I'd vote for nations.  After all...if IS expands to Mars, Venus, the Jovian Sphere, etc...then the earthers will be out to kick butt, especially on Mars. :twisted:

Of course...we have to get through the bad guy fleets first....  :wink:

Ping once, Vassily...just a placemarker to remind me to check in on this tomorrow....

Many of the conversions and campaign mechanics are pretty straightforward and are honestly not too far off from what you saw with Starmada. There is a lot less special equipment so we may have to tone down the tech rules in some areas.

Right now the Merchant Wars really focuses on new equipment (which I can exploit in the tech rules), and a string of conflicts over materials and claims. We could use a solar system nodal map for this, and just set a time limit to control the most possessions and scoring damage. It wouldn't be a traditional campaign, but a fun place to make strategic decisions and play Iron Stars.

The real campaigns would probably require us to map pseudo maps for europe and the rest of the world so these ships could actually fight over the places that produce man and materials for these ships. Of course this all gets very interesting once we introduce other inter-stellar powers.

    -Jay

Now here is an idea. Maybe to couple the ideas for the "larger" scope of the next Iron Stars stage with campaign rules in a single volume...

That may set up the capacity needed for exploration, colonization, alien encounters, national clashes, etc. that VBAM would foster and provide a setting/flow for how that would play out?

This will not be hard to scale depending on the scope of the game. With just the Merchant Wars we can do turns in weeks, and focus on the strategic manuevering over economic management of a campaign. Larger campaigns would return to normal VBAM scale. What future conflicts do I have to look forward too, actually human vs human ground battles?

Ah, that is the standard VBAM NDA to let you into the playtesting group available here: http://www.vbamgames.com/playtesting/

This is for all of our new games, from VBAM: IS to the new board game line.

   -Jay

..thinks a moment....

Whaaa?

I have no idea how I got invoked here...
:-)

<curly voice> Oooooooohhh....<\curly voice>

...aaahhh, I see it. Nope, that wasn't me.

I do enough hare-brained things of my own, it'd be selfish to claim the actions of others as my own....
:-)

Seems that there would be need be three levels of combat to worry about.  Ground level, atmospheric, and Aether...

But definitely interested in being able to run a combined arms campaign...though as Dan said...timeline is an issue.

Steam Mechs...and Diesel powered too.

*just waits for someone to mention steam mecha again.*

Cool...gotta do that whole conquistador thing... :twisted:

I'd like to see an 'Aeronef' version, and something to 'convert' between Grand Fleets and Iron Stars (or a Surface Fleet version of Iron Stars.

I"ve ..um...got some 'mecha' for Iron Stars....
:-)

Look at that nice big aiming point! *chuckles*  Looks pretty good Mike.  :wink:

Sorry for the absence....

Layoffs slated here at work (eeeekkkkkk) and assorted family issues have kept me out of the loop.

I would LOVE to help here.  Just let me know how I could contribute.  Fed my ego a little to see The Merchant Wars is still alive at some of the online shops, and got a new favorable blurb at rpgnow

Matt