Welcome to the first in a series of mini-articles describing the whys and wherefores of the new edition of Starmada. Today's topic: Attack Dice.

In previous editions, the basic premise has been that each individual weapon mount rolls one or more dice to determine hits. For each hit, one or more dice is rolled against the target's shields. Finally, for each die that penetrates the shields, one or more dice is rolled for damage location. While this process has worked quite well, there are some drawbacks:

1) It's a LOT of die rolling, particularly when some of the weapon traits/special equipment are factored in.

2) Rolling for hits on a D6 severely limits the number of modifiers that can be applied -- and those modifiers aren't consistent in their effect. For example, if the weapon's ACC is 5+, a +1 modifier increases the chance of scoring a hit by 50%; if the ACC is 3+, that +1 modifier only represents an increase of 25%.

3) The need to roll for damage location on each die -- and the need to track damage to individual weapon mounts -- requires special considerations, like the weapon damage chart (which incidentally means yet ANOTHER die roll).

4) Did I mention that it's a LOT of die rolling?

With the new edition, we're making a paradigm shift, from individual weapon mounts to whole weapon batteries. Each battery has a total attack dice strength, which is then stretched out into a "string", like this:

LASER CANNONS : 10 - 7 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - 1 - 1

When making an attack, the appropriate number of dice are rolled, and each 5 or 6 scores one point of damage on the target. That's it. To represent differing firepower strengths in different arcs, each battery is then subdivided into "banks", like this:

LASER CANNONS : [FF2][PB4][SB4] : 10 - 7 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - 1 - 1

Each bank has a firing arc ("FF" = forward; "PB" = port broadside; "SB" = starboard broadside) and an arc modifier (all arc modifiers are negative, but the minus signs are omitted for clarity). When determining the number of dice to roll, each -1 results in a one "column" shift to the right. Thus, the FF bank has 5 attack dice, and the PB/SB banks have 3 dice each.

Other modifiers are applicable: in particular, the target's ECM is subtracted from the arc modifier. For example, if the FF bank is used to attack a target with an ECM of 1, the number of attack dice is 4 (-2 - 1 = -3).

Why is this better?

1) It's faster. Consider this: in The Admiralty Edition, the Diamondback-class S'ssk gunship has two Serpent's Fangs firing forward. First, two dice are rolled to score hits; then, as many as 4 dice are rolled for impact; finally, up to 8 dice are rolled for damage location. Thus, in order to resolve the attack anywhere from 2 to 14 dice are rolled, in three separate rolls. If these weapons are converted to the new system, one roll of 6 dice is made, with each 5 or 6 scoring a point of damage. Simple. If the target has shields, a second roll is still needed -- on the other hand, if the target's only defenses are ECM or Armor, just the one roll will suffice.

2) It's more consistent. Each modifier has the same effect, regardless of the starting number of attack dice or when in the process it is applied. For every +2, the number of attack dice is doubled; for every -2, the number of attack dice is cut in half.

3) Damage to weapons can be handled in a more abstract fashion (i.e. as a further attack dice penalty) or in a more traditional "damage to individual banks" fashion.

And if you're worried about a loss in granularity, consider this: if the SAE version of Serpent's Fangs are fired at medium range at a target with a shield rating of 3, the overall chance of causing hull damage is as follows:

Hull Damage ... Probability
One point ... 21.7%
Two points ... 17.7%
Three points ... 7.8%
Four points ... 3.3%
Five points ... 0.9%
Six points ... 0.3%

Thus, in the process of three separate die rolls, involving as many as fourteen dice, four or more hull hits occur in less than one out of twenty-two attacks. In the new system, this same scenario would result in the roll of three attack dice (assuming an ECM of 2, which is the equivalent in protection to Shields 3). The probability of each outcome is as follows:

Hull Damage ... Probability
One point ... 44.4%
Two points ... 22.2%
Three points ... 3.7%

The curve has been flattened, but not completely. Although the very rare multiple-damage (4+ hull) attack results have been eliminated, the chances of causing at least one point of hull damage has gone up by more than a third (51.7% to 70.3%), while the average number of hull hits caused has remained the same (1.00).

In other words, by reducing the attack to a single roll of three dice -- and thus considerably hastening what has been traditionally the most complicated and time-consuming part of the game turn -- we have kept a similar range of (reasonably) possible results, increased the probability of success per attack, and maintained the overall hits-per-attack ratio.

Since the Starmada announcement in CL #44 (http://www.starfleetgames.com/documents/Starmada%20Ships/CL44-Starmada.pdf) kinda let the cat out of the bag, thought I'd share this with you.

Majestic Twelve Games is pleased to announce that after months of planning, a brand-new edition of Starmada: The Universal Game of Starship Combat is slated for release in January 2012.

While in some ways this new edition will be notably different from previous incarnations of the game, at its core Starmada remains the game you have grown to know and (hopefully) love. As always, the guiding principle has been "simple, but not simplistic".

Among the changes to the core game system, players will find:

* A more streamlined movement system;

* Three distinct and layered types of starship defenses;

* A reduction in the number of die rolls -- and amount of time -- required to resolve ship-to-ship combat. In some cases, the outcome of an attack can be decided by a single throw of the dice!

On the other hand, much remains unchanged, such as:

* A commitment to balanced game play;

* A core set of rules accessible to beginners yet robust enough to support the needs of experienced gamers;

* The most comprehensive set of starship construction rules available in any game currently available!

And of course, Starmada will continue to provide dozens of stand-alone options and advanced rules from which you may pick and choose to fit your desired level of complexity and create the type of game you want to play.

Stay tuned to this space over the coming weeks as we continue to provide more information about this new edition -- I'm sure you'll like what you see!