Wing Commander miniatures game

so just doing some musings. Assuming we were to use a 10 point scale for pilot skill (An over all rating of how good of a pilot the individual is, not how good a wing mate/commander they are), and working with the understanding that you can only have whole numbers, who would you point at the top of the scale, who would be at the bottom, and why? Well perhaps 'scale' is the wrong word. Who would you have as pilot skill 10, who would be 9, who be 8, etc. I am considering the idea of having different versions of pilots that were in several itterations of the franchise. So Don't be afraid to list a "Col. Blair" as a PS: 9, while a 'Maj. Blair" would be PS: 7, or whatever you think he should be.

Personally I'm thinking:

Pilot Skill 10================
- Major Todd 'Maniac' Marshall
- 'Seether'
- Prince Thrakath

Pilot Skill 9================
- Col. Christopher 'Maverick' Blair
- Col. Ralga 'Hobbes' 'Nar Hallas


Pilot Skill 8================
- Col. Jacob 'Hawk' Manley
- Lt. Col. Tamara "Panther' Farnsworth
- Col. Leannette 'Angel' Devereaux

Pilot Skill 7================
- lt. Winston "Vagabond' Chang
- Major. Leannette 'Angel' Devereaux
- Captain. Leannette 'Angel' Devereaux
- Lt. Col. Tanaka 'Spirit' Mariko
- Lt. Lance'Frosty' Casey

Pilot Skill 6================
- Captain James 'Mother hen/Paladin' Taggart
- Major Kien 'Bossman' Chen
- Major Zachary 'Jazz' Colson

Pilot Skill 5================
- 2nd Lt. Troy 'Catscratch' Carter
- Lt. Maxwell "Maestro" Garrett
- 2nd Lt. Etienne 'Doomsday' Montclair

Pilot Skill 4================

Pilot Skill 3================
-Lt.

Pilot Skill 2================

Pilot Skill 1================
 
It's Jeanette :).

Also, I think you need more than just pilot skill as a pilot rating, because it will make it hard to represent some people. A good start would be to have separate flying and gunnery skills - it is not uncommon for WC to highlight that someone is a good flyer, but a bad shooter or vice versa (see especially the WC1 Kilrathi aces). Possibly you could even have separate defensive and offensive flying skills. Someone like Maniac might be a great offensive flier, capable of racking up kills, but lousy as a defensive flyer protecting other ships.
 
Quarto said:
It's Jeanette :).

Also, I think you need more than just pilot skill as a pilot rating, because it will make it hard to represent some people. A good start would be to have separate flying and gunnery skills - it is not uncommon for WC to highlight that someone is a good flyer, but a bad shooter or vice versa (see especially the WC1 Kilrathi aces). Possibly you could even have separate defensive and offensive flying skills. Someone like Maniac might be a great offensive flier, capable of racking up kills, but lousy as a defensive flyer protecting other ships.
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well my thinking right now is that a combination of the Pilot Skill and the Ship manueverwill create the "Action Point Pool" which will be a count of how many action points a pilot has each turn. So the player would have to balance manuevers against attacks/type of attacks. Most pilots would also have some form of a 'pilot ability' that can affect their manuevers and attacks. Right now my thinking is that someone like maniac would have a high pilot skill, but would also have an ability that negates him having bonuses from wing mates or something of that nature.
 
I've mentioned TacOps before; tried the old site today and discovered there's some link rot going on. Figured I'd go ahead and pop the rules up here, along with a supplement that was published for WC1 craft. If anything was ever developed for other games in the series (WC3 and onward, Armada, Privateer, etc.), I've never seen it. If nothing else, you might find sources of inspiration there.

One thing I did a while back was create a series of cards for handling the maneuvers with TacOps (the idea being to continue it's development; I got sidetracked there). Indicating movement was done with a combination of a "speed card" and a "maneuver card". There were seven speed cards - 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, afterburner and "repeat". This was because acceleration was a thing in TacOps - your speed from turn to turn could only change so much depending on your fighter - and no ship in the game had a speed greater than five range units (hexes in this case). So you left your speed card from your last turn on the table up where it could be seen, and if you wanted to go the same speed again, you played the "repeat" card. Afterburner also worked to repeat your speed, it just overrode it with an afterburner kick, of which you only had so many per match. Maneuver cards matched the maneuvers in the game - turn left 60, turn left 120, bank left, go straight, bank right, turn right 60, turn right 120, "repeat", burnout, hard brake, immelman, shelton slide 60, shelton slide 120. Whether or not you got any of the special maneuvers cards depended on the capabilities of the craft itself (e.g. Ferrets pretty much got them all; Grikaths didn't get any of them, I think). Each player gets a set of these cards for each craft they control.

For playtesting purposes, this kind of system would be way easier/cheaper to develop/tweak than getting the dials from XWM, and they could be customized more readily as well. Just something to think about. Nothing says you can't go to a dial once the game's further along.

I had also begun some work on making updates to TacOps system of developing stats for other ships based on observations; doesn't look like I'd made much progress in making actual ship stats, though the notes are fairly complete.
 
Quarto said:
It's Jeanette :).

Also, I think you need more than just pilot skill as a pilot rating, because it will make it hard to represent some people. A good start would be to have separate flying and gunnery skills - it is not uncommon for WC to highlight that someone is a good flyer, but a bad shooter or vice versa (see especially the WC1 Kilrathi aces). Possibly you could even have separate defensive and offensive flying skills. Someone like Maniac might be a great offensive flier, capable of racking up kills, but lousy as a defensive flyer protecting other ships.
Click to expand...

So I've been thinking (when I should be working on homework assignments, curse you ADHD), and I think Quarto is right but not all the way right. a unified pilot skill will not offer the diversity to handle the difference between being able to pilot, being able to shoot, and being taunted/taunting.

So I'm looking at building a pilot skill system that would comprise values for 3 attributes:

Flight Skill: How good of a pilot they are.
Marksmenship: How good of a shot they are.
Ego: How likely they are to taunt or be tauned.

So I'm thinking it will still be a 10 point scale, 1-10 with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest. But higher isn't always better.

So basically:

Flight skill: The higher the number the more complex manuevers the pilot can pull off in a given turn. This, coupled with the ships manuever value will be used to determine what moves a fighter can make each turn.

Marksmenship: This is kind of a roughe idea here but hear me out. While a higher number means you are a better shot (with 10 being the best) it also means you are more likely to focus on the shot so you loose defense ability. Because you are focusing on making your shot you neglected to keep track of the guy who just got on your tail. So while a higher number means you're a better shot, you loose defensive bonuses for each point over 5.

Ego: One of the big things that made Wing Commander enjoyable for me was that you could piss your opponents off and get them do something that in a clear head they would know they shouldn't do. And like wise the enemy tried to piss you off. My thinking here is when you declare that you are taunting you take your pilot Ego score, compare it to the enemy Ego score. The difference between the two is what you must roll under (on a D10) to make a successful taunt. If someone has been taunted they can not attack another target but the one that taunted them.

Thoughts?

Also random colored image of Kilrathi Ace: Bhurak Star Killer! Because I still like the card construction idea.

BHURAKSTARKILLERCAT3-colored.png
 
i like the gist of it, especially the ego stat. however i don't think something like target fixation is a function of how accurate you are. It seems more like a unique character disadvantage or a function of the ego stat. I like the concept but maybe you lose defense for higher ego. Take Iceman, he's touted as a crack shot but is very low key. So i imagine he has high marksmanship but low ego.
 
DefianceIndustries said:
i like the gist of it, especially the ego stat. however i don't think something like target fixation is a function of how accurate you are. It seems more like a unique character disadvantage or a function of the ego stat. I like the concept but maybe you lose defense for higher ego. Take Iceman, he's touted as a crack shot but is very low key. So i imagine he has high marksmanship but low ego.
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My thinking on it (which admittedly was after being up for 39 hour straight so it may be somewhat skewed) was that is where you get into the whole "Squad construction" mind set. So say you have a pilot who is a really good shot, but not so great and piloting. Like he's acceptable but not the best. You would want to pair them with someone who is very good at maneuvering (if doing a 2 man wing) and someone else who is very level headed (if doing a 3 man wing). also the mechanic is just the base line. There would still be the individual pilot ability. Like in the case of IceMan I'd probably give him an ability that says he only looses 1 point of defense in stead of 3 or 4 or whatever it would be otherwise while a generic pilot with the same marksmanship skill wouldn't have that ability.

This is the head ache I keep running into. A fair amount of the in-game examples we can references are examples of the exemplary, not the average. Like IceMan. He was explicitly called out as being "Cool under fire while being a crack shot". That sounds to me that IceMan is more the exception then the average. At least that is how I read it.
 
Understood from the squad-building angle. However if you were to tie something like target fixation to gunnery skills, I think it would be the opposite, the lower the skill, the more likely a pilot will focus on lining up their shot to the exclusion of all else. That way as pilots advance they make fewer "rookie mistakes". I still think it's more of a function of ego as learning how to keep your head on a swivel and caring for one's wingman are all a learned discipline.
 
If you're wanting examples of 'average' pilots, you might take a look at the CCG - download the VASSAL mod, use 7-zip to crack it open and take a look at the images. All the cards are there; I should know, I built the mod. Might give you a few ideas there.
 
DefianceIndustries said:
Understood from the squad-building angle. However if you were to tie something like target fixation to gunnery skills, I think it would be the opposite, the lower the skill, the more likely a pilot will focus on lining up their shot to the exclusion of all else. That way as pilots advance they make fewer "rookie mistakes". I still think it's more of a function of ego as learning how to keep your head on a swivel and caring for one's wingman are all a learned discipline.
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I feel like if someone was a poor shot they would actually focus more on flying at that point as it would allow them to better cover the ones who are a better shot.
 
So just compiling information. As of right now I'm looking at using a combination stat system. By this I mean there are stats for the ship that is being piloted, and the pilot themselves. The stats interact in different ways. The ship itself will have an ability (Cloaking, auto-targeting, very maneuverable, extremely armored, super-heavy etc) while the pilot MAY have their own ability. The abilities of the pilots may be offensive(providing some sort of bonus to attacks) defensive (bonus to the ability to negate an enemy attack or downgrade it's attack), or support (Provides bonuses to the wing so long as the criteria are met). The pilot stats would be printed on the pilot transparency sheet that would be placed over the ship card.

pilot stats:

Flight skill: The higher the number the more complex maneuvers the pilot can pull off in a given turn. This, coupled with the ships maneuver value will be used to determine what moves a fighter can make each turn.

Marksmanship: 10 point scale. 1 is "You might be able to hit a dreadnought if you're 50 meters away and it's not moving" while 10 is "You can fly through a hanger deck and take out the fuel tanks to render the entire flight deck out of commission."

Ego: a 10 scale. When you make a taunt you roll a D10 and want to roll equal to or under your ego stat. So if your ego stat is 7 you would want to roll a 1-7 to make a successful taunt. The pilot being taunted can then test to see if they resist the taunt by making a similar roll. So has an example a pilot with Ego: 7 rolls a 5 to successfully taunt a pilot with Ego: 5 who then rolls a 4 and is able to resist the taunt. A Natural 1 to taunt can only be countered by a natural 1 to resist. If a pilot is taunted they must make effort possible to engaging the ship that taunted through the end of the current game turn.

Pilot ability: Not all pilots will have a pilot ability. Chances are most of the named characters will have abilities.

Fighter Stats:
Maneuver: 10 point scale of the fighters maneuverability. 10 would be a maxed out Vampire, 1 would be a Devastator I guess.

Shields: 1-10 shield points (generally a fighter will not have more then 3 or 4 shields). The shield points must be replenished before the fighter itself will take damage. Something like a Sorthak or a Devastator would have 4 shields while an Arrow, Hornet, Darket, Salthi, Piranha and the like would have 1. I'm thinking of it being a 10 point scale to allow for options of special shields and special operations modifications and the like.

Hull Points: 1-5 points. Amount of damage a ship can take before it is destroyed. Something with tonnes and tonnes of armor like the Sorthak, Kah'Ha'Haf, Longbow, or the Devastator would have like 5 hull points. Stuff like the Black Lance Dragon and Shrike would have 4, Vampire, Excalibur, Voktoth, would have 3, Dralthi and HellCats would have 2 while stuff like a Darkett, Salthi, Arrow etc would have 1.

Energy: a split stat. So it would be something like 3/8 or 4/6. The first number is the number of points that regen each turn, while the second number of the total the ship can have at any time. Each energy weapon uses X-number of points. Things like Lasers would use 1 point per shot, while something like Plasma Guns and Mass Drivers would use 4. Something like the Black Lance Dragon would be something like 6/10 while the Longbow would be 6/8 I think, but like the Arrow or Darket would be 3/4.
(Weapons still need a fair amount of work).
 
so little bit of a necro post. Nothing super-major to talk about. the last 2 semesters have been rather brutal and killed my energy for a lot of things and now I'm slowly getting back into my various projects. One thing I have done is built several game piece mock ups so I can at least do some play testing and development.
IMG_0598.JPG

They're fairly simple builds, just strategicly shaped layers of cardboard glued together.
mocks.png
 
There was an Ultima 7 tabletop game in the works. As far as I remember, didn't get real, because EA did not approve. I don't trust EA on that one. The licensing from CR sounds more reasonable.
 
ptiluc said:
They look quite good for simple cardboard!
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Thanks. the entire purpose behind them is to get 'something' on the table that we can use to visualize different ships and from there start figuring out stats and such.

That is if my schedule and my friends schedule ever aligns again...
 
Adm_maverick said:
so little bit of a necro post. Nothing super-major to talk about. the last 2 semesters have been rather brutal and killed my energy for a lot of things and now I'm slowly getting back into my various projects. One thing I have done is built several game piece mock ups so I can at least do some play testing and development.
View attachment 9953

They're fairly simple builds, just strategicly shaped layers of cardboard glued together.
View attachment 9954
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They look good mate!

Glad you are still plugging away at this.

When building your ships what thickness cardboard did you use?

And from just looking at the page you made I'm not 100% sure the way to assemble them, I have a guess but a little description would help.

From where this up to you have a good idea building mate, I will happily do play testing and send you feed back when you are at that stage.

I'll read over this all again an come back with some suggestions (or not if I don't have any).
 
Wolfman said:
They look good mate!

Glad you are still plugging away at this.

When building your ships what thickness cardboard did you use?

And from just looking at the page you made I'm not 100% sure the way to assemble them, I have a guess but a little description would help.
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I just use cereal boxes for the cardboard. Just print out the templates (see below) on any half decent inkjet printer, use a glue stick to glue the template down to the cardboard. Let it dry... for like 12 hours. Then use an exacto-blade to cut out the parts. Any parts that are white with a black outline are just meant to build up body mass.

So if you look at this image, I've numbered the parts for reference:
hellcatv5.png


and then look at this image where I've laid out a mock-up of layers to show the order the parts should be built up in:

building-graph.png


The white layers are the parts that are white with black outlines, while the grey parts are the colored parts.

Like I said, simple builds get you these:
IMG_0598.JPG

I haven't actually built the Hornet yet, but I don't see any problem with it. The Thunderbolt comes out looking somewhat too blocky my tastes so I want to re-design that a bit and the Pahktahn is just a mess as originally laid out.

Here is the templater. just print it at 100% with 0 scaling.
templates.png
 

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Awesome, thank for that confirmed what I was thinking.

I will hopefully get time next week to try building the ships.

Game wise I do have a xwing miniatures variant I was playing around with, and I but to get it the way I was wanting I'll have to look at xwing 2.0 which has introduced energy and the Force to allow for other abilities and special weapon attacks.

Could work for WC.

But I would be very happy to something fun and not a xwing clone.
 
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