The current rules are good, but I would like a little bit more detail. Note the following is only for those people who really want to get into space ship battles as an adventure in and of themselves rather than a means to an end.

Alot of the following is inspired by BFG, because, well, it does space ship battles pretty good.

These rules really really require miniatures on a board. you don't need a grid though, simply treat 1" as a single VU. So a ship with Speed 6 can move up to 6" whilst a ship with guns with range 4 can fire them up to 8" etc.

Target Orientation

Different orientations make it harder or easier to hit a target. Before rolling to hit determine the orientation of the target to the attacker. Apply the following modifiers:

Closing: +10 - this applies when the target ship's fore arc is being targetted

Moving Away: +0 - this applies when the target ship's Aft arc is being targetted

Abeam: -10 - this applies when the target ship's port or starboard arc is being targetted

3D or not 3D

This is optional even within these rules because it can get a little complicated. Ships are not always fighting within the same plane or even the same vertical orientation (they could be upside down relative to the target for example). This can still be represented on a 2D playing board by using altitude markers. You can choose to have unlimited altitude levels if you want, or cap altitude at 10 or 20.

Note that as you can go below the 0 plane you can have an altitude of -10 or -20. This is only important to tell you where things are in relation to each other, so don't worry about the minus signs.

It costs 2 speed to go up or down 1 altitude. Altitude is measured in VUs just like everything else.

Add 1 to the range for every 2 VUs the enemy's altitude differs from your own rounding down. So if you are altitude 4 and the target is altitude -2 you add 3 to your ranges when firing at them.

This is a rule of thumb though, so don't go shooting at someone on the same space at altitude 10 and have a range of 5 simply because the distance on the board is 0.

If you are feeling particularly adventurous you can calculate exact distances between ships at different altitudes via pythagorian theorum: a2 + b2 = c2 so someone whose enemy is 5 VUs away and 3 VUs 'up' (5x5=25+3x3=9 =34) is 5.83 VUs away along the hypotenuse.

Assume that part of the range increase is the difficulty of firing weapons in different planes whist trying to retain your current heading.

You can choose to use manoeuvre actions to turn the ship on its axis in order to line your shots up on targets in different planes to you, but that can get messy.

Crippled and Wrecked Ships

Instead of ships being crippled when at 0 integrity, they are crippled when they reach HALF integrity (rounding up).

A crippled ship halves its:

Manoeuvrability

Detection

Speed

Weapons Strength

When a ship reaches 0 integrity it has been Wrecked. A wrecked ship reduces all of the above to 0. Any damage taken once it reaches 0 is automatically critical damage, count up against the critical table to see what kind of critical (ie if the ship takes another 8 damage after being reduced to 0 it receives an 8 critical).

Wrecked ships can attempt to use the Disengage Manoeuvre but at a Hard (-20) level. This can be used irrespective of the proximity of enemy ships as the ship has virtually no systems to speak of and the debris it produced acts as a screen.

Movement and Inertia

Spaceships don't stop moving until they actively attempt it. If a ship takes no manoeuvre actions, voluntary or otherwise, or if it has been reduced to 0 movement, it will still travel at half its Speed value in the direction it is facing. The difference is that this is uncontrolled movement. If a ship is capable of making a manoeuvre action it still must be spent, you cannot get a free move action through inertia.

Hellebore

While it is of course up to everyone if they want to do starship combat in 3D or not, since the starship combat rules in RT is basically an extrapolation on the rules of Battelfleet Gothic, I thought I'd include something from the BFG rulebook:

As well as being very big, space is also infinitely wide, high, deep etc. Despite this Battlefleet Gothic is played on a flat tabletop. To allow for the vagaries of three dimensions and the immense distances involved, ships can move and fire past eachother without any risk. It's easy to imagine that individual ships are just a few hundred kilometres higher or lower than eachother and so have plenty of clear space to manoeuvre in .

The reason for lack of 3D movement is twofold. Firstly, making the game work in three dimensions would add little to the tactics of it, because unlike aircraft combat, where the forces of gravity means that whoever is highest has an advantage , combat in the zero gravity of space would turn fighting in three dimensions into little more than a range modifier. Secondly, for the practical mechanics of the game, working in 3D would comlicate the rules immensely .

So I'd have to ask, is there anything significant that could be added to the game by adding altitude rules when starship combat in itself is already filled to the brim with abstractions?

I mean, just the concept of void units is pretty abstract when you think about it, since one void unit is several thousands of cubic kilometres, would it really matter that much from which angle two ships are shooting at eachother?

Somehow I think the abstractions as they are have already taken such issues into account. So my main question is: wouldn't the inclusion of 3D combat just unnecessarily complicate the game?

Not that im trying to spoil your efforts or anything, im just curious as im thinking of adding some houserules to my sessions as well, and as of now I don't really understand the merits of working in 3D for this particular game.

I have two optional rules you might want to try. I find they're simple and add immensely to the game.

Tactical turns.

Basically, you split the Strategic Turn into 3 Tactical Turns which mainly affect movement. Players trade off moving each Tactical Turn and move 1/3rd what they otherwise would move for the entire Strategic Turn. You can turn each Tactical Turn as long as your ship doesn't exceed what the maximum allowed for the Strategic Turn is. For example, a Ship moving 8" would move 3"/3"/2" and could make a 40 degree turn and later a 50 degree turn (assuming a 90 degree turn was it's maximum).

This gives the ships a more realistic flow to movement, not to mention it changes the tactics immensely. Meanwhile, your ship still moves the same distance and turns at the same rate.

Ships are huge, and occasionally a PC will want to relocate from one component to another. The GM could say it takes 1 Tactical turn to do that representing 10 minutes of travelling the vast labyrinth of the Ship's interior.

Also, according to the RT rules, in 2 Strategic Turns you can make a full move, fire all you guns, immediately fire all your guns again and then make a full move. This is unrealistic and easily taken advantage of by unscrupulous loopholer rules-lawyer players.

So I suggest an optional rule that after firing a bank of weapons it take the next two Tactical Turns to reload/recharge the vast guns. The Extended Action "Put your backs into it!" could be used to reduce the reload time to one Tactical Turn, but remember you can still only fire the weapons once per Strategic turn. The purpose is to prevent players from firing two full broadsides with a weapon and then running away into their enemies' extreme weapons range.

Hellebore, I'm going to slightly disagree with your targetting modifiers. Just slightly.

When firing at the Prow or Keel, the target is smaller than firing at the broadside. In naval games, this would give you a bonus, as the cannonball travels the length of the boat and has more chance of dropping and hitting something, however there is no gravity in space. Therefore, I'd say give a +5 bonus when firing at a ships Port/Starboard arc, as the target is bigger.

"Closing" is when both vessels are travelling roughly toward each other and getting closer. You have the right idea and I agree with the modifier (+10 BS), but just want to clarify the conditions under which it applies.

"Trailing" is when both vessels are travelling roughly away from each other and the target is getting progressively smaller. Hence I would apply an opposite modifier of -10 BS.

Just an observation, I've played "3D" versions of SFB and other space games and it gets really complicated and doesn't add much to the game. I'll also add that it gets squirrelly propping those heavy lead minis on makeshift altitude markers. Just my two cents. If you and your players like it, go for it. If you've never tried it, go for it. I don't suggest you subject new or inexperienced players to it though.

Maxim C. Gatling said:

There are special bases with inbuilt rotating discs with numbers on them you can use for such markings. I think the Forge World produced game Aeronautica Imperialis uses such bases if im not mistaken.

Still, I am a bit perturbed over the specifics of what altitude differences would add to the game other than what the BFG rulebook have already explained, but perhaps Hellebore have thought of something that I've missed?

The targetting modifiers are based on BFG's modifiers (easiest to hit being closing, then moving away then abeam). However, because this is represented as modifications to BS, I thought that you need at least ONE orientation to offer no modifier, otherwise you never shoot using just your BS.

As for 3D movement, the problem I find with the BFG excuse is that you effectively compress one dimension. Basically you are playing with the Y axis in a far different scale to the X axis. A ship can move 5 VUs along their X axis but could move a billion on the Y and it wouldn't change their position on the table.

I was going to incorporate some 'altitude' modifiers to shooting to represent the advantage of being "above" the enemy.

I would dearly love to have some nice manoeuvres going on to represent it better. For example, a ship can't turn very quickly but should be able to cut thrust and use attitude jets to spin around the middle, say to turn and face the opposite direction. The inertia of the ship would carry it in the direction it originally applied thrust, but it would be pointing in the opposite direction. That's not something very hard to do, even with a massive ship like an imperial cruiser. They are long and bilaterally symmetrical given a fairly even weight distribution. One thruster on the top of the prow and another under the aft and you get a catherine wheel-like effect.

The whitestars from B5 exhibit some of what I'm talking about. The best example is when Delenn is fighting the Drak mothership she does exactly what I'm talking about above. Now the whitestar is far more 'eldar' in design, but there are some basic manoeuvre actions that even imperial behemoths can perfrom.

Hellebore

Hellebore said:

Where is "above" in space?
Remember, our concept of "above" is drawn on the basis of the gravity we all succumb to on our planet. In space, there is no such thing. Especially since all ships have their own interior gravity. With grav plating intact, a ship could turn 180 degree "up side down"/"belly up" and besides the registered movement, it would not mean any difference to the crew inside.

If we see images of spaceship combat in movies, they all have the same side "above" in relation to each other. To hard sci-fi, this is a redicules assumption. They started from all kind of sides/ancles of there home planets and only need to correct "above/below" if they enter atmosphere. So it is as likely that combat starts with ship facing each other with there "belly" then the other way around. More likely, there axis positions will not match at all.

And what is the advantage of being "above" in space?
Yes, the canons are "broadsided" in this game, to estable a feel of common know navy combat. So, broadsides are to be avoided. As well as the nose, which is the home of the deadly lance in this universe.
But in space a ship might be as easily able to rotate along it´s center axis, thereby turning "being above" enemy positions into "facing broadside". Of course, one can build house rules to cover that manouver as well. And markes to keep track of all this positions. Every degree on both axis of the ship. Of ALL ships in combat. In relation to each other...

But I cannot see how all this added rules and ancles will add value to the game experience. Especially if you want to keep track of all this "relative positions" as soon as three or more ships are facing off against each other.

That facing above maneuvere is exaxtly the one that is used by an Imperial Light Cruiser to cripple an incautious raider (Dark Eldar) that's strayed too close in the novel Relentless.

Gregorius21778 said:

This was sort of what I was thinking of as well.

What one ship percieves as being it's own X-axis, could very well be the enemy ship's Z-axis.

When gravity pulling towards a set axis, I'd say that relative position in a 3D enviroment would be a lot more important, but since there really aren't any concepts of "up and down" in space "flattening" the combat area into only a 2D overview wouldn't conflict too much with reasonability.

Of course, there could be extreme cases that Hellebore refered to (like a ship travelling one billion VU's on the Z-axis, but it wouldn't change the position of the ship on the tactical map), but with that being said I'd say that it would be up to GM-fiat to simply consider a ship that is one billion VU's away from the other to not be engaged in combat anymore.

Another way of looking at the axis' in starship combat would be in a mor abstract way. Let's say that the X-axis and Y-axis in the game aren't really refering to the real relative positions of bodies in space, but rather that the game assumes that the X-axis and Y-axis of two ships prioritize the two axis' of which are the furthest distance from the target for triangulation purposes. Meaning that the third axis would be the most negligible one.

It's hard to explain in words what I mean, does it make any sense?

It's a line drawing (2D) of a 3D immage (with false perspective added in for simplicity).

I've been thinking about this.

You know how you can only hit components you "know about"? Not realistic.... I can see why they did it, but still... They did it so there's no need for location damage charts which can get weird when no two ships are exactly the same.

For instance, if you're Trailing, it should be much easier to hit the Engines than the Prow Torpedo Tubes. Know what I'm saying?

Altitude is meaningless in space and there's no need to worry about three dimensions when using an abstraction, you merely need to know what the range is and what weapons you can bring to bear on the target. Axes are relative not absolute, even in aerospace combat some peculiarities can arise when weapons that are not affected by gravity come into use - curved paths don't apply to beams of light, essentially, whereas every 'straight' path in a planetary situation is actually a curve.

Put simply, you're not manoeuvring in only two dimensions you're representing your positions in only two dimensions because a third is unnecessary, you set the 'x' and 'y' axes to be along the ecliptic between the two vessels, whatever that plane happens to be relative to anything else and in BFG terms, that plane is the tabletop, eliminating the z axis. With more than two vessels, the range may not strictly be along that plane that it seems to be but it's still the relative distance from the other combatants. Of course it's fairly easy to construct a situation where relative to one vessel two others would be very near each other on this representation but actually, those two vessels would be nowhere near each other on their own representations (i.e. inconsistent relative positions) but there are much bigger problems with the simulation of combat in 40K than that, in my opinion and adding a z-axis seems to add little to nothing to gameplay in exchange for hugely increased complexity. I say this a very big fan of realism and, in fact, of games which use vectors and a full three-dimensional, Newtonian mechanics game system. I just don't think it would add anything to Rogue Trader, really.