[Glax Vane] Welcome to Galactic News Central, broadcasting live across Unity space. Tonight I’m joined by designer Mike Hutchinson to talk about the upcoming release of A Billion Suns: Second Edition, his game of galaxy-spanning interstellar fleet combat.

[Mike Hutchinson] Thanks Glax, it’s great to be here.

[Glax Vane] The first edition of the game was praised for its unique multi-table gameplay and its economic engine, but some admirals found their first command a bit intimidating. What were the biggest friction points you wanted to eliminate in Second Edition?

[Mike Hutchinson] The core gimmick of the first edition was that you start with nothing on the table, and buy in your fleet on-the-fly as the game unfolds. This was cool as heck, but it had two downsides. Firstly, you didn’t know what miniatures you needed to buy and paint before you sat down for your first game, making hobby prep for the game kind of confusing. Secondly, the on-the-fly economic decisions presented a steep learning curve before you even got to learn how to move your ships and fire your lasers. 

[Glax Vane] That core combat system was praised for its elegance (even if some people object to rolling low!) Has much changed in it?

[Mike Hutchinson] The core combat system remains intact. You roll funny-shaped dice to attack, trying to roll under the target’s Silhouette value. A huge battleship might have a Silhouette of 9 whereas a starfighter might have a Silhouette of 3. Light weapons might roll D6 attack dice, whereas super-heavy weapons roll D12s. This means that it’s easier to hit small targets with smaller guns. It’s near-guaranteed to hit bigger ships with your small arms fire, but they can easily shrug them off.

I am really proud of the core combat system of A Billion Suns, and I want more people to be able to experience it, even if they don’t fancy the tax-returns-in-space elements of the original gameplay. 

The more I thought about this, the more I realised that my real goal with A Billion Suns: Second Edition was to  provide the ultimate spaceship miniatures toolkit. I wanted to make the onboarding easier, but I also wanted you to be able to play out any kind of spaceship gaming trope that you wanted, and provide awesome support for all of it right there in the book. If you want to push some ships together and blow each other up, or play out daring narrative missions of rebellion and rescue, you can do that in the Second Edition. (You can also be an evil space-CEO, that part of the game remains for those brave enough to dig down to it).

[Glax Vane] There’s a few evil space-CEOs in our studio audience breathing a sigh of relief. How did you balance the tension between wanting a game that’s easy to get into while also being the ultimate spaceship miniatures toolkit?

[Mike Hutchinson] I introduced two tutorial scenarios: Combat Simulator and Management Training, to let you jump in and figure out the core of the game mechanics using a small, standardised training fleet. I restructured the book into four Eras of Play (Armageddon, Age of Unity, Hypergrowth, and Junkspace). These act as distinct game modes, changing the game from a straight battle game into a narrative space opera into a cutthroat economic struggle. They also allowed me to explore different eras of galactic history, providing space for the iconic types of sci-fi stories we all want to play. This lets new players start with the straightforward fleet combat of Armageddon before working their way up to the more complex economic or narrative modes of Age of Unity and Hypergrowth.

[Glax Vane] Exciting stuff! Stay tuned for more over the next few weeks as we dig into these Eras of Play and learn about what each offers in terms of gameplay, factions, missions and campaign systems. In the meantime, how can people get stuck in right now?

[Mike Hutchinson] We are offering a completely free Quick Start Rules PDF, providing a flavour of the core mechanics (it’s actually a simplified version of the Management Training tutorial scenario). It also comes complete with some free STLs, taken from the upcoming official miniatures range from Taiga Creative. Download it here.

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A Billion Suns: Second Edition brings back the beloved ruleset for epic space fleet battles with a revised and improved hardback edition with new illustrations by Juan Richard Feliz and Rob Turpin. 

Pre-order your copy today!

08th December (US) // 10th December (UK) 

Keep your communicators open as we’ve got more previews coming to the blog over the next few weeks.