OBT Forum

I like the idea of Gun Belts. I'd throw in a tonnage to belt requirement. Say 1 belt for every 500k tons. Just threw that out there for example. Critical damage would be increased and armor protection could be effected.

I originally came up with the idea whilst building a non-BT AU where the current world powers, I think its the top 30 begin colonising and taking thier problems into space.  The UN sponsored program gets the worlds closest to home, and although successful can never reach and effective consensus on how to act as a group and is outpaced by the single nation programs.

The WarShip designs were first based on the details from Janes Fighting Ships of World War I, in a double the mass and go from thier conversion, with the extra mass allowing for Hyper drives, Turret Belts etc.  This meant that WarShips were never bigger than 200 000 tons and thier mass/volume was a little more realistic than BT's.

Space travel came about once humanity reached the Periodic Table's man made element's Island of Stability, where it is hypothosied that stable super-heavy elements will exisit see Wikipedia for a breakdown).  Three elements are found which bring about the space race.  Serenium, Gravitium and Hyperion.  Serenuium (Atomic Number 176) is the elment that becomes the core of armour and warhead technology, know for its strength and ability to alloy with other metals. Gravitium (AN 186), when formed into a "cage" and chaged properly can create gravitational fields and Hyperium (AN 179), when placed in a Gravitium cage, can create a hyperspace window.  There are several levels, or interior spheres of Hyperspace, allowing for all sorts "Jump Speeds" and for tactical use of Hyperspace in battle.

For there, humanity expands, build great WarFleets and Armies and has at it.

Sounds a little like the founding premise of Fading Stars, minus the big corporations. I like the Jump Speeds aspect of your AU. It would certainly add interesting strategic options to a Successor States-type game. Neat stuff.

It looks interesting.

Quote from: Blacknova on February 22, 2011, 04:39:39 PM

For there, humanity expands, build great WarFleets and Armies and has at it.

And on Earth?

I actually wanted to take Earth out of the equation.  Either by having the First Fleet jump too close together and end up 15 000 LY away with no clue as to what happened and start the colonisation from there, or have colonial tensions lead to a massive Third World War on Earth, nearly destroying the place.  The first option would also see the war, so that the First Fleet was also the last fleet. In the second option, massive rescues take place as the mother world is largely abandoned.

The tesions raised by the race for the colonies starts the war

Not to get off topic Ice, but you're definitely missing out. Please do us all a favor and check out Firefly and then rent/watch Serenity the movie.

You'll thank me.

Nathan Fillion is god. (Yes, I said it.)


That being said, an alternative to Gun Rings would a change to the record sheets.

Instead of using 8 faces (representing the exterior wrap around) there could be 9, 10, 11, or even 12. (Actually there could be as many as 16, but I digress.) These extra facings mark hull locations on the dorsal and ventral portions of the ship. Placing Gun Turrets in these locations would be very much akin to what CBT created for very large Support Vessels.

It brings into play rule sets regarding height, etc., for turret placement, but would avoids rotating rings.

Turrets placed in these locations (Say 8 for the largest BattleShip - 4 on "top" and 4 on the "bottom") would have 270 degree arcs for game purposes, (depending on location) but be limited to the total number of weapon tonnage to make it interesting. Sadly, since there are no rules governing how space combat is really fought, this works with the strictly two-dimensional game CBT has setup. Small Corvettes could gain an additional bonus by having their single turret "arc" capable of 360 degree rotation - seeing how there is only a single turret along either side of the ship's spine.

Just a thought... 

   

Now we're talking some serious changes.

I was thinking more along the lines of only some slight modifications to the current construction rules. Adding additional "arcs" and tonnage/equipment criteria doesn't touch game mechanics. The use of large support vessels, turret levels, etc., work well in two dimensional game play - which AeroTech 2 also uses.

16 arcs isn't too complicated. If anything the changes ultimately come down to how area, or space is represented in AeroTech 2. See, the size of the ground hex allows for the accurate (at least more accurate) representation of a large unit's size. Large support vessels are three, four or five hexes in length. Facings, arcs and turrets can be represented via the game piece with better accuracy. In turn this creates ease of game use. 

The size of AeroTech space hexes make things slightly more difficult. Either way, rather than change hex size or game piece size (which is silly) - we simply need to modify the record sheet to take into account the dorsal and ventral turrets. We don't need to take into account their "arcs" with the record sheet, just their integration into the overall way the unit takes damage.

However, if we're going for a full blown rewrite then I'm all aboard with the changes you've proposed.