Still, the ComRat hit looks appropriate doesn't it?

Variable Hull Strengths

While peering into Dan's wonderful formulas that govern how ships are put together in Starmada, I began wondering why couldn't we have ships that were harder to destroy by manipulating how many H hits appeared on the damage track. Under rule A.3.2 Assigning Hits to the Damage Chart it simply states "assign an "H" to the 1, 3, and 5 slots." Couldn't you simulate a stronger or weaker hull by having more or fewer "H"s show up? A civilian freighter might have 6 Hs on its damage track.

The number of Hs on the damage track is accounted for in the DRat calculation ( rule A.2.2 ) by multiplying the Hull Points by 2. This means it takes, on average, two hits to destroy one hull box and equals 3 Hs on the damage track ( 3 / 6 = 2 ). So the desired number of Hs on the damage track can be used by replacing that x2 with the appropriate number below:

Strength    Hs    DRat mod    H location
Super        1    x6.0        1
Strong        2    x3.0        1, 4
Average        3    x2.0        1, 3, 5
Weak        4    x1.5        1, 2, 4, 5
Fragile        5    x1.2        1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Civilian    6    x1.0        1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

To compare the results, I have included a couple of designs:

Average Class Cruiser of the Conjectural Confederation   ( 187 )
Mass: 88.7 KmT, Crew: 315, TL:   E:0  W:0  D:0  Q:0
Hull: 6 5 4 3 2 1
Engines: 6 5 4 3 2 1
Defenses: K: 2 1 | E: 2 1 | B: 2 1
[α] Mass Driver [4/8/12, 3+ 1/1/1, Kinetic, Extra Hull Damage]
AB, AC, BD
[β] Laser Cannon [3/6/9, 3+ 2/1/1, Energy]
AB, ACE, BDF
Hyperdrive [O], Anti-Fighter Batteries [O], Electronic Countermeasures [O], Security Team [OOOOO], Sunbursts [OOOOO]
1[HQ], 2[EQ], 3[Hα], 4[Eβ], 5[H], 6[D]

Designed with a standard strength hull ( 3 Hs on the Damage Track ), the above design has an ORat of 561.0 and a DRat of 62.4, resulting in the ComRat of 187. After an average of twelve hits on its damage track, a vessel of this class will be destroyed. Compare this with an identical ship below, designed with a strong hull ( only 2 Hs on the Damage Track ).

Strong Class Cruiser of the Conjectural Confederation   ( 210 )
Mass: 88.7 KmT, Crew: 315, TL:   E:0  W:0  D:0  Q:0
Hull: 6 5 4 3 2 1
Engines: 6 5 4 3 2 1
Defenses: K: 2 1 | E: 2 1 | B: 2 1
[α] Mass Driver [4/8/12, 3+ 1/1/1, Kinetic, Extra Hull Damage]
AB, AC, BD
[β] Laser Cannon [3/6/9, 3+ 2/1/1, Energy]
AB, ACE, BDF
Hyperdrive [O], Anti-Fighter Batteries [O], Electronic Countermeasures [O], Security Team [OOOOO], Sunbursts [OOOOO]
1[HQ], 2[Eα], 3[Eβ], 4[H], 5[D], 6[Q]

This design has the exact same ORat of 561.0 but the DRat is now 78.6, giving the ORat of 210. A vessel of this class requires an average of eighteen hits on its damage track before it is destroyed. This is keeping in line with the following design, again a standard strength hull ( 3 Hs on the damage track ), a hull size 9 design also needing eighteen hits on average to destroy. The class below could have additional systems but for comparison purposes with the above designs has been give only the exact same systems.

Unfilled Class Battlecruiser of the Conjectural Confederation   ( 214 )
Mass: 137.1 KmT, Crew: 423, TL:   E:0  W:0  D:0  Q:0
Hull: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Engines: 6 5 4 3 2 1
Defenses: K: 2 1 | E: 2 1 | B: 2 1
[α] Mass Driver [4/8/12, 3+ 1/1/1, Kinetic, Extra Hull Damage]
AB, AC, BD
[β] Laser Cannon [3/6/9, 3+ 2/1/1, Energy]
AB, ACE, BDF
Hyperdrive [O], Anti-Fighter Batteries [O], Electronic Countermeasures [O], Security Team [OOOOO], Sunbursts [OOOOO]
1[HQ], 2[EQ], 3[Hα], 4[Eβ], 5[H], 6[D]

Note: This will break down in ship designs that have too few systems to place on the damage track. So if you have a fifteen hull size design with Super hull strength ( only 1 H on the damage track ) and no weapons only tons of special equipment ( say its a carrier ) it will normally fill in blank spots on the damage track with additional Hs. This will defeat the purpose of having super hull strength and you should watch your design and make it only Strong or average so that you do not pay an inordinate amount of points for the ship.

We've tried vector movement before but in Starmada it is too easy to get smaller ships with large thrust values. Kind of hard to run a battle when a ship can accel/decel by 15. Unless you impose an arbitrary speed limit or up the mass of engines that is. Otherwise ships tend to fly by with a best one shot then spend several turns decel, turning and repeating. Boring, no maneuver.

She is 231 (and two days, as of today). 4 July 1776 was the day the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress and is considered the birthday of the United States of America. Our current constitution (our 2nd) was ratified by the ninth state (the
Congress of the Confederation required 9 of the 13 states to ratify it before it took effect) on 21 June 1788. It replaced the Articles of Confederation (our 1st constitution) which was a VERY loose confederation that left too many important powers to the states.

The x2 has always been there. It wasn't included in the discussions and that is what led to my confusion. So I simply tried to state the entire base DRat equation to make sure that we are all on the same page.

Okay, I've been very interested as well and following. Unfortunately, with all of the replys  I've become confused as to the formulas that are being discussed. To summarize as I see so far:

Ablative Armor
Any hit which penetrates shields first hits Ablative Armor. After all Ablative Armor boxes are destroyed, additional pentrating hits roll on the Damage Chart. A ship can have up to its hull size in Ablative Armor boxes.

SU Cost:   x ( Ablative Armor / Hull ) ^ 2

Base DRat calculation is changed to: ((( Ablative Armor x 2 / 3 ) + Hull ) x 2 ) x Shield Factor

So a 6 Hull ship ( 900 SU ) with 3 Ablative Armor and 3 Shield will use:

SU for Ablative Armor: x ( 3 / 6 ) ^ 2 or x.25 = 225 SU
Base DRat : ((( 3 x 2 / 3 ) + 6 ) x 2.0 or 8 x 2.0 = 16

Does this look correct?

If I wanted a Marine Squad to have an upgraded Boarding Pod (say speed 12, attacks on a 4+ and halves shields), does the following look correct?

ORat & DRat = 40 (Base Value) / 0.33 (getting rid of 5+ to-hit) x 0.5 (adding 4+ to-hit) x 1.2 (speed 12) x 1.8 (Halves Shields).

or: 40 / 0.33 x 0.5 x 1.2 x 1.8 = 130.909 = 131?

Well, pearing into the formula for the tech level SU mods can be quite interesting. The basic calculation is something like this:

SU mod = sqrt(2^-TL) or (2^-TL)^(1/2)

So, this sets the normal level at 0, the range of change at 2 and the factor of change at 2. If you re-write the equation as:

Factor ^ -( TL - Normal ) ^ ( 1 / Range )

Now you can easily change the tech level SU mods to any values that feel appropriate for your "universe". If you want the same rate and factor of change but think the TLs should run from 1 to 5 (normal = 3) rather than -2 to +2, the use:

2 ^ -( TL - 3 ) ^ ( 1 / 2 )

If you want 9 tech levels (lvls 1-9) with the lowest being four times as massive as the norm (halfway through at TL5), use:

4 ^ -( TL - 5 ) ^ ( 1 / 4 )

Even at the low tech end of the scale, the best way to project combat power is to field some fighters. Even if they are slow and in small groups.

Pop Warner Class Carrier of the Fledgling Space Service   ( 149 )   
Mass: 69.4 KmT, Crew: 285, TL:   E:-3  W:-3  S:-3  Q:-3
Hull: 5 4 3 2 1
Engines: 2 1
Shields:  0
[α] Depleted Uranium Gatling Gun [1/2/3, 4+ 2/1/1, Doubled Range Modifiers, Range-Based ROF]   
ACE, BDF
Hyperdrive [O], Fighter Bay, Slow, Sml  [OOOO], Launch Bay [O]
1[HQ], 2[Eα], 3[H], 4[Q], 5[H], 6[Q]

Tenderfoot Class Destroyer of the Tenative First Step Navy   ( 30 )
Mass: 51 KmT, Crew: 123, TL:   E:-3  W:-3  S:-3  Q:-3
Hull: 4 3 2 1
Engines: 3 2 1
Shields:  1       
[α] Primitive Laser [3/6/9, 5+ 2/1/1]           
ABC, ABD               
Hyperdrive [O], Armor Plating               
1[HQ], 2[Eα], 3[H], 4[E], 5[H], 6[S]   

Here is a very low tech design by a race making its first foray into hyperspace.

Speaking of new weapon abilities, what would be a good starting point for pricing a weapon that gets to shoot during the fighter phase?

Not related specifically to what has come before in this thread but still about fighters: I've always thought it strange that the modifiers for customized fighters affected the ComRat of the ship but not the mass. You can cram just as many fast, heavy, assault fighters into a fighter bay as you can vanilla ones. A squadron of both is six fighters each but shouldn't they take up different amounts of room? Maybe the fighter bay should be given some kind of capacity and then you have to shoe-horn in fighters of varying size? Or is this too much detail? If you only have one fighter bay, maybe you can only fit four of the uber fast, heavy, assault fighters? The large and small fighter modification kind of point this way.