Fleet Combat Mechanic

Keep the two rolls (Accuracy and Evasiveness). So if you roll a 6 in Accuracy and a 3 in Evasiveness, you have 3 successful hits (6 - 3 = 3).

You may find that ALL THOSE EXTRA STATS (that you think are good on paper - suck in playtesting)... You want to simplify the gaming experience and doing all kinds of additions will make the game *heavy* (and boring - too much mathematics).

2 Dice rolls is ELEGANT and you have a simple outcome. If the math went the other way, the opponent would evade the attack and therefore 0 hits...

Now for *damage* calculation. The basis of it should be the number of HITs. The number can range from one (1) to five (6-1). So 5 is a very aggressive attack.

I would GO BACK to a dice solution:

1. Roll 1 dice for each hit (one for attack).
2. Consider using a CUSTOM dice here... (it could be good)

So let's say, the number of hits are like a series of attacks. They can be successful, unsuccessful and countered! So let's say 3 are a success, 2 are failures and 1 is a counter.

Now for each success the defender loses 1 Point (Caused by 1 damage point). Each failure cause 0 damage and each counter causes the *attacker* to lose 1 Point!

Too many stats will make your game too complicated. Trust me, I have playtested Magic: the Gathering's combat and reworked my own combat system (which is different from yours) and the mathematics have to go. Comparing TOO MANY NUMBERS leads to BOREDOME. People will HATE having to compute TOO MANY numbers.

Keep it SIMPLE and go with dice rolls... Again if you don't believe me, playtest the game for 30 minutes and tell me if all that math is really worth it. Your game is about battles - not mathematics...

Good luck with your game!

Also these two mechanics allow for simple *damage markers* to be used to keep track of each unit's health... This is important if you have several units and want to be able to *preserve* health during multiple turns.

In my game, I don't keep track of health. Like Magic, in my game it needs to be an all-or-nothing proposition.

I think I like the *flexibility* to have damage counters and do so in a *simple* way...

Just something else to keep in mind!

I can come up with *another* solution which could use MORE stats:

1. Each spaceship has 2 combat stats: Attack and Defense.
2. The attacker rolls X number of custom dice (Based on his Attack value). I would use Attack values of one (1) to five (5). Custom dice are *similar* to the other solution - but different: 3 offense, 2 defence and 1 direct hit.
3. The defender rolls Y number of custom dice (Based on his Defense value). Again use Defense values from one (1) to five (5).
4. Rolls that are *direct hit* either by the attacker or defender COUNT as "direct hits" (causes 1 damage point)
5. Rolls that are Offense for the *attacker* are kept and compared to the *defender* Defense. The number of hits are computed once dice are *paired off*. So when an attacker's Offense is matched to a defender's Defense, both dice cancel each other out. Do this pairing off and then the remaining dice are hits.

Personally I like the first solution better... But this mechanic uses TWO (2) more stats: Attack and Defense).

Again you have dice pools of up to five (5) dice you can use... And there are two (2) players rolling (so 10 dice in all). That's a lot of dice to go crazy over!!! :P

To streamline your original idea, you could have each ship have their evasiveness stat, then the attacking ship is the only one to roll a die to see if they hit. Then you roll for damage. I know this does lower the defensive player's interaction but it does streamline it a bit.

I also like Pelle's suggestion. It kind of reminds me of Mansions of Madness where you draw cards to see what happens.

BUT the reason I stated using *custom* dice is so that you have MANY of the SAME custom dice. It's CHEAPER that way to manufacture (sorry - I always try to lower the cost of making a game - it's a habit).

Having 1 custom dice for this type of ship or another custom dice for another ship, doesn't really work. It's going to be expensive. Especially if you produce 1 dice for each type... Moulds are expensive for dice. If you have 10 of the same dice in a game and order 1,000 units of your game, that's 10,000 dice. Should be cheap.

But custom dice for one-offs is going to be very costly.

Okay that makes sense... using stickers. I guess you will need to include instructions as to HOW to stick them, since there will be several different types of die. However this should reduce the cost of manufacturing (using stickers)... That gives you the flexibility you are looking for!

Though I would approach it differently. I like the idea of static evasiveness and an attack dice allowing you lots of hits. However, I would then allow ships with weaker weapons (like fighters) to roll 4-sided dice, while bigger ships that land hits roll bigger ones (like 2d6 a hit or d12s). The little ships hit the big ships pretty often this way, but they don't deal much damage (and you can have an "armor" ability that reduces each hit by one damage, or lowers the dice by one size category (instead of a 6-sided dice (d6), roll a d4; or instead of a d4, flip a coin).

This would be a fairly simple system that allows for you to toy with a lot of simple mechanics (as said before). Armor, accuracy (add +1 or +2 to an accuracy roll), evasion, vulnerabilities, etc.

(Also, the Star Wars TCG about 8 years ago used the first part of the mechanic pretty well without the idea of rolling damage for hits, but the players were able to target the ships/units/characters they wanted with each shot, so you were able to take out units that had accuracy pretty easily (because they were often weak fighters).

Corvette and Frigate have 7 outcomes. That won't work on a d6.

You don't like the FIRST *dice* mechanic... I guess not enough stats for it... But I will keep it in mind, it's pretty interesting that the two dice rolls give way to up to five (5) other dice rolls. I also personally like the *counter* mechanic which gives the opponent to strike an attacking ship. With a maximum of 1 damage point per dice (total of 5 damage points), it keeps the stats simple for the Health Points (or damage markers)... If you don't mind, I'll keep that mechanic for another game... I like the idea of rolling up to five (5) dice to determine damage. It reminds me about dice-intensive games like Yahtzee!

As for the stats you have cited, you'll need to balance them with game play. My guess is that you will be only rolling one (1) dice at a time with the stats you have cited (like 3 hit x 3 = 3 damage points). Rolling more may lead to unbalanced attacks...

My first dice mechanic idea has no stats, just dice rolling. So what I was thinking is that it would be like something of *altering* stats (bonuses or penalties). Say for example the roll is 5 vs 2. That would imply 3 hits. I could have a penalty saying -1 hit (Hull Plating) which would then mean 2 hits (instead of 3). Or re-roll bonus that says, re-roll up to 2 damage dice (Enhanced Targeting)... Giving you better odds of scoring more hits! Things like that...

I have not yet come up with a game concept that would use LESS stats... Even my current WIP uses stat-based comparisons. It's not fundamentally complicated, it's like comparing 2 numbers, Attack versus Defense. If your Attack is higher you defeat the opponent. If one Starship isn't enough to overpower his opponent, you could combine two (2) or three (3) starships. Obviously the game is balanced because both players roll the initiative dice... The victor of that roll decides how combat will get resolved. And it's a fair *reverse* mechanism in regards to defensive assaults (where the defender has the initiative)...