Delta Vector the Game

I just wanted to promote a fellow blogger's spaceship wargame project; Delta Vector the game, from the blog... Delta Vector! EvilleMonkeigh (yes, that's his username) starts it off with an article about how other game systems have been modernised over the years, using Infinity and Tomorrow's War as example of modern wargames, and wonders why spaceship gaming is still stuck in the Full Thrust rut. Now, Full Thrust is a great game and there's nothing wrong with taking inspiration from it, but building a new game from scratch, trying to implement lessons learnt from modern skirmish games might give something.

In this first article the guidelines are laid out and I think they're spot on. I'd probably try to adhere to something similar if I ever sat down to make a spaceship game. Reasonably realistic vector movement, importance of maneuvering, reaction gameplay and as little record keeping as possible. Good stuff!

It was an interesting read and I looked forward to the next article in the series... the folllowing week or so. But no, within the next few days the skeleton of a game had taken shape on the blog and it looks fairly interesting. I like the easy to manage vector movement rules especially.

Here's a convenient link to all the articles so far:

1. Spaceship Game Design
2. Movement
3. Movement (Facing Changes)
4. Movement (Gravity and Planets)
5. Movement off Board
6. Initiative & Contested Rolls
7. Reactions
8. Design Crossroads
9. Fighter/Missile Movement
10. Direct Fire
11. Damage & Repairs
12. Relative Velocity
13. Weapons
14. Setting a few Parameters
15. Weaponry
16. Giving All Ships a Role

And there you have it, that's what EvilleMonkeigh has come up with so far. All in all I think it's looking really good. Some of it like Relative Velocity is stuff I would love to see in the game but wonder about how practical it is (how much more fiddly does the game become?). You can see parts of Infinity in the Contested Rolls and Reactions system which I think should work fine for a spaceship game as well. The weapons seem divere and with different roles without going overboard. And that the author is a fan of both EVE Online and DP9's Lightning Strike is just a bonus!

The articles are brief with a lot of pictures so quick to grasp. If you're a spaceship gamer have a look! There's a thread about the system over at TMP, which you can find here. Now, if I could only find some time to play around with these rules myself...