Celestial Phenomenon

By Rodent Mastermind, in X-Wing

The Deck I'm currently considering is

8x Space Debris - Place 2 Small Asteroids
4x Huge Chunk - Place 1 Large Asteroid
4x Asteroid Field - Place 3 Small Asteroids
3x Mine Fields - Place 2 Mine Fields
1x Gravity Well - The 1st obstacle you place is a Gravity Well, it must be placed at a point on the center line of the board.
3x Gaseous Clouds - Place 4 Gaseous Clouds on the board.
3x Comet - Place 2 Moving Asteroids on the board. Randomize their starting direction.
2x ComSat - Place 1 Relay Satellite

2x Ion Storm - Place 2 Ionized Gas Clouds
1x Solar Flares – Play the game checking for Solar Activity – Draw another terrain card



Just above 50% of the cards are Asteroids. The average number of objects works out around 6, and as half the cards are 2 it means that most of the time you will get around this number, though in a small amount of situation you will get less or more.

Edited by Rodent Mastermind

Not sure I'm sold on the "comsat".

That new deck list looks good too. We still talking about 3 cards from the deck right?

The templates are pretty awesome. Don't take this the wrong way, but space debris should be debris and asteroids should be asteroids. :D

Edited by Hav0k

I'm not sure I'm sold on the "comsat".

That new deck list looks good too. We still talking about 3 cards from the deck right?

The templates are pretty awesome. Don't take this the wrong way, but space debris should be debris and asteroids should be asteroids. :D

I agree it's not quite right.. I could see a Rebel player or a Bomber placing it close to their deployment and using it to get Target Locks for an Alpha strike.

Maybe something along the lines

Relay Satellite: Treat collisions with satellite as if it was an asteroid. While within range 1 of satellite ships count as having Target Lock on their Action Bar, ships that already have Target Lock may make a free Target Lock action in their 'Perform Action' Step.

This stops as bad abuse. But I'm open for better ideas for a Satellite.

Maybe go with when a ship performs a Focus action within range 1 of a satellite it gains an additional token.

Edited by Rodent Mastermind

ExampleCards.jpg

OK here are the 1st pass at some of the cards, I'm sure the wording on some of them will need tightning up...

I've been having some thoughts about destructible terrain. I think the answer is not to give hull values, as that means you have to keep track of hits etc, and I don't think we want any paper work on Terrain.. So my thought was give them a high Agility (5 or 6) to represent you having to hit a flaw or weak spot. But any Hits that go through would destroy them.

I was thinking about making things like the Comsat destroyable, and maybe add something like a Volatile Asteroid, which if you roll a crit while flying through explodes, cause 1 damage to all ships within Range 1, like a bomb. But could also be shot at for a similar effect.

Edited by Rodent Mastermind

Really nice looking cards, are these the same size as the damage deck cards? I am also working on some "tokens" for these as well. I think it would be cool to have 33 cards in the "space junk" deck. Then we can use a spare damage deck with a sleeve with the space junk text on the information side. These could then be shuffled and dealt and then placed face down on the board without anyone knowing what they have placed. Then flip the card over and replace with the appropriate token so that it is at least partially overlapping the card's location.

Destroyable stuff is good, maybe things must take 3 hits in a round to be destroyed, no carry over damage. Maybe criticals count as 2 hits for this purpose (ie: represent a Direct Hit critical). Maybe then no agility roll is needed. The Comsat would possible need special rules if hit by an ion cannon.

Edited by DB Draft

Current text on the Mine fields is,

Mine fields: Acts like an Asteroid. If a ship moves into or through this template roll an additional attack dice....

So what are peoples opinion... 2 Attack Dice OK.. or do we want to go mad and make it 3 Attack dice.. which could make it deadly.


Decided to go with

Relay Satellite: Acts like an Asteroid. If a ship performs a focus action within Range 1, Assign 1 additional Focus token.

Nice and simple, not nearly as open as abuse as the TL suggestion... Also it's the first Destructable item of terrain.. As a Comsat is more fragile than a lump of rock, it's Agility 4, and ofc 1 hull to avoid having to worry about book keeping.

comsatcard.jpg


Also currently the Gravity Well has no range. it just acts on the whole board.. do we want to limit it to 3 range?

I quite like it having a huge effect on the game.. but range 3 would be less extreme. only a single one will appear in the deck.

Edited by Rodent Mastermind

Proximity mines are 3 dice, right? The one that comes with firesprays.

Proximity mines are 3 dice, right? The one that comes with firesprays.

True but that is one use, this will remain in play.

But I do like the idea of 3 dice.. it would be a serious case of stay away from those mines.


The other thing I was discussing today is remove the randomize direction on placement for the moving asteroids. There is no good way of randomizing direction with the components given in the X-Wing Box. I don't think this is an issue as all players can see which way it is moving when they set up their ships and it has to be Range 2 from the edge on setup.... If it goes off the board it reappears on the board edge directly opposite heading in the same orientation as when it left... Like the classic Arcade Asteroid game... It's simple it avoids using a dice not in the game.. and as they come 2 to a card both sides get the chance to set up one Moving Asteroid if they want.. so it's fair.

Edited by Rodent Mastermind

Proximity mines are 3 dice, right? The one that comes with firesprays.

True but that is one use, this will remain in play.

But I do like the idea of 3 dice.. it would be a serious case of stay away from those mines.


The other thing I was discussing today is remove the randomize direction on placement for the moving asteroids. There is no good way of randomizing direction with the components given in the X-Wing Box. I don't think this is an issue as all players can see which way it is moving when they set up their ships and it has to be Range 2 from the edge on setup.... If it goes off the board it reappears on the board edge directly opposite heading in the same orientation as when it left... Like the classic Arcade Asteroid game... It's simple it avoids using a dice not in the game.. and as they come 2 to a card both sides get the chance to set up one Moving Asteroid if they want.. so it's fair.

Yeah man that is totally the right way to go for this.

I am going to do that very thing too, with the addition of changing the direction of the movement if the thing gets hit by another object or ship. The Asteroids video game effects work here too.

:lol:

Proximity mines are 3 dice, right? The one that comes with firesprays.

True but that is one use, this will remain in play.

But I do like the idea of 3 dice.. it would be a serious case of stay away from those mines.


The other thing I was discussing today is remove the randomize direction on placement for the moving asteroids. There is no good way of randomizing direction with the components given in the X-Wing Box. I don't think this is an issue as all players can see which way it is moving when they set up their ships and it has to be Range 2 from the edge on setup.... If it goes off the board it reappears on the board edge directly opposite heading in the same orientation as when it left... Like the classic Arcade Asteroid game... It's simple it avoids using a dice not in the game.. and as they come 2 to a card both sides get the chance to set up one Moving Asteroid if they want.. so it's fair.

Yeah man that is totally the right way to go for this.

I am going to do that very thing too, with the addition of changing the direction of the movement if the thing gets hit by another object or ship. The Asteroids video game effects work here too.

:lol:

My rule is if I can't fit it on the card in 5pt font-size the rules for the object are too complicated, the Comets as I'm calling them are approaching that point.

but heck, house rule them even more complex if you want to.

Edited by Rodent Mastermind

and Volatile Asteroids... Though I've yet to make the card for them

Volatile-Asteroid.jpg

Not to razz you up, but are you making the art or finding it and using it under fair use for non profit?

If these are your art bits I say you could sale these because they look very nice.

A mix of made from scratch, heavily modified images and other stuff. It's totally nonprofit. I'll make a PDF up that people can download and print out a set.

A mix of made from scratch, heavily modified images and other stuff. It's totally nonprofit. I'll make a PDF up that people can download and print out a set.

A 300DPI top quality printable PDF did you say?

:wub:

A mix of made from scratch, heavily modified images and other stuff. It's totally nonprofit. I'll make a PDF up that people can download and print out a set.

A 300DPI top quality printable PDF did you say?

:wub:

Yep that was the plan.

^_^

Full bleed on the cards? That would be super awesome happy times, we could get them printed out a cut up at a kinkos or etc. then and get like a set to use for tournaments or campaigns.

So I'm thinking of going a similar but different route with the deck. My concept:

32 cards

8 X Asteroid - small

4 X Asteroid - large

4 X Asteroid - moving

4 X Mine

6 X Gaseous Cloud

3 X Ionized Gas Cloud

2 X ComSat

1 X Gravity Well

Idea is each side is dealt 3 cards during the set up and you end up with 6 obstacles. There is a 50% chance for some type of Asteroid. I'm still a bit green but I feel this should work.

Also, does a gravity well not need a planet/mass? Am I remembering this wrong. Or are using it to imply we are near something. Or we talking more along the lines of a black hole. I might be wrong.

Just thinking out loud.

Edited by Hav0k

Also, does a gravity well not need a planet/mass? Am I remembering this wrong. Or are using it to imply we are near something. Or we talking more along the lines of a black hole. I might be wrong.

Just thinking out loud.

Could be an imploded Hyperdrive, Dark Matter or any number of weird things you only get in a galaxy far far away.

Edited by Rodent Mastermind

Yeah you need something, like my Death Star idea kind of, but for this project a black hole or any planet, or better yet planetoid works. A warp drive would still need to be configured to make something like this, for it to work in the way you mean, so no just having a damaged or discarded drive would not make an effective gravity well. Dark matter is our stupid way of giving a name to cosmic energy, because we do not understand how it really works...yet. It is kind of like junk DNA, we do not understand that it is our God self that gives some of us abilities, so we call it junk...Jedi called this medicloride.

:lol:

I think you can make a blurred thingie up over a nice open space scene, and that will look right and be different from what you have done thus far.

Well I made this for the Gravity Well one.. It looks wierd and looks like it sucks stuff in... and it bright and wibbly wobbly which is a plus

Also it has a very well defined center which is important for the rules on the card.

GravityWell.jpg

Edited by Rodent Mastermind

In other news.. Have all the cards created, and if you want to play around with them I have made an X-Wing terrain app on the web..

http://nezumi.me.uk/Rebel_Scum/Celestial/Deal/Dealer.html

It will allow you to deal out cards, and you can even modify the number of cards in the deck, to mess around with the balance.

OK... print version of templates and cards, I went with 36 cards in the production set as that fits well on 2 sheets. I've also included backs for the cards.

Celestial Phenomenon Print PDF

Thumb-Sheet1.jpg

Thumb-Sheet2.jpg

Thumb-Sheet3.jpg

Thumb-Sheet4.jpg

And the Web App has been updated to match the composition in the PDF

Celestial Phenomenon Web App

Thumb-Webapp.jpg

Edited by Rodent Mastermind

You have done a magnificent job on these. I was planning on using fairly large round coasters for some of these effects like the gas clouds and gravity well. Would it be possible just to have some of these types made available without the "wiggly" borders so that they can be resized and cut out to fit. Something like the size of the gravity well for the gas clouds would be ideal so that it can be resized as needed. If a version of the PDF file with all the effects done with a circular format that would be awesome as an alternative.

... wibbly wobbly is almost always a plus.

^_^