Absolutely. (Although, Extra Hull Damage does still cause 1 Hull Damage on a roll of 1.)

Note, too, if your opponent is taking Fire Control, then they aren't having as much punch as they would without it. In my campaign with Blacklancer99, capital ships routinely have Countermeasures and Fire Control. It's F'ing essential! They also happen to have highly accurate weapons (3+ is standard). I think we fought one battle where my ships had countermeasures and most of his ships did NOT have Fire Control. The story of the battle revolved around his ships not getting as many hits as my ships.

Have you read the Starfire books by David Weber? Much of those books are the story of strategic tit-for-tat with technology. The same has happened with Blacklancer99 and myself. We started playing with Countermeasures vs. Armor Plating. Over time, most of our self-designed ships have Countermeasures and Fire Control. Some have Armor Plating as well. But you are giving up something when you take these defensive techs. My ships tend to have higher shield ratings than Blacklancer's ships in the same class because I prefer defense. Blacklancer's ships lack the higher shield ratings but their main guns tend to have two things mine don't: ammo, higher ROF.

Anyway. I think Armor Plating is balanced. It does its job.

I sense reluctance to agree (could be the bottle of wine I just drank at a holiday party -- my boss opened it but as he was draining the bottle in my glass for the fourth time, I realized no one else was having red wine!). If you do the math, regardless of the die results you are used to, 1/3 of the hull hits disappear and 1/2 of the engine hits are ignored. You can't really argue with that. Ships with Armor Plating and Countermeasures , although lacking the same PUNCH as ships without, will avoid a lot of damage. It might not be as sexy as having big guns but it can really get the job done.

The point of publishing is not to die for your game! It's to make the other poor bastard die for his!

The inscrutable Gorlev... one never knows what motivates them. 

It should be noted that after the resounding victory at Charybdis junction, a memorial was erected on the Gorlev homeworld in honor of the Republican losses and the scroll of heroes received not one new entry for the lost Gorlev ship (Heartstab) but four, to include the lost Republican ships (Gale, Medusa, Lark).

Perhaps stranger still, a new Gorlev Battle Carrier was laid down in the homeworld shipyards, to be christened Honored Warriors of Gale.

The Republican Seeker attack was BRUTAL! But my BC survived with little damage to her weapons so she was able to return the favor and, it appears, finish the job it should have all-but-finished last turn. I sent the file to my opponent for review but the return fire seems to have sunk both the Gale and the Medusa.  :twisted:

I have to say, this battle was heavily influenced by terrain. We decided the defender gets to place any terrain generated for the battles. Because of the size of this black hole, I placed it in the middle, assured it would influence maneuver throughout. It did. The Republic positioned its ships on either side, allowing me to put my first squadron on one side to prevent it being ganged up on before reinforcements arrived (in this scenario my fleet had to be split with the second portion arriving randomly after the first turn).

It really, really, really helped, too, that my reinforcements arrived on turn 3 and not later. I was able to accelerate into the attack just as the Republican Cruisers were arriving to do battle. (The cruiser flip on turn 5 was crucial, as well, since the written orders turned her the away from the enemy, so none of her big missile launchers faced my ships. You can bet Erik and I will be reviewing our move orders carefully the rest of the game :!: )

In other words, the Black Hole upset the premise of the scenario. Instead of having half my fleet have to stave off the entire enemy fleet for a number of turns -- it was half a fleet against half a fleet and then both reinforced at roughly the same time.

At the end of Turn 6 (see image below) both the Gale and Medusa have received (just barely) enough hull damage to finish them off. The Gorlev won the battle with point totals of 850 to 160. Huge victory?

However, the Republic will get a number of resource points (up to 600) to repair its fleet while the Gorlev Battlecruiser, with only 5 of 13 hull remaining, is too valuable to risk in combat until repaired. And the Gorlev will have to lose a battle before they can repair it. My other ships were largely unscathed. The light cruiser has 6 of 7 hull, so is not fully repaired either. The Republican Wendigo heavy cruiser has 6 of 8 hull remaining so will need expensive repairs.

And Scylla and Charybdis always reminds me of the Police song -- "Wrapped Around Your Finger". 

Well, that happens to be the ship that is gutted, so expect him to disappear before either the black hole or the minefield get him.

Thanks, Bren and Erik, for all the nice comments about the Vassal version. (If we can duplicate and resolve that clone bug, it will be a near-perfect tool for this game.) I've had fun designing it and look forward to some revisions to make it even better. Mostly, I look forward to more games of Starmada!

More importantly, glad you enjoyed the tourney! I want to thank all the players for participating. It was fun to make the ship designs and hear about the triumphs and tragedies of the various matches. It's unfortunate that some designs seemed better suited to victory than others. I tried to balance accuracy, rof, and traits. For example, the much-touted disruptors had a double range modifier, which I thought would dampen their effect (being -2 at long range). Apparently, whether by luck, skill, or design, they dominated the battlefield and turned the tables in favor of the Hegemony for round 2.  A hearty thanks to all.

Look for an email about prizes. 

Final results:

[*]GOLD MEDAL: Erik (Blacklancer99)
[*]SILVER MEDAL: Bren (jygro)
[*]BRONZE MEDAL: Robin (RobinStirzaker)
[*]Consolation: Doug (Inari7)

Great idea! Who do we ask? Dan? If we can get a community of players going, I would happily sponsor another online tournament (incorporating the experience gained from this one, of course!).

I have played a number of battles against the AI -- this is a fun game! I have the FoG rulebook but have never managed to actually play. The PC version feels like a minis game (except that it tracks unit losses to the man). I'll be looking for PBEM opponents soon enough but I am mostly excited about the eventual release of medieval armies.

May the best Gorlev win! 

Good thinking, Erik! Of course, any game would have to include rules, I think, for both the SSZs and the HFZs,* wouldn't it? 

* Slow Shuffler Zombies and Hyper-Fast Zombies.

A hearty welcome!