Hello everyone,

       The slug-fest my friend and I have when we play Starmada here continues.  In the last battle, we had 4000 pts a side,  My opponent used 21 of his Ghen-ha-dar style (from Deep Space Nine) ships of hull 6, 2, and 1.  Their speed was 20 and each a few non-expendables & had five of these expendable weapons I call  Tornados:
[to hit 3+,  range=12,  3/1/1, &  {Double Ranged Modifiers+Repeating+Range based ROF}].

     For several turns, he stays out of range of 18, and often out of spinal mount range, then doubles engines and charges into short range.  My ship's speed is 4 or 5 and the ships were 2 BBs w/hull 18 & 22 escorted by a 10 hull CG, with the 128 "Tomahawk Missiles", and a few frigates.  All weapons on my ships are range 18, 3+ to hit. His max-attack ships have no AFB or shields, just PDS & overthrusters. With their incredible firepower based on these Tornado expendables,  he can easily destroy each of my ships.  The fighter-ramming "Tomahawk Missiles" are all that work.  I think of them as unmanned, Heavy Drones.  They worked very well! 

     In this last battle, I launched 128 of the Tomahawks and kept them by my  fleet.  My opponant doubled his speed 20 ships' engines and moved 40(!), then  made his attack run, and got to range 2, 3, or 4 from my ships. 
All 128 of these Tomahawk Missiles then attacked and destroyed all but one of his  21 ships.  Then this one damaged 6 hull Max-Attack ship fired at, and destroyed an 18 hull Battleship of mine in one turn.  This BB had level 4 shields+PDS, and Armored hull.  He rolled, and rolled, and rolled and scored 467 hits.  Divide by six and my 18 hull BB took c78 points of damage... 

     He plays his ships as if they were the Ghen-ha-dar ships from Deep Space Nine.   They can destroy a fleet twice their point value.  128 regular-attacking fighters cannot do enough damage in one turn to stop this firestorm, neither can regular drones. only the Tomahawks have so far, worked.  It felt good to win, and not have a draw for a change!
Perhaps I am stopping Kamikaze ships with Kamikaze fighters<LOL>

     The  0nly way I have found to deal with these attack attack ships & their "Tornados" that  end up with both sides completely vaporized,  is these  Tomahawk Missiles.
If anyone else has other suggestions, I am all ears...

     Needless-to-say my star nation, "the United Star Alliance", is involved in a grim fight for survival...But the invaders were stopped with only medium losses.     

     But I am willing to try Fighter-modified regular drones.  If someone could give me the CPV value of a flight of ten modified slow drones  that roll 2 dice to attack when they hit and hit w/+1:  Drones modified as fighters: {Slow+Assault+bomber}
I will try them...

Steven Gilchrist; Jacksonville, Fla, USA.

PS:  someone mentioned the "lives of the pilots".  The fleet I made had c4,500 crew+troops on it according to the ship-maker.  Even if these Tomahawk Missiles were manned fighters, The 128's sacrifice would have prevented the loss of the 3,100 crew who were on the ships that were Not destroyed.
Needless-to-say, the  United Star Alliance  is involved in a grim fight for survival...   (Perhaps they should move<LOL>)

PPS: my opponant is redesigning his ships.. He was astonished at the effectiveness of these Tomahawks on his ships.      

Hello everyone!
     Most capital ships have an "immune zone"  where their armor protects from them from their own guns.  This 'zone is a between two ranges;  [for example, between 20,00yds and 25,00 yds]  where their guns could not penetrate their own side or deck armor.  Also, the turret armor cannot be penetrated.  This is normal.  Almost every Battleship, battlecruiser, and even cruisers have such a zone from their own weapons, and others of the same size.   Needless to say, that zone is smaller for battlecruisers and cruisers, and larger for battleships.  It will probably occur in almost every case at medium range.   
     Note that ships with bigger guns, such as the USA's WW2 battleships that were protected from 16"guns will have a bigger zone of immunity against 14", 12", etc. guns.  As can be seen from weapon charts, their armor and turrets should be immune to 8"guns.   So what does one do?  Get closer to the enemy ships to punch thru their side armor  (or get farther away to be able to penetrate deck armor <LOL>).
     Steven Gilchrist; Jacksonville, Fla, USA

Hello everyone,

     The subject of plunging fire has been discussed.  The heavy guns on most World War One battleships had only a maximum elevation of only up to 20 degrees.  This was because if they could elevate up to 45 degrees for maximum range, they would fire so far over the horizon that spotting would be impossible even from the tops of the masts.  Thus there was no ability to use, and no need for, this extra range.  The six inch guns had a shorter overall maximum range and were able to elevate to over 30 degrees for maximum range and this inadvertently gave them "plunging fire".  That they had plunging fire was not as important to the navies of the time.  What was more important was their ability to fire as far as possible to keep hostile torpedo boats & destroyers at bay. 
     During the 1920s and 1930s when WW1 battleships were modernized, they were fitted with spotter seaplanes and their heavy guns maximum elevation was increased to up to 45 degrees for max range.  The spotter planes would radio back the fall-of-shells from the big guns when they fired way over the horizon...

Steven  Gilchrist, former US Navy Gunners Mate, Jacksonville, Fla, USA

Geez,

When you blow up someone's fleet, they get soooo cranky.  <LOL>
In all seriousness, my gaming buddy up here in Jacksonville never puts shields on his ships, just PDS.  I intend to board one of his ships when he gets too close.  I cannot wait to see the look on his face!!!  BTW, the newest battleships I designed using Gaming Glenn's improved program now only have 5, 6, or 7 teleporters.  I will let you all know when I finally get to board one of my friends shieldless DeepSpaceNine-style
Ghen-ha-dar type ships     

Steven Gilchrist; Jacksonville, FLorida, USA

PS:  Grailquest is the weekend after next  ! !

Hello everyone,

     My Friends and I in Jacksonville used the Starmada Compendium rules until six months ago or so.  I looked at the Fighter Defense Network as a possible supplement to the many Laser Cannons that I put on my ships to shoot at fighters.   This only allowed you to shoot down a maximum of 5 fighters, if they were next to your ship and if you rolled a 6 on a D6.  It was cute, but not cost effective. 

   A foot note on the earlier described Talos & Terrier missiles: { 3/1/2 and 3/1/1 respectively with 3+ to hit and range=18}.  The special weapon ability should only be "Rerolls to hit.  If you fill up all of C & B batteries with them, you will shoot down an average of 50+  fighters at long range, provided  you have Long Range Sensors, which most of my ships do.  Many people, including those I play with, use a "home rule"  that weapons doing 2+ dice of damage can shoot a heavy fighter down with only one hit.  And if there are no fighters, this barrage of Talos or Terrier misslies can devastate regular ships also...      

Steven Gilchrist, Jacksonville, Florida, USA.

What is being described here reminds me of Fast Patrol Ships, PFs,  in Star Fleet Battles,   These PFs were not  able to travel from star to star.  The game SFB had special ships called PF Tenders that carried them from star to star.  Also, some regular ships could carry a few on special links.   These ships had lotsa firepower and were fast.  (The 0rion ones were especially deadly).   It would be excellent to add this ability to Starmada.

Steven Gilchrist; Jacksonville, Fla, USA

My friend played his fast attack ships again. They have the flavor of the Gen-ha-dar <mispelled> ships form the latter part of the Deep Space Nice star Treck series. I used 64 fighters as Triple strength heavy drones that hit well (that is, the fighters rammed his ships). I call them "Tomahawk Missiles", and they pulverized my friend's swarm of speed 16, one hull ships. These formidable small ships were defended only with a PDS! Their weapons were 12 short ranged Expendables that were 1/1/1 with three special weapon abilities: {Range based ROF, Repeating, Range based damage}. Two of these mini-ships are capable of destroying one of my Armored, mass 22 Battleships which has a PDS + level 4 screen facing the attackers... Now these "Tomahawk Missiles" can take care of them before they dump their brutal expendables.   
He has gone back to the drawing board and I will see what he comes up with when we play again. If he adds proper shielding and weapons that fire further than nine, his cost will go up... What will he do?!?!?!

Steven Gilchrist; Jacksonville, Fla, USA

Hello,
     I used to put anti-fighter batteries on all my ships, but I no longer do so.  Instead, most  of my ships are protected from fighters by either of two different secondary weapons:
     The first one is a  weapon I call "5 inch guns".  These have a range of 18, hit on 3+, are 3/1/1 with Range-based-ROF as a special weapon ability. 
The second is a weapon I call "6 Inch guns".    These have a range of 18, hit on 3+, are 3/1/1 with Rerolls-to-hit as a special weapon ability.
(nearly all of my ships' weapons have range 18; all have 3+ to hit)
I can shoot at hostile fighters long b4 they get into attack range of my ships.  And if there are no fighters or the fighters are hiding, these weapons shoot at hostile ships.
     I have a CLAA design that has 6 mounts of the "5 inch guns", 3 are in FX mounts, 3 in AX mounts.  All of my ships, including this CLAA, have  five "21 inch torpedoes".  These expendibles have a  range 18, 3+ to hit, & {Reroll to hit, Reroll Penetration, Increased damage} as special weapon abilities.  These torpedoes can devastate unshielded ships and also can do a number on fighters .  As an added feature this CLAA has a ECCM suite so that its weapons do not have a "-1" when shooting at fighters.  This 12 hull, speed five ship, which I call USS Atlanta, has worked well in dealing with hostile fighters...

Steven Gilchrist; Jacksonville, Fla, USA

Hello everyone!   
    My friend and I played another 4,000 point battle here in Jacksonville.  I played two DNs, a 40 drone destroyer and 3 torpedo boats.  My ships' sizes were 24, 22, 10, 5, 5, & 5 .  My friends  28 ships were speed 16 and mass 2, 4, and 6.   His expendable weapons had Range-based ROF, PEN, DMG.   I fired several shots at long-range with my WaveMotionGuns (anime spinal mts.)  These missed, and he doubled engines and went from range 28 to range 3 in one move.  All his weapons had a max range of 9.  We both shot at eachother and blew eachother up; again, as we do too often...   I have a wicked, but grim plan for our next game.  I will bring an escort carrier with 60 fighters on it, instead of the 40 drone destroyer.  When my friend darts into close range, these heroic fighters will crash into his ships, hopefully destroying enough of them so that when his survivoring ships fire, I will have ships left in the game.  My friend's fleet usually has no anti-fighter protection at all. :shock:   
     This is a grim way to win, but conventional fighter attacks are not damaging enough in one turn to do the trick, and the 40 drones did some damage, but not enough.  The "kamakizing" fighters hitting on a 2 instead of 4 (the weaker drones need a 4 to hit) is an advantage.  And doing three dice of damage vers just one dice for the weaker drones is another!!    

Steven Gilchrist; Jacksonville, Fla, USA

It has been a while since I read the comics made from the excellent Star Blazers series.  But let me refine this StarmadaX version of the Argo:

StarmadaX ships can only have 3 weapons batteries.  so the forward & aft torpedo tubes, and the missile batteries amidships, will have to be represented by drones.  There needs to be 24 or 48, or 72 of them, if they can be fit...

The five centerline turrets we see on Argo (and on IJN Yamato) are the three triple 18"gun turrets, two firing FX, and one AX, (the same as the heavy guns on USA Iowa-class battleships); the other two are the triple 6"gun turrets that super-fire over the heavy gun turrets, one FX the other AX.  On each side should be six 5" mounts (similiarl to the 5 twin 5"gun mounts on both sides of USA Iowa BBs).  These were twin mounts on IJN Yamato and had been converted to quad lasers on Starbazers. 

The 16 Cosmo tiger fighters can be accommodated by having three fighter bays holding two Large fighter squadrons.  The four astro star command fighters can become a small squadron of heavy fighters in another fighter bay...  Whew!!!

To put the weapons into StarmadaX notation,

Battery A is the three triple turrets of 18"guns:
Range = 18, 3+ to hit,   3/1/3, reroll penetration;  abcd  abcd     cdef

Battery B is the two triple turrets of 6"guns:
range=15,    3+ to hit,   3/1/1  reroll to hit;                     abcd   cdef

Battery C is challenging to represent all the quad-barrel pulse lasers plus 26 twin barrel pulse laser turrets:
range=12,  3+ to hit, 3/1/1 Rg based ROF;   5 x (ace)  +   5 x (bdf)

Smaller, very short ranged lasers will be represented by the Anti-fighter batteries and the Point Defense system.  The ship will also have an anime-style spinal mount = Wave Motion Gun, Armor plating, Armored Batteries, Long Range sensors, and hyper-drive.  The ship is often missed by attackers so a ECM unit or even a Stealth generator (gasp!<LOL>) may be appropriate.     Double-Whew!  <g>

Steven Gilchrist; Jacksonville, Florida, USA

Hello everyone!

    Great designs on these StarTrek-to-StarmadsX ships.  Here are some ideas I thought of to make great designs even greater!

1:  The subject of armor came up.  Perhaps all ships should have armor; it makes 'em last longer!  <LOL> 
Then, to accomodate the "armor" on older Romulon ships, older Gorn ships, and Fed older CL in SFB, give those ships Armored Batteries.  This makes them different & better protected from the others, but all ships get to survive longer by having armor.

2:  The Federation ships could also be given Reinforced Shields to attempt to acount for their stronger and more resilient shields as demonstrated by the amount of firepower the USS Enterprise survived from the "Nomad" probe and the pounding its shields survived when the "Dolman of Eloias"  (hope I am close) was onboard.   The fully intact  D7 or D6 that attacked was eventually badly damaged by a photon torp that penetrated its shields...

3:   I was wondering why these Star Trek ships seem  so slow...?  Perhaps faster speeds would enable more knife-fighting.

4:   I use Screens for my ships now.  giving these StarTrek/SFB ships level 4 or 5 Screens simulates somewhat having to alocate shield reinforcement.  The PDS would be the equivilant of the regular shields...  This would simulate SFB somewhat. 

5:   I note the shorter ranges on the weapons.  Have phaser ones fire out to 18, and torps&distuptors fire to 15.  0therwise faster ships with range 18 weapons may try to stay @ range and have target practise.  For Long range range weapons (sort of PhaserIVs) for Battlestations, etc, use Spinal mounts and LongRangeSensors.  Give the base overthrusters(!);  it is a wicked combination...

6:  Please do Not take these ideas and suggestions as a criticism of your excellent and creative designs.  I have downloaded and saved all of 'em 

Sincerely,
Steven Gilchrist; Math Teacher, Jacksonville, Fla, USA, Earth, ... , <LOL>