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As I read it they are effectively a 3 point shield that is not halfed or ignored by special weapons or fighters. Points for points it is a lot cheaper than a 3 point shield.
I'm not sure what you mean by this... a PDS has a x2 multiplier, which is the same as the shields 3 multiplier... :?:
As for the destroyer itself, it seems pretty effective. Though I've noticed that there's been a push towards much larger destroyers recently. In the first book a big destroyer was 3 Hull Spaces- now this new Japanese design is a big some of the light crusiers!
This is going to happen; heck my experience with Starmada tells me that y'all won't be happy until a battleship can have 50 hull.. 
Seriously... there's bound to be some size creep, especially in the smaller classes. But at the same time, this is going to be a fleet-specific thing; what the Japanese might consider a destroyer (albeit a large one), another nation might call a light cruiser. This happened in the age of sail all the time -- the US Navy was notorious for "mislabeling" its ships, annoying the Brits to no end...
But as long as the combat rating remains reliable, it really won't matter if my DDs are smaller than yours...
Geez Louiz :shock:
There is officially ONE ship published in Southern Front that has Lightning Projectors. I have forwarded ONE ship unofficially that has them. And suddenly we're blending fleets together?
Okay, Matt... consider this an official request to chill out.
I remind everyone that nothing is official until it's in print. Things posted to this forum are just different people testing out various design philosophies, looking for feedback, etc.
I think the question of how fleets will maintain their individuality is an important one -- but I also agree with Matt that there's nothing to really worry about... yet...
So, keep the designs coming!
Honest to goodness, we need someone with no interest in being involved in the game writing any review. There's a conflict of interest that could pop up if we have someone write a review and then their name pops up in the next supplement, which I think is gonna happen as folks like your Greek and French designs.
Err... even if I thought that was a problem (which I don't), I doubt it would be possible to find a player who is enthusiastic enough to write a review who hasn't also considered writing stuff that might be included at a later date.
In other words, go for it John!
(Note: although the two ships have values outside the accepted norm, we both wanted to see how they would fare against each other)
Nice report! Obviously, things worked out as they should, considering relative point values, but sounds like fun anyway...
What was the final point tally? i.e., how many hull hits did Guido get in before she died?
From Kevin on the Yahoo! group:
> Well, lately I've been thinking about putting together a
> Grand Fleets supplement. What I'm envisioning is an
> additional mix scenarios from WW I and WW II. These scenarios
> can be historical, or hypothetical "what-ifs." So here's the
> chance for all five of you who bought the gameto be able
> to have some input on what scenarios you'd like to see. I've
> got some ideas on what would be good scenarios to include,
> but I'd like to hear from you all out there.
Shouldn't SOME Germanic/Scandinavian ships be called 'Odin', or 'Thor', perhaps 'Wotan'? Dan called some SOVIET ship 'Perun', which was the Slavic God of Thunder/ Thor equivalent. The Soviets were aetheists. :-/
"Dan" didn't name any of the Soviet ships anything... that's all Matt, who had a pretty good reason for using mythological names on Soviet ships.
Matt?
Fragmentation Warheads - you could also use them against FAC's - or any small, unarmored targets.
Hey, now there's an idea... a weapon that counts the target's armour value as DOUBLE.
This would encourage its use against smaller, lightly armoured targets (such as "subs") but make them less useful against larger "surface" targets.
Myself, I'd vote for the former option. Maybe the "charge" emits energy that causes feedback in the inviso-field/sub-ether dynamo/whatever, rather than actually causing physical damage through explosive force...
I guess I was thinking that the "depth charges" would be less accurate than normal weapons, and so while they could be used against "surface" targets, it's kind of a waste.
e.g., a "depth charge" could merely be a D6 torpedo with a 3" AoE and a +1 to the overall to-hit number.
I'll add I'd also love ship fluff. I can deal with the timeline not going forward, but just a book of stats seems kinda flat. Even a couple of short paragraphs for each design would be plenty. If you need volunteers....
It was my intention to have some fluff, if not for each ship, then definitely a page or two on each fleet.
One possible way to avoid having all the fleets start to look alike is to have a contest, similar to that done for SX: Brigade. It certainly seems as though there's no lack of people willing to do up ship stats for various powers.
> There's also the possibility that some countries would not
> invest in a etherfleet, even if they were interested in a
> traditional wet navy.
>
> Personally, I'd love to see fewer ships, fewer nations
> involved in ether ship building. It helps to create a feeling
> of how difficult this process really is, and that the
> etherfleets are going to be draining money from traditional
> fleets. I'd imagine some poorer nations might become even
> more interested in wet-navy building, sensing a growing
> vacuum of power on the high seas.
A valid concern, and an interesting possibility.
However, I do believe that the nations we currently have in space all have very good reasons for being there... and some others clearly have to be there as well (USA, France).
But I will try to rein in the number of combatants.
> That having been said, we've already broken this particular
> analogy, as China is in space in IS, but did not have a
> sizeable navy at the time in question.
> ==========
>
> Ah, but that's just because the term "torpedo junk" was too
> good to pass up.
Indeed it is...
Anything new on this project?
Sadly, no.
> I don't think there should necessarily be a correlation
> between wet navy dreadnought capability and ether capability.
> In other words, it might just be a little harder designing or
> procurring ether ships than it would be designing or
> procurring wet navy ships.
> So to answer your question, I don't think you should use
> Janes (or Conways, which I personally like better
> judge a nation's ether capabilities.
Point taken. But the size of a nation's wet navy is a good indication of how much it is able (and willing) to devote to its military -- so I think a correlation of some kind can be made.
I'm not saying that if a nation has 5 dreadnoughts then it should have 5 ether-dreadnoughts; I am saying that a nation that was able to put dreadnoughts "in the field" is likely to be able to have the resources for an ether fleet as well.
That having been said, we've already broken this particular analogy, as China is in space in IS, but did not have a sizeable navy at the time in question.
In an attempt to answer my own question, here are the navies that I can find who had (or almost had) "dreadnought"-type battleships in 1914-1915. It would seem reasonable to presume that countries with the wherewithal to acquire such ships would also have some type of ether fleet:
Argentina
Australia*
Austria-Hungary
Brazil
Britain
Chile
Germany
Greece*
Japan
Italy
France*
Netherlands*
New Zealand*
Russia (Red)
Russia (White)
Spain
Turkey
United States*
*indicates a country not yet represented "officially" in Iron Stars.
Any others? Does this seem like an exhaustive list of who "should" be in space?
Okay... I think I've decided that the next IS supplement will be a ship book, with little to no actual fluff. Easier to do, and will help us flesh out the state of the world before the Great War.
Obviously, it's difficult to say we'll be "historically accurate" considering the impact of the Martian Invasion and the fact that we've got etherships to begin with... but it seems to me that the relative sizes of the world's fleets should be roughly akin to the relative sizes of their historical sea-going navies.
Having said that, how deep should we go?
It's entirely possible that I can open up my Jane's Fighting Ships of WW1 and pull the sizes of every navy on Earth, and then create IS fleets for each-- that might be cool, but do we really need to give an ether-dreadnought to every country that had a yacht with a 3" gun on the bow?
So I guess I'm asking, what's a reasonable "cutoff" for nations to have an ether fleet of any appreciable size?
For the first scenario I can't see the Turks just destroying a Greek freighter out of hand.
Why not? Can't trust those Ottomans... turn your back on 'em and they'll sweep into the back of your knees...
(See, 'cause I'm making a joke about the furniture "ottoman"... get it...?)
Seriously, these are just scenarios for the fun of it; they don't have to make historical sense, right?
The second scenario is a pretty straightforward slugfest. Maybe remove the Aguirre and one or two of the Casma and change the scenario to the Chileans trying to destroy the Indepencia on it's post-delivery workup cruise in order to send a message. The Peruvians just need to get the Indepencia out alive.
I like this change, however, as it gives some tactical depth to the scenario.
http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=76997
I wonder who we contact to run a Grand Fleets demo on HMS Belfast?
You really think restricting torp launch rate is a non-factor? Our torpedo boats/destroyers always seem to empty their tubes all at once around here, on the assumption that they won't live long enough to get two chances at a good salvo. Maybe that's just our play style, though.
Perhaps "non-factor" is an overstatement, but I don't know quite how to quantify it.
Which, in practice, is the same thing. 
Overgunned - Every time the ship fires a Keel Bombard or more than 1/2 of its Primaries in one turn, it suffers a x1 damage roll (d20) as it shakes itself to pieces. Reduce OR contribution of Keel Bombards and Primaries by ?
Maybe weapons' OR x0.75?
Clumsy - Ship makes turns as though it were the next size category larger. Not available for VL hulls. Reduce DR by ?
DR x0.77
Poor Turret Layout - Ship can never fire more than 1/2 of its Primaries at a single target. Reduce OR contribution of Primaries by ?
Primaries OR x0.67
Poor Tube Layout - Ship can fire only 1/2 or its Torpedoes in a single turn. Reduce OR contribution of Torpedoes by ?
Don't know that this would really have an impact...
Vulnerable Gun Mounts - Some or all of the ship's guns are vulnerable to magazine flashbacks. Any damage scored against an affected gun wrecks that mount *and* triggers another (d20) damage roll...which can destroy another Vulnerable gun and trigger another damage roll, ad infinitum. Reduces DR by ? Or maybe OR contribution of the chosen gun(s)?
This would depend upon the percent chance of rolling the affected guns on the damage track. i.e., if the guns come up 5 of 20 times, then the DR should be reduced by 20/25.
Good way to add a little more character, and to reflect the often-shoddy nature of experimental naval architecture.
I like the idea... any more suggestions?
Also, would these be chosen by the designer, or might they be tied to certain design choices -- i.e., perhaps the "overgunned" flaw shows up if you have more than X weapons on a size Y ship...
subs don't go invisible... they use their surroundings and slow careful behavior with tactics to try and be sneaky. the other side has to use tactics and technology to crack the surroundings to find the opponent. it is a challenge. subs are never untouchable, never out of reach... it is a matter of thinking, planning and tactics :twisted:
cloak is... "poof"! you can't see me.
I'm picturing the mechanics being more along the lines of wet-navy submarines; see the sub rules in Grand Fleets, rather than the cloak rules in Starmada.
But tech-wise, I cannot conceive of any way to explain the existence of such beasts without a "cloak" of some sort.
I agree that making bender ability like a "cloak" would ruin it.
And the hard idea of "submersing" is just a bit much.
I'm not sure I'm getting the reason why the "cloak"-type ability would be a Bad Thing.
After all, the whole point of the cloaking device's creation (in Star Trek, at least) was to allow a sub-hunt-type story.
We're looking for a way that "subs" can hide until they strike; since the concept of "submerging" doesn't make sense in space, you have to go with some type of invisibility.
Looks like someone has done at least the EDF:
http://www.star-ranger.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1266
Maybe we can get him to crosspost over here...
Has anybody tried to convert the starblazers ship stats to starmada? Patrick
Whoa... deja vu...
http://mj12games.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=773
> I think taking ships off the board is a bad idea. I've never
> liked that mechanic, especially in a miniatures game with no
> board (hexes or squares). It leaves too much interpretation
> for "movement fudging."
> Keep the ships on the board.
Agreed.
I guess what I was thinking was a little bit of both... where you leave the ship mini where it was at the time it "submerged", and then tracked the expanding circle within which it could be hiding. When the ship attacks or "surfaces", the owning player puts it somewhere within this radius, and the process starts over.
Or is that too abstract?
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