Glad you approve.

Unity edition sequence of play.

BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY

One of the things we haven't talked about yet is the fact that the Unity Rulebook includes guidelines for using ships designed for previous editions alongside those for the new edition. Indeed, as I mention in the designer's notes, trying to "unify" the two previous editions was the impetus for developing the new rules in the first place.

Admiralty ships can be used as-is, with only a handful of tweaks to certain ship options (for example, Regeneration hasn't been added to the new edition yet, while the number of Anti-Fighter Batteries must be adjusted).

Nova ships require a little bit of massaging, based on a proposal I had floated a while back to re-introduce a damage roll to the process. In short, the middle section of hull boxes become "system boxes" instead, which regulate the timing of loss checks. The damage roll itself is simple: 1-3=Hull Hit; 4-5=System Hit; 6=No Effect.

One thing that didn't make the transition was customized fighter flights; while I am not precluding their reintroduction later, I want to be very careful how that is done. I felt that Admiralty was becoming far too fighter-focused, so with Unity all fighter flights are converted to standard flights (one flight per 50 pts. of fighter capacity). However, the Unity Rulebook does include a half-dozen fighter flight variants which hopefully will fill the void until some playtesting can be done on others.

Index page.

Still hoping the PDF will be available by the end of this month, with print copies available shortly thereafter.

COMBAT

Yesterday, I discussed how starships (and fighter flights) will move in the upcoming Unity edition. One thing I failed to mention is that plotted starship movement is being put back in the main rules, after having been relegated to an optional rule in Nova. Fighters will activate alternately, as always.

Anyway, with movement becoming simultaneous once again, that meant it makes sense for combat to also be simultaneous. Players alternate declaring and resolving attacks, but damage is not applied until the Combat Phase has ended.

Obviously, combat resolution was the area in which Nova most diverged from traditional Starmada; ever since version 3.0, there had been a direct correlation between the number of weapons firing and the number of dice rolled. For example, a ROF-2 weapon always rolled two dice; variability was accounted for by modifiers to each die roll. In Nova, this changed. There was still a correlation between the number of weapons and the POTENTIAL number of dice rolled; however, modifiers did not apply to individual die results. Instead, each die was always successful on a 5 or 6; increased/decreased accuracy was reflected by altering the number of dice. This works exceptionally well in MJ12's Grand Fleets game -- and the ability to smooth out the effectiveness curve appealed to the math geek in me (in Nova, a +1 modifier always meant an increase in effectiveness of 40%; this was not the case in other editions of the game).

However cool and efficient this mechanic may be, it resulted in some admittedly kludgy applications when it came to non-ship weapons (such as mines and fighter flights). More importantly, it didn't allow players the flexibility to differentiate between low-ROF, high-accuracy weapons and vice versa. For a game that prides itself on universality and the ability to mimic any setting, this proved to be a significant drawback.

Thus, with Unity, we are returning to pre-Nova Starmada: each weapon rolls X dice to-hit against the ACC stat, with modifiers applied to the result of each die.

The shield roll never really changed: although it was expressed as a "saving throw" in Nova rather than a "number to exceed", the mechanic was the same, and it remains so in Unity, albeit going back to a numerical rating instead of dice icons.

Once hits have been scored, and confirmed against the shields, damage must be resolved. This brings us to the other major change in Nova: the elimination of the damage roll. As I confessed in my designer's notes in the rulebook (also published in ADB's CL#52) this was a mistake. I can bore you with the reasons why I did it in the first place, or I can just tell you the damage location roll is back.

1-3: Check off one hull box. Once all hull boxes are gone, the ship goes "BOOM".

4: Check off one box on the engine track. As the number in this track is reduced, the ship slows down.

5: Check off one box on the weapons track. As the number in this track is reduced, the controlling player must remove the appropriate number of weapons. For example, if the number on the track drops from 12 to 10, two weapons must be damaged. The specific weapons damaged is up to the player, with the limitation that no battery may lose more weapons than indicated by its loss limit until all batteries have reached their loss limits.

6: Check off one box on the shield track. As the number in this track is reduced, the ship's shield rating is lowered.

Damage resolution is governed by the four tracks on the card: Hull, Engine, Weapons, and Shields.

When the Hull track is completely marked off, the ship goes boom. (Like in every other version of the game.)

The Engine and Shield tracks indicate the loss of speed and defenses, respectively. (Like in Admiralty.)

The Weapons track is new: the number on the track indicates how many individual weapons remain operational. As these boxes are checked off, the ship must eliminate the appropriate number of weapons. For example, when the Coronation BC checks off two weapons boxes, it must lose five weapons (17 - 12). Equipment (indicated by damage bubbles) are considered "weapons" for this purpose. The numbers in parentheses are "loss limits" and prevent players from choosing all of the weakest weapons first.

Yes. Both standard shields and screens (what Nova called "armor") can be divided into four defensive arcs: forward, port, starboard, and aft.

I plan to give some more details on what this new edition means in terms of gameplay in a day or two, but let me try to address the larger question now:

Why Unity?

The short answer is, "Because Nova happened."

Personally, I never grasped the "new edition invalidates what came before" viewpoint. Then again, until Nova was released, no one else brought it up, either. Those around the game long enough will remember that there were two major editions prior to Admiralty, also within the decade: what would eventually be collected in the Compendium was released in 1999, while Starmada X came out in 2004. It's just the speed with which the game was evolving.

However -- and this is ultimately where I erred -- I did not take into account what would happen when I announced Nova. Previously, there was nothing to "invalidate"; anything beyond the rulebook was player-generated and specific to individual gaming groups. Nothing tied the larger Starmada community together outside the core game. When X was released, or even Admiralty, people could take it or leave it depending on preference. Players who chose to stick with an older edition weren't "missing anything" because nothing else was coming.

But with Admiralty, I started releasing supplements -- and then the Star Fleet Universe deal came along. Suddenly, a change to the rules meant changes to the supplements. The stakes were raised, and I failed to appreciate that. So when Nova was released, a split appeared in the player base. At the request of ADB, I continued releasing Admiralty versions of the books; I think that was a good idea, I'm not complaining at all, but it did mean perpetuating that split.

The goal of Unity is to heal that schism.

I think it does so extremely well. Again, more discussion on that in the days to follow. I don't want to say "never", but it's very unlikely there will be another wholesale revision to the game. With Unity I have addressed all of the things that still nagged me about the game.

As to the future of Starmada, my hope is to put some more focus back on non-SFU adaptations. To that end, the new rulebook includes 48 ships representing 14 separate fleets from five separate universes.

Attached.

Not a bad start. I think it would be best to match the bonus/penalty to the existing "size categories" (as seen in optional rules like Lauching/Recovering Fighters). For example, in the Admiralty Edition:

Hull 1-3 = -2
Hull 4-8 = -1
Hull 9-15 = no change
Hull 16-24 = +1
Hull 25+ = +2

In addition, making the change directly to the speed would affect the ship's ability to accelerate/decelerate; i.e. a ship with hull size 7 and an engine rating 4, moving speed 5, could normally move between 1 and 9 hexes (disregarding turns). With the above adjustment to speed (-1) it could move between 0 and 8 hexes. Not quite the effect we want.

So I suggest applying the modifier to the thrust requirement, provided the ship is making at least one turn.

For example, a hull size 16 ship with an engine rating of 4, moving speed 3, plots the following move: "U1". Normally, this would have a thrust requirement of 4 (3+1). However, due to the effects of limited maneuverability, the thrust requirement is increased by +1, making the plot illegal. The ship may plot "U" instead.