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I'm sure I'd think it was awesome, if I could see the pics... 
Some earlier printings left out this statement on page 28:
"There is no upper limit to a starship's engine rating (aside from SU constraints). No ship may have a shield rating greater than 5."
It had become such a self-evident thing for long-time players than when doing the rewrite, I must have forgotten to mention it... 
If you enter a number of shields in the shipbuilder greater than 5, it automatically assumes you are using the "screens" option.
Effective shield ratings of 6+ are POSSIBLE, although I don't know how desirable they are. If you want to try a shield rating of 6, the starship defensive rating (DRAT) calculation should be made as if the shield rating is 5.33.
I find that I don't mind this kind of revision--I don't really expect to figure ships by hand. The only thing I wish is that the builder was a program which could read my ship description, because in order to get my ships current, I assume I'll have to enter them again into the new one. Is there another way?
There has been talk of such a thing -- part of the reason why I wanted to standardize Drake Notation -- but at the moment the only option is to re-enter the information by hand.
Not sure what you mean by "the thought behind Ammo"...
My intent was to mimic the values from Starmada X: i.e. an expendable weapon takes up 20% of the space of a normal weapon, with a scalable divisor for the ORAT calculation.
Unfortunately, the equation I put in the sourcebook doesn't do what I thought it would. I'm pretty sure the revised one does...
Have you noticed that when you divide the SU by the Tech mod for the ORAT ie cell G20. This is using a SU which has been Rounded up instead of the basic total SU?
Yes. And I'm okay with that.
I have posted the revised page 10 of the Starmada Admiralty Core Rulebook to the web site:
http://www.mj12games.com/starmada/mjg0120rev.pdf
This includes the minor adjustments made to point costing in revision 1.
Did you forget to change Increased Damage to Increased Impact?
Area Effect, Double Range Mods and Piercing have slightly different mods to the rules.
Yup... I forgot the change to Increased Impact. It will be adjusted in the next update.
Regarding the mods for Area Effect, Doubled Range Modifiers, and Piercing, they have been adjusted per Revision 1 of the rulebook. Probably should go ahead and post that to the web site, huh?
The Ammo/Battery calculations (ie cell J19) appear to differ from the ISS rules.
Yeah, that should not have been included. There is a problem with the current ammo calculation -- essentially, the number of weapons does not affect the final SU cost, only the amount of ammo.
However, the "fix" has not yet been finalized...
Well, I must confess to some disappointment... the Starmada books have dropped to #5 and #7 on the RPGNow Top 100.
It seems that "fighter" tech levels aren't being applied to the "Carrier" SU anymore. This is in v2.0 dated 15-Jan . The "General" tech level is modifying the "Carrier" SU instead.
Gotcha.
Fixed it.
I've also noticed in converting the CN stuff that the factions that use the big ROF turrets are going to lose their ships weaponry faster that the factions that don't. We are not to the point where where we've tested this out to see if it is really an issue at all, but just something I noticed in the flurry of creating the new stats.
Actually, that's not the case.
If you crunch the numbers, you'll find that the average battery will lose slightly more than 2/3 of its weapons by the time the ship has been destroyed.
For example... consider the Arcturan Daitenshi (Archangel):
It has 14 hull points, meaning that 28 hits are necessary to destroy it (as 50% of hits become hull damage). Of those 28 hits, 1/3 (or 9.33) will result in weapons damage. Of those 9.33 weapon hits, which are subsequently re-rolled on the weapon damage track, you'll end up with:
3.11 X battery hits (78% of the total)
1.56 Y battery hits (78% of the total)
9.33 Z battery hits (72% of the total)
For the Imperial Indomitable class, the results are:
4 X battery hits (80% of the total)
9.33 Y battery hits (72% of the total)
For the S'ssk Diamondback:
1.78 X battery hits (89% of the total)
9.78 Y battery hits (70% of the total)
It is true that batteries with smaller numbers of weapons will lose proportionally more weapons, that's due to rounding error, and it's not much of a difference.
Yes, because you're still thinking in terms of "acceleration" and "deceleration".
Consider:
In the case of previous speed 4, new plot "PP", you've basically used thrust to cancel out your momentum -- note that, if your current speed is zero, it doesn't matter what turns (if any) you perform; your thrust requirement will always be equal to your previous speed.
Now, if your previous speed is 4, and you plot "P1P" (or "1PP" or "PP1"), you have not only canceled your momentum, you're also moving 1 hex/turn in a new direction. That's where the "extra" thrust comes from.
Think of it this way:
Place a ship counter in a hex. Now, place a second marker four hexes "north" of the ship. This indicates where you would have gone if you'd applied no thrust. Then, place a third marker adjacent to the first, in a direction 120* off the line between the first and second markers. This is your new "vector" after plotting "PP1" (or "P1P" or "1PP"). (Note that the three different plots place your ship in different locations, but your new course/speed is the same -- 1 hex/turn to the "southwest".)
Now, count the distance between the second and third markers. This is your thrust requirement, or the amount of thrust needed to change your "vector" from 4 hexes/turn-north to 1 hex/turn-southwest.
Thanks for the answers. The questions on ROF vs IMP/DMG were independent...I just wondered why ROF isn't cheaper than having more weapons (which can cover more targets, after all.)
Oh, I get the question now. Sorry.
Honestly, you probably have a point -- Ken Burnside and I were going back and forth about this earlier in the month. While there's probably a reason to allow a discount for higher ROF weapons, I'm not sure what it would be; and I'm reluctant to do so considering how badly broken the "banked weapon" concept was back in the Compendium days (essentially, you got a cost break for grouping weapons into "banks" that had to fire at the same target. The same as increasing ROF in Admiralty...)
I'll give it some more thought.
I agree the standard deviation of high DMG is greater than that of high IMP despite them having the same expected value. The couple of games I've played so far haven't been enough to show it making much difference...:)
No, it doesn't make much difference -- but neither is it much of a difference in the point costing.
A range 12, accuracy 4+, 1/5/1 weapon would have a base SU requirement of 12 x 1 x 5.25 x 1.6 / 4 = 25.2, while for a 1/1/5 weapon it would be 21. That's a difference of less than 10% in final point cost.
Why would I ever take ROF = 2 on one weapon versus two weapons at ROF = 1? Shouldn't ROF be priced slightly lower? (Where cost = SU usage)
Why is IMP pricier than DMG? The expected value of increasing either is the same; DMG does have a higher std deviation.
I don't follow your argument -- if you think IMP and DMG should be the same, then so should ROF... all things being equal, a 1/1/3, 1/3/1, and 3/1/1 weapon have the same expected damage potential.
However...
ROF is the most expensive because it's the only factor the has any impact on fighter flights.
IMP is more expensive than DMG because it gives you more chance of scoring SOME damage, rather than the "all or nothing" aspect of DMG. While over time, this averages out, in a typical game, it's usually better to be scoring some damage consistently.
Why are ships smaller in AE? (Not a big deal, but hurts conversions, or seems to.)
It's the latest example of my ever-increasing quest to keep hull sizes down...
What happened to "Ignores Shields"?
I wasn't really happy with how it led to rock-paper-scissors effects -- i.e. "Ignores Shields" prevents shields from having an effect, but "Ionic Shielding" prevents "Ignores Shields" from having an effect.
Having said that, something tells me you'll see "Ignores Shields" make a comeback Real Soon Now.
So places where the combat rating uses the space units (I'm sure I've seen that somewhere) do it before applying the tech level adjustments?
The offensive rating for weapons uses the battery's total SU cost as a basis -- that's just a convenience to avoid re-calculating all the different factors.
Huh ... I thought there was an explicit statement in there that the weapons TL does NOT affect the ORAT, but I guess there isn't. I'll have to fix that in a revision.
In the meantime, be assured that the factions in the Sourcebook have their Combat Ratings computed properly.
There I saw that certain races have tech level bonuses. So the ships in the sourcebook aren't balanced against each other.
Now, I'm all for asymmetric forces, but there are no drawbacks to the good races.
...
Am I missing something?
Yes, actually.
From p.42 of the Core Rulebook:
Note that the evaluative process (see rule 6.2: The Combat Rating) is unaffected by TLs, as the combat rating is based upon the actual capabilities of the starship; TLs simply change how much "stuff" a ship may fit into a given hull.
Tech Levels actually play no part at all during the game itself -- they are only relevant during the construction process. And, since the Combat Rating is used to equalize forces, not relative hull sizes, tech levels don't impact game balance.
You're either not applying the attack value (for 5+ you divide by 6) or the defense value (divide by 6 minus defense).
So, your calculation should be:
(16 x 49 x 10) = 7840
7840/6 = 1306.67
1306.66/6 = 217.78
sqrt(217.78) = 14.76 rounded up to 15
It should be fixed now. For some reason the sourcebook file was also associated with the core rulebook. And, I've been having problems with RPGNow randomly disabling products... :?:
Thanks for doing this, by the way.
It may not be "official", but it's darned cool just the same. I almost feel guilty about putting out new material ...
Why would you want to?
Fighters don't have a -1 penalty when attacking other fighters.
There have been some minor issues throughout the day. Try it now.
Yup -- it's correct.
Note that this version of overthrusters does not allow the player to choose the direction of the pivot after movement -- it must be plotted before knowing where everyone else has gone.
Is a new version of the SAESB going to be availbale with the options from ISS included? On pg. 72 it says that the Drake notation is available but...
It is now.
"Ant-Fighter (Weapon)"
Should this be "Anti-Fighter(Weapon)"?
Well, now, if you bought the new supplement, you'd know that it does in fact mean "Ant-Fighter".
Thanks for catching that.
Never use the disks?!?
Blasphemer!
Actually, it had not been my intention to have the aircraft data only available by buying the disks -- but plans for the first Spitting Fire supplement never got off the ground (pardon the pun).
Having said that, work has begun again...
Well, you're not going to get me on record as saying it's okay to distribute the game to people who haven't bought it... 'cause it's not... 
But there is such a thing as "fair use"...
Appendix A is now up on the site: www.mj12games.com/starmada/appendixA.pdf
mj12games.com/forum → Posts by mj12games
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