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mj12games.com/forum → Posts by madpax
Klingons, now. They have the same OB as in SFU, but have only two different weapons, heavy and light disruptors.
They are faster and more maneuvrable than the Federation, but less resistant.
Marc
I wouldn't say that someone designing uber weapons misses the point of the design system, but much more explores just one facet and not the most interesting one.
BTW, it's simply a game, and one of the interesting thing about games is that you don't have to win every time as your life is theoretically not threatened, but you can play with challenges which are usually more rewarding than simply deploying uber-ships and blasting the opponent in one alpha strike.
Marc
The InterStellar Concordium, a pure SFU race which would like to impose peace by waging war on everyone!
I reduced the types of weapons bto 2, but otherwise, they are not special.
Marc
I can't understand how a game where on the first turn of combat a fleet lose by seeing half its ships go BOOM is fun...
Maybe the best idea is to let the players exhaust themselves on killing combinations, the obvious result being that it will kill the fun first.
Marc
Whoah, did you find the best combination against spammer? 
Marc
Beautiful SPAM attacks!
Marc
Another pure SFU fleet, with two distinct philosophies. Either the ships have short range heavy weapons (fusion beams) and fighters, either they have long range heavy weapon (Hellbore).
Note that I do not use the Starfleet armada rules for Hellbore.
Marc
Personally, I prefer to play with universes from other games, books, tv/movies because I can identify the fleet I play with/against.
Trying to find the best combination of weapons is fun for mere minutes and can disgust people.
My 2 eurocents.
Marc
Ok, it seems consistent. Seekers will attack just after the target fires or at the end of the combat phase if not.
Marc
The Gorns now. A mix between the SFU (the ship classes) and the B5 vault (mainly the weapons). Nothing really special.
Marc
I'd like a precision about when does a seeker weapon attack. On turn X, it is launched. On turn X+1, it attacks. But when exactly?
The rules say that they attack when the firing ship has completed its attacks. Which firing ship?
Is it the ship that has fired the seeker?
Or the ship that is targeted by the seeker?
I suppose the former.
If so, what happens if the firing ship is in fact unable to fire (being already destroyed, cloaked, or simply having no target in range/fire arcs)?
Marc
Some Ferengis. Nothing special about them. The Brokta Gath comes in two versions. The cost of the one carrying Kraktas includes the Katka cost. But each Krakta destroyed gives the opponent its cost as VP (if the scenario says so).
Marc
I have designed expendable for the Andromedans (in my Star Trek adaptations) but made their transporter bombs not really powerful. Maybe that's one more problem with designing your ships the way you want. It can lead to abuse... 
Marc
Ok, the Federation will be next. About this one, it's a mix of SFU (mostly the ships). BTW, one thing I did was to 'specialize' some ships. Commando ships for boarding, escort or scout, usually.
For the fed, I standardize a lot. The weapons (one heavy, one medium and one light) and the fire arcs. The heavy has FF, the medium and light ones have, mostly #H fire arc. After all, they are mounted on a saucer and should be able to track targets on half the universe.
Federation ships are 'average', ie they are not particularly faster, bigger, powerful etc. Fighters are thus average also.
The gunboats: Many fleets will have them. Those are an oversized fighter without hyperdrive (warp movement for instance). They thus need a gunboat tender to 'carry' them. Their cost is their for VP purpose (you earn VP when destroying them) but you have to buy a gunboat tender to field them. Then , you should just pay the tender cost, NOT the gunboat cost. The gunboat cost is already included in the GBT.
Fighters: As I said somewhere on the forum, I feel that the fighters are much to expensive for their worth. To give them a value on the battlefield, I reduced the price of carriers. The SU need is the same as the official version, but the cost is reduced. For those who will try them, tell me if it's ok.
Marc
Dominion, now, or more exactly Jem'Hadar. Nothing special about them. I added the shuttles as per the original SSD.
The supercarrier cost includes the attack ships.
Marc
With such a price, I wonder what you will oppose...
Now the Cardassian. A pure Strak Trek race. According to B5Wars vault, the cardassian ships have a mix of weapons. I standardized them with the compressor as their main weapon, mainly because it seems no one else has it.
Marc
The Breen, another Star Treck people. I don't know anything about them. BTW, I should say that I downloaded a lot of SSD from B5W here: http://b5warsvault.wikidot.com/.
Very helpful. So I translated as accurately as possible the ships of this race ... and here is the perfect example of what should no exist for game purpose. The ships have too many different weapons systems, fire arcs are not easy to remember and too messy. I even wonder how a people would create ships so weird...
Marc
Then the Borg, a pure Star Trek fleet. They are also tech level +1.
Regeneration has been created for them it seems.
No shields although they do have some means of defense which I translated as ECM and armor.
Most ships are very potent and thus very expensive.
Marc
After putting a lot of thought and work behind that project, trying it (at least part of it) twice in battles, here is the 'final' result of that universe, viewed by myself. It's a mix of SFU and Star Trek, both for races, how ships and weapons work, at least to my point of view. Forget the previous topic created by me, it's no more good.
I will publish them in alpha order. The first one, a SFU race, the Andromedans. Contrary to (almost) all other fleets, they don't use shields but panel absorbers. Those panels are very funny in SFB. They absorb all damage points, converting them in energy, using it to power their systems (ugly...) and dissipating the remainder. But, what is funny is, when they are full, enemy weapons begin to damage the ship interior. And if a panel is destroyed, it releases its energy inside the ship. If another panel is destroyed, it releases it energy the same and... well, you can see how ugly it becomes now but for this Andromedan ship.
Obviously, I can't translate that in Armada terms, but after a try, I thought that a mix of heavy armor (the panels) and regeneration (the dissipation) can solve that problem.
You will note that the biggest ships can carry (but nor for free, you have to pay for them) small ships. To allow you to chose any mix of babies, each small ship size has been tranlasted in 'points'.
I've added both pdf and excel files.
Marc
I don't understand the following rationale:
Unless I'm mistaken, a small ship needs a lot of SU for each armor point. Whereas a much bigger one needs a lot less SU for the same number of armor points.
Why so?
marc
Ok, thanks!
Marc
I played a game this afternoon with a friend, and I ended with some notes and questions. It was a Hit and Run game opposing Andromedan (attackers) and Federation (Defenders) ships (personnal view of the SFU) using ships profiles of my own creation. We had 9 ships vs 6 for me.
We played with 150% of the budget indicated in the scenario. It was fun, but, my friend having played only once with SNE had some difficulties understanding how to compute speed, what to do in relation of its thrust and speed, etc. In the end, it enticed me to use the SFO move system which is not only easier and faster, but also doesn't need markers for speed which clutter a lot the mat.
Computing the attacks is also a bit cumbersome and I will think of something that should be helpful.
Other than that, some questions:
- Regeneration. The scenarios says that the defender (me) win points when crippling ships. I suppose it's the full value and not the halved one as in an optional rule in the rulebook. Also, if the regeneration removes the crippled status, the points are still earned. Right? Otherwise, it would be impossible for me to win points.
- Prx with directionnal defenses: As Proximity weapons target a ship in particular, how do you determine if the directional defenses apply or not? We decided they don't, but I don't know.
Marc
Efrrr.. try universes created by other people...?
Marc
I've read the seeker rules, and found them correct. But, after a game, I found out that they can be not so useful (the seekers, not the rules). That is, they are fired on turn X, face down, then they have to wait until their target fires before attacking themselves.
That's ok, but I fear, you could lose any interest of having seekers except in some universes (drones in SFU, for example), just because the enemy can have a lot of opportunities to shot down them by waiting to the last moment until firing with the seeker target.
Opinions please?
Marc
i didn't compare with the official cost, but it seems ok for me that way. I don't want to lose a facet of the game just because it's not cost-efficient.
Marc
mj12games.com/forum → Posts by madpax
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