Welcome!

FWIW, I moved your topic from "Game Design" to "Starmada". The Game Design board is more about designing NEW games, not discussion of tactics in existing games.

All of this is true. While I haven't gone to the extent of 1000 missiles, this design is simple enough:

Munchkin MIGHTY MITE-class Uber-Frigate (278)
 
Hull: 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1
Engines: 5-4-3-2-1
Weapons: 323-259-194-130-65
Shields: 3-3-2-2-1
 
Mini Missile (MA 6) 1×6+/1/1 (Exp)
323x ABCDEF // (162)

This may seem impressive, but consider:

On average...

323 will be fired, but only 54 of those will hit (not counting defensive fire).
Of those, 27 will be blocked by an average shield rating (3).
Of those, only 14 will cause hull damage.

So, this design can be reasonably confident of eliminating one CA-sized target in a single volley; after which, it is useless.

Broken? Maybe. But given a game or two, I'm sure any competent opponent can find a way of countering it.

Fun to play? Not really. And that, frankly, is the ultimate answer to any attempt to min-max the game; "Is it fun to play and/or play against?"

Welcome back!

Well, you asked what you were missing, and I told you. If it's not enough to sway you, so be it.

In the end, you don't have to move away from Admiralty. The Starmada police aren't going to kick in your door for playing an "outdated" edition (I believe there are still some Compendium advocates out there somwhere). That's the reason I included the Backwards Compatibility rules; those who absolutely love Admiralty (or Nova) can meet up with Unity players and play with little to no problem.

As far as ELINT/mutual support go, I think that should be a separate discussion topic.

(Idle curiosity... Are you the same Weirdo from the ADB/FedCom Forum?)

You should buy it because it is 99.44% perfect, which is more than 98%.

...

Oh, you want more detail?

Unity builds more upon Admiralty than upon Nova, it is true, but there are some Nova refinements involved. It's not strictly an update to Admiralty. That being said, I suppose the rules modifications COULD have been presented in Rules Annex II, but for a couple things:

1) That still would have required you to buy another book.

2) Presenting it as "(Admiralty) Rules Annex II" would have implicitly maintained the Admiralty/Nova split, which was the primary problem this edition is meant to address in the first place. It is called UNITY, after all.

What can't you live without?

A) A finely-crafted rules set taking what was best from each prior iteration of the game and building something even better. A comprehensive sequence of play is provided, and the rules are fully cross-referenced.

B) Our most streamlined and balanced construction/point-costing system to date.

C) Dedicated seeking weapons.

D) Six brand-new scenario templates, adding to the six from previous editions.

E) 48 sample ship displays from 14 different fleets across five separate universes.

If that isn't worth $13, I don't know what else to tell you.

Very nice!

Honestly, I wouldn't even know where to begin...

Thanks, KDL!

Obviously, you're free to house-rule anything you want. However, allowing fire-linked to auto-hit all weapons in a multi-weapon mount would unbalance the point costs.

I didn't think it was strictly necessary, what with the backwards compatibility rules.

The reason "Halves Shields" didn't make the cut is that there is no difference between it and Piercing +2 except at a shield rating of 3. I'd default to Pr2 when converting.

Not a bad idea. Another option is to multiply ROF by a value based on ACC:

6+ = x1; 5+ = x1.5; 4+ = x2.0; 3+ = x2.5; 2+ = x3

Or, just double the ROF.

This is more difficult, since the effectiveness of Increased Impact depends upon the target's shield rating.

I'd just double the IMP.

All of the equipment space costs are based on the median Engine/Shield Factors, which are 8.33% and 4.17% of total space, respectively. Thus, a cloaking device requires 2.4x the shield factor, or a median of 10%.

I felt small ships previously had too easy of a time accessing advanced tech. If you want a more accurate conversion, I would suggest using TLs.

You mean Admiralty screens? Why would you not convert them as directional shields?