EasyStar

EasyStar

Designer: Michael Fischer
Publisher: The Mad Game-Designer's Page
Type: Wargame
Status: Free
Available from: http://www.cke1st.com/m_games1.htm

EasyStar is a 2-to-4-player tactical starship combat game that allows you great flexibility in designing your spaceships, without having to print out or erase worksheets for your ships every time you play. It does this with a system of track charts and counters. All you need to provide is one or two six-sided dice. The emphasis is on fast play and blowing things up, not on long, drawn-out slugfests. I created this game because I wanted unlimited variety in ship design and tactics, without getting bogged down in range measurements, turning angles, power factors, or checking off gazillions of ship-damage boxes. Game features include:

• Reusable track sheets for ship design and keeping score
• Up to 18 ships for each player
• Five different sizes of starship, from very small to excessively big
• Speed and weapons capacity for each ship type can be altered
• All weapons can be custom-fitted for range and power
• Beams, missiles, torpedoes, and point-defense weapons
• Auxiliary devices including ECM, enhanced targeting, and deflector shields
• Carriers with two kinds of fighters
• Special advantages for each player's flagship
• Movement rules including simplified inertia & momentum
• Quick combat resolution - usually 1 die roll per weapon
• Critical hits
• Ramming attacks and accidental collisions
• Optional rules for three-player and four-player games and campaign games

These rules are also suitable for playing with miniatures on a hex-based map.