Simple Starship Combat Game

The aim of this game is to provide a simpler set of rules for use with playing pieces from Star Fleet Battles or similar games, or with homemade ones. The full rules are great fun for some adults, but many find them too cumbersome in detail, not to mention that the resulting games are too long. These simple rules are intended in particular to provide a set of rules that can be used to introduce children to the notion of this sort of gaming. For a 2-page Word document of these rules (without my additional commentary and explanations) click here.

Hit points

Starships start with 20 hit points each. Transports and fighters start with 5 hit points each. The upper 10 hit points on a starship represent shield protection, the rest represents damage to the ship itself. When a ship is reduced to 4 hit points, it loses warp drive (assuming it had it to begin with).

At 3 hit points, sensors are damaged, which prevents the launching of fighters and photon torpedoes, as well as interfering with locking on phasers (see below). At 2 hit points, phasers are damaged and cannot be used, while at 1 hit point impulse engines are lost and the ship cannot move.

For each turn in which a ship neither moves nor attacks, it can repair 1 hit point of damage, but the player must explicitly mention that he or she is not moving or attaching but making repairs.

Movement

Warp drive: Up to 12 hexes (or 6 plus attack)

Impulse engines: Up to 3 hexes (with or without attack)

Fighters and transports only have impulse engines. A ship must also expend one unit of movement to turn one hex face. And so, for example, a fighter can move 3 hexes forward on a turn, or rotate 3 hex faces, or move one forward, turn one, then move one more, and so on.

Attacks

Phasers: Automatically hit within 3 hexes and cause d4 damage. Further away, or if sensors are damaged, both the attacker and defender roll d20. If the attacker is higher then the phasers hit. The maximum range of phasers is 6 hexes.

Photon torpedoes: Both attacker and defender roll d20 to determine if they hit (as above). They cause d10 damage, and cannot be used at all at a distance greater than 3 hexes, or if sensors are damaged.

A destroyed ship explodes causing d4 damage to ships in adjacent hexes. Fighters must be facing in the direction they are attacking. Starships have phasers that can fire in all directions. Transports do not normally have phasers.

Order of Play

This section was the most difficult to decide on so as to allow movement of ships in convoy so as to create interesting scenarios (e.g. Federation starships escorting transports and defending them against attack by Klingon ships). In the end, I decided that even in TV and film dogfights between ships, a complete wall of ships cannot be created, and thus movement in short alternating turns seemed to lead to play that simulates what one sees on TV.

The sequence of play is as follows: players take turns moving 2 ships each, until all ships have been moved that they wish to move that turn. Then players take turns attacking (one ship at a time each) until all ships have attacked that wish to do so that turn (and which have not moved more than 6 hexes that turn). Then this repeats.

Fighters (if these are being used) are launched at the end of the attack sequence and can then move on the turn immediately following. They are placed in spaces immediately surrounding the carrier from which they launch.

In complex scenarios involving large numbers of starships and fighters, players may find it helpful to use separate index cards for each ship, to keep track of movements, repairs, and hit points. Otherwise, scrap paper should normally be adequate.

Easy Reference