News

We continue our look at the mechanics of Metaverse today by focusing on plotting and movement of starships, indirect weapons, and starfighters. The first step in a Metaverse turn is plotting starship movement. The act of writing down movement orders for starships is not unique to Metaverse; it has been used in many fine rule sets in the past. To improve on this tried and tested concept, Metaverse introduces the use of both cinematic and newtonian movement styles in the same game. Other games have featured both of these movement styles in their games but Metaverse allows for the use of both in the same game and even in the same fleet.

Cinematic starships have a momentum that is carried forward from turn to turn and is not lost as they make turns. Additionally, a starship moving cinematicaly will have a maximum speed (variable depending on the specifics of the design) that it cannot exceed under any circumstances. This type of movement is best used for starships that violate physics and fly through space like an airplane.

Newtonian starships have a series of momentums aligned with a compass rose of 8 points. Players will designate a north direction of the table and their compass roses will align with this direction. A newtonian starship can apply thrust to any of these directions, depending on the configuration of its STL drives. Each turn the starship is moved each of its momentums resulting in its vector but in a simple easily adjudicated manner. Additionally, newtonian starships may use their thrusters to give themselves rotational momentum, either CW or CCW. This added to their directional momentum creates the total velocity and spin of newtonian starships.

To modify the momentum and rotation of starships, thrusters and STL drives are required. Thrusters are used for applying turns to a cinematic starship and rotational momentum to newtonian starships and are placed in the sides of the starship. STL drives are used to modify the momentum of starships and can be placed facing front, back, left, or right. Their are three forms of STL drives; primitive STL drives can only provide thrust in the direction they face, basic STL drives can provide thrust along an axis such as front/back, and advanced STL drives can provide thrust front/back and left/right as well as act like a thruster. Like all systems in Metaverse, STL drives and thrusters can be placed in multiples and can be of varying size.

Starships will also be designed (a must for pickup games) with an FTL drive. These drives come in three flavors; primitive FTL drives allow for the starship to be present at the battle and for an FTL retreat, basic FTL drives function the same as a primitive FTL drive but also allow for a strategic FTL jump (explained in the next section), and advanced FTL drives function the same as a basic FTL drive but also allow for a tactical FTL jump (explained in the next section). An FTL drive will have a rating determining how long it must charge before being used.

In addition to basic momentum and heading changes, players have at their disposal other maneuvers they can perform with their starships:

Roll: The starship may roll, flipping its left and right sides using thrusters.

Flip: The starship (must be newtonian) may flip its front and back sides using thrusters or STL drives.

Corkscrew: The starship may do a complete 360 degree roll in order to fire weapons from both sides out one side.

Evasive Maneuvers: The starship uses its thrusters to make minor heading changes to become harder to hit but also affects its own fire.

Emergency Power: The starship may get extra power from its STL drives at the expense of possible damage to the drives.

Emergency Thrust: The starship may get extra thrust from its thrusters at the expense of possible damage to the thrusters.

RAM: The starship may attempt to RAM another starship if the command crew is in agreement.

FTL Warm-up: The starship may warm-up its FTL drive in anticipation of performing an FTL maneuver in a later turn.

Strategic FTL Jump: The starship, after having warmed-up its FTL drive, may jump off the table and return to the table at a different point on a later turn.

Tactical FTL Jump: The starship, after having warmed-up its FTL drive, may make a micro FTL jump in a straight line on the table.

Before starships move all indirect weapons will be moved. These weapons, designated as indirect during design, are not fired at targets in the direct sense but are released from their mothership and travel to the target like a missile. During the movement phase they are moved their speed (again determined during design) in straight line with up to a 45 degree heading change at the beginning. The length of time the weapon may remain on the table is again determined during design. During the combat phase any indirect weapon that has ended up within 15cm of a target may hit that target. After indirect weapons have moved starships are moved followed by starfighters. Starfighters will have a speed listed that they may move in any direction. Starfighters may be moved up to double this listed speed but if they do they may not fire.

This was a very brief description of movement within Metaverse, the next post will deal with the electronic warfare step and starship combat step.

Finally, a new model that I just finished this weekend, probably one of my all time favorite starships!

Previous: Metaverse - Turn Overview
First: Metaverse - Sneak PeakNext: Metaverse - Available For Download
Last: Battlespace Publishing at Hotlead 2016