Hey all,

I'm curious what sort of mechanics people have come up with for modeling a ship's escape to hyperspace?

I just did a word search for hyperspace, with just the following that came up:

Skirmisher models it by just flying off the table's edge (here), which I'm sure is not an unusual way to deal with it. I would judge that which table edge you fly off of would determine the direction of hyperspace travel, which might have an impact on later battles.

Anyway, I'm pretty confident that someone has come up with some homebrew rules for an objective or something for campaign play. Do you know any house or homebrew rules for escaping to hyperspace. Also, what do you all think of these different ideas?

Instead of executing a regular maneuver, the ship can make the jump to lightspeed?

Caveat: if playing with this option, there should be some crits that affect hyperspace motivators or some such. And what about tractor beams and grav wells? Anyone?

Instead of executing a regular maneuver, the ship can make the jump to lightspeed?

I think yes, but I also think there should be some added cost and delay. Just cogitating on the matter, I might think that one might have to spend a number of dials or tokens equal to the Motti-value of the ship. That would be a considerable cost/delay for large ships.

Caveat: if playing with this option, there should be some crits that affect hyperspace motivators or some such. And what about tractor beams and grav wells? Anyone?

Agreed. Perhaps a table that translates existing crits into effects on hyperspace capability.

I know this isn't the most useful comment; but I always wished Hyperspace Assault wasn't one SURPRISE! ship, and rather like an entire 400 points of SURPRISE!. That would be a real surprise.

(some one grammar hlep me plz)

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One of the things I wish we had in this game was a system where choosing to attack a certain side of the ship would cause certain effects that operate like crits.

Ex.

Hitting the back arc damages engines. Draw an engine crit.

Front damages comms, guns, hyperdrive. Either opponent chooses or a random crit is drawn to those 3 choices.

Sides damages guns, and life support/crew.

Rear doesn't have enough guns to make a difference. You can't lose hyperdrive while attempting to flee. You don't really expect to need hyperdrive if you're flying TOWARD danger.

This would increase the interest in telling squadrons to split up to attack certain areas of the ship specifically. It feels more mission based too. That team is going for comms, that team is going for engines. Between them, that ship is gonna be a sitting duck.

Instead of executing a regular maneuver, the ship can make the jump to lightspeed?

Had me thinking of Masters of Orion 2 - if you want a ship to retreat (ie jump away), they'd have to wait until the end of *next* turn to do it.

Space Dragon would have your scout's arse before then.

crash jump. - any heading, instead of shooting you may charge up your hyperdrive, engaging it in the status phase - opponent gets the BASE value of your ship in VPs (they've made you run away)

Planned Maneouver - at the start of the game you declare the heading (ie section of the board edge). The ship must be pointing towards that section, and spend one Navigation Dial to program the NaviComp. Instead of shooting you can engage your hyper drive in the status phase.

on an engine crit roll a red attack die, any hits damage the hyper drive or navicomp, this crit must be cleared before you can jump

crash jump. - any heading, instead of shooting you may charge up your hyperdrive, engaging it in the status phase - opponent gets the BASE value of your ship in VPs (they've made you run away)

Planned Maneouver - at the start of the game you declare the heading (ie section of the board edge). The ship must be pointing towards that section, and spend one Navigation Dial to program the NaviComp. Instead of shooting you can engage your hyper drive in the status phase.

on an engine crit roll a red attack die, any hits damage the hyper drive or navicomp, this crit must be cleared before you can jump

That's pretty good. I like it.

I like these conditions (or at least choose a few of them)

• Giving the enemy a turns warning. Announced disengagement by Hyperdrive at the end of a turn and it takes effect (removing the ship from play) in the following end phase. The enemy can detect that you are charging the Hyperdrive and plotting a course and have a turn to try and prevent it.
• Using a Nav token or command.
• Being pointing in a particular direction is also good. Possibly you don't have to spend a Nav token/dial if your ship is facing this direction at the start of the turn.
• Not firing that turn (possibly allowing anti squadron fire as that could be lots of independently manned turrets).
• Not spending defence tokens or at least not using evades or scatter (flotillas) as that would really screw up the preparations.
• Not having an enemy Interdictor within range 1-5. or if you really want to be brutal no Interdictors in your forward arc (any range).
• No ships or obstacles occupying the flight path directly in front of the departing ship. Flight path defined as a channel your base width wide and extending forwards until it reaches the table edge.

Escaping to hyperspace could be a scenario rule allowing it after a particular objective has been achieved. For example destroy the base, scan the planet, raid the convoy etc. and then jump out of the system before enemy reinforcements arrive. CyborgNinja's scenario could be a good candidate. https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/225300-fan-scenario-shipyard-assault/

Allowing disengagement by Hyperspace in general for all battles is going a bit far, but in friendly non standard games you can do what you wish. We could develop some non standard "Green Missions" one of which could allow disengagement. For example:

Green Mission - Hit & Run

Setup: All ships must be deployed at least distance 1-3 of each other.

Special Rules: Ships of both players may disengage by leaving the board from their own sides long table edge. The second player may also use the Disengagement by Hyperdrive special rules (outlined above and being discussed in this thread. TBC)

Game End: The fleet point cost of a ship that successfully disengaged is halved (or maybe - The fleet point cost of a ship that successfully disengaged does not include the cost of its upgrade cards).

In Phaser Lock, you go to "warp" by declaring so at the start of the ship's activation, not shooting for that turn, and not making any turns. Then on the following turn you move double the normal speed in a straight line until you leave the table.

So something like that.

spend a nav token and nav dial to execute light speed?

So, I'm going to compare some of the suggestions. There do not seem to be suggestions for differentiating between types of ship.

Command

I'm putting in green & bold the suggestions regarding the command dial. You seem in agreement that it should take a nav-something, though one thinks a dial, another thinks a dial or token, and a third thinks dial and token.

Heading

There's also agreement on the direction of travel, which I've put in blue bold. That said, there are some very different formulations.

No Shooting

This also seems to be something on which there's widespread agreement. I've put it in pink bold.

Other things seem to have less agreement.

crash jump. - any heading, instead of shooting you may charge up your hyperdrive, engaging it in the status phase - opponent gets the BASE value of your ship in VPs (they've made you run away)

Planned Maneouver - at the start of the game you declare the heading (ie section of the board edge).

The ship must be pointing towards that section, and spend one Navigation Dial to program the NaviComp.

Instead of shooting you can engage your hyper drive in the status phase.

I like that idea, that the planned maneuver has to be declared ahead of time. If this were to be included, I'd say that the direction has to be declared in secret (writing it down on a card), and as long as it matches what is done, then it's okay. I don't think the opponent should have to know.

I like these conditions (or at least choose a few of them)

• Giving the enemy a turns warning. Announced disengagement by Hyperdrive at the end of a turn and it takes effect (removing the ship from play) in the following end phase. The enemy can detect that you are charging the Hyperdrive and plotting a course and have a turn to try and prevent it.
• Using a Nav token or command.
• Being pointing in a particular direction is also good. Possibly you don't have to spend a Nav token/dial if your ship is facing this direction at the start of the turn.
• Not firing that turn (possibly allowing anti squadron fire as that could be lots of independently manned turrets).
• Not spending defence tokens or at least not using evades or scatter (flotillas) as that would really screw up the preparations.
• Not having an enemy Interdictor within range 1-5. or if you really want to be brutal no Interdictors in your forward arc (any range).
• No ships or obstacles occupying the flight path directly in front of the departing ship. Flight path defined as a channel your base width wide and extending forwards until it reaches the table edge.

Yes, the Interdictor is an element that I'm in agreement on, though I'd be more restrictive: If there's an interdictor, then there's simple no escape to hyperspace.

Your obstacle requirement is somewhat similar to the straight line double normal speed that LTD is talking about, below.

In Phaser Lock, you go to "warp" by declaring so at the start of the ship's activation, not shooting for that turn, and not making any turns. Then on the following turn you move double the normal speed in a straight line until you leave the table.

So something like that.

I think that's kind of neat, to simulate that quick acceleration, as well as the danger of having something in your way as you do so.

spend a nav token and nav dial to execute light speed?

Reading these, I think my preferred middleground is:

• Nav token or dial
• Particular heading
• No shooting
• No Interdictor

The nav token or dial seems fine to me, suggesting that the helm crew is having to be ordered to position the vessel. Mad Cat suggests that the particular heading can be instead of the nav token/dial. I think I'm just going to go with the majority and say that both are required.

Slasher956 has an interesting idea of the pre-planned direction. Having read the different suggestion, how do you compare/contrast the requirements for a particular heading (what should determine this) as opposed to just not having obstacles?

Deploy in one side of the table, hyperspace token at other end of the table. Hyperspace Nav must end within 2 of the token?

I know this isn't the most useful comment; but I always wished Hyperspace Assault wasn't one SURPRISE! ship, and rather like an entire 400 points of SURPRISE!. That would be a real surprise.

(some one grammar hlep me plz)

--

One of the things I wish we had in this game was a system where choosing to attack a certain side of the ship would cause certain effects that operate like crits.

Ex.

Hitting the back arc damages engines. Draw an engine crit.

Front damages comms, guns, hyperdrive. Either opponent chooses or a random crit is drawn to those 3 choices.

Sides damages guns, and life support/crew.

Rear doesn't have enough guns to make a difference. You can't lose hyperdrive while attempting to flee. You don't really expect to need hyperdrive if you're flying TOWARD danger.

This would increase the interest in telling squadrons to split up to attack certain areas of the ship specifically. It feels more mission based too. That team is going for comms, that team is going for engines. Between them, that ship is gonna be a sitting duck.

Take a look at Leviathans by Catalyst Game Labs. They do exactly that. Maybe use that as inspiration.

Without seeing the campaign rules, here was my take.

http://kdyards.com/upgrades.view.php?id=936

This is a tough call. Narratively it doesn't seem consistent. Sometimes ships just escape. Other times, it is a plot point to stop a ship before it can make the jump.

Some telegraphing seems to be needed. But it shouldn't take multiple turns.

It always seemed like an Interdictor or actual planet gravity well were the only thing that stopped ships.

Most examples that come to mind are from the Zsinj arc of Rogue Squadron books. So maybe just a mechanic where any navigate dial can be spent for a hyperspace escdialas long as you are at least range 1 or 2 away from any obstacle or grav well/shift token.

Isn't there an episode of Rebels where Hera has to attack a Gozanti carrier full of Kyber Crystals and stop it before it can jump to hyperspace?

Some telegraphing seems to be needed. But it shouldn't take multiple turns.

On multiple occasions in the Clone Wars TV show ships were shown to be able to detect other ship's powering up their hyperdrives. After that, the enemy can either shoot them down or try to match course so as to follow them in a hyperspace chase (ala Ep4)

Without seeing the campaign rules, here was my take.

http://kdyards.com/upgrades.view.php?id=936

In the context of the standard game, I think this is a great addition.

My reservation is that almost all ships (and many squadrons) have hyperspace capability. Why should it then require a special card to make the jump. In your case, this represents a specialized crew that helps the ship make the jump at a moment's notice. Still, I'd like to know what would be the standard way for bugging out that all hyperspace-capable ship could do under the same conditions.

I'm thinking: Nav Dial, straight line at full speed, ship is taken off the board after the other players next attack, jumping counts as an evade defense token (only defense for the jumping shop) Jumping can be stopped with tractor beams attack or interdictor within 5 or taking a Crit hit on the last attack.

Great to see so many good ideas across this thread to add extra flavour and adventure to our games. Lots of simple, sound suggestions there. I especially like the suggestion to check for the impact of damage on a ship's hyperdrive, as that would add real drama if the ships needs to be survive long enough to repair the system so it can escape. "Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy!"

crash jump. - any heading, instead of shooting you may charge up your hyperdrive, engaging it in the status phase - opponent gets the BASE value of your ship in VPs (they've made you run away)

Planned Maneouver - at the start of the game you declare the heading (ie section of the board edge). The ship must be pointing towards that section, and spend one Navigation Dial to program the NaviComp. Instead of shooting you can engage your hyper drive in the status phase.

on an engine crit roll a red attack die, any hits damage the hyper drive or navicomp, this crit must be cleared before you can jump

In the first star wars movie(episode 4) Luke's losing it at Han to jump and Han explains it takes time to plot a safe course, so you don't jump into a star or something. The way he says it makes it sound like a crash jump is pretty much Russian Roulette. I remember from the old days playing Star Fleet Battles that I thought the rules for going to warp out of a battle were well done, but I don't know if it would translate to Star Wars

crash jump. - any heading, instead of shooting you may charge up your hyperdrive, engaging it in the status phase - opponent gets the BASE value of your ship in VPs (they've made you run away)

Planned Maneouver - at the start of the game you declare the heading (ie section of the board edge). The ship must be pointing towards that section, and spend one Navigation Dial to program the NaviComp. Instead of shooting you can engage your hyper drive in the status phase.

on an engine crit roll a red attack die, any hits damage the hyper drive or navicomp, this crit must be cleared before you can jump

In the first star wars movie(episode 4) Luke's losing it at Han to jump and Han explains it takes time to plot a safe course, so you don't jump into a star or something. The way he says it makes it sound like a crash jump is pretty much Russian Roulette. I remember from the old days playing Star Fleet Battles that I thought the rules for going to warp out of a battle were well done, but I don't know if it would translate to Star Wars

For me it was the old D6 RPG from West End Games. IIRC you couldn't go to hyperspace without an astrogation check, and then if you did it really badly, bad things would happen, though I don't think there was the sort of auto-death that Han implies.

I typically use the board edge hyperjump that gives ½ VP instead of full as the 'jump' condition. You still typically lose (unless it was part of one of the secondary objectives I use) but you don't lose by as much as a regular fleet destruction. It also promotes disengaging in campaigns.

Now, for an actual game version, I'm kind of in favour of telegraphing the attempt but not having it so long. Perhaps something along the lines of: 'make each ship making the attempt with a hyperspace a token in the status phase. A marked ship must spend a navigate command and may not change its speed*. After the maneuver is complete, the ship is removed from play. A ship marked in this way may not perform attacks against ships.'

*Yes, that means that player 1 has the possibility to immediately slip away with a 'last-first' combination, but that's the player with initiative, so it feels fine to me. I like the nav command as it makes the whole process a little easier and lets certain upgrades, like veteran captains, feel more useful. Beyond that, I put in the bit about not changing its speed as that means that a ship can't ram another ship as its speed is temporarily reduced by 1, and tractor beams will either take away a nav token of a ship of equal or lesser size, or it will reduce the speed by 1 and thus stop the jump as well. A ship that's marked is marked, so it's essentially taking the ship out of play.

I was partial to being able to do it as a resolved order... But, with a Caveat:

You have to be able to maneuver straight at all steps of the Maneuver tool (or reach the board edge) to get away.

So a ship physically in the way, would stop you from doing it...