I don't have a calculator that'll do Log to the base "root one half" so I looked online:

http://www.1728.org/logrithm.htm

Using this site, I evaluated the logarithm of 1.625 (that is "8 plus 5, the sum divided by eight") with a base of .707, and it came out -1.40, which marches with the formula and example in the rules...

I'll admit, I approached the game with a little trepidation - I'd noticed a number of issues with SAE that kept me from just adopting it as my go-to system for all occasions. Many of those issues have been addressed in this edition.

It took me a couple read-throughs to get my head wrapped around how things were going to work. And good lord, it's even mathier than before - Log to the base root one-half? - but with a nice table to keep you from needing your RPN calculator at your side while building ships.

And the drydock is nice, for trying out ideas. Being web-based, it's a little less interactive than I want it to be, but then I'm spoiled by the great spreadsheets we had for SAE in that regard.

I've so been looking forward to this. I finally get to feel like I was in from the beginning on a game again. I've not had that experience since I was a boy!

Really looking forward to this, and hope to have the opportunity to buy the PDF before I go on vacation the last week of the month - got a twelve hour car ride each way, and only driving half of it, so it'd be cool to have on hand before then. But no pressure or anything.

And if it's a little girl, I like the sound of Starmaiden...

Type: ANGELUS-class TERRAN UNION DESTROYER ESCORT (115)                
HULL: 5 4 3 2 1                 
ENGINES [TL1] 6 5 4 3 2                                         
FACETED: [TL-1] 9 8 6 4 2                                         
FACETS: (2,2,2,1,1,1)                
WEAPONS: [TL-1] 1:[VW] 2:[VW] 3:[V] 4:[V] 5:[V] 6:[W]                
Battery V: Grendel Mk XIII 7.6cm Laser Array, 3/6/9, 2/4+/1/1, Anti-Fighter                
[ACE] [ACE] [BDE] [BDE]

Battery W: Tannhauser C-25 Charged Particle Beam, 4/8/12, 1/5+/2/2, Slow-Firing; Piercing +1
[AB] [AB]                 

Special: [TL1] Marines (2); Carrier (16); Armor Plating                
Fighters: [TL0]                
1xBoarding Pod, 6/10/0, (Boarding Pod/5+)                

Designed to travel in support of larger ships, the Angelus class is also pressed into service as a convoy escort, and as a patrol vessel for the spaces between the stationary fortresses along the outer band of the Terran orbital path. Many have been used in anti-piracy roles, where even their defensive weaponry is formidable, and customs inspection, where their contingent of Marines double as inspectors.

Her weapons are all at least a generation old, and while the laser arrays used in Terran design haven't changed significantly in the last decade or so, her forward C-beams are starting to show their age, with newer vessels mounting lighter, more accurate and faster firing weapons.

Notable ships include TSS Guardian, present at the start of the hostilities in the Solarian War when covert Martian ships sprung their sneak attacks. Severely wounded, she went on to distinguish herself alongside Venusian ships by shepherding unarmed merchants into Venusian space, and with her involvement on the attacks that liberated Earth and Luna from the Martian invaders.

Only in a "Hey, he's like me!" sort of way, honestly.

I asked because I'd started putting together a framework around which to have some games, and found that I'd invested an entire afternoon in writing over two thousand words about the universe in which my thinly veiled WWII campaigns would appear, including some snippets of fiction that could turn into an epic Honor Harringtonesque seventy-five part series.

Only to discover shortly thereafter that there were disturbing similarities between what I created and the Jovian Chronicles. I'm gonna have to read through that stuff more thoroughly to make sure I didn't psychically plagiarize!**

As a non-sequitur aside, Fighter TL +2 can lead to some serious - SERIOUS - combat rating inflation.

**ETA: Did some reading of the wiki page on Jovian Chronicles, and it looks like I'm in the clear, aside from some disturbingly similar names.

Oh, sure, I just figure out that MJ12 is located in my town, and you move away! To the state we lived in before we lived in Colorado, ironically.

I think, after consideration, I have to agree with this. This allows, when coupled with tech levels, for the kinds of differences you see in fiction. "Our destroyers barely carry the firepower of their frigates! If it weren't for the strength of our hulls and our better shield technology, we wouldn't stand a chance!"

I can't speak for others, but in reading up on the game online, the most common complaint I saw was that longest range weapons (be that 18 or 30) with traits like Ignores Shields and Double Inverse Range Mods were effectively impossible to beat without having exactly the same sort of options. I'm curious what you would do in terms of countering that particular strategy?

Yeah, 4-5 turns sounds remarkably short, but then my last tabletop wargaming experience was SFB about, oh, 15 years ago... Do any of you experienced Starmada players have any ideas for how to extend battles to something a bit longer than that?

Alex, with 6 being the pivot point, where do you top out for hull sizes? Like Nomad, with 14ish being the highest? Or do you go all the way to 20, 24 or higher?

I find myself inclined to stay in the sub-16 range as well, for some reason, and I delight in cramming impossible things into size 1 hulls, at least at this point my in my Starmada obsession.