VSF spaceship combat game?

[Mister Rab]

VSF is really floating my boat at the moment (and my ether-boat, of course  ), and I wondered if there are any space (ether?) combat games like Firestorm Armada, say, already out there filled with stempunky goodness? My google-fu has failed me....

[Mr.Marx]

Iron Stars?

http://www.brigademodels.co.uk/IronStars/index.html

Ive never played it so can't really say anything about it. I know it exists though.

Le Marx

[The_Beast]

Iron Stars is more post-Victorian Aeronef. 

I keep think the brains that gave us VSF feel that battles in space are unlikely except very close to planets, as it's difficult to find and capture in the large volume. "Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean you may think..."

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, is there anything it can't fix?

I do recall an attack on an ether flyer on approach to Mars in one of the audio drama, but that's the only case that comes to mind.

Doug

[OSHIROmodels]

Full Thrust can be easily adapted for VSF, the mechanics are simple enough. We used to do it at our old club (about 15 years ago now  ) where a chap called Geordie Paul made all the ships from most of the prevalent nations and either adopted the Space 1889 rules or utilised Full Thrust, I can't remember which.

He had an ingenious method for the height problems, all the ships had a small clothes peg coming out of the mast and they could move up and down painted sticks with markings on to represent the different height levels  Happy days 

cheers

James

[Mister Rab]

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, is there anything it can't fix?

Very true! 

I guess I was thinking more inner-solar system for scale, with trade routes, mining outposts on the asteroids or Mars and the such. Very much along the lines of Napoleonic naval encounters - the sea is pretty big, but most people want the same small areas or routes under their control...

Thanks for the suggestions, although Iron Armada is a little too steel for me, I prefer a wood/iron/brass/steam engine feel to my VSF.

[Traveler Man]

I wonder if the Beer n' Pretzels Ironclad naval rules could be adapted to the purpose? Quick, simple, down and dirty rules which give a real feel for the period. 

http://ajstable.blogspot.com
http://hetzenberg.blogspot.com

[Operator5]

I thought there was a big box VSF ship game that was supposed to come out a year or two ago. I seem to recall some kind of demo games at GenCon.

[Tom Reed]

I think that might have been Leviathans.

[Mister Rab]

Hmmm, Leviathans looks interesting. I shall bookmark that for later perusal. Thank you.

[Patron Zero]

Depending on how basic you may want the rules to be,  one might look over the classic SF role playing game, Traveller.  It does have a working starship combat system based on D6 that should be easily adapted to 'local' space engagements.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveller_%28role-playing_game%29

http://rpggeek.com/thread/454655/best-version-of-space-combat-rules

[The_Beast]

Stray thought entered my brain, but those seem to have the highest distribution at present. 

I seemed to recall discussions of trying to use Spelljammer for Steampunk; you might get ideas from that for a rules bash.

Could have SWORN I saw it on TMP, but the only threads I found mentioned it in passing.

Doug

[rob_alderman]

Wessex Games are working on Astronef...

[Mister Rab]

Astronef? Cool 

[rob_alderman]

Yup, their biggest issue is finding any real victorian Science Fantasy Fiction that describes space-combat. There is very little. Most of it is deep sea or land based.

[Mister Rab]

I would have thought that deep-sea and deep-aether actions would be very similar both in terms of technology as well as tactics. Essentially a self-contained, pressurised vessel moving in three dimensions. Although I guess you wouldn't have galvanic discharge weapons underwater....