Incoming Transmission - Day 21 - Chasing Those Beacons
almost 2 years ago – Tue, Jul 19, 2022 at 07:48:35 AM

Greetings builders and pilots!

Today’s decoded message all centers around the latest unlock: a new scenario for you to dive into.

Day 21 Unlock - Beacon Rush Scenario

“Alright, listen up you hotshots! Here’s your chance to test your reflexes by dashing through a little obstacle course our techs set up. You think you have what it takes to outfly the rest of the squad? The first one of you to fly past and tag all the beacons wins the race, but let me warn you - these are slippery little targets. Not only that, but you gotta tag them in order and if your competition shoots one down - it’ll teleport to a new location! Should keep even the fastest of you on your toes.”

Today we’re adding a third scenario to the rulebook; this one is aptly named Beacon Rush. This one was designed as a free-for-all with multiple players where each player controls one ship and is on their own team. However, you can just as easily play this solo or co-op in teams.

There are five cardboard beacon tokens, numbered 1-5. The setup for Beacon Rush includes a diagram with locations where the beacons are randomly placed. The players are trying to fly through all five beacons in ascending order by moving their ship to overlap the beacons one at a time. But it wouldn’t be much of a challenge if the beacons just sat there like flags staked into the ground, so they move. Whenever a player overlaps a beacon, it respawns somewhere nearby at the end of their turn.

But you don’t necessarily need to build a super fast and maneuverable ship to win a Beacon Rush scenario. We want to support multiple different strategies with each of our scenarios. In this one, you can fire at the beacons. They’re not easy to hit, but if you do manage to tag one with any of your weapons, it explodes and is removed from the map. It respawns at the end of your turn in a random location. This is a great way to snipe beacons out of the path of your opponents who haven’t scored them yet and potentially reorganize the course in your favor.

If you’ve got weapons and can attack beacons, why wouldn’t you just destroy your fellow competitors instead? Well, this is a training and friendly race scenario, and your ship is loaded with nonlethal rounds. Nobody is getting destroyed. This means you don’t need to worry about how much hull strength you have, but your evasion and venting are going to be critical. This is because when you hit an opponent, they gain heat cubes instead of suffering damage. You can still disable parts with critical hits, giving you two different ways to make pilots unable to use some of their parts. Let’s see how fast their ship goes if they can’t use their thrusters!

Custom Beacons

With just a starter set, you won’t have too many spare pieces leftover after building your ship. However, if you’ve got a Squadron or Fleet pledge, or some additional Snap Ships at home, you’ll have some spare parts to make fancier beacons with. We recommend a design like those above that are two cubes tall. Then you can place these custom beacons on top of the numbered cardboard tokens to make them stand out.

Stream Survey!

Pilots, please answer this quick two question survey about our streaming schedule so we know how best to serve you during the final 9 days of the campaign (and beyond)!

Tune In Tonight

Tonight, Jeff & Josh will be live on twitch.tv/snapships starting at 8:00pm EST to build some more Snap Ships. Let us know in the comments what kinds of ships we should build tonight - we love a good build challenge!

That’s all for now … Prime those jump engines and we’ll see you in orbit!

Incoming Transmission - Day 19 - The AI Elite
almost 2 years ago – Sun, Jul 17, 2022 at 05:12:40 PM

Greetings builders and pilots!

Today’s decoded message will cover some new elite AI builds you’ll have access to, as well as some unique pieces available for the builders who want something different.

Day 19 Unlock - New AI Cards for Falx and Wasp

“I get it now. They’re not just evolving their ships to match ours and try to counter everything we throw at them. They’re also evolving their tactics, learning and adapting based on what we do to push them back. Every time we win a bit of ground, they learn just a bit more. I think sometimes they lose on purpose, just to see what we’ll do. That way, when we’ve just started to drop our guard and think we’ve got them figured out, they switch it up at the moment where a decisive victory would be critical. The only way we can possibly counter that is to keep changing our own strategies. Add a bit of chaos and become unpredictable.”

We have already shown several AI opponents in our updates and streams. As you might have seen, the core strength of the AI opponents comes from the AI decks. With this unlock, we are providing four new AI opponents that you can face with the Falx and Wasp kits.

The standard Falx Escort is all about scoring critical hits with its guns, while its missile swarms keep you preoccupied and unable to focus on your opponent. If you fight the AI for this ship, you’ll find that it takes advantage of these traits as much as it possibly can. However, the next two AI opponents put a huge twist on how they will perform.

The Falx Ground Assault has the unique ability to attack targets at range 0 as if they were at range 1. This can create some killer combinations, especially when armed with weapons like a Plasma Cannon and Massdriver Shotgun. This also becomes a great platform for collisions, because you can never be too close for guns. This AI uses this to its advantage by becoming very focused on ramming other ships, closing the distance and wanting to stay glued to its opponents as much as possible.

In contrast to this, the Falx Experimental Fighter lets you vent heat by taking damage. This can be an extremely dangerous maneuver, but since the AI doesn’t care about the heat, this version has more actions than usual on its part cards. This AI will be hounding after you, firing weapons and doing more than you might have come to expect. It truly is elite in how it manages to apply the pressure and keep it on at all times. You’ll find yourself struggling to stay ahead of it.

On the other side, the standard Wasp Heavy Fighter is all about bringing guns to bear in a straight line. It can circle strafe with all its wings, but it really wants to line up that devastating HE Cannon shot from whatever range it can. But keep reading if you want to see what new AI opponents you will now be able to square up against with this unlock.

The Wasp Deep Recon is all about terrain. This ship represents an explorer scouting the far reaches of space who is accustomed to the various anomalies you might find. All of this terrain will make it more difficult to hit this ship as it combs through debris fields and lingers in ice clouds as much as possible. The AI for this ship will deliberately seek out and exploit this terrain, laying in wait for you. This means that if you are used to using the terrain to your advantage, you’ll inevitably find yourself in a close quarters slug match against this opponent.

And finally, the Wasp Fighter Bomber lets you reroll an attack die if there are already missiles homing in on the target. The AI uses this ability to its advantage by focusing on torpedoes, launching one to chase you while it rains down a heavy assault with its guns. You’ll find yourself scrambling to keep from getting hit and always needing to worry about that delayed threat of the torpedo. After all, they can be deadly if not taken into account.

With these new AI decks, you will be able to play against harder enemies when you try the Last Stand scenario unlocked on Day 17. How brave are you, pilots?

Bonus Unlock - 3D-Printer Files of Prototype Parts

Because what’s better than one unlock in a day? Getting two! So we are preparing a bonus unlock for you today for those of you who have access to 3D-printers. All backers will receive the STL files for some prototype pieces that have not ever been officially produced as part of the Snap Ships line. That said, they are all compatible with Snap Ships and were designed by Jeff Swenty in the earliest days of the project. While these do not have gameplay functionality for Snap Ships Tactics, we wanted to provide them as an option for builders out there to make even more unique ships. So let’s give Jeff a chance to tell you about them!

Hey everyone, Jeff here!  It’s really exciting to make some of these “classic piece” files available to people. When we were first designing the prototype parts to figure out how Snap Ships would work, a lot of focus went into creating the basic building system while also being suitable for printing on the consumer 3D printers we had available at the time. There’s a good mix of parts in this pack that really helped figure out basic rules and piece types. The cockpit was designed from a concept created by an awesome artist named Jeff Zugale. This was a favorite cockpit among the team early on. Experiments with single cube engines and double cube versions helped with creating parts that would work facing backward and forward. The radar dish was a favorite that we are still looking to get into the main system, and the two long, squared fins were made as experiments to see what fin shapes had the biggest impact on the silhouette. We hope you enjoy printing these up and adding some history to your builds!

You can print these in FDM or in resin, and we’ll bundle the files with a PDF guide with some tips for how to optimize and get the best results when you print.

Stream Watching

We're back up and streaming on the Snap Ships Twitch Channel. This week saw three streams:

• A Build Stream with Jeff and Josh talking about the new pieces in the Starter Box
• A Killer Builds stream with Josh and Scott showing off some synergistic game builds
• A 3v3 Live Battle on Vassal with Josh and his brother Chris. See who came out on top!

All of these VODs can be found here: https://www.twitch.tv/snapships/videos 

 They will eventually make their way on to the Snap Ships Youtube channel as well. We'll be announcing our next week of streams by the end of the weekend.

That's it for this update... See you in 48 hours! 

Incoming Transmission - Day 17 - Making a Last Stand Against the AI
almost 2 years ago – Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 04:55:55 AM

Greetings builders and pilots!

Today’s decoded message will cover a new last stand scenario as well as discuss the possibility of dangerous hybrid ships salvaging technology from both factions.

Day 17 Unlock - Last Stand Scenario

“The Komplex did everything they could to steal from us, harvesting technology from our ships to build better killing machines constructed specifically to foster our destruction. It’s time to turn the tide and see what we can steal from them. The Komplex tech is difficult to integrate, but not impossible. And if it might give us a fighting chance against those demons, we have to take it.”

Allow us to introduce the latest scenario, accurately described as the Last Stand. In this scenario, you will face off against wave after wave of AI-controlled ships, struggling to survive as long as possible in this war of attrition. Just when you think you might be safe, another wave of opponents appears, prolonging the battle.

Of course, it would be impossible to survive for long against this onslaught without any reinforcements. After all, even the most ace pilots will eventually fall to a lucky cannon fire or wayward missile. In order to survive, you’ll need to salvage supplies from the enemies you defeat. In this way, you can prolong your existence, facing off against more opponents than you ever thought possible.

This scenario can be played either solo or in co-op mode. You can face the hordes alone, trying to see how long you can survive. Or team up with a fellow pilot that you trust to watch your back as you face endless hordes of enemies. For those of you who have caught some of the footage, you’ve seen how ruthless the AI can be. Now imagine if they just kept coming, and coming…

The scenario includes some tables for determining enemy difficulty and scaling, ensuring you can play this game mode with whatever size ship you desire. Start off small and build bigger? Start off with a Falx or Wasp and face multiple AI ships? Different enemy ships also offer rewards beyond the options afforded in your standard ship customization. This includes additional hull repairs, extra power cubes, additional part slots, and of course, part cards from the destroyed AI ships. Collect your “loot”, assimilate it into your ship design, and press on!

Mix and Matching Factions

It’s natural. We give you all of these pieces and you can’t help but wonder what kind of ship you would build if you had access to all of the parts and weren’t limited by factions. It’s natural to want to see what would happen if you paired up the missile capabilities of the Forge with the blade wings of the Komplex for those that get too close. And let’s face it, some of those combinations just plain old look amazing.

We can tell you that while the rules prevent you from mixing and matching parts from the different factions, there’s no mechanical reason you can’t build this way. If all players agree and you are still following the parameters around build points, you are welcome to make any ship you’d like and it will be perfectly compatible with the Snap Ships Tactics system. You might get some powerful and unique ships! This is part of the strength of the game, and is a core tenet in how we designed it. We want you to be able to build the ships you want, without limitations, and test them on the field of battle to see how they do.

That being said, we have plans for official, sanctioned play moving forward. In those games, these hybrid ships are not going to be supported. Hybrid ships have the potential to create extremely powerful combinations and also dilute the faction identity. This is why you are welcome to use them in your personal games, but they will not be part of sanctioned play.

Day 15 Transmission - Chassis Cards Are No Longer Kickstarter Exclusive

Speaking of future organized play, We've received a lot of feedback about the previous Day 15 Forge Transmission being Kickstarter exclusive, and we hear you. Exclusive gameplay content creates undesirable outcomes in eventual organized play.

So, we've decided to make these chassis cards non-exclusive. All backers will get them as part of the KS, and we'll make them widely available afterwards. We're not sure yet if they will be included in the starter  box at retail, or used as forever-in-print promos as part of organized play, free giveaways at conventions, or free with purchase down the  road. Regardless, we want everyone who plays the game to be able to get them.

Let’s get reeeeady to Rumble!

It’s iron cage match time* -  a 12 point, 3v3 battle royale played out live on air! It’s Josh versus Chris on Friday at 5pm PST / 8pm EST on the Snap Ships Twitch Channel - Friday night Fights are ON: https://www.twitch.tv/snapships

Who will reign supreme - the game designer… or the challenger? Forge or Komplex? Come watch and find out!

*ok, so we’re playing remotely on Vassal… but Josh still might go to the folding chair if things get out of hand!

Lend a Helping Hand

We’ve entered the mid campaign hypersleep section of our journey - but we’re not going quietly! This is the point in the campaign when YOU can really help maintain momentum by telling your friends about Tactics. Tweet at your favorite streamers! Share our link on Facebook! Get one of those spinny sign things and hang out on the street corner!  Link to share:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/snapships/snap-ships-tactics?ref=4munsa

Incoming Transmission - Day 15 - Cutting Edge Designs
almost 2 years ago – Thu, Jul 14, 2022 at 06:51:51 AM

Greetings builders and pilots!

Today’s decoded message covers the latest unlock - new presets - as well as some of the parts that will be exclusive to the Starter Box.

Day 15 Unlock - New Sabre and Scarab Presets

“Sometimes it feels like a game. We innovate, we build something they’ve never seen before, and we win. Triumph of the human spirit and all that BS. But they simply take it apart. Disassemble it to its core. Study it. Analyze it. Comprehend everything they can. Use it to construct something new and terrifying. And then we charge screaming into the void and crash into something built with the singular purpose to counter and destroy us. So we build something different, adjusting our tactics. Around and around the circle we go, never knowing which part of the cycle we’re in. It’s a game alright, but the loser wins a vacation to a vacuum for the rest of their life.”

You’ve likely heard us say multiple times how the modularity of Snap Ships is one of the core pillars of the Snap Ships Tactics game, giving it a lot of replayability and a new experience every time you play. While much of that flexibility comes from the individual parts you can add to your chassis, you can also have unique chassis cards that come with new powers and expose new strategies.

And today’s unlock adds to this modularity by providing two new preset builds, one each for the Sabre and the Scarab. And each of these presets comes with its own unique chassis card and key art.

Introducing the Sabre XG-07 Gunship

And the Scarab KLAW Jammer

We’re going to put together some build videos for these new preset builds so that you can follow along and build them at home before customizing them to your taste. And let’s not forget about those chassis cards we talked about.

Unlike the three standard chassis cards for Sabre and Scarab, each of these new chassis cards is designed with the pieces exclusive to the Starter Box in mind.

The Sabre XG-07 Gunship brings a more cannon-focused playstyle to the Forge. Its chassis ability reduces the evasion of ships it attacks at close range, enabling it to turn even the most nimble of ships into a sitting duck when using multiple weapons. If you’re flying solo, shoot your low-damage weapons first to reduce evasion, then follow up with your heavier weapons (e.g. the massdriver shotgun) to land big damage! This ability can be even more devastating in larger games, where the gunship can effectively mark targets for destruction by its allies.

The Scarab KLAW Jammer uses a different tactic, choosing instead to focus on defense. Emitting a short range sensor jamming field, it can reroll a single die result on each attack coming its way from close range. Only critical hit results are immune to this ability. It even works against missiles, though you might not want to depend on rerolling a single die against a swarm of missiles. But it does work as an excellent backup when used in conjunction with anti-missile fire or evasive flying. All of this makes the Jammer much more survivable in long range combat, which makes it perfect when paired with Komplex heavy missiles or torpedoes.

These new chassis cards will be Kickstarter exclusive. We won’t be including them in the starter box later, they are only for Kickstarter backers.

Exclusive Wallpaper

For those of you who can’t get enough of the look of these beautiful ships, we have a gift for you. You can download a beautiful high resolution piece of art of these two new ships at this link: 

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/geuhd2h55ipzg9n/AAA38b0-Xw7IPwLV9lYtcsOla?dl=0

Enjoy the artwork and show off your support for your faction of choice!

Starter Set Exclusive Parts

One of the things that has been asked a couple of times now is about the exclusive parts available in the Starter Box. So we wanted to take a moment to talk about them. We designed them to fill a gap in the current build system, both in terms of cosmetics and game mechanics.

Early in the development of the Forge kits, we found that their mechanical design and all of their parts lent themselves to a long-distance fighting style. Missiles played a key part in these designs. Given that tendency, we wanted to make sure that these new parts widened the options for the Forge. To maximize the ship style and game replayability, we needed to provide parts that would play differently than what was currently available.

The standard Sabre SDU-14 Jump Engine is affordable and stable, but sometimes it doesn’t accomplish enough with respect to maneuverability. The U-turn is powerful once or twice per game for a big come-around, but the high heat cost can make it prohibitive to use. The SV engine offers a lighter and more maneuverable option at the cost of sacrificing the U-turn.

Many of the smaller and faster forge ships like the Lance and even the Sabre Fast Recon really benefit from access to short range weapons. We’ve also noticed that the Falx’s wing-mounted plasma cannons proved very popular in early playtesting. Giving the Forge another powerful short-range weapon in the form of the massdriver shotgun opens up some interesting choices.

The existing XF-25 wings for the Sabre were already designed around nimble maneuverability, so for these wings, we wanted a faster wing to open up cruising strategies. These also provide an evade boost instead of rotation, which thematically fits given the increased speed.

It’s unusual in Snap Ships Tactics for the defender to modify an attack in a reactive way. Most defensive parts such as armor plating function at design-time, providing additional hull and one-time protection from critical hits. The ECM fin gives Komplex ships a last-ditch option to stop the most devastating of attacks. Staring down multiple critical hits? Sacrifice your ECM fin to reroll them at the last moment and preserve your parts!

Most Komplex ships are already highly agile and evasive, usually gaining heat in exchange for additional evasion or maneuverability. The KX Power Cycle part doubles down on this aggressive strategy by allowing you to vent blue power cubes mid-turn, freeing up a part to use it again. This comes at a cost of more heat, but sometimes that can make all the difference.

Part of the reason the Forge became a missile-heavy faction was because the Komplex didn’t have as many missile options to compete. Rather than giving them a swarm-type missile pod of their own, we opted instead to give them an even longer ranged “sniper” missile in the form of the ZM2. The single heavy missile poses an interesting choice because it is difficult to shoot down or actively deal with, tempting the target to ignore it. But it packs just enough punch to be dangerous, making ignoring it a potentially catastrophic decision.

Finally, when it comes to mobility, the new Vector wings give the Komplex some lateral movement to help longer-range fighters maintain their distance. Coupling this with a heat vent to maintain the ship’s action economy makes this a very versatile part useful for lengthy skirmishes.

Snap Ships Streaming

We had an awesome stream yesterday during which Josh and Jeff churned out new ship builds, answered questions, and showed off  the new parts in the Starter Box. You can watch a replay here:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1529178442

We'll be posting more stream details in the coming days. Come hang out, ask questions, hear about the future plans for the game, and most of all, keep spreading the word about Snap Ships Tactics!

Incoming Transmission - Day 13 - Squadron Markings
almost 2 years ago – Mon, Jul 11, 2022 at 04:42:13 PM

Greetings builders and pilots!

Today’s decoded message reveals new customization options and painting tips!

Day 13 Unlock - Squadron Markings Sticker Sheet

“You know why I’m painting my ship? It’s not because I have any kind of desire to be known. Truth be told, I don’t think the Komplex even has the ability to notice. And pilots on our side who pay too much attention to what our ships look like wind up dead. No, cadet, I paint it for me. If you want to be a damn good pilot, you need to take pride in your ride. You need to make it yours. It needs to be like a second skin, responding to even your slightest thought. That’s why I paint it.”

Many pieces in Snap Ships have preprinted designs, but in most cases, those colors are only applied to one side. Many builders use the blank side on the bottom of their models, while others use the unprinted side as hull plating or the like. Of course, some just prefer the unprinted side as a matter of style.

Today, we are presenting you with a new option. We are providing a clear sticker sheet that you can use to decorate your favorite builds! Have a glimpse at some of the options that will soon be available to you in order to make your builds your own.

Painting Snap Ships

If you really want to take the customization of your ship to the next level, you could choose to paint your Snap Ships pieces. This will truly give it a unique look a step above and beyond what you can do with the stickers we’re providing.

For those who are looking at getting into painting your builds, there are some general tips you should keep in mind.

• Will you paint individual parts, or a whole ship? Painting finished builds that you love and don’t intend to take apart is definitely easier with fewer surfaces to cover, but limits your future building options if you ever take them apart. Painting individual parts is more time-consuming, but gives you more options to build and rebuild.
   
• Snap Ships pieces contain two different plastic materials: a flexible inner core, and a hard plastic outer shell. These materials react differently to paint, and we recommend only painting the hard plastic portions to ensure your pieces continue to fit together perfectly.
   
• Snap Ships hard plastic pieces take acrylic paint pretty well as-is, but for more durability and better handling over time you will probably want to mask the connection points and prime them using a spray primer. Hobby stores sell all kinds of spray primers for miniatures that work well for this.
   

The following pictures are of a Gladius kit, painted by Snap Ships fan Lawson Deming (@fineartfilms on Instagram). While this ship isn’t supported in Snap Ships Tactics yet, it’s a great example of what’s possible!

Sticker Sheet Suggestions

The astute of you might have noticed above that there’s a significant blank space at the right of the sticker sheet. Well, pilots, that’s where you come in. We want to make you have the opportunity to help influence the design options. After all, these are going to be placed on your ships! And we can’t wait to see what you create! Give us some suggestions on what you would like to decorate your ship with!