1 Reply by murtalianconfederacy

(7 replies, posted in Starmada)

I second this, although what I'd really like to see is the Ship/Fighter-Exclusive traits (mainly because I've kinda gotten too attached to the idea of a weapon that is death incarnate to fighters but is only moderately effective, if that, to ships).

Regarding flotillas (one of the things I really really want alongside IncImpact....):

I worked out that a new method of construction for Flotillas is required rather than my preferred 'slot SAE construction rules into SUE' because the SAE rules creates...interesting numbers when generating a true-to-the-formulae conversion from the SAE construction rules to the SUE construction rules:

Flotilla In SUE
SUs: 62
Engine Factor: 3 (2.25)
Shield Factor: 6 (5.5)

This means that, in theory, a flotilla with nothing but engines would be slower than a hull-1 vessel with nothing but engines (engine-20 to engine-25, IICC). Dropping the EF to 2 would give the speed advantage back to the flotilla unit.

Defensively, the flotilla gains more from the hull-1 vessel compared to the SAE version: a hull-1 vessel had to give up a quarter of the space for some form of defence, while the flotilla had to give up three-eighths. Now, both are less than a tenth, but whereas the SUE hull-1 can get almost 3x the defensive value of a SAE hull-1 vessel [worked out by dividing (SAE ShF/SAE SU) by (SUE ShF/SUE SU)], the hypothetical SUE flotilla unit gets 3.875x the defensive value.

I'd suggest bumping the SF up to 7, where it still has an advantage but not nearly as much. Or, maybe, go for:

SUs: 64
Engine Factor: 2
Shield Factor: 8

Bumping the SUs to 64 makes it 'look' nicer as a number, as well as being half a hull-1 vessel. EF being 2 gives them a slight speed advantage over hull-1, while SF being 8 makes it much closer to the hull-1's defensive value. And, for me at least, a 64/2/8 looks nicer.

Of course, there may already be flotilla rules in the works, and they may (indeed, quite likely do) look nothing like this, but that's my thoughts on the matter (once I actually started thinking about them instead of off-handedly musing about them)

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2 Reply by murtalianconfederacy

(2 replies, posted in Starmada)

Do you have the admiralty rulebook? IIRC, there was a SX to SAE conversion guide, and there was some threads knocking round here showing how to convert SX AFB to SAE AFB.

Edit: Here's the thread talking about SX to SAE AFB. I do have the conversion rules for SX to SAE knocking round somewhere, but will have to find them...
http://www.mj12games.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1468

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3 Reply by murtalianconfederacy

(60 replies, posted in Starmada)

Hmmm, I'll see what I can do. I really ain't keen on taking pics of me though (to the level of "huge pit opening in stomach"--I do my level best to not have pics taken of me if I can help it), and just wondering how else I could do it so's I don't have to inflict myself on some poor unsuspecting individual...

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4 Reply by murtalianconfederacy

(60 replies, posted in Starmada)

murtalianconfederacy wrote:

Thanks for telling me. Unless there's any actual rules I'd need from the book that would only be from that book, I probably won't bother--the email route is unlikely to yield results, and I'm not that keen on doing selfies or having pics taken of myself. I'm sure I'll probably be losing out, but I really don't like pics taken of me.

Just did a quick perusal of my email and there's nothing there, so it looks like I'm going to have to admit defeat. That's really annoying

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5 Reply by murtalianconfederacy

(60 replies, posted in Starmada)

bekosh wrote:

I've gotten mine from ADB by emailing them at marketing@starfleetgames.com.
They replied and asked for the email associated with your DriveThru RPG, or Wargame Vault account and a selfie of you with the product.
Had the PDF within a day.

Thanks for telling me. Unless there's any actual rules I'd need from the book that would only be from that book, I probably won't bother--the email route is unlikely to yield results, and I'm not that keen on doing selfies or having pics taken of myself. I'm sure I'll probably be losing out, but I really don't like pics taken of me.

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6 Reply by murtalianconfederacy

(60 replies, posted in Starmada)

How does the 'free PDF' work? I mean, I got the Admiralty edition version of RA, but from cricket as the version I paid for didn't come through (still hasn't--I guess someone round here has a free copy of the book).

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7 Reply by murtalianconfederacy

(4 replies, posted in Starmada)

I would guess that it's because it might be hard to accurately cost--cricket has said as much (I think) when talking about other 'area-effect' modes such as ELINT

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8 Reply by murtalianconfederacy

(4 replies, posted in Starmada)

No...I've also thought of something along those lines--it certainly would allow a more true-to-source-material conversion of B5...

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9 Reply by murtalianconfederacy

(8 replies, posted in Starmada)

Would it be related either to the size of the weapons (a la FireCon/LRS) or be based on the shield factor, or even be a straight-up SU cost (say, 100SUs)? The more natural thing is to go with a percentage of the weapons SUs--similar to the FireCon SU/ORat cost. It would affect non-Defensive weapons adversely, though, just like LRS adversely affects seeker weapons...

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10 Topic by murtalianconfederacy

(8 replies, posted in Starmada)

An idea I had for a potential SUE Escort trait, which would make it into more of a tactical escort, and combining it with the Defensive weapon trait which, at the moment, is useful only for defending the ship itself (based upon my reading of the rules, which could be in error)

Any ship equipped with Escort may employ its Defensive weapons against any Tiny target making an attack run within range and arc of its weapons.

Example: A ship with R-12, 1/1/1, 3+, Dfn, Pnp weapons and Escort is seven hexes away from a friendly ship, and is in arc. A fighter flight attacks the friendly ship. Under normal circumstances, only the attacked ship could defend itself, but the Escort can itself provide Defensive fire against the fighter flight.

This is a departure from the SNE Escort trait, which I suggest could be made into a new piece of equipment: the Jammer. It would have the same type of effect as the SNE Escort, and would--arguably--be a better name, jamming the enemy's LoS

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11 Reply by murtalianconfederacy

(5 replies, posted in Starmada)

Okay, thanks. I think I had the older rules stuck in my head--again--because I've been making sure my Dfn weapons have a decent shot of hitting by giving them 2+ ACC, Dfn and Pnp, thinking that gave a 66% chance instead of a 83% chance.

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12 Reply by murtalianconfederacy

(5 replies, posted in Starmada)

So, just to be clear:

A R-3, ACC 3+, 1/1/1 weapon with Dfn and Pnp, defensively firing at a fighter flight, would hit on a 3+, not 4+?

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13 Reply by murtalianconfederacy

(2 replies, posted in Starmada Unity)

Version 1.02.

Re-fixed the defence satellites' CRats (or un-fixed it--the Drydock was correct and I was wrong)

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14 Reply by murtalianconfederacy

(63 replies, posted in Starmada)

Good news: after testing it, the drydock seems okay (although I only gave it a couple ships to work through). Bad news: I realised that I'm really bad at using Directional Shielding. After first miscalculating the SU requirement (by not following all the steps listed) I then, for the re-design of the DEFSATs, instead of dividing by 6-EqSR, I divided by the EqSR, thus making a colossal error that ended up costing them 5-11 CRat more than they should. This experience has taught me to be wary when doing Directional Shielding...

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15 Reply by murtalianconfederacy

(63 replies, posted in Starmada)

Just checked and, although it is saying v1.02, the current Drydock is v1.03. I'll enter some of my ships through it and make sure they match my p+p designs

bekosh wrote:

Snip helpful post

Thanks for the help bekosh, I'd have no idea how to 'fix' it myself...:)

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16 Reply by murtalianconfederacy

(63 replies, posted in Starmada)

TeknoMerk wrote:

Would you mind indicating the sheet, row/column and how you fixed these?  I would like to update my Excel and OpenOffice versions, and I am concerned that I would miss an item or two while attempting to find the problems you noted.  Thank you in advance!

murtalianconfederacy wrote:

Right, as I was preparing my first SUE supplement, I discovered a few problems with the Drydock. I'm sorry I didn't find these earlier:

--Screens don't get the Shield tech modifier applied to them

--Dual-Mode weapons: Smaller figure is being divided by 3, not 2 (was able to fix this myself)

--DRat doesn't round up, just rounds normally (a hull 1 ship with Shields 1 has a DRat of 2.4, which should round to 3, but it doesn't)

--Anti-Fighter Batteries has an ORat component (was able to fix this myself)

WRT the dual-mode weapons, I unprotected each sheet, then in the box where the base SU requirement is listed (with a red circle below):

[attachment=0]Drydock pre-release dual-mode weapons correction.png[/attachment]

The original formula reads (for the first weapon battery):

=ROUND(MAX(M14:M15)+MIN(M14:M15)/3,1)

Which I changed to:

=ROUND(MAX(M14:M15)+MIN(M14:M15)/2,1)

Which seemed to correct the problem.

As for the AFB, I simply entered a '0' figure into each AFB's ORat column on the Tables sheet. I think this was because initially AFBs were to be closer to their AE version--an 'active' weapon system. The screens and the CRat rounding--I don't have any clue as to how to fix those, I'm afraid

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17 Topic by murtalianconfederacy

(2 replies, posted in Starmada Unity)

My first supplement, done with pen+paper and then entered into the Drydock.

After years of creating various titles, my imagination in that way at least has been exhausted. I had been toying with naming various VBAM campaigns I'd run after singles I have, over the years, had on my MP3 player, but I decided to go ahead and start my new naming convention with my first SUE supplement. I've had this one on my MP3 for a while now (enough that my musical tastes have changed sufficiently that I've not listened to it for a while), but ehh, it's not too bad a name. If you want more 'The End of the Beginning' or 'Iron Air' style names for my supplements, just let me know...:)

The original version had an incorrect CRat for the defence satellites. Version 1.02 (with correct CRat) is below.

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18 Reply by murtalianconfederacy

(63 replies, posted in Starmada)

Right, as I was preparing my first SUE supplement, I discovered a few problems with the Drydock. I'm sorry I didn't find these earlier:

--Screens don't get the Shield tech modifier applied to them

--Dual-Mode weapons: Smaller figure is being divided by 3, not 2 (was able to fix this myself)

--DRat doesn't round up, just rounds normally (a hull 1 ship with Shields 1 has a DRat of 2.4, which should round to 3, but it doesn't)

--Anti-Fighter Batteries has an ORat component (was able to fix this myself)

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19 Reply by murtalianconfederacy

(3 replies, posted in Starmada)

Yeah, I'd agree with the first one. The second one, I'm not so sure on. If pressed, I'd go with the NE ruling that a weapon must have the Expendable trait in both modes or neither, but I kinda like the idea of having a single-shot weapon combined to a standard weapon--like external ordnance racks, say, that block other weapons until fired.

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20 Topic by murtalianconfederacy

(3 replies, posted in Starmada)

Started doing some actual designs for a supplement (I've still been in an AE form of mind, but I'm working on another style closer to Hard Vacuum), and in the midst of doing it a couple questions popped up:

1) how does a weapon with both Deadly and Incapacitating interact with screens? Do the traits cancel each other out, or do you have two potential damage points that can be nullified by the Incapacitating's saving roll?

2) Can a dual-mode weapon have one mode with the Expendable trait and not the other, or do both modes have to have the trait? [thinking of external ordnance racks in Starfire-style games or a double/triple shotted cannon in Age-of-Sail games]

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21 Reply by murtalianconfederacy

(14 replies, posted in Starmada)

Li...life? I've heard of that. Is that an expansion to SAE?  :?:

tongue

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22 Reply by murtalianconfederacy

(63 replies, posted in Starmada)

I had sent mj12games a PM about this, but as he hasn't been on for a week (thanks KDLadage for pointing it out), I'll post this up.

I found another couple mistakes. Two are easy fixes, one not so much (for my limited Excel-fu)

Slow weapon modifier is 0.7, should be 0.6

Guided+Telescopic shows as red--due to the range-based weapon trait column having a figure of 82, when it should be 80.

Selecting Piercing 1/2 and Proximity reads as an invalid combination.

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23 Reply by murtalianconfederacy

(33 replies, posted in Starmada Unity)

MRCAcct wrote:
murtalianconfederacy wrote:

noticed the Olympus Gunship has a phantom Class-S Missile Rack battery

D'oh! Yeah, it was a mistake (that I usually catch). I do multiple ships of the same 'class'; start with one, copy Drake notation, go back, modify to next one ('cause most ships have same arcs, different weapons).

Fair enough. I always tend to find little bits of errata myself after I release things to the wild, so to speak. Unfortunately, I tend to only find them piecemeal, such as the fact that I looked again at the Centauri and Narn and saw a couple things wrong:

Centauri
Altarian Magnus--Battle Laser should be ABCD.

Narn
G'Lan--Should be medium lasers not heavy (I remember this b/c the fluff for the G'Lan said they had to downgrade the heavies for mediums to make space for the mag cannons)

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24 Reply by murtalianconfederacy

(33 replies, posted in Starmada Unity)

@MRCAcct: I was looking through the EA ships (a cursory look, nothing more) and noticed the Olympus Gunship has a phantom Class-S Missile Rack battery (i.e., the stats listed but no batteries). I'm guessing its a simple copy-paste error, given that it doesn't have missile racks in B5W.

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25 Reply by murtalianconfederacy

(33 replies, posted in Starmada Unity)

bekosh wrote:

The Sharlin sheet that I have lists 24 fighters and 4 flyers. So 4 flights of fighters +1 flight for the Combat Flyers.
All of my B5Wars stuff comes from Babylon 5 Wars Vault

The SPB and the Fusion cannon are nearly identical in B5W except that the SPB has better Fire Control ratings (SPB +4/+4/+4, FC +3/+3/+4) hence the SPB 3+ ACC and the FC 4+ ACC.

I used the Fire Control vs Medium ships for ACC.

ACC     B5W Fire control vs Medium ships
2+          +5
3+          +4
4+          +3
5+          +1 or +2
6+          0

I know that B5W uses a d20 for to hit so this really magnifies the differences in Fire Control (d6=16.6% per point, d20=5%), but if you try to squeeze it down at 3-1 everything homogenizes out and all the weapons end up at 3+ or 4+ and nothing much outside of that.

:oops:

I confused it with the Primus or G'Quan, didn't I? Oh, well, it has been a while since I looked at my B5W stuff...

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