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mj12games.com/forum → Posts by Nahuris
I'd say that we develop an entire universe of source materials.... fluff is good.
John
Or we could call it Starmada X, the Warmaster's Edition........ LOL
John
That might work... a friend of mine has all of the figurines they made for the original Crimson Skies game.... I'd love to convert a couple of those planes over, and see how they fair against the historical designs.
John
Sure thing....
Did you plan on using a construction system? Or are you going to use historical designs only? There were a lot of innovations during the latter half of the 18th century... one of the biggest innovations of the time was the Frigates of the fledgling US... such as the USS Constitution. The Hull, rib structure, and keel design were radically different than the norm for the time, resulting in a faster, more durable design. The designer of those ships actually snuck out of England after he had attempted to sell the idea to the English, and they refused.
Also, there is the Razee's.... Which were British ships of the line that the French captured... they would raze (remove) one of the decks, and make it a lower sleeker design.... faster and more maneuverable at the cost of some firepower.
The reason I bring this up is that the American Frigates were vastly superior, and could stand up to ships with half again as many cannon, and frequently gave British ships of the line a run for their money...but were definitely within the same time period. French ships tended to have better rigging and sails, and were maneuverable to a fault... which makes me wonder what would have happened if we could have gotten an American hull, French rigging, and British crews and gunnery, all on one ship......
John
I ended up learning about it while working in the shipyard making the new Texas class subs.... they use a special rubberized coating which helps the sub use the thermoclines... and also make it look more like a whale on active sonar......
It was an interesting class.....
John
A lot of this idea was done with the computer game Submarine Titans... and done well. One of the things that we will probably want to keep track of is depth... especially with thermal-clines (I think that's how you spell it)
Basically, if you have water moving in a current that is a different temperature, the point where you go from one temp to the other creates sonar ghosts..... our modern subs use it to help camoflage, as it is possible to use the said current and temp change to hide behind..... Subs do it a lot with the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic.
John
No, but I did do a thesis on naval warfare in that time period .... worked at the Whaling Museum in NewBedford, MA.... worked in the Mariner's Museum in Newport News, VA.... and have been a deck hand on a couple of ships built for re-enactment. I have always absolutely loved the age of sails.... and was just wondering if anyone here had considered a game based on it.....LOL.
I've even built model ships in bottles.....
The idea just sort of struck me, as I was looking at some online pics at work, and wishing I could be out sailing rather than sitting at a desk.
John
I was looking at the possibility of creating a game based on the old sailing ships... maybe between 1600 and 1850?
I was wondering how possible it would be to re-create the Battle of Trifalgar as a game...... Unfortunately, my knowledge does not extend to game design.....
Anyone else want to take a stab at it?
John
I was wondering if we wanted to explore this option a bit further..... I do know that a friend was designing up some B5 style ships (home designs), and instead of making a bunch of one arc beam weapons, he opted to go with several light spinal mounts.... the end result was that he had the equivelent of 4 weapon banks... with the light spinals being that fourth, but it wasin the rules and very effective. In the final design, he used a Hull of 8, and 4 spinals that did 2 damage each......
Now the only disadvantage is that we have to manually make each control sheet for these ships as that way, the hit table comes out correct, as you end up adding Q hits.
John
I'd be game to try and write a few up.... if and when I ever get a life again.
I'm working 6 day weeks, and about 12 hours a day or so.....
John
One of the nice things about drones is that if you are launching clouds of them in preparation to hit a specific target, and due to the way the battle unfolds, that target is taken out..... they can be sent after something else. For that matter, you can fly groups of drones all over the battlefield like fighter swarms, and spend as many turns as you want moving them.... They don't even need a specific target, they can wait until a target presents itself for them. They are great for distractions, and making your opponent nervous.
I much prefer to load a ship with Drones than expendable weapons.
John
Try being in the Seattle area... or in my case, out in the unincorporated county...... people out there don't even know what a sand-truck is....LOL
I almost wasn't able to get up the hill with chains last night...... and I am originally from upstate NY, and am used to snow.
John
In our group, we use something similar... with the letters abcdef as the normal arcs, and 123456 as the adjusted arcs with 1 being straight ahead.
Since I have a number of the assault frigates from Homeworld... it works perfect for the Plasma Bomb Launchers that are mounted in the nose of the ship. It also allows me to create the Ion Frigates, as I can put a single weapon with a ROF of 3, and repeating as the beam. It does a wonderful job of simulating the raking effect of the Ion Beam in the game.
John
Yes... but I think I found the issue... it only happens with special equipment... specifically things such as spinal mounts and other equipment that uses a percentage of SU's...
While at work, I use quite a few spreadsheets, many with all different macros, and I think that one of the parameters must have been changed, or something. My home computer appears to be accurate... it is the work computer that is not right.
John
Hey Dan,
I downloaded the spreadsheet both at work, and at home, and found some interesting discrepancies. When I created a ship at work, it came up with a final CR of 38... but at home it was 50. The CR 710 I made at work costs CR 998 at home.
My work computer is a Pentium 4, while my home system is an Athlon.... and I deleated the sheets and re-downloaded them to see if something else was a problem....
Any idea why I am getting this?
John
During a recent discussion with my group, the subject of spinal mounts came up. While discussing it, I thought...... Why not a lighter or heavier version of the standard spinal mount?
You would use the range for the current hull points of your ship, but adjust the damage accordingly. For example, I have a hull nine ship with a "light spinal mount" with Hull damage 3, at .33 times the cost of the full unit....... or a heavy version, as in a Hull 6 ship wanting a 9 damage spinal mount at 1.5 times the cost.
For my larger ships, I would actually prefer the light versions in small groups.... as my above 9 hull ship, I would order 3 of the light units, and have them set as a Light Spinal Mount Cluster.... basically, yes, I get to roll 3 die to hit, but my overall damage is reduced... as it is unlikely that they all would hit. And with the heavier version, you would be spending a lot of SU's, just to concentrate all of your punch into one die to hit.... and that die at 5+ accuracy.
Does anyone else here have any ideas?
Don't get me wrong... I can't stand the fixed map.... I learned that the hard way during a Battletech game where one of my opponents put his back to the edge of the board. I told the ref that I was going to flank from both sides and take him down... and the ref's remark was "if you go off the edge of the board, you are considered to have surrendered......" which effectively allowed this mech to use an imaginary line in the middle of a grassy plain as cover.
However, at the same time, this particular ship design is nothing but the same thing... It is designed to use the turn based nature of the game, and the fact that they can continue to just fly away to give them the advantage. In a "true space battle" (or at least a cinematically imagined one), I could have my faster ships race ahead on fast burn to the flanks, and gradually herd the enemy back towards my heavier ships.... and with their rear aimed weaponry, I could stay our of range, until I could close with their flanks..... However, this would rely on a large playing area, and a goodly number of turns to implement. I've had a lot of games where we spend turns trying to jocky for position, and then had to end the game because we ran out of time.
Also, the one player that we have that is most likely to use this combo also is most likely to decide "oh, look, I've gotta get home" if his tactic is not working..... hence the trying to lock him onto a fixed board.
I am just leary of trying to adjust specific costs of stuff within the system, as this starts a pattern of variant rulings that makes it hard to just have a game with other groups of friends....(do you use this optional rule?)
I've already had someone in my group want to increase the cost of the spinal mounts on smaller craft, "to reflect the range advantage that it gives them versus standard weapons on an equivelent sized hull", and yet, he uses a hull 12 ship with a spinal mount as a "fast destroyer" while complaining that the "cost is too high for large ships when the weapon is stuck in a fixed mount" "Your little gunboats can fit 2 or 3 spinal mounts, but my destroyers can only have one." He feels that because I can fit up to 4 - 6 spinal mounts on a small ship (no shields, just engines, spinal mounts, and maybe....PDS), that we should have 4 - 6 spinal mounts on a hull 20 ship.
The only other option that I and my group could come up with is holding the game to the strict definition of terminology. Yes, you have inverted range modifiers, but it actually doesn't change the range bands.... you have a -1 at short range, and a +1 at long range, but the range titles are the same. Which means that it's easier to hit at long range, but more damaging closer in........ I'm not sure that this is acceptable, with the definition for this thread, but it is again, an option.
John
My friends and I have been discussing this, and we've found a couple of ideas that might work.
One, no floating table.... if he goes off the edge of the board, then he is fleeing the battle, and forfeits victory points to the other fleet.
Two, run away from him... since his most effective weapons are rear facing.... he has to point his back end at you to do anything..... That turns his ships into slow moving units that you can use spinal mounts to injure. The other option is to come after you, and then his weapons aren't being brought to bear.....
Three, I have several "flanking frigates" that are fast with a heavy range 18 weapon on each side.... Fire Arcs are ACE and BDF for the two weapons. I can use them to close, or aim them to the rear as I run at full speed... when flanking a fleet, I can always bring at least one of them to bear..... If he wants to chase me, he gets his own medicine, and if I need to close, he still has to deal with the weapons.
Over in the Bourbaki Basin, someone made a weapon that has the fire arcs CD ... at first, I was trying to figure out how a weapon could only fire left or right... but I finally figured it out.... they are torpedoes that fire broadside only... the launch holes are on the sides of the ship, while the loaders and operaterors are in the center.... and where the enemy is they can fire. Use this same idea and work your way around the sides of his fleet.... especially if he uses figurines... as it is really hard to stack figs in the same hex, you force him to move his ships in and around each other, which messes with his movement. Especially if the torpedo ships are really fast... You might be able to skim through his arcs.
Four, use drones... lots of drones.
Five, fighters....
Six, battle satellites.
We haven't had time to sit down and actually work with these ideas.... but we are working on ways to counter the problem. I don't want to start messing with the modifiers to the weapons, as that leads to other un-balances with the system.
John
In a way, we all have our own "expansions".
Each of us probably has at least one fleet of self designed ships....
I personally scratch build everything I play on the table, so everything I use would be considered an expansion...... and at some point, I am going to make some Tactical Read Out booklets and send them to Dan to host here... if he is willing.
(If I ever get time, that is.... I run a weekly Starmada Campaign using home-brewed campaign rules... a fantasy RP campaign, am a single father, and work a full time job.....LOL)
Starmada is a really good choice for a newer group, however, as there is not a huge amount of rules to cover, nor a huge investment in figurines needed... especially at first. You can whip up a few ships on the XL spreadsheet which is free to download, and put 'em on the table using counters, markers, or whatever (a number of the people here have links to nice top view counters of a lot of ships.)
(or you can look here http://planetside.firenebula.com// and go under resources for a whole bunch of counters.)
Give it a try, and tell us what you think, and how the games go. I'd love to hear how the game goes for your group.
John
It is both interesting, and humorous.....
I am liking the idea of the campaign play, however.
John
Ok, got it... I was looking for ways to close range, and bring return fire to bear..... I have also used the "vanilla" 1/1/1 weapons with Range 18, coupled with a stealth generator to create a long range ship that can fire without any return, which is where I was thinking......
I wasn't thinking on the modifiers, but the ability to cap his range 18 weapons to a range 12... yes, they still hit and hit hard, but if you have decent speed, stealth, and range 18 guns with good arcs, you can control the range enough that he doesn't get those hits.....
The way I was looking at it, is that a weapon with range 9 and only one arc hits 7 hexes at short range (area in full arc), 17 hexes at medium range, and 25 hexes at long range (counting the half-hexes you hit).
I was trying to get rid of a large area that this weapon can target, that you can still return fire into... at least until you knock it out, ect.....
There isn't a lot you can do against the weapon itself, other than create situations where it is not able to hit you......
John
The other option is to put a stealth generator on your ships.
It negates his long range, period.
There is nothing in the game that actually counters the stealth generator, so he has to close to the equivelent of medium range to get any shots off.
I am currently playing with someone who either puts inverted range mod, or no range mod on every weapon on every ship. He then puts on PDS, and sometimes shield 2... although it's usually screens 1 (he puts 2 screens in any hex you are likely to hit... and lets the PDS take out hits..... And never a speed less than 8 on his ships. He will use smaller ships, just to keep the speed, and control the range.
The other option that really messes with inverted range is using the Full Thrust movement with Starmada.....LOL
Even a slower ship can match speeds with the little fast ones, as there is a "board cap" to speed.... sooner or later, you cannot keep increasing your thrust, as you fly off the board, or into asteroids.
And that brings us to the third option... use asteroids and or sunbursts to provide cover until you force your opponents to close...... and never forget, you can always have a fighter flight "screen" one of your ships to provide penalties to targetting.
What most people don't think about is that all fire arcs are just that, arcs.
Long Range covers more area than any other range.... yes, the distance from source is the same, but from one side of the arc to the other is much larger an area.... so inverted range modifier creates a very large area where you get a bonus to get hit.....
This means that you can create very large areas where you can be hit at the +1 bonus for short range.
Does anyone else have suggestions for defense?
John
I know it's late.. but my fiance' has a way of cooking a turkey, so that it never comes out dry.....
We've had a number of them, and they are always moist.... and done really well.....
I'll have to find out exactly how she does it, and post the instructions
John
Actually, I recently made some system defense stations..... Hull 8 with zero engines, no hyperdrive, and just shields, armor and weapons (complete with armored batteries) and some drones....
The second line had fighter bays instead of drones.... and coupled with a small fleet of ships, they gave a really good account of themselves..... although the 2 tugs that I had out there to move them as needed got blasted.....LOL
I am really liking the flexability of the game system......
John
The spreadsheet is also a bit touchy, depending on the computer it is on.... I have a small hull one ship that I use, and if I make it on my home computer, it has a CR of 10, but when I design the exact same ship at work. it's CR is only 9....
I've noticed that ships I make at work are slightly less expensive, than those I make at home.....everything else being equal.....
John
mj12games.com/forum → Posts by Nahuris
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