Okay, @warzan – on the Space Battleship game:

My group and I have designed and played for 5+ years now (just a “dining room table special”, way too cumbersome for any kind of release or publication), a tactical starship combat game largely based on some degree of “real” astrophysics and naval military history. We’ve run into some of the same problems you’re describing, and over the years have hammered out a few solutions.

“Hidden” movement without two boards and a referee is always a challenge. But if I can offer just a few suggestions for the “relativistic delay” mechanic you’re talking about (I won’t offer too much because I know you want to keep this as your own design) . . .

Consider the use of “dummy” tokens. (???)

Okay, you’re looking across the table at some kind of grid, where a Dropfleet Commander miniature represents an enemy ship, battlegroup, or task force. The problem is, this is where that fleet WAS a few seconds or minutes or hours ago, because of the delay imposed by the speed of light (i.e,, speed of information / causality that limit your sensors over astronomical distances).

In game terms, this is where your opponent’s unit was LAST turn. So where is it THIS turn?

When you and your opponent move your ships, you don’t actually move your minis right away. You instead look at your speed, thrust, heading, gravity of nearby astrophysical objects, whatever affects / determines your ship’s possible movement. You decide where you can / want to move. You then put down a SERIES of MARKERS, indicating POSSIBLE positions of where your ship might be NOW.

These markers would all have question marks or targeting symbols of who knows what on the face-up side. The face-down side with either show “LOCATED” or “FALSE SENSOR ECHO” or some such. And THAT’s your movement phase.

So as you’re looking at the table, you see where your sensors officer KNOWS the enemy was last turn, and based on telemetry / sensor readings / computer models, etc., possibilities on where your tactical officer thinks the enemy could be now.

At the beginning of the NEXT movement phase, these markers are flipped to show where your ship / fleet was LAST turn. The “real” marker is replaced with the mini. The “real” and “false” markers are now gathered up and used to track the new turn’s movement.

Basically, you know where your ships are now, but your opponent is always looking at your position last turn. And the same holds true in reverse.

This starts to add a real element of bluff, where players can put their “false” counters wherever they want, so long as their real counter abides by the movement rules. Of course, if your get careless with your “false” counters, it becomes blatantly obvious which ones are “false.” (Hey, how did @commodorerob ‘s ship just move straight through that gas giant? THAT’s a false sensor return for sure!)

The artistry, deception, bluff, and counter-bluff that can work into a carefully crafted (and carefully played) dummy-counter system can be really fun. It really starts to bring in an element of “Don’t play the game, play the man.”

On the more mechanical side, dummy counters / markers like this can also be worked into representing superior / inferior sensors, “cloaking” technology, environmental effects (intermittent solar flares screwing with ships sensors, UNLESS you’re in the eclipse shadow of a planet or moon), electronic counter measures (ECM), etc.

Say you and I are playing a game. Your fleet is smaller but technologically more advanced, with better sensors. We enter a contested star system from opposite sides. I decide to hide in the outer Kuiper Belt of the the system, hoping to bait you into coming at me.

Say we each get a base of 3 dummy markers. Your fleet has 5 sensor dice. I only have 3 (my fleet is bigger, but less advanced). We roll and you get 3 successes, I only get 2. So since you got +1 net success, you get to either (a) subtract one of my dummy counters for that turn, or (b) add one to your own fleet.

Basically, is your fleet using active sensors aggressively, “pinging” in a seek-and-destroy pattern (taking away one of my dummy counters), or putting out your “EM ears” and really listening for my fleet (remaining quiet yourself, adding one dummy counter to your fleet)?

Say you decide to get aggressive (I have a feeling “Admiral Warzan” would be like playing against a Klingon commander). So now I only have two false markers. Based on where my fleet currently is, I place three markers, one real one and only two false ones (obviously, these have to look IDENTICAL on one side). Hoping to play into your aggression, I move two dummy counters on vectors that lead toward a vulnerable colony, built on the moon of one of the outer gas giants. God only knows where your more advanced fleet is, you have six counters (one real one and five false ones).

You place two dummies vectoring toward that colony. Now I know where your fleet WAS last turn (five hours ago, we’re on opposite sides of a star system, remember). I gamble that you’ve taken the bait, and committed a real counterforce against my feint toward the colony. On Turn 2 I move my real marker toward those two dummies, thinking I’m about to ambush your fleet that’s falling for MY dummies.

But as we reveal where our ships really are on Turn 2, I learn to my dismay those were two of your dummy counters, and your real fleet has swung around behind me, tucked in the eclipse shadow of one of the gas giant’s moons. This position puts you roughly in the middle of all my “position counters” – you didn’t know which one was real either but at least now you’re reasonably close to all of them, easier for you since I have less position counters to place (thanks to your better sensors and aggressive “active sensor” option).

More goods news for you on Turn 3 – when we roll a “6” on some kind of environmental scenario condition table, the star just shook off a coronal mass ejection and any ship not in an eclipse shadow now loses ANOTHER dummy counter, etc . . . I’m basically blinded in a tidal wave of solar wind, while you’re picking up static of those particles interacting with my shields or hull or whatever.

Good thing my less advanced fleet is larger, though, and I have a second battlegroup still in that Kuiper Belt. So I can still attack with at least part of my force. Of course, this means that you’re engaging PART of my fleet with ALL of your fleet, can you force local superiority and win before the first half of my fleet reverses course and swings around that gas giant? A lot of that will depend on what the sensors tell us NEXT turn. That first battle may be over before my first fleet even knows where the hell it actually happened.

Anyway, just some ideas.