What about designing the Vorlon weapons as several "smaller" weapons with fire-linked? I don't know exactly what yours look like, but IIRC Vorlon lightning cannons kind of combined from multiple arrays to form one powerful beam. Yes, more weapons means more weapon hits, but if you use repair rules on top of that your chances of getting some back increases, no?
Cheers,
Erik

Hey Paul, maybe the H-E-S glyphs could be "simplified" somehow? They seem a bit busy, and in the case of the Hull and Engine glyphs, not terribly obvious. I like obvious    Still, better than anything I could have come up with!
Cheers,
Erik

Maybe just a single "glyph" for each of H/E/S, like a heading, followed by numerals?
Erik

The absolute drop dead simplest way I can think of is to use the forward (#1) FC shield/10 as a base, then for shots that enter the rear areas (JKL arcs) count shield rating as 1 less (minimum 1) to model how the shields are typically "thinner" in those zones. Just use a standard shield track on the ship chart.
Cheers,
Erik

Is that the Primus variant assault ship? If it is I remember that having 4 Heavy Arrays up front. Either way with an assault ship the guns should be secondary to the troops. The original B5wars TAs were longer ranged (on par with other light guns like the Standard Particle Beam) but AoG shortened them up because they made the Centauri ships buzz saws because of the high ROF and FC. Ideally TAs should give the ships better defenses because of their excellent qualities as an interceptor and should chop up fighters. If ships get close they still have those buzz saw qualities, they just can't reach out and touch you anymore    The Centauri 3 primary weapons are the Battle Laser, Matter Cannon, and Twin Array, but there are so many light ships and variants that mount things like plasma accelerators, heavy arrays, torpedo launchers, plasma streams, etc, that the fleet as a whole has a lot of weapon options, they just don't put them all on one ship at a time...that is for the EA and Narn to do!
Cheers,
Erik

You know, even if I have deluded myself into thinking that the Starmada combat mechanics work on some level...I have enjoyed the playing of the games. I personally raise questions all the time about game mechanics, and have come up with some house rules that have worked for me, and others that I have found that don't work. I chirp as much as anyone when I feel that I have something to add. I just can't understand how someone can read a set of rules, and particularly a major component of the combat system, and decide that somehow the game designer screwed up what he intended to release to the public. Like it was somehow an early edit, or maybe a variant that made it into the final product like some kind of typo. Jeez.

Even if you show there is no difference in the value of ROF v. IMP v. DMG where ship-ship combat is concerned (and frankly, I don't have ANY simulations or math to back them up...I honestly don't want to hear about simulations...any sim as only as good as the data and parameters being fed into it by the programmer, and frankly ignores that fact that any player will tell you he always rolls a 1 when it can do the most harm to his chances of winning!) the whole argument disintegrates when you add fighters/small craft to the mix. As the rules are written not only is high IMP & DMG of absolutely zero value versus fighters, it can even be argued that it hurts you as it eats up space that might otherwise be used for more ROF or even whole weapons that would be able to kill more fighters. That's got to be worth something unless you ban fighters altogether.

So basically why am I chiming in? Basically, for whatever warts Starmada has it has proven itself to me as a fun and playable game that doesn't require a PhD in gamology to play. I have played games that have manuals larger that the big dictionary in my office...and guess what, those games weren't perfect. The rules of Starmada are incredibly streamline when compared to things like Starfire, B5Wars, Star Fleet Battles, so it stands to reason that people can find imperfections lurking in them. Did I mention that I have often and perhaps obnoxiously fired off ideas for house rules on this forum? Do I think everyone here (this forum) has a right to point out things that might make the game better? Yup. I think that all of us flinging stuff against the wall helps Cricket make his game better over time, which benefits us as players. I sat back, reading the posts on this topic, to see if there was going to be a reason why the system was broken, hoping that if it was then it could be fixed. So far I have not sen any evidence that it is the case. It may not do what one person thinks it should, but is that broken? I am an utter total loser geek (ok, so I own my own home and don't live in my parent's basement...and yes, I have kissed a girl...wow, I guess I have lost my edge over the years) so I guess at some level I don't care if ROF IMP and DMG are all statistically, exactly the same. When my imagination shows me a rapid-fire pulse laser ripping away at the enemy's hull, I want high ROF, but if I fire my spinal Blast Destructor, I want high DMG.
To sum up: Nothing's perfect, and until you put your game on the market and it turns out to be better than Dan's, I'll be playing his.

Erik

It should have Stealth as the Jammer works against the vast majority of races, and First One races will have to have some offsetting advantage. You can justify its use pretty simply I think...even in B5Wars you could shoot the NL, then shut it down in favor of the Jammer while running in to strafe with the Molecular Pulsars. There are also examples of Trekmada ships that have all of the systems available in FC/SFB even though they couldn't power them all at once in the original game.
Just my opinion of course,
Erik

I'm actually right there with Marc...space is big and empty, and that's a really good reason why fleets don't meet, especially if one side wants to avoid the other. Near a planet, asteroids, or perhaps a place of special resources, there might be something I think is worth defending, which means if you want to get it we're going to rumble. Besides, count me as one of those people that just think terrain adds a lot of tactical "flavor" to a scenario/battle. 
Cheers,
Erik

Personally I dislike player designs without limitations. Too often it turns into a "rock-paper-scissors" game. I try to stick to conversions of existing backgrounds or I try to work with the other player(s) on an agreed upon set of maximums/limitations. For example, MadSeason and I played several extremely enjoyable games last year in which we placed hard caps on fighter defense, weapon ranges, piercing(x) among other things. In addition, we even placed limitations on how we could alter our designs after playing games, so it was possible to "fix" a problem to some degree, but some design shortcomings that came to light had to be lived-with to some degree. The short campaign we played became less a contest of design philosophy, but of finding tactics that worked best for the ships we had already come up with versus exploiting the weaknesses of the other player fleet. I know there will always be players who's enjoyment comes from the design process and trying to find that perfect combination of systems and traits, and its great that Starmada is a game that gives them as much enjoyment as it brings me, though I personally disagree with the R-P-S approach.
& That's my 2 cents,
Erik

Fighter defense has come up a number of times with the couple of people I occasionally play with and I have played around with it, especially when converting fighter heavy backgrounds. I like having fighters that are tougher for other fighters to take on, but I don't like the way that there toughness translates against ships. To extend your analogy: an American Hellcat fighter from WWII was much "tougher" with integral armoring, self-sealing fuel tanks etc...than the Japanese A6M Zeke, but either of them tangles with a 5/38 cal anti-aircraft gun (a relatively speaking small warship gun, which if firing AA rounds had little value against a warship), they both lose ugly.
Cheers,
Erik

Did I mention that it was a dumb trait idea?    Honestly, it was to represent a specific weapon conversion, and wasn't something I was looking to manipulate into a game-winning formula. In the end it is probably something that won't ever see the light of day...my gaming is restricted to my underground lair after all.
Thanks for the good points!
Erik