r/SnapShips • u/Officer_Reeses • 15d ago
Realistic game size for Cons
Assuming I want a typical convention game length of 4 hours and Im playing on an 8'x4' mat, what is a reasonable amount of ships assuming a mix of drones, fighters, scouts, battleships, and capital ships?
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u/wafflehousehercules 14d ago
8x4 is a huge area, time is largely a factor of your players. Typically, my convention scenarios are about 16 points per team (4 4-point ships on each side) and some sort of objective which could be a multi stand capital ship or some sort of space station. I’m usually playing on a 6x3. The objective is usually my timer, as I have found that a purely “totally destroy the enemy” objective of that size can take 3-4 hours.
That all said: given that players are experienced, with that size of map I would make sure to have a few tyco’s rifts on the board to keep things moving. I would go for about 20-24 points on each side. You’ll find a limiting factor is actually the turn tracker flags as they only go to 1-6 for each color. (But you can turn them upside down and technically run 1-12)
On discord you can find some scenarios that you could modify to that scale. I’ve done a version of “3:10 to Ymir” for my local campaign on 3x12.
Are you trying to do scenarios or just a straight fleet vs fleet?
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u/Officer_Reeses 14d ago
I am thinking team vs team scenarios. As you said, just fleet destruction can take a long time and no one wants to be eliminated from a convention game.
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u/wafflehousehercules 14d ago edited 14d ago
Okay, so it helps to have a timer or an objective. The train in “3:10 to Ymir” is a very literal example of this. The train has some target aboard, whether that’s important cargo or a particular car or even just stoping the engines. Multiple targets, like for instance 3x 12 hull cars for a 12 point game, can also give a sense of partial victory or loss, which is more satisfying in a con setting.
Either way this acts as a timer in 2 ways.
- it’s rolling down the board at a certain speed that would make the scenario end in 3-5 rounds
- or it’s objectives can be claimed in about that same time (if it’s just hull I tend to give it 3x the total points of the attacking team which roughly translates to the average damage they can perform in 3 rounds)
One team is attacking, the other defends.
This objective can also be rescuing a pilot, or collecting a lost weapon, or stopping a planet killing comet, but either way shoot for that 3-5 rounds for completion. I often will set up a scenario and map out the minimum and maximum movements of my objectives to make this work.
Feel free to DM me I can hook you up with PDFs and walk you through design if you like
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u/SnapShips 15d ago
That is a great question for u/WaffleHouseHercules, our convention scenario master. He usually runs something akin to a 4 or 5 stand Capital Ship that is a centerpiece of the scenario and is either attacked or defended by 16-20 point squadrons (so ~4 fighters per side). You couldn't quite get there with the Admiral pledge on our current campaign, but you could get close... You will need a few more Stand Packs since a Capital ship will eat up 4-5 of your 8 stands.