Why a space game?

I am trying to figure out the dice again.

I do need accuracy rolls since the balance is easier with these. Simply due to the 3 phase attacks.

I want a maximum of 9 different ships per fleet.
I want to have the player design the 9 ships themselves.

An attack will have 3 phases.

While the defender decides on which ships die first.
The attacker can arrange the phases too, in order to get some optimalisation in.

So far strategy.
But how to determine how effective a fleet is.

I did suggest stuff. But let's see if my post is even allowed to be posted...

No need to use multicoloured dice if a player rolls for only 1 phase at a time.

Although....

Is it possible to have up to 9 dice being marked somehow that they belong to a certain ship?
Would be cool, then it really is just rolling a number of dice. Sort them in order and have a combat resolution.

The best part is, that if a ship has like for example 4 projectiles. And the accuracy is 2,3,4 and 6. Rolling a 4 would mean that 2 projectiles are 100% and 2 projectiles are 50%. Then... the die is rolled again.
001122 for 2 projectiles
000111 for the other 2 projectiles

But the result would be:
Rolling a 1 or 2 is 0 damage.
Rolling a 3 is 2 damage.
Rolling a 4 is 4 damage.
Rolling a 5 or 6 is 5 damage.

All I need to do is think of a way to make sure that up to 9 dice can be linked to the ships...
9 colours is a bit too much.??

hmmmm, a combination of a colour and a symbol?

The numbers in circles. squares and hexagons

then the 3 colours, colourblind friendly:
black,
blue,
light blue,
pink,
blue green,
dark orange,
light orange
and yellow...

I only need 3, hahahaha.

I want a list of names for the bodies.
And a list of names for the weapons.

It is possible for players to have ships without weapons. Because these will act as damage sponges.

Well, I have 3 different ship sizes....
I could have more by having different moving speeds.

But then again. I think that the map (space) needs to get quests.
So I also need to arrange a deck of cards, that give missions to the player.
Each mission completed succesfull will give an upgrade to their home planet and a point or 2.
The goal would be.... completing the most quests. Yeah, I think that a player can do 1 quest at a time and only can do a next one when completing one.

The base value are 1, 2 and 4.
The armor value are 1, 3 and 9.
I forgot, the shields...
There can be 9 combinaitons. So I need like 9 names?

Maybe just naming the ships and shields light/medium/heavy.

One thing is sure. In order to determine how projectiles hit. I need to make sure the rules are certain in this regard.

I said before that the defender decides which ships are removed.
Once a ship is chosen, it cannot be replaced until it is destroyed. In fact, it even takes the next salvo if it is still alive.
Shields take damage first.
So a light ship with a heavy shield or a heavy ship with a light shield?
Well, if the hitting projectiles are depleted, it would matter. But I don't see how.

You need 10 small projectiles to hit a heavy ship with a light shield. And the same goes for the light ship with a heavy shield...
It will only be different if a heavy and light projectile hit. While the shield is heavy. When the light projectile hits first, the heavy one will only remove the shield. The ship would continue to live.
If the same would happen to a heavy ship with a light shield. The heavy projectile would remove the shield. But the light projectile would remove only 1/9th hull...

So.... having the defender choose, makes no sense.?

Weapons can have an attribute then...
Some can destroy only shields.
Some can destroy only hulls.

Something like a plasma would do well against shields.
Something like a machine gun would do well against the hull.

I think I have to do something with Thermal and Kinectic weapons.
Thermal are good against shields...
And you guessed it, Kinectic are good against the hull...

***

So, 3 hulls, 3 shields.
The value per hull or shield are 1, 2 and 4.
The movement speed is 0. But every 2, the value can be added again.

So, a ship with tier 1 hull and shield. Would have a basis value of 2. With a movement speed of 2, it would be 4. Then 6, then 8 etc. While the movement speed is increased by 2 every step.

The heaviest ship though, starts at a basis of 8. And receives 8 for every movement speed of 2.

I certainly need to have the defender say, which ships go down first.
But then, the attacker may assign the damage points.

Another note... I need a 2 to 1 ratio of unit durability.

***

An example would be:

The defender had 2 types of ships:
- A heavy hull with a light shield. Thus 9 armor and 1 shield. Costs 5.
- A medium hull with a medium shield. Thus 3 armor and 3 shield. Costs 4.

Let's say, this player has 12 of 5 and 10 of 4... A relative balanced build in terms of types? Well, there are 12 heavy and 12 light types, while 20 medium types are present.
A total of 100 points here.

The defender says that the heavy hull with a light shield will be placed in front first.
I just realized that there should be numbers present in the fleets. Only for indicating the point man and the last man standing

The attacker has several weapons:
- Heavy Machine Guns;
4 projectiles
Accuracy of 0, 2, 4 and 6.
1 Damage point per projectile.
Costs 6.
- Twin Lasers;
2 projectiles
Accuracy of 6 each.
3 Damage points per projectile.
Costs 8.
- Rockets;
2 projectiles
Accuracy of 2 and 4.
9 Damage points per projectile.
Costs 12.

The attacking player chooses to have:
- 4 Heavy Machine Guns (thus 16) for a cost of 24.
- 5 Twin Lasers (thus 10) for a cost of 40.
- 3 Rockets (thus 6) for a cost of 36.
Again a total of 100 points.

Now, let's see how many ships actually get destroyed...

3 Dice can be rolled.
1 for each weapon... Although, the twin lasers don't need the accuracy roll.

First an accuracy roll is done, roll equal or less than the accuracy and it is a hit. Roll more though, it is a miss.
Let's imagine that all dice roll a 3.

The heavy machine guns have 2 out of 4 that will hit.
The twin lasers have all hits.
The rockets have 1 out of 2 that will hit.

The dice will be rolled again.
Again, all a 3...
The projectiles that would hit would be 1 for 1 each.
The projectiles that would miss would be 0 for 1 each.
So, this is a pretty darn bad roll.

I could introduce a roll for a hit and the miss separately, but crt dice have to be re-rolled in that case. Not sure if I should though.

Let's see, how many damage points the attacking player can do.
- The heavy machine guns have 2 out of 4 that will hit.
With 4 in the attack.
A total of 8x 1 damage points.
- The twin lasers have all hits.
With 5 in the attack.
A total of 10x 3 damage points.
- The rockets have 1 out of 2 that will hit.
With 3 in the attack.
A total of 3x 9 damage points.

The heavy hull with light shields are in front. In order to destroy as much as possible. The attacking player is allowed to optimize the projectiles.

8 light shields could be removed, however, there are only 3 rockets that can destroy the heavy hull.

So, 8 > 5 of 1.
And 10=10 of 3.
And 3 > 0 of 9.

3 ships are destroyed. 9 to go...

The lasers in sets of 3 can destroy the heavy hulls as well. We have 10 in total. So, we can use 9 of them for this. But we also need to remove 3 light shields again.

So, 5 > 2 of 1.
And 10> 1 of 3.

3 ships are destroyed. 6 to go...

In total, only 5 damage remains. This is no good anymore. So, 6 ships have been destroyed of a value of 5 each, a total of 30 out of 100.

***

What if the other ships where put in front?
There are 10 of those, so less. Would the weapons have been more effective?

The lasers in sets of 2 can destroy the medium shields AND medium hulls. So, we can use all 10 of them for this.

So, 8 = 8 of 1.
And 10> 0 of 3.
And 3 = 3 of 9.

5 ships get destroyed. 5 to go...

The rockets are just overkill. But they can do a kill. But the machine guns are not heavy enough either. Seeing as how we have to deal with the type of 3. We can use the rockets and 3 machine guns in order to destroy 2 more ships.

So, 8 > 2 of 1.
And 3 > 0 of 9.

The remaining damage points are not enough... But we destroyed 7 ships in total of each a value of 4.
This is only 28 in total out of 100 points.

Ok, so I am allowing a player to have a fleet design mat. Where the ships are designed and placed in order...
Not sure yet how to do this. But the first column will have the numbers of the ship designs.
A hull
A shield
1st weapon (can have 3 phases)
2nd weapon (can have 3 phases)
3rd weapon (can have 3 phases)
So a 9x5 mat.

Then a player can have up to 6 fleet maps for each player where the number of ships are counted.
I realized, there will be a lot of multiplying...
Kinda like determining how many reinforcements a player gets in a round of risk...?
Well, you have a number of chips indicating how many ships there are.
Then you need to multiply the number of "damage" points per ship, per projectile type. I guess, put them on a big pile. So I need 3 extra boxes to put in the damage points. Then, the player can asign the damage points after counting them all.

So each fleet mat has a 3x4 box system...

I don't know if you guys know what I mean though...

So, in the first 9 boxes, the chips count how many ships there are of each design.
The last 3 boxes are the 3 damage types.
A damage of 3 and 9 can destroy an armor of 1 only once.
So a ship with 1 hull and 1 shield can stop 2 hits of the heaviest weapons.

The players roll. And multiply the die results with the chips of a ship times the number of projectiles of a type. Then they add this to the right box.

So, for example, a player has 17 light fighters with each 3 heavy machine guns that hit. The number added to the box of damage type 1 is 17x3 = 51.

Of course, the multy variants of the ships can best be put in terms of 3. Because you need 3 of 1 against a hull of 3 and 9 of 1 against a hull of 9 and 3 of 3 against that same hull of 9.

Now then, let's have a simple weapon of medium tier.
The Cannon...
Accuracy is 6.
The cost is also 4.

Against 21 ships. We can have 21 of these Cannons.

The projectiles are always of the hit variant. However, the next roll will determine how effective they are.

The damage points chance, based on the same 36:
0: 12
1: 12
2: 12

This time, only 3 options. And the result is multiplied by 21.

If the player manages to get that factor 2. Then 21 ships are destroyed.
The chance on this is 12/36th.
The halfway point allows for 10 ships to be destroyed.

So, in order to destroy more ships. Better spread out those chances.

I should begin with the 2 resources.
And how to get them.

I was thinking about having levels for:
- Ore mines
- Fusion plants

In both cases, they cannot be reduced by enemy fire.
But I will have other means in order to reduce the income provided by these options.

But that also means, I have options to increase the income, besides of leveling them up.

The Ore Mines
The ore mines supply the player with ore's each round.
With each level, the ammount of ore that a player will receive, will increase.

A player can upgrade the ore mine only once per round.

The ore income will increase with the upgraded level.
Chips will be added to the total ammount of ships, in order to indicate how much income a player will receive.
Level 1, adds 1.
Level 2, adds 2.
Level 3, adds 3. etc.
The effect is cumulative, thus level 3 will initially show an income of 6 Ore.

The cost on the other hand will grow exponentially.
Level 1, costs 1 Ore.
Level 2, costs 3 Ore and 1 Energy.
Level 3, costs 6 Ore and 3 Energy. etc.
The costs are cumulative in Ore. And the Energy costs is 1 level behind.

I think that I should make an overview in the manual in this regard.

The Fusion Plants

The Fusion Plants supply the player with energy each round.
With each level, the ammount of energy that a player will receive, will increase.

A player can upgrade the energy plant only once per round.
It is possible that both options can be upgraded at the same time.

The build up of income will be the same as the ore mines.

The cost is a bit different.
Level 1, costs 1 Ore and 1 Energy.
Level 2, costs 3 Ore and 3 Energy.
Level 3, costs 6 Ore and 6 Energy. etc.
This time the Ore and Energy will increase equally.
Thus making energy slightly harder to obtain.

Ways of changing the income

It is possible that a quest will give a permanent upgrade or removal of income.
The upgrade can be a fixed number or depending on the level a player currently posesses. Perhaps even keep the reward and used it when the current level of the resource is higher.
It is also entirely possible that there is a reward, depending on the level of the resource.

The removal of income works the same. But can be applied to other players.

I realized, this might be to complicated.
I should have a techtree ready, and some pawns for the players to move on ONE techtree.

I certainly need to have the bodies, with shields and then movement speeds. And their costs ready

The same for the weapons.

The combination costs should be on the part cards. Which are also used for the ship costs.