameters. That doesn't mean the combat and ships themselves aren't important, but that the details can be fit into a number of worlds without otherwise impacting the world, unless the system is extremely quirky (a Star Trek-like ship construction and combat system will be able to be fitted into more settings than a system where all FTL travel is dependent on psionic pilots and peculiarities of mindspace, for example).

This also parallels magic systems where some are more portable than others; its why I always thought D&D's fire and forget magic system could be problematic, not only because it was specific, but because it was quirky.

[soltakss]

I've always wanted to treat Starship Combat very simply.

Having played and loathed Traveller and played Ringworld, I am not that experienced in Sci Fi games, but ...

What do Starships do in combat?

They move.

They shoot.

They get shot at.

They damage other Starships.

They take damage themselves.

One bugs out or one gets destroyed/disabled/boarded/whatever.

Now, what do people do in combat?

They move.
They shoot.
They get shot at.
They damage other people.
They get damaged themselves.
One runs away or gets wounded/disabled/killed/captured.

Can anyone see the similarity?

I'd treat Starship combat the same as normal combat.

Starships have locations, AP and HP. They have weapons that do damage. They have forcefields that absorb damage.

Sure, there are extra things to think about. You might be able to do Precise Attacks and target particular subsystems (Drives/Weapons/Life Support) you might even have to have rules for what happens if the hull in penetrated, with air leaks and so on. You'd certainly have rules on the number of charges a weapon has, recharge rates, batteries, how much power a ship has and how much can be fed into shields/weapons.

But, when it comes down to it, you have someone with 60% Pilot Starship, someone with 55% Starship Blaster, a Blaster doing 1D10 damage and a Starship with 6 point Hull and 10 HP in every location. The opponent can't dodge a Blaster but can dodge a Quantum Torpedo using his Pilot Starship. Some Starships might have modifiers, one might be Manouverable and give +20% to Pilot Starship for dodges, another might be Tough and have extra APs, another might have resealable skin or whatever.

Anything a lot more complicated than that is going way too far, in my opinion.

[badcat]

You can give them stats like STR and so forth, too, like in the armies in 'Warlords of Alexandria', or ship 'personalities' like in 'Serenity'. Loads of ideas to get started, anyway.

[Conrad]

This post has been deleted due to it being about an actual BRP game with space combat rules in it. This is the wrong thread for such a thing. Keep supporting BRP games you guys!

[Enpeze]

Originally Posted by soltakss

I've always wanted to treat Starship Combat very simply.

Having played and loathed Traveller and played Ringworld, I am not that experienced in Sci Fi games, but ...

What do Starships do in combat?

They move.

They shoot.

They get shot at.

They damage other Starships.

They take damage themselves.

One bugs out or one gets destroyed/disabled/boarded/whatever.

Now, what do people do in combat?

They move.
They shoot.
They get shot at.
They damage other people.
They get damaged themselves.
One runs away or gets wounded/disabled/killed/captured.

Can anyone see the similarity?

I'd treat Starship combat the same as normal combat.

Starships have locations, AP and HP. They have weapons that do damage. They have forcefields that absorb damage.

Sure, there are extra things to think about. You might be able to do Precise Attacks and target particular subsystems (Drives/Weapons/Life Support) you might even have to have rules for what happens if the hull in penetrated, with air leaks and so on. You'd certainly have rules on the number of charges a weapon has, recharge rates, batteries, how much power a ship has and how much can be fed into shields/weapons.

But, when it comes down to it, you have someone with 60% Pilot Starship, someone with 55% Starship Blaster, a Blaster doing 1D10 damage and a Starship with 6 point Hull and 10 HP in every location. The opponent can't dodge a Blaster but can dodge a Quantum Torpedo using his Pilot Starship. Some Starships might have modifiers, one might be Manouverable and give +20% to Pilot Starship for dodges, another might be Tough and have extra APs, another might have resealable skin or whatever.

Anything a lot more complicated than that is going way too far, in my opinion.

I think you are right. But one thing you forgot IMO: sensors. To "see" another ship or not is a matter of life and death in some space opera settings. This could be modelled like spot hidden skill or on the resistance table. (eg. sensor power 23 vs. ECM 20 or so)