Wing Commander miniatures game

[Adm_maverick]

So working on figuring out the scale for weapons and such. IE: What the highest numbers I should be dealing with and what are the smallest numbers? To that end I'm working on compiling data on the weapons. Just pulling info from WCPedit, tossing it into a spread sheet and formatting some charts with it. Couple little hiccups:
1- Wing Commander Prophecy doesn't have all the weapons from previous games, so I'm working to extrapolate approximate stats for those other weapons based on the stats I do have.
2- Some of the weapons were changed between WC4 and WCP (Mass driver being the most egregious example). So... I need to figure out what performance I should base the stats on.

Anyway, short version of what I'm going on about: The items highlighted in yellow are weapons that do not exist in Wing Commander Prophecy so I can't just pull numbers. So looking for some stupid checks.
Basically help me out with the stats for Photon Canon, Reaper Canon, Neutron gun, and Fission cannon.

Best way to do this is to answer things like this:
[weapon name] shoots further then [other weapon] but not as far as [other weapon 2].

 

[Adm_maverick]

I had some inspiration tonight so I started cranking out some more pilot cards. Mainly so that when I get some more play testing in we have a variety of assets to work with. Because of the number of cards, I'll need to do this in sections. First up are the Kilrathi Aligned Pilots:


The Blood Sworn is my own devising. The idea is that the pilot has sworn some sort of oath on his Clan name or family line to accomplish some task. Thus he is Sworn to take out the enemy in question.

 

[Adm_maverick]

Now we have the Confederation Pilots. I grabbed a screen cap of Archer from the Academy tv show and made a card for her. I also pulled a couple pilot images into photoshop, chopped 'em up and altered them to come up with new pilots and characters.

 

[Adm_maverick]

What? Did you think I was done after the Confed Pilots? Not quite. Here we've got Renegades. Pilots who have left the war and now prey on all sides for their own survival. I came up with the Kilrathi term "Se'akir" to mean "With out clan" or "exile".

 

[Adm_maverick]

One of the things I want to do with this game is to have a 'complete universe', by that I mean while it can have expansions that introduce new figthers and new group, it won't get new rules to segment it. Wing Commander 1 figthers should be able to operate in the same system as Wing Commander Prophacy ships. I can not think of any good reason why the system should be setup to prevent you from having a half dozen Hornets escorting a Devastator for instance.

So I started some number crunching to try and make that work. I’ve compiled all of the stats for fighters from the actual video games. As figured, the stats do not translate on a 1-1 basis across all the video games. For example the Hornet has a max Pitch of 8 degrees per second, while the Sorthak (A super-heavy fighter) has a pitch of 65 degrees per second. And of course, there is the armor values as well. Because of this I have done the following to try and bring numbers into a consistent range:

· If the max pitch, yaw or roll value is less than 25 DPS, multiply the value by 10
· If a shield value is less than 26, multiply that value by 10
· If an armor value is less then 26, multiply that value by 10

Example:

The Hornet has the following stats as it appeared in Wing Commander:
Max Yaw: 8 DPS
Max Pitch: 9 DPS
Max Roll: 8 DPS
Front Shields: 4 cm
Rear Shields: 4 cm
Front Armor: 4 cm
Front Armor: 4 cm

By applying the rules listed above, The Hornet’s Stats now become:
Max Yaw: 80 DPS
Max Pitch: 90 DPS
Max Roll: 80 DPS
Front Shields: 40 cm
Rear Shields: 40 cm
Front Armor: 40 cm
Front Armor: 40 cm


Compare this to the HellCat as it appeared in Wing Commander 3:
Max Yaw: 60 DPS
Max Pitch: 60 DPS
Max Roll: 60 DPS
Front Shields: 250 cm
Rear Shields: 250 cm
Front Armor: 100 cm
Front Armor: 100 cm
This brought most numbers into the same range fairly comfortably. Now to translate those numbers into gaming stats.

For the “Burn” and “Turn” Value:
I took the sum of the max yaw, max pitch, and max roll, then divided the result by 3, and then divided that value by 10. This becomes the ‘turn’ value.
I took the ships max speed (typically the afterburner speed), and divided it by 80.
I then took that value derived from the pitch, yaw and roll, and subtracted it from the max speed value. The difference between the two numbers is the ‘burn’ value.

For shields:
I added up all the shields for the ship, then divided the result by 10, and then divided that result by 2.

For hull points:
I added up the armor values up, divided the total by 10 and then divided that number by 2.

For the most part this process looks to produce comfortable numbers for the units in-game.

Just some examples of the results:


Stat wise, these all feel like they would work in the same rule sets and more or less accurately recreate most of what we faced in the video game.

This process has run into some problems. Firstly, there are some ships that simply do not have the original stats. Like the Crossbow, the Academy version of the Arrow, The Confed Banshee for instance. I couldn’t find Afterburner speeds, Max yaw, pitch, or roll values for those fighters. So I kind of guesstimated values for fighters that I couldn’t find hard numbers for.

Another problem I’ve run into with this process is some ships give me some… odd results. For instance, the CF-131 Broadsword, the 2648 version. Using this process, I get a Burn value of -1. I also got some bizarrely high numbers in a couple places. Like with the Broadsword Behemoth has a Hull value of 135 while the Sorthak has a Hull Value of 18. I’m not calling this a ‘problem’ right now, just a noted point that will likely need to be dealt with individually.

Now this does raise a question of balance and for that I’m looking at the cost of the ships, pilots and loadouts. To this end, I’m working on an excel function to calculate prices based on the stats as follows:
· For each point of ‘burn’: +5 points
· For each point of ‘turn’: +5 points
· For each point of ‘shield’: +5 points
· For each hull point: +5 points
· For each decoy: +5 points
· For each flare: +1 point
· For each missile hard point: +5 points
· For each cannon hard point: +5 points
· Calculate Weapon cost by multiple the number of cannon hard points, by the cost of the weapon type.

The weapons have their own calculated cost as outlined before:
· If the weapon has 4 or more shots, divide the number of shots by3. Other wise take the number of shots as is.
· Take that number and multiply it by the damage of each shot.
· Take the range and divide that by 6.
· Take that result and multiply it by the number you got by multiplying the damage of each by the number of shots.


The resulting number is the cost of the weapon

So take the F-105c Scimitar Trainer for example:
It has 6 points of burn, 5 points of turn, 6 shields, 8 hull, 2 flares, 2 particle cannons, and can mount 3 missile.

To figure the cost of the Particle cannon we look at it’s stat line:
Dmg Range Shots
Particle Cannon 4 10 1

It gets 1 shot, with a Damage of 4 and a range of 10.

The price for it works out like so:
(# of shots) 1 * (damage)4 = 4
Range(10)/6 = 1.6
1.6 * 4 = 6.666 but we round up to 7.

So a Particle cannon is 7 points.

And then to figure the cost of the F-105c Scimitar:
6 points of burn * 5 points each = 30 points
5 points of turn * 5 points each = 25 points
6 shields * 5 points each = 30 points
8 hull points * 5 points each = 40 points
2 flares * 1 point each = 2 points
(2 cannons * 5 points each)*particle cannons(7) = 24 points
3 missile hard point * 5 points = 15 points

Total cost for the F-105c Scimitar Trainer: 152 points

That works out well enough for ships that are straight forward and provide no special abilities. But not all ships are that simple. Some ships provide special abilities that can be one time use abilities, bonuses to certain tests, boosts following a given circumstance, etc. These are somewhat more troublesome to determine prices for.

Here are my thoughts thus far:

• If the ship has a special ability: + 5 points
• The Ability is a 1 time use ability: + 5 points
• The Ability is always available: + 20 points
• The Ability is only available following a stated circumstance: + 10 points
• The Ability provides a bonus to pilot skill: +10 points per point of bonus
• The Ability provides a bonus to gunnery skill: +10 points per point of bonus
• The ability affects the ship/pilot itself: +5 points
• The ability affects more then one other ship: + 10 points

So take the Hornet as an example. It has an ability that grants a +1 to any dodge checks the pilot makes.

• The hornet has a special ability: +5 points
• The ability is only available following a stated circumstance: + 10 points
• The Ability provides a +1 bonus to pilot skill (when dodging): + 10 points
• The ability affects the ship/pilot itself: + 5 points

So the total cost of the Hornet’s special ability works out to be 30 points.

If you go back through the pricing process and add in that cost of the special ability, that brings the cost of the F-36a Hornet to 196 points.

So I've got a base-line for figuring out stats it seems. More or less anyway. As I mentioned there are some odd-ball results that popped up. Like several variants of the Broadsword havign a negative burn value, or hull points in excess of 100. I'm not labeling those 'problems' just yet, more like abberations in the numbers that will likely require invidual adjustments. I'm still working on the combat system.

At present my thoughts are:
1- There are 2 types of attacks: Missiles and Gunnery

Gunnery attacks are attackes made with munitions that are unguided and include cannons and rockets like the Dragonfly, and Dumbfire weapons. They would work as follows:
1- declare your target.
2- make your attack with the number of shots your craft gets
3- roll a D10 and compare it to your pilots gunnery skill to determine if you pass or fail the check for each shot.
4- the shot counts as a hit if it is below the gunnery skill value accounting for any modifiers.
5- the ship being attacked may attempt a dodge check by passing a pilot skill check with -3 modifier for each hit
6- if the dodge check is passed the hit is discarded

Missile attacks are attacks made with munitions that are guided and able to change course in order to increase their chance of hitting the intended target. They work as follows:
1- You declare you are attempting to lock on to a selected target. So long as you keep that target with in your forward firing arc you maintain the lock.
2- When you meet or exceed the lock-on value for the missile type you are using, this means maintaining the lock on the target for X-number of game turns. You may fire the missile. If you loose the lock you must start over to re-establish a lock. Some missiles require you to keep a lock for 3 turns, some require only that you have an enemy in sight.
3- Once you fire the missile, the ship being fired at has the option to dodge or drop and evasive meassure (either flare or decoy depending on the ship in question).
4- still working out how decoy/flares would work.

if the hit is not dodged, the ship being attacked takes damage equal to the damage of the shot, first subtracting shield points, and when shields are reduced to 0, subtracting the damage from hull points.

I still need to work out how exactly damage will work. I want to have "Damage Results" so like you can take damage to your weapons, your communications system, your engines, etc and these would have differing effects in the game. A disabled communications system would mean that F-o-F missile could no longer distinguish you from an enemy ship and it's possible to get hit by your own missile, or a Disabled shields result means you can no longer regenerate shield point. Stuff like that.

 

[Adm_maverick]

Just pumping out cards right now. One part "just making them to make them" and one part "What else do I want to throw in the 'deck' ?"

 

[Adm_maverick]

 

[ChrisReid]

Looks pretty cool. I definitely agree with mixing fighter eras, because that's the meta continuity we see in the books as well as whenever an 'old' fighter reappears among contemporary ships in later games. No reason to think lots of ships coexist, regardless of 'phase shields' or differences in stats between games. I wouldn't get overly hung up on trying to make a foolproof set of technical conversions to make things fit. Just make a new uniform set of stats that's comparable. See the WC CCG for reference: they don't care about DPS or centimeters of armor thickness. You just get one high level Maneuverability, Defense and Offense number (plus support and bombing values).

A few minor terminology corrections: ships like Broadsword and Bloodfang are one word rather than two. The F-105 is the Tigershark, not the Scimitar. The Scimitar is CF-105. Hellcat "V5" is duplicative: the V isn't for version, it's a roman numeral five. And generally, the letter designations after the number should be capitalized, and you wouldn't reference the number without the preceding letter. (So it should always be F-103A, not just -103a as a shorthand)

 

[Adm_maverick]

Looks pretty cool. I definitely agree with mixing fighter eras, because that's the meta continuity we see in the books as well as whenever an 'old' fighter reappears among contemporary ships in later games. No reason to think lots of ships coexist, regardless of 'phase shields' or differences in stats between games.

A few minor terminology corrections: ships like Broadsword and Bloodfang are one word rather than two. The F-105 is the Tigershark, not the Scimitar. The Scimitar is CF-105. Hellcat "V5" is duplicative: the V isn't for version, it's a roman numeral five. And generally, the letter designations after the number should be capitalized, and you wouldn't reference the number without the preceding letter. (So it should always be F-103A, not just -103a as a shorthand)

Thanks for the notes. They'll get factored into the next round of updates. Right now I'm working on building a module to comput average damge from shooting attacks.

 

[Adm_maverick]

For whatever reason, ChrisReid's response prompted me to calculate out the cost of the Broadsword Behmoth. But I didn't care for giving it a couple Tachyon cannons as it's listed as having in Arena. And it struck me: Make it a Super-heavy!

Warhammer 40k introduced a Super-heavy rule set... well multiple times actually. But anyway, when Super-heavies actually became something that the average 40k gamer needed to know about they didn't change the rules that vehicles worked under, they just... stretched them. Like at the time the normal rules said that no vehicle could have an armor value greater then 13 and that was dedicated main battle tank kind of armor. Well here comes Super-heavies that can have up to Armor 14... but are 3x the cost. The Super-heavies in 40k also sported more weapons and the ability to use them compared to the normal vehicles. So I'm leaning in that sort of a direction with these. A sub-group of Fighter craft that are the stepping stone between figthers and corvettes. While normal fighters will cap out at 50 hull points/shields, Super-heavies can go up to something like 150 hull-points and shields and would include things like the Sorthak, and the Baracudda.

Anyway, I didn't care for the idea of a 'super-heavy' having 2 tachyon cannons. It just seems really....un-super-heavyish. So I gave it 4 Plasma Guns and metric crap ton of missile hard points and worked out the cost based on those stats: 1,278 points.

That sounds about right for the Confed Super-heavy I think.

 

[L.I.F.]

Pretty sweet game, @Adm_maverick. I notice that some of the illustrations come from the HW mod, and there are units/models that I've gotten ingame but not yet included in the public release for various reasons. PM me if you want me to procure you screenshots of units or specific models (such as Klavs' excalibur rather than Saga's, for example) as well as preferred backgrounds.

 

[DefianceIndustries]

What LIF said. If you want custom card renders for any of my stuff, let me know. Besides, your E model Excalibur has the wrong paint.

 

[Adm_maverick]

What LIF said. If you want custom card renders for any of my stuff, let me know. Besides, your E model Excalibur has the wrong paint.

I will happily take whatever you are willing to provide.

 

[Adm_maverick]

So I present what is probably the meanest combo and Pilot, ship and load out that you would not want to see in your opponents wing:


Yup, that is Prince Thrakath nar Kilranka piloting a Bloodfang C (WC3 version) with Friend or Foe Missiles. He clocks in at a staggering 1075 points with that load out.

You've probably noticed that there are some changes to the card. Lemme throw up the Thrakath overlay by itself:


So going from top to bottom:

First we have the Pilot skill. In this case, Thrakath's Pilot skill is an 8.
Then we have his gunnery skill, which is a 9.
Then we have his Ego stat, which is also a 9.

The name of this stat may be changed to ‘psych’, just a note about that.

Ego is a stat intended to be used for psychological effects such as taunting, resisting taunts, having a break down in the middle of a dog fight, etc. Basically, the Ego stat is sued for situation where a pilot may do something that with a clearer head they wouldn't do. Like they're guarding a transport and get lured away allowing the taunting pilots wing man to destroy the Transport.

So what do you do that involves the Ego stat?

1- Taunt an enemy into attacking you instead of their chosen target.
....a. To Taunt an enemy declare that you are attempting to taunt the pilot (You must declare what fighter you are attempting to taunt).
....b. To determine if the taunt is successful, roll a D10 and compare the result to your pilots Ego Stat. If the result is less then the Ego Stat, the taunt is successful. If the result is more then the Ego Stat, the taunt has failed.
....c. The targeted pilot may attempt to resist the taunt by passing his own Ego stat test (below).

2- Test to resist being taunted by an enemy pilot.
....a. Generally a pilot will want to ignore an enemy taunt, but pilots are more often then not ego driven people and wounds to their pride will typically demand a response.
....b. If a pilot has been taunted (see above), they can attempt to resist the taunt. To do this compare your pilots Ego Stat to the taunting pilot’s ego stat. If you ego stat is higher, you gain a +1 bonus. If your Ego stat is lower, you suffer a -1 modifier. If your stat is 2x the taunting pilot’s ego, anything result that is not a 10 will allow you to resist the taunt. If the taunting pilot ego is 2x your ego stat, any result other then a 1 will result in a failure to resist the taunt.
....c. Roll a D10. If the result is equal to or under the needed number (Your ego stat with any modifiers) you successfully resist the taunt.

3- Used to determine pass/fail of psych based stress tests.
4- Potential of being out-numbered and stressing out
....a. When would you test:
........i. When the game starts
........ii. If the opposing team has more fighters
............a. -make a single ego stat test at the beginning of the game
................i. If passed, no effect
................ii. If failed, the pilot gains 1 stress token
2. If the opposing team outnumbers your team by 2x or more
....a. -make a single ego stat test at the beginning of the game with a -1 modifier
........i. If passed, no effect
........ii. If failed, the pilot gains 1 stress token
3. In both of these cases, the designated Wing Leader may attempt to talk his wing mate(s) down by making a taunt test against them and having them successfully resist the taunt effort.
........ii. When you loose 3 or more fighters from a given wing in a single turn
............1. Each surviving pilot in the wing must make an Ego stat test with a -2 modifier
................a. If they pass, no effect
................b. If they fail, they gain 1 stress token
........iii. If you loose 50% of your wing’s starting man-power in a single turn
............1. Each surviving pilot in the wing must make an Ego stat test with a -2 modifier
................a. If they pass, no effect
................b. If they fail, they gain 1 stress token

 

[Adm_maverick]

So I'm going to kind of hijack my own thread a bit. I've had another project I've been working on for a while: Scratchbuilding. I started with the Excalibur... realized I was in way over my head, took it back a step and worked on the Tallahassee Cruiser... lost the materials for that... and decided to go for broke and started over on the cruiser but built to be 24" long. Well I threw on the last parts of the Tallahassee Cruiser last night.

I learned alot from this build, mostly in the way of bracing and how to square parts of the model up.

Like where the neck join to the main body. Yeah... the parts don't quit just slide into place.

Now why am I hijacking this miniatures game develop thread? Well because of this:

That's one of the Hellcat tokens I built for the game. The Cruiser is too small to be 'accurate' in terms of scale, but it does help show what my thinking is for involving Cap ships in the game. The Cap ships would basically BE the board while the Turrets would basically be immobile fighters that can't dodge and have really really good turn value to represent the rotational speed of the turret. The Engines, bridges, Launch bays, etc would all be similar to this with some different attributes to account for the different systems. In one-off games Cap ships would likely be a 'destroy the target' sort of thing. Have something like 750 hull points that have to be reduced to 0.

In campaign games, things like Carriers would be critical to protect and would likely be the focus of the campaign itself, with it's destruction being the completion of the campaign.

 

[Adm_maverick]

So I'm toying with an idea for dealing with capital ships in the game.

Here is my thought:
When capital ships are involved they will be special missions. Things like 'defend/destroy the carrier' and 'escort/intercept the cruiser/cargo ship' etc. The capital ship itself would be rendered as part of the table top mat, with turret possitions, bridge, launch bay, engines, and the like being represented by small models that sit atop the mat in given positions. Just a visual example we have the Cerberus:

You have the 'full ship' layer, shown with the white over lay.
then you have the 'Launch bay', Turrets, Bridge, Engine 1 and Engine 2 with the Yellow glow effect on them. Each of these would be a seperate part set ontop of the full ship layer. These parts could attach to the fullship with magnets perhaps. Each part of the ship would have it's own hull point rating, the Turrets would have a turn rate, a Gunnery skill and weapons like those of a figther. Might even have a rule set for crewing a capital ship for use in campaigns or similar setup. Each part could have certain effects on the mission at hand. For instance a Standard "Destroy the Cruiser" mission would require the defending player to protect the capital ship for say 8 turns. Destroying 1 engine would add 3 turns to that requirement, while destroying both engines would require the defending player to protect the Cruiser for 14 turns, representing the decreased speed of the ship in reaching it's destination. Destroying the Bridge would reduce the gunnery skills of the turrets perhaps. Destroying the Launch bay prevents the defending playing from being able to launch additional fighters during the mission. As the parts are destroyed you simply remove the destroyed component. Maybe have other parts you can place on the full ship layer to show the destroyed part.

And just for reference of size, the below image is scaled for a 4'x 3' area. The marker with the red glow is a Bloodfang for size reference.

I gathered some bits of data and figured lengths of the ships:
Hades Quick Strick Cruiser: 30" long
Bengal Class Strike Carrier: 28" long
Yorktown class Light Carrier: 30" long
Plunkett Cruiser: 48" long
Vesuvius: 65" long
Midway: 72" long
Kvar'kann: 887" long

And... yeah. Are we actually sure that Kvar'kann was 22 kilometers long? I've been looking at the specs and the fighter compliment and it seems like the Kvar'kann is more in scope and scale with the Midway. Larger then it perhaps, but not 10 times larger. So would anyone find it to be problematic to just say the Kvar'kann model would be like 80-84" long?

 

[Adm_maverick]

Did some number crunching over the last couple days and decided to put them down on the cards. This resulted in a round of revisions for the ship cards.

The F-36B Hornet got an updated ability that allows it cover some extra distance.


The Excalibur had some minor fiddling.


The Vampire got some love making it more manueverable.


While the Devastator lost some of it's undeserved speed.


Here is a big question:

Thrakath in a Bloodfang or Seether in a Lance: Who would you want to face off agaisnt less?

 

[Adm_maverick]

I've also gone through and updated the character cards so they have the new 'Ego' stat.

 

[Adm_maverick]

 

[Adm_maverick]

I've also been giving some thought as to 'what to do" with all of this. Obviosuly I want people to play the game and I welcome any and all feed back I can possibly get on it. But that leads to a bit of an problem: Namely people getting the materials to play the game, stuff like the cards, the ship tokens, the missile markers, etc.

There are a couple options for addressing that.

1- I go find a bank to give me a loan to have the items produced and I just sell them as a package.
yeah... there's a lot of head aches and challenges attached to that option. Challenges that are above my head. So probably not going to do that.

2- I could leave it up to people to come up with their own solutions.
Eh... that's kind of a not-an-option sort of option. Basically saying "Well if someone else does it I'm good." And I really don't like that kind of mindset.

3- Find ways to show/walk/talk people through building the items themselves using low-cost materials.
Lot of work here, but it does seem like the most viable over all.

So here is my thinking: Over the next several months I'll work to assemble a series of instructional vidoes showing how build the fighter tokens and bases out of stuff like cardboard and how to print up the cards and such. Each video would include links to sights to purchase material or items as needed to make it simple.

Probably do some additional videos showing how to actually play the game.