How are things going on Galaxies/Rebirth?

Blue? Green? Red? Refuse? It's time to talk about rules for a new community edition of the VBAM rules!
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BroAdso
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How are things going on Galaxies/Rebirth?

Post by BroAdso »

I was a huge fan of some of the good ideas brought forward for Galaxies, and then some of the combat ideas for Rebirth. They've gotten scattered around a lot of different threads, but I'd love a way to see a general update on those things. Some of them, taken together, were pretty fun and revolutionary - one-round combat turns abandoning the old system of calculating damage, simplified '4x' style strategic gameplay for colonizing and management, and more.

I know VBAM is a passion project and part-time thing, so I'm not complaining - it's a lot of fun for me to open up a gameboard or fleet drafting or battle report document and just poke around - but I'd love to know what the current state of things is, and if there are any playtests of the new stuff coming I can join in, and so on.
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BroAdso
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Re: How are things going on Galaxies/Rebirth?

Post by BroAdso »

Finally, election season and its aftermath is OVER here and I got some time to play out a couple of battles in the new Galaxies: Rebirth rules! Here it is, if anyone's still out there.

This reaffirmed that I really like the Galaxies Rebirth combat rules with Fire Effectiveness, one-round consolidation, etc. I used the version of the rules found here: Adso's Galaxies Rebirth Combat Rules.

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Having a Scout advantage is great for your knowledge of the enemy fleet and for your Fire Effectiveness roll, while having a large Carrier advantage can really boost the Fire Effectiveness roll of your fighters (in the current variation). Using a D10+(Your Scout CC)-(Enemy Cloak/Jammer CC) for Readiness Modifier, and then using Readiness Modifier to modify Fire Effectiveness, in addition to determining what you know about your opponent and how many forced includes/excludes you get seems to work pretty well.

I hope that as the winter (which is a little slower) progresses I can advance another test campaign or pick up the old one with the Rebirth rules kinda grafted on.

Attached is a PDF with the unit values I'm using for Rebirth ships and the way I'm costing the special abilities.
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RebirthNewAbilities.pdf
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GalaxyShipSizes.pdf
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Tyrel Lohr
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Re: How are things going on Galaxies/Rebirth?

Post by Tyrel Lohr »

I'm about two months late with a reply, but I can give a quick status report.

Work has been picking back up on Galaxies/Rebirth. I didn't manage to get much done on it last Fall due to a hectic work schedule, but we kept shooting emails back and forth and prototyping rules options in the interim.

Right now I think we are getting very close to having something to start talking about about again, but I'm holding off on any specifics until we get some final sign off. The current internal build of the rules is essentially a fork of the VBAM 1E rules, but with elements of Galaxies integrated. I've also spent the last year taking a look at what other war games in the space are doing and have taken some notes accordingly.

I think within a month I'll be in a position where I can start releasing weekly dev diaries to start detailing these changes and what shape the rules are going. We are holding off on releasing any playtest information until the rules are "done" and complete (e.g., it is in a completely playable format).

I'll be looking over what has been posted in the interim here, but I know with my schedule the next two weeks it may take awhile to digest everything.
[i]"Touch not the pylons, for they are the messengers!"[/i]
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