Pax Stellarum - Almost done

Some people have been inquiring me lately about my homebrew and ETA. The news are that the rules are already revised, and the revising of the writing is almost finished, too.

Currently, I'm defining stats for some fleets of the most popular space combat sci fi shows, such as Babylon 5 and Star Trek. This will allow players to test the game without having to go through the design system first.

As for now, my idea is having Centauri and Narn fleets done for B5, and Romulan and Klingon fleets ready for Star Trek.

These would be released with the rulebook, and from then on, I'll be releasing new fleet stats every week, hopefully. My voluntary editor, Tim White, is going to work on some Battlefleet Gothic stats to start with.

Once the rulebook is completely revised, I'll upload it on my GoogleDocs page - there is a link for it on the upper right corner of this blog. 

Next, Tim is going to revise the writing of the Design Rules. Once this is done, I'll be uploading that document, too, so players may be able to build their own ships.

There is also a Design Tool, which I built on Excel to help players create their own ships. This tool calculates everything for you, so you don't have to worry about costs, mass occupancy, etc. All you need to do is select what you want and keep an eye on the validation warnings. These will tell you if anything you're selecting is illegal for that hull size/type of ship.

As a matter of fact, you don't quite need to read the design rules to be able to start building your own ships, as the validation warnings will keep you on the line. That document is simply a reference if you want to understand why the design tool won't let you do this or that.

Now, what can you you expect of Pax Stellarum?

Well, my goal when I started designing my own ruleset was to have a single system to play all my different fleets, from distinct sci fi universes, with high level of game detail and tactics, while being fast. In fact, the motto of my game is "One Ruleset to Play Them All".

I believe I succeeded on the speed of play issue. I don't think there is another system with that much detail that plays that fast.

Pax Stellarum has a unique movement system, a mix of cinematic and inertial based systems. It requires you to think in advance how much do you want each ship to be able to move on the subsequent turn, and proceed to the thrust adjustment right away.

There are lots of special orders that can be issued to your ships, allowing them to perform a multitude of different tasks. 

There are about 10 different weapon types, each with a number of stats that can be customized, so the number of different weapons you can create is virtually infinite. 

You can also design fighters and troops. Each of them may have different abilities (traits), so no 2 units on this game work exactly the same.

There is almost no bookeeping involved. The system is supposed to work with tokens on the table, but those who prefer to keep things on the paper will find it to be rather easy, too.

I'm checking with a buddy about implementing a professional layout to the rulebook. This is his field of work and he believes he can have this done in less than a month once he has the edited rulebook in hands.

As I'm too excited about having my first version of the game released ASAP, I believe I'll leave the upgraded layout version for the second edition. I believe feedback form other players will naturally lead me to change a couple things, so a second edition should not take long.

Concerning the layout, I'm going to need some drawings to ilustrate the rulebook. I have decent drawing skills, so I'll start working on some pics. In case anyone out there have their own ilustrations that would like to contribute with to my rulebook, be my guest!

That's it for now. Hope to have more news soon!

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