Space Chess
Had this idea a long time ago, would be great for ST-Games (need a better name). Players get an armada of ships, each with different abilities. Players coordinate movement. Ships move in real time.
- Beacon 8x
- Shielded at rest
- Hull: 3
- 1 DPS
- Pawn like, have many of them, Cannot fire while moving, shields up 1 second after it stops moving.
- Command 1x
- Shielded at rest
- Hull: 6
- 1 DPS
- Kill it and win, otherwise, acts like a Beacon, but with more hull points
- Gunner 1x
- No shields
- Hull: 3
- 1 DPS, shield piercing
- Can pierce shields, the timing should works so that if it attacks a beacon, they will destroy each other.
- Engineer 1x
- No Shields
- Hull: 3
- No weapons
- Will auto repair hull damage to ships in range. Ship must stay in range for 3 seconds, even while moving
- Can upgrade a beacon to anything except command but both must stay touching, at rest for 15 seconds.
- Artillery 1x
- No Shields
- Small anti-artillery, enough to protect itself, another ship close-by would be protected against a direct hit but not splash damage
- Hull: 3
- Fires an explosive round, takes 10 seconds, does friendly fire damage. Targets a location, not an enemy. A small area (direct hit) does 2 damage and a larger area (~3 ships across) does an additional 1 hull damage. The result is
- Escort 1x
- Anti-artillery
- Provides a shield bubble, even while moving. The algorithm on the bubble, is any shot within range is removed, so it even provides line-of-sight protection.
- Warp 2x
- No Shields
- No Weapons
- Can warp to within range of any friendly beacon. If both warp ships are near beacons, can warp ships between them. Warping takes 1 second.
Shields take 0.8 seconds to recover after taking a hit, so two beacons firing on one Beacon (or command) can destroy it.
If the game goes 3 minutes without dealing hull damage or 6 minutes without an upgrade or a kill, a stalemate is declared. All ships move at the same speed.
Strategy and Balance
The balance of the game is that beacons stake out an area. But a beacon can be destroyed by artillery, so you need to keep them moving. A gunner and an escort can destroy beacons without taking damage. A gunner and an engineer can also kill a beacon. Two beacons can kill one beacon.
So long as there are two warp ships on the board, ships can be moved very quickly. And one beacon can move into range of an enemy beacon and setup it's shield before it's destroyed.
Killing Command
Like the beacons, you need either a gunner or artillery to pierce the shields.