• Registered: 2005-04-25
  • Posts: 71

Topic: Tabletop MOO and Abstract Tactical Movement

Fair warning.  I'm going to ramble a bit.  What I'd really love to see is a solitaire tabletop galactic conquest game.  Basically a Masters of Orion on the tabletop.  Start with one star system and expand out and see what is out there.  And tactical ship battles when you run into other ships.  Something like a solitaire dungeon with random generation.  A Citadel of Blood with starships.  Orcs are optional. 

I've been thinking some of both the strategic and tactical parts of this and here's one thing I've come up with on the tactical end that is working for me (right now).  The one thing I've found tedious with solo gaming ship combat is movement.  Maybe that's just me.  But after blenderizing various thoughts the idea I had was why not simplify movement to range bands or areas.  I call this Abstract Tactical Movement and below are the area names and range mods I'm using:

Area                      Range Mod
Enemy Support            +2
Enemy Battle               +1
Enemy Screen              +0.5
Screen                         +0.5
Battle                          +1
Support                       +2

You only count the range mods of the areas you are firing through and into, not the one you are in and round down.  And the Range Mods are for an Iron Stars variant I'm working on.  Not sure where or if to post about that.  But for example a ship in your Screen area firing at a ship in the Enemy Screen area would have a mod of +0.5 rounding down to 0.  A ship in your Battle area firing into the enemy Battle Area would have a mod of (+0.5 +0.5 +1) = +2 total.  Mods probably should be different for Starmada.  Last night I used this in an engagement between a Soviet cruiser and an American cruiser protecting a freighter.  Went fairly well.  Just my 2 cents on what I'd like to see and a piece of that puzzle that may fit.  Your mileage may vary.

  • Registered: 2005-03-29
  • Posts: 330

Re: Tabletop MOO and Abstract Tactical Movement

This is a pretty cool concept for resolving large battles without having to move 'hundereds' of ships.

-Bren

  • Registered: 2005-04-25
  • Posts: 71

Re: Tabletop MOO and Abstract Tactical Movement

It's working out ok so far.  Although I've only used it in 3 battles.  I'm using it in a setting where the Soviets and Americans did more space exploration and the Soviet Union still survives.  I'm using Iron Stars as a base with missiles and anti missile defense.  Largest battles has had 3 frigates in the screen and a cruiser in the battle area on each side.  I've played through it twice.  So far I'm happy with it, but I'm thinking that maybe the Area Movement would be better if it became a grid with a Left, Right and Center for each Area.  Right now it's very easy for the entire task force to pick out one ship to hammer on.  Although the Grid idea would probably only work for larger battles.  More ruminating required.

  • Registered: 2005-03-29
  • Posts: 330

Re: Tabletop MOO and Abstract Tactical Movement

Good to hear that it's working.  I think the idea of having flanks to each range band would be a cool addition.  Of course, I haven't tried it yet so I might be way off...

-Bren

  • Registered: 2009-02-24
  • Posts: 4

Re: Tabletop MOO and Abstract Tactical Movement

Hey all... I'm new to Starmada, first time poster, yay!

Anyway, MOO2 was fantastic, loved it, too bad GalCiv hasn't measured up. As for a table top MOO2, great idea! I'd love to see what you have as far as the strategic game goes too.

Questions regarding your range bands... How exactly does the resulting range mod affect combat? Is this modifying your to-hit number? So at max range, Support to Support, you'd be at +5 to hit or something?

Sorry if that's a dumb question, I'm still reading the rules.

  • Registered: 2005-04-25
  • Posts: 71

Re: Tabletop MOO and Abstract Tactical Movement

Yeah it would be +5 to hit.  But I've been using this so far on a variant of Iron Stars.  The modifiers would have to be changed for Starmada.  I haven't sat down yet to think about what they should be for Starmada.


Morrigan wrote:

Hey all... I'm new to Starmada, first time poster, yay!

Anyway, MOO2 was fantastic, loved it, too bad GalCiv hasn't measured up. As for a table top MOO2, great idea! I'd love to see what you have as far as the strategic game goes too.

Questions regarding your range bands... How exactly does the resulting range mod affect combat? Is this modifying your to-hit number? So at max range, Support to Support, you'd be at +5 to hit or something?

Sorry if that's a dumb question, I'm still reading the rules.

  • Registered: 2009-02-24
  • Posts: 4

Re: Tabletop MOO and Abstract Tactical Movement

Could you give me a few more details on how you are using this area range band system? Specifically:
1) can ships changes bands during a battle? if so, how do you determine how many bands they can move, is it based on ship speed at all?
2) can ships move into enemy bands during a battle?
3) for starmada, how would you factor in the fact that battery X can fire 18 hexes while battery Y might only fire 12? Maybe every 6 hexes of range equals one range band? ugh, i'm making it messy.

Regarding a Starmada version of this... I don't really see a sensible mathy way to do it for Starmada. Seems one would be better off taking the positional difference and just charting it like :
0 to 1 bands = -1 to hit
2 to 3 bands = 0 to hit
4 to 5 bands = +1 to hit

  • Registered: 2005-03-29
  • Posts: 330

Re: Tabletop MOO and Abstract Tactical Movement

Morrigan wrote:

Could you give me a few more details on how you are using this area range band system? Specifically:
1) can ships changes bands during a battle? if so, how do you determine how many bands they can move, is it based on ship speed at all?

I would say they could as long as their movement is up to a certain value (say 3 MP per band - round down).  If the ship doesn't have 3, it must roll to see if it can.  The other way you can do it is that MP give a ship a bonus to shields since the higher the MP value, the more it can zip around in the range band staying out of trouble.

Morrigan wrote:

2) can ships move into enemy bands during a battle?
3) for starmada, how would you factor in the fact that battery X can fire 18 hexes while battery Y might only fire 12? Maybe every 6 hexes of range equals one range band? ugh, i'm making it messy.

You could use the short range band for all weapons as a guide.  Say a weapon can fire 18 hexes away, it could fire 5 range bands away in the abstract system (since it own band 'counts' for range purposes).  Of course, that puts a lot of weight on those long range guns, but that might not be a bad thing considering the cost one pays for them.  I guess it depends on the amount of bookkeeping you want to handle.

-Bren