“Talon Tuesdays” is an article series appearing on InsideGMT periodically on Tuesdays.  It features articles from the Talon development team regarding the game’s design, development and upcoming release.

Issue #11: Needing Bigger Guns

There are three weapon types for each race in Talon. This symmetry of design seemed appropriate when we first started, but as we began defining fleet doctrine and ship design for each of the races, the three weapons became less and less symmetrical. In the beginning, we started with Phasers and Torpedoes on the Terran ships, and Disruptors and Missiles on the Talon ships. This idea, that each ship had a beam weapon and a projectile weapon, was a typical trope of most space combat games, but we felt that by ensuring the weapons felt different enough we could create something dynamic there. The third weapon for each race was a powerful cannon that did devastating damage to a target, but with restricted range brackets and powerful recharge times.

Speaking of Recharge Times

Weapons work on a system of power boxes that mark their charged status. Most weapons have both a red box and a number of yellow boxes. The Red boxes represent the minimum number of Rounds that it takes to recharge a weapon, and these boxes are filled one per weapon group at the end of every impulse. Yellow boxes are used to represent a ship’s ability to Actively Charge their weapons (by spending AP, Available Power) and increase their rate of fire. A player can charge a single yellow box with one AP, often allowing them to bring guns online at exactly the right moment to take a lethal shot. This combination of boxes keeps the weapon firing cycles and rates dynamic as your ship speeds up or slows down, as the available power of a ship is directly inverse to the speed of the ship.

Phasers and Disruptors

Both races have beam weapons, but it is the difference in these beam weapons that truly defines them. Terran Phasers are rapid fire short range, highly accurate weapons. If the Terran can get in close with a Talon ship, they can generally keep up a dogged pursuit and eat away at their shields with continual phaser fire. With nearly perfect accuracy at a range of 1, Phasers are the teeth that the larger, clunkier Terran ships use to latch onto and shred the softer and faster Talon ships. Meanwhile, Talon disruptors are medium range, less reliable weapons, that can be mass fired to punch holes in a larger ship. The ideal firing range on Disruptors is 2-3. Meaning a skilled player can set up a concave of ships to consolidate fire on a single shield arc of their opponent, and get the shot off long before Terran phasers can get within range. As you can see, the differences in these weapons helps determine ideal engagement ranges and strategies of the forces in Talon.

Torpedoes and Missiles

As for Projectile weapons, there are some major differences between the two races. Torpedoes are the Terrans’ long range weapon. They are high yield weapons that do a devastating 4 damage if they hit, and can be fired out to a range of 4 with decent reliability. They do have a deadzone though, as they are unable to fire at range 1, otherwise they would endanger the firing ship. Torpedoes are fast compared to Missiles though, firing and impacting instantly, like beam weapons. Missiles, on the other hand, have a travel time. When fired, missile tokens are placed in the hex in front of the firing ship, and they travel at a speed of 6 with turn radius of 0 toward their target. At range 1, missiles impact immediately, while at range 4 an opponent can take multiple impulses to bank, flee or even shoot down missiles before they arrive. However, once a missile arrives at its target, it strikes unerringly upon which ever shield arc it hits. There is more to the tale of missile development, but I’m going to save that for another article, as missiles are the one thing in Talon that has perhaps changed the most, shifting in design and execution with almost every pass of the game.

The Big Guns

Sure, the class of these weapons could probably be called “Capitol Weapons” or “Space Cannons” or something of the like, but on the dev team, we only ever called them “The Big Guns”. When we first started working on Talon, these big guns were designed to simply be large implements of pure damage. The Terran gun did a whopping 10 damage some distance, but had a chance to miss. Meanwhile, the Talon weapon did a variable amount of damage based on range and a roll, but the closer you got, the better the damage was, even on a low roll.

As Bob and I balance tested the core ships first, we didn’t get to use any of the big guns initially. However, when we finally did break them out, we quickly learned that these guns are so big, and their recharge rates are so hefty that they are likely only going to be fired two or possibly three times in a prolonged battle. As we played our fleets over and over, we learned that should we fire out giant cannon, and miss completely, it leaves us feeling disappointed. On top of that, when we do hit, the pure damage effect seemed a bit anti-climactic, and we were left wanting for more.

After some brainstorming though, we came up with some suggested “side-effects” of the weapons for Jim to evaluate. They were quickly added to the game, and with a bit of fine tuning, we eventually got them to a state that made them fun, even if we missed, and powerful. You wanted to push the fire button on these puppies.

Terrans have the Wave Motion Gun (Do you know what we are referencing?), a large single target weapon that can eliminate most enemy ships from space with just a single hit. This weapon works like a sniper rifle and it can striking the target with enough force, that it actually can displace the ship that is struck. When a Wave Motion Gun strikes a target, it first displaces the struck ship one hex directly away from the firing ship. This can cause collisions, or if extremely unlucky, the total destruction of a ship, by crashing it into a black hole or planet. One advantage of this weapon is to push a ship next to his allies, possibly causing a collision, and then dealing enough damage to destroy the ship, triggering explosion damage on its nearby allies.

On the other hand the Talon have a Fusion Cannon, a large area of effect weapons system that can strike all ships in the Talon ship’s forward arc, friend and foe alike. This giant “space shotgun” still does variable damage, based on its roll and the range a ship is from the Cannon. This massive area of devastation is fortunately very difficult to line up for a perfect execution, but even landing two hits with this weapon can out damage the Terran weapon. When first conceived, we debated about allowing the Fusion Cannon to strike allied units, and decided that the counter play to such a powerful weapon would be to play close to your opponent’s ships and force him to lose just as much as you might when the shot is made. Fighters, are nimble enough to dodge this powerful weapon, but a player needs to watch out for their own Missiles, as these weapons can be brought down with this massive cannon.

As you can see, the weapons in Talon are diverse and powerful, each having a unique role in the game. Adding the special abilities of the “Big Guns” really brought life to the difference of the two races, and I hope you get the chance to execute a perfect shot with one or more of these. Meanwhile, keep an eye on the cycle and charge times of your beam weapons and of course, watch your six.

Previous Article in the Series: Talon Tuesday Issue #10: Empire War Report

Next Article in the Series: Talon Tuesday Issue #12: The Rulebook

If you like Talon or are interested in space games in general, check out these other GMT titles:

Space Empires (Reprint on P500 List)

Space Empires: Close Encounters

Space Empires: Replicators (P500)

Author: Patrick Barley