Well, here's the bind in which I find myself:

A) If I don't put out expansions, the average gamer will think "It's a neat system, but there's no support". (See ARES... great game, people love it if they try it, but without regular releases to keep it in the public eye, people don't try it. And yes, Kevin, I know -- there's no shortage of potential material... )

B) If I do put out expansions, I run into exactly the problem described by FlakMagnet -- "gotta catch 'em all" -- the frustration with which is perfectly understandable.

So, I have several goals for supplements/expansions:

1) Each is self-contained, when combined with the Core Rulebook. i.e., you don't need the Imperial Sourcebook to use Hammer & Claw. (Which is why I intended to include Carronade but forgot.)

The problem will be that, eventually, the amount of "recycled" rules content will vastly exceed the "new" and "setting-only" stuff -- but see below.

2) No CCG-type expansion of the game that instantly invalidates everything that came before -- although the emphasis on Combat Rating and game balance should take care of this on its own.

For example, let's assume that the "Screens" option was not part of the Core Rulebook, but was included in H&C. We need to make sure that by introducing the concept of screens, we don't immediately make any ship with mere "Shields" obsolete.

3) The whole point of the Admiralty Edition is to reinforce the "create-a-game" aspect of Starmada. Thus, each supplement should highlight a particular subset of the available rules -- not the ENTIRETY of the rules.

I hope that adherence to these principles will reduce frustration and limit the perception that we're "fracturing" the game and scattering the essential material across multiple books.

For those who don't want to buy every supplement because they're only interested in the rules, not the background material (which, BTW, is REALLY cool -- good job, Matt!) it is my intention to periodically release rules-only compendiums that will compile all of non-background material from the previous X number of supplements.

'sokay. Continuing Damage USED to be spread out across turns, so you weren't far off...

Oops.  :oops:

The rationale is as follows:

Extra Hull Damage: Normal damage (1.0) plus an additional hull hit (which occurs 50% of the time, so this is the "same" as rolling an additional two dice).  Thus, 1.0 + 2.0 = 3.0

Continuing Damage: Normal damage (1.0) plus 50% chance of an additional die roll (+0.5) plus a 50% chance of an additional die roll (+[0.5 x 0.5]) etc... According to the solution to Xeno's dichotomy paradox, this results in a sum of 2.0 (1.0 + 1.0). However, since the CD weapon can never score more than a single hull hit, it's not quite as effective as rolling the equivalent number of dice, so it is reduced to 1.7. (I think I had a more "precise" rationale for this one, but I don't remember what it was ... )

Obviously, I think these are the "correct" values, but I am not infallible, and will listen to arguments to the contrary.

Oops.

That was a name I gave to the Grumm "special ability" before I decided it should remain a setting- (and race-) specific option. See p.15.

Besides, there are better ideas out there for what a CIC should do...

Glad you like what you see...

I expect to get an updated Shipbuilder done over the weekend.

That could work, as well... but since other portions of the turn sequence don't allow "me, too" actions, it seems out of place.

Your solution sounds like a reasonable one, and is consistent with how other parts of the turn sequence are handled.

Hey, these are neat!

Of course, I thought the wooden miniatures we did back in the day were really cool, too, so take my opinion with a grain of salt...

I'm not sure what this means... ?

Imperial starships have adjectives as class names; it has not yet been determined if this is universal, or if the names of individual ships within a class are consistent with the class name.

Arcturan ships are named in Japanese:

Daitenshi = "Archangel", based on the old Seraphin class
Dokujin = "Assassin's Dagger", based on the old Lancer class
Hayabusa = "Peregrine falcon", based on the old Peregrine class
Izanagi = figure from Japanese mythology, based on the old Hyperion class
Kyouwa = "Concord", based on the old Concordia class
Raikou = "Lightning", based on the old Thunderbolt class
Tetsukabe = "Iron Wall (i.e. 'Ironsides')", based on the old Iridium class

Negali ships are given names that just sounded cool, although many of the phonemes are taken from Turkish.

S'ssk ships are given NATO-type codenames that reference snakes.

Kalaedinese ships are given names that just sounded cool; I can't remember if I used an existing language as a basis.

Actually, this is incorrect.

All weapons AT A GIVEN TARGET use the same to-hit roll, not all weapons AT ALL TARGETS.