Macross II Fleet to Fleet Combat

[foilfodder]

I am looking to include some fleet to fleet combat in a gaming session using my Macross II Deckplans books. I have seen numerous threads about Robotech fleets, however, discussion the Macross II versions are fewer. The best one discussing actual tactics was here viewtopic.php?f=9&t=148602 which includes 3 Galaxies, Macross 2 and Robotech fleets.

Reviewing stats for Zentran and Marduk ships they can have several weapon types that can strike the Earth from lunar orbit (200,000 miles). This seems impressive, until the speed entries for the ships are considered, which range from 0.10C to 0.20C (where C is the speed of light) or 300,000 miles per second to 550,000 miles per second.

With sublight speed available and the instantaneous speed of a space-fold it seems like ship battles would play out much like the Macross II anime footage (like a game of checkers). A squadron of ships may move forward to put a dent in the enemy line only to be taken out by response from fresh enemies.
Step 1: Fleets would stare at each other.
Step 2: One side makes the first move hoping to wipe out a majority of the enemy in the first strike. This would be a single round of combat only (15 seconds).
Step 3a: Both fleets hold their respective lines. Re-run Step 2.
Step 3b: Fleets are now close enough to use missiles, launch mecha and gestures menancingly through viewports/hangerbays. Better suited to normal Palladium combat rules.
- Ships which do not possess the range for the first shot may still act in the first round if they are with the aggressor fleet.
- Ships which do not possess either sublight or space-fold capacity (ARMD platforms and Macross Cannons) only participate if the enemy moved toward them.
Step 4: One side is dead, or decides to disengage/withdraw.

The Marduk use space-fold twice in the anime to execute "surprise" attacks, once with their fleet against the U.N. Spacy and also when sending a Dreadnought to deal with one of their own ships which Ishtar had contaminated. Two ways PCs and their ship MIGHT survive such an attack:
- Rules-As-Written included hefty penalties for hitting smaller ships with the "big gun" type weapons, but only the U.N. spacecraft (human only) are small enough to qualify for this protection.
- The Players with skills such as Intelligence and Detect Ambush may get a roll to see such attacks coming. A good Sensory Systems roll might give adequate warning as well.

Using a grid-style surface like a dry erase mat or an actual checkboard with pieces to represent either squadrons or actual ships, I think it might be doable. Has anyone else experimented with larger-scale battles?

[slade the sniper]

I am actually in the process of building out my mass combat rules to include space conflict as well.

The biggest issue is that to properly show FTL/STL combat is the maps are enormous. A line from Leviathan (an old FASA game of ship to ship combat) is "Combat in space only happens when both sides want it to happen." That would mean combat is something that kinda has to happen instead of something that just sort of happens.

As for tactics, I would suppose that fleet A and B are about to engage in conflict. Fleet B defends planet with 1/3 of their fleet, the other 2/3 are in interstellar space as reinforcements.

Fleet A jumps in behind a planet, moon, asteroid field with a portion of their fleet. Ships jump in as the tactical situation requires. If Fleet B is defeated, then comes the planetary invasion, yay. Page 22 of the REF Marines book has some doctrines for how that works as well. Page 95 of the Genesis Pits Sourcebook has a lot of space combat mechanics (which is an expansion of the ship to ship combat in the old 1E Zentraedi books).

I suppose you could take an off the shelf game system and adapt it for Palladium such as:
Star Fleet Battles
Leviathan (I like this one the most)
Star Wars Armada
Battle Fleet Gothic

That is what I would do without building my own system (which I am slowly building).

-STS

[jaymz]

Star trek attack wing would be easier to use....

[slade the sniper]

Star trek attack wing would be easier to use....

Well, I don't own EVERY game....
yet.

-STS

[foilfodder]

I am actually in the process of building out my mass combat rules to include space conflict as well.

The biggest issue is that to properly show FTL/STL combat is the maps are enormous. A line from Leviathan (an old FASA game of ship to ship combat) is "Combat in space only happens when both sides want it to happen." That would mean combat is something that kinda has to happen instead of something that just sort of happens.

-STS

That is why I would be using a grid for squadron/planet locations.
- Everyone in the same square would be close enough not to worry about ranges.
- Anyone in adjacent squares is close enough for the big guns only (no mecha).
- All other ships are too far away to be involved in combat.

Earth in one square, the Moon goes in the adjacent square.

[slade the sniper]

OK, so the range grid would be ~100,000 miles across. Push that to ~150,000 to 200,000 miles across and you get about 1 light second which falls in line with the majority of Robotech capital ship weapons...

If that is the case, next question is the scale of the units...8,000,000,000,000,000 mi^3 is a lot of space for ships to fit.

Do you want the combat system to account for individual ships or for the fleet as a whole? The reason I ask is that I think an existing off the shelf game would be better suited to your needs if you want to account for individual ships...

If you want to account for entire fleet actions, then I may be of more use.

Spoiler:

This is a list of the factors that are given to each fleet:
Offense is the total base attacking power of the unit. This is generally based upon the type of unit.
Defense is the total base defensive power of the unit. This is generally based upon the type of unit.

Size is the total size (in personnel) of the unit. There are some exceptionally powerful units that receive a bonus to size to account for their power in spite of their small numbers. When there is a modifier, it is placed inside of parenthesis. IF a unit has a + or a – after the size it is Reinforced or Reduced. A Reinforced unit gets a +1 to either Offense or Defense, a Reduced unit gets a -1 to either Offense or Defense.
Damage is equal to the Offense x Size of the unit.
Resilience is equal to the Defense x Size of the unit.

Leadership – measuring the ability of the leaders to inspire their troops
Medical– measuring the ability of the unit to care for and replace their troops
Intelligence – measuring the ability of the unit to gain, retain and use information to their benefit
Tactics – this measures the ability of the unit to follow orders in the heat of battle
Logistics – the ability of the unit to supply/repair themselves during battle
Planning – the unit’s ability to plan accordingly to their enemy and the environment
Communications – the ability to communicate clearly and effectively in spite of conflict
Morale – the morale of the unit and the training they undergo
Engineering – the unit’s ability to use the environment and engineering to their benefit
Diplomacy – The ability of the unit to gain allies and keep enemies out of the battle

Speed is the speed of the unit in combat.
Range is the longest-range weapon of the unit.

All the math works right, the hardest part is using vertical distance, but right now I am using counters that determine that. It works for now.

-STS

[slade the sniper]

Just thought of this:
With good enough intelligence (say a spy with access to ship transponders, a totally passive surveillance robot, or a PC in a stealth ship) a fleet could jump in, maintain maximum speed and do a planetary drive by at relativistic speeds, then jump out as a pseudo-ambush "light speed drive-by". The good enough sensors would be necessary to actually target ship sized targets. Of course, good old fashioned mine fields could wreck that idea...

-STS

[foilfodder]

OK, so the range grid would be ~100,000 miles across. Push that to ~150,000 to 200,000 miles across and you get about 1 light second which falls in line with the majority of Robotech capital ship weapons...

If that is the case, next question is the scale of the units...8,000,000,000,000,000 mi^3 is a lot of space for ships to fit.
[

Negative, the board is not to scale. It represents relative positioning only.

Do you want the combat system to account for individual ships or for the fleet as a whole? The reason I ask is that I think an existing off the shelf game would be better suited to your needs if you want to account for individual ships...

If you want to account for entire fleet actions, then I may be of more use.

Spoiler:

This is a list of the factors that are given to each fleet:
Offense is the total base attacking power of the unit. This is generally based upon the type of unit.
Defense is the total base defensive power of the unit. This is generally based upon the type of unit.

Size is the total size (in personnel) of the unit. There are some exceptionally powerful units that receive a bonus to size to account for their power in spite of their small numbers. When there is a modifier, it is placed inside of parenthesis. IF a unit has a + or a – after the size it is Reinforced or Reduced. A Reinforced unit gets a +1 to either Offense or Defense, a Reduced unit gets a -1 to either Offense or Defense.
Damage is equal to the Offense x Size of the unit.
Resilience is equal to the Defense x Size of the unit.

Leadership – measuring the ability of the leaders to inspire their troops
Medical– measuring the ability of the unit to care for and replace their troops
Intelligence – measuring the ability of the unit to gain, retain and use information to their benefit
Tactics – this measures the ability of the unit to follow orders in the heat of battle
Logistics – the ability of the unit to supply/repair themselves during battle
Planning – the unit’s ability to plan accordingly to their enemy and the environment
Communications – the ability to communicate clearly and effectively in spite of conflict
Morale – the morale of the unit and the training they undergo
Engineering – the unit’s ability to use the environment and engineering to their benefit
Diplomacy – The ability of the unit to gain allies and keep enemies out of the battle

Speed is the speed of the unit in combat.
Range is the longest-range weapon of the unit.

All the math works right, the hardest part is using vertical distance, but right now I am using counters that determine that. It works for now.

-STS

Each piece would be an entire fleet or squadron, with occassional exceptions. Similar to the tables that you see in WW1 and WW2 movies. Thus the checkers example, simply red and white to designate affliliation, and probably a sticker with a ID number on it .

A paper sheet would have the same ID and detail the ships present, damage/losses, etc. My goal is to keep the game pen and paper, not turn it into a tactical tabletop wargame.

[ShadowLogan]

Reviewing stats for Zentran and Marduk ships they can have several weapon types that can strike the Earth from lunar orbit (200,000 miles). This seems impressive, until the speed entries for the ships are considered, which range from 0.10C to 0.20C (where C is the speed of light) or 300,000 miles per second to 550,000 miles per second.

Range is correct, but it should be remembered that while the ship is capable of achieving fractional C the time it would take to accelerate to those velocities is not listed in the Macross II books (or even 1E RT, 2E RT requires days of acceleration and then you are still only talking a smaller fractional value of C).

It would take ~3.5 DAYS at 10 G acceleration to achieve .10C, or ~35.4 DAYS at 1 G acceleration to achieve .10C. Even at 500 G it would take ~1.7 HOURS. To cover Earth-Moon distance while accelerating at these rates you'd clear the distance well before you achieved the desired velocity (IIRC @1G travel time is 3-4hours, @1G an Earth-Pluto travel time is around 14 days).

Also should be noted that sans some inertial compensation method humans (or even micronized Zentran/Meltran) would be crushed to death by the G Forces once we start talking about 50G or more.

[jaymz]

Star trek attack wing would be easier to use....

Well, I don't own EVERY game....
yet.

-STS

I only mention attack wing as its simple to convert to but seeing as the OP is looking for fleet options.....yeah custom may be the only option....

PM if you want something for doing custom armada though... (and I'm working on various custom things for armada and star trek attack wing including robotech and macross/ii)

[Seto Kaiba]

Reviewing stats for Zentran and Marduk ships they can have several weapon types that can strike the Earth from lunar orbit (200,000 miles). This seems impressive, until the speed entries for the ships are considered, which range from 0.10C to 0.20C (where C is the speed of light) or 300,000 miles per second to 550,000 miles per second.

Eh... to be brutally frank, the Palladium Books Macross II RPG is wildly inaccurate in almost every detail across all five books.

Zentran, Meltran, Mardook, and Human warships are all capable of bombardment at a range of approximately one light second with both the heavy "main gun" super dimension energy cannons and the smaller turret-based super dimension energy cannons that are their primary ship-to-ship armament.[sup]1[/sup] While it's theoretically not impossible for ships in Macross to achieve the kind of speeds cited in the RPG, it would take a very long time spent accelerating to reach those speeds and it would be a huge drain on the ship's fuel supplies and other stores. Long distance sublight travel is pretty inefficient in Macross, given that propellant used to generate thrust is plasma drawn from the ship's thermonuclear reaction furnaces. No ship with a working fold system would consider trying to travel something like an interplanetary distance on sublight power. Even getting from Mars to Earth takes about a month.[sup]2[/sup] Typical acceleration for a ship of the line is around 2G, at which it would take weeks of continuous acceleration to reach 0.1C.

With sublight speed available and the instantaneous speed of a space-fold it seems like ship battles would play out much like the Macross II anime footage (like a game of checkers). A squadron of ships may move forward to put a dent in the enemy line only to be taken out by response from fresh enemies.

Well, minus the "sublight speed" part... and travel by space fold isn't quite instantaneous, but it's close enough to instantaneous over distances of less than a light year to make no odds. The disparity between the subjective and objective passage of time during a space fold increases with the distance traveled and disruptions in higher-dimensional space. Combat ranges are typically a few thousand to a few tens of thousands of kilometers to facilitate the use of small craft in space warfare, many of which can only achieve speeds of a few kilometers per second.

Step 1: Fleets would stare at each other.
Step 2: One side makes the first move hoping to wipe out a majority of the enemy in the first strike. This would be a single round of combat only (15 seconds).
Step 3a: Both fleets hold their respective lines. Re-run Step 2.
Step 3b: Fleets are now close enough to use missiles, launch mecha and gestures menancingly through viewports/hangerbays. Better suited to normal Palladium combat rules.
- Ships which do not possess the range for the first shot may still act in the first round if they are with the aggressor fleet.
- Ships which do not possess either sublight or space-fold capacity (ARMD platforms and Macross Cannons) only participate if the enemy moved toward them.
Step 4: One side is dead, or decides to disengage/withdraw.

The prevailing space warfare doctrine in the Macross II setting is a bit different from that.

1. Both fleets stand off from each other at a respectful/prudent distance.
2. Both fleets launch small craft (fighters and attackers) at each other to try to break through the enemy's defensive lines and prevent the enemy from breaking through theirs.[sup]3[/sup]
3A. If one side breaks through the enemy's lines, their fighters and attackers strike the enemy ships directly with the intention of disabling, destroying, or even just distracting the enemy ships.[sup]3[/sup]
3B. If neither side is able to break through, skip to 4.
4. Capital ships commence bombardment, in an effort to mop up the enemy before they can withdraw from the combat area by space fold. If a stalemate occurred, this can get pretty nasty or both sides can withdraw until they can gain then upper hand later.[sup]4[/sup]
5. One side is either wiped out or manages with escape.

That said, one of the many Palladium inaccuracies is claiming that types of ships don't possess fold systems. There is only one class of human warship that was not designed with a fold system, and that was their very first one... the Oberth-class space destroyer. Even the ARMD-class was designed with space fold capability, though the first eight ships of the class[sup]5[/sup] lacked their fold systems when they were launched due to delivery of the fold systems being delayed and their production timetable ramped up after the first Zentradi attack. All postwar ARMD-class ships were fold-capable, and the two surviving pre-war ARMD-class ships[sup]6[/sup] almost certainly received theirs once they became available. Palladium's RPG inexplicably tries to claim human ships don't have fold capability, despite the animation showing the Heracles defold onto the battle line in the very first episode.

The Marduk use space-fold twice in the anime to execute "surprise" attacks, once with their fleet against the U.N. Spacy and also when sending a Dreadnought to deal with one of their own ships which Ishtar had contaminated. Two ways PCs and their ship MIGHT survive such an attack:
- Rules-As-Written included hefty penalties for hitting smaller ships with the "big gun" type weapons, but only the U.N. spacecraft (human only) are small enough to qualify for this protection.
- The Players with skills such as Intelligence and Detect Ambush may get a roll to see such attacks coming. A good Sensory Systems roll might give adequate warning as well.

Palladium undersold the sizes of the human ships in Macross II, along with their capabilities by a pretty significant extent... most of them are at least a kilometer long, and the Macross Cannons remain the single largest human warship class in all of Macross at a whopping 6km long in gunboat mode and 4km long in storming attack mode.[sup]7[/sup]

Cross-dimensional radar can detect incoming space folds, so the latter would be the more likely take.[sup]8[/sup] A ship's fold system is a multipurpose device that gives it FTL transit capabilities via space fold, FTL communications via fold-wave radio, and cross-dimensional radar for long-range sensing and detection of fold phenomena.[sup]9[/sup]

Using a grid-style surface like a dry erase mat or an actual checkboard with pieces to represent either squadrons or actual ships, I think it might be doable. Has anyone else experimented with larger-scale battles?

I've used hex surfaces for it, since they lend themselves more to angular motion than square grid.

Also should be noted that sans some inertial compensation method humans (or even micronized Zentran/Meltran) would be crushed to death by the G Forces once we start talking about 50G or more.

Ships generally don't possess enough acceleration for that to be an issue, but nevertheless do include limited inertial compensation capabilities via the ship's gravity control system.



1. Warship-based beam weapons in Macross are pretty much exclusively dimensional weapons... the anti-warship turrets use the exact same technology as the main gun systems, just scaled down. Lasers, charged particle beams, and conventional plasma weapons are only used on small craft like battle pods, battle suits, and small reconnaissance craft.

2. The Mars Return Fleet that evacuated Salla Base in 2005 left Mars in August and was sunk on approach to Earth by a hijacked Oberth-class destroyer a month later in September. The SDF-1 Macross left Mars on 5 October 2009 and arrived on Earth in mid-November. Hibiki and Dennis's VC-079 presumably was carried to the Mars defense line by tagging along inside the fold effect of a UN Spacy warship departing Earth.

3. Due to having lost access to thermonuclear reaction warhead technology hundreds of thousands of years ago, the Zentradi, Meltrandi, and Mardook aren't as good at this part anymore. They can't reliably sink enemy ships with mecha alone, so they mostly fight to disable or distract. Humanity, on the other hand, independently re-invented thermonuclear reaction warheads and are VERY VERY good at using them to disrupt enemy formations and sink enemy warships with individual fighters or small groups of fighters.

4. The Zentradi and Meltrandi are VERY good at this part, thanks to the massive amount of armament their ships carry and the massive Mobile Fortress-type warships with main guns that can wipe out entire fleets in a single shot. Humanity is catching up slowly, their Macross Cannon-class ships are basically a mini mobile Grand Cannon and can take down whole branch fleets in one shot.

5. ARMD-01 Harlan J. Niven, ARMD-02 Invincible, ARMD-03 Enterprise, ARMD-04 Clemenceau, ARMD-05 Akagi, ARMD-06 Constellation, ARMD-07 Ranger, and ARMD-08 Midway.

6. ARMD-06 Constellation and ARMD-08 Midway, which were guarding Apollo Base and the L5 Manufacturing Station respectively.

7. Per the official writeup in Macross Chronicle, the next largest human warship was the Varauta system defense force's flagship that was taken over by the Protodeviln in Macross 7, which was 4.32km long but much less massive due to its odd horseshoe-shaped hull.

8. Mentioned as far back as the original series, first prominent depiction of use was in Macross Frontier.

9. The loss of its cross-dimension radar and fold communications capabilities along with its fold system was the reason the Earth Unification Government initially believed the Macross had been destroyed, and were unable to contact them until they came into boosted conventional radio range.

[ShadowLogan]

Ships generally don't possess enough acceleration for that to be an issue, but nevertheless do include limited inertial compensation capabilities via the ship's gravity control system.

Don't get me wrong I am not suggesting the ships have acceleration capabilities of 50G or more. I don't even think the story/animation suggests they do.

What I am saying though is that human body has limits in terms of G forces it can survive, which should be considered if one is looking at how long it would take the ships to accelerate to maximum velocity.

[foilfodder]

Reviewing stats for Zentran and Marduk ships they can have several weapon types that can strike the Earth from lunar orbit (200,000 miles). This seems impressive, until the speed entries for the ships are considered, which range from 0.10C to 0.20C (where C is the speed of light) or 300,000 miles per second to 550,000 miles per second.

Eh... to be brutally frank, the Palladium Books Macross II RPG is wildly inaccurate in almost every detail across all five books.

Zentran, Meltran, Mardook, and Human warships are all capable of bombardment at a range of approximately one light second with both the heavy "main gun" super dimension energy cannons and the smaller turret-based super dimension energy cannons that are their primary ship-to-ship armament.[sup]1[/sup] While it's theoretically not impossible for ships in Macross to achieve the kind of speeds cited in the RPG, it would take a very long time spent accelerating to reach those speeds and it would be a huge drain on the ship's fuel supplies and other stores. Long distance sublight travel is pretty inefficient in Macross, given that propellant used to generate thrust is plasma drawn from the ship's thermonuclear reaction furnaces. No ship with a working fold system would consider trying to travel something like an interplanetary distance on sublight power. Even getting from Mars to Earth takes about a month.[sup]2[/sup] Typical acceleration for a ship of the line is around 2G, at which it would take weeks of continuous acceleration to reach 0.1C.

Good point on accelleration. However, taking into account actual physics is a bit more involved than I'm willing to allow for my house-rules. Most "space-themed" anime series and RPGs "break" at that point. Physics includes momentum, constant thrust means accelleration instead of constant velocity. How can a ship turn it's bow if it only has rear-facing thrusters, etc. These are things anime typically ignores thus I am comfortable ignoring them for purpose of a game based on the anime.

[Seto Kaiba]

Don't get me wrong I am not suggesting the ships have acceleration capabilities of 50G or more. I don't even think the story/animation suggests they do.

What I am saying though is that human body has limits in terms of G forces it can survive, which should be considered if one is looking at how long it would take the ships to accelerate to maximum velocity.

Oh, I wasn't disagreeing with you... just adding a relevant point that complemented your own.

As you know, Macross takes a more realistic view of physics than most sci-fi anime and is only too willing to acknowledge the problems of the body's limits of g-force endurance. Nobody wants to end up as a patch of wall-gazpacho, or suffer a detached retina from decelerating too fast.

Good point on accelleration. However, taking into account actual physics is a bit more involved than I'm willing to allow for my house-rules. Most "space-themed" anime series and RPGs "break" at that point. Physics includes momentum, constant thrust means accelleration instead of constant velocity. How can a ship turn it's bow if it only has rear-facing thrusters, etc. These are things anime typically ignores thus I am comfortable ignoring them for purpose of a game based on the anime.

Macross is closer to the Universal Century Gundam end of the spectrum when it comes to realistic space physics. It gets zigzagged a bit when it comes to drawing how dogfights happen but otherwise they play space physics pretty straight. I do completely understand why, for sanity's sake, you'd want to avoid dealing with most of that. About the only game system I've played where that was worked in with even a modicum of grace was Battlefleet Gothic.

[jaymz]

Jovian chronicles did a decent job of realistic space movement using a 3 directional thrust vector system on a hex map with an option for "3d up/down" to be included if you wished (used a die to mark the up down variable)

[ShadowLogan]

Good point on accelleration. However, taking into account actual physics is a bit more involved than I'm willing to allow for my house-rules. Most "space-themed" anime series and RPGs "break" at that point. Physics includes momentum, constant thrust means acceleration instead of constant velocity.

I don't think acceleration necessarily breaks anime/RPGs, most try to keep withing the viewers frame of reference, and most people are familiar with the basics of acceleration though perhaps not practical limits.

So while the ships do list a very high maximum speed, those values likely are not going to be practical for what you are doing, limiting the ships to their auxiliary "Mach" speeds (or a multiple of it) would seem to be reasonable and work well with the "Mach" capable fighter/mecha deployments seen else the mecha would quickly drop away as they could not maintain the high speed of the starships.

How can a ship turn it's bow if it only has rear-facing thrusters, etc. These are things anime typically ignores thus I am comfortable ignoring them for purpose of a game based on the anime.

I can think of a few ways actually:
-thrust vectoring
-reaction control wheels (the Hubble Space Telescope uses these for attitude control to point the space telescope, along with another non-propellant method*)
-non-animated thrusters (most obvious)
-magnetic "sail" (basically it replaces the big reflective surface of a solar sail with a magnetic field)
-gyroscopes

*https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/hubble-space-telescope-pointing-control-system

[foilfodder]

How can a ship turn it's bow if it only has rear-facing thrusters, etc. These are things anime typically ignores thus I am comfortable ignoring them for purpose of a game based on the anime.

I can think of a few ways actually:
-thrust vectoring
-reaction control wheels (the Hubble Space Telescope uses these for attitude control to point the space telescope, along with another non-propellant method*)
-non-animated thrusters (most obvious)
-magnetic "sail" (basically it replaces the big reflective surface of a solar sail with a magnetic field)
-gyroscopes

*https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/hubble-space-telescope-pointing-control-system

Great if I go on to designing my own RPG or spacecraft or mecha I will take a look. For now exactly how* craft are space-worthy is more detail than is needed to be included in the house rules I am putting together.

*In-show examples

Spoiler:

Early in the Macross tv show Roy talks about the fighters being able to "fly" in space. In a few scenes we actually what appear to to reverse thrusters on the fighters. There are also the side thrusters the A.R.M.D Platforms use during the initial battle in Earth orbit. So the writers and animators did put more effort in than typical for the time period.

[jaymz]

Great if I go on to designing my own RPG or spacecraft or mecha I will take a look. For now exactly how* craft are space-worthy is more detail than is needed to be included in the house rules I am putting together.

*In-show examples

Spoiler:

Early in the Macross tv show Roy talks about the fighters being able to "fly" in space. In a few scenes we actually what appear to to reverse thrusters on the fighters. There are also the side thrusters the A.R.M.D Platforms use during the initial battle in Earth orbit. So the writers and animators did put more effort in than typical for the time period.

Macross and Gundam were very ahead of their time for doing more realistic tech and such back in the day and still are in many respects. I would dare say it is why they are the two preeminent mecha anime franchises in existence well ahead of any others.

[Seto Kaiba]

Great if I go on to designing my own RPG or spacecraft or mecha I will take a look. For now exactly how* craft are space-worthy is more detail than is needed to be included in the house rules I am putting together.

Well, for most intents and purposes, you can keep your houserules relatively simple yet in line with the Macross source material by treating the overwhelming majority of ship-to-ship combat as two (or more) stationary fleets that move only by space fold. You can essentially ignore any kind of momentum rules, since ships have low top speeds and low acceleration to conserve fuel, and actual maneuvering during engagements is usually limited to straightline advances when one side has a clear advantage.

*In-show examples

Spoiler:

Early in the Macross tv show Roy talks about the fighters being able to "fly" in space. In a few scenes we actually what appear to to reverse thrusters on the fighters. There are also the side thrusters the A.R.M.D Platforms use during the initial battle in Earth orbit. So the writers and animators did put more effort in than typical for the time period.

Yeah, Macross's creators put a lot of thought into HOW things worked in their show's setting... far more than the average anime creators do. Only Gundam's Universal Century goes farther in depicting realistic maneuvering in space. You'll notice most human ships have visible thrust reversers or whole sets of engine nozzles for braking and the more advanced Zentradi ships tend to rely upon their verniers to decelerate. The VFs have multiple ways to go about decelerating, like dedicated braking verniers on the outside of the engine intakes, thrust vectoring verniers on the rest of the airframe, reorienting the engines, and later models had thrust reversers as well.

[Peacebringer]

Leviathan is very similar to Robotech fleet-battles but it can take a long, long time to resolve; just use Full Thrust and adapt it to Robotech. I have Chameleon Electric's Babylon 5: Earth Force Source book and it uses a variation of Full Thrust; check it out on the web (ship sheets). Full Thrust I recommend because you can resolve battles fast, even without the players participating and you can have an idea how the battle will go and better GM the players.

[Fenris2020]

Star trek attack wing would be easier to use....

I use Battlefleet Gothic (Warhammer 40K universe)