Why has there been no updates you ask? Well I’ve been busy working mostly but I have also spent some time preparing counters for the game.
Large scale maps and counters
When a ship has been spotted in Intercept one can keep playing on the small maps, drawing with pencils as usual but one could also put all the spotted ships onto a larger map with real counters and do the fight there. As the counters depict the position and vector on the map you still get the same feel for how the ships move as on the smaller map. The larger map is split into 9 separate pages to print out, making a 3 x 3 sheet larger map. Each square on the map as well as the counters are 15 mm wide. The map download contains both black space with white lines (better looking) and white space with black lines (saves on toner and ink).
Each ship or missile volley is represented by three counters, Present, Past and Last. One can get away with using only two counters per ship but then you wouldn’t be able to see how much a ship has accelerated by the counters alone and I believe very strongly that as much information as possible should be shown on the map itself
Present represents where your ship is located but also in what direction it faces. It depicts a solid ship or missile volley. The counters are double-sided so one can show that a ship is rolled by flipping its counters over. The Present counter is moved by gravity based on the Past counters position relative to the planet.
Past represents your ship’s position and facing in the last turn. It depicts an outline of a ship or missile volley. The position of the Past counter vs the planet determines how the Present counter will be moved by gravity.
Last represents your ship’s position and facing two turns ago. It depicts a dashed outline of a ship or missile volley.
Movement procedure
Movement in Intercept is done in two stages; drift and thrust. First we drift all ships and missile volleys and this can be done in any order as there are no choices to be made. They blindly follow the laws laid out by Mr Isaac Newton. The next step is done in reverse Initiative order with the worst Initiative moving first before the second worst Initiative, and so on until all ships have moved. Missile volleys are then moved but the order which this is done doesn’t matter as missiles cannot attack missiles.
Drift is performed by moving the Last counter to the Past, moving the Past counter to the Present and then finally repeating the Last to Past move again for the Present. If done right the three counters will lie along a line with Past at its center. The final step of the Drift phase is to adjust for gravity. If the Past counter is inside the central planet’s (if any) gravity field note what arc it lies in visavi the planet. Move the Present one square in the same direction, be careful to keep the facing. Do the same for all ships and all missile volleys and then the Drift phase is over.
Thrust is performed in reverse Initiative with lowest Initiative going first. Each ship may turn up to its turn limit and then thrust in the new direction. Rolling the ship costs 4 turn and is shown by flipping the counter over to its Rolled side. Optionally, a ship can turn after thrust but all turns and thrust will then cost double.
Making your own counters
You can download the countersheet here and print it out. The shipcounters with Rolled printed on them should be on the flip side of each ship counter. Missiles don’t roll so they have no flip side artwork. I printed them out on regular paper and the glued them onto cardboard, one can also buy 15 mm octagonal plastic pieces from here and glue the paper counters on, which makes for nice and sturdy counters. I’ll post pictures the plastic ones when I am ready with them. Each ship comes with four volleys of missiles with roman numerals to separate them. You can download the 9 mapsheets here (both the black and the white versions are included) to print out.
In space, nobody can hear you scream – except yourself, really loud, when you scream inside your helmet, and everyone else on your radio channel.
Vector movement 