Stellar Debris

[Pavlov Grenadier]

Hi all! So I was wondering how everyone was generating their stellar debris for the games. The rules on page 22 tell you to break up the table into 12" squares and roll a d6 (with a 6 generating a piece of terrain). With average rolls, you would get 4 pieces of Stellar Debris. Is this what the group at large is doing and if so, do you find this enough (for cover and for an interesting table)?

Also for those tourney organizers, what are you plans for stellar debris? More, less, random, etc.?

Thanks!

 

[gord314]

We figure out how many square feet the table is, usually 16 or 24, and roll that many d6, for every 6 there will be a piece of stellar debris. We then re-roll all these dice for position across the table the short way, on a on a one the debris is in the closest one foot strip, on a 2-3 it is on the middle one foot strip closer to the person rolling, on a 5-6 it is on the further middle section, and on a 6 it is in the furthest one foot strip. We then repeat the process for the long direction (with 1 and 6 being far ends and 2-3, and 4-5 being middle sections on a 4x4 board) to determine which 1 foot square the terrain is in. We then roll for what type of terrain each section has.

This method takes longer to explain than the default method, but it is faster once you get used to it because you can roll bunches of dice at once then only deal with the ones that roll 6s. It also concentrates stellar debris towards the center of the table rather than the deployment zones which we find to be more interesting.

 

[tneva82]

We figure out how many square feet the table is, usually 16 or 24, and roll that many d6, for every 6 there will be a piece of stellar debris. We then re-roll all these dice for position across the table the short way, on a on a one the debris is in the closest one foot strip, on a 2-3 it is on the middle one foot strip closer to the person rolling, on a 5-6 it is on the further middle section, and on a 6 it is in the furthest one foot strip. We then repeat the process for the long direction (with 1 and 6 being far ends and 2-3, and 4-5 being middle sections on a 4x4 board) to determine which 1 foot square the terrain is in. We then roll for what type of terrain each section has.

This method takes longer to explain than the default method, but it is faster once you get used to it because you can roll bunches of dice at once then only deal with the ones that roll 6s. It also concentrates stellar debris towards the center of the table rather than the deployment zones which we find to be more interesting.

That's pretty good alternative method. Faster in practice(though if both players trust each other they can do the original method pretty fast by rolling in very quick order their own half. If both players don't stop to check the result that goes pretty fast) and the "more toward middle) is indeed nice idea.

Yet another method would be yours except for placement were instead of randomizing both players put one piece at a time(roll for odd one who places) with say 12" minimum distance between the pieces. This way there could be even some strategic planning on where to put it.

 

[Greg Smith]

For casual games, we tend to just sling 4 or 5 bits of terrain on the table and even them out for both sides.

For tourneys, Da Boss always carefully ensures terrain is placed identically on each table.

 

[McKinstry]

We've been following the rules in the book. 12" x 12" squares, a 6 on a D6 produces terrain according to the chart.

We have discussed on games where one side is clearly the defender and in theory has choice of ground(space), allowing the defender to choose to have debris show on a 5 or 6.

 

[scoutdad]

For local Pick-up games, we go by the book.

We assume the square-foot areas are left to right, top to bottom.
I have a 16 compartment organizer I picked up at he dollar store (for a dollar, no less!).
I chucked an old d6 into each compartment and superglued the lid shut.
We shake it once or twice and slam it down on the table.
The capartments are in a 4 x 4 grid, so we can easily match up whcihc ones have terrain.

For the tourney at NashCon, I have already generated the random terrain for each scenario.
I will have 4 tables, each with 4x4 maps and identically sized/located terrain on each table.

 

[Pavlov Grenadier]

For local Pick-up games, we go by the book.

We assume the square-foot areas are left to right, top to bottom.
I have a 16 compartment organizer I picked up at he dollar store (for a dollar, no less!).
I chucked an old d6 into each compartment and superglued the lid shut.
We shake it once or twice and slam it down on the table.
The capartments are in a 4 x 4 grid, so we can easily match up whcihc ones have terrain.

For the tourney at NashCon, I have already generated the random terrain for each scenario.
I will have 4 tables, each with 4x4 maps and identically sized/located terrain on each table.

Nice! By the way, what scenarios are you running for Nashcon?

Thanks!

 

[scoutdad]

Friday:
The Battle for Kh'rtis Rock
Saturday:
Scenario 1
Sceanrio 2
Sceanrio 3
Sunday:
King of the World.
:wink:

I am in the process of formatting the tournament flyer.
Once that is available for download, complete with scenarios and scoring system, I will post the names of hte scenarios here.

 

[Pavlov Grenadier]

Friday:
The Battle for Kh'rtis Rock
Saturday:
Scenario 1
Sceanrio 2
Sceanrio 3
Sunday:
King of the World.
:wink:

I am in the process of formatting the tournament flyer.
Once that is available for download, complete with scenarios and scoring system, I will post the names of hte scenarios here.

LOL...I love scenario 2...probably my fav :wink:

Thanks scout...I will look for them then.

 

[MongooseMatt]

The official Mongoose office method; one person lays out terrain in an interesting manner, the other picks which side of the table he wants!

Seriously, don't get too hung up on that 'roll a 6' rule for stellar debris. It is most certainly not intended to be hard and fast.

 

[Pavlov Grenadier]

The official Mongoose office method; one person lays out terrain in an interesting manner, the other picks which side of the table he wants!

Seriously, don't get too hung up on that 'roll a 6' rule for stellar debris. It is most certainly not intended to be hard and fast.

Gotcha...I like all the ideas posted above. The main reason I was asking was to determine how much terrain people were generally putting on the table. For friendly games, its no big deal. With alll the talk about terrain helping out races agains the Kzinti and helping romulans approach, etc., I was curious how players (and tourney organizers) were doing it.

As an aside, we use the method Matt describes when one player gets there early just to speed up play (as I am the slowest player....E_V_E_R).

 

[MongooseMatt]

Four tyournaments, we normally place 2-3 pieces of terrain on each table (usually have a completely bare table at the 'bottom' of the seeding system).

 

[Da Boss]

My previous ACTA tournaments had minimum four peices of terrain - usually a dust cloud and density 8 asteroid field at each players end and for some scenarios a planet in the centre. I like terrain and feel it makes a better game

 

[McKinstry]

Given that the plasma fleets (Roms and Gorns) and the agile Klingons should like a lot of terrain, I'm quite happy using the random D6 method and can certainly see the sense to allowing fleets in scenarios where one side clearly would have the ability to choose the spot of battle, to allow stellar debris on a 5 or 6 on the D6.

Besides, dodging in/out and around asteroid fields and dust clouds all over the table is just cool. :wink:

 

[Sgt_G]

As the designer of one of the scenarios that Tony (ScoutDad) is running, I can tell you that what I did was pre-plot the location of the Battle Station, the planet, and several moons. I used the center point of the playing surface as 0/0 and then measured out inched N//S x E/W for each item.

 

[lastbesthope]

Four tyournaments, we normally place 2-3 pieces of terrain on each table (usually have a completely bare table at the 'bottom' of the seeding system).

Yeah, I know the terrain on that one in particular detail

LBH