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Let’s Play: Darkstar
November 15, 2018 by dignity
Justin is joined in the studio by Jim and Jen with their game Darkstar for some colonial naval combat in the 26th century!
In development for around six years, Jim challenges Justin to some old-fashioned fisticuffs...in space...with battleships...and torpedoes. The three ships on each side of the conflict are intricately designed with weapon lists, shield information and internal layouts.
In addition to all this information, the two players have to take their movement into account. With no friction in space, any thrust applied carries the ship perpetually forward turning our understanding of movement in games on its a head.
What famous spaceship battle would you love to reenact with the Darkstar system?
Not bad… reminds me a bit of Babylon 5 wars … so many years ago. Space battle goodness. Wondering if the space map is close to scale. This system is unique though, I need to sit down and spend some time taking it in. Alot to it. I love tiny ships though .. always more epic the smaller the mini’s
Thanks very much, @pojoh – The scale is not really “true.” Each hex is 180km. Each turn is one minute. The ships are about 800m = destroyer / 45000 tons (250-300 men), 1200m = light cruiser – 80,0000 tons (450-600 men), 1600m = heavy cruiser / 100,000-120,000 tons (800+ men).
So the ships are roughly to scale with each other, but not to the hexes. It’s space, at semi-realistic / plausible ranges and scales … if the ships were really to scale with this map, the camera probably couldn’t see them.
The Scaling thing is hard to keep true in Sci-fi games .. do to the amount .. well.. space. Need to start my own fleet .. the Brock, Gretzky, and the Tim Horton for my Canadian force ;D .. I love the narrative play and the Personal touch that can be put into this game.
There you go, @pojoh . 😀 Task Force “Stanley Cup.” Although honestly, the the personal aspect of the game only really shines when you get into campaign play a d your task force progresses through half a dozen of these battles or so. We started @dignity off (and my fleet as well) with a few bonuses to give people more of a feeling of the game as it’s usually played, not right off the bat with true “recruit” level ships. So if memory serves, he had Tactics (+2 to initiatives), Gunnery Accuracy (+2 to hit, but only on guns, no… Read more »
Yeah!
Jim, Jen & Justin
I’ve been waiting for this let’s play since the bootcamp but at 2 hours long, i’m Going to be watching this in chunks.
I have to say it didn’t seem that long while we were taping it. I felt like it went by so fast!! It was a real fun time.
Thanks @brucelea ! Glad to see the ole’ Royal Navy made a good showing!
Two hours, though … this was actually a very fast, very stripped-down, very brutal Darkstar game. Usually its a LOT more tactical and “chess-like” than this. Average gameplay runs about 3-44 hours for a mid-sized game (about 50% larger than this one, with 4-6 ships per side, plus aerospace fighters / bombers)
Then again, we also have knife fights between destroyers, frigates, and corvettes that play out much faster, and are 90% movement, 10% gunnery.
That sounds like a weekender in itself ?
More of a beer, pretzel, lunch, dinner and midnight snack game ??????????????
I love the way you have developed the movement and it’s relationship with the various gravitational forces that you can have on the table top.
Awesome, @brucelea – yeah, the game has been re-engineered to usually fit in UNDER four hours. Three hours is the usual, unless the group decides beforehand to get ambitious and set up a big one. But these Let’s Play Videos go for 1-2 hours, this was kind of long at just over 2 hours … and we were trying to keep everything as quick as possible.
I’m glad they were able to include the link to the project in this video. That way when everyone falls in love with the game, like I know they will, especially since Justin picked it up so quickly, they can just pop on over to the project and read about it.
and still people missed that link in the description over on youtube …
Was that you that dropped the link in YouTube – thanks very much! 😀 😀 😀
Yep. I must admit I also missed that the link in the description. YouTube has a nasty habit of only showing the first line of the initial text so I had missed it as well at first.
.
Awesome. Thanks! 😀
Excellent “Let’s Play”. The game is really outstanding. Does Justin bring his own dice, I don’t think I’ve seen him lose a let’s play yet!
Actually, @dignity beat @oriskany using oriskany’s own dice!!! A little fact that made the beating even more painful.
just look at any let’s play with @warzan ^.^ he’s my gaming kryptonite 🙂
Thanks @gremlin , @gladesrunner , and @dignity ! Great game, and AWESOME video! Thanks to the editors, seriously, they really added a whole new element to this content ! ! ! ! !
@warzan is everyone’s gaming kryptonite…I have never seen him loose. I guess that is one of the perks of being the boss 😉
Been looking forward to this since it was mentioned
Thanks @rasmus ! From someone who likes DZC and DFC, that’s high praise! 😀
We have to fix @warzan ‘s viking henchman graduate of oriskany’s operational warfare school with his own “space viking” Prussian fleet.
Prussian *shiver*, only if that is where the Scandinavians ended up
Well, @rasmus – the game only has ten major factions. So smaller groups like Irish or Scandinavians or Australians … we don’t want to leave them out by any means … we just have to incorporate them into the largest / nearest approximation. In the Darkstar Setting / History – the Federated States of Germany include pretty much all of central Europe that isn’t predominantly Catholic (yes, religion is a VERY big thing in the setting) – the New Roman Alliance controls most Catholic cultures … or Eastern / Greek / Russian Orthodox (the Holy Russian Empire controls those). So… Read more »
@oriskany I guess, it will have to be Prussian – Or stay true to the Viking ideas and go Corporate/Pirate
Corporate consortium ships are fun, @rasmus . Very small (comparatively), very fast, very high tech. No real heavy guns, but incredibly hard to hit, and what few guns they are killer-accurate (+3 targeting / CIC bonuses in many cases). Also high SLD thrust and very tough to hit because of such heavy EW / ECM / Shielding. Practically invisible, almost like “cloaked” Romulans. 😀 But once they DO get hit … they are in REAL trouble because their ships are relatively small and fragile. Prussian ships are very German. Pretty slow, but very heavily protected and loaded up with very… Read more »
Great game really have to find a chance to try something like this
@rasmus – We’re developing the idea and running tests for on-line play. Starting with PanzerLeader and Arab Israeli Wars, moving into Darkstar soon.
@oriskany In which case I will consider my self lucky in my time zone EST 😉
There you go, @rasmus . We actually have a small GoToMeeting test tomorrow. we’ll see how the tech works. 😀
I really enjoyed this. So much depth in even the “simplified” version. I wonder when it will be unleashed to the world so us mere mortals can play too.
you can already lay your mits on it 🙂 https://www.beastsofwar.com/project/1185947/#snav
Thanks @Davidquinn77 and @dignity – indeed, we’re experimenting with allowing players to try it out on line.
Full Project Thread: https://www.beastsofwar.com/project/1185947/
Finally got a chance to watch the full video. I just want to give a big THANK YOU to @lancorz for the little add-ins to the video. The shots of the charts make some of the rules discussions a little easier to follow. I am also honored that we earned a Star Wars and Battle Star Galactica clips!!!!
Holy hell, I finally got to watch this. Damn, @lancorz / @dignity – and whoever edited this video … thanks so much! The zoom ins on the sheets, the highlights of key values in the charts, the highlights of space battle scenes – thanks very much! This came out great! Thanks very much to Justin and Jenn for a great video and a great game!
Long live HMS Coleraine! 😀 😀 😀
Dude it was a pleasure, I loved the game and I’m ready for the rematch 🙂 bring you A game buddy ^.^
Well @dignity the weather in Florida is getting perfect, 23 C and sunny and plenty of hotel rooms with beach views and enough room to game! Of course you could always just link up for a digital version if you don’t have time to pop over the pond.
Oh, yes, @dignity. Destroyer wolfpack USS Oriskany, USS Princeton, USS Valley Forge, Marine Corps carrier assault ship USS Tarawa. The carrier USS Liberty, torpedo corvette USS Daggerfish, light cruiser USS Spokane, heavy cruiser USS Gettysburg …
There’s a very serious American battlegroup ready to kick some serious ass. 😀
I have to say, I was a little skeptical when @oriskany first mentioned this. It initially sounded like it was going to be super crunchy with a massive number of charts. Seemed to go surprisingly smoothly. Look forward to more of this.
@dignity I see your dice are on fire in every game except against @warzan. My own dice are never average. I’m either on fire or ice cold; there’s no in between.
@blipvertus speaking as @oriskany ‘s official play testing victim… uh I mean opponent…it does seem intimidating at first, but really 95% of what you need to know is on 3 sheets – the ship sheet, the turn sequence page, and the core chart page. Once you take 5 minutes to review those, you really can pick it up as quickly as @dignity . He honestly had never even seen the ship sheets in detail prior to the start of the video.
I won’t lie to you, @blipvertus – it used to be a little like this. A major reqrite complete this year that streamlined the game aimed at increasing playability.
Like almost any wargame, though, it also depends on your list. This was a light, gun-heavy, punchy list. If these had been aerospace carriers, planetary assault ships, torpedo corvettes, blockade runners, ships with ship-to-ship boarding, electronic warfare ships, etc. It CAN get really crunchy, if you let it get away from you.
Really interesting let’s play. reminds me of the fleet battles described in “The Lost Fleet” series by Jack Campbell.
@oriskany, if you haven’t read the series, I would suggest a read as it may give you another view to the very interesting game you have developed so far. All the best with future improvements. I would assume that Australia would fall under either the british or oceania in the Dark Star setting??
Thanks, @recon63 – yes, definitely familiar with Lost Fleet. I was actually sort of on board, until he took his “realistic” scales of distance, movement, and speed a touch too far, i.e., from the operational scale down to the tactical scale where they honestly don’t belong. We also made the very early and conscious decision to stay away from any kind of “hypergate” element in our setting, for very specific reasons. It’s always an intriguing choice when setting up a sci-fi verse, because such gates / portals / wormholes are wargame objectives and storypoints waiting to happen. The problem is… Read more »
So when’s the Kickstarter?
And I certainly detected the influence of some long ago FASA games on how the damage is applied 🙂
God, games were good back then, weren’t they?
Now that we’ve entered the DARK AGES OF WARGAMING (pretty much the mid-1990s with no end in sight) … its all we can do to keep these lost arts alive as long as we can. 🙁
I do miss sitting down to play a quick 4 or 5 hour game with map deployment and written orders
I’ve been rereading the centurion rules recently to see if it could be transferred into a miniatures game
Let us know how that works out in the projects.
I don’t think it will be too difficult The orbital bombardments and their plotting might take s little while
Sigh, I’ve just seen a copy of Renegade Legion: Centurion and Leviathan on ebay. Bids now placed.
And I’ve also considered whether the games could be resurrected and updated for a modern market. I think the licence is still available from the holding company that looks after the old FASA licences. Although I note that the models are still in production with pfc miniatures.
Thanks, @redvers – Centurion was great (as was Interceptor). Leviathan less so. One of the big reasons we set up Darkstar, to get a better Leviathan (along with FASA Star Trek Tactical Starship Combat Simulator, BattleTech, Traveler 2300, StarBlazers / Space Battleship Yamato and about 900 other scifi space wargames that had their own merits and flaws). Leviathan really is a flawed game, still good, but the weakest of that library. I always thought that was my opinion alone, or that I was reading the rules incorrectly, until I found the Renegade Legions Wikia and found almost all the other… Read more »
Will watch this later gotta head out to work.
Hope you like it, @doomzombie !
That looks like a very fun game. I do enjoy hex based and it allows good range of movement yet does give good restrictions as well. The base nudging and movement device slipping is eliminated . We have someone who is slightly careless and it makes xwing and armada frustrating. The charts and record keeping look relatively simple for a potentially complex game. Very nice job on it and on the presentation. As a preface I know nothing about 3D printing but was curious as to if those ships would be able to be printed by someone who know what… Read more »
Thanks, @firebuck – hexes, grid, computer, whatever … anything that doesn’t involve miniatures and a blank table with “terrain …” whatever combination you choose, there are definite advantages for game play. And with more clear, transparent, easily-measured and easily-verified movement and range syste, (to include facing, fire arcs, elevation, what have you), the way is clear for rules having to deal with actual tactics, technology, and narrative.
And looks like you’re at 667. Crisis averted!
That looked a lot of fun
Indeed it was! 😀
This was a brilliant play through.
What ships would you recommend for a starter fleet?
I’m thinking British and the other person is leaning towards the Prussian’s.
Also where can I find the sheets for those particular ships? Apologies if they’re in the Project and I missed them.
The game looks like a lot of fun and the many years play testing has paid off. Very simple (a good quality in a game), a lot of tactical options and it looks like it would cater to almost any play style.
I should dive into the backstory, looks like I’ve got some reading to do.
Thanks, @elessar2590 – Ships to recommend for a starter fleet: Not actions, but classes / types. Frigates and destroyers. Maybe building up to a light cruiser. Avoid carriers at first. Just straight out gunnery duels, British, Prussian, or Holy Russian Empire are good to start with. Americans and Japanese good too, but they have a LOT of carriers. Corporate Consortium is good, but they have very advanced weapons / electronics. Half the game is electronic warfare. Same with New Roman Alliance. Indian and Arab League are good, but they some of the more complicated weapons types and the Arab League… Read more »
Many bloody Battle’s are scout groups pounding lump’s out of each other like the start of Jutland for one.
80% of Darkstar battles right there … smaller scouting / screening groups scrapping it out in far-flung star systems.
I was thinking of the tigercaw when you were talking about the ships going to Battlestations @oriskany n @dignity ?
Tigerclaw is The light carrier in wing commander film.
Oh, trust me, @zorg – I know the Tigerclaw. More of a carrier, but still very much the kind of tech / ship / verse we’re going for here (minus aliens, of course).
Yes A good film I think anyways.
Jurgen Prochnow for the win.
Getting some fresh air out of the Das boot ? Lol
“You can’t trust him! He’s a PILGRIM!”
…
No, Jurgen. You can’t trust him because he’s Freddy Prinz Jr. 🙁 🙁 🙁
Awesome soundtrack, though!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cohxgOVcK8E&t=0s&index=21&list=FLDVsugoRWzpIMb9e7mA8kHA
Hay he saw the light and went ghost hunting with Scooby shaggy n Co.
My favorite Freddy Prince Junior role is the episode he did on Psych, where he played a former geek friend of the main characters who was now super-cool and super-fit and super-successful and had a super-hot wife … but remained a “closet geek” who had a secret room in his house complete with original sci-fi memorabilia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMPzXGzhKC4
Never give up your inner geek! 😀
An The lucky dog married Buffy ! Lol
Nope, nope, no he didn’t. 🙂 He married Sarah Michelle Gellar. God bless them and I wish them joy.
But the one and TRUE Buffy the Vampire Slayer will always be Kristy Swanson in my book. 😀
ahh the original from the film ? Eliza Dushku is hot to trot as well.
I can’t argue with that. 😀
A brilliant video folks having flashbacks to the centurion time’s now o to have poly pocket’s back then would have been amazing
Thanks, @zorg . Ah, Centurion. I still have ALL those books.
Yes I think I spend more time designing new tanks than playing but that’s how I got my kick’s then that and writing stuff in Tolkien dwarfish I know I’m weard Lol
Not at all, sir. I still have all those Centurion books and even some of the old sheets where I designed by own. I had dozens. Only a few survive to this day, though. One of my all-time favorites … the Calymnus TOG heavy grav tank / APC.
Nice beast.
Loved this thing, @zorg . Probably half the reason I played Centurion as long as I did. I designed lots of tanks but only a few REALLY worked I think. The Calymnus did incorporate a few rules from the Centurion Technical Update. Note the CFPD armor – ceramic ablative armor that absorbs triple (?) laser damage? The trade off is that is more expensive and can shatter when hit with non-laser weapons Also included a +2 targeting system. This made the tank VERY expensive for its weight, basically 40% of the total weapons suite cost if memory serves. However, this… Read more »
Ah Centurion…Sniff Sniff…Memories. I never played strict centurion but I did love me some Interceptor and a Jim modified Legionnaire. I also liked Leviathan, even though its mot nearly as cool as Darkstar
You need to post some our self designed fighters!!!
I think I still have some of the design sheets (on notebook paper – this was the early 1990s and I am a wargaming pack rat) But I don’t think I drew any of them.
Thoroughly enjoyed this, I have been trying to think where I remember the damage sheets from and then I recalled using something similar for star fleet battles back in the early eighties. Your version though goes into so much more depth and I love the way the accumulative damage has an effect on every aspect of how the ship functions. But MAN! @oriskany, that was some monumentally bad rolling, you just couldn’t catch a break.
I think I’m going to be downloading this to add to my collection ???
You know what, I gotta set aside a month one of these days (seriously, it would take about that long) and just crush out this rule set on paper. For now … https://www.beastsofwar.com/project-entry/1303087/ These are the basic charts, the turn sequence, and the sheets used in the exact scenario. And, MAN … now that we’ve e-gamed some long-distance Panzer Leader, you know FIRST HAND how bad my dice rolls can sometimes be! 😀 If we ever want to switch from PanzerLeader to the Darkstar, we’ve now PROVED the GTM solution works well. I do have a few other people that… Read more »
Jim, that would be great and I’ll definitely be tuning in later to catch up on what you and Damon get up to. Got to make sure that I’ve got all my chores done first though, don’t want to upset the long haired general ? Would love to be added to the list to be recruited to the stars @oriskany. Thanks for a great game last night, tactically it really got me thinking. Thoroughly enjoyed it and I also think that you could easily do multiplayer games…….WW2.5 revisited. Won’t be able to pull my last stunt again. Until next time,… Read more »
No worries at all, @brucelea – that was the most fun I’ve had wargaming in MONTHS.
Today’s game with @damon will actually be much faster. We should be starting around 6:00 your time.
Certainly we can do Darkstar on-line one of these days. @davehawes would have first try at that, he’s been supporting the project for months now and we’ve been talking about trying this out for almost as long. I just finally had to get around to testing the tech for this purpose.
You can add that to you’re darkstar project @oriskany As you get part’s finished ? So you don’t lose them.
Add the online play to the project, @Zorg ? Absolutely,m assuming the other people I,m playing with don’t mind their battle reports being published. I always like to ask, just to be safe.
These Panzer Leader and Arab-Israeli Wars battle reports are totally saved, and will be added to their own project once I compile them.
They can always help with the fine tuneing of the final rules Set’s ?
Well, the rules for Panzer Leader and Arab-Israeli Wars have been fine tuned for 40 years. Although today we literally invented on the fly rules for platoon facing … and by “invented” I mean shamelessly stole them from GDW’s Assault.
Been waiting to see this since it was first mentioned! Fantastic to watch it play-out and get a feel for the core mechanics. The theme carries through beautifully as the damage charts getting ticked off you really “feel” the action on the ship as the damage hits.
Can’t wait to get a chance to give it a game.
Well, then I have great news for you, @davehawes. We had our first very successful test of the shared desktop / webspace solution I’ve been wanting to try out for a while. Myself and two gentlemen from the UK logged on and played a SIX HOUR session of Panzer Leader yesterday, no issues or hiccups. We’re running another game for Arab-Israeli Wars today. I’m out of town next weekend for American Thanksgiving. But you’re definitely at the head of the line for trying out Darkstar via web play. Perhaps HMS Raven is finally ready to set sail? 😀 😀 😀
@oriskany, @davehawes, I can give the on-line gaming platform a big thumbs up, a six hour Trans Atlantic Panzer Leader game yesterday and a three and a half hour game today with no problems apart from occasional audio drop out for a few seconds. This will open so many opportunities for expanding a gaming community. I spectated yesterday while Jim played against @brucelea and Andy spectated today. Really enjoyed it, and being able to interact directly with the players or having more than two people play makes the possibilities really exciting.
Great to hear its working so well!
Yeah, the tech worked pretty well. And as you’ve seen in the projects, Darkstar has been geared to support electronic play for years. The only tiny issue to overcome is how to draw the damage on the sheets. The sheets themselves are no issue to port over in Excel, they’re actually originally designed IN Excel. But what will replace the actual dry erase markers on the electronic sheets … I’m not 100% sure yet. I have a few ideas. Oh, and we may have some spectators as well, people who have asked to log in and watch. 😀
For sure! I’ve replied in a bit more detail on the project in the post you tagged me in there 🙂
Awesome! I’ve seen the post. The date sounds great. I’ll reply in more detail on the project page.
Cool game that I might want to try sometime. Despite it being quite abstract this Let’s Play kept me interested to the end.
The way the damage moves through the ship segments really helps to visualize what’s happening and create a bit of narrative.
Thanks very much, @bucketknight! Glad you liked it! 😀
Me and my brother want to give this a go; if at all possible, we would be grateful for a copy of the “battle-sheet” for an American ‘medium’ carrier, and maybe one frigate, and some sort of counterparts from the Japanese…
Okay, @charpentierDerosia – I’ll see what I can do in the project thread. Meanwhile, the announcement has been made below. A working written rules set is now underway.
https://www.beastsofwar.com/project-entry/1303670/
I may be a bit late watching this, but that looks like an awesome game to play.
Thanks very much! Always fun!
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