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Infinite Dark - Design Blog 3 - "As-Toroidal" Space
🕑 Added 2020-04-16 19:00:00 +0000 UTCNo, I still haven't quite solved the 3d question (or at least, settled it to my satisfaction).
But I have had another idea that at least is in the same general ball-park.
One of the challenges of using Newtonian physics in a tabletop space game is the ease with which an eager player can boost across the table, try to make a dramatic manoeuvre and, instead, find themselves flying off the table edge into deep space.
This is embarrassing, frustrating and awkward all at the same time, so I'd like to avoid it.
A patron with whom I was having a private chat (yes, you're allowed to do that; please feel free) suggested the classic "Asteroids" solution in which a ship that flies off one side of the table/screen might return from the opposite side. Now, this is just a smidgen too silly to replicate as it occurred in Asteroids (if you've played, you'll remember that, if you were at just the right/wrong vector, you could fly off one side, back on another and then immediately disappear again off a third before finally regaining something resembling control (I loved this game, btw, and used to spend hours playing it on the steam-powered BBC Micro in the common room of my boarding school, so... y'know... happy memories).
However, what my patron friend said in parting chimed so closely with something I'd already been thinking about, it was sightly spooky: he jokingly suggested I could try to replicate toroidal space.
One of the features of the Infinite Dark setting is the SLAP drive - the device that permits faster-than-light travel. In the dimensions in which the SLAP drive operates, there are no distances between points. So a long distance is traversed as instantly as a short one. For the purposes of super-luminal travel, this is a boon, but irrelevant to our game. What is far more relevant is the option for very short distance SLAP jumps: allowing a ship to "leap" from one point on the tabletop to another one instantly.
They would retain their momentum, but otherwise have any location or heading.
Now, obviously, this wouldn't be free movement. There would need to be a cost (in the aforementioned Power) and probably a test. But it would allow vessels heading for the table edge to "leap" to a location where they would be more useful or, if they can't pay the cost (or pass the test), they still disappear off the table edge with the equivalent of an Uno +2 card.
I don't know another spaceship that permits this sort of instant jump (tell me if you do), it definitely sets the game apart from "age of sail in space" games, and it firmly embeds the game in the Horizon Wars continuity so, at this early stage, I like the concept.
I'll need to put a mechanic like this onto the table and see if I can game it to know for sure if it would work, but it's a solid concept and a baby step towards the 3d/2d challenges.
Comments
Jonathan Lupton
On a more serious note, I'm not aware of another wargame that allows for this sort of short distance jump drive. In mast cases FLT drives are slow to power up, preventing ships from leaving combat too easily. Star wars does have the concept of Micro jumps to light speed within its canon. (Hardly the Newtonian movement you are looking for though!). On the computer game side of things Eve Online does have the concept of a micro jump drive which allows the ship to jump 100km straight forward, maintaining it's momentum and velocity. That sounds similar to what you are considering. Here's some more info: https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Propulsion_equipment
Erik W
Oh now that's a fascinating idea. I've always thought it a little weird when space combat games penalize ships for flying out too far.
