Matrix Games Forums

Some kind folks at the iWar discussion boards pointed me over here, as Starshatter's engine seems to be the best bet for doing what I want done.

I'm the publisher of a pen and paper boardgame of space combat called Attack Vector: Tactical. It's got 3-D spaceship combat, Newtonian movement, realistic weapons and physics and such.

I own the meshes (all done in Lightwave).

I'd love to see something akin to Star Fleet Command done for AV:T, where the game engine actually uses the same data the boardgame is driven off of.

Is this the place to start asking questions as to its feasability?

I did something close to that when I was fooling with the b5 mod, converting a turn based board game to a computer game.

IF you want to talk realtime about ss msn me at damoclesx@hotmail.com

also, any engine specific questions you dont get answered here ask the creator milo@starshatter.com

You could probably do it, but I wager there would be severe difficulty translating damage models.

I would dearly love to see a Hard sci-fi mod but there are a number of problems with SS as it stands

mainly Sensors/detection, Armor, fuel, and the AI cant handle "relistic" ranges

sensors/detection

um.. okay, I have made ships invisible until you are withing 15 km, ships with low acs, and what not, everthing thinkable I"ve done, even sensors that basically are on the fritz that barly work

fuel
um.. thats been in since day one.. for everything including missiles

armor
thats in too.. every subsystem has a hull/amor protection factor you can set


"relistic" ranges:)
in the andromeda mod I had the enemy fighting each other from 500km away, besides, who wants that? its not fun at all.

The sensor/detection model is very simplifyed and apart from the "DETET" attribute (which doesnt take into account the opponents sensor strength) was rather hard to balance...
Theres no bogeys, "real" active/passive radar....etc

Fuel is only for the powerplants.(burns at a fixed rate) no fuel mass is expended for manoeuvre no matter how fast or how long u accellerate for....

Armor is at best only guess work in the Def files...no facings and again hard to balance

agree that with a this sort of sim "relistic" ranges(1000s km) arenot much fun... ive never managed to get the Ai to do much at 200+ klicks anyways

Im not dissing SS i love it.....
Just pointing out that for a hard sci-fi sim... it would need some work imho

ORIGINAL: AdAstraGames

I'm the publisher of a pen and paper boardgame of space combat called Attack Vector: Tactical. It's got 3-D spaceship combat, Newtonian movement, realistic weapons and physics and such.

3-d?!? Something like 3-d chess in Star Trek? [:'(]

ORIGINAL: DamoclesX

"relistic" ranges:)
in the andromeda mod I had the enemy fighting each other from 500km away, besides, who wants that? its not fun at all.

Why not? I have had great fun with Starfleet Command and it uses "realistic" combat ranges (thousands of kilometers). Otherwise game is not very realistic: inertia is missing.

Some of the parameters in AV:T:

One hex is 20 km, weapon effective ranges go out to about 50-60 hexes.

Yes, it is 3-D, we've got some clever play aids and tools that make it very easy - most of them derived from quaternion transformations used for rotating objects in computer games.

Detection in space is very easy - space is cold, about 2-5K; spaceships with crews on them have to have parts of their hull at about 300 K. Switch to IR and even a ship that's powered down is visible.

Have it generating electrical power from an onboard reactor, and it will be generating a lot of waste heat. That heat needs to be radiated - space is a vacuum. That means that you have huge radiators running at about 1600 K exposing a few square kilometers of surface area, and will be visible with a telescope for at least an AU. (1 AU is 500 light seconds.)

Have it use its main drive engine in combat-mode (with quarter-gee thrusts) and the signature of its drive will be visible for about 6 AU.

More info on it is here:

http://www.adastragames.com/downloads/AVT_ToC.pdf

Having totally read your PDF file I think I have an idea of what your project is about. Too bad the PDF is not complete. I'd gladly like to read the complete version of it. Can I have the full PDF please?
It seems very seductive and it is a no-nonsense science fiction, that could be very funny to play.
Having played lots of wargames (space and other) and having mastered Starshatter I think this is the game for you.
According to your PDF, the only thing that isn't there are the heat sinks but I believe they can be easily modded and integrated in the game.
I am sure they can appear on the "engeneering section" and be somehow linked to the other systems.
One more thing, I'd love to know how your ships look like. Could you post us a pic here please?
Thanks in advance and good luck with your project!

=S=

http://www.adastragames.com/

pictures there

http://www.adastragames.com/products/adastra/sits.html



That's AMAZING! Put me down for one!

Having totally read your PDF file I think I have an idea of what your project is about. Too bad the PDF is not complete. I'd gladly like to read the complete version of it. Can I have the full PDF please?

I am afraid that the full rules are the bulk of the reason to buy the product, so I don't give them away - unlike a computer game, where the documentation can (sadly) be seen as an "add it in if we have time", for a wargame, an 80 page rulebook is the bulk of the "perceived value" in the box.

Before you go into the "information wants to be free" or "It would be great marketing for your game" arguments - I've heard them. I have a business to run, the risks are mine to take and this is one I choose to avoid at the moment.

It seems very seductive and it is a no-nonsense science fiction, that could be very funny to play.
Having played lots of wargames (space and other) and having mastered Starshatter I think this is the game for you.

Have your ead the other downloads in the download library? There are class histories, a flyer that explains how we do 3-D in 2 pages, star maps and more.

For the person asking about what the ships look like, there's a desktop wallpaper in the download library that should serve nicely.