Orbiting Planets

You mean something like this

http://bgd.lariennalibrary.com/uploads/Mainsite/GameIdea/GameIdea2010042...

I had an idea like that years ago. My board looks impressive but right now it is just a roll and move game. Every once and a while I come back to it seeing if I can make it into a battle game or something of the kind.

http://www.bgdf.com/node/13597

The galaxy spaces can be randomized at the beginning of each game for this prototype.

I had the same idea for one of my game. I made some rotation tests with the prototype above and with another prototype because I wanted to see how I should setup the initial placement and how much should be the rotation increment to end up with an interesting clumpling of planets.

In my game, they rotate every turn. One of the problem I have to deal with is making is easy to rotate. Some rings will alwyas move at the same spot, sor I could place small dot showing the next location of the planet to make movement easier.

To prevent double move, each planet will have a unique number and they will move in number order.

Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXHfZ2RA2S4

What looks like a *old* game (graphically) is the basis of a real FUN game called "Star Control"...

Anyhow, I thought the Space Battles could maybe inspire *something*.

It is RANKED in the Top 15 games ever made: http://www.pcgamesn.com/eve/15-best-pc-space-games

I'm just *putting it out there*... :D

Note: My space game doesn't have a board... It is more like a TCG where there are *zones* for play ("Space Lane", "Upgrade Piles", "Recycle Pile", "Draw Pile", "Discard Pile", "Hand", etc.)

Rotating entire board sections sounds fiddly and prone to knocking things over and expensive to produce. Also if ships jump from planet to planet, what is the purpose of planets moving? If my fleet is on Earth and wants to move to Mars and Mars is on the other side of the Sun, do I have to wait for it to get closer? I guess I can't send the fleet out on a multi-turn journey, because then it would be affected by the rotating space boards. Other than that I think scale will become a problem if you want the game to make sense.

Consider our own solar system. Uranus needs almost 85 years to orbit the Sun. If Earth moves once every other turn, Uranus moves once every 170 turns. That's a long game for it to have any effect at all. (I'm assuming the number of sections is the same for all planets, because otherwise obviously you could move all planets with the same frequency and the outer planets would need more time anyway to orbit.)

And time scale. With today's technology the time it takes to move a spaceship to another planet is measured in years. I don't know how many sectors you have in mind, but if Earth need 5 turns to orbit the sun, a spaceship going for Mars will arrive in something like 10 turns. I don't want to count the time for the outer planets.

Of course if you make up some solar system with its own configuration and technology you can bend reality, but if you do so too much it wil not make any sense. You will probably scale up the speed of spaceships for instance, but can you find a scale that makes any sense when you consider varying distances and orbit times etc?

I would just assume the game is over so quickly planets have not much time to move. Moving planets (or rotating boards) seem a bit gimmicky. Of course you could have planet tiles that can be placed in different configurations to set up different scenarios, that would actually be useful.

The idea is fun. Now for a good implementation. Here are some of my idea's:

Simply having a ring for each planet.
The planets move only 1 spot each round. That is very easy to remember.
And then simply have the inner ring have X positions.
Second planet has 1 to 3 more positions.
Third planet again has 1 to 3 more positions.
etc.

Don't try to be to realistic with this. Because the inner planet could move in 3 turns, while the outer planet moves in maybe 30? Way to long I think.
The distance is indicated with lines. Meaning, each spot should be connected with the next and previous spot. But also with the closest 2 of another orbit. Unless they are in one line, then you only have 1 line. You could however, refuse to place planets in one line. Simply shifting each ring.

How much planets do you want anyway? Too much makes the game too, less fun actually.

Further more, I suggest prime numbers for the number of locations a planet can have. That way you get a maximum of possibilities. Unless you want to have more of those "less travel time" situations.
Then you get:
Planet 1: 3 spaces.
Planet 2: 5 spaces. (15 rounds to be in line)
Planet 3: 7 spaces. (105 rounds to be in line)
Planet 4: 11 spaces.
Planet 5: 13 spaces.

To spice things up, put in a comet that crosses the planets paths. No crashing of course :D. Call it, passing by. The comet moves faster closer to the sun/star.
Another thing, notice that there is a difference of 4 spaces between planet 3 and 4? Al the other ones have only a 2 position difference. You could place there an asteroid belt. Each location is a pausing place, since that is what your planets are going to do, right? The number of spaces is 9 then. No need to keep them moving though. The space ship moves around for free in that ring.