I've got three suggestions- On One Hand: WEG's Star Wars: Second Edition (Darth Vader cover) . Combat is pretty simple - as is the rest of the system. Everything is based around rolling six sided dice and space combat uses pretty much the same system as regular combat, just with different scales. I picked Second Edition as I seem to recall there being descriptions of various maneuvers you can pull in your starship during combat. Second Edition Revised and Expanded (the book that survived my games) doesn't have as many rules, but what it has works. Normally, I'd point you in the direction of the free D6 Space also by WEG, but from a cursory look at the table of contents, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot about space combat - which is odd given that it's a direct descendant of Star Wars. It's gonna give you a space opera kind of feel; very WWII dogfight in space. On the Other Hand: Stars Without Number . It starts off as a B/X era D&D smashed up with Classic Traveller. It gives you some construction guidelines to build ships and then some rules for combat. Combat is abstract and turns many in-game hours into a few turns. Stealth and detection play an important role in combat - more so than other systems I've seen - and it nails the maneuvering aspect of sci fi combat where the starships are largely submarine stand ins. Where the core book is free, there's a payware supplement ( Skyward Steel ) that details what exactly each department is doing during combat and how that effects it. It also goes into some description of what a space navy might look like from the inside. On the Gripping Hand: GURPS Classic Space (for Third Edition). You won't necessarily need the rest of GURPS for this, but the third edition GURPS Lite might be handy to fill in blank spots. There's a little spaceship construction system - cut down from GURPS Vehicles and much more user friendly - you choose from a list of maneuvers, determine the effects from skill rolls and follow the course of the battle. The effect winds up being a very cinematic and zippy sort of affair. It doesn't seem very tactical (contrasting with the rest of GURPS) but would do the job. And a bonus suggestion even though I wanted to use the above reference to The Mote in God's Eye series: Warcosm by Precis Intermedia . It's a fleet based space wargame and I've honestly never even read it; I don't own it yet. However, the guys who made it are stand up people who turn out really good product regularly. I try never to pass up and opportunity to shill for them.
