Sci-Fi fans, help me out with my tabletop game!

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

Alright, this goes out to all my science fiction brothers out there.

I've been putting together a board game, it's basically a starship-to-starship war game, played on a hex board, with special abilities and weapon loadouts, etc.

Basically I am nearly done, two out of the three races are completed, mostly. The third race is the tricky one.

Basically they are a biological species born out of these evolution pool sort of things, and they can siphon up pretty much anything and evolve to incorporate it into their being. One such object was a starship--so they have evolved to the point where they can travel from planet to planet, spreading and absorbing anything worth keeping that they come across.

They can basically do three things:
1.) Biological Weapons. Things like claws, acidic spores, corrosive stuff, etc. I have all that stuff figured out pretty much.
2.) "Infested" Weapons. They can biologically attach to, infest and control most technology. These are just weapons the other races share.
3.) Emulated weapons. These are things that they have absorbed and can create a biological equivalent of. They do this with stuff like missiles, etc.

Basically I'm having a hard time coming up with weapons for this thing to use.

I already got basic stuff like nukes and claws and tentacles; I have enough in the game that they could get by but any extra ideas for stuff they could do would be appreciated! Most of the game has drawn on great moments in sci fi shows or movies to define its aspects so think along those lines and maybe I can adapt some suggestions into the game.

I plan on publishing this, by the way, so if I use any ideas given people will be getting credit for it, undoubtedly.

 

[Pain]

Perhaps a kamikazi vessel that blows itself up, but takes control of any ships in the immediate area, ala the biological enemy in one of the Homeworld games.

 

[Pieter Paul Rubens]

Be sure to have some sort of parasite vessels that steals information from the other players (dunno how this game works, but if it works with cards etc that other players can't see, this might be useful)

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

Actually this is a good idea. Maybe I could have a weapon that does no damage but if it hits the same area a few times it could infest their weapons and let the player control enemy targeting...

 

[Xenith]

I made a post regarding infecting one of the opposing player's pieces, thus creating a spy which would serve to "transmit data" i.e. enemy positions (if its like battleship) or hand if you need cards, but then I read Bolteh's post and he pretty much got it down.

If its a board game with cards, you could say since the third race takes over both organic and technological aspects of everything it encounters, it is able to move its guys faster or something, so it is able to draw 2 cards per turn instead of 1. In order to balance that out you could make both cards combined the equivalent of 1 human card, though that kinda makes the idea useless. In all honesty, I think the 3 race Galactic Battle thing has been done too many times. If anything, make 3 or 4 human factions that are vastly different from each other. Just my opinion.

 

[Eon]

Kamikazi drone things sound pretty cool, heh, somethign that would technically do no damage, but sprays a liquid or gas over it's victim on impact that'll eventually start affecting it's mind.

Props on the idea of the game, sounds really awesome.

 

[Adaptus]

Perhaps you could have a fast, light ship that, when it attaches itself to an enemy ship, will cause the enemy's targeting to go berserk, thusly making it attack its allies.

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

The game basically draws from aspects of Battletech, D20, and a board game called Twilight Imperium.

It bears most similarity to Battletech, in that typically you control one large ship with many differing weapons, and you take sectional damage as the game progresses. Basically you command resources (aka a crew) to do each thing, be it move, attack or execute special moves.

The game involves firing weapons, repairing, using skills based on your officers/computers/organic systems (depending on your race). The basic principle of the "bio" race is that they are fast and lethal in siege range (attacks performed from adjacent spaces), and though they are very weak they are able to regenerate their health the easiest and most (one method involves attaching an umbilical cord to the enemy's ship and stealing raw materials from it, for example).

There are fighters and infantry battles on the ships, but the main focus is the ship-to-ship combat. It's teams and objectives based, I might even make a campaign after I'm finished with the system.

We do have a card system but they are only so we can keep an easier track of what special moves we have and haven't used yet, so it's not like that. My goal with the game was to eliminate things that took away from strategy, so I stayed away from card decks because I didn't want the luck of the draw to affect strategy much.

As for the "bio" race, making them able to attach to enemy ships would probably be a good idea. Maybe make a projectile that does exactly that--attach to and control the ship for a turn? I dunno though. People losing their turn would be aggravating in this game--we already beta tested it and it plays at a very frantic pace, so I wouldn't want to slow it down for anyone too much.

However I do very much like the idea of a gradual infestation that, if not contained, can eventually devour the whole ship. The reason being, the game rewards people for capturing the ships rather than destroying them, cause it's persistent and you can hotswap salvaged gear in and out between ships.

 

[Arthos]

Pull a little inspiration from Starfleet Battles. THere might be a few bits in there of interest.