My brother and I are in the early stages of developing a 3D space combat heavy game that involves numerous ship upgrades, some lite character advancement, and game events. We are designing it to allow for role playing and/or PvP battles.

All PCs would be space pirates, but none of the back story is developed yet. 

I believe I have discovered a way to represent 3D movement and combat on a flat game mat. Unlike miniature games with elevation markers our system allows two ships to be in the same area in two dimensions, but in different areas in the third dimension. In other words, the two ships would be directly above or below each other. Also it does not use cards for maneuvers. The maneuvers are accomplished by the players moving the ship token and changing the orientation (direction ship is facing) on their "ship sheets". I am not going to give more detail than that because the work is not in fixed form, so is not copyrighted.

Has a simulation of space combat in 3D all ready been achieved in other nonvideo games?

I know that WIzkids made a Star Wars space battles miniature game. Other than that, I dunno...

Silent Death and GW's Battlefleet Gothick are two that come to mind. Never played either though.

Thank you! and thanks to greyorm for the informative PM about copyright law not protecting game mechanics or rules. Our system of tracking 3D position and orientation involves unique pictures, so I'm hoping we can still copyright the original line graphics (the map and "ship sheets") that are used in conjunction with the rules to protect our intellectual property.

Although I have never played it, I heard BattleFleet G is "naval", meaning it is 2D. I might have to get my hands on a copy of Silent Death, but it seems like you play it on a simple hex grid. What we have in mind is a bit trickier ;)

Thanks again!

Check out Attack Vector: Tactical. It's genius. It's a vector movement game in 3D. I sat down for a demo of the game feeling all smug and skeptical - my friends and I had been thinking about 3D vector movement for years and years, and figured it was impossible to make it playable - and over the course of the demo my mouth just dropped further and further open.

You play it on a hex mat with altitude markers, but that's, like, barely a tenth of the story.

-Vincent

peacenjoy4618 wrote: ...so I'm hoping we can still copyright the original line graphics (the map and "ship sheets")...

I'll have to pay attention to this, as 3D movement is relevant to a project I'm working on as well.

lumpley wrote:
Check out Attack Vector: Tactical. It's genius. It's a vector movement game in 3D. I sat down for a demo of the game feeling all smug and skeptical - my friends and I had been thinking about 3D vector movement for years and years, and figured it was impossible to make it playable - and over the course of the demo my mouth just dropped further and further open.

You play it on a hex mat with altitude markers, but that's, like, barely a tenth of the story.

-Vincent

You use the tilt blocks to show your ship's facing off the plane of the table.

-Vincent