   Card game: drone ships
  This would be a game for 2-? players. Each player would bring their own deck of collectable cardsTo start, you play down your hull. This is a unique card that you are only allowed one of. It has a few attributes worth keeping track of:Health: when this reaches 0, the hull dies. That mean you lose.Nodes: the number of cards you can play straight off your hull. More is better.Power: the default power produced each turn. Power and Resources discussed laterSpace: the space inside the hull. You can build power plants and assemblers in here, as well as some other cards. More is better.Each turn, you produce power. This can be increased by playing down power plants (cards) inside your hull. Then you can change some power into resources with assemblers inside the hull (assemblers are also cards).Then, the player with the highest engine value may change the range by 1. This will be talked about later.Then you draw a card. There are some nodes that let you exchange power for more drawn cards.Then you may play down any number of cards that you can afford. Most cards require a node. So you have to play them down on an end node. The hull in one place you can play them down, but there are splitter cards, which basically take up one node and provide two.All nodes have hit points, and an ability:Engines: take up power but allow you to change range. Range changes affect how some weapons work.Rockets: take up power and resources, but create a one hit pointed rocket each turn. The enemy has one turn to destroy it. If they don't, you choose a node to deal damage to. More effective at medium rangeLasers: take up power but deal instant damage to anything.Flak cannon: can only be shot at close range, and costs resources and power, but deals damage to any target node and all nodes attached to it.Shields: the enemy can't deal damage to any node between the shield and the hull until they destroy the shieldFighter bay: takes a lot of resources and power, but makes a weak fighter that can attack the enemy every round. Until the enemy destroys it.And a lot more.The only problem in the alpha is that it is too hard to keep track of the hit points of everything. Also, late game, when each player has tons of guns, as soon as the last shield protecting the hull is gone, the game ends. I'm thinking of adding some kind of effect card (somewhat like instants in MTG) that would do some crazy effect.Any thoughts?   
Quote:Original post by doomhascomeThis would be a game for 2-? players. Each player would bring their own deck of collectable cardsTo start, you play down your hull. This is a unique card that you are only allowed one of. It has a few attributes worth keeping track of:Health: when this reaches 0, the hull dies. That mean you lose.Nodes: the number of cards you can play straight off your hull. More is better.Power: the default power produced each turn. Power and Resources discussed laterSpace: the space inside the hull. You can build power plants and assemblers in here, as well as some other cards. More is better.This hull card mechanic is completely pointless if all hulls are identical and extremely hard to balance if they aren't. I would make every ship identical (and most likely unconstrained) or allow players to use many hull cards to build a whole fleet of ships (with tradeoffs of card advantage against flexibility and power against numbers).Nodes, as is made clear in the following, are merely a complexity limitation that doesn't seem necessary.The other three stats stats should be represented by ship feature cards that add a certain amount of health, power, and spaces and are spent for a turn or permanently "filled" with payload cards, e.g. a "front weapon bay" card that adds two weapon-only spaces and is later partially tied up by playing a 1-space "laser" card.Quote:Each turn, you produce power. This can be increased by playing down power plants (cards) inside your hull. Then you can change some power into resources with assemblers inside the hull (assemblers are also cards).What's the benefit of assembler cards and resources over directly paying the energy cost of whatever cards you want to play? The ship is likely to be complicated enough without vague cards.Quote:Then, the player with the highest engine value may change the range by 1. This will be talked about later.Shouldn't the ship be reasonably complete before engaging in combat? And what interaction is possible before that moment?Quote:Then you draw a card. There are some nodes that let you exchange power for more drawn cards.Good.Quote:Then you may play down any number of cards that you can afford. Most cards require a node. So you have to play them down on an end node. The hull in one place you can play them down, but there are splitter cards, which basically take up one node and provide two.Limiting card numbers with "nodes" seems irritating; spaces and power are already effective constraints. The game appears to be about commanding a freely (and haphazardly) designed starship in combat, not about constrained or idiosyncratic structures like Illuminati or Carcassonne.Instead, consider assigning systems to sides of the ship (front, left, right, rear; in addition to range, facing and bearing could be changed) and grouping cards in layers for the purposes of shields and directed attacks (i.e. a card can be hit only if all cards in the outer layers of that side are disabled at 0 hit points).Quote:All nodes have hit points, and an ability:Engines: take up power but allow you to change range. Range changes affect how some weapons work.Rockets: take up power and resources, but create a one hit pointed rocket each turn. The enemy has one turn to destroy it. If they don't, you choose a node to deal damage to. More effective at medium rangeLasers: take up power but deal instant damage to anything.Flak cannon: can only be shot at close range, and costs resources and power, but deals damage to any target node and all nodes attached to it.Shields: the enemy can't deal damage to any node between the shield and the hull until they destroy the shieldFighter bay: takes a lot of resources and power, but makes a weak fighter that can attack the enemy every round. Until the enemy destroys it.And a lot more.All reasonable; the "fighter bay" should track the current strength of its fighters separately from its own hit points.What about repairing damaged or disabled components?Quote:The only problem in the alpha is that it is too hard to keep track of the hit points of everything. Put tokens on the cards and remove and add them back as damage is dealt and repaired. No token means a broken part. Spaces can be tracked by putting space consumers near space providers; power is counted globally every turn.Quote:Also, late game, when each player has tons of guns, as soon as the last shield protecting the hull is gone, the game ends. I'm thinking of adding some kind of effect card (somewhat like instants in MTG) that would do some crazy effect.You can require the opponent's ship to be completely disabled (e.g. generating 0 power for a while), which would imply losing most or all pieces, assuming a defeated ship to be merely damaged to the point of helplessness rather than utterly destroyed.   ;  Thanks for the comments. I'll consider allowing the player to make multiple ships, which would be cool. Maybe a mother ship, which can't be targeted while another ship is out. Just power as a resource seems like a good idea, particularly once you have multiple ships. I don't like the concept of making the ship do all the work (which is to say nodes aren't destructible or target-able)Visually, this game looks somewhat like Starship Jeb (if anyone has ever played it), so there are many interlocking nodes. It also makes the game a little bit more strategic, because killing a splitter node kills every node attached from it, so building shields at key points is a must have.You have five turns to play down cards (and can't attack, or make fighters, etc.) before the game 'begins'. So ships are reasonably well prepared for battle when the game starts.Nodes more of make growth harder the bigger you get. They also add to the command of the starship, since you have to secure them.However: Node-splitters have become tokens, payed for by power. So you can build as many as you want.I was considering doing a 'directional system' for what could attack, but decided it would be a pain to keep track of, and really hard to manage. Particularly since it would detract from strategy (in my opinion at least).Fighters would be able to spend a turn repairing to full health instead of attacking. Since they have 2-3 hit points, not a big deal. No salvages.Wasn't quite sure I clarified this: when a node's hit points reach 0, it dies. Goes to the graveyard, or whatever. If it is a splitter node, the nodes attached to it become 'disabled' and take one damage each every turn until you replace the splitter.Power is counted globally (produced at mothership).Shields will protect from X + Power expended * Y damage per turn. So, if you use up a lot of power on something, the enemy occasionally will nuke you from orbit, so to speak, and kill your hull (which only has 20ish hit points).Thanks for the feedback though. Also: another card:repair bot bay: can repair up to 3 damage, split up or together, to any damaged node within 3 nodes away.   