Hmm, how are they holding the range open? If you have even reasonable speed ships (5-6) and they arent backing up at full speed (at least half of that rate), then you should be getting hit for at most 1 or MAYBE 2 turns before getting into range (again, assuming you have LR weaponry as well and that its the SGs preventing the retaliation).

Or are they using the Spathi-type rear-firing LR weapons?

Do y'all use the Evasive Maneuver options? Directional Shielding? Fighter Screening? Emergency Thrust?

I would think a combo of even just Fighter screening and perhaps ECM should whittle down their LR advantage for a turn or two. That should be sufficient to allow you to close the range assuming they arent in full reverse. Since Fighters can move to interpose after seeing the ships' final positioning for the turn, it should be fairly easy for even just a few of them to establish the screen at longer ranges (unlike Sunburts that require more planning and luck in placement).

I agree thats its amusing to see what tactics plague different groups.

Out of curiousity, where is your area? My group is in Northern Virginia.

The 'Photons' line in the sig sounds familiar to me. Are you from the old Taldren SFC forums? If so, I think you'll like this game a lot.

SFB is a lot more detailed, but Starmada has an elegance to it that I find beats most other space tactical games I've tried (including my own home-baked rules). This becomes even more evident when you can realize you can manage fleet sized engagements in a reasonable amount of time. Large carrier fleets opposing each other is a nightmare in SFB, but fairly easy to handle in Starmada. And it does it without losing the Sci-Fi flavor and feel.

Have fun with it!

Just tryin' to help the game 'be all it can be'.

Yep, I agree, but why not make it so that it does make statistical sense? Shouldn't a 1/2/2 weapon have half the chance of hitting at 7+ as a 2/2/2 weapon? It does for every other to-hit number from 2+ to 6+. Its only when it crosses that 7+ barrier that its suddenly markedly inferior.

Again, its not a big deal, but if there is a rule about 'improbable hits', why not just have it be consistant throughout the weapon mix rather than skewing it heavily in favor of certain weapons? *shrug*

and...

I'm curious as to what the intent is for Backwards movement? Why would you want people to be able to design LR ships with Stealth/LRS and do that? Heck, even without Stealth, any form of fast LR ship and Reverse movement is a pain unless you specifically set out to build a 'counter' with either extreme speed of your own and/or lotsa Fighters.

To me, thats the kinda stuff that encourages min-max'xing. As jimbeau mentioned, its nearly unbeatable in some situations, so its easy to see why people would gravitate towards it. And I think the thing that is causing that is the Reverse movement, not the Stealth/LRS.

I guess what I'm trying to say is what does Reverse Movement really do other than open things up to certain cheesey combos like jimbeau's nemesis? What would be missing from the game if Reverse Movement were suddenly reduced to 1? Again, this is just out of curiousity. Obviously Reverse is in there for a reason, so I'm just curious if that reason is something specific that seems necessary or if its just a holdover from previous editions or somesuch.

We already tweaked the things in our group that we dont particular care for. None of our lists are min-max'ed at all (indeed, most would lose to the Stealth/LR/Reverse combo mentioned!).

Mostly these questions/observations are for academic reasons only. First of all to see if we are just missing something and secondly to provide some discussion for potential changes in upcoming editions or FAQs (or to simply hear why a certain thing is the way it is).

None of what I'm trying to say is trying to tell you the game is 'broken' or whatnot. It is what it is....a fun and open game system that doesnt require a degree in engineering to play! However if I see areas where I see it could be tightened up, I just feel there is no harm in firing the ideas out there.

and...

Part of it, I think, is our aversion to Reverse Movement. With the Reverse rules as written, its fairly easy to design ships that maximize Long Range firepower and magnify the effects of the Stealth. But in many other cases, the Stealth is really not that effective vis a vis ECM.

So, in this case, I think its another strike against the Reverse movement rules. Without that, Stealth's stock goes down and thus the need to have it so expensive is reduced. Personally, with Reverse Movement reigned in (max of one hex/turn) , I'd leave Stealth costs as is (expensive), but give it the always advantageous modifiers as per above.

Its not really a question of trying to min-max, but simply that even just 'randomly' occuring, the high RoF is just so superior. So, when designing ships, our players are having to go out their way to avoid the pretext for being called a cheeser.

I've done a bit more fiddling and in many cases, it looks pretty close to the mark. We has just hit upon a few cases where it really broke much in favor of the ship using PDS rather than Shields (ie, CR doesnt change, but considerably less SUs or a minor CR change for 1 better protection). I think this is just one of those things that actually seems really appealing in some situations but very costly in others.

I agree that not every race should be able to pile on equipment willy-nilly (or even higgledy-piggledy  ).

OK, I have another suggestion (I'm just full of 'em, aint I?) :

For to-hits beyond 6+, the 'natural multiple' system really makes little statistical sense and overly rewards high RoF or large numbers of groups way out of proportion (not even mentioning the RoF issue).

Consider having 2 larger weapons with a 1 RoF in a Battery. To score a hit at 7+ would need 2 sixes or a 1 in 36 chance. If you have twice as many weapons that are half as effective, you are rolling 4 dice to get the same two sixes. Without going through the math, its WAY more likely to get 2 sixes on any of 4 dice than 2 sixes on exactly 2 dice (much more than twice as likely).

As a suggestion, have weapons that need a 7+ to hit roll and every '6' is picked up and rolled again. A result of 4+ on the second die results in a hit. Increase the number of the second die by 1 for each number over 7+ that is needed (so it would be a 6 and then a 5+ for and 8+ to hit number and a 6 and then a 6 for 9+). This means that each weapon has the same (slim) chance of a hit irregardless of other weapons in a battery changing the odds. It does require that extra roll, but this is going to be a pretty rare (but important) case.

Thanks for the responses guys! Its really great to be able to interact directly with the designers on a timely basis. If you guys ever decide to put out a new edition and are looking for a group of player to jump up and down on the rules and try to break them, let us know. We dont go out of way to min-max in most cases, but we are mostly analysts by nature or trade, so it just sort of happens in the natural course of us playing or throwing designs together.

Definately! Post 'em up there, especially if they are drawn from any sort of semi-official source material.

Hmm, all of my designs are on the Shipyard spreadsheet that doesnt allow them to be exported to text files.

Does anyone have a modified version of the Shipyard sheet that does have a text page on it? That would help immensly.

Thanks!

We ended at the end of Turn 6. There were a few scattered Mrrshan ships left, but most had little or no weaponry and certainly not enough to take down the larger but lightly armed surviving Hive Swarm Ship. Both side's Fighters were totally annihilated by that point as well.

For a frame of reference, the starting range between the fleets was 23 and the speeds of the ships involved ranged between 3 and 6. The range was held open for a while by the Hive who kept reversing to keep out of the close range firepower of the cat Raker Beams.

Most of the Fighters were down by turn 4, and the fleets had closed to range 6 or so by then. Turn 5 was pretty much the last turn where the battle could probably have still gone either way. By turn 6, the Continuing Damage had just eaten enough out of the surviving cat ships to convince them that it was truly over.

OK, I'm lost here.

Table A.1.5 in the Starmada X book indicates that Fighter Bays CAN be hit (ie, in the column for Hit? there is a 'Yes').

My section 4.2.3 also doesnt have any example about an Admirable and damage.

Are there multiple editions of Starmada X floating around out there? And if so (or even if not), what is the correct ruling on Fighter Bays and 'Q' hits? From what I've seen in the spreadsheets, Fighter Bays contribute to the number of 'Q' hits on the Damage Chart which should mean that they are valid targets for those hits.

Am I just misinterpreting what your posted?

So, I guess for the record, are Fighter Bays eligble targets for 'Q' hits?

Thanks

2000 points? Wow, you started out big! We 'only' did 1500 points and that was with 2 people on a side...and you did this SOLO? Kudos to you...

I'm not 'official' by any means but here you go:

1) It appears that Fighter Bays are valid 'Q' hits. The number of 'Q' hits on your damage chart goes up proportionally to the number of Fighter Bays, so it does appear that they are in the calculation normally.

2) Explosions....yeah, we had the same question. We played it with the explosions caused by Fighter attacks blocking LOS immediately. It did make for some confusion trying to remember which explosions were 'fresh'.

We thought that Fighters would be overly dominant too, but in practice, they really werent. Of course if you have no rapid fire weapon, few multi-bank weapons, and no Fighters of your own you are going to get hurt, but thats not much different than some of the other interactions in the game. For example, if you have nothing buy high factor shields and your opponent has no 'Ignore' or 'Half' Shield weapon (or at least multi-Pen weapons), its going to be rough going.

For my group, I've tried to keep most of the fleet designs in line with 'traditional' ship roles. So pretty much without even looking at the designs my players know that Frigates and Destroyers will most likely have some anti-Fighter weapons (with an occasional short-ranged ship killer) while the CAs and larger will tend to have the heavier ship-to-ship firepower. It keeps things consistant and allows players to focus more on fleet design rather than bogging down in the detail of each individual ship class. There are exception to the rule, but they easily identified (ie, a 'standard' Frigate should sport some AA weapons, but dont expect as much from a ship designated a Torpedo Frigate).

I've avoided Spinal Mounts so far. I had them in my test battle and didnt like the results of what basically boiled down to a lucky shot. In smaller (1500 and less) point battles a few successes with those things can make all the difference in who wins or loses. Thats just pinning too much on a few rolls for me. In fact, I've gone through and tried to make sure that most of my weapons are not incredibly dependent on one good roll that wipes out the target. More weapons or higher RoF is generally preferable to the One Big Gun that either smacks its target or does nothing. This is just purely a preference thing and I'm sure many people enjoy that thrill of the big hit or relief of a Spinal missing them, but for my group its just too much.

I agree 100% on the plotted movement. It definately sped the game up (we have a lot of analysis paralysis in our group...). It also makes for an interesting dynamic with regards to weapon ranges and arcs. It is possible to design some hideously effective short ranged weaponry, but the movement system prevents any form of guarantee that you can use said weapon. In most systems you can pretty much count on getting adjacent to the enemy, but in Starmada it takes some planning and a little luck. Once the range closes, the firing arcs really come into play.

Here's a quick question...do people tend to play 'open' or hidden? For example are players allowed to know what an opponent's ship does? Are ship records always considered common knowledge or do you just have to guess when a specific weapon or shield is KOed? We were playing fairly open (giving general information when asked...ie, "shields are about half strength, she's missing a few of the Spine Launchers and she cant make more than half speed"). Is there a consensus on this?