GURPS Spaceships: Murphies, their fixes and alternatives

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by cmdicely

Spaceships uses 2D "tactical" combat, and space is actually 3D, which breaks realism badly for pretty much everything tactical about Spaceships combat, particularly with more than two objects of interest on the map (combatant vessels plus any missiles, etc.)

There's no easy fix for this, unless you consider "adapt Spaceships tactical combat to 3D" to be easy (its fairly straightforward if you steal the 3D play aids and adapt a few rules from Ad Astra's Squadron Strike, which is pretty close to a 3D analog of the SS3 tactical system to start with.)

3D-izing Spaceships isn't exactly problematic from a rules-adaptation PoV. It is somewhat difficult from the playing PoV (you need a software aid, which, while trivial to make from a scripting PoV, will scare off many people). It also might be problematic from the balance PoV: Guns suddenly become less useful due to the enemies having many more [3D] 'hexes' to use.

Also, I will repeat my question from the other thread: would you play Spaceships 3D if such a software aid were available? (Not just cmdicey, the question is addressed to everyone.)