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mj12games.com/forum → Posts by madpax
Received today!!! 
It looks fine, but didn't have time to read it.
Marc
Sorry if those subjects have already been discussed.
I currently own Klingon Armada and I'm waiting for Romulan Armada. I also have Imperial Starmada and Hammer & Claw, which are really good books. Wille there be other books published in the near future?
Also, If I buy a VBAM book, I suppose the ships could be used but need to be adapted?
Marc
And, I should really have that rule annex. 
Thanks for the answer!
Marc
The special systems (drones for KA, for example, but also countermeasures, fire control, fighters, etc.) exist till the ship is gone.
Before that, they are intact and you don't fear losing them.
I've found that on the web:
Count all the "hull points" and all the upgrades which can be damaged (some common
sense may be needed here, unless you want to allow them all to be damaged).
Then divide the number of hull points by the number of "pieces of
equipment" (options), let's name this number X.
Now mark every X-th number in the hull track (eg. with a dot, asterisk or a circle).
Each time such a field is marked off (damaged) one random upgrade is damaged too -
in addition to hull.
This represents the fact that hull contains all the improvements and damage to hull
gradually damages the equipment. The last piece of equipment would be damaged
just before the ship gets destroyed.
Of course, it can still be perfected, as I suppose that some systems shouldn't be destroyed (armor plating, for exaple, but I'm not so sure), or that some other can't be destroyed as a whole (you could lose one fighter bay ie a flight, but not all of them.
Does someone use a similar optional rule?
Marc
I've played a lot of SFB games, since the release of the first ed (about 28 years ago), and enjoyed it a lot, until I got fed up with the system. Don't worry, it happened to me with many games.
And as I grew older, I tend to prefer simple games, especially if you want to introduce new players. I remember a time where my favorite games were using hundred of pages of rules. Now I prefer a game that use no more than ten pages of rule to begin with.
I surely lost a lot of neurones... :cry:
Marc
The one big mistake I made was forgetting I intended to have 2 F5's in the battle,
Compared to the remainder of the fleet, one F5 is not much. For info, I forgot to use the faceted shield correctly (all shield hits were decided by the defending player, instead of rolling a die for every one to determine if the targeted shield was hit or not) and I thought that drone hit on a 5+...
The second big mistake from the Klingon's point of view was missing with almost every weapon on the first turn (ie, missing the accuracy rolls.. never even got to most of the impact rolls).
That mistake is usually corrected by killing the weapon officer. :twisted:
It has a good SFU feel to it, but will definitely require unlearning assumptions from Star Fleet Battles.
Sure, like drone being used in a manner completely different, Ph 1 & 2 being much more powerful (in fact, as all weapons compared to the way ships absorb damage), the way shields are working, etc.
I prefer the starmada way than the SFB/FC way, personnally.
Marc
The second game sounded like a lot of fun.
Mainly because we fought to the death. If we hap stop the game when one of us reached half its budget in losses, it would have been dmuch shorter.
"At short range, a fed CA can litterally cut down in two a similar ship. I feel that's much too powerful for my taste."
Sounds like SFB to me. A Klingon D7 that's at Range 1 to a relatively undamaged Fed CA is pretty much toast.
Well, a fed CA has 4 photons and up to 6 phasers 1 frontally (easily 4 can bear at a front target).
That means that at short range (up to 5 hexes), photons can inflict in average 6.5 damages (about 11 if overloaded), and the four phasers 1 can inflict 4 damages, if my comptutations are good.
In average, that means that such an alpha strike will produce about 5 hull damages. Not enough to kill a D7 (9 hulls), but enough to cripple it.
On the other side, aside drones, a D7 will have 3 ph 1, at least 1 ph 2, and 4 disruptors. At short range, the damages inflicted to the fed CA will be lower (the ph 2 being of course less powerful, mainly because its range is slightly shorter and its ACC is 5+ instead of 4+, buit otherwise the same), and that the disruptors are less powerful too.
BTW, during our games, we had to decide if photons or disruptors had to be fired overloaded. Both are treated differently, photos becoming slow-firing, whilst disprutors lose accuracy.
Usually, at short range, go for overloaded photons. They are almost garanteed to hit, and at this range, your ship will usually be crippled or worse. Also, it happended that that ship was already destroyed before firing, thus there was no reason to fire non-overloaded ones.
The disruptors are more delicate in this aspect. They don't become slow-firing in overload mode, but lose ACC.
Ironically, when I decided not to fire them in overload mode at short range (thus hitting on a 4+), the miss were due to 3 or less DR results. 
Marc
That's what I thought.
Thanks.
Marc
On the tholian DD, one disruptor has a ABCD fire arc whilst the other has an ABD.
Shouldn't both have the same or symetrical fire arcs?
Marc
I agree with the 2", and that's what I ordered.
Marc
Today, I played with a newbie (never played starmada nor even any other space op game), and he did like that. It was easy to teach, the biggest difficilty was about writing correct move orders using 3.0 rules, which are IMHO very realistic.
As my friend was a newbie, I designed two fleets, a fed including a CC, CA, CL and FF, and a Klin including a D7, 2 D6 and a F5.
I played first the Fed, and the battle was very one sided. We played on a small surface, with less than 20 hexes between us at deploiement. At the end of turn 3, after making some stupid maneuvers, the Klins were destroyed and I lost only one ship. We forgot to use drones, and IIRC, my friend and I forgot to multiply ROF of its phasers.
As the game was very short, we swapped sides.
Again, the blood was drawn during first turn, and two of its ships were damaged whilst one of mine ( a D6) was destroyed before launching drone.
6 drones were launched and impacted next turn, with great effect. Fed drones were... awful and almost inefficient.
I lost a second then a third ship, whilt he lost both its CL and FF.
But, his CC had lost all its warp nacelles and impulse power and was moving wuickly toward a planet, which it impacted after two turns of desperate moves.
I only had an almost intact D6, whilst he had a damaged CA.
We played cat and mouse during two turns, then I lock my phasers and disruptors and killed it.
A much better game.
Some comments:
I wasn't aware at first, but the ranged-based rof trait of phasers 1 and 2 is VERY powerful!!!
At short range, a fed CA can litterally cut down in two a similar ship. I feel that's much too powerful for my taste.
Drone works OK, albeit in a very different manner than SFB/FC. We didn't try to shot them down, and their damages were low for the number of drones that impacted their target. All in all, that's good.
Torpedoes (photons and dirsuptors) were OK, very good and very different in the end.
I am ready to play again KA...
Marc
I plan to play on a 180cm x 120cm table.
I use brigade models spaceships (the biggest measuring about 9cm long), and I would like to know which hex size should I chose.
If I take 2inch hex size, it will have 24 hex on its shortest side. Is it ok or should I chose smaller hex size?
Marc
To be fragile is imo the sense of higher tech levels, especially for the whitestar. Once you get it, it'll die quite fast. Also, be glad to have never seen the original WS from B5 Wars, it was a real horror with stealth, pin point pulsars and the agility of a fighter. :shrugs:
I remember a bit of it. But it couldn't fire everything...
Concerning the Molecular Pulsar, I might one day write up a whole ISA Fleet based on ACTA, which then might change some stats on the Star.
OK.
Marc
Adding two more batteries would be fine, too.
I slightly modified the current shipbuilder by adding diagram with all fire arcs.
I feel we are always wondering where each weapon may fire.
Marc
Thanks for the link, I hadn't thought of looking there for additional material.
BTW, just for the small story, I looked for good space wargames since... maybe 25 to 30 years, in fact since I wanted to play wargames. I've played Starfire, was fine with the ziplock edition (first one), was too complicated for my taste thereafter. Same thing with SFB. Tried Noble Armada (too limited), Space Warriors (same thing although a fun game), Silent death (excellent), B5 wars (much too cumbersome), B5 ACTA (some balance problems otherwise a fine game), FC (very good, but still not what I want), and in the end, almost at random, I found Starmada and knew, after reading the rules, that it was THE game I sought.
Played twice since, and love it.
Kudos to you!
Marc (hope I'm not overreacting... 
)
I plan to play a KA game in two days, and I'm wondering how drones works.
Unless mistaken:
- A Drone rack (4) means the capacity to house 4 flights (each with 4 'real' drones).
- Each flight is treated as a seeker, thus homing in its targets.
- Each flight is launched as fighters, ie at the end of a turn. A ship may launch as many drones flight as its hull size allow. Thus a D7 (hull 9 and 3 drone racks) may launch all of its drones during the same turn (this is my biggest problem, feeling it is too many drones fired at the same time).
- They move during the fighter move phase, attacking immediatly as soon as it reach an adjacent hex of its target. So, a ship will usually not have the time to shoot down them if launched at short range, usually within their move allowance...
Am I right?
BTW, where are the missing ships (juggernaut and planet killer)?
It seems that Kzinti have less drones than what they should. No?
Marc
Yes, those are those file. A big work, indeed.
The first one I saw is one of the emblematic ship of B5, the white star. Not only does it contain too many thing in its hull, but the molecular pulsar is IMGO is bit over the top. 4 weapons with ROF 4 Seems too much.
Otherwise, I don't use tech level, and unless mistaken, it doesn't make ships better, just more fragile, as they pack the same number of systems on a smaller hull. Less hull meaning less resistance, I fail to see why higher tech ships should be better.
Otherwise, I'm working on those files and trying to make them the way I feel, using A Call to Arms stats (no offense intended, your work is great).
Marc
I'm currently reviewing all files from the B5 universe, and I would like first to give some hearty thanks to the designer. But looking at Abbai ships, for example (I began using the alphabetical order), a lot if not all vessels are wrongly computed. Their SU value is higher than what their hull can afford. I looked at the white star which is worst.
(but maybe it's the tech level which allows that? :?: )
So I usually reduce their engine, or the value and/or number of their weaponry . Sometimes, their is still more SU than available in the end, sometimes one, usually less than 10.
Is it problematic?
Marc
And how do you download that?
Marc
This is really really interesting, B5 being a unverse I love.
I'm even wondering acquiring some B5 fleets just for Starmada.
I looked at the files, and didn't have time to reveiw all of them, but I tried to reconstruct the white star via the rule, but it seems a bit over the top.
Marc
I didin't find any topic about that, but did someone made some solo rules?
Marc
I'd like to.
But I never played starmada and I'm uneasy with vassal. Let me look at the files first, but I appreciate your proposal.
Marc
Thanks a lot!
I tried to open your file via vassal, and in fact, I should have done the opposite, as you said.
For info, I just bought Starmada and Klingon armada some days ago, and I feel it's one of the best space opera game I ever seen. I have played Starfire, SFB and FC, Babylon 5 wars and ACTA, and some others and this one looks like excellent.
Marc
Hello.
I've some difficulties to understand how vassal works. I downloaded vassal, but I don't know how to open your files.
Marc
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