Star Trek Ship Battles

(Working Title)

Here are the notes for a table-top based game of ship combat in the Star Trek universe. This is a very rough draft and will be written up in a more professional form once the playtesting is complete.

Basics

Battles are fought at Impulse speed with sides composed of 1-3 ships on average. Warp speed is only used in scenarios (“On turn 3 reinforcements drop out of warp, the defending player must survive until then”) or as a method of denying victory points (a ship may choose to leave the battle by going to Warp, the opposing player immediately scores have the Victory Point value of the ship and it takes no more part in the fight). Scale isn’t really used beyond rough distances between ships. Distances are measured as Short (3″), Medium (6″), and Long (9″). Ships have two arcs: Fore and Aft. To work out which arc is used measure the distance between the front of the ship stand to the target and then again with the rear of the ship stand. The shortest distance (Fore to Fore, Fore to Aft, Aft to Fore, or Aft to Aft) is the one used.

Each Faction has a datacard (to be designed) that lists the Initiative values (number of dice) and Crew Quality (target numbers used in certain situations) of the Faction. Each ship has a datacard showing the various statistics of the ship. The card is mostly made up of Tracks rated 1-6 and a counter is placed on each track to show its current value (I use glass stones). Any track currently rated at 1 is termed “Offline”. All tracks start the game at 6 except Cloak, which can either start at 6 or at 1.

Turns

Each turn follows this order:
1. Initiative
2. Actions
3. Damage Control

Initiative:

Each players roll d6 equal to the Initiative score of their Faction. The total rolled on the dice is the initiative they take their first Action on. Once an Action has been performed the player chooses one of the dice and removes it from the initiative score. The player’s next Action is on the new total. If at any point both players have initiative scores that match the Actions happen simultaneously.

Actions:

Every time a player has an action they may Move a ship of their choice, Fire Phasers from a ship of their choice, Launch Torpedoes from a ship of their choice, or Detonate an Active Torpedo.

Ships are rated as having either a Short, Medium, or Long range on their movement and may move a lesser value if desired. However the ship must move the full amount of one of the values (eg. a Medium range ship can move Short or Medium, but must move the full 3″ or 6″ distance). A ship may make one turn at any point during their move, up to the Turn Value of the ship.

When a ship fires phasers the players a number of d6′s equal to the damage value of their phasers/disruptors value. Each die that rolls equal to or higher than the current shield value of the target ship is a hit. Each hit reduces the shield value by one. If the shields are reduced to 1 (the lowest value possible) then any remaining his must be distributed between the Weapons Systems, Ship Systems, or Transporters. The attacking player chooses which area is hit but the defending player picks which sub-system takes damage. For example if an attacker chooses the Weapons Systems the defender can pick to either reduce the Phasers or the Photon Torpedoes.

When a ship fires Torpedoes the Torpedo the Torpedo track is reduced in value by one. A token (I use a red glass stone) is then placed next to the target ship within range. Torpedoes must be detonated in order to do damage. Tokens are referred to as Active Torpedoes.

When an Active Torpedo is detonated the distance (in inches) between it and the nearest ship is measured. The nearest ship becomes the target of the torpedo automatically. The damage value for the attacking torpedo is then rolled and each die that comes up equal to the distance is a hit. Hits are then applied just as Phaser damage is, damaging Shields first.

Damage Control:

Once each player has spent their Actions for the round they may perform damage control. For each ship they roll a number of d6 equal to their current Life Support value. Each die that comes up equal to or great than this value is a success. They may then reduce any track to boost any other track by a like amount, but no more energy then their total successes may be transferred in this manner. The Torpedo track may not be reduced nor increased by this method: torpedoes are a finite resource.

That’s all I have so far. I need to polish movement a little more and come up with rules for scenery. Plus I’ve got a vague idea about boarding parties (you take an action and roll Shield Penetration versus the Shield value of the target vessel to get troops on board, then you may take further Actions to roll your Assault versus their Defence in order to reduce their various systems) but I’m not totally convinced by it.

Cloaking

When cloaking the Phaser/Distruptor track is reduced to 1 and the Cloak track increased by a like amount. The miniature is removed from the board and replace by a number of Cloak Tokens equal to the Cloak value of the ship (usually 2 or 3). One of the tokens has a ship symbol on the underside and the rest are blank. Any time the ship is moved the controlling played may move each token the same distance. Enemy ships may not open fire on a token without first scanning it. The firing ship must get in range of a token and then roll the number of dice equal to their Detect Cloak value. Each die that comes up equal to or greater than the Cloak track of the enemy ship is a success. If any successes are rolled the player may look at the underside of the token. If this token is indeed the ship the player may proceed with their attack as normal.

Cloaked ships cannot fire (unless a scenario says otherwise). However it does not take an Action to drop a Cloak, simply declare you intent and reallocate the Cloak track to the Phaser/Disruptor track.

During the Damage Control phase, the Cloak track can be reduced or increased just like any other track.

Playtest ship designs: