Contact: Red

CONTACT: RED

Greetings, Commander.

Long range sensors have detected an enemy flotilla in-bound. Burn to intercept. They must not threaten the home world!

 

Contact: Red is a multiplayer 3D space combat simulation. Custom design your ships, deal with real(ish) physics, locate and destroy the enemy.

 

A team of players will command a ship and its associated drones and torpedoes. Ideally several teams would fight against an opposing force.

 

Sensors
Ships and some drones have sensor suites used to detect objects in space. Space is big, and the vessels are quite small, so spotting things will be difficult. Sensors operate in two modes: active and passive. Active sensors are effectively radar, pumping out waves of energy and waiting to see if they bounce off things and reflected. Active sensors require a good deal of energy, increase the range of the sensors, but also make the vessel that is “Actively scanning” a bright flashing object in an otherwise dark world.

Passive sensors are more like telescopes, searching the night sky for some trace of a ship or drone. Vessels that are producing or using a great deal of energy will be easier to spot, as will vessels and torpedoes that are “burning” their engines to accelerate rapidly. Passive Sensors use a lot less energy than active scanners.

Contacts
Each turn the team will be told where their ship is in relation to other objects, their vectors, etc.

For example:

Contact Alpha: range 110k, 58^o, +37^o. Vector 12k 113^o, -45^o.

Range is something in the order of tens of kilometers. Bearings are given in two sets of degrees – 0 to 360 on the horizontal plane (where 0 will always be pointing towards the Sun, 90 degrees is “East” (or the same direction as the planets orbit), 180 degrees “South” (or directly away from the Sun), and 270 degrees “West” (counter-orbit). The second set of degrees ranges from +90 (directly above) to -90 (directly below). If a contact is at +0, then it is on the same horizontal plane.

So, contact Alpha, above, is reported at 110k 58^o +37^o – that is, 110 range units away (“k”s), East-North-East, and up a bit (in general terms), relative to the observer. Its Vector is 12k 113^o, -45^o, meaning it is travelling at 12k per turn, a bit south of east, and descending at an angle of 45^o.

A contact at 15k 360^o -90^o is 15k directly below the observer.

 

Navigation

Vector
Ships have a vector – speed and direction. Given the frictionless nature of space, a vessel will continue travelling on its vector unless force is applied. A vector will appear like: V 2.8k 95^o -15^o. So, this vessel is travelling 2.8k each turn, East-ish, and down a bit.

Heading
Ships have a heading – the direction they are pointing. When the engines are fired, the vessel will accelerate in the direction it is heading. When acceleration on a heading is combined with the ship's initial vector, a new vector is created. So, the ship above has a vector of: V 2.8k 95^o -15^o. If the ship had a Heading of: H 95^o -15^o (so the same as its vector) and accelerated at 1.1k this turn, the ship's vector next turn would be 3.8k 95^o -15^o.

A ship heading north at 10k per turn would need to accelerate south to bring its vector to 0 (perhaps over several turns). A ship heading East at speed 5 that accelerated North at speed 5 would end up heading North-East at speed 7.1k.

Acceleration
The speed at which a vessel can accelerate will depend on its total mass, number of engines, and the amount of energy supplied to the engines. Vessels can always accelerate at a lower value than possible if so ordered.

Changing Heading
Vessels can alter their heading by firing thrusters. Thrusters are small engines placed at the ends of the vessel. To turn “right” the vessel fires the left facing thruster at the front, and the right facing thruster at the rear to rotate the vessel around its center. Once the desired heading is achieved, the opposite thrusters are fired to end rotation.
For the purposes of this game, each ship will be given a value (depending on number of thrusters and mass of the vessel) that indicates how many degrees it may change facing each turn.

For example, a ship may have a thruster value of 45. It can change its heading from 0^o (north) to either 45^o (north east) or 315^o (north west), or some number in between, in a single turn.  A vessel can also use its thruster value to change its vertical heading to a value of up to +90 and -90. Every degree up or down changed is one that cannot be used to turn left or right. So, a vessel with T45 can use 15^o to point down, and 30^o to turn left, or some other combination, to a maximum of 45.

The only exception to this is when a vessel goes “over the top” – so, imagine a vessel with a heading of 0⁰ +60^o. It is heading North and steeply up. If this vessel were to use its thruster value to take it up to +90 and then “over the top” by another 15^o, it would now have a heading of 180⁰ +75^o. It has effectively turned past vertical and is now “upside down” and pointing in the opposite direction. But its heading has not changed by more than 45^o. Fun, isn’t it? The same thing would be possible as a ship turned past more than -90⁰.

{For the purposes of these rules there is no possibility of spinning a vessel around its central axis. That might prove useful in the future but is beyond the scope of this document.}

 

Energy
Each turn a ship will generate a certain amount of energy from its reactor(s) to be spent on various functions. The amount of energy generated and used will increase the odds of it being spotted by enemy sensors. Each turn the ship will need to report the amount of energy used by each ship to the control team. This is the amount of energy output from the reactor combined with any energy spent from battery storage in a turn, plus an extra point for every energy spent on Active Scanning.

Reactor value: Basic reactors will output 1 to 3 energy per turn. More expensive reactors can output up to 5 energy.

Battery Storage: Excess energy must be stored in the ship’s batteries for future usage.

Life support (Comms and Passive Sensors): It takes one energy to keep the crew alive and passive sensors and communication systems operational each turn.

Active Scanning: It takes 1 to 3 energy to operate the active scanners. Each additional unit of energy increases the scanner range by 50k. Each energy used in Active Scanning counts as DOUBLE when reporting the energy output of a vessel.

Lasers: Lasers can take 1 to 10 units of energy. Each unit of energy increases range by 10k. Lasers can be counted on to destroy non-ship objects (torpedoes, drones) effectively, and can cause serious damage to ships. Each laser may only be fired at one target per turn.

Thrusters: It takes one energy to change a ship’s heading by up to its thruster value.

Engines: Engines can use 1 to 3 energy each to provide acceleration for the vessel.

 

Weapons
Lasers are primarily defensive weapons to destroy approaching torpedoes and drones. They can be used to damage and destroy enemy ships. During an in-person game, a ship may fire a laser when its weapons officer stands up, raises one fist, and declares loudly: “FIRE LASER!” Control will then ask some questions and resolve the attack before any other ship may fire.

Torpedoes are effectively ICBMs that are strapped to the side of ships until released and fired. They accelerate very quickly and when detonated do extraordinary damage to all objects in range. Being within 25k of a torpedo will mean instant destruction, 50k could damage armored systems, and 75k could destroy non-armored systems. During an in-person game, a ship may detonate a torpedo when its weapons officer stands up, raises two fists, and declares loudly “DETONATE!” Control will then ask some questions and resolve any damage. Torpedoes are indiscriminate weapons – they will damage and destroy friend and foe alike.

Torpedoes will have the same vector and heading as the ship that released them until they make their own heading and acceleration change. Torpedoes are powered by batteries (fuel cells) and do not have reactors on board. They rely on orders from their ships to change heading, accelerate, and detonate.

Drones are unmanned vessels that can be equipped with lasers or scanners. They can operate either with reactors, solar collectors, or on battery power alone. A ship may have any number of drones that they control. Separate orders must be submitted for each drone.

During the design phase, certain systems on a ship may be Armored to increase durability during attack. This will add to the vessel’s mass, slowing acceleration and reducing thruster value.

 

 

Ship Design

Each team will be allocated a certain amount of points / cash to spend on their vessel. A spreadsheet will be provided to calculate the necessary values. Each ship must have at least a Command Module (comprising the bridge, crew quarters, life support, sensors, communications, thrusters), Engines, and a Reactor.

 

 

Team / Roles
A ship can have any number of players assigned to work together, and they may divide up the various roles as desired. One must be designated the Weapons Officer, whose task it is to loudly declare “FIRE LASERS!” or “DETONATE!” as required. One player may serve as Sensor Officer, another as Navigator, while another takes responsibility for Energy Allocation. In larger games there might need to be a Comms Officer who will be responsible for communicating with other ships in the fleet.

Ships may also find it helpful to have a Captain, if only to have someone to blame when things do not go well.

During online / forum play, these roles can all be filled by the one person. Players should still announce “FIRE LASERS!” and “DETONATE!” in the appropriate thread. The first to post gets to shoot or detonate first.

 

During In-Person play there will be a laminated card for each ship/drone/torpedo. Players will use a marker to put the necessary information in the boxes provided and return to the Control players, who will update the spreadsheet, fill in new data, and return information as quickly as possible. Sensor data of contacts will be provided via google docs or a printout.

Players will be provided with a large sheet of paper or white board, some markers, and a protractor and ruler to help visualize contacts.

During online / forum play players will be expected to provide their own protractor.