Mike's Red Chicken Rising Fan Page

This includes the alternate ship-design spreadsheet, the game markers, the new ship record sheets, and the ship designs for new alien races. All these are described elsewhere on this page.

II. Rules Clarifications

II-a. Ship Contact and Ramming

Section 6.3 of the rules says that the rammer and rammee suffer ten and three hits respectively on the Hit Location Table. Forms B and C say they take special damage hits. Again, I think the forms are wrong, and the ten/three hits are on the normal damage table.

If you wonder how two ships locked in contact could keep going straight through each other on their next move, remember we're fighting in 3-D space. One ship can pass over or under the other.

II-b. Fighter Squadron Damage

Always assign damage to fighter squadrons in the way that takes out the fewest number of fighters, or does the least amount of damage. For example, if a fighter squadron has lost one or more torpedoes to battle damage, and then loses a fighter, assume that the wrecked fighter had already lost its torpedo, so the fighter squadron doesn't lose another torp in this case. Or if a squadron takes both a crew hit and a propulsion hit from the same torpedo, treat both as hits on the same fighter, not on two different fighters. A beam attack that does multiple hits must be treated as hits on different fighters, though.

II-c. Fighters and Carriers

1. Fighters can take part in a battle only if brought there by a carrier, or if the battle takes place near a planet or space station from which fighters can come and go.
2. A carrier can launch up to four fighter squadrons in a turn. These are placed in ship-to-ship or base-to-base contact with their carrier, facing in the same direction as that carrier, at the end of the carrier's move. Launched fighters can immediately move and/or attack in the turn that they were launched.
3. Treat a small space station as a light carrier, a medium station as a carrier, and a large station as a super-carrier (see the Carriers section of "Ground Rules for Ship Design"). Fighters launched from a station face straight away from it. Planets can handle an infinite number of squadrons and fighters in a turn.
4. To land back on a carrier, a fighter squadron must move into ship-to-ship or base-to-base contact with a carrier that isn't already full of fighters, and that fighter squadron must have at least 1" of movement left for that turn. A carrier can recover up to four fighter squadrons in a turn. Recovery does not affect launching -- a carrier can launch four squadrons and recover four others in the same turn. Recovery can happen at any point in the carrier's move.
5. If a fighter squadron lands on a carrier, and spends one turn on that carrier, it can launch on the third turn with torpedoes reloaded (as many as the remaining fighters in the squadron can carry). In other words, Turn x: fighters land; Turn x+1: fighters are being re-armed; Turn x+2, fighters launch again with torpedoes. If the fighters don't wait for the second turn, they launch just as they were when they landed.
6. If a fighter squadron suffers a bridge, fuel, or magazine hit, it automatically destroys one, and only one, fighter.
7. A 6 on the hit table usually means a hull hit, which does no damage. But on a carrier, a 6 means a flight-deck hit, reducing the carrier's capacity by 4 fighters, and if there are more fighters on board than the carrier's reduced capacity can handle, those "excess" fighters are destroyed. Put a carrier-damage marker somewhere on that ship's record sheet to keep track of the damage.
8. If a carrier is destroyed with fighters aboard, the fighters are also destroyed.

II-d. Dweasel Diplomacy

If a ship's crew is wiped out by Dweasel Diplomacy, is that ship immediately out of the game, or is the damage applied at the end of the turn? I asked Dave, and he said to treat it like any other damage, applied at the end of the turn.

II-e. Proposed House Rules

II-e.1. Reduced Bridge Hits

Therefore, when every ship starts the game with a crew of ten or less, bridge hits do only 1-5 points' damage (roll a d10, and subtract 5 if the result is greater than 5). This will make the ships last a little longer in small-fleet battles.

II-e.2. Shifting Into Reverse

II-e.3. Fighters and Anti-Personnel Combat

II-e.4. New Weapon: Missiles

A missile volley consists of 1-4 missiles. It has no crew, propulsion equal to the number of missiles in the volley, very high speed, no shields, no CAG, no beams, and 1-2 torpedoes (which cannot be fired). Their Targeting value is critical, because they have to ram their target to hurt it. Targeting cannot exceed 8 or the highest Targeting in its fleet plus two, whichever is lower. A missile volley also suffers damage similar to a fighter squadron -- a hit on crew or propulsion reduces the number of missiles in the volley by 1. The cost of a single missile is 50 per torpedo carried; a three-missile volley with two torps per missile would cost 300 points.

When a missile volley reaches its target, rather than making to-hit and shield rolls, make a ramming attempt for each missile in the volley. A missile that misses its ram is lost. Each missile that hits does damage as if it scored hits with all its torpedoes. Such hits don't have to roll to-hit and can't be stopped by shields. Missile hits occur in the movement phase, but treat the damage as normal battle damage; don't apply it until the end of the turn.

II-e.5. New Weapon: Boarding Torpedoes

A volley of boarding torpedoes follows the same rules as a missile volley, except that it carries no torpedoes and has a CAG rating, typically 2 per boarding torpedo in the volley. Its crew will be the same as its CAG, and if one is hit, both are reduced. Because boarding torpedoes have to be bigger than missiles to carry and protect their fragile cargo, a volley usually consists of two torpedoes, and can never be more than three. Boarding torpedoes can also carry up to 2 units of shielding. Such torpedoes can be launched from either a fighter carrier or a missile ship, where each individual torpedo takes up as much space as 1 fighter or 2 missiles. The cost of a boarding-torpedo volley equals the total CAC of that volley times 75.

If a boarding-torpedo volley successfully rams an enemy ship, it stays stuck to that ship until one or the other is destroyed. For the sake of simplicity, we'll assume that the torpedoes always score hull hits, so they do no damage when they ram. Each turn, the Marines from the torpedoes wage CAC against the ship they've boarded. Because CAC always causes casualties to both sides, it's a matter of time before the Marines are wiped out, unless they can wipe out the boarded ship's crew first. If the Marines win, the boarded ship is finished -- there's no way the Marines can figure out how to work an alien ship's controls in time to affect the battle. Remove the ship from the game at the end of the turn.

III. Designing Spaceships

III-a. Instructions for Using the Ship-Design Spreadsheet

(The other page of the spreadsheet shows all the "official" ships in the Daveway's document, so you can see how they were built and where their costs came from. Each ship is shown in a modified version of the ship-design spreadsheet.)

You create a spaceship design by filling in the gray boxes; the blue ones are figured by the spreadsheet. You will quickly notice that 80-90% of a ship's cost is in its weapons. It's tempting to drop a die of beam strength, and use the points for impenetrable shields and huge crews to make your ship unstoppable. See the following section ("Ground rules for ship design") for some reasons why you shouldn't do this.

If your goal is a ship with a given set of values, then plug in those values, and see if the resulting point cost is in line with what you're willing to "pay" for that ship. If you're striving for a ship with a fixed point cost, you'll have to fiddle with the values quite a bit, and you'll probably have to make some compromises. Keep the following basic facts in mind:

• Crew is probably a ship's most critical value -- if your crew falls to zero due to battle damage, the ship is finished. Only one "normal" hit out of ten will harm the crew, but there are three kinds of special-damage hits (Fuel, Bridge, and Magazine) that can decimate your crewbeings in an instant. You can also lose crew points from Dweasel diplomacy and close-assault combat. In my experience, more ships are laid low by crew casualties than by all other causes put together. So you never want your crew too small; bigger is much better. One unit of crew costs three points.
• Propulsion is also critical; not only does zero propulsion destroy the ship, but propulsion damage will slow your ship down. Here again, you want as much as you can get, but not more than your ship's type can handle. One unit of propulsion costs three points.
• Targeting is your ship's tech level. It affects your ability to ram and to do Dweasel diplomacy. If reduced to zero, your ship is dead, but hits to Targeting are rare. One unit of targeting costs only one point, so there's no reason to make it too low.
• Shields protect your ship from damage. One unit of shielding costs 20 points, so they aren't as cheap as crew or propulsion. But one unit of shielding gives a 10% reduction in your opponents' chances of harming the ship, so it's money well spent. The Form-C ship record sheets allow a shield strength of 10, but ten points of shields would be impenetrable by any RCR weapon (you can't roll higher than ten on a d10), so 9 is the highest shielding any ship should ever have.
• Movement costs nothing in points. There is no direct relationship between propulsion and movement, as far as initial values are concerned. The only relationship is when damage is involved. For instance, a ship with 8 movement and 4 propulsion will lose two move units from a single propulsion hit. A ship with 8 movement and 16 propulsion would need four propulsion hits to lose those two move units. Movement is normally based on the ship class; battleships almost always have a movement of 6, for example. Moving a little faster than normal is okay if that's how your race does things, especially if some other ship attribute runs lower than normal. But a battleship with a speed of 12 can't be taken seriously.
• Weapons are your biggest expense, by far. And rightfully so -- the purpose of a starship in this game is to blow things up, so it should emphasize its blower-uppers. You can have up to four beam batteries and one torpedo battery. Each of these has the following characteristics:
  • Bearing is the way the weapon faces. Front, Left, Right, and Rear bearings have a 180° field of fire. Unless you're creating a fanatical alien race that always attacks, or a pack of craven cowards who always retreat, you're unwise to leave any area of your ship uncovered by the arc of at least one weapon. The most common arrangement is one Front beam battery and one Rear, with the torpedoes facing Front. The 360° arc can be tempting, since it lets you maneuver freely without worrying about whether your weapons can bear. But you pay an additional 10% in points for it, so your 360°-armed ship may be outgunned by a "fore-and-aft" ship of the same overall cost, but with cheaper, more plentiful weapons. If you use a 360° arc, be sure to change that battery's "Bearing Mod Cost" box from 1 to 1.1.
  • Range needs to be considered carefully in light of your intended tactics. The average beam range is 36 inches. Adding a few inches to gain an advantage is iffy; if your fleets start at a distance of, say, 48", the range will be down to 36" or less after both fleets have moved once, and the extra range you paid for is wasted. But if your long-ranged-beam ship hangs back and doesn't charge, the extra range may pay for itself very quickly. Shortening the range to save points or gain more weapons is a losing strategy; my experience suggests that a fleet with an average number of average-ranged weapons will usually clobber a fleet with a greater number of shorter-ranged weapons. Increasing the torpedo range to greater than the usual 12" is a fun way to get the drop on an unsuspecting enemy, if you can afford it. Ranges can include fractions of an inch if you want; this is a useful way to tweak the point cost of a ship to an exact value.
  • To-Hit is normally 4, which means every die of weapons strength has a 40% chance of being on target. Increasing this to 5 is costly, especially with big batteries, but having a 50/50 chance of hitting is great for your gunners' morale. A to-hit of 3 or less is a bad idea, and higher than 5 will run the weapon's cost into the stratosphere.
  • Dice is how hard this weapon can hit. Obviously, more is better here, up to the limit in points you're willing to pay. Adding a die of weapons to a short-ranged battery costs less than a die in a longer-ranged battery. One torpedo costs 30% more than one die of beams at the same range. It's common for rear-facing batteries to be weaker in dice, since they won't fire for much of the battle; you want your strongest weapons up front where they can bang away as much as possible.
  • Keep in mind that torpedoes can be used only once. But if you can get into torpedo range, a good torp salvo (three dice of damage per hit) will often decide the battle right then and there.
• CAG is used only in close combat, which doesn't happen that often. But it's cheap (one unit of CAG costs one point), and if your CAG values are too low, your opponent will discover this and start whittling down your crews with multiple close assaults.

If you'd rather, I offer a variation on this spreadsheet in my downloadable file, called "Autoform.XLS," with the following improvements:

1. It looks just like the "official" ship designs in the "RCRDaveways" document.
2. It puts an entire design on one screen, without having to scroll up and down to see it all.
3. It has room for a full range of ship designs at once, instead of having to do one at a time.
4. It automatically calculates the additional cost of a 360° weapons battery. Just put "360" in the "Bearing" box, instead of "Front" or "Rear."
5. It includes four other pages that automatically fill in my Form E for the ships you design, with a fleet of one super-battleship, two battleships, two battle-cruisers, four heavy cruisers, four light cruisers, six destroyers, four frigates, one light carrier, four fighter squadrons, and two special-design ships. Design your ships, fill in the ship names, print the forms, and you're ready to fight.

III-b. Ground Rules for Ship Design

In all cases, you can use lower values than specified. Adding one to the crew or propulsion won't be a design-killer, but don't go higher unless you have a very compelling reason. Shields, in particular, should stay at the "default" values. Targeting and weapons values vary by race, not by ship class, so there are no limits on those.

1. Super-Battleship (SBB): a ship of this type is bigger than big, and is as much a status symbol as a weapon. Only one of these is listed in Daveway's, so it's hard to draw any firm conclusions. But they're supposed to be "super." Shields should not be higher than 8, and movement should be 6. Other than that, the only limits I'd put on SBB's are the limits of the ship record forms. Also, for each 4000 points of cost, an SBB can handle 16 fighters, launching and landing them like a carrier.
2. Battleship (BB): this is the biggest ship most navies will ever own. A navy with no battleships is considered second-rate, no matter what else they have going for them. Crew is typically between 12 and 16. Propulsion is 10-12. Shields are 6-7. Movement is almost always 6. CAG averages around 7-8.
3. Battle-Cruiser (BC): this type is sort of a mini-battleship, with lighter shields, higher speed, and almost as much prestige as its bigger brother. Crew is usually 10-12. Propulsion and CAG are 6-8. Shields are 5, and movement is almost always 8 (sometimes 10).
4. Carrier (CV): a carrier is a support ship for fighter squadrons, but it can fight for itself if it has to. Here again, only one example is given, with no details or explanations. The following limits are entirely my own, but until Mr. Ferris offers an opinion, they'll have to do. Crew and movement for carriers follow battleship rules, while propulsion and shielding follow battle-cruiser rules. Beam weapons must have a range at least 6" shorter than that of a heavy cruiser in its own navy, and torpedoes must be less than or equal to a heavy cruiser's torpedo battery. Such a ship can carry up to 32 fighters (ten squadrons of three, or eight squadrons of four, or six squadrons of five). If it costs more than a battleship, it is a super-carrier and can carry up to 48 fighters, and can have a movement up to 8. If it costs the same as or less than a light cruiser, it's a light carrier (with maximum shields of 3), and can carry up to 16 fighters.
5. Heavy Cruiser (CA): this type is the workhorse of most navies. Crew is usually 8 (can be 10), propulsion is usually 6 (can be 8), shields are 4, movement is 6 or 8, and CAG is 4-6.
6. Light Cruiser (CL): this is the biggest ship that could be considered an escort (i.e., expendable), and they often work in support of destroyers. Crew is almost always 6, propulsion is 4, shielding is 3, movement is 8 or 10, and CAG is 3-5.
7. Destroyer (DD): destroyers tend to be all over the battlefield -- finishing off crippled enemies, guarding their bigger brethren against CAC and attacks from the rear, dueling with enemy escorts, and stinging the foe's big ships with their torpedoes if they can. Their careers are usually short, but exciting. Crews tend to be 4, propulsion and shielding are both 2, movement is 10-12, and CAG is 2-4.
8. Frigate (FF): this is an inexpensive mini-destroyer with limited armament, but sometimes a little in the right place is all you need. There aren't many examples given, so these figures may not be accurate. Crew, propulsion, shielding, and CAG are all 1-2, and movement is 12.
9. Corvette (Cvt): these ships are even smaller than frigates, and are normally used for scouting and patrolling. No "normal" examples are given, so here are some reasonable-sounding ones. Crew and propulsion should be 1, and the other values are like a frigate.
10. Fighter Squadron (Ftr): you have to decide how many fighters are in each squadron (3, 4, or 5). Crew and propulsion will normally be the same as the number of fighters, and beam dice and the number of torpedoes must be multiples of that number. Shields are normally 2, movement is usually in the 14-16 range, and CAG shouldn't exceed the number of fighters. Fighter beam weapons usually have shorter ranges than ships' beams.
11. Space Station (Stn): In RCR, a station is basically a ship with a movement of zero. A small station is roughly equivalent to a light cruiser, a medium station resembles a battle-cruiser, and a big station is in the same league as a super-battleship. Remember to make its weapons with 360° bearings, since it can't turn!
12. Monster ships: to play a really huge ship like a Death Star, the easiest method is to treat it like terrain, with weapons installations and vital targets here and there. The weapons installations would act just like space stations of various sizes. The targets would be similar but unarmed.
13. Other ship types: if you make up a new type, try to keep its specs in the same range as the limits listed here. For instance, my Wholly Roamin' Empire uses a space version of a WWII German pocket-battleship. Historically speaking, this meant a slow heavy cruiser with extra-heavy weapons. So the WRE's pocket-battleship looks like a heavy cruiser, with bigger weapons and a speed of 6. One of the beauties of RCR is that you can easily create scout ships, monitors, Klingon attack cruisers, and any other ship class you can imagine.

IV. Game Markers

Shield markers go on your ship's base to show that one or more shield generators have been knocked out, and the ship has only front or rear shields, or none at all. These markers are mentioned on page 5 of the rule book; now they really exist. The black arrow shows the ship's direction, and the red hemisphere (if any) shows which end is protected by the remaining shield generator.

Turning markers go on your ship record sheet to indicate steering damage. Now, instead of having to erase and write the steering-damage codes in the little box, just put the appropriate marker there instead. Much neater, much cooler-looking, and usually quicker.

Bridge-hit markers go on a ship that took a bridge hit during the previous turn, to remind you that this ship has to move exactly as it moved last turn. Remove the marker at the end of the turn.

Fighter markers show you which fighter squadrons are aboard which carriers. A blank space on each marker lets you write in the squadron's name or number. Place them anywhere on the carrier's record sheet until the fighters launch; then set them aside. If a squadron lands, put its marker back on that carrier. Now you can tell the status of your carriers at a glance.

Carrier damage markers show that a carrier has taken one or more flight-deck hits, and it cannot support its full complement of fighters.

V. Alternate Ship Record Sheets

Form D, as I call it, resembles Form C in most ways, except you have to write a little smaller here and there. By reducing "dead" space in the middle of the form, shrinking a few boxes that don't need to hold much info, and rearranging a field or two, it gains the following advantages:

• it holds three ships, or four on the form without tables
• it turns Movement into a check-box field for easier recording
• the space for Steering is bigger, and works perfectly with my turning markers (see the previous section)
• it allows room for a few more CAG dice
• it adds a row of ten "extra" check boxes in case your ship has thirty torpedoes, or a huge beam battery, or anything else that overflows its normal amount of check boxes

Form E is a cross between my Form D and the original Form B, and may be the best of all possible worlds:

• it holds six ships, or eight on the form without tables
• it turns Movement into a check-box field for easier recording
• there aren't many places where you have to write small, and those places never have to be erased or re-written
• the space for Steering is bigger, and works perfectly with my turning markers (see the previous section)

VI. Fair Battles

1. "Cod favors the big battalions." (attributed to a Fishroid philosopher)

   In a battle, each fleet is going to suffer a few really damaging hits (magazine explosions, jammed steering, and the like), which will be more or less equally divided among the ships in that fleet. So a fleet with a greater number of ships will spread those hits more evenly, and each ship will take proportionately less damage. With a small fleet, the nasty hits will all pile up on a couple of ships. Thus, a fleet with a higher number of lower-cost ships will usually defeat a smaller fleet of higher-priced ships.

   This doesn't mean you should send a pack of frigates up against a super-battleship. The big ship's heavy shields will be the equalizers, and the frigates will suffer badly. I'm talking about, say, six 1000-point light cruisers against four 1500-point light cruisers. The costly-ship fleet will have a slight advantage in weaponry, but the costly cruiser is as easy to destroy as the cheap one. Losing a 1500-pointer costs its owner 1/4 of his total firepower, while losing a 1000-pointer robs its owner of only 1/6 of his firepower. The cheaper fleet can repeatedly trade ship-for-ship and gain a greater advantage each time.

2. "How come nobody wants to pick on someone their own size anymore?" (an unknown HAPpie gunner)

   If you want to quickly reduce your enemy's firepower, shoot his smaller ships first. Two dice worth of beams on a destroyer can hurt you just as much as two dice of beams on a battleship, but the destroyer's beams are much easier to hit because its shields are weaker; and you can silence an entire destroyer more easily because its crew and propulsion are smaller. A few good hits, and a destroyer or frigate is toast; those same few hits would only annoy a battleship. Once the small ships have been taken out, you've reduced the total enemy firepower by a sizeable chunk, and you can concentrate on his big ships at your leisure.

   If this seems unsporting, remember that the purpose of escort ships is to protect the big ships. By hitting the little guys first, you're allowing them to fulfill their purpose in life.

3. "Charge!" (CPO Yoshi O'Sincavich of the Irvanian Navy, when asked how he would pay his bill at Joe's Diner)

   A ship with shorter-than-average weapons range should race toward the enemy at flank speed. Every turn your ship spends out of range is a turn where that ship contributes nothing to your war effort. Worse, it may take serious damage or be destroyed before it can get a shot off. This is even more true if you're counting on torpedoes to win your battle for you.

   But if you have a ship with longer-than-average weapons range, it makes no sense for that ship to rush into battle. Let it hang back, blasting the enemy from a range where they can't hit back at it, while your shorter-ranged ships make their headlong rush. Your long-shooter will dish out as much damage as it would at closer range, but take no damage at all in return.

   If it bothers you that these separate maneuvers will mess up your neat formations, you're in the wrong hobby. Neat formations are good in cross-stitching. In war, you use what works.

4. "Reload!" (Oddball to his tank gunner, after accidentally firing a paint shell into the back of an angry Tiger tank [Kelly's Heroes])

   Fighters are a poor value. If the enemy gets a crew hit on a fighter, he also gets a propulsion hit, a beam hit, and a torpedo hit thrown in for free. Their one advantage is that, with their high speed, they can dash into torpedo range before the enemy can pull away. If you must use fighters, try to reload their torpedoes at your carriers as quickly as possible, rather than buzzing them around, inflicting pinpricks with their little beams until they're wiped out. Otherwise, you're better off spending your points on a ship with some staying power.

5. "CAC-a-doodle-doo!" (what every Alf space marine says in close combat)

   Dweasel diplomacy, CAC, and ramming all have the wonderful property of ignoring an enemy ship's shields. So these are excellent ways of nibbling at a heavily-shielded ship. A 5-point beam weapon with a to-hit of 4 has a 10% chance of scoring one hit on an enemy ship with shields of 8, but if the attacker's Targeting is 4, it has a 20% chance of causing a crew casualty on that same enemy through DweasDip. Small ships can gang up on a bigger foe to combine their CAG scores for similar results.

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