Re: [Epic] Space Fleet (off topic, well sort of)

From: Thane Morgan <thane_at_...>
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 23:58:33 -0700

Aaron P Teske wrote:
>
> Excerpts from Epic: 10-Mar-98 Re: [Epic] Space Fleet (off.. by Thane
> Morgan_at_...
> > > Space Fleet is probably not a good match because the ships are freakin'
> > > HUGE.
> >
> > I've started making GSC-Epic conversions,
>
> Maybe I'm just tired here, but... GSC?
>
> >but need some info on other
> > races space vehicles.
>
> Chaos: use Imperial ships (suitably modified and painted for their
> patron) and ye generic Hulk.
>
> Orks: ye generic Hulk, decked out with force fields up the wazoo to hold
> the air in. The intro to Final Liberation also suggets that Orks
> capture Imperial ships, which is possible I suppose (though how they got
> to the Impy ship in the first place is a good question...).
>
> Eldar: apart from the Wraithship and Shadowhunter, also have the
> Ghostdragon, basically equivalent to the Emperor. It even fires
> broadsides! Whether or not it's still super-maneuverable is a Darn Good
> Question, but I doubt it. Oh, and Nightwing fighters.
>
> Squats: Darn Good Question. My personal preference is for huge, fast,
> well armed & protected but *expensive* ships; they have the tech (better
> than the Imperium!).
>
> Bugs & Imperium are pretty well covered; Imperials would also have the
> Thunderbolt fighter (*not* the Thunderhawk!).
>
> >Space fleet seemed to have too large a scale,
>
> ?_? Too large a scale? It's basically the same scale as any other
> starship combat game... what do you want?
>
> >but
> > if anyone knows of destroyer and smaller sized ships for the various
> > races, or ideas on what they should look like, send them here.
>
> Comment: the majority of the small ships *cannot* travel through the
> Warp; no drive. The Cobra is the smallest ship with a warp drive; the
> Stalwart Escort does *not* have a warp drive on board. While you can do
> planetary defense scenarios, it is kinda a good question as to where the
> smaller ships come from, in a campaign sense.
>
> For the record, the Stalwart Escort is a "hardy" substellar warship,
> i.e. one of them should be able to handle just about any other
> substellar ship there is. The difference between the substellar ships
> and interstellar ships is *very* large in Space Fleet; basically, if you
> were building a really large ship, there's no reason not to put a warp
> drive on the sucker, while you couldn't put a warp drive on a very small
> ship. Also, the interstellar ships need to be self-sufficient; there's
> no telling when a warp storm might throw them away from known space
> entirely, and there are several stories about lost ships travelling
> thousands of years to get to a port....
>
> >I've
> > translated the eldar and thunderhawk so far.
>
> T-hawk, or T-bolt? The Thunderbolt is the Imperial interface fighter,
> just as the Nightwing is the Eldar interface fighter; the Thunderhawk is
> just a space-to-ground transport. For space-to-space boarding, the
> Imperial ships have docking/breaching pods; see the little sequences in
> the original Space Hulk game....
>
> >I'm probably going to have
> > to put out a few main rules special systems and change torpedo rules
> > slightly for this purpose.
>
> I am curious, though, as to what you'd change....
>
> Aaron Teske
> Mithramuse+_at_...
> Space Fleet wweb page:
> http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~at2u/sfleet.html

Sorry, I'm causing confusion. I've got a game called GSC, which I will
happily E-mail the reduced rules for. I never had Space Fleet, and only
have seen it in passing a few times (though I have picked up a few
ships). So I have little ideas to what the ships abilities are, and
really have a limited knowledge of the ship lists. I'm trying to build
some ships from the 40K universe into this system, as it would be a
quick way to do battles above a campaign.

However, previous attempts at making the spce to epic transition has
shown that playing fleets carrying large amounts of troops can make the
planetside battles moot (one player kills off an opponents army before
it ever hits the ground, or one player gains complete superiority space
side).

To get around this, I see the large fleet ships trying to stay out of
each others way, to avoid a Mutally Assured Destruction, but sending
troops down in medium and small ships to run the gauntlet of
interceptors from the other fleet trying to stop them. That way, you
dont lose a battlecruiser of 3000 points of troops at a time, but only a
destroyer or gunship carrying 100 to 300 points at a time.

Basically, I think there is a fine line dividing the space battles moot
or the ground battles moot, which we have an opportunity to find.

So what I'm looking for is a list of ships from the different races,
with a list of abilities. If you have the GSC rules, I invite you to
make the ships yourself and post them, otherwise rate/make up stats for
some ships as follows

Rate the ship 0 to 5 for the following abilities

Speed/Manueverability
Shields (if any)
Targeting ability (not always applicable)
Weapons
rate them for range and power, and possibly special effects. Also Fire
arcs.
Special abilities/ role on the battlefield (Fighters, gunships, repair
ships, transports) and also how many units/points they should carry in
planetside troops.

I don't want to undercut Chris on this; it was a good idea to bring up
again. However, most don't have space fleet rules (me included), and the
Lawyers of GW frighten me. I also think that Space Fleet's scale of
ships may be too large to make good land battle games, While GSC works
very well with small ships or large (or HUGE), and thus has the
flexibility to find the line. On the other hand, Chris may be rewriting
the rules quite a bit, which may make them very appropriate. Hell, they
may work fine as is.

Thane
Received on Wed Mar 11 1998 - 06:58:33 UTC

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