Assuming that you've looked at some YouTube of BSG: Deadlock, now I'll introduce you to SVC's Impulse Chart through BSG Deadlock. And if any of those guys are reading this, first of all good work. I like your taste in games;-) Second, feel free to use any of this to enhance your game. I'll be a fan and want to play the best game that you can make. And this isn't me anyway, this is Steve Cole's published SFB. The “second generation”, after Avalon Hill's “first generation”, of Lost Art Studios (which is really just me) “third generation” of what I call “Rube”. So this is the precursor of Rube's cardio-vascular system that runs through those five components described in the first post of my blog. This is Steve Cole's contribution to Rube, not the key part of it that I always leave out.
In ADB/SFB terms Deadlock uses an optional SFB rule called “plotted movement”. SFB's Impulse Chart is far more detailed than Deadlock's “time bar”, but the same thing is still actually happening because Rube is a part of nature. That “time bar” is naturally broken up into what SFB would call “impulses” simply by whatever “internal clock” this game is running on. You only think of it as “time”, but SFB is “space combat in slow motion, under a microscope” and we have a different perspective on it than you do. Time flies past you without you giving it much thought, we studied in detail for decades simply by learning, playing, and discussing these types of games. What I call a “treadmill of time”, which Avalon Hill games had a very primitive version of called “phased-turns”. In SFB, Deadlock's “time bar” is actually more akin to “plotted movement”, a pre-plotting of everything that will happen for the next 8 impulses. At 1-2 minutes the Deadlock “time bar” is equal to an entire turn in SFB, 32 impulses. In SFB plotted movement is ¼ turn at a time over the course of an entire turn, 8 impulses at a time. So you can see how SFB breaks this same period of time up in a much more organized way. Deadlock could use Steve Cole's impulse chart, Avalon Hill's concept of “assembling the battle”, and your own industry's expertise in predictive mechanics to improve their game.
“Rube plans the future”. Break up that “time bar”, which is a “moment of time containing reality”. To keep it board game simple let's say it is supposed to be 1 minute of real time, and give Deadlock's “time bar” 60 impulses. You can define any length you want as a “moment of time containing reality”, and the shorter that time is the more detailed the simulation is. But at 1 minute per turn and 1 second per impulse to keep it simple then there would be 60 “moments of time containing reality” in a Deadlock “time bar/turn”. Each impulse has an “embedded sequence of play”, everything that can happen aboard a ship (in the order they happen) during that 1 second of time. This is a Steve Cole “impulse”. Now, using your own predictive mechanics, you always know the relative positions of the ship during every second of that “time bar”, and can use the 60 impulses to “plan the future” and “assemble the battle”... and make the ships fire and do other things at very realistic times and in realistic looking volleys. Right now, watching the battles, the ships annoyingly shoot at all the wrong times based on your typical AI for that. And the Deadlock team would quickly find that they can do a LOT more with this than just plan the firing and volleys better based on knowing the future and having a means to use that knowledge and “plan the future” through a primitive version of Rube's cardio-vascular system.
Even just using Steve Cole's “second generation” impulses, you can use this to “plan the future” within BSG: Deadlock's own very simple “moment of time containing reality”, that “time bar”. This is the precursor of Rube's cardio-vascular system and is similar to how Rube “plans the future” in a much more sophisticated and universal way.
This really does come from somewhere. I am not imagining things, and I really do know what I am talking about. I've been doing this for a very, very long time.
