Help me love Spaceships

[PK]

It's important to note that the GURPS Spaceships series offers not one, but three different combat systems:

1. Basic Combat (from GURPS Spaceships)

This is much like GURPS' basic combat system. There are no hexes or explicit maps, but the maneuvers are taking place in realistic space and time, and things like distance and speed matter greatly. This is a great choice for any realistic or slightly cinematic game that doesn't want combat to feel like a wargame.

2. Tactical Combat (from GURPS Spaceships 3)

This is much like GURPS' tactical combat system. It uses hexes and counters, to track facing and distance with much greater accuracy. It's more complex and involved, obviously, but it also means that there will be fewer questions about distance and position and allows for precise tactics. This is a great choice for any realistic game in which space combat will be a huge focus.

3. Dogfighting Combat (from GURPS Spaceships 4)

This is a boldly cinematic combat system in which small fighter craft can fly circles around slower ones. Speed and skill are king -- your personal abilities are at least as important as your ship's statistics. This is a great choice for most cinematic and space--opera games, as it makes drama and action more important than physics.

[Gollum]

Wow. Thanks a lot for all these precisions. It's very clear for the newby that I am in this topic.

[Anaraxes]

Even if players are each piloting a fighter, then you're looking at just a single squadron that isn't going to do much without plot protection or a severely limited enemy in terms of firepower.

This is similar to the situation where the PCs personally take part in land battles (usually in a low-tech or fantasy setting). You could handle the emphasis on PC importance in a manner similar to that used by Mass Combat. That is, the PCs are fighting their individual fights, and their success or failure is taken to influence or determine the outcome of the battle as a whole. The PCs don't sit back and get carried by the rest of the fleet; they have to carry it!

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

3. Dogfighting Combat (from GURPS Spaceships 4)

This is a boldly cinematic combat system in which small fighter craft can fly circles around slower ones. Speed and skill are king -- your personal abilities are at least as important as your ship's statistics. This is a great choice for most cinematic and space--opera games, as it makes drama and action more important than physics.

While the rules presented in SS4 are "boldly cinematic", they don't really represent a new combat system, just a slight variation to the Basic combat. That's fine for what it is, but it doesn't in any way change the underlying assumptions of Basic Combat (ie, turn length, damage control, etc).

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

While the rules presented in SS4 are "boldly cinematic", they don't really represent a new combat system, just a slight variation to the Basic combat. That's fine for what it is, but it doesn't in any way change the underlying assumptions of Basic Combat (ie, turn length, damage control, etc).

Some of the elements can be employed as variant rules in Tactical combat as well.

But I agree that it hardly seems a whole system of its own.

[PK]

It probably would've been clearer for me to say that they "radically change the feel of the combat system, by making individual skill and dramatic choices far more important." While the turns, etc., don't change, it's my experience that a combat run with the dogfighting rules feels so different from one run without them, that you may as well be using a different combat system.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

While the rules presented in SS4 are "boldly cinematic", they don't really represent a new combat system, just a slight variation to the Basic combat. That's fine for what it is, but it doesn't in any way change the underlying assumptions of Basic Combat (ie, turn length, damage control, etc).

When I first saw the Basic combat system in the playtest I thought it made the most sense as an abstract dogfighting system.