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2012-07-29 08:03:09

Recently did a conversion of ToddW's conversion of OGRE to Starmada AE to Starmada Nova (that was a fun sentence). I think the seeker rules added a bit to this one; sadly, I doubt I'll get a chance to playtest it before summer's out.

Blog post of conversion

2012-06-24 23:03:55

murtalianconfederacy wrote:

However, with this edition, I have designed, with P+P...one ship, and half of one. That's it. For some reason, the design process isn't clicking together like it has done with the past editions. I'm pretty sure I know or suspect a few reasons, but that's not much help.

... I think you might be on to something there. There was some interest in my group of giving the S:NE a shot, but none of us were really able to muster the inspiration for a full fleet's worth of designs. I'm curious about what you suspect by way of reasons.

2012-04-23 15:48:46

Hmm... promising. I look forward to seeing this in play.

2012-04-17 17:33:20

BeowulfJB wrote:

If everyone will recall, in S:AE, ships with shields Level One could Not have these reduced by Piercing +1,+2, or +3.
In this new Nova edition, shields "6" is like those S:AE level 1 shields, and is also not removable either.
This should not come as a shock, because it is exactly how the earlier versons worked...

Pretty much my thoughts exactly.

2012-04-13 20:47:00

andyskinner wrote:

Anybody willing to put a technology-specific tech level into their builder?
thanks
andy

What categories do you want? Engines and Weapons, and Misc are natural, but do fighters still warrant their own category? Does each of the 3 defenses get its own, or should they be rolled together under one Defenses TL? I might be able to fulfil such a request after this coming Wednesday.

2012-04-13 05:05:59

Query with regard to Scout change (1 scout per 400 points -> -1 ECM for opposing side): is it legal to put the scout trait on the same ship multiple times for this purpose? Kind of thinking along VBAM "towing or whatever functions" lines, except here it would be "scout functions". Which I guess was one of the main uses of the concept in VBAM, actually. </1AM tangent>

2012-04-11 01:58:27

cricket wrote:

Naevius wrote:
Maybe scatter should provide a lesser bonus than normal, but still some benefit?
I could see allowing scatter to counteract the -1 penalty vs. fighters/mines/seekers.

The Shotgun Effect. I like it!

2012-04-09 20:05:06

madpax wrote:

That's something strange. Directionnal defense gives you a small advantage (a +1 over a very small part of the arcs) and a bigger disadvantage (the opposite) but costs nothing?
Seeing the usual SFU ships, I would say that DD gives you an advantage over FF, disadvantage over AA, and nothing elswhere.
Marc

Eh, this was true of vectoring your shields in AE too, wasn't it? Personally I don't see much of a problem; if you don't want a weak rear, take Stealth 1 and DD FF; then you have -2 front and +0 elsewhere.

2012-04-09 16:27:11

cricket wrote:

mikeaxe wrote:
Conclusion armor is pretty pointless in the game.
No more "pointless" than shields or ECM. Every argument being made about armor can be made about the other two defenses, as well.
Take the Indomitable BB, remove its shields, and increase its hull size by x2.4 (the equivalent multiplier for a shield rating of 3+). Your combat rating drops by 1 (from 361 to 360) and you have 3200 more SUs to fill.
But, now you have a 43-hull ship with no defenses, as opposed to an 18-hull ship with strong shields. <shrug>

I must respectfully disagree here. While the expectation for number of hits survived with shields and ECM is identical to that of the same volume / DRAT of armor, they function in a different manner from hull. ECM can be used to drive the number of incoming shots down to 0 at long ranges, thereby preventing 100% of damage under some circumstances. Also has applications in ECCM, and can sometimes more-than-halve incoming fire for two points of defense score if the enemy has chosen particular BAS values for his weapons (ex: one weapon at 4.5 goes does 5 hits at -0, but only 2 at -2, for 40% effectiveness). Granted, it can also sometimes less-than-halve, but this is a question of playing the fleet design metagame with knowledge of your opponent. Likewise, if your dice like you, shields let you use that luck to beat expectation (we've all seen it... plus, rolling saves is fun). The trouble with armor, as I (and I think others) see it, is that it fails to distinguish itself mechanically from hull, while also being somewhat inferior to just buying more hull in the general case.

2012-04-09 03:12:30

Oh yeah, you're right... it does specifically mention crossing off armor boxes. I guess we were extrapolating from AE, where marines cared not about Armor Plating. This way is rather counterintuitive, though... "Yes, let us take and hold this piece of external armor plating!" "Sarge, isn't this where we're most likely to be vaporized by incoming fire?" "It's called a beachhead, trooper." "But 7th Platoon has already taken engineering; we don't need a beachhead. Shouldn't we be inside, killing crewmen and taking the bridge?" "..."

On the one hand, it would be kinda neat if marines acted as an anti-armor weapon. On the other hand, armor doesn't need the counter.

2012-04-08 23:33:23

BeowulfJB wrote:

I took my Standard Design BB Arizona which had 25 armor and 20 hull, and is on my accound on the DryDock. On the drydock, I changed it to 45 hull. The cost remained at 422 and the speed I kept at 4; no changes except the change to all hull. This leaves me with 3360 spaces. This No-Armor, Big Hull version of my Standard Dreadnought is actually much less vulnerable to being taken over by Marines. I honestly see not much advantage to having armor, except that I like having Armor!!
If a trait is ever developed that makes a weapon more effective against armor, I will merely change all the armor to hull. If a ship design changes all the armor to hull, (getting a much a bigger hull) the idea that it will not be able to keep the same thrust is simply Not true. My ship will gain over 3360 spaces... Perhaps I will reduce the armor and increase the thrust to 5...
:idea: Continued, I was able to change the thruse of the 45 Hull version of the Arizona to 6. This increases the ship cost by only 20 points. And the ship still has over 1500 spaces. This has me reconsidering this "Standard Design". A thrust of 6 gives a ship many more movement options than thrust 4...
Good Grief, I am now rethinking my designs. This discussion has had an unintended Outcome. :shock:

Eh, thrust 4-6 is pretty sustainable. I was looking at thrusts up in the 10-12 range when I reached my conclusions. And you make a good point about marines..

2012-04-08 02:57:20

Oooh, I like Pinpoint. Need to put that on me turrets. Also that the Scout change is now rulebook-official, as opposed to just forum-official. Thanks, Cricket!

2012-04-08 02:49:22

BeowulfJB wrote:

I hope that a "Ignore Armor" weapon trait or any other trait that damages armor more than usual never becomes part of Starmada Nova Edition. Use Catastrophic damage if you want to ravage armor or hull...

Agreed, completely. The benefit of armor over just taking more hull seems sufficiently marginal that such a trait would likely drive its use out of the metagame entirely. ECM has the benefit that it can reduce incoming volume of fire to 0, Shields you can get lucky rolls with, but armor... not much going for it.

2012-04-07 14:48:25

diddimus wrote:

I asked this when i saw a pre-release version. As far as I'm aware a 10 hull ship would have to spend more on thrust than a 5 hull 5 armour ship. Both can take 10 damage, but one is smaller and potentially faster where as the other is larger, able to carry more but slower.
Don't know if this works in practice though.

Pretty much. Hull 5 Armor 5 has the same DRAT as Hull 10, so it all comes down to thrust. Armor is primarily useful for making tough things that achieve a certain desired speed. It actually does kind of work out, since the thrust factor grows faster than available SU with hull size.

It can, however, also be useful for very slightly manipulating how your systems degrade. For example, a Hull 4 Armor 8 can take 4 hits (2 armor 2 hull) before becoming damaged, while a hull 8 takes 3. Better yet, hull 4 armor 1 gives you three hits (more than half your effective hull) before you're damaged, vs 2 before damaged for hull 5.

To be honest, though, this reasoning is true of all the defenses. Why buy ECM 2 instead of doubling hull size? Or shields 4? And the answer is "well, for simulating a particular settings where ships have these defenses" rather than "well, because they're optimal." Because they're not; they're balanced-ish (and using them does expose you to certain counter-traits like Piercing).

2012-04-05 22:20:29

OK; I was looking at ECM 4 and Shields 4+, so similar ranges. And fighters as slow-firing seeking weapons seem perfectly reasonable; if only you could fire them at other seekers for that combat-interceptiony feel.

2012-04-05 19:07:08

underling wrote:

The current version of the Shadow class crusiser has 16 dice at range 9 with an FF arc.
I'm going to revisit the Eldar with the inte ntion of bringing the thrust back down to around 8, which will also allow me to lower the tech level (if I'm not mistaken).
I didn't really find any trouble getting into a position to inflict damage.
It was the inflicting damage, and then not getting the bejeezus shot out of you that could be a little tricky.
That's why I'm really curious to see how overthrusters will work.
Typically what I'd try to do is maintain a fairly high movement rate, deliver a shot, and then put the pedal down and accelerate to the edge of the board (leaving enough room to decelerate and turn around, of course).
It didn't always work, and if I wasn't making my shield saves the game could deteriorate fairly quickly.
What our group did was decide on basic hull sizes, basic weapon traits, give most everyone an ECM of 1, and then tweak the dice totals so that each class of ship was delivering a rough equivalent of their BG counterpart.
I've also got some of the old Spacefleet ships (with very pronounced sails), and I'd like to dink around with the solar sails ability. (Dan listens every once in a while).
Kevin

Ahh, upgraded the range to 9. That'd help, certainly; I think that's what I ended up doing with my later-gen AE conversions. Getting in, hitting, and trying not to die matches my experience in AE pretty nicely; cloaking sure helped in getting out intact . What shields did you use?

2012-04-05 17:07:09

madpax wrote:

BTW, SAE scenarios prevented you to buy ships which costed more than half the budget. Here, you can deployed one ship as long as it's not more expensive than the budget. Not only it's not really realistic compared to current fleet (you never see an aircraft carrier cruising alone in enemy seas) but you can end up with cheesy tactics.

Wait, seriously? This is worrisome...

Also, on fighters, the Imperials have always had a pretty solid anti-fighter defense, between the Fire Control and the giant piles of close-defense cannons (and now that ECM applies to fighters, that's a point in their favor too). Perhaps against a less prepared fleet, fighters would still be useful?

(Also personally, I'm looking mainly at keeping my fighters in near my ships to shoot down incoming seeker flights, rather than using them for offensive work. Changing times, changing tactics).

2012-04-05 17:01:08

My solution for the armored prow was Directional Defenses (Forward) and either Stealth 1 or ECM 1 (to taste). The -1s from DD and Stealth stack in the forward arc to halve incoming fire from that direction (which is equivalent to 5+ vs 6+ saves in BFG; 6+ will suffer half as many hits at 5+), while the -1 Stealth cancels the +1 outside of the forward arc. It does leave on a bit vulnerable to Fire Control, though.

And yeah, Overthrusters look like a good match for Eldar; it's a reactionary post-move mechanic somewhat in the spirit of a second move, and very 'farseer'-some. 8 thrust is about what I came up with as well. I'm mostly concerned that they only have short-range, forward-facing weapons, and not many of those (though they are accurate)... Did you have trouble getting into position or inflicting damage, Underling?

2012-04-03 20:46:31

underling wrote:

Alex Knight wrote:
So going off of my old BFG conversion I tested a single vessel with the conversion rules... okay, pre 1.0 conversion. Looks like a few things might have been altered. So I was going to see if a straight link would work to the printout.
(Nope, it won't.)
So a C&P
Imperial DOMINATOR-class Cruiser (194)
ARMOR: 0
HULL: 12
THRUST: 4
SHIELDS: 3
Weapon Battery 30cm [PP2][SS2] RANGE 6|27 19 14 10 7 5 3 2 2 1 1 1
Nova Cannon (Bls/Dx2/Prc/Prx) [FR] RANGE 18|5 3 2 2 1 1 1
Turrets (Acr) [TT] RANGE 3|1 1 1
Teleport Attack (Crn/Prc) [TT] RANGE 3|1 1 1
(Need a better way to print this without having to save it as an image and uploading. :-\)
I don't know whether you're interested in a collaborative effort or not, but a lot of our Nova playtesting was done using Chaos and Eldar ships from BG.
We didn't do any converting, though, so all of our efforts were Nova based from the start.
If you're interested, you might take a look at the ships in the drydock filed under "redneckgamer" and "underling," and let us (me) know what you think.
We were fairly satisfied with how both races worked, although a few of the abilities in BG were kind of tough to port over. The Eldar second move is one ability in particular that doesn't have a similar mechanic in Nova.
Kevin

Heh... I've begun doing BFG conversions as well, also straight from BFG to Nova with no AE middleman. Going to start porting them over here soonish. Quite curious to see how you handled the Eldar, because I do not have a satisfactory solution yet either.

2012-04-02 23:27:58

Hmmm... Clash looks like it would be an absolute beast in terms of playing time. A good test of Nova's quicker play, then!
And I quite like the strong asymmetry of New Enemy, but question whether a die roll is really the best way to handle things... rolling poor on transmissions could totally shaft a Negali player, despite excellent tactics. A possible solution which generates a similar game length (and also somewhat random) is that at the beginning of turn 4, if the Terrans haven't won, roll a d6. 1 or 2 -> Negali wins at end of this turn. 3 or 4 -> Negali wins at end of turn 5. 5 or 6 -> Negali wins at the end of turn 6.

2012-04-02 23:23:32

Honestly, one of the best parts of the Basin is having a place to discuss designs, especially the fact that it stores that discussion right there with the designs. The drydock approach certainly allows more ships to be generated and posted more quickly, but the community discussion aspect is lacking.

2012-03-30 23:28:34

Though friendly escorts block your LOS too, so you're still going to have to stick your nose out where it can be hit if you want to shoot at anybody

2012-03-30 21:26:33

Blacklancer99 wrote:

I am firmly of the opinion that all building mechanics, no matter how thoughtfully designed and executed will be exploited by someone eventually. The whole point of designing ships to defeat your opponents isn't to make a balanced design that is fun to play and makes sense, it is to find the loopholes and killer combos that allow you to smite your friends with giggling glee. The exitement comes from building the best beast rather than playing. All of the above is why I typically will not play one-of-a-kind build off games unless there are many restrictions in place. They just aren't fun to me. I'm weird that way I guess. When I have played some campaigns we have used all kinds of hard caps on tech and things like range and they were pretty fun games.
Of course this is me on my soap-box, so I will get down now and let the discussion continue.
Cheers,
Erik

I tend to agree here; anything can and will be exploited. I have not, however, found campaign games to be a solution; whoever had the best designs at the beginning starts winning and keeps winning if you don't allow redesigns. If you allow redesigns between games (so that good stuff can be countered), then you're back at square 1 (although you can try tactical counters, in AE those were not terribly effective... perhaps things will be better in Nova). I suppose one fix would be to allow the losing side to develop a new ship class per loss (much like the "Losing side gets points" solution in Simplest).
Anyways, what I was really getting at was "What hard limits do you use?" Because I am quite curious about what works. My experience with banning things has been that new degenerate strategies are developed rapidly ("Oh, nothing from Rules Annex? OK, guess I'll just have to use 3+ Repeating Increased Hits...").

OldnGrey wrote:

A Drake notation? "I am going to finish my game of boules".
Oh, that's not what was meant?
I guess a mono spaced font with a few special touches is required. Might solve any alignment problem?
Would anyone want to have another font to install?
Is there an idiot out there willing to spend the time on making one to include boxes and boxed numbers?
Paul

I question the need for new fonts at all... Here's my proposal:

<Starship_Name>
(<Combat_Rating>)<Class_Name> <Class_Designation> [<Race_designation>, TL <N>]
Armor: <N> <N-1> ... <2/3 * N, rounded up> * <2/3 * N, rounded up -1> ... <1/3 * N, rounded up> * <1/3 * N, rounded down> ... 0
Hull: <N> <N-1> ... <2/3 * N, rounded up> * <2/3 * N, rounded up -1> ... <1/3 * N, rounded up> * <1/3 * N, rounded down> ... 1
Thrust: <N> <N> <N> <N> <N>
Weapons: 0 1 2 3 4
Shields: <N> <N> <N> <N> <N>
ECM: <N> <N> <N> <N> <N>

[X] <Weapon_Name>, <RNG_1> / <RNG_2> / <RNG_3>, <Trait_List>. <Bank_List>
<FP0> <FP1> <FP2> <FP3> | <FP4> <FP5> | <FP6> <FP7> | <FP8> <FP9> | <FP10> <FP11> ... 0

[Y] <Weapon_Name>, <RNG_1> / <RNG_2> / <RNG_3>, <Trait_List>. <Bank_List>
<FP0> <FP1> <FP2> <FP3> | <FP4> <FP5> | <FP6> <FP7> | <FP8> <FP9> | <FP10> <FP11> ... 0

[Z] <Weapon_Name>, <RNG_1> / <RNG_2> / <RNG_3>, <Trait_List>. <Bank_List>
<FP0> <FP1> <FP2> <FP3> | <FP4> <FP5> | <FP6> <FP7> | <FP8> <FP9> | <FP10> <FP11> ... 0

Specials: <Specials_list>

Fighter format:
<Fighter_name> (<Trait_List>; <Num_Flights>)

Not that much different from AE's, really.

Obligatory example:

Gratuitous Violence
(170) Murder-class Cruiser [Chaos, TL 0]
Armor: 2 * 1 * 0
Hull: 12 11 10 9 * 8 7 6 5 * 4 3 2 1
Thrust: 5 4 3 2 1
Weapons: 0 1 2 3 4
ECM: 0
Shields: 3 4 5 6 6
[X] Lances, 4 / 8 / 12, Acc, Prc, Gid. FF0
2 1 1 1 | 1 0
[Y] Batteries, 3 / 6 / 9. PP2 SS2
20 14 10 7 | 5 4 | 3 2 | 1 1 | 1 0
[Z] Turrets, 1 / 2 / 3, Acc. TT0
2 1 1 1 | 1 0
Specials: Marines (4)

Not sure | is the best firepower separator; a bit similar to 1. / likewise suffers from similarity to 7. *shrug* Other than that, though, seems usable.

2012-03-30 20:43:59

Marauder wrote:

cricket wrote:
No. One bit of errata that needs to be added: Dx2, Dx3, and Catastrophic weapons lose their abilities against fighters.
Really - wow, and still cost the same as doubling your BAS?
-Tim

Agreed... This seems very odd to me.

2012-03-30 15:46:02

Marauder wrote:

Ya, fun ships:

NAME:
Mean Guys GLASS CANNON-class FF (85)
HULL [_] [_] [_]
THRUST [5][4][3][2][1] WEAPONS [_][1][2][3][4]
ECM [_][_][_][_][_] SHIELDS [_][_][_][_][_]
WEAPONS ARCS RANGE ATTACK DICE -4 -6 -8 -10
Boom (Exp/Gid) [FF] 1-2-3 452 320 226 160 113 80 57 40 28 20 14 10

Speaking of which, is there going to be a new "drake" notation?
But back on topic, this guy is TL+2 - he can one shot just about anything that isn't packing ECM 5, Stealth 5, but talk about vulnerable and with only one shot. I guess you could go a bit cheaper and get that down to maybe 240 attack dice.
-Tim

These actually could be fun to play with/against, because there's some challenge involved in the maneuvering to get within range 3 FF. Are they weird and scary? Yes. Degenerate? Maybe not. There exist counters (fighters if they're not in close formation, long-range weapons, mo' speed).

I also second the motion for a Drake-like notation. Pretty cards are all well and good, but I really, really prefer flat text. One consideration with such a notation is that making the -n column and the number of dice columns line up is going to be nasty; I think perhaps having "0: 452 320 226 160 -4: 113 80 -6: 57 40 -8: 28 20 -10: 14 10", where the column headers are mixed in, would be somewhat more usable. Including the prefixed '-' helps differentiate them from actual firepower numbers.

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1 Topic by Nomad 2012-07-29 08:03:09

Topic: OGRE Nova (0 replies, posted in Starmada Nova)

2 Reply by Nomad 2012-06-24 23:03:55

Re: A confession... (13 replies, posted in Starmada)

3 Reply by Nomad 2012-04-23 15:48:46

Re: Front-Loaded Armor (proposed optional rule) (57 replies, posted in Starmada)

4 Reply by Nomad 2012-04-17 17:33:20

Re: Piercing Change (14 replies, posted in Starmada)

5 Reply by Nomad 2012-04-13 20:47:00

Re: Starmada Nova Comments (133 replies, posted in Starmada)

6 Reply by Nomad 2012-04-13 05:05:59

Re: ECM/EPM (30 replies, posted in Starmada)

7 Reply by Nomad 2012-04-11 01:58:27

Re: Proposed changes for version 1.1 (54 replies, posted in Starmada)

8 Reply by Nomad 2012-04-09 20:05:06

Re: Starmada Nova Errata (55 replies, posted in Starmada)

9 Reply by Nomad 2012-04-09 16:27:11

Re: Confused By Armour (55 replies, posted in Starmada)

10 Reply by Nomad 2012-04-09 03:12:30

Re: Confused By Armour (55 replies, posted in Starmada)

11 Reply by Nomad 2012-04-08 23:33:23

Re: Confused By Armour (55 replies, posted in Starmada)

12 Reply by Nomad 2012-04-08 02:57:20

Re: Starmada Nova Rulebook now available for pre-orders (54 replies, posted in News)

13 Reply by Nomad 2012-04-08 02:49:22

Re: Confused By Armour (55 replies, posted in Starmada)

14 Reply by Nomad 2012-04-07 14:48:25

Re: Confused By Armour (55 replies, posted in Starmada)

15 Reply by Nomad 2012-04-05 22:20:29

Re: Battlefleet Gothic SAE to Nova Conversion (15 replies, posted in Starmada Nova)

16 Reply by Nomad 2012-04-05 19:07:08

Re: Battlefleet Gothic SAE to Nova Conversion (15 replies, posted in Starmada Nova)

17 Reply by Nomad 2012-04-05 17:07:09

Re: [SNE] My first game (5 replies, posted in Starmada)

18 Reply by Nomad 2012-04-05 17:01:08

Re: Battlefleet Gothic SAE to Nova Conversion (15 replies, posted in Starmada Nova)

19 Reply by Nomad 2012-04-03 20:46:31

Re: Battlefleet Gothic SAE to Nova Conversion (15 replies, posted in Starmada Nova)

20 Reply by Nomad 2012-04-02 23:27:58

Re: Scenarios for S:NE (13 replies, posted in Starmada)

21 Reply by Nomad 2012-04-02 23:23:32

Re: Starmada Nova Comments (133 replies, posted in Starmada)

22 Reply by Nomad 2012-03-30 23:28:34

Re: ECM/EPM (30 replies, posted in Starmada)

23 Reply by Nomad 2012-03-30 21:26:33

Re: Starmada Nova Comments (133 replies, posted in Starmada)

24 Reply by Nomad 2012-03-30 20:43:59

Re: Nova: Fighter Questions (61 replies, posted in Starmada)

25 Reply by Nomad 2012-03-30 15:46:02

Re: Starmada Nova Comments (133 replies, posted in Starmada)

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