Seems like the first thing we need to settle on is movement, and then work back from there.  Speeds in SFB range from 0 to 32 (ships max at 31) with most undamaged ships mantaining "combat" speeds somewhere in the 20's, maybe slower if they're arming a lot of overloaded weapons (that's another issue, those).

Based on the Starmada ship construction rules, we need to decide what "average" speeds are before we can really talk about weapon ranges, areas of effect for ESGs, and other stuff that involves map scale.  If we say Starmada fighting speed is, say, ten, then each Starmada hex is (very roughly) about two or two and a half times the size of a SFB one.  If we set it lower, the scale increases even further, which might be a good thing if we want to minimize AOE weapons.  OTOH, if we fiddle the build rules to make average speeds something up in the 20's, we can maintain a one-to-one parity and feel okay about things...I think.

Shotguns spit out a bunch of small plasmas at multiple targets, not so sure about an AoE...more like a rate of fire increase.

They've also got some kind of "sabot" mode now that allows them to move faster than super-fast briefly, and there are also the pseudo-plasma decoys to think about.  Both of those might be skippable in Starmada terms, but the tactics wil wind up very, very different without PPTs.

That's one of the big differences between SFB and Starmada, and it may require a rules change to adapt properly.  Ships in SFB can fire at any point in their movement, and they move simultaneously and proportionately with one another, so short-range weapons can still get off shots (often very painful shots) in a flyby situation, even when both ships end up far apart at the end of the turn.  If Starmada is going to port *anything* from SFB, that probably needs to be part of it.

Thinking about the adaptation:

Multi-turn weapons are pretty much mandatory for any SFB simulation.  Easy enough to do, though.

There's also engine doubling (which should boost speed, offense, and defense at the cost of some permanent damage) and many Orions have cloaks as well.  They use pretty much every Galactic weapon in those option mounts, which makes them one of the last races to get tackled, since you'll need so much else defined first.

Much the same could be said of the boys from the WYN cluster, I might add.

Deciding how much the ability to make blocking terrain is worth is likely to be a chore.  Even more so when it can be placed at a distance via Web Casters.

Tricky.  Seeking weapons are just as important to the SFB "feel" as multi-turn arming weapons, but Starmada doesn't want the level of clutter SFB sometimes (often?) achieves.

The plasmas are both multi-turn and seeking.  They've also got about a bajillion different arming options these days, which might or might not be vital enough to include in the port.  Should be interesting to see how that gets handled.

They also turn like loaded cement trucks driving on greased ice.  Makes me wonder if varying turn modes are also a mandatory part of an SFB-Starmada translation.

Hellbores (and enveloping plasma, if used) make directional shielding/screens pretty much mandatory, although probably with fixed values rather than allowing free reassignment each round. 

Assuming speeds aren't going to be in the up-to-32 range like real SFB, the ESGs probably need to affect a much smaller area, perhaps as small as just a single hex.  Similarly, web areas (particularly cast web) need to be reduced considerably to compensate for average speeds being much lower. 

TR beams are just another two-turn direct-fire weapon, albeit a nasty one.  Displacement Device is a slightly unreliable teleporter gadget that can be used on both friendlies and enemies, and it needs to be "scaled" like the ESG and webs so that the distances moved aren't absurdly out of proportion to normal speeds.  Unless we're doing some kind of actual power allocation (which I'd argue against, personally) Power Absorbers could just be treated as quirky shields.  Maybe have them give the ship a bonus to movement if they took fire the turn before (representing the use of stored power) but also have them cause extra damage if the ship in question takes a shield hit.

The PPD is another "splash" weapon like Hellbores and enveloper plasma, but the effect is a fairly small one and might be ignorable.  Going to be tricky to retain the flavor of the weapon without impulse-by-impulse fire though.  Perhaps give it a fairly high damage (like, say, 4) and let it reroll missed shots up to three times, with each reroll costing it 25% of the damage?

Holy cats, don't let Steve Cole hear you mention the Mechad, or any of the other stuff from those Galactic Empires IP-pirates.  That's an era best forgotten.  The horrors of the Indirigan boomerang weapon will haunt me for all eternity...a seeking weapon whose warhead strength, speed, and turn mode change every few impulses?  Shudder...

And you didn't even mention Omega Sector, or the Lesser Magellanic Cloud races, or the Juggernaut, or space monsters... 

I'm committed to pewter minis on this game myself.  Cardstock just doesn't do it for me.

Thank heavens for Brigade, eh? 

I know I'm anxiously awaiting the next book...and some more minis from Brigade...but I'm not on the design team.

The only terrain I've got are some gas clouds, asteroid clusters, and (of course) minefields, all of which are painted onto sheet styrene.  Works well, but I've never assumed it was in scale with the ship minis/counters.

Rich

I'm with you, although I will use Reaper and GW for metallics and inks.  Craft store paint is fine for most stuff, but their metal colors suck and they don't have the pigment density to do washes well.

Rich

See, now I would have thought wood glue would be better for that sort of thing.  Or maybe a few good, long screws...

Which is why you should always take the opportunity to relieve any apparently-defunct psycho-killer of his feet (preferably with a chainsaw or axe, but a hacksaw will do in a pinch) and bring them with you when you leave the scene.  Chopping off heads or hands instead may seem like a good idea, but Sleepy Hollow and all those stories about that guy with the hook indicate that the psycho can still cause problems with those appendages missing.  Take his feet, though, and what's he going to do?  Chase you on his stumps?  "Look out, it's the Jason "Pegs" Vorhees!  We'd better walk away at a moderate pace or he'll kill us all!"  "Oh no, he's found a wheelchair!  We're doomed if he finds a way across those speed bumps, over that curb, and up this flight of stairs!"

Plus the feet are good evidence for the inevitable disbelieving authority figures.  "I tell you, the guy tried to kill us with an axe!"  "You got any proof?"  "Just these size 13 shoes with the zombie feet still in them..."  At the very least they'll go take a look for the guy you chopped them off of.

Ugly fight, but an interesting read.  Nightside conditions do tend to make for bloodbaths in my experience, although not usually so one-sided.  Was the British player having problems with initiative toward the later stages?  Sounds like the Italians really managed to finesse the range in the BB clash, and that usually requires multiple initiative wins.

Novel to see zero minefields deployed during play...we tend to use them a lot on our homebrew designs (albeit not always to good effect) so our battlespace always ends up cluttered with explosives by the end game.

How much have you actually played with the old version of LRS, pray tell?  It doubles the long range bracket on your spinal mounts, too.  And if your ship speeds are similar, your maximum closure rate against an enemy who's backing away is about half your speed, or pretty much nothing if you're using evasive or he's got his guns pointed aft.  Odds are your speeds won't be similar, since the classic Compendium LRS user is a small, fast ship with multiple spinals, often pointing to the rear...and against those, you'll never get in range to shoot back with anything but your own LRS-spinals.

The combo is obvious, and boring as all get-out after a repetition or two.  There are good reasons why X changed LRS.

Now, if they'll just do something about Stealth... 

OTOH, clumping the crit chance down in the low end of the range increases the odds of torps scoring crits, which seems somehow appropriate...especially if your crit chart includes a lot of "hull breach/pseudo-flooding" results.

One of the spots where Silent Death really shines is the way each of their ships has its own unique crit chart.  Some ships really have to worry about fatality crits, others not so much, and the top of the line hardware is nearly immune to sudden death results.

Then again, their point valuation system is questionable, and their ship design system is really easy to abuse, so all is not perfect at ICE... :wink:

Rich