So heres a thought…

If you could get a spinner to indicate facing direction (just an arrow on a round base to easily spin… I have one from other board games), it might be interesting to assign a random movement dial to each asteroid (select the movement face down) and this would allow for moving asteroids.

Maybe once every two turns you spin for each asteroid and they move after all the ships movement and attacks are resolved. this would add a constantly changing tactical element to the game, making it harder to preplan and forcing players to be adaptable…

just an idea…what do poeple think?

come to think of it… a GW scatter dice would do!

My friend Tom and I worked out rules for moving asteroids… and it was awesome.

At the start of the round, after setting the movement wheels, roll a D10 and three attack dice for each rock. On the D10 the numbers 1 to 9 correspond to a typical keypad for direction (with a 5 or a 10 ‘being 'no movement") and the number of hits represent which track marker to use for distance. (1, 2, or 3)
If an asteroid bumps into you at this point, you’ve been knocked off course. Immediately randomize your movement wheel and then follow the standard obstacle rules. After all the rocks have been moved proceed with the normal movement phase. You might strike a second rock during your movement phase.

You’ll have to decide what to do with rocks that move off the edge. We used the asteroid video game concept, which added yet another level of unpredictability to the cursed rocks.

We played a version of Capture the Flag with these rules and had a great game. At one point two rocks camped out on the flag and we had to maneuver shooting each other while waiting for them to move on.

My method uses a GW scatter die and moving the asteroid 1 distance. The problem is that it doesn't make sense to fight around asteroids and if there ever was an asteroid field, the asteroids don't move at a significant velocity to be much of a danger.

Once you determine a particular asteroid's speed and direction, it should remain that way until it hits something. Not that physics has ever been a strong governing force in SW. Just sayin'.

That sounds interesting, but have you figured out asteroid-asteroid collisions?

Also, as for movement, I think smaller asteroids should move at a greater range/pace than larger ones. That said, if a collision occurs, one of these events could happen:

1. If a smaller asteroid collides with a larger one, the larger asteroid would remain in place, while the smaller one would "ricochet" off at range 1 since the smaller asteroid moves at a greater speed.
2. If a small asteroid would hit another one of the same size, they both would react to the collision.

That would be a nice (game) mechanic for a scenario I've been thinking of involving the Millennium Falcon (when "Wave 2" drops ) and a few TIE Fighters (the escape from Hoth from Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back).

Personally, I'd agree with Hashik.

At the start of the game, randomly determine each asteroid's direction of movement and speed.

For the rest of the game individual asteroids move in their determined direction and speed.

For speed, I'd use the 1/2/3 straight templates.

You'd need to figure out whether asteroids that hit the board edge leave play, or if they "bounce" and head back into the play area. Optionally, they could leave and spawn a new asteroid entering from a board edge.

Gotta keep it simple. We don't want it to take longer to take care of table/terrain effects than it takes to maneuver and attack with your ships.

Basic Physics needs to be in play (even in SW ), asteroids ought to move in straight lines at constant speeds. Collisions need to be either ignored (abstracted 3d like everything else in this game) or have a very standard way to simulate collisions and altered trajectories to avoid argument.

There was a proposed placement and movement system posted yesterday that I thought was very good. Seemed like the only part that needed to be tweaked was how collisions should be handled.

-DavicusPrime

They would be moving in a set direction but the changes in movement are "caused" by changing forces. i.e. stray blaster fire, explosions, collisions, forces given from ship propulsion, etc.

Nicco said:

Give it a shot and tell us how it works out in practice.

-DavicusPrime

DavicusPrime said:

Thanks for the compliment on my scenario, and I agree after playing another game last night that it works much smoother with the asteroids just ignoring each other.

What Davicus is referring to is my post in the "Terrain Effect Variants" thread where I described how I have been running moving asteroid scenarios. While that one has more details, basically it is as follows…

• Placement of objects is somewhat normal: P1 places the first asteroid, followed by P2 placing asteroid 2 then selecting one of 6 arrows with the number 1 or 2 on them and places it on asteroid 1 with their choice of direction of travel, continue with P1 placing object 3 and choosing movement of object 2, etc.
• Each round after ships move but before attacks the asteroids move using the appropriate straight template corresponding to the number on their arrow. If the move off the map they wrap around to the other side.

We have found that the asteroids reappearing on the there side is important because if they don't then players turtle using 1" movements waiting for the asteroids to clear out.

not sure that having asteroids react to explosions etc is a good idea… but i see no reason that they couldnt be set off initially at a large curve (to indicate it being trapped in some distant, off board gravity well…