What are you looking for in a sci fi ruleset?

[Major_Gilbear]

Wanted everyone's opinions on what they would expect from a scifi rules set.

Infinity, but with better English and an index/glossary.

[vonsirius]

...I will add not GW!!!

[hummus]

NOT IGOYOUGO or IMOVEALL, you snooze, YOUMOVEALL
  I am keeping the each player gets a fixed number of activation counters per turn trick to keep down big battles to a manageable size.  You get a handful of counters, and place them down next to each dude or squad you move.  Once your out of counters, you gather them up and the next player has their turn.  Other ideas involve dropping extra counters next to a model to up its chances, loosing counters when communications are bad or leaders whacked.


Why not what they have in strange aeons where you alternately activate 1 model each
but certain leader models can activate other models
have you seen the new gears of war game coming out by ffg that looks awesome
something that could incorporate those models would be great

[Doomsdave]

Simple, but expandable beyond small skirmish.  Special rules for alien units that can fit homemade fluff.  Rayguns, Flash Gordon helmets.  Pictures of naked girls with rayguns.  That covers it.

[Red Orc]

simple, easy and fast to play and open to any minis you got.

Yes, this, especially the last point. Most of us will have large collections of sci-fi minis and if we can't easily import or convert existing minis to a new system that might be a problem (OK, in the end we'll probably do it even if it's hard, but it would be better if it's pretty easy).

...naked girls with rayguns...

Though to be fair, a good many things apart from sci-fi rulesets could be improved by naked girls with rayguns, too. It would certainly make yoghurt more interesting.

[dijit]

The ability to have some truly alien like creatures/tech rather than men-in-rubber-suit aliens. Being able to take games up to platoon level wouldn't be bad and some integrated vehicle rules that actually feel like they fit properly.
And keep well away from IGOUGO please.

...I will add not GW!!!

But the ability to add sci-fantasy to it would be nice then I might be able to bribe some folks away from GW with it.
Personally the more options the better, the more special traits that can be added to units the better to creat those really unique models.
Duncan

[Delaney]

Generalizing rules into rough effect categories rather than specifically saying, thats a laser, that effects this type of armor- that keeps it really flexible- but you do need scissor, paper, rock things to make strategy work to some degree.  The real test is making a game where you don't just match tank killers to tanks, heroes to heroes the run at each other untilthe dice tell you who won on points. Yawn. 

Lots and lots of abilities makes for a game that is not tournament friendly and hard to playtest- too few and you get hott.
I like to be able to glance at a model and say, oh yeah- that's the guy who can tear through bulkheads- that's the forcefield guy, and those guys are cowards.  A few things each.

[dijit]

True, what I meant was to stay away from the over simplistic. The basic SoBH has a good level of special rules, few enough to remember and enough to give flavour.
Duncan