How would you go about doing an Armada match taking place in an atmosphere?

How lore savvy do you want to get with it? Such as making tie fighters worse because they aren't built for the atmosphere.

and are we talking about something more of a certain objective or a whole new type of game?

Wouldn't it be something as simple as a map wide terrain effect? For gameplay sake, wouldn't all ships/squadrons be affected equally?

I was under the impression that x-wings are not affected.

3 minutes ago, Alexhurlbut said:

Wouldn't it be something as simple as a map wide terrain effect? For gameplay sake, wouldn't all ships/squadrons be affected equally?

Ships have different weight and propulsion.

For quick fun, the main thing is reworking the obstecles. If you have them have the dust clouds replace two of the normal obstecles(When playing dust cloud obj, consider replacement already done.). These are strom clouds they still do dust cloud effect. The main question is how you rework remaining obstecles. Here are a few seggestions.

Civilian ships: This is the easy route as this can replace all remaing obsecles and keep same effect. You just have to create additional ship identifier for each one beyond the first if you go all out.

Normal Cloud: Can only replace asteroid and debris. losses its damage ability for landing on it. Still obscures and breaks engagement.

In EU, VSD was supposedly the largest ship to function in atmosphere. So no MC80, ISD, Interdictor. Since ISDs do it in Rogue One, all bets are off

Tie Fighters suffered massive crosswind issues. I think pretty much everything else was either so bad aerodynamically that they functioned on repulsors or could actually fly.

In atmosphere? Suddenly B wings became so much better lol

I think high atmosphere battles such as seen in the Battle of Quell would make for a cool objective card. Maybe something thats low orbit but still high enough where there arent major debuffs.

What about this:

All large and medium base ships lose a yaw of players choice. Squadrons speed four or more lose one speed and squadrons speed two or less gain one speed.

For atmospheric battles, I'd do the following. This is an adapted mechanic I saw in another fleet-scale combat game last year.

Planetary Landing - 40 points per objective token

Deployment: The deployment zones are the areas within 2 range rulers of the short board edges. Before setting up obstacles, remove all asteroids and replace them with two dust fields. Players alternate placing obstacles as normal. Then players alternate placing 3 Victory Tokens set to their faction symbol within the setup area beyond distance 3 of either long board edge. (If both players have the same faction, the second player may use the faction token of their choice and their opponent must use a different faction)

Special rules: All attacks by the first player at medium and long range are obstructed. All attacks by the second player at long range are obstructed. Each time a player activates a ship without the Flotilla special rule within Distance 1 of a Victory token, flip the token to display the faction of that player.

End of Game: Each player receives an objective token for each victory token displaying their faction symbol at the end of the game.

Pick up a copy of dropfleet commander and adapt their system for sectors and clusters.

In that game all battles are taking place above a planetary surface. Essentially important locations on the planet are placed and the point of many scenarios is to secure such strategic assets. So you'd need some extra rules for landing craft and such, but heavily abstract the actual ground combat (unless you want a hyper detailed simulation).

Add in extra rules for ground based ion cannons and other surface to space type weaponry.

31 minutes ago, Forgottenlore said:

Pick up a copy of dropfleet commander and adapt their system for sectors and clusters.

In that game all battles are taking place above a planetary surface. Essentially important locations on the planet are placed and the point of many scenarios is to secure such strategic assets. So you'd need some extra rules for landing craft and such, but heavily abstract the actual ground combat (unless you want a hyper detailed simulation).

Add in extra rules for ground based ion cannons and other surface to space type weaponry.

Look above you and squint.

Yeah, I thought you might be referring to DFC.

Personally, I think that mode of fighting; sub orbital with strategic objectives on the surface, should become standard for all space fleet combat games. It just adds so much design space and strategic options.

Of course, established properties like SW and ST have to go with their established paradigm of space combat in a featureless theatre with no terrain to speak of.

I've been working on house rule adaptation for X-wing for atmospheric and 2.0 stuff and have wondered about doing it for Armada too. Only solid concept I had so far was that the 'stations' would be cities and bases like Rogue One had an ISD over Jedha. The concept art had them all hooked up too with umbilical like cords and stuff so I feel like they could have the same effect as in space. Although now that you all mention it, dust cloud are in, they work. Would make good geonosis features.

Thanks for taking part in the discussion! Here's another venue for atmospheric battles; gas planets. Aka the Cloud City in Empire Strike Back.

How would you handle that? We know that Gas Planets are capable of powerful winds and contain various gases not usually present in such concentration on a normal terrestrial planet. And that they can contain incredible pressure (very high motivation not to lose your repulsors/engines! At least, crashing on a terrestrial planet you have a reasonable chance of survival as a crewman).

Here is my try at some Gas Giant rules.

Green Scenario: Battle in the Clouds.

Divide the 6x3 map in half. One 3x3 represents the atmosphere, the other 3x3 is open space. No other obstacles are used except the station in orbit at range 5 from the edge of the atmosphere. It is placed by the second player.

The second player receives 10 points for each of their ships alive in the atmosphere at the end of the game. Both players receive 1 point for each ship alive in the atmosphere at the end of each turn.

Ships and squadrons with any part of their base overlapping the atmosphere are considered in the atmosphere and apply these rules:

• Ships may not move above speed 2. A ship entering atmosphere at speed 3 takes a face up damage card and then slows to 2. A ship entering atmosphere above speed 3 is destroyed.
• A ship may decelerate buy one even if they do not have a nav command or token.
• Ships that go speed zero for any reason are destroyed.
• Shooting is limited to close and medium range and is treated as obscured.
• Shields are limited to strength one on each hull zone. They are not restored but may be repaired above this level when a ship leaves the atmosphere.
• Squadrons are limited to speed 2 and can only shoot at range 1 (effects snipe, Rhymer etc.)

On 4/11/2017 at 5:32 PM, Church14 said:

In EU, VSD was supposedly the largest ship to function in atmosphere. So no MC80, ISD, Interdictor. Since ISDs do it in Rogue One, all bets are off

Tie Fighters suffered massive crosswind issues. I think pretty much everything else was either so bad aerodynamically that they functioned on repulsors or could actually fly.

weren't many of the Mon Cal ships build underwater to hide from the empire?

30 minutes ago, mad mandolorian said:

weren't many of the Mon Cal ships build underwater to hide from the empire?

They were built as pleasure liners and such under the Imperials' noses while they were occupated. Hence MC80s being said to be converted from them. Mon Calamari built them in such way they could be converted to warships when the time came.