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mj12games.com/forum → Posts by Taltos
I'll be there...
Uncle_Joe wrote:So no, its not, and likely wont be official. But as has been stated many times by the MJXII folks, its not like someone is going to come to your house and arrest you for not playing the official version.
Actually... we have been in negotiations with the Men in Black...
But, Dan, I thought those negotiations were for the intent of... What was that sound?
Hey! Who are you?! What are you do..... urk
how does fielding work?
Color my interest radar engaged...
Chogokin wrote:The Metal Men
A Faction for Iron Stars
People may accuse me of "bumping", but hey, it's my forum.
When it is your forum, it is more of a grind....
-ducks and runs-
The forthcoming VBAM Stars Divided series uses it too.
I would have to defer to the playtesters, but it has driven some good discussion and review of designs and series modifications to designs, IMO.
It is just added depth, more universe/fluff specific.
points to whoever gets those references (psycic females and hot tea).
-K
Nope, don't recognize it right off, but sounds sort of like "Madness Season" (or whatever that was by C.S.Friedman) where it took crazy people to pilot ships through hyperspace...
oh, on the reverse side of limiting jumps from point to point and not simply going across the vastness... it could require a tie to a gravitational well - you can only jump from a system to a system and not stop in between. That would logically explain not being able to make it the long way...
Talos,
Maybe the best way to think about a sector is that it's a little more unifed. After a certain point it makes more sense to talk about California rather than a summation of LA+San Jose+San Fran+Reno+all the other freaking cities there.
So we're really not concerned about the specific details, but a larger overview.
No argument there... I was saying the same without the detail behind it. 
Was just offering "generated" stats from a handful of systems can provide value that is either
a) more diffuse throughout the sector
or
b) the other systems don't apply any practical value (no planets, whatever)
The explanation for it I leave in other hands.
Sensor ranges as linked to movement, how much can I know about what's going on? If I can use a jump lane to enter into a system, but you can't detect me, then I can hide in the ort cloud and pay you a visit every now and then:) It becomes 100% critital when looking at warp or hyperspace FTL.
Ah, I see that as a separate discussion from jump capability and sector values. Hence my confusion.
As to the tiles. I think that it can work as an offical universe map, but you can use the same idea to make a semi-random universe for people to play in too.
Valid point that...
Talos,
A lot of stars are junk stars that arn't likely to have Earth like planets. That's something else to think of when talking about FTL drives.
Right. I was figuring (after checking with others if it ever got that far) on picking out a sector, generating 3-5 systems out of 10 or more and then using that information.
Sensor ranges are imporant too.
Not necessarily... at the distances we are talking about. Within the same sector maybe.
That is a level of detail for another day...
When I mentioned the idea of sectors it was with the idea that they'd be more like binomes than anything else. For replayability and that good stuff, you could make them hex tiles, the nararative fluff comes during the campaign.
-K
Now are you are talking about two different things... SovStars style tiles that are just nebulous regions not tied to anything in particular so the "terrain" always changes, or are we talking about "the" Starmada setting which would by its nature be largely be static?
But I know Dan has a lot of work done in this area... more towards the replay angle if I understand it right...
Kodiak wrote:I think that there's a way to have your cake and eat it too. Stay with me for a few moments. Once you get a "suffently large" map area, you're going to give up details. Look at any strategic level WW2 game. So you could use providences that have a level of development, economic resources, all that good stuff and then generate a set of statistics from that.
What might be interesting would be to work up several sectors in VBAM terms and then see how easy it would be to crunch the numbers and come up with more simplified stats for use in a game like SovStars...
Noel?
Doable.
I use a mapping program and plots of near Earth stars to generate the data for my VBAM maps in the coming Stars Divided series. (In fact Arcturus is an occupied world of the Authority. Some serious battles in nearby systems.)
boiling something similar down into Sector divisions could be done....
(I think I know the answer to this)
Political sectors or rigid spacial defined?
I don't think I ever assumed that the Arcturans were from Arcturus itself... somewhere in the depths of time they were associated with that star and the name stuck.
I dispute that, given my memory of an extended discussion of how a campaign map had to build out from the fact that the Arcturans were around Arcturus... 
You're right; I believe Arcturus to be too close to Sol to make a decent-sized operational area.
And there really are a lot of stars between here and there, and several around Arcturus that make it pretty reliable for campaign fodder, depending upon how deep you want your theaters.
That was a matter of contention between me and Noel (I don't recall if Jim had an opinion one way or the other...)
"contention" may be too strong a word.
Noel seemed to think it was necessary to describe each system in detail, effectively limiting the largest empires to a dozen or so systems. I had always pictured it as a Star Wars type thing, with vast galaxy-spanning territories of indeterminite size and hundreds (thousands?) of inhabited worlds.
Yes, I wanted a stronger feel to things to really understand the contest...
And the Stars Wars universe just bugs me cause everything seems like it is right next to each other and the same worlds get talked about over and over again... there are apparently gobs of them (look at the Senate) and only the same 10 or so ever matter... good for simply story telling but lousy for making me feel like there is meaningful thought there.
Probably why I am a VBAM junkie. :twisted:
(but at least I don't map all the individual planets in each system... or all the other possible painful detail.)
Taltos,
That's part of what I'm trying to figure out too. I see some possiblities with the Expanse comming for humanity, the Dragons showing up, or even an Alliance civil war or something happening in the Commonwealth between the Imperium and the Federation. In putting that together, I'm looking for several bits of info:
1) size of the empires, are we talking about a few star systems, or many many star systems?
Now that is a question that needs time.
I remember discussing this with King Dan in the past and the idea was for a the Imperium to be a far flung expanse. The Arcturan Federation is supposed to be based at Arcturus (Alpha Bootis), right? While that isn't "right next door", it isn't too far. Still...
Which systems are settled, which explored, which sentried?
2) FTL drive nature, as far as I can tell the only rules that we've seen are in the jumping out rules. Given the Imperium/Federation war background, it has to be hard to force a decisive battle.
I think this means that the concept of jump point assaults is out.
So a jump lane system might be out too.
Maybe, maybe not.
Depending upon the official nature of Starmada jump engines... a "lane" may simply represent a possible corridor for a single campaign turn's jump range.
from that...
3) Logistics, this could help explain why the Federation was able to play their game for as long as they could. I remember when the first Sovereign Stars demo came out and it seems really explicit what the Federation Adm. did, cut a supply depot and skyrocketed the logistics cost.
You could get an option for laying in modified (more stringent) supply rules so that with cut jump lanes and you get exactly the effect implied in the history.
As an aside, I think VBAM is great, it's the right "here is your empire, have a nice day" rule set that feels epic, but the more complicated rules seem to go into to much detail and can be frustrating when you want the bigger picture.
Actually it works well there too... it just takes more patience.
I am coordinating a playtest of material that is going to come out eventually in a different setting with peacetime economies at 200+ and fully developed fleets at the start...
And I have a 40 year solo game going...
So it could be done with Starmada.
The ultimate plan, and this ties in with my other question about weapons equivilants is to create at least a thought model about how a total universe campaign would be run in the Starmada background to the end of developing a campaign arc.
-K
I know that at one time Dan had specific thoughts on a civil war in the Imperium and some other things that would be a lot of fun to play out.
Coordinating an official arc always gave a headache. Course that was before VBAM...
That's gonna be my new excuse for everything -- Jim did it!
About time people started joining the light side.
Noel had a timeline built somewhere that details out some of the more interesting moments in Starmadda history.
Where is that thing?
It is buried on this HD somwhere...
I will try to dig it up.
Well, actually, it was a compilation of what was in the compendium, I believe...
Yes, for the most part.
It started with trying to get the events all together so the full story could be deciphered... Dan was around at the time and I think I fiddled with it to try to spark his interest in "what comes next"...
I saw those and thought they would fit with the Infinity figures, myself.
I kinda of see them as two different ideas.
One the intreaction effect, (I think it was suggested that this is covered by shield resonant.) which was my origanal idea.
Then we have the backfire/feedback idea, which I like it would be intresting for the super-beam anime cannons or experimental weapon systems.
With the orginal idea.
how about simply jimbeau' idea.
1: Firer takes target shield value hits on DMG track (minimum 1)
2-3: Target takes target shield value hits on DMG track (minimum 1)
4-6: Both take target shield value hits on DMG track (minimum 1 each)
It would work (even if I have already passed my quota of accepted Jim ideas for this month ) but I think it misses the interaction component of weapon and shield... but, then again, I guess my proposal did too...
With a 'backfiring' type weapon, why roll?
1) A to-hit roll isn't needed -- it's going off on you, by definition.
2) A PEN roll would be silly -- its one of those "the shields were pointed the other direction" or "we put the armor on the OUTSIDE for a reason" situations.It's easier to do something like my suggestion, and just apply damage points -- captures the feel of a misfiring torpedo sending blazing hot walls of plasma down every corridor in C deck better, too.
-Adso
That's true, but...
So is it a backfire? or is it interacting violently with the opponents shields (the original idea)? I see those as two separate things...
A big part of what I envision being in the SU for a fighter bay is the parts, ammo, flight crew, launch and recovery equipment...
You don't actually lose all that stuff if you "move" the fighter do you?
jimbeau wrote:1: Roll one to-hit die against the firing ship
2-3: Roll one to-hit die against the firing ship, AND roll one to-hit die against the target.
4-6: Roll one to-hit die against the target.More of a wording change than anything else
Except that how do you define the to-hit die against the firing ship? Does it retain the same chance as against other targets?
I still think PEN rather than ROF addresses most of this. You already hit (ROF/to-hit) now what happens (PEN)?
Is the firing ship at short range?
When such a weapon used, roll one die per successful ROF hit on the following chart. At short range add -1 to the die roll.
1: Roll that hit's PEN die against the firing ship
2-3: Roll that hit's PEN die against the firing ship, AND against the target
4-6: Roll that hit's PEN die against the target
yes! nice work as always!
And glad to see the improvement in the attachment points. That will be a big plus.
I like this... except...
There are really two different effects here; one is the Shield-Resonant effect, the other is what we're calling "Volatile". So, I would propose this:
A volatile weapon is dangerous -- not only for the intended target, but for the firing ship as well!
When such a weapon is used, roll one die per point of ROF on the following chart:
1: The firing ship takes one hit against its shields.
2-3: The firing ship takes one hit against its shields, AND roll one to-hit die against the target.
4-6: Roll one to-hit die against the target.
Why not make it roll one die per point of PEN, and let it stack with shield resonant if you want to go that far?
at what tech levels? Base 0?
I have fielded ships with 1/2/3 Variable damage that were expendable.
While the load was gone really fast, the opponent that had been sitting right *there* when I started rolling dice ended up right *where?* after I was done. :twisted:
yeah, I saw those too.
they are some really nice figures. Not sure how they ended it up in that line either.
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