1 Reply by Nahuris

(12 replies, posted in Starmada)

As to figs, what I've done for a friend of mine is take images from the net, port them to MS Paint, and then adjust them a little as needed. For example, for a Star Trek Miranda class, I used Paint to to move the warp nacelles out to the sides, and then I print it on card stock - I glue a piece of foam-board the same shape as the hull on the bottom, and fold the nacelles down after that, I add a "roll bar" with a small piece of foam board for the Torp launcher on top, and it's done. Red marker dots give me the front red launch ports for the torps, but that is optional.

I recently did up a Constitution class for him, but that was done in several pieces, and am now doing a B5 Omega -- mostly in flat views, and them cutting notches so that I can slide one inside the other at a right angle... from the front, it looks like a plus sign (so far, I have an idea on that, and am working on some ways to make them more visually appealing from various angles, but for now, it is functional.

However, the Trek ships seem to lend themselves to this, while the B5 ships are much more difficult (my Larson destroyers for Trek tend to be very easy to make).... I also plan on seeing if I can create a series of scratch designed ships for Starmada.... I'll let you know Dan how that project comes along (trust me, I get distracted as much, if not more than, the rest of the people here)

Although I actually like to scratch build my own figs, my friend absolutely hates the idea.... plus he has toddlers.... and no fig, no matter how many hull points it has, can survive a toddler.  With these, he just prints up new ones at need, and keeps going with it...

Nahuris.

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2 Reply by Nahuris

(6 replies, posted in Starmada)

hdan wrote:
RobinStirzaker wrote:

Given the ability for Exo-Suits to cut through and board ships, should they been done as dual mode fighters/breachers that count as a marine squad once they have boarded?

JC Exoarmors are too large to board enemy ships in a meaningful way, at least from what I understand.  I imagine they would do most of their damage outside the ship, ripping things apart with plasma lances and heavy missiles.

Exosuits are small enough to do it, but they're not really up to being "Fighters" imho.  I might make exosuits a special form of Striker squad that delivers a marine squad for each exosuit that makes it in.  Yes that's a fudge, but one exoarmored warrior is probably worth a whole squad.  Send along a flight of Exoarmors to protect them until they get into striking range.

I've been trying to think of a way to give exoarmors an advantage over normal fighters while still keeping fighters relevant.  I'm not really into lots of special rules, and I think I can get the effects I want more or less with the standard fighter rules.  Fighters get high speed so they can often get the first strike (if they time things right), but exoarmors get boosted attack and defense values and a lower than average speed (6?), plus "can dogfight ships" (simulates landing on the hull) and some damage buffs to give them a purpose.  (Am I right in assuming that higher attack and defense will make it desireable for fighters to "fly by attack" exos instead of dogfight them?  That's my intent.  Exos can (and should) dogfight each other, but fighters should try to avoid that sort of thing.  Just blaze by shooting and hope you can get out before the exos jump you.)

(Actually, that's an interesting idea - mechs can dogfight each other and ships, but not fighters!  Or maybe a more general rule, that the faster squad must initiate the dogfight.  Can slow squads force fast squads to dogfight?  Sounds like a good house rule....  Also gives a reason for interceptors to be really fast.)

I don't want to make the exoarmors too interesting though - this is a ship combat game, and the exos' purpose is to be the "torpedo bombers" of the setting - not great anti-fighter vehicles, but quite dangerous to a ship if they get close enough.  KISS.

/hdan

I like the speed rule as it does make sense that a faster unit can disengage from a dogfight..... my only question with that would be if you make smaller capital ship with high speed vs. those mecha.....

On a side note.... one of the things that has been pointed out to me is that Starmada may have the same (glitch?) that Full Thrust has... in that carriers can outrun their fighters.....
Fighters have a fixed speed, but carriers and other capital ships can keep applying thrust indefinitely.....
That would be a new way to defeat those fighter heavy fleets.....

Nahuris

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3 Reply by Nahuris

(14 replies, posted in Miniatures)

Yeah, I hit my local craft stores last night - found some stuff ---

It's getting harder to do any scratch building - they closed my local hobby stores, and the next nearest game store stopped carrying styrene --- so I'm back to looking for places to get materials.

Plus, I was a big fan of the GW flight bases.... and the local GW stores are claiming that they no longer can get them --- so I am also looking for a new supply of inexpensive bases -- I have some ideas, but will have to experiment some to see how it works .....

Maybe I'll just save up a thousand and buy one of those home rapid prototype machines --- feed it a cad image, and pop out figs while I sleep....LOL

Nahuris

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4 Reply by Nahuris

(14 replies, posted in Miniatures)

thedugan wrote:

Back when I was messing about with Paper minis, I considered using those tiny plastic snaps that women use on blouses and such for turrets and mecha limbs...haven't tried it yet.

It's amazing what things can be re-purposed if you think about it while waiting for the wife to finish picking through dress patterns.

Walmart sells the barrel clasps that Star Ranger uses, as well as those plastic snaps. I know they have magnets in the craft section, but I sincerely doubt they're rare earth magnets.

Would you have some images of these?
I am always looking for items I can use as turrets ....

Thanks Much,
Nahuris

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5 Reply by Nahuris

(7 replies, posted in Discussion)

I was more or less given the series as a gift -- started as a loan, but each time I try and return them, he tells me that his life is in the air, just go ahead and hang onto them -- been going on for almost 18 months now....LOL

I still haven't managed to get too far into season 5, but I have definitely gotten some mileage out of Ivonova's little speach before they engaged the shadow omegas......LOL

Nahuris

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6 Reply by Nahuris

(4 replies, posted in Starmada)

I've seen the ships in the first clip over at sci-fi meshes.com.

And now, I have to urge to go do some scratch-builds, and I'm stuck at work.....

Nahuris

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7 Reply by Nahuris

(13 replies, posted in Discussion)

Either way, it matters not to me.... I have my Starmada X in a binder, and took my PDF of AE to the store and had it spiral bound.... both work great

Nahuris

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8 Reply by Nahuris

(7 replies, posted in Discussion)

I've been a fan since approximatel the third page.... even considered scratch building the fleets....

Just never seem to have the time

Nahuris

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9 Reply by Nahuris

(7 replies, posted in Starmada)

That was what I was hoping for.... I love Hammer & Claw, and think that we could really expand along those lines.

I know that I have had a couple of ideas for fleets, and having a context to add them into would allow me to create a whole culture to go with the ship designs. Don't get me wrong, I love playing with the shipyard programs, but to have those same ships designed for a fleet, having the fluff to go with it, and even having a few flawed designs (procurement offices are not perfect) that are now a part of the fleet is great.

If we have something solid, and readily available, I think we would have an easier time getting new players involved.
Yes, Starmada is a generic starship system, and would still function as that.... but for those who can't or don't want to have to create their own fleets, we could also have a variety of ships (complete with counters - if possible) that they can use as well.

Nahuris

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10 Topic by Nahuris

(7 replies, posted in Starmada)

I was wondering how people would feel about creating a larger universe, either alongside of.... or in conjunction with.... the current Starmada Universe.

I was thinking of maps, similar to this Homeworld Map: http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=134776|
that could be created for use. Considering the number of fleets in the Bourbaki Basin, and the shear creativity of the people here, this could be an ongoing process that would expand the game itself. Both Star Fleet Battles, and B5Wars were popular, and had the strong following that they developed, precisely because of the rich background fluff and support. This is double proven to be true with SFB, as the game history has definitely taken a different tangent from the television shows.... showing that the SFB Universe is most definitely a free standing entity. One of the reasons that Battletech has survived as long as it has, was due to having a rich background of material to draw concepts off of. Maybe we can create something similar for our own useage, and to help bring in new players. Having talked to a number of gamers, one of the reasons that Warhammer 40K is so popular is that they have a good amount of the background done - newer players have a harder time trying to create their own fleet from scratch --- so they either fall back onto current published material... or they try to incorporate something they already know, such as the Star Wars Universe, ect... which doesn't always work. Building a Star Destroyer in Starmada requires some re-work to get it right... for one thing, Starmada does not support the shear number of individual weapons, nor Tie Fighters that are listed for a Star Destroyer. Can it be done? Yes, but for a new player, it is a daunting task -- which brings the difficulty back around on the novice gamer. I believe that one of the reasons that Full Thrust is so popular is that the fleets are well made, and there is a good variety of them... allowing a player to choose a fleet that is well balanced against the rest, and yet unique from each other. Considering that (in my opinion) Starmada has a better design system, we should have a variety of fleets that are designed within the system for a new person to choose from.
Along with this, I am envisioning fleet books that support each racial fleet, plus maybe some history, and images of the various ships.....

Along with this, we could add VBAM stats for each, thereby supporting the campaign type play, as well as making it easy to assemble a fleet for pick up battles.

I'd really like to see other people's thoughts on this ---- if anything, we can open this as a discussion.

Nahuris

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11 Reply by Nahuris

(24 replies, posted in Starmada)

I have to agree with Empeze - as he and I both mentioned, if you make the add on too powerful, then you end up with every battle being a battle of heroes, with any ships without heroes being cannon fodder, only there to let the heroes win the battle.

I know that Star Wars fits the idea of heroes very well, but I'd still want to limit them... how would you point cost the emporer's battle meditation skill? Per the novels, the entire imperial fleet was better, because the emporer, through the dark side, was able to enhance them..... Let's figure the cost of that......LOL

However, if you look at it, Starlancer has heroes in it, so does Wing Commander....ect. Any game can benefit from a little bit of variance.... as long as it doesn't equate to "I pay the points for Q --- you lose." (Every discussion I have ever seen on comparing Star Trek to Star Wars ends with Star Trek has Q ---- you lose.)

At the same time, a simple + 1 to gunner really isn't any more powerful than buying +2 impact on your weapons.... ect.  Especially if we cost the hero gunner correctly ( I still prefer the ability to counter a penalty of 1 with a single bank of weapons, myself --- i.e. I have a ship armed with lasers and torpedoes -- my gunnery officer knows those lasers well enough to compensate for power loss, ect... and therefore negates the penalty for long range.... the torpedoes are still fired normally, and if I added a rail gun to the ship, then it follows the normal rules as well.)

In addition, I would limit the points spent on heroes (really between the players, but I'd have a standard cap of 5 - 10 percent of total) and also limit each ship to only one hero / crack crew / expert fighter wing / ect.
So, the Carrier Vengeance is know for the 101st Vipers Strike Wing - even though it has other wings of fighters, it is know as the home of the 101st Vipers Strike Wing. It may carry 6 wings of fighters, but only one is elite.... Meanwhile, the Destroyer Nemesis is known for it's highly accurate laser batteries, even though it's sister ships the Dauntless, and Maverick.... which are always deployed with the Nemesis are just standard ships.

In one off games, this probably wouldn't be that great, but in campaigns, or where players use the same fleets over and over, this would work well.....

Nahuris

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12 Reply by Nahuris

(24 replies, posted in Starmada)

You would want to keep the effects limited -- yes, Scotty can make the Enterprise do some amazing things, but if 2 or 3 Borg cubes opened up on it.. it's still toast.

If the heroes get too powerful, or effect the game in extremely dramatic ways, then you end up with what was seen during the 5th edition period of Warhammer 40K -- armies of heroes with just enough troops to suck up some damage, or fill out the minimum requirements for the army......

Not every battle is a battle of heroes -- sometimes, the fleets without heroes get to fight too....LOL

I'd recommend we keep them at one power each.... but maybe make their cost a percentage of the Combat Value of whatever ship they are assigned to.....that does make a lot of sense.

Nahuris

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13 Reply by Nahuris

(17 replies, posted in Starmada)

Counting each dust hex as 2 hexes would probably work in a large cloud, but if you have a narrow band of dust --- say about 2 hexes wide --- then it really doesn't have much impact on the overall targeting.....

Most asteroids, regardless of size have some metals in them --- that's the logic that we use --- the "gravel" is primarily small asteroids --- a couple feet in diameter and smaller...  actual gravel size, and actual dust, ect.

What might work is that once the LOS hits the dust cloud, all further hexes are counted as 2 hexes for range..... regardless of whether the LOS continues through more hexes of dust, or not.

Nahuris

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14 Reply by Nahuris

(17 replies, posted in Starmada)

I love terrain .....LOL

One of the best terrains we have found so far, is dust/gravel clouds.
Our house rule is that it halves the weapon ranges (rounded logically by range band) ---- if you have a weapon with range 21, as in 7/14/21 - your new range would be 12, 7 halved is 3.5, round to 4, and the new range bands are 4/8/12 --- range 12 weapons become range 6 -- 4/8/12 becomes 2/4/6 and so forth --- I make small areas marked in hexes out of grey felt to define the areas of dust / gravel -- and in special instances we compromise -- as in the ship with range 21 is 8 hexes away from a dust cloud, and fires through it - short range is 7, medium is out to 11, and long is out to 15

So far, we haven't had many arguments over it, and mixing solid terrain, such as asteroids, and then the clouds as soft terrain really spruces up the battle field. On a side note, ships going through dust clouds find that it negates stealth systems and cloaking, as the small particles smashing against the foward shields does provide enough energy to lock onto ---

We have found that the BFG Imperials, especially the heavy hitters with the broadside mounted weaponry, tend to do very well around the dust clouds. 

Nahuris

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15 Reply by Nahuris

(17 replies, posted in Starmada)

If I might chime in, I once built a race that favored broadside type ships, and when up against fleets with primarily foward facing guns, I usually didn't fare very well --- the issue with broadside fleets is that when facing a single opponent, half of your weapons are useless..... The ships did great when I could force my opponent into a close ranged cluster-melee type battle... but on the standard approach and fight style battles, I was hammered on the way in.

Nahuris

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16 Reply by Nahuris

(24 replies, posted in Starmada)

I like the idea of the Legendary Crew, ect.... but I also agree that it has a strong potential to be munchkinized seriously.

How about a list of specific options via a point cost per option?

I.E. for 50 points (arbitrary) you can add "Scotty" the legendary engineer to a ship in the fleet - he grants the ship 1 additional thrust point do to his knowledge of redirecting energy from the engines, ect.

Or for 50 points, you get an expert gunner -- the ship he is on gets to ignore the +1 range modifier to long range with one of it's weapon types (+1 short range mod if the weapon has inverted range modifiers) - due to his expert calculations and knowledge of that weapon's characteristics.

The nice thing with leaving it as a list that can be added to a ship, is that you can also add it to fighter wings....ect.

For an additional 25 points, you can upgrade a wing of fighters to elite dogfighters... they get to re-roll any result of 1 on their own dice when in a dogfight.

Not only would this add a human factor, but also would grant some unique actions on the tabletop. And it would be easy for each side to have a mix of counters for different tactics, without a bunch of "this power counters that power" game plays ---  and each game can decide on a cap of points for special abilities before the battle.

Finally, some powers would not lend themselves to use with Uber-ships -- imagine an engineer with enhanced shield knowledge - he adds a +1 level of shield to one hexside, within normal limits of the rules... as in no shield rating over 5.... but, has to roll a 5+ in order to change the hexside during a battle. First, he would be useless on a ship that already has a shield of 5 -- at least until I took shield damage -- until then, he is wasted points. Two, I start the game with the +1 shield on the front hex of my light cruiser --- but my opponent gets a ship on my aft - I want to change the facing on that enhanced shield... my engineer needs a 5+ (or 4+ or whatever) on a D6 to transfer the power.  This engineer adds to my fleet, but it isn't Uber....  Even the enhanced gunner I mentioned above wouldn't be that uber - yes, we could put him on a ship with long range heavy guns, and then take the mod to get rid of the +1 on those guns for long range.... except that those same guns would still be counted as at medium range, fast ships can get in on it, and is not as powerful as the inverted range weapon add would be in that same situation.

I think that with good oversight, we could really make this idea work.

Nahuris

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17 Reply by Nahuris

(60 replies, posted in Starmada)

Currently, I'd like to see some kind of Gravity Well Generator (either the Star Wars version, or even maybe the Homeworld version) -- or some means of blocking hyperspace generators from working.... My last couple of games have all ended the same way --- once my opponent realizes that he is either not going to win overwhelmingly, or fears that he might lose - his ships fire off all of their seekers or fighters, and he jumps out -- he leaves the fighters with orders to do as much damage as possible, ramming if necessary..... and that's that.

We have been trying to set up a campaign, but he really prefers one off battles....

I am personally getting tired of battles where on turn one, he looks at the board - launches his fighters and seekers - then on turn 2 starts jumping before anyone else gets in range.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I do like the idea of tugs, or battle riders. One of the things I liked about B5Wars was that a good number of the escort ships didn't have Jump Drives. They needed another ship to open the gate, or they needed to use the fixed jump gates to get from hyperspace to normal space, and vice-versa.  One, it will affect the tactics you chose to use and two, it gives you strategic points --- both of which would improve the game.

John

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18 Reply by Nahuris

(2 replies, posted in Discussion)

I found another news article --- it appears she was the voice for the Enterprise Computer in the new movie as well.

Nahuris

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19 Topic by Nahuris

(2 replies, posted in Discussion)

NEW YORK  — The woman who was known as "The First Lady of Star Trek" has died.

Majel Barrett Roddenberry was an actress who was married to "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry.


She appeared in the original Star Trek series as Nurse Christine Chapel, and also had a role in "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

She was also the voice of the USS Enterprise computer in almost every spin-off of the 1960s cult series.

A representative says she died today of leukemia at her home in Bel-Air, Calif.

Her husband died in 1991.

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20 Reply by Nahuris

(19 replies, posted in Discussion)

I'm rather fond of the yahoo group, but as long as the files there are still accessable, I am ok with it going.

Nahuris

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21 Reply by Nahuris

(25 replies, posted in News)

Not too bad - it loads quicker than the old board did.

Nahuris

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22 Reply by Nahuris

(41 replies, posted in Starmada)

I like that one Mahon..... I'll have to try it out and see.

Dan, I agree with the damage sink issue you mention..... we had a guy that would take as many cheap items as he could fit on a ship in Starmada X precisely for that reason.... we always compensated with either concentrated fire from multiple ships on him --- or taking the extra hull damage weapon mod.

Personally, I'd like to see fighters able to target special equipment... as in having my fighters specifically target the fighter bays on an enemy carrier --- If you remember the old Battlestar Galactica, there was an episode where the cylon fighters not only specifically targeted the hangers, but a couple actually rammed them.....

Nahuris

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23 Reply by Nahuris

(41 replies, posted in Starmada)

Better yet, imagine a campaign --- your carrier gets it's flight decks damaged. They manage to rescue the pilots, but have to abandon the fighters --- and now,  you have a carrier and surviving support ships trying to make it back to friendly lines for repairs. If your universe has limited ranged jumps, there is the possibility of another battle while recharging between jumps, ect. It does open a large number of scenario ideas for battles.

Nahuris

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24 Reply by Nahuris

(25 replies, posted in Discussion)

Trust me, I don't fit the "normal American" either... but then again, I am actually Mohawk, and was raised on a reservation.....

As for the voting, yes I did, but I'm not truly expecting too much to change..... we'd need another revolution for that.

Nahuris

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25 Reply by Nahuris

(20 replies, posted in Starmada)

Googleplex has a good way of looking at it....

My current fleet that I field for myself is a mix... but I have always done campaign style play..... however, some of my opponents only use the top end stuff, and it tends to drag the game down a bit.

Nahuris

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