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Encounter One
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Hi,
Not a new rule set, but a new edition of a very old set.
Encounter One is a tabletop wargame for battles with miniature space ships. Encounter One was written by Phil Brough and Malcolm Booth as Starfleet Studies. Both were members of Sheffield Wargame Society. They were published by Tabletop Games with some ships produced by QT Miniatures. You can use whatever models you have and create your own ship designs. The third edition was published in 1983. So it was pre Full Thrust. It was one of the first games I really got into, when I was a student in Sheffield.
I brought it back with me to Hull and collected a few fleets of spaceship miniatures.
Lately I have been in contact with one of the original authors. We have now put together a digital edition plus some support material.
I have also been in discussion with Alternative Armies who inherited a lot of Tabletop Games publications and Dave Hoyle (formerly QT Models). Encounter One 2021 Give it a try and let me know what you think.
Cheers,
Chris
-- UK/020/CN Chris Nicole |
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Is there a list of changes so I can annotate my original copy? ;) Regards, Paul Paul Holden paul@... On 01/04/2021 10:27, Chris via
groups.io wrote:
Hi, |
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Hi Paul,
The only change to the rules so far are : 1 - I did not include the 3d movement rules, but I may add them as an appendix if I can transcribe the tables; 2 - I have changed the fighter interception rules from a percentage dice roll to 1-10 dice. 3 - I have not included the illustrations of spaceships, addresses or the stock list from QT models. The rest are spell checking, grammar and proof reading. I would say the digital version is more accessible now. Cheers, Chris -- Chris Nicole |
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Thanks Chris, I did the download. I've not looked at these for many years, blame Jon T and FT, but I'm interested to take another look. >>from a percentage dice roll to 1-10 dice. Sounds smart. For some reason around that time all the designers
were mad keen on percentiles. Guess it spoke to the mathematician
in SF geeks? Hmm, that said the other set I remember using them
was Reaper (?) which I think became WHammer and moved to d6. >> I did not include the 3d movement rules, but I may add them as an appendix if I can transcribe the tables; Really if you want to play 3D I'd just go with Ad-Astra Games
(Squadron Strike), everything else pales by comparison, either
heavily compromised or too fiddly to actually play YMMV :) Regards, Paul Paul Holden paul@... On 02/04/2021 09:19, Chris via
groups.io wrote:
Hi Paul, |
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Hi Paul,
we moved onto Full Thrust too when it came out. I had a nostalgia to play spaceships games, then when I had a look at FT again the rules are now over four books, plus fan made compilations. Stuff that used to be familiar has been superceded. At first I had thought of converting Encounter One to FT. Then I realised what I wanted was a game of E1. I really admire the maths that went into E1, it has an elegance that appeals to me. We soon realised with percentile dice that we often only needed to roll the tens dice. In 90% of cases that tells you whether you have passed or failed. In the other cases you just roll the second dice for digits. Rolling one dice also avoids any confusion over which is the tens... Malcolm told me, they added the 3D movement rules for fun. They did not know of anyone that actually used them! The rules for orbital movement around planets are a lot more interesting to my mind. If you use 1 Metral as 1 Megameter or 1000km, then at 1M =1cm you could put a scale model of the planet on the table. for example, Earth is about12,750 km diameter or 14M. The Moon is 3,475 diameter and orbits Earth about 385,000 km. That is just about achievable on a large table. Figures for other planets and moons in our system are easily found. e.g. Jupiter 142,984 km . I would suggest measuring from the surface of the planet rather than the centre. Regards, Chris -- Chris Nicole |
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Hi Chris, Had a skim last night. Lots going on. I think that it could really do with a few examples to clarify things e.g. it took me 3-4 reads through the firing process to get what was happening with the fire factors. Once I got it, it's smooth, but getting there might put a lot of folk off. Some other parts that could do with some cleaning up or I'm still not sure about... Ship design - seems to be inconsistent as to whether ships of mass 5 or less require a manouvre drive? TBH that paragraph could probably do with a re-write to make it clearer what the exceptions are to the required systems? Shields, and number or sides covered vs number of generators vs generator shield level - I got it but another one that took a few passes. Movement - what do you do with the odd M when dividing by turns - take it at the start, at the end, at any time? What if it's multiple M left over? Firing table - Why does the 0 shields column have break-points (*) ? Does that mean that even if a ship has 0 shields on a side you still go through the hit reduction process if you "miss" with the percentage roll? That doesn't seem quite right. Firing table - separate sheet - would be great to get the Tactical Factors included? Missiles - ignore shields? It's not explicitly stated but it
comes out of the firing procedure. I'm still not convinced that
they do enough damage to warrant the hull expenditure on PD -
what's your experience from actual play?
Regards, Paul Paul Holden paul@... On 03/04/2021 10:15, Chris via
groups.io wrote:
Hi Paul, |
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Hi Paul,
Thanks for raising these points. I will pass them onto Malcolm and try to answer as best I can. The rules would benefit from more examples. As it is the digital edition is a close transcription of the third edition rules. I had thought to keep any expansions or variants seperate on the blog. But some bits like fireing really need clearer explanation. An example in the rules text might be the best way of doing that. Ships of Mass 5 or less do not require Manoeuvre Drives, but may have them. Shields - Each shield generator covers one arc. The arc covered is set at the beginning of the movement phase. Shield strength of any one generator may not be split or cover more than one arc. Movement - I'm not sure it matters where you place any remaining movement points. But I would advise even distribution with no more than one extra point in each leg of the turn. 0 strength Shields. Yes, you can build a ship with one or more multiple 0 strength shields. This is one of the hidden advantages of the Aurigans. They can add 0 strength shields at no points cost, each shield adds one mass and one Hull box. If it helps, think of them as half strength or soft shields. Hits on Unshielded ships do not count multiple zero strength shields. You make one roll for damage using your final fire factor against column 0, this should result in a number of automatic hits plus one more posible hit. I need to produce a new Quick Reference Sheet. This would include Tactical Factors. I would suggest, that if you are using more than three or four ships per side you look at using the optional rules for Tactical Computers instead of working out the Tactical Factor for each shot. Missiles ignore Shields. Because E1 uses a random hit allocation, any hit could take out your Reactor or something vital. Point Defence also work against Coma, Fighters and Drones. As an experiment try using a couple of ships of similar build except one is Beam armed and the other is Missile armed. You might be surprised. Especially if you don't have any point Defence! Cheers, Chris -- Chris Nicole |
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Thanks Chris,
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Very comprehensive :) I think I was on point with everything except 0 strength shields but the clarifications/confirmations are very welcome. Regards, Paul
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I have added a Combat Example to Encounter One 2021 as well as some clarification on ship design.
The Example runs through the combat procedure for Beam and Missiles using the Federation and Empire example ships from the rules. I have also come up with a variant that may speed up Tactical Modifiers for games with a lot of ships. There is an expanded version of the Combat Example and the Ships Tactical Factor variant on my blog here: Encounter One combat example Have fun and let me know if you have any comments or questions. Cheers, Chris -- Chris Nicole |
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