GamingGlen wrote:Way too complex. It will never get off the ground. Start simple, add complexity later.
Well, mine is more of an operational-level campaign with some thoughts regarding extending it towards the strategic level--basically, it was an attempt to provide a framework for some operational-level campaigns in my settings, particularly my 'The Gift of the Custodians' setting. It is also designed to have some modularity--you can, for example, just use the Free Supply Route if you want and ignore the other supply rules.
I would not tie FTL movement to thrust rating. You could have an sovereignty-wide TL rating for hyperdrives (ships can move 2 - (upper limit) hexes/areas when in supply).
I disagree here. For the settings I'm envisioning, linking operational/strategic map speed to thrust rating ensures you don't have an absurd scenario where a force, completely made up of speed-1 ships, can maintain contact with a force with the slowest ship having a speed of 3. Now, where FTL speed is not linked to STL speeds, the above would work. I might add a secondary movement option for those settings.
Supply: use the good ole Zone of Control, either a ship is in supply or not. It is in supply if it can trace through any number of hexes free of enemy units or their uncontested ZOC back to a supply depot. You could tie strategic movement to supply status: out of supply: can move 1 hex, in supply: move multiple hexes.
Other effects of being out of supply: when entering a tactical combat, mark 1 damage to each system (Thrust, Weapons, ECM, Shield), lose 1/3 of any munitions, increase chance of damage to equipment by one level (treat Reinforced as Normal, Normal as Fragile).
ZOC: every ship, with CRAT>0, exerts a ZOC into the hex it is in and, if equipped with a hyperdrive, any adjacent hex.
That is what the Free Supply Route was for--and it models the increase in difficulty of having to supply units over increasing distances without being too much of a burden. A force six hexes away from its base requires 250% the supplies of a force sitting at home, which represents the additional freighters, tankers and so on needed.
However, I might increase the gap to every two hexes as it might get a bit too prohibitive.
Planets: Too much detail. I suppose if you have dirt lovers (Generals) among your players they might like ground combat detail. Starmada is for space combat and that's why most of us play it. Treat the planet as one space. It has a rating for supply: supply depot or not; all ground forces are grouped with one value, and any invasion is one value. Depending on scale, they could either all fight to the death on one turn, or it may take several turns doing x% damage to each other.
I know your group loves space combat, but others want to have other settings like naval or ground settings, and my campaign rules are designed to try and be inclusive, so that 'dirt lovers' can have a ground forces campaign, or wet navy admirals can game a Russo-Japanese War-type setting. Again, I'm thinking of 'TGOTC', as I'd quite like to go for a mini-campaign with a major power attempting to conquer a smaller power, and that includes naval and ground forces.
You did not cover orbital bombardment.
Ah, now we're talking...
I forgot about bombardment rules because it can be quite difficult to model if we go too far into detail (i.e., what effect would a BAS 2, Double Damage weapon do?). BUT, if we go with a rating based upon the CRat (maybe 1 bombardment point per 25 CRat), then roll 2d6 to work out the loss in productivity (both permanent and temporary), then that could work, and would mean carriers, with a high CRat, would excel in the bombardment role. Working out how to do bombardment when there's defensive works still in place could be difficult (unless we state that the attackers have to clear the defensive forces before bombardment could take place)
Add in a rule for fly-by bombardments (primarily for space-based settings)--maybe halve the effectiveness--and that sorts that out.
Too much detail on shipyards and repair.
I must say I did get carried away there with the construction rules, but there are two ways of calculating repair time--and I prefer the 'alternate' one--the first one was the one I initially wrote, but when compiling the construction rules I realised that you could build some ships quicker than repairs took... :oops:
The reserve and mothballed units were there to enable players to have additional forces at their disposal, and again to enable the extension of this draft into a more strategic-level setting--as were the rest of the rules.
Games to look at:
Imperium, Fifth Frontier War (these two are Traveller related);
Twilight Imperium;
Space Empires 4X (a new board game, first published in 2011, I just got.)
Unlikely--funds are not that extendable. I've got VBAM, and was quite active before they announced the 2nd edition, and I stopped because I didn't want to get too involved in a system that would be supplanted. My experiences with VBAM has shaped some of my campaign views, I suppose...:)
), but I think it was both for his games, as some of them used those maps, and to provide a reasonably modular system for those of us who haven't got the space for miniatures or terrain features (me, for example, so you can tell why I like 'em--when I eventually get round to it, I might be able to game out a scenario from 'The Gift of the Custodians').