Massive Space Battles...

[Trusty]

How do you all run them, if you do, in your campaign.
If you have two fleets going head to head, say , PC fleet verses Imperial fleet...

What we do is first make tactics and command rolls, then what I do as GM is modify the difference between the higher and lower rolls. Meaning, if the Imperial beats both rolls by, say, two and three, I give the Imperials a +5, if the PC team wins, I give them the difference. If one beats one roll and the other wins the other, I give them their mdifies that way.

Then, we break it down into ships and squadrons and declare the actions of every ship and every squadron and any over run we may have, and then go to the next.

Fighters and picket ships are the easy parts. To consolidate rolls, if there are 24 fighters on 24 fighters, then we roll either 4 or six times and make the roll count for either 4 or 6 fighters...depending on how fast we want to move.

The hard parts is adding up the multiple shot penality from the surronding Capital ships...but then it is just - xD or whatever...but when it is Cap ship broadside versesd Cap ship broadside...could be up to sixty guns facing off each other...

So if thirty are firing all at once, I allow for the Cap Ship Gunners and the Pilots to roll with zero die penality. We know a capital ship isn't going to be able to zip through space dodging firing while trying to bring their own guns to bear, so I don't penalize either side. The justification is each gunner(s) has their own gun and if they only take one shot a piece, there can be no penality...Unless each gun fires more than once.

Likewise, there is no die penality to dodge all the shots because the justification of avoiding those shots is how well the pilots brought the ship along side to return fire while avoiding the opponet's broadside. Also, to consolidate 30 rolls or whatever, we do 5, 10, or even only 3 and make them count by however many we divided by. Usually the PCs want to make the most rolls, they usually don't want one roll to count for 10 shots as if they hit, that'd mean 10 hits....But as GM I go easy and allow for however many they wish to roll and make them count for.

But that is how I handle Cap ship battles...Gunners verses the pilots...not in the dodge sense though, but the pilot's skills to bring their ship to bear at an angle or whatever to avoid the incoming fire...and then vice versa when it is the opponet's turn to return fire.

Some ships have to make six passes or so, some go up after then first turn...you never know, but that is part of the fun.

Any other ideas?

P.S. Anyone crazy enough to go against a Victory Star Destroyer with 20 torpedo tubes per angle is either really brave, or really stupid...better be good pilots...That thing, depending on your ships hull and shields, is scarier than an Imperial Star Destroyer...Because Turblasers with only 5-7D damage ain't gonna take a Cap Ship with 5-6D hull and 2-3D shields...
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[Jedi Skyler]

Man... You've got that pretty well hammered out!

That's a good idea for shortening game play, and you're decent enough to let the players decide if they'd rather roll or get more playing in.

I've never personally been through a large scale space battle. I think the most ships we've ever had fighting at once on either side was five or six.

[Volar the Healer]

Generally I, as Director, script the battles; what will happen if the players don't do something about it. Then sit back to see what the players will do. We roll all of the player's rolls per the rules along with their opponent's and see what happens.

In battle, I tend to let the dice fall where they do. Without the risk of failure, there is no hope of glory. But players who distinguish themselves gain honour. The military types get medals and maybe a promotion, while "rebels" get thanks, a "favor", and maybe a bonus.

The battle I enjoy the most are the ones where the players change everything. I remember during The Empire Invades Earth campaign when the PCs flew a captured tyderium shuttle to a US Air Force base...but that's another story...
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[Gry Sarth]

I feel that an epic battle is so much bigger than a single player's actions that there's really no need to roll the encounter. Let me explain. The players can only interfere so much in the grand scheme of the battle. So what I do is assess the two sides, their firepower, command structure, morale, etc, and estimate how the battle would flow if the players weren't there. Then I decide on some key elements the players might affect, and estimate what the grand result of that will be. Example: I decide that if the players manage to bring the Victory SD's shields down in 10 rounds, then the Nebulon B will be able to finish it, otherwise it will be destroyed. And so on. Then I just keep throwing fighters at them and see how well they deal with them, and which key elements they manage to accomplish, and thus it adds up to a certain outcome of the battle.

One thing I did once to simulate the battle without player influence, is replicate the battle in X-Wing Alliance, which let's you customize missions. I ran the battle a couple of times, and so I decided what was likely to happen, and which key elements could be exploited. One of the Nebulon-B Frigates in the game even did something really strange, which I decided was a great battle maneuver and called it a "Mynock Maneuver". It consists of hugging a Star Destroyer so close that only a few of its weapons can fire at you, and you can try and disable those guns. If you manage to destroy it, you make a quick micro-jump to hyperspace in order to escape the blast.
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"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."

[Trusty]

The thing is though, in our "infinities" campaign, it is set up to have our hero's be the HEROS. Know what I mean? They are the grand scheme.

Scripting the battle would just piss them off since it is their fleet. So that could work with other gaming groups probably, but not really ours. They take it personally when 6 of my Tie Fighters take out 6 of their X Wings...They want it to go quick, but you have the rules...but a capital ship may have 40 people "piloting" it. So it is better to roll without the multiple action penalities...becasue a broadside of a cap ship can pack 20-30 guns...with independent operators...so they get full rolls...so you give the cap ship pilots their full rolls and it becomes who shot better or worse than the pilots bring/brought their ship about to handle the fire...

Now for starfighters...the rules work fine except you roll for X amount instead of simply 1...when you have 96 fighters verses 108 you have to.
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[Jedi Skyler]

[K_Feldspar]

I will script massive npc fleet operations. I do some dice rolling during play to see if any of the units should do something extra spectacular. If the PCs bring a large fleet to bear then they better be ready for all the rolling. Then of course I'm rolling a lot for the enemy fleet as well. Usually my PCs don't have the resources to interact with large scale fleet movements, however. I usually give them a base of operations, and a couple of smaller capital ships. Once I even gave them a squadron of X-wings. I think I made each player roll for one of their npc pilots in that case.

[Jedi Skyler]

That's cool. You've GOT to keep them involved; having them roll NPC actions is a great way to do that. Helps keep them from getting bored and getting the feeling like they're reading a book, rather than participating in a real adventure.

[Trusty]

Yes, they should roll for their npc's. That was my point. My players would hate it if I did the rolls, or decided that "you got whipped" or even "you won easily without losses" and just scripted it. They understand the scope of our campaign, they wouldn't have it any other way even if it takes a while.

That said, rolling every single one isn't neccessary though. You divide it up.
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[Jedi Skyler]

Exactly. That's where the GM has to be in-tune enough with his players to know how much rolling they'll appreciate doing, how much will bore them to tears, and how much they'd like to have scripted. Also, this dynamic will change mid-game sometimes, so the GM has to be adept at reading them so he can change from having them make all these rolls to paring it down a bit so they retain their excitement for the game.

[Trusty]

[garhkal]

Well said. I even script out big battles, with more than one outcome...

EG players are on the rebel base, being attacked by the imps.

They get a respite. If they can sneak into the imperial base, and take out their comm shack AND walkers (hmm, remember this?!?!? 8) 8) 8) 8) ) then the next time the imps come a calling, the rebels will finally win.
If they only destroy the walkers, then it makes the battle a lot bloodier, but still will be a rebel victory (though with less than a dozen out of 100 or so, how much of one could you call it).
If they only managed to take out the comm shack, the imperials will win, but it will be costly for them.
If they fail to take out either, then the imperials wipe the floor with the rebels...
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[Jedi Skyler]

[garhkal]

Yup... 8)
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[Jedi Skyler]

But at least you give them that chance to even things up a little, or to totally kick some Imp booty! Some GMs would just let em suffer...