What system is the best for combat between spaceships?

>>43571852
What is the point of showing all of this? The ship should have blown up instantly. This isn't like my ship to ship combat.

>>43571852
Silhouette System by Dream Pod 9.

>>43571852
Traveller

>>43571852
GURPS Vehicles.

>>43571852

GURPS

>>43571852
>What system is the best for combat between spaceships?
FFG Star Wars.

>>43571852
Rogue Trader

>>43571852

Star Wars Miniatures Starship Battles.

>>43571870
war is hell

>>43571870

Those blooming stars aren't just pretty lights.

Each and every one destroyed in an instant, but it is their instant.

Those clips exist so you don't get the luxury of seeing it from the con: You're an objective observer, you see far more than "Contact Lost" as well you should.

>>43571852
What kind of spaceships?

>>43571871
Mah nigger.

>>43572372

This can't be a serious suggestion, right?

>>43571870

They be keepin' it real, yo. Unlike pussy-ass Disney.

>>43571871
I looked into that system a while ago because mech stuff is my jam (Heavy Gear and Jovian Chronicles seemed cool), but the rules seemed a bit weird. How well does it play?

>>43571870
Look upon the face of war with clear eyes.

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>>43571898
This.

Does your system use vectors?

>>43571852
I've always wanted to find a system where we can play as Reinhard or Yang. I will be interested if someone know one.

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>>43571852

Saganami Island Tactical Simulator 2nd edition (or Attack Vector: Tactical if you don't like missiles) is the objective *best* choice. Of course, it helps to be an actual rocket scientist, like the guy who wrote it (Ken Burnside did orbital mechanics for NASA).

Alternatively, you could use AeroTech (from the BattleTech universe) with all the options. It produces quite realistic results. For example, if two ships are shooting at each other, while traveling at c-fractional velocities and adding their velocity to the fired projectile speed, the appropriate rule is, "feed both ship record sheets simultaneously into one cross-cut shredder each. The sheet destroyed the slowest wins the battle. It is still, however, destroyed." (rule found in Strategic Operations, pg 85)

Can't get more "realistic" than that.

>>43571852
sauce?

>>43573335
Chinese cartoon called legend of galactic heroes

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>>43573309
>feed both ship record sheets simultaneously into one cross-cut shredder
thats space combat the way I like it

>>43573350
Interesting politics, not very realistic space combat strategies.

Rogue Trader is quite silly far as realism, but I find it quite fun and tactical.

>>43573507
>Forever bound planet-bound human acting like he knows Space Tactics involved space battle

Jee anon show us your experience in epic space battles. Oh wait you cannot even into space like Poland.

>>43573807
You don't need to know what actual space combat would look like to be able to tell that turning maps from historical infantry battles into holograms probably won't be it.

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>>43573220
>>43571871
The rules are fine. They tend to reward fast agile units over big slow ones though.

>>43572379
War never changes

>>43573309
AV:T is pretty great. I want the AV:Strategic sequel there were rumors of damnit.

Also >not modelling light propagation
wehavetogodeeper.jpg

Traveller is also good fun.

>>43573164
Why? You want to simulate war,you use a fucking wargame, not a system designed to roleplay the gentle emotions of a paladin.

>>43573246
Has anyone really used that Highguard system to play a fleet battle? I like how the system looks on paper, but it would take hours to produce stats for more than one capital ship to play with. The published ones seem to be pretty bad, suffering from bizarre design choices and often having errors, such as placing internal components in external component hit tables and vice versa.

How big fleets did you use? Were the designs published or did you build them yourself? How did the battle go? How long did the whole thing take?

Diaspora does the vector thing as well. It's basically Traveller: Fate edition, though a bit dated by now. I wouldn't pay it RAW because of that, but it remains my go-to examplt of well-implemented space and platoon combat in the Fate system.

>>43575080

I think the thrust was more "Star Wars Miniatures Battles" was a TERRIBLE game. Capital ships had a range of "the entire board" and didn't actually have to move, for example.

Anon wasn't talking about Armada - he was referencing the old WOTC game.

>>43572342
Err no.

The real answer is GURPS Spaceships.

>>43575327

The real answer is "never use GURPS"

>>43575295

This was a thing? Really? Can anybody actually confirm this? I can barely confirm the existence of the game in the first place, much less find a copy of the rules.

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>>43574290
War... has changed.

>>43571852
Fading Suns has a cool system for that, but it'd be great if you explained what kind of feel are you going for. Also GURPS.

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>>43571871
This is the correct answer

>>43571898
This is a close second

>>43575545
If by never you actually mean always.

>>43575084

If you want to do big fleet battles you want to go with either Trillion Credit Squadron, or if you're happier with abstracting all that stuff, there's Fifth Frontier War, which has you moving whole fleets around a multi-sector map.

>>43577193

No. Not only is GURPS an objectively terrible roleplaying game, but it's totally unsuitable for an actual wargame, which is what OP is asking for.

>>43578946
>Which the OP is asking for
All OP said was "good system".
Not "Realistic wargame".
Not "Immersive Roleplay Game".
This was left intentionally vague to start the bullshit that is this thread.

>>43578946
>objectively

Lets hear those objective arguments then.

>>43579353

1) It's GURPS

>>43571870
War is necessary, it might possibly not even be an evil, but it is certainly not a good.

>>43571870
I have some doubts whether you can drag yourself with bottom half of your body missing.
But I'm not an expert.

>>43579454
Why not? Until all your blood fell out or you passed out from shock your arms would still work.

>>43579543
Dunno, I just think "passed out from shock" should happen instantly.
But, again, I'm not an expert.

>>43579717

You can never tell with shock. Some people get incapacitated instantly, some act for a while and fall over, some just get pissed off and stop feeling pain until they outright fall over. It hits everyone differently, and there's no good way to test for it.

I recall Full Thrust being quite good, and including optional vector movement rules.

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>>43571852
Interceptor

aint there a sistem that does spaceship without going full engineer?
something simple

>>43580691
GURPS.
Stat spaceships as characters. It's as valid as the other ways of doing it in GURPS.

>>43580138
>That damage chart.
>FASA.
Should of known.

>>43580861

GURPS spaceships does it this way, plus a full combat system and construction system. Very very good, especially if you already play GURPS (obviously)

>>43580138
What is this, Star Electrician: 4th Edition?

>>43580138
>being autistic enough to actually play something like that
>laughingnormies.png

>>43580138
Come on not even the fucking old starfleet tabletop was this bad

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>>43584733

That's a starfighter record sheet, not a capital ship record sheet. Interceptor was very specifically designed to point out how tightly-packed the systems within a fighter were, and how damage cascaded between systems. That's also the single most complex record sheet within the Interceptor game system. So not only is anon using a record sheet from the wrong game, but he's cherry-picked something similar to the SFB Scimitar sheet with the 2 billion boxes on it.

The capital ship game was called "Leviathan", and was both much simpler and much better. Here's the most complex "Leviathan" record sheet.

pretty sure traveler is considered the best scifi RPG for a reason. honestly the only RPGs I would ever play a DND 3/3.5/PF and Traveler all other books and systems are source books or for interesting one off battles or ideas and not core systems we all know this and just don't want to admit it. mind you MYFAROG ive been reading and I think for people brand new to RPGS it might actualy be better to play than a DnD starter box.. yes Varg Vickens the slayer with the pocket knife might have infact made the best lead in RPG product ever. please tell his mum she needs to be proud.

>>43576887

Oh shit, did you actually play the Fading Suns ship game? How was it mechanically?

>>43585074

NEA, is that you? You're the only person I know of here who knows anything substantial about Renegade legion in the first place.

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>>43571852
I like Vanguard because it allows ships to behave in a somewhat plausible way.

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>>43585914

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>>43585929

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>>43585937

>>43585852

Yes. I've been turning my name off outside of /btg/ lately, when I remember.

>>43585914
>>43585929
>>43585937

Neat.

>>43580072
While I have a soft spot for FT, it's definitely a beer & pretzels game, and in the current incarnation has some balance issues. If Jon ever releases the next version, that might change.

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>>43575084
I'm only just eyeing up the high guard rules now for our campaign. I did use vector space battles in classic traveller, and it was awesome, but currently we're playing mongoose and use the range band system.

The range bands suit us ok for the moment, but I have some large battles planned and it would be cool to feature a capital ship or two. High guard actually seems to abstract the whole shooting/damage thing quite well, and I was going to just use the pre built capital ships, but building a couple would be awesome...

I 'd love to see a 30,000 ton carrier in action, and I know my players would love the thrill of seeing a capital ship vaporize one of their escorts in a single barrage.

Legend of Galactic Heroes always confused me.

The scale of the battles, the size of the ships and their incredible and terrifying fragility. No matter how big those ships are, it basically takes someone sneezing on them to cause such catastrophic damage that the whole ship detonates hilariously.

To be blunt, there is no armor, just slightly resilient tissue paper. It's so astonishingly delicate that any sort of crew safety measures are clearly ignored.

It seriously makes me wonder, with the huge amount of life and equipment lost, how the hell can they sustain that sort of warfare for a week, much less years like the anime suggests?


I will give them credit, they do show the fatal nature of interplanetary combat. It's easy to break stuff in space, and if you really wanted to demolish an enemy ship, all you need is a bucket full of nails chucked with decent accuracy. If a ship goes down, mortality is always 100%.

Consider what would have happened if one side decided employing drones instead of manned ships.

Needless to say, the anime was a standard 80's OVER THE TOP anime, and really wanted to earn it's edge rating.

>>43586868
>It seriously makes me wonder, with the huge amount of life and equipment lost, how the hell can they sustain that sort of warfare for a week, much less years like the anime suggests?

Essentially the entire economy of the FPA is geared toward fighting the war and even then the only reason they can sustain the economic burden is because the Goldenbaum Empire is administered so inefficiently. The Gaidens show that before Reinhard you only really got one or two of those huge, millions-of-deaths pitched space battles once or twice every generation before one of the sides just ran out of steam and both sides went back to buildup mode.

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>>43586527
I just had a breakthrough on this.

I'll use the entire gaming table, each vessel is represented in a miniature. 1 thrust can produce a vector of 1cm. Captains keep track of their current vector on spare paper, and the only thing that matters is the facing of the miniature/base.

So with some tape measures and a range system (adjacent: 0-½cm, short: ½-5cm, short 5-10cm, medium 10-25cm, long 25-50cm, very long 50-100cm, distant 100+cm) you can easily represent vector combat without worrying about running out of plotting paper or going off the edge of a whiteboard.

If a ship chooses to leave the table, it either has enough thrust to leave the battle completely, or the captain keeps track of the distance it has covered from the edge of the table. If someone on the table wishes to fire at them, measure to the edge of the table and add the distance that the captain of that vessel tells you

For the realists out there, I include a Z axis (up and down) abstracted into 6 levels. It takes 10cm to change 1 level vertically, and each level difference between you and your target adds 1 range band for targeting (so close becomes short, short becomes medium, etc.)

Vectors in the Z axis are also allowed, and the Z axis is tracked on spare paper.

So each captain must track:
>Vector (1 number - direction is given by miniature's facing)
>Z distance if necessary (measured from 0 where everyone starts)

not really that much to track on top of your usual vessels stats/weapons

I look forward to trying this out, will certainly make space combats much more interesting. to move a vessel you measure out the distance of your vector, place a marker, then decide your vector change, if any (up to your thrust) and move the mini to the new position.

Next step is trying out a capital ship combat...

>>43588112
Sounds kind of like these.
>>43574053
>>43573246
Destination markers are great as well if you don't have too many units on the field.

Full Thrust or GTFO

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>>43588375
yeah I'm using high guard / mongoose core. Just wanted Z axis as well. And worked out a decent scale for vectors on a 6' X 4' table.

Surely high guard can't be that bad to combat with, its just barrages and tracking damage. nothing too crazy, just got to have some quickref charts on barrages / damage etc.

I use a homebrew system that is simple as fuck, because I wanted a way for my group to simulate large space battles in 30 minutes to spice up my SW Saga campaign.

Here's an idea: forget about position entirely, only track vector and sector. Seriously, space is fucking huge and the only time anyone will ever give a fuck about distance is travel time and whether they outrange someone else's guns.

Example: (Earth orbit, +5, -2, +11) is a ship, "Earth Orbit" is a sector and the numbers are velocity relative to Earth (x, y, z). "Lunar Orbit" is +/-14 from "Earth Orbit" so any ship that reaches +/-14 in any vector can transfer.

An enemy ship is (Earth orbit, +3, +0, +11), giving it a relative vector of (-2, +2, +0), so any bullets impact at +4 damage and missiles with 3 fuel can hit for up to +7 damage. If you want to attack something in Lunar Orbit, you need to either move your ship there or have a missile with enough fuel to reach it from your current orbit.

That gives meaning and importance to speed, fuel, and distance wile being simple to keep track of and requiring no charts and maps besides a flowchart of movement costs between sectors. Hell, you don't even NEED 3 vectors, if you want to you can simplify it down to 2 or 1 for simpler calculations and navigation or up to whatever god-forsaken interdimensional bullshit you want.

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Why do people get so huffy about the 3rd dimension and then totally forget about gravity?

If people fight in space it's going to be over gravity wells and almost certainly IN gravity wells. The dynamics of surface-to-space weaponry and LEO defense fleets seeing the oncoming attackers for years or months (depending on whether you have FTL, torchships, whatever) are way more varied and interesting than if one ship is above or below another in an otherwise featureless rectangular prism.

Also missiles > lasers unless you're doing plantary bombardment.

>>43589152
>missiles

The thing that will be casually destroyed by lasers?

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>>43589152
Traveller has it gravity wells covered

Missiles are pretty meh. torpedoes fuck shit up but you need to fire a few to guarantee a hit. Particle Beams are where its at, fire a stream of accelerated subatomic particles, blasting apart a ship from long range and causing radiation damage to the crew of any lightly armored vessels (or vessels whose armor has been damaged enough)

Banks of triple turrets all with particle beams can be devastating, even at distant range.

>>43579717
yes, shock would not allow you to drag yourself nine times out of ten, but then again, spaceships shooting lasers at one another doesn't happen in real life either

>>43591173

That's only because we haven't mounted that new navy laser system on an orbital vehicle yet, though.

It's depressing that a request for a spaceship combat game gets like 3 actual, currently published options, and 15-20 options which are all 10+ years out of print.

>>43589299
If I recall correctly, Highguard lets you mount only one particle beam per turret?