Feedback after implementing Space Combat House Rules

[Dr. Bidlo]

Like many on this forum, I am a game rules tinker and sometimes I wonder if developing the rules is my primary enjoyment and playing might come in a close second.

Last night, I ran a capital ship battle involving a Victory II Star Destroyer (and its TIE fighter complement), a Carrack light cruiser, and an Intersector sloop against a Lucrehulk Battleship with a total of about 200 Vulture droid starfighters.

I was using several house rules:
1) Double ranges for all sensor modes except Focus
2) Modify energy weapon damage based on range: -2D at long range, -1D at medium range, no mods at short range, and +1D at point-blank
3) Decreased Fire Rate for Capital weapons - See CRMcNeill's rules elsewhere in this forum.
4) Requiring missile weapons to "Lock on" with a sensor Focus before firing at a target, otherwise Fire Control is 0D.
5) Difficulty to hit starfighter scale targets from Very Easy to Very Difficult (typically Capital shooting at starfighters)
6) Squadron Rules inspired by Star Warriors and other official and unofficial game mechanics (more on this in an upcoming post).
7) Mandatory Battery Fire / Combined actions for all weapons of the same type in the same fire arc.
8) Using full Shields code in all fire arcs and allowing shields taken down by Shields Blown to be brought back up with a Shields roll the following turn.
9) Expanded damage table with results chosen for 2D6 added

The first part of the game involved developing a battle plan scout the ship without being located and to devise a plan for a micro jump to exit hyperspace very close to the Lucrehulk to catch it unprepared. Here I used my simple house rules to double all sensor mode ranges (except for Focus). This was very easy, quick, and seamless. Without the increased sensor ranges, the scouts would have had to get way too close to the ship that was 'felt' right.

House Rule Feedback: Double ranges for all sensor modes except Focus - Worked Great!

After the scouts located the ship and retreated back, the Victory and Carrack jumped in close. Even jumping in close, using the modified damage rolls, required the ships to rethink their attack plan and required them to maneuver more and get closer. This combined with the reduced fire rate for their big guns, encouraged to players to hold fire until a critical time rather than just shooting every single weapon every single turn.

House Rule Feedback: Damage rolls modified by range and reduced fire rate for turbolasers - Both are fine when used independently, but amazing when used in conjunction.

When the Vulture starfighters swarmed the Imperials, I got a chance to use the modified ‘to hit’ difficulty at point-blank and rules for locking missile weapons as they skimmed the surface of the capital ships and launched their concussion missiles at close range. There were not enough TIE fighters to hold back the Vultures, so they were able to attack the capitals with impunity. I was using a standard Victory II per the RAW, so it had no point defense lasers. The carrack did have laser cannons, but instead of the standard 2D capital scale weapons, I had converted them to 4D starfighter scale damage, very similar to CRMcNeill’s standardized weapon and updated ship stat rules. The Victory was completely unable to do anything about the fighters, but they couldn’t hurt it either. The Carrack had the speed to get enough distance from the vultures for its starfighter scale laser cannons to rip them apart every round.

House Rule Feedback: Very Difficult difficulty to hit starfighter scale targets at point-blank range from Capital scale platforms (regardless of the scale of the weapon being fired) and requirement for sensor Focus to lock on to a target for missile weapons - It did stress the need for fighter screen, especially for slow ships against more threatening starfighters. I have been using the Lock-on rule long enough that I don’t even think about it anymore – it is just part of the game for me now. Both house rules worked beautifully.

There were several squadrons of TIE fighters and Vultures fighting. In the past, I had allowed the owning players to roll for the squadrons using the Combined actions rule, but it took forever and really dragged out the game, because it still required multiple actions and damage rolls. My system allows for a single D12 (admittedly unusual for Star Wars, but the 1-12 range with even distribution is what I needed for it to work) for each squadron’s Attack and Defense rolls, with the opportunity to concentrate on Attack or Defense at the expense of the other. These rolls give the number of hits against each squadron and there is a simple one die roll for each hit to determine if a fighter in the squadron is unaffected, damaged, or destroyed, with two damaged results equaling one destroyed.

House Rule Feedback: Starfighter squadron combat rules – This sped up the fighter combat A LOT and resulted in a really good balance. I had concerns that the squadrons would be wiped out in just a few rounds of combat, but this was not the case - there were several rounds where no fighters were hit on either side. I particularly liked that the TIE fighters with superior pilots fared much better against the low skill vultures. I also ended up using the quick damage rules from the squadron rules for hits from the capital ships to the starfighters later in the game when it was getting a bit late and I was trying to speed things up. I will definitely use the quick damage rolls against starfighters in the future, especially when there are lots of fighters because it picked up the pace. After all, who cares if a single starfighter in a large squadron gets its hyperdrive disabled after a hit?

I had started the game with the requirement for all weapons to fire as batteries using the Combined actions rules, but there were cases where this was tactically not the best option based on the number of weapons and the bonus thresholds. So, I allowed the players to chose if they shot as batteries, individually, or mix and match as they desired. Statistically it seems much better to fire individually because even with the modest die bonus provided by Combined Actions, the odds are better of getting a higher roll with more rolls of fewer dice. This resulted in the game drawing out more, so I am still not sure what to do.

House Rule Feedback: Mandatory Battery Fire / Combined actions for all weapons of the same type in the same fire arc – Combined actions seem less effective than rolling individual sots and damage rolls. The time savings of battery fire are not well translated using the RAW (IMO), so requiring platers to do it was a challenge. Has anyone else encountered this?

The battle among the capital ships lasted many rounds, with a nice ebb and flow with shields being knocked down and varies systems being chipped away a bit at a time, slowly making the ships less effective, as they suffered multiple lightly damaged results.

House Rule Feedback: Expanded Ship Damage Table – With multiple damage results, this made the damage less predictable and more impactful to the affected ship. It also added zero additional time or difficulty to implement, it is was a big win to use these expanded damage table.

The biggest concern was knocking down shields with the Shield house rule. The full Shields code was up on all fire arcs and even if they were knocked down with Shields Blown results, I allowed them to be brought up in a following turn as long as the shields were not specifically damaged with a light or heavy damaged result. There was a nice result where if the shields in a fire arc were reduced or knocked down, there was a sense of urgency to concentrate attacks on that fire arc before the shields were restored.

House Rule Feedback: Full Shields in all fire arcs and restorable after shields blown results – This gives ships with high Shields Codes much more survivability so makes shield much more valuable than in the RAW. However, it can be really difficult to hurt a ship with high Shields. However, in conjunction with the extra damage at point-blank, it made it even more important to get close and coordinate attacks and/ore use good tactics rather than just mindlessly shooting every round. I like the idea, but in practice it makes shield too powerful. I like the idea of recharging shields, but not fully the following round. I am thinking of making a maximum of 1D for the entire ship can be recharged each round, but I am open to suggestions.

Final Thoughts
I will continue to test out the House Rules and report on their effect. As I am running highly tactical Capital ship combats, I am looking for rules that enhance the experience, so it does not become monotonous, but it has to be easy to implement and speed up the action each round, not drag it down. So far, the house rules are working well, but as I stated above, a few need some adjustment still. I am open to feedback.

NOTE: Correction to damage modifiers by range, which previously had two different entries for medium range and incorrectly had short range and +1D and point-blank at +2D.

[CRMcNeill]

[Whill]

[Dr. Bidlo]

[Dr. Bidlo]

I am not quite sure how to respond to individual quotes, apparently... my responses are embedded in the quotes in every case except for the last

[CRMcNeill]