I recently ran across a set of one-page starship rules called Orion’s Gate. It’s no longer supported by the author, but reading through it, it really seems to do all the things I really want in a lightweight ‘beer & pretzels’ style starship wargame, namely:
- Easy to pick up even if you haven’t read the rules in months.
- One-page handout is all you need to use during the game.
- Ability to stat out Star Wars, Star Trek, and other IPs.
- Ability to mix Capital size large destroyers alongside small squadrons.
- Potential to play a full game in 1-2 hours.
I also like A Sky Full of Ship for the above purpose, but I think Orion’s Gate might actually do the job more simply.
I do want to try this game out sometime soon. Here’s some Star Trek ships I stat’d out using the Orion’s Gate rules.
Constellation Class / Intrepid-Class Ship (Destroyer, 6 pts)
Range 18″, Accuracy 2, Strength 4, Evasion 9, Toughness 11
Components:
- ☐☐ Shield
- ☐☐ Photon Torpedoes (Canon)
- ☐☐ Phaser Bank (Missile Cluster)
U.S.S. Excelsior, Galaxy Class (Battleship, 12 pts)
Range 24″, Accuracy 0, Strength 6, Evasion 7, Toughness 13
Components:
- ☐☐ Shield #1
- ☐☐ Tractor Beam
- ☐☐ Shield #2
- ☐☐ Photon Torpedoes (Tsunami Canon)
- ☐☐ Shield #3
- ☐☐ Phaser Bank (Missile Cluster)
Klingon K’Vort Bird-of-Prey (Destroyer, 6 pts)
Range 18″, Accuracy 2, Strength 4, Evasion 9, Toughness 11
Components:
- ☐☐ Shield
- ☐☐ Photon Torpedoes (Canon)
- ☐☐ Phaser Bank (Missile Cluster)
Klingon K’t’inga Battlecruiser (Battleship, 12 pts)
Range 24″, Accuracy 0, Strength 6, Evasion 7, Toughness 13
Components:
- ☐☐ Shield #1
- ☐☐ Klingon Irradiated Photon Torpedoes (Plasma Canon)
- ☐☐ Shield #2
- ☐☐ Photo Torpedoes (Cannon)
- ☐☐ Shield #3
- ☐☐ Phaser Bank (Missile Cluster)
I’ll also work out some house rules, such as when you have no shield components remaining, you would announce your shields being down to X 10%.
Sometime soon I’ll also stat out a Star Wars fleet for use with my Star Wars Armada minis. Here are the ships I’ll stat out in a future post:
REBEL FLEET
- CR90 Corvette
- Nebulon-B Frigate
IMPERIAL FLEET
- Victory-class Star Destroyer
- X-wing Squadrons
- TIE Fighter Squadrons
Would it work for Traveller mass fleet battles? That would be a huge plus for our down the road plans.
I had this in mind since so far as I know Mongoose Traveller doesn’t handle mass fleet battles. I think with some minor tweaks it could work really well — both are 2d6 roll systems. You could map Traveller ship stats (hard points with lasers) to Orion’s ‘Laser Canons’ etc. It would NOT be the same as the intricate ship-to-ship combat in Mongoose, so would need to consider if the Mongoose ship-to-ship rules (geared for 1 or 2 opponents at most I think) are worth having in addition to Orion, or not. I’d also want to consider house-ruling in that PCs that do things in combat can add a +1 per success or something. But to me, that is the holy grail, being able to through some ships on the table and have a quick combat, even if you’ve got 6 or 7 ships.
That would be so awesome. Being able to quickly handle fleet battles would really open up some cool possibilities for a Traveller campaign. For any sci fi game in that vain, actually.