The ships were much easier to find than I thought (I had even made a "Starmada-Starslayer" folder; how prophetic!).

The ship data sheets are made from the online caluclator that then put them in rulebook format, so it may not paste well onto these forums, but here's an example of a Meraxillan ship's stats, with the fluff for all of the ships I'd made copied below:

----
102+40    Crimson Class Cruiser    Shield Rating
Movement Track    1                   
9    8    (6)    5    3    Special Equipment
2                        Armor Plating, 2 Fighter Bays
                       
                       
Weapons    Range
(S/M/L)    To-
Hit
[1] Resonanace Cannons    1-4    5-8    9-12    3+
F    F    FP    FS                             
[2] Cluster Missiles    1-4    5-8    9-12    3+
F    P    S                                  
[3] Proton Missiles    1-6    7-12    13-18    4+
T                                            
Individualized Damage Chart (D6):
Superstructure 3, Weapons 3, Shields 0
Tech Levels (+4):
Engines 0, Shields +1, Weapons +2, Special Equipment +1
----

THE MERAXILLAN SOVEREIGNTY
Still unable to master all but the most basic phase drive technology, the Meraxilla make up for this with their ultra-efficient tensegrity designs.  In terms of overall size, the Meraxillan space fleet rivals even that of the Vobians, though a much higher proportion of its starships are of the smaller classes.  Most recently, the Sovereignty's navy has become more and more dependent on the Geodesic Battlespheres, whose strategic advantages are even more pronounced when fighting Nordic forces far from Meraxillan territory.   

Like their ground forces, Meraxillan space forces are extremely aggressive.  Huge flights of fighters and boarding pods are common, and the Meraxillan Tak Marines are highly selective about who they bring with them from Ulna.  The Sovereignty's weaponry tends to be of the ballistic variety, with both short and long range missiles, rockets and mass drivers, all meant to pound the enemy in a less than subtle (but nevertheless effective) manner.                            
       
Engines Technology Level: 0
Weapons Technology Level: +2
Special Equipment Technology Level: +1

Fighters: Basic or Interceptor
Known for their overwhelming swarm attacks, the Yellowjacket Fighters have been known to take out many a capital ship through sheer force of numbers.  According to Nordic estimates, the first Meraxillan invasion force to cross the Drakor hypergate in AD 1958 contained an almost unbelievable three thousand of these nimble craft.   

Typical Weapons and Equipment: Laser Cannons, Proton Missiles, Blasters, Cluster Missiles, Mass Drivers, Needle Beams, Gamma Ray Projectors, Resonance Cannons, Armor Plating, Cargo Bays, Fighter Bays, Tachyon Detection and Ranging, Electronic Countermeasures, Long Range Sensors, Marines, Boarding Pods, Mines, Energy Leeches, Shockwaves

STARSHIPS

Hornet Class Corvette
With exceptional speed and the ability to lay down incredible amounts of fire, the Hornets are largely limited by their lack of armor and shield-piercing ability, a severe hindrance when attacking capital ships.

Wasp Class Frigate
Outfitted with the powerful Galva Cannons, the Wasp is somewhat slow for a Meraxillan craft.  To compensate for this fact, it carries a small contingent of Yellowjacket fighters to keep the enemy busy.

Expedient Class Cruiser
The workhorse of the Sovereignty space program, the Expedient Class is designed with flexibility in mind.  Expedients can be seen as a part of almost any Meraxillan fleet worthy of mention.

Crimson Class Cruiser
Designed as a highly aggressive attack craft, the Crimsons will often spearhead major offensives, especially those that coincide with a Flux.  Bristling with weaponry, the Crimson's major weakness is a poor point defense system, for which it must compensate by housing several fighter squadrons of its own. 

Geodesic Battlesphere
Beautiful and awe-inspiring, the Battlespheres are wondrous to behold.  Marvels of tensegrity design, they are remarkably cost-efficient for their size.  The sight of a Geodesic Battlesphere signals to the enemy that his position is one for which long-term sacrifice is deemed necessary.

Sure, as long as there's some room for me in the sandbox.

Defiance!   :wink:

With the exception of HTH combat, it sounds like people feel like the weaponry limitations are broad enough.  And I've yet to hear complaints about vehicle limitations, which makes sense given the scale of the game.

That leaves infantry in particular as needing "broadening".

I agree that another level of HTH (30 PV, 45 for mecha) makes sense.

I also think that the frames could easily go 20/30/40 without changing the "official" armies very much (essentially, it would give players extra frames to flesh them out if they so chose).

Making elite/veh/ad hoc go to 100% is fine, too, but that would be a significant investment in SR.

With regards to mixing frames in units, don't forget that ad hoc units can always do this.  Maybe explicitly reserving a few standard units as "common ad hocs" would help make this clearer.  It would, e.g., make designing Infranite units much easier. 

Mixing qualities is essentially impossible in terms of the morale rules.  On option would be to, in a limited fashion, allow players to put two units on the same initiative card on a game-by-game basis, perhaps up to once per 1000 PV?  This would be advantageous in terms of increased firepower/flexibility upon activation of the combined unit, but limits the ability to use each at different times...thoughts?

-Demian

Whoo Hoo!  8)

I haven't tried the ARES fast play variant, so was making the comparison based on the "standard" rules, in which case I'd say Definace is actually a bit faster on a number of figures per tabletop basis.  Most of this difference is probably due to the fact that ARES figs have more than one action per turn and multiple wounds.  My understanding is that the fast play varaiant does away with multiple wounds, which would make a big difference.

Defiance *can* handle 100 figs per side, but would take 4 hours instead of 2.5 and would assume you don't take too many "fancy" things like vehicles, elite troops and indirect fire weapons.  The 50 figures per side number is a good ballpark for relatively inexperienced players to build eclectic forces and try them out in an afternoon.  During initial Starslayer playtesting, our group tended to play with 40-50 figs per side due to logistical constraints - e.g. number of figs we had managed to paint :-) - but after a few games of learning curve, everyone was able to finish a full battle within 2 hours or so, 2.5 counting terrain set up and break down.

Yes, reflex costs are included.

I agree with wreckage that the easiest solution is to build a separate weapon that has a better damage number.  This also represents the logistical difference between the two weapons.

Remember that all AOE weapons in Defiance are FR 1.

In Planetstorm, multiple AOE rounds could be fired from the same figure and scattered separately.  Given the time scale of Defiance, I found this approach to be less realistic and involve more dice rolling than fire clusters.

Last I heard from Iron Mammoth (early Aug), they were finishing up a 6th Assault Trooper, with the idea of casting up a squad by the end of September or so (?), with some officers and heavy weapons to come a bit later.  Not too sure of the details, however...

-Demian

I say Celtos!