Fast, Furious and Fun starship combat

[Amra]

Hello all,

Given the huge amount of official, semi-official and fannon material for Traveller, I figure there must have been at least a few quick, abstract starship combat systems written for traveller over the years.

I'm asking for any links or leads to very quick and simple starship combat rules. I'm not interested in anything that needs any kind of mapping or miniatures.

Thanks

 

[ShapeShifter]

ULTRA-SIMPLE SHIP COMBAT RULES:

Pilot or Ship's Boat skill (1 to 5)x2 plus...
Ship's speed rating (1 to 10) plus...
Ships manoeuvre rating (1 to 10) plus...
Ship's firepower rating (1 to 10) plus...
1d100 roll = result.

Whoever rolls highest has blasted his opponent into atoms!


Knock yourself out, champ!

EDIT: Argh! How could I have forgotten about armour/shields??? *facepalm*
In the Flash Gordon serial (1936) such a technology was charmingly called "Resisto-Force".
Let's say that Protection Rating is also a scale of 1-10, where each point denies the opponent 5 points of his roll.

 

[Amra]

That's the spirit!

Do you use anything as a guide for the 1-10 spread in each category or purely make it up?

 

[Scarecrow]

Something I love (but have actually yet to try properly) is Mike 'Pfr Fate' Callahan's Red Alert Start Trek ship combat for Savage Worlds.

Red Alert by Mike Callahan

The key philosophy behind it is that like the TV series, starship combat is character driven from the Bridge. Therefore, no miniatures and no complex energy point allocation etc.
It simplifies the ships down to half a dozen types and simplifies weapons to phaser and torpedo. On it's turn, a ship gets to fire and perform an action. That action might be to close/open range, repair ship or shields, evasive maneouvre etc etc. The player who's character fills the relevant department role on the bridge/ship gets to roll for the action.
Multiple actions can be taken but at a -2 per extra action.

Simple and brilliant. I'd love to convert this for use in systems like Classic Traveller but it would, I think require some work.

Crow

 

[ShapeShifter]

That's the spirit!

Do you use anything as a guide for the 1-10 spread in each category or purely make it up?

Upon seeing your post, I composed it in 20-30 seconds. It can certainly be customised ad gustum.

1=very poor rating; 10=superb rating; 5 mediocre rating. Simple.
You can designate a particular ship any rating as desired, or do a random roll.
You could add rules for crew contributions (engineering skill, gunnery skill, etc.).
Ideally, the bigger the ship, the lower the manoeuvre rating.
Every so many turrets could add a point to the firepower rating.

E.g. a huge capital ship from Star Wars would have a very high firepower rating, but a miserably low manoeuvre rating, and so on.

 

[Amra]

Something I love (but have actually yet to try properly) is Mike 'Pfr Fate' Callahan's Red Alert Start Trek ship combat for Savage Worlds.

Red Alert by Mike Callahan

The key philosophy behind it is that like the TV series, starship combat is character driven from the Bridge. Therefore, no miniatures and no complex energy point allocation etc.
It simplifies the ships down to half a dozen types and simplifies weapons to phaser and torpedo. On it's turn, a ship gets to fire and perform an action. That action might be to close/open range, repair ship or shields, evasive maneouvre etc etc. The player who's character fills the relevant department role on the bridge/ship gets to roll for the action.
Multiple actions can be taken but at a -2 per extra action.

Simple and brilliant. I'd love to convert this for use in systems like Classic Traveller but it would, I think require some work.

Crow

Considering the title of the thread it makes sense someone would post Savage Worlds rules.

Although I'm not a fan of Savage Worlds, the Red Alert rules are definitely the sort I'm looking for; I was hoping that there was something like that done for Traveller already but I may have to cobble something together myself.

To that end; I've been collecting simple starship rules lately (nWoD Infinite Macabre, Mini Six, GURPS 3e Space Opera Combat System, etc).

 

[robject]

ULTRA-SIMPLE SHIP COMBAT RULES:

I'll take a page from that and make it more complicated

Somewhat Less Than Ultra Simple Ship Combat

1. Orders. At the beginning of each round, each player simultaneously discloses his ship's acceleration and agility (see note below about how agility here differs from High Guard's definition). The starting range is 7.

2. Move. The ship with the higher acceleration chooses whether to close range by 1, increase range by 1, or stay the same. If the range exceeds 12, combat is ended.

3. Attack. The ships attack simultaneously. Each roll:

2D (NOTE: if you roll a natural 2, stop.  A roll of 2 always misses.)
+ Pilot Skill 
+ Attacking Battery Factor 
- Target Ship Agility 
- Target Ship Armor (or applicable defense)
- Range.

4. Resolve Damage. Index the results against the damage table:

<0 no damage

0-4 minor damage 
(surface hit; a battery factor damaged, ship depressurized, etc)

5-9 major damage 
(interior hit; fuel, drives, or crew damaged)

10-14 ship incapacitated 
(e.g. fuel tanks shattered, power plant slagged, hull structure compromised).  
The attacker has won, if not incapacitated.

15+ ship destroyed. 
The attacker has won, if not incapacitated.

5. Back to Step 1.


Assumptions, from Traveller.

• You know your pilot's skill level.
• You know your ship's maneuver drive acceleration rating in G's.
• You've used High Guard as a guide to determine your ship's battery factors and armor factor.
• For our purposes, spine attack factors are the weapon's letter in e-hex; thus a Particle Accelerator L is considered Factor-20.
• Agility is different from High Guard: it is the amount of maneuver not being used in the current turn to change distance.

 

[HiverLord]

I'll take a page from that and make it more complicated

Somewhat Less Than Ultra Simple Ship Combat

QUOTE]

Nicely done!

 

[Amra]

I'll take a page from that and make it more complicated

Somewhat Less Than Ultra Simple Ship Combat

QUOTE]

Nicely done!

Agreed. I'm going to have to look up the High Guard battery and armor factors to sort it out.

I like that it draws off of actual Traveller ship stats, that is ideal. I'd like a system that mirrors the likely results of the full rules, but does so in a much simpler way.

 

[mike wightman]

If you want to role play it then you need something for each player to get involved with.

Take a look at the ship's boat skill in LBB1 and extrapolate from there for other skills.