1 minute ago, Marinealver said:

I don't think making damage more complicated to get a better feel for location and ships would make for better game play. The old Wizzards of the coast had that with their Star Wars starship miniatures game and we all know how that went.

I think if you were going to design a new "X-wing" game or mainly a new engine or game system for X-wing I think you really need to focus on abstraction for simplicity sake instead of simulation sake. There is no shortage of GMT/classic AH that uses the whole number algorithm hex system for attacks and damage. After all X-wing has taken a 3d concept and projected it on the XY plane.

That's merely a matter of opinion. Personally i've found games that simulate very indepth damage and weapons systems to be very enthralling and interesting. The problem is that they rarely allow for a significant amount of advantage to be gained from positioning, whereas X-Wing does. I found it thusly prudent to attempt to combine the two things i greatly enjoy into one system.

2:44 on this one shows a quick example

Just now, Razgriz25thinf said:

That's merely a matter of opinion. Personally i've found games that simulate very indepth damage and weapons systems to be very enthralling and interesting. The problem is that they rarely allow for a significant amount of advantage to be gained from positioning, whereas X-Wing does. I found it thusly prudent to attempt to combine the two things i greatly enjoy into one system.

I do enjoy complicated games, and yes it is a matter of all personal opinion but as it has been asked before what problem are you trying to solve here? So far I only see the damage and ships segmented off for some sort of location based damage. The problem I see as often experienced with a lot of Battletech/SFB/GMT games is that as you complicate things by layering more and more "stimulative" mechanics. I think you will find systems that take 5 minuets or so to resolve an attack to not gain a lot of popularity. Remember you might like games with complexity but if you are making a tabletop game that isn't solitaire other people has to enjoy it as well. There might be a few but there won't be many. People don't like following complex rules (let alone follow rules).

Also as you try and add more of a "stimulative" system to X-wing what about damage from on top or bottom. Again you still have a whole location based damage system for more of a "stimulative" play but the location is still based upon a 2d plane. If you completely randomize the damage locations to "simulate the possibility of an attack coming fro above or below" you could end up with a system that seems wonky or random with "magic bullet" shots that flew over wings and into the cockpit. If you leave it the way it is you make the game flat and that breaks the stimulative feel. The way FFG does it you might call it boring but simply treat the model as a whole. If it hits it suffers 1 damage on the entire ship.

Anyways it seems very much in its infancy. If I were going to make a suggestion, drop the whole Star Wars theme and try something with a different set of generic scifi ships. If it works good then apply the Star Wars theme. You will find that the game works much better if you set up the system first then use the Star Wars theme to that system.

21 minutes ago, Razgriz25thinf said:

1-speed forward isn't no movement. You're moving one base-length forward, because that's how long the 1 forward template is.

Yes you're right, it's one base forward.

For the movement issue I would look to something like Armada uses. One template that has various adjustment "knuckles" this allows for much more customization as to where the ship will end up. You could make the dials just have speed settings then each ship can have different values for each knuckle like Armada. It would take away some of the guessing while setting dials but reward higher PS pilots who would obviously have to cost much more than generics.

7 hours ago, MenaceNsobriety said:

For the movement issue I would look to something like Armada uses. One template that has various adjustment "knuckles" this allows for much more customization as to where the ship will end up. You could make the dials just have speed settings then each ship can have different values for each knuckle like Armada. It would take away some of the guessing while setting dials but reward higher PS pilots who would obviously have to cost much more than generics.

I love x-wing, but if FFG had the knowledge making x-wing that they had going in to Armada, x-wing would've been a much better game. Maybe use something similar to the Armada maneuver tool, and instead of dials you set the speed of each ship during the planning phase and remove "post dial maneuvers" entirely. It definitely favors high PS ships that are maneuverable, but that's already the case and should be the case. Possibly allow taking stress to add a click, there are a lot of options to make ships feel different when they maneuver.

Another think I would like to see in the game is bonuses for higher pilot skills when attacking and defending. Wedge should not be as easy to hit as a rookie pilot.

22 minutes ago, MenaceNsobriety said:

Another think I would like to see in the game is bonuses for higher pilot skills when attacking and defending. Wedge should not be as easy to hit as a rookie pilot.

Defense tokens is one way of rectifying this. Having pilots have individual accuracy/Dodge (or whatever you want to call them) would be another way as well.

16 hours ago, any2cards said:

I agree with your assessment that this is NOT for the casual player. You have increased the complexity of this game significantly, and that is only considering the information provided for the two ships themselves, without adding any form of pilot information/skills, upgrades, any additional interactions, etc.

To be clear, this is not a criticism. I enjoy highly sophisticated, tactical games. There will simply be a lot of information for people to consider and remember when playing this game. Ultimately, I think it will be helpful and attract more players if you have the proper "tools" to assist memories with all of the various stats that make up the game.

One last comment ... for the TIE/LN fighter, you state the following: "This ship is destroyed if any 2 parts of the ship are destroyed, or if the cockpit is destroyed." I think we can all agree, at least thematically, that if any ship has its main cockpit destroyed, then the ship itself is mostly useless, and should be considered destroyed. The issue I have with the TIE/LN fighter is that the only way to destroy 2 parts of the ship that doesn't involve the cockpit is to destroy the port and starboard panels (using your terminology). Quite frankly, I would guess that destroying one (thematically) will make this ship useless.

Just my two cents (worth about $1.10 these days)

Having a panel knocked off generally causes the spinning out of control followed by slamming into something effect seen in episodes 4 to 7 and rogue 1..... Tie's do not like losing their panels.

As long as people are spitballing, here, I'd like to see a more "reslistic" take on attack/defense modifiers based on relative movement. I think it would be cool to see big bonuses for tailing someone, while it would be harder to hit someone flyingacross perpendicular across your axis of movement. This would further emphasize movement.

5 hours ago, benskywalker said:

Defense tokens is one way of rectifying this. Having pilots have individual accuracy/Dodge (or whatever you want to call them) would be another way as well.

Theres a system like that in Battletech: Alpha Strike, where your pilot's skill is the base To Hit value when attacking, so lower number = easier to hit. The problem in my mind is i don't want to create a system with even less of a reason to take generic pilots. I'll try it out in testing and see what i find, but it'll almost certainly turn out to either not happen, or that the PS system will have to be reworked and exponential increase in elite pilot's cost.

58 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

As long as people are spitballing, here, I'd like to see a more "reslistic" take on attack/defense modifiers based on relative movement. I think it would be cool to see big bonuses for tailing someone, while it would be harder to hit someone flyingacross perpendicular across your axis of movement. This would further emphasize movement.

The simple method is give a modifier for the speed of your maneuver. Speed 1 is a -1 modifier, Speed 2 is a 0, Speed 3 is a +1, so on. Or -1 for straight maneuvers, 0 for banks, +1 for turns, +2 for special maneuvers like K-turns and Sloops. It being easier to hit something moving slowly and predictably, of course. Given that X-Wings as they are have a lot of HP and general durability, with a higher critical threshold while TIE Fighters are really, really fragile, this could be the thing that gives TIE Fighters their agility advantage, which just makes sense.

Unfortunately, relative modifiers on movement would, even for TCS, be an unnecessarily difficult and obtuse system. Simple things like, if you're shooting someone in the back, and gaining a bonus for that is fine, though.

Don't expect the equivalent of a 100/6 game (In X-wing TCG) to take a mere 3 hours. Expect it to take 2 hours and thirty minutes. Given the extraordinary amounts of checks and referencing required, you're looking at a good slog of a game. For tournaments this means:

1. you have half as many rounds. Swiss and cut. This means either smaller tournaments or longer ones, and neither is very popular.
2. Significantly more judges. Given the checks on orientation and so forth, you can expect an exponential (or maybe logarithmic...) increase in judge calls required, making tournaments either more expensive or volunteer-demanding.
3. Far, far more jank. Increased complexity means increased chances for the designers to make serious blunders and have it get through play testing. I've heard of cheesed Warhammmer 40k (Necrons and whatever), and you're opening yourself up to that same kind of irrevocable power.

I personally think that the chance to hit - damage dealt conundrum of X-wing can be solved with more dice. Have 3 sets of green dice (distinguished by colour), and 3 reds. Change the mechanic of cancelling such that "for each [evade] result rolled, cancel one red die." Then give dice faces with more than one result. This opens up munitions - dice with a lot of double-damage, high pilot skill evasion (double evade results, dice with no blanks) and accuracy - "each accuracy result cancels one green die". This gives you:
1. The ability to open up the mathematics of X-wing without introducing new mechanics - simply give a new ship a different distribution of dice.
2. Named pilots suddenly become more flexible. Sure, Soontir Fel has the same pilot ability, but now his evades have no focuses and double-evades on every non-blank face (making him both more vulnerable and more able to tank shots). Wedge might only have 2 evade dice, but neither of them have blanks. Homing missiles still don't have a hit on every face, but every blank becomes an [accuracy]. Proton torpedoes keep those horrible blanks, but every other face has an additional critical hit result.

All that said, your idea has a target audience (those into conventional wargaming), and a niche (those who want positioning to have a more significant impact on their games), and I like it.. I'd be happy to do play testing, but I'm developing my own secret X-wing machinations, so I can't help ypu there.

31 minutes ago, Astech said:

Don't expect the equivalent of a 100/6 game (In X-wing TCG) to take a mere 3 hours. Expect it to take 2 hours and thirty minutes. Given the extraordinary amounts of checks and referencing required, you're looking at a good slog of a game. For tournaments this means:

1. you have half as many rounds. Swiss and cut. This means either smaller tournaments or longer ones, and neither is very popular.
2. Significantly more judges. Given the checks on orientation and so forth, you can expect an exponential (or maybe logarithmic...) increase in judge calls required, making tournaments either more expensive or volunteer-demanding.
3. Far, far more jank. Increased complexity means increased chances for the designers to make serious blunders and have it get through play testing. I've heard of cheesed Warhammmer 40k (Necrons and whatever), and you're opening yourself up to that same kind of irrevocable power.

I personally think that the chance to hit - damage dealt conundrum of X-wing can be solved with more dice. Have 3 sets of green dice (distinguished by colour), and 3 reds. Change the mechanic of cancelling such that "for each [evade] result rolled, cancel one red die." Then give dice faces with more than one result. This opens up munitions - dice with a lot of double-damage, high pilot skill evasion (double evade results, dice with no blanks) and accuracy - "each accuracy result cancels one green die". This gives you:
1. The ability to open up the mathematics of X-wing without introducing new mechanics - simply give a new ship a different distribution of dice.
2. Named pilots suddenly become more flexible. Sure, Soontir Fel has the same pilot ability, but now his evades have no focuses and double-evades on every non-blank face (making him both more vulnerable and more able to tank shots). Wedge might only have 2 evade dice, but neither of them have blanks. Homing missiles still don't have a hit on every face, but every blank becomes an [accuracy]. Proton torpedoes keep those horrible blanks, but every other face has an additional critical hit result.

All that said, your idea has a target audience (those into conventional wargaming), and a niche (those who want positioning to have a more significant impact on their games), and I like it.. I'd be happy to do play testing, but I'm developing my own secret X-wing machinations, so I can't help ypu there.

I'd say the only issue with that is that i can't actually physically produce specialized dice, and using numbered dice with specific results just ends up in more unnecessary cross-referencing. I think using basic numbered dice is optimal for various reasons, but i'm not 100% set on how it'll look as a finished product.

51 minutes ago, Razgriz25thinf said:

I'd say the only issue with that is that i can't actually physically produce specialized dice, and using numbered dice with specific results just ends up in more unnecessary cross-referencing. I think using basic numbered dice is optimal for various reasons, but i'm not 100% set on how it'll look as a finished product.

There's actually a site that does custom dice pretty cheap. Different dice for munitions and secondary weapons would've been way better. For all the reasons that have been mentioned.

42 minutes ago, benskywalker said:

There's actually a site that does custom dice pretty cheap. Different dice for munitions and secondary weapons would've been way better. For all the reasons that have been mentioned.

Yeah but it's just a project of mine. It's not going to take off and become popular if it's required that you purchase specialized dice just to play it, and i can't make them and sell them because then i'd get a C+D from FFG and LFL. I don't really have a choice; normal X-Wing dice won't work, so i gotta use numbered dice.

I recognice many, many elements of your 2.0 because I was a hardcore Air Warfare wargamer. Birds of Prey, Fighting Wings, The Speed of Heat, etc.

My main concern is that we play X Wing because it is a very simple game. And we do not play The Speed of Heat (biebie Mig 17s and F 4s... I miss you)

But your idea can be a 10!!! Quite an Advanced X Wing for dedicated and fanatic players

But beware of those pesky legal details... © can be a deadly truck over your head

9 hours ago, Razgriz25thinf said:

I'd say the only issue with that is that i can't actually physically produce specialized dice, and using numbered dice with specific results just ends up in more unnecessary cross-referencing. I think using basic numbered dice is optimal for various reasons, but i'm not 100% set on how it'll look as a finished product.

A production run of 1000 costs about $150 for standard 8-sided dice. I'd imagine custom ones reaching about $200-250. Many companies offer production runs as low as 10 dice, so it is an option. Given that you're not going to market with X-wing TCS though it's a bit unnecessary.

As far as dice go if you want easily accessible special dice borrow the attack dice from armada. There are 3 different colors with different hit distributions on all. They have an extra symbol called accuracy but that could easily be given a special ability like getting to choose where the damage from the attack goes instead of where you rolled. You would have to adjust the number of green dice to compensate for the increased attack power offered by the double damage sides but not by to much. The real problem would be with the green dice having focus and none on the new attack dice but you could solve that by getting rid of the evade action entirely and make focus the defensive action.

Impressive, but not for me. Good luck!

8 hours ago, Hexdot said:

I recognice many, many elements of your 2.0 because I was a hardcore Air Warfare wargamer. Birds of Prey, Fighting Wings, The Speed of Heat, etc.

My main concern is that we play X Wing because it is a very simple game. And we do not play The Speed of Heat (biebie Mig 17s and F 4s... I miss you)

But your idea can be a 10!!! Quite an Advanced X Wing for dedicated and fanatic players

But beware of those pesky legal details... © can be a deadly truck over your head

I agree, my favorite part of X-Wing is enough detail and complexity to suit my tastes but simple enough to make it easy to get people involved easily. But i do sometimes long for a more deep experience.

Thank you!

Yes, i have put thought to this. My stance is following that of HoTAC: As long as i don't sell anything, i should be alright. And, if for some reason i do get a C+D, i'll just follow the advice of someone in the thread and apply it to a generic sci-fi universe.

On 2/4/2017 at 3:40 PM, Razgriz25thinf said:

T-65B X-Wing

Multirole: At the start of the Activation Phase, You may declare either +1 agility, or +1 accuracy as a modifier for this turn. During the End Phase, remove that modifier.

Accuracy: 1

Primary Weapon: KX-9 Laser Cannons(x4), Base Damage 3

Agility: 6

Critical Threshold: 9

Actions: Focus, Target Lock, Barrel Roll

Proton Torpedoes(x6), Astromech slot

Range chart:

Range 1: +0

Range 2: -1

Range 3: +1

The colored numbers are HP for that section.

Front hit chart:

1-4: Port Wings

5-8: Starboard S-Foils

9-11: Fuselage

12: Cockpit

Right side hit chart:

1-5: Starboard S-Foils

7-10: Fuselage

11-12: Cockpit

Left Side hit chart:

1-5: Port S-Foils

7-10: Fuselage

11-12: Cockpit

Rear hit chart:

1-4: Port S-Foils

5-8: Starboard Wings

9-12: Fuselage

Crit Chart:

S-Foils(d6):

1. -1 Primary Weapon Base Damage

2. Turn maneuvers are more difficult

3. 4-speed maneuvers are more difficult

4. Cannot Barrel Roll

5. No Critical

6. 2 Damage

Fuselage(d6):

1. Cannot Target Lock

2. -1 agility

3. Torpedo detonation; deal 1 damage and remove all torpedoes

4. Discard Astromech

5. No crit

6. 2 Damage

Cockpit(d6):

1. PS -3

2. Skip Next opportunity to attack

3, 4. Deal Stress token

5, 6. No Critical

This ship is destroyed if any 2 parts of the ship is destroyed, or if the cockpit is destroyed.

That is description for just 1 ship.

See the problem?

Its reminds me of old Battletech board games...that no one plays anymore cause they were too complicated.... :/

1 hour ago, Vitalis said:

That is description for just 1 ship.

See the problem?

Its reminds me of old Battletech board games...that no one plays anymore cause they were too complicated.... :/

Battletech was the primary inspiration.

Funny, because i know a rather large group of individuals i play Battletech with. In fact, i'm making preparations to attend Historicon for the Battletech meet.

Just now, Razgriz25thinf said:

Battletech was the primary inspiration.

Funny, because i know a rather large group of individuals i play Battletech with. In fact, i'm making preparations to attend Historicon for the Battletech meet.

Lucky you - i had to sell mine cause my area is desolate with players like after Clan War....and good luck trying to teach my wife or daughter that

Yes... a little Battletech feel...and this is a positive point. Classic Battletech was one of the best "wargames" published in the galaxy.

Unnecesary rules and equipment extras burdened it ant the evolution of the universe...ejem.

But BT 3025 is simply... A 10. Complicated? No. Detailed.

19 minutes ago, Vitalis said:

Lucky you - i had to sell mine cause my area is desolate with players like after Clan War....and good luck trying to teach my wife or daughter that

im so sorry for your loss.

Discovering Battletech was like a lightbulb going off for me. I am rather lucky to have the players i do have near me. It's not huge, but it's enough to get games in when i want them.

But anyways. The main goal i have for X-Wing TCS is to make it a little more like X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter and a little less like Battlefront or Rogue Squadron. X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter had detailed systems and simulations for it's age, and i revere those games as some of the best flight sims i've ever played. I CRAVE the realistic missions and feel of combat of those games that X-Wing simply doesn't give me. Using Battletech as the inspirational basis for the direction i wish to go in, i feel like i'll be able to get there.