Is BL (and, I suppose BR) the only source for advanced ship combat?
- Thread starter whartung
- Start date
ChaserCaffey
SOC-12
There actually are rules for missiles and other energy weapons in the TNE main book- pp. 316-317 have information on how to hit with them, the penetration rules for particle accelerators are right under lasers on pg. 320, and once you're through armor everything uses the same damage rules. It's all there (if a bit buried)
Having said that, the rules that are there for starship combat aren't particularly good. If you think you want to run space combat, Brilliant Lances is probably a good investment- it's much clearer, has things laid out more, and is usually considered one of the better tabletop space warfare games out there.
Of course, playing out the trader versus pirate can take 30 minutes of setup, and 60 minutes of play... for a net result little different from the rules in the rulebook.
Usefulness of BL depends upon a library of ready sheets, and a willingness of the players to be slaved to a map.
It's the SFB of 2d newtonian space combat...
Usefulness of BL depends upon a library of ready sheets, and a willingness of the players to be slaved to a map.
It's the SFB of 2d newtonian space combat...
Well, as Aramis said, BL is fairly complex - especially the damage system, which is very detailed. Not quite SFB, though - I would say it is roughly equivalent to Classic BattleTech in complexity. If you want battles between starships as tactical games, you should buy it. BL is suitable for battles between ships of up to ~1000 tons - it can handle ships of a few thousand tons, but gets really cumbersome at that point.
BR, on the other hand, is a different beast. It is meant for battles between large combat ships from several thousand tons upwards. The rules are a lot more simple than in BL - no need to record damage on a complex datasheet.
BR is a pure tactical game in itself. You probably won't need it for RPG purposes, but if you enjoy tactical space combat games, you might want to check it out.
Regards,
Tobias
P.S.: Aramis, is your site down? Speaking of ship combat reminded me that you had some MT ship combat stuff I had been meaning to archive...
BR, on the other hand, is a different beast. It is meant for battles between large combat ships from several thousand tons upwards. The rules are a lot more simple than in BL - no need to record damage on a complex datasheet.
BR is a pure tactical game in itself. You probably won't need it for RPG purposes, but if you enjoy tactical space combat games, you might want to check it out.
Regards,
Tobias
P.S.: Aramis, is your site down? Speaking of ship combat reminded me that you had some MT ship combat stuff I had been meaning to archive...
ChaserCaffey
SOC-12
BL is highly complex. OTOH, I've never played it with the "control panels" they included with the game- just noted down damage and a few other things on a sheet of paper and gone with it. It means a bit of flipping during play, but it's worth it to save the time needed to set up the control panels. Similarly, I've never used the "Active/Passive" counters, the "Array Extended" counters, or anything like that- just noted them down as needed.
If you used the control panels and all the counters and such, like at a tournament game, I can see it slowing down considerably, and that's a point I hadn't considered. I still maintain that it's not as bad as SFB, though.
If you used the control panels and all the counters and such, like at a tournament game, I can see it slowing down considerably, and that's a point I hadn't considered. I still maintain that it's not as bad as SFB, though.
macquibban
SOC-5
As a Space Combat System for a Role playing I really like it lots I had spent some/allot of time Creating spread sheets that Speeded up the Game (Wife daughter now what happened to my Spare time 
)
It gave lots of detail on Damage to ship what broke and what needed fixing on players ship.
Can be Time Consuming A Hunt for a Zhodani Scout once took players a number of hours play setting up passive sensors and dodging Missiles left in space linked to Zhodani Passive Sensors the emotion build up was rather good.
Then again 3 Patrol Cruisers taking on a Zhodani 1000 tonner was over in 15 minutes (Goodbye Patrol Cruisers ). It is how I think space Combat would go. Smart Missiles, Stealth, Tactics Sensors Like Modern Ship/Sub Warefare ( not the Star Wars )
For my 23 odd Years of Gaming with lots of wargaing /Roleplaying and BoardGaming
I thought was a good package.But each to there own
My Combat system of Choice
Triple Lasers Nah Put in a single bigger laser
)It gave lots of detail on Damage to ship what broke and what needed fixing on players ship.
Can be Time Consuming A Hunt for a Zhodani Scout once took players a number of hours play setting up passive sensors and dodging Missiles left in space linked to Zhodani Passive Sensors the emotion build up was rather good.
Then again 3 Patrol Cruisers taking on a Zhodani 1000 tonner was over in 15 minutes (Goodbye Patrol Cruisers ). It is how I think space Combat would go. Smart Missiles, Stealth, Tactics Sensors Like Modern Ship/Sub Warefare ( not the Star Wars )
For my 23 odd Years of Gaming with lots of wargaing /Roleplaying and BoardGaming
I thought was a good package.But each to there own
My Combat system of Choice
Triple Lasers Nah Put in a single bigger laser
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Use the Battle Rider vector movement system instead of the control panel based version in Brilliant Lances, I've found that tis speeds up things a little.
Another alternative is to laminate the maps and use the LBB2/Triplanetary system of drawing the vectors on the map.
It's easy to make notes on the map for things like sand, active/passive status etc.
Another alternative is to laminate the maps and use the LBB2/Triplanetary system of drawing the vectors on the map.
It's easy to make notes on the map for things like sand, active/passive status etc.
It's been 10 years, so bear with me...
Isn't the primary difference between BR and BL movement basically that BL works with a "12 sided hex" whereas BR is your classic six?
As I recall BL had the ability to have 12 facings, and move along the grain, with a little indicator to tell you which hex you were going to move into next.
The other thing that it had was the ability to alter facing depending on how long your were thrusting. If you used up all of your G-Turns of thrust, then the ships facing was along the vector, but if you used less, you were able to change the ship facing (I don't recall how much thrust you had to save to let you change facing arbitrarily).
But, back to BR, I recall BR being quite similar to generic Mayday.
Is sharing of contact information a basic TNE rule, or one from BL? Does either system allow for hand off of missile control from one ship to another? Something like that?
Isn't the primary difference between BR and BL movement basically that BL works with a "12 sided hex" whereas BR is your classic six?
As I recall BL had the ability to have 12 facings, and move along the grain, with a little indicator to tell you which hex you were going to move into next.
The other thing that it had was the ability to alter facing depending on how long your were thrusting. If you used up all of your G-Turns of thrust, then the ships facing was along the vector, but if you used less, you were able to change the ship facing (I don't recall how much thrust you had to save to let you change facing arbitrarily).
But, back to BR, I recall BR being quite similar to generic Mayday.
Is sharing of contact information a basic TNE rule, or one from BL? Does either system allow for hand off of missile control from one ship to another? Something like that?
