1 Reply by bcantwell

(18 replies, posted in Starmada)

boggo2300 wrote:

The only issue with that Brian, and this is purely from the SFU perspective, is that a lot of the escorts don't have the majority of their weapons as anti-fighter ones, ie. the E4E Escort has 4 Phaser-2's and  4 ADD racks, that I would imagine would become straight drone racks, I'll have to investigate some of the official conversions to see whats been done with ships heavy on ADD racks.  Admittedly this is an old and not very good escort, but it's not alone in its lack of Ph-3's.

I'm not sure how much of a problem that would be, might have to throw together a carrier group and play around with it.

Matt

As you say, this is a pretty lousy escort, even in SFB terms as the Phaser 2 is bad at everything.
In Starmada terms, the drone racks are dual purpose, being able to launch a drone flight or fire as an anti-drone if drones target the ship.  If you paid for Escort Fire Control on a ship and that allowed you to shoot the drone rack as anti-drones against any passing droe, then you'd be wasting the points paid to add capability to the weapon if you shot them offensively and would probably hold the drone racks as anti-drones.

The Anti-fighter restriction was just my initial off the top of my head idea.  I'd say you'd have to playtest a few escorts to see how much the ability to shoot any of the escorts weapons at seekers affects play.  However, since you can base the cost on an increase in ORAT (as with regular fire control), then you can adjust appropriately.

I'd say use the same cost as regular Fire Control, but only pay that cost for phasers and drone racks (i.e. increase ORAT by 1.3 for these weapons).  standard 5% SU requirement seems appropriate, but is mostly irrelevant for the Star Fleet Universe since few of those ships have systems that fit into the SU space of their hulls anyway.

Only trying some ships and playtesting them will come up with an appropriate answer.

Brian

Go to forum: Starmada

2 Reply by bcantwell

(18 replies, posted in Starmada)

My thought was to allow Escort Fire Control only for Anti-Fighter Weapons (and anti-drones). 

You can still shoot your heavier weapons at drones/fighters in the regular shooting step as usual.

My goal was obviously not to emulate any SFB rules, but rather to come up with something easy that would emulate SFB ship roles - i.e. an escort able to protect other ships.  To me, Starmada is the ideal place to have escorts, scouts, and other support ships that you'd more likely see in a fleet action than deployed to some little squadron patrolling the border.

Brian

Go to forum: Starmada

3 Reply by bcantwell

(18 replies, posted in Starmada)

I have considered escort ships as well.  My thought was to have those ships carry Escort Fire Control.  For simplicity sake, I was planning to simply add Fire Control when designing the ship to get the CRAT increase.

Escort Fire Control allows any of a ship's weapons (or maybe just Anti-Fighter weapons?) to engage fighters/seekers that move within some distance of the escort ship during the fighter phase.  My initial thought was 3 hexes.  I have no idea if this approximates the SFB Aegis rules (It's been nearly 20 years since I played SFB), but it does seem to allow escorts to do their thing - protect other ships from fighter-type weapons.

I'm already allowing weapons with Anti-Fighter to fire defensively in the Fighter Phase in a manner similar to anti-drones.  Within the context of the Star Fleet Armadas, this has been a minor change as ship designs are set and there is not a way to optimize a ship to take advantage of the rule.

Brian

Go to forum: Starmada

4 Reply by bcantwell

(18 replies, posted in Starmada)

I was also thinking that you could give the heavy direct fire weapons an additional trait - stand off weapon - allowing them to be fired from further out than standard fighter weapons.  That range (3 or 6 I'd think) could have long and short penalties as normal if desired.

As for drones and plasma, I don't see why (from a game mechanism perspective) that fighters could not use those in a strtiker mode using essentially the same mechanism as ship borne weapons.  The one thing I'd do add a Fighter launch step at the start of the fighter phase.  If a fighter launches a seeking weapon, it places it in the hex at the beginning of it's move.  That seeker can then be activated subsequently like any other fighter on the table.  I would consider it a striker mode, so the fighter would then not be able to launch a normal attack this turn.

I have no idea exactly what cost such a thing would need to add to the fighter.

Brian

Go to forum: Starmada

5 Topic by bcantwell

(1 replies, posted in Starmada)

Last night we did a Klingon/Romulan Armada game at the FLGS.  We played the Trap scenario from the Starmada AE rulebook, with 2x 1120 point Klingon squadrons as attackers and 2x 800 point Federation and Gorn squadrons as defenders.

The two Klingon Squadrons were:
A:  C7 Heavy battlecruiser, D5 cruiser, F5W War Destroyer, and F5 Frigate
B:  D7 battlecruiser, FD7 fast battlecruiser, D5 cruiser, 2x E4 Frigate

The defending squadrons were:
A:  Federation Heavy Cruiser, Destroyer (Saladin class - a conversion I did from the FC ship), DDG (Drone armed Saladin), and a Frigate.
B:  Gorn Heavy Battlecruiser, Medium cruiser, and destroyer

The battlefield had a size 2 planet in the center as well as a couple of moons.  The Gorns and Feds deployed on opposite sides of the planet at low speed so they could turn easily to challenge the attackers.  One Klingon squadron deployed to each set up area, with Squadron A concentrated against the Federation ships and Klingon squadron B spread out to assist against the Federation and also keep the Gorns honest.  The Gorn launched a full spread of seeking plasma torps.

The set-up of the Trap scenario puts the forces at close range to begin the game, so the action was fast and furious from the beginning.  The Gorn squadron turned to face the nearby Klingons, who moved in at medium speed.  The Gorn DD got to within 5 hexes of the D7 and was destroyed.  The other Gorn ships were largely unscathed while the opposing Klingons took damage to both the D7 and FD7. On the other end of the table, the Fed DDG sailed out alone toward the D5 and F5 while the three remaining ships charged straight in at the C7 and F5W.  The F5W was plastered by the Saladin-class DD and destroyed.  However, the Saladin was also destroyed by the Klingons and the Federation CA had her weapons complement nearly gutted.  Both sides launched a full spread of drones.  At this point the battle was pretty even, with the two destroyed Fed/Gorn ships compensated by the double VP award to the defenders for the destroyed F5W.

On turn 2 the Gorn HBC declared Emergency Thrust and pulled around to drag out the Klingon drone salvo while the Plasmas recharged.  The Medium cruiser turned in just as the FD7 was cutting in front to chase the HBC.  That left the FD7 within easy range of the CM's plasma torp spread, which pulled down the facing shield and inflicted some decent damage.  The range 4 Phaser strike from the CM against the Fast crusier's downed shield finished her off.  The CM took a little drone damage, but nothing too severe.  The D7 was targeted by the a huge mass of plasma torpedoes from the DD and HBC, so pushed the engines to Emergency War Power and gained a whopping 5 points of emergency thrust allowing her to easily U turn and outpace the torpedoes.  On the other end of the table the F5 and DDG ended head on at short range and after a few volleys of drones, destroyed each other in direct dire.  The C7 took a little additional damage, but the toothless Federation CA was unable to do much and was obliterated.  The Federation Frigate was pummeled but still intact (barely).  At this point the Federation/Gorn fleet had accumulated enough VP to win.

Among the 4 players in this game, I had played 2 games previously (plus a couple of solo learning efforts) and one other player had played once before, so there were lots of tactical decisions that would surely be dissected harshly back at the academy.  E.g. the Federation players never overloaded their photons, even though they would be at point blanks range and likely to take significant damage and lose them.  Still, everyone was able to grasp the basics of the game and enjoyed themselves fully, so I'm calling it a win.

I think that in the future if playing the Trap scenario I might change the attacker set up areas from the long edges of the map to the short edges.  That might push the initial engagement ranges out a little and allow for a tad of maneuver before the point blank firing begins.  I also think that perhaps the defender should score 1.5x VP instead of 2x VP as listed.  The attacker has only 1.4x as much force overall, so 2x VP seems like a pretty severe penalty.  In our game I felt that the Federation/Gorn fleet was getting beaten, but we won because tof the 2x modifier.  The Fed fleet at that point was mostly gone with only a single damaged frigate remaining.  the Klingons had lost one cruiser and 2 destroyers, but still had the heavy battlecruiser, 3 cruisers, and 2 frigates in the fight.

Finally, for this game we played using my alternate rules for plasma torps (torps are all speed 9, Acc 4+, DAM 2, and diminish in Size each turn that they remain on the table, bolts are 4+ ACC instead of 3+).  I also allowed them to place the seeking torps on the table in the shooting phase since the launchers are susceptible to damage (unlike drone racks).  Obviously I like this version better as it makes the seeking version of the weapon effective, which fits in with my view of the Star Fleet universe.

The other thing we did was allow any weapon with the anti-fighter trait to choose to fire defensively against incoming seekers as drone racks can do.  Any weapon fired in this manner were obviously unavailable for later fire.  This didn't appear to dramatically change to course of the game, but gave the players some defense against a drone launched from close range.  A large swarm of drones at one target easily overwhelmed the defense, but it did provide some relief from single nuisance drones.  It may not be something that you'd want to include as a general capability without assessing it's effect on CRAT, but for this specific setting the number of such weapons on the average ship is low enough that it doesn't really make a significant change to the ship's combat capability.

Looking forward to our next Armada game

Brian

Go to forum: Starmada

6 Reply by bcantwell

(5 replies, posted in Starmada)

I've been playing around with something similar in the Star Fleet Armada games, allowing the weapons with the Anti-Fighter characteristic to fire against incoming drones in a manner similar to Anti-Drones.  I've also been treating these as a sort of Dual Mode weapon and requiring that the decision to fire those weapons in the fighter phase be noted in the ship's orders (which prevents that weapon from being used in the direct fire phase).

Go to forum: Starmada

7 Topic by bcantwell

(0 replies, posted in Starmada)

As KA/RA allows you to easily do fleet scale battles, I'd like to include a few fleet support types of ships from FC.  One such group would be scouts.  In the SF universe, scouts have dedicated Special Sensors which you can allocate energy to to do various things each turn, including spoofing seekers so that they lose their lock on, providing jamming that makes ships harder to hit, or countering such jamming from enemy scouts.  It struck me that most of the effects could easily be simulated by existing Starmada effects.  Here is what I came up with.

Special Sensors
Special Sensors are used to conduct various electronic warfare tasks.  Each turn during the orders phase, each sensor must be assigned a task and target. The target of the Special Sensor must be within 15 hexes.  No ship or fighter flight can be targeted by more than one Special Sensor in a turn.  The possible modes are:
ECM:  Targeted friendly ship gains Countermeasures for this turm
Jam:  Targeted friendly ship gains Point Defense for this turn
Spoof:  Targeted Drone or Suicide Shuttle Flight subjected to Anti-Drone attack immediately upon activation
ECCM:  Targeted friendly ship ignores ECM from enemy Special Sensors
Scan:  Sensor counts as Science (50) for scenario-specific information gathering.

A ship which uses Special Sensors may only use direct-fire weapons with the Anti-Fighter trait during the turn as the energy emissions from larger weapons blind the sensors

Unlike most special equipment, Special Sensors are prominently located on the ship's exterior and subject to combat damage.  Special Sensors should be treated as one of the ship's weapons batteries, with corresponding entries on the weapons chart.

During ship construction, each Special Sensor utilizes 5% of the total available SU.  However, as their worth to the fleet is dependent on what they have to protect, the CRAT value of the sensor is not computed during ship design.  Instead, each sensor adds 5% of the value of the most expensive ship in the fleet to the base value of the scout carrying the special sensors.  E.g. a Klingon Squadron contains a C8 Dreadnought, 2 D7s, and an E7D.  The E7D has a base cost of 257 points and has 2 Special Sensors.  It's final cost would be 257+ 2x(611x0.05) = 318.  If caught alone with only a couple of E4 escorts, the E7D would itself be the most expensive ship and cost 257 + 2x(257x0.05) = 283

A little something to play around with until any of the Borders of Madness rules from FC make the jump to Starmada (if ever).

Any thoughts?

Brian

Go to forum: Starmada

8 Reply by bcantwell

(8 replies, posted in Starmada)

Might not want to wait that long... ADB just published their planned 2011 release schedule on TMP.  Distant Armada is listed as the next Starmada product with a release date this summer (for Origins).  Hydrans, Lyrans, and Wyn, Oh My!

Go to forum: Starmada

9 Reply by bcantwell

(19 replies, posted in Starmada)

RobinStirzaker wrote:

I am rather suprised by the monitors.  Having been described as slow to discover they have a Engines 6, the same as many warships, was something of a surprise.

Shouldn't this be closer to that of freighters, perhaps 3?

Redoing the monitors engine rating to 2-3 is on my Star Fleet Armada conversion list.  I've done the Romulan Eagle ships using TL -1 engines and that made them seem better (engines ratings around 5 instead of 7).  I also redid all of the fast cruisers using TL +1 engines and that added +2 to all of the engine ratings of those ships, which really helped to make those actually feel like "Fast" ships.  I really like the effect of that change.  I even went and converted some of the Fast Raiding Dreadnoughts from the Federation Commander ships online so I can do a raiding squadron game.

Go to forum: Starmada

10 Topic by bcantwell

(4 replies, posted in Starmada)

A seeker flight can move into any hex that moves the seeker closer to the target and if presented with two choices, the owning player chooses.  This part is crystal clear.

The next clause states that if a seeker is forced into a hex with another ship/flight/etc. it prematurely detonates and attacks that ship.  According to the letter, this would mean that if a seeker has a choice, it must go around a non-target ship and attempt to continue to it's original target.  Is this the intent or can a seeker player choose to move into a valid hex (i.e. one closer to the original target) that contains a ship and make an attack?

Thanks

Brian

Go to forum: Starmada

11 Reply by bcantwell

(8 replies, posted in Starmada)

Erik,

Depending on how accurate you want your jump to be, you could simply always roll some number of dice to scatter.  A perfect jump would be when the scatter dice move you out of the hex and back into it (a 1/36 chance with two dice).  This would in reduce the number of dice and make the tactical jump a little chancier, especially in an environment that had some terrain.  It's not like you are giving the computers a lot of time to calculate if you are making a rapid tactical jump.  You could also tie the number of dice rolled to scatter to the distance hopped - one die for each N hexes.  Another thing you could implement would be to reduce the scatter for each turn spent calculating the jump (which could involve restriction on movement, etc).  If you want to improve the accuracy, you could do something like allow the player to roll 2 dice on the final scatter and choose one.



1 in 6 is definitely too much for total ship destruction.

Brian

Go to forum: Starmada

12 Reply by bcantwell

(20 replies, posted in Starmada)

madpax wrote:
cricket wrote:
bcantwell wrote:

I might experiment with allowing the torps to be launched as part of the weapons fire phase (i.e. you would get to launch them even if the launcher was destroyed in that turn).

I think this might be a good rules change.

I agree  :oops: .
This is one of the drawbacks when firing a plasma as a torp.

Marc

In my limited experience, it is the main drawback.  Getting zero damage from you heavy weapon is a killer, especially if you lose it due to some fluky long range shot.

Go to forum: Starmada

13 Reply by bcantwell

(20 replies, posted in Starmada)

cricket wrote:
bcantwell wrote:

I might experiment with allowing the torps to be launched as part of the weapons fire phase (i.e. you would get to launch them even if the launcher was destroyed in that turn).

I think this might be a good rules change.

I set up the second fight from above (2x WE, 1x BH vs 1x CA, 1x FF, 1x BFF) again last night and tried it out with plasma launchers able to place torps during regular shooting.  Again, I tried only using the torps as seekers (and with my torp rules - Same sizes, speed 9, ACC 4+, Dam 2).  This game played out much closer.  Three times in the game one of the light Romulan ships was destroyed by Federation fire, but was able to put their torp on the table instead of losing it.  The first (an R) was directed at the FF (only target in arc), which suffered some engine damage.  Despite a favorable Emergency Thrust roll, the torpedo was just able to chase down the fleeing frigate and scored several hits and finished off the ship.  Later the battlehawk decloaked in front of the Fed CA.  Phaser fire from the BH dropped the FP shield and damaged the CA's engines, leaving it with only three engine power.  The BH dropped it's pair of G torps before disappearing under 3 overloaded photon torpedoes.  The fed cruiser could not run. but turned to present a full strength shield to the oncoming torps.  The Romulans rolled badly and only scored 3 of a possible 8 hits, all of which were absorbed by the Fed's shields.  The last War eagle decloaked and found itself at point blank range head on to the Battle Frigate.  Again the phaser fire damaged the Fed's engines while the War Eagle was crushed beneath the return phasers and a pair of OL Photons through the shield, but not before the big R torp was on the map and targeting the BFF.  The Frigate attempted Emergency Thrust, with disasterous results (3 ones and no successes) and could only fly slowly and take the hit on an up shield.  4 hits got through (Dam 2 each the way I've been playing it) and the BFF was swallowed in plasma - but I rolled six even numbers on 8 dice and although the ship was stripped of all engines, it was intact.

So in this interation, the Romulans still lost, but by being able to at least launch their torpedoes, were able to inflict damage and the Feds certainly limped away with both of the remaining ships below half hull and with the Frigate engineless and sporting a -3 Engine Rating.

Sample Size of 1 doesn't mean a lot, but I liked the feel of that game a lot better.  The Romulans didn't feel nearly as crippled and I could see that in this case there was a viable choice to make between setting up to bolt or launch torps.  I currently have the torps set to do about twice the average damage of against an unshielded target than the bolts do, but firing the torp does give the enemy a chance to accelerate away (especially using the Emergency Thrust rule, which adds some drama in that "Scotty, I need warp power now or we die" sort of way). 

The last experiment I'd like to look at is ACC 4+, Dam 2 versus ACC 2+, Dam 1.  Both put approximately the same average damage on the target, so don't know if there is much difference that would be noticable without running it a bunch of times so that you saw the high and low jackpots of the ACC 4+, Dam 2.

Go to forum: Starmada

14 Reply by bcantwell

(20 replies, posted in Starmada)

I played a couple of more solo games using my working plasma rules and thought I'd post some some quick thoughts ...

I did two games.  In the first I largely fired the torpedoes as bolts and even with the to hit reduced to 4+ to compensate for the enhanced seeker, the bolt was still definitely a value added weapon, especially the S and R torps.  On one occasion in this game I did set the fire mode for the Condor to fire Torpsm but was unable to launch two of the 5 weapons due to incoming weapons damage.  The other three wound up a bit short as the targeted Fed NCA rolled 4 successes (and no 1's) to apply Emergency Thrust and accelerated away from the torps.  The combined fire of the cruiser and three destroyers wiped the torp spread (an R, and S, and an F) from the map easily.

In the second game I decided to try and see what I could do with the weapons going strictly in Torpedo mode.  This fight had 2 War eagles and a Battle Hawk against a Fed CA, FF, and Battle FF.  The two War Eagles each launched their R torps at the Frigate from about 11 hexes away as the squadrons closed.  The BFF was able to do a U turn and get just far enough away and the combined phaser fire of the squadron blasted the torps.  Part of the purpose of the first strike had been to break up the fed formation, which had worked, and the Roms cloaked immediately and moved to new firing positions.  The Battlehawk got in behind the BFF as it turned back around and launched it's 2 Plas-G's, but the Frigate accelerated away and just did outrun them. allowing them to be easily phasered away.  One of the war Eagles decloaked in the wrong place and was was destroyed before the torpedo could be launched. 

Now part of this might be a need to develop better plasma tactics, but in general, I find it really hard to justify putting the Plasma into torpedo mode in the orders phase.  Although the bolt is less effective, you are guaranteed to at least get to shoot it.  The fact that a launcher that is destroyed does not get to launch the torpdeo is really crippling, especially for a ship like the War Eagle.  Drone racks don't suffer this limitation unless you are using the critical damage rules and even there, you have to take about 1/3 hull hits before you run even a risk of losing the drone racks.  You can lose a plasma launcher with just a single lucky weapons hit from long range.  I might experiment with allowing the torps to be launched as part of the weapons fire phase (i.e. you would get to launch them even if the launcher was destroyed in that turn).

I do like the Speed 9 and Diminishing Siz as a torp life control mechanism.  It seems much more intuitive than the 3 turns, different speeds, and declining to hit of the rules in RA.  In my test games I had the Fed ships run away from the torps, extend them, then blast them with phasers (the classic anti-plasma maneuver) and that worked well.  In the games I did recently I was having the Romulans recloak after firing (partially to try damage control on the lost plasma tubes), but one of these times I shouls try following the torps in with phasers blasting, hoping that the enemy will have to use the phasers to defeat the torp and not fire at me (part of the developing plasma tactics thing).

Go to forum: Starmada

15 Reply by bcantwell

(20 replies, posted in Starmada)

madpax wrote:

BTW, what I don't like in the phaser being range based rof is mainly because they are real ship-killers. I have the feeling it makes them more bloody than in FC. Against drones, That's not a problem, as drones are launch by the dozens. You need something to kill them quickly.

Marc

I don't have a problem with phaser-1s being ship killers at close range.  To me that's a matter of degrees and they still keep much of their flavor with range based ROF (e.g. incremental type of damage versus the more all-or-nothing aspect of the heavy weapons).  The plasma torps to me are a more pressing matter as they have a completely different feel than I was anticipating.

Brian

Go to forum: Starmada

16 Reply by bcantwell

(20 replies, posted in Starmada)

Interesting thoughts Erik.

Like you, my recollection of plasma is from SFB, where an R torp inbound was not something you stopped to consider whether to shoot at it or just take it and pour your fire into the enemy.  There was no choice but to think survival first.

A couple of thoughts...
1)  I agree that they should all have the same speed (9)
2)  I'm not sure that downgrading each step will work.  for one, the range component of each bolt is a factor that gets washed out, so a G-torp and an F-torp are the same if you ignore the range.  My own system (diminishing size) needs a tweak to compensate for the difference in the G and F torps.  It would also essentially double the effectiveness of phasers against torps (as there are fewer steps to take)and they are already pretty effective at wiping out a plasma torp. 
3)  I think both the Bolt and the Torpedo mode should be slow firing - that's an essential part of the plasma flavor to me - you throw your big rock and the hope you can hang around long enough to get another chance.  The little Plasma D racks could be normal speed firing if you used the ammo rule, since they are "pre-loaded".  Would be an interesting way to represent those, especially in their close defense mode targeted at drones and such.

Brian

PS  Next week I'll mull over Maulers - Hellbores should be out this spring if the posted ABD product schedule holds

Go to forum: Starmada

17 Topic by bcantwell

(0 replies, posted in The Admiralty Edition)

Here are a few ships I cooked up based on the Federation Commander ship cards available online at theFC Website.

A note on the point costs - these values are cooked a tad and are relative to the costs printed in KA, which are a little off compared to what I generate for the same ships using the various spreadsheets (see this thread).

Kzinti Drone Frigate (186)
Hull: 5 4 3 2 1
Engines: [TL0] 6 5 4 3 2                         
Faceted Shielding: [F:2 ] [FP:1] [FS:1] [AP:1] [AS:1] [A:2 ] [ 8 7 5 4 2 ]

Weapons : 1:[XZ], 2:[XZ], 3:[X], 4:[Y], 5:[Y], 6:[Y]
Battery X:   Phaser-1  TL0,  1-5/6-10/11-15,  1/4+/1/1
Range-Based ROF
[AB] [ABCDEF]
Battery Y:   Phaser-3  TL0,  1-3/4-6/7-9,  1/4+/1/1
Anti-Fighter
[ACE] [BDF]
Battery Z:   Disruptor  TL0,  1-6/7-12/13-18,  1/4+/2/1     //       Disruptor - Overloaded  TL0    1/5+/4/1
  // D.Mode: Carronade
[AB]

Special Equipment   
Cargo (50): Drone (6): Marines (4):  Probe (5): Science (50): Shuttle: Tractor Beam : Transporter (3)

Klingon D5D War Cruiser (275)
Hull: 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Engines: [TL0] 6 6 5 4 3 3 2 1
Faceted Shielding:  [F:3] [FP:3] [FS:3] [AP:2] [AP:2] [A:3] [ 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 ]

Weapons: 1: [XZ], 2: [X], 3: [Y], 4: [Y], 5: [Z], 6: [Z]
Battery X:   Phaser-1  TL0,  1-5/6-10/11-15,  1/4+/1/1
Range-Based ROF
[ABCD] [ABCD]
Battery Y:   Phaser-2  TL0,  1-4/5-8/9-12,  1/5+/1/1
Range-Based ROF
[ACF] [BDE]
Battery Z:   Phaser-3  TL0,  1-3/4-6/7-9,  1/4+/1/1
Anti-Fighter
[CE] [CE] [DF] [DF] 

Special Equipment   -
Cargo (100): Drone (8): Marines (8):  Probe (5): Science (50): Shuttle (2): Tractor Beam (3) : Transporter (3)

Klingon D7D Battlecruiser (295)
Hull: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Engines: [TL0] 6 6 5 4 4 3 2 2 1
Faceted Shielding:  [F:3] [FP:2] [FS:2] [AP:2] [AP:2] [A:3] [ 14 13 11 10 8 7 5 4 2 ]

Weapons: 1: [XZ], 2: [X], 3: [Y], 4: [Y], 5: [Z], 6: [Z]
Battery X:   Phaser-1  TL0,  1-5/6-10/11-15,  1/4+/1/1
Range-Based ROF
[ABCD] [ABCD] [ABCD]
Battery Y:   Phaser-2  TL0,  1-4/5-8/9-12,  1/5+/1/1
Range-Based ROF
[ACF] [BDE]
Battery Z:   Disruptor  TL0,  1-6/7-12/13-18,  1/4+/2/1     //       Disruptor - Overloaded  TL0    1/5+/4/1
  // D.Mode: Carronade
[AB] [AB] [AB] [AB]

Special Equipment   -
Drone (5): Marines (14): Probe (5): Science (100): Shuttle (4): Tractor Beam (3) : Transporter (5)

Klingon D5G Commando Cruiser (235)
Hull: 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Engines: [TL0] 6 6 5 4 3 3 2 1
Faceted Shielding:  [F:3] [FP:3] [FS:3] [AP:2] [AP:2] [A:3] [ 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 ]

Weapons: 1: [XZ], 2: [X], 3: [Y], 4: [Y], 5: [Z], 6: [Z]
Battery X:   Phaser-1  TL0,  1-5/6-10/11-15,  1/4+/1/1
Range-Based ROF
[ABCD] [ABCD]
Battery Y:   Phaser-2  TL0,  1-4/5-8/9-12,  1/5+/1/1
Range-Based ROF
[ACF] [BDE]
Battery Z:   Phaser-3  TL0,  1-3/4-6/7-9,  1/4+/1/1
Anti-Fighter
[CE] [CE] [DF] [DF] 

Special Equipment   -
Cargo (100): Marines (34):  Probe (5): Science (50): Shuttle (6): Tractor Beam (3) : Transporter (5): Troop Transport (100)

Klingon F6 Heavy Frigate  (240)
Hull: 6 5 4 3 2 1
Engines: [TL0] 7 6 5 4 3 2
Faceted Shielding:  [F:3] [FP:2] [FS:2] [AP:2] [AP:2] [A:2] [13 11 9 7 5 3 ]

Weapons: 1: [XY], 2: [XY], 3: [XY], 4: [X], 5: [X], 6: [Y]
Battery X:   Phaser-1  TL0,  1-5/6-10/11-15,  1/4+/1/1
Range-Based ROF
[ABCD] [ABCD] [ABCD][CDEF] [CDEF]
Battery Y:   Disruptor  TL0,  1-6/7-12/13-18,  1/4+/2/1     //       Disruptor - Overloaded  TL0    1/5+/4/1
  // D.Mode: Carronade
[AB] [AB] [ABCD] [ABCD]

Special Equipment   -
Drone (3): Marines (12): Probe (5): Science (50): Shuttle (2): Tractor Beam: Transporter (2)

Romulan Sparrowhawk-J Assault Cruiser (309)
Hull: 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Engines: [TL0] 6 6 5 4 3 3 2 1
Faceted Shielding:  [F:3] [FP:3] [FS:3] [AP:2] [AP:2] [A:2] [ 15 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 ]

Weapons: 1: [XZ], 2: [X], 3: [Y], 4: [Y], 5: [Z], 6: [Z]
Battery W:   Phaser-1  TL0,  1-5/6-10/11-15,  1/4+/1/1
Range-Based ROF
[ABCD] [ABCD] [CDEF]
Battery X:   Phaser-3  TL0,  1-3/4-6/7-9,  1/4+/1/1
Anti-Fighter
[ACE] [BDF] [CEF] [DEF] 
Battery Y:   Plasma-S Torpedo – Bolt   TL0,  1-5/6-10/11-15,  1/3+/2/3
Slow-Firing
[GHI] [GHJ] [GIK]
Battery Y:   Plasma-FTorpedo – Bolt   TL0,  1-4/5-8/9-12,  1/3+/2/2
Slow-Firing
[GHJ] [GIK]
Special Equipment   -
Cloaking Device: Marines (8):  Probe (5): Science (50): Shuttle (3): Tractor Beam (2) : Transporter (3)

More to come as I work on them.

Brian

Go to forum: The Admiralty Edition

18 Reply by bcantwell

(20 replies, posted in Starmada)

Marauder wrote:

I can see coming up with a cost getting quite complicated and/or subjective.

That is true.  I personally am not really interested in designing a bunch of new ships and plan to stick to ships published for the Star Fleet universe, so I only have to get my torpedo internally consistent.  As I said, what I really want is for the package to be approximately equivalent to the current Super Bolt + Weak Torpedo, so I can just change the stats and not worry about repointing the ships.

Anyone else is free to take my ideas and make more generic SU modifiers

Go to forum: Starmada

19 Reply by bcantwell

(20 replies, posted in Starmada)

prader wrote:

The idea I had would be to first design the "Bolt" option, and then base it's seeker characteristics from that- I'll try to work an example later but right now I'm pressed for time.

I've been thinking along these lines as well.  I want the plasma torpedoes in RA to be a little closer to the ones in Federation Commander in terms of their damage profile.  In FC a seeking torpedo typically has the potential to do around 2.5x the damage as a bolted torpedo, whereas in RA the Bolt will statistically do about 1.33x more damage than the seeking torpedo.  I'd like to reverse the RA situation and make the seeking torpedo a weapon worth taking seriously.

Here are a few of my thoughts

1)  All Plasma Torpedoes move Speed 9 (in FC they are all the same speed - the smaller ones just run out of damage sooner).
2)  Instead of the diminishing to hit number, Plasma Torpedoes get a new Fighter Trait:  Diminishing Size -2.  Diminishing as a general trait could have value of -1, -2, or -3.  In the Fighter Phase, any Torpedo that doesn't make an attack has it's Size reduced by the listed amount.  In the case of RA Torps, an S-Torp for instance would be Size 5 if it impacts on turn 1, but if not would be Diminished and would be a size 3 torp in the next turn, etc.  A Torpedo that is diminished to size 0 is removed.  This reduction scheme results in Torpedo ranges/durations fairly consistent with those in FC.
3)  If you are basing the seeker characteristics off of the Bolt profile, then make the Torpedo Starting Size = to the Bolt Imp x Dam or some similar formula.
4)  Seeking Plasma Torpedoes should be Damage 2.
5)  In a perfect world I'd like to balance the enhanced seeker with a less imposing bolt so that the whole thing is close enough to the same overall effectiveness that I don't have to repoint every Romulan ship.  The original seeker was of such limited utility compared to the bolt that it essentially didn't count, but an enhanced seeker certainly does...

So for instance, The plasma S torpedoes might look something like this...

Plasma S - Bolt          Rng: 5/10/15  ROF: 1  ACC: 4+  IMP: 2  DAM: 3  Slow Firing
Plsma S - Seeker       Size 5, Speed 9, ACC: 4+, DAM 2   Diminishing Size -2   

Brian

Go to forum: Starmada

20 Reply by bcantwell

(12 replies, posted in Starmada)

The ships in Star Fleet Armada (SFA) are converted from the FC ships.

Daniel has said (somewhere - I'm too lazy to hunt down the thread) that the SF Armada hull size is based on the total number of boxes on the SSD.  Engine rating is based on the ratio of engine/power boxes to total boxes.

I've been doing a number of conversions of some of the ships posted on the Federation Commander website.  Mostly these have been relatively simple variant ships that haven't required messing with hull, but I've done a couple that are new or significantly modified.  As others have suggested, I mostly eyeballed it, comparing the total boxes on the SSD to ships of similar hull size in SFA.  The results look pretty good to me.

I'll post some of my conversion ships in the Bourbaki Basin when I get a chance (mainly requiring that I get them into Drake Notation).

Brian

Go to forum: Starmada

21 Reply by bcantwell

(3 replies, posted in Starmada)

This game took about 3 hours to play, but we didn't stop at the normal VP win (i.e. after some number of VP worth of ships had been destroyed) but fought it out to the last man.  I'm guessing we probably would have ended the battle in about 2/3 the time if we had stopped at VPs.

It was the first game for my opponent and that game time included teaching him the rules.

We each had 1500 pts of ships

Brian

Go to forum: Starmada

22 Topic by bcantwell

(3 replies, posted in Starmada)

Captain's Log, Stardate 201114.1

Responding to a distress call from the colony on Favelo Alpha IV, Elements of
6th Fleet (Command Cruiser USS Excaliber, Heavy Cruiser USS Wasp, and Light
Cruiser USS Dunkerque) were dispatched to investigate and reinforced by the
raiding group of the Fast Heavy Cruiser USS Eagle and War Destroyers USS Rabin
and USS Tudjman. Upon entering the system, sensors detected a formidable
Klingon battle group consisting of a C8 Dreadnought and two C7 Heavy
Battlecruisers near the planet.

Captain Jay aboard the Excaliber was in overall command and order the fast
raiding group to swing around the planet and attack the Klingons from the rear.
The cruiser squadron turned toward the Klingons but moved within range of the
Klingons long range disruptors. The Dunkerque took the initial volley from all
three Klingon ships, suffering some moderate damage. The Klingons launched a
wave of drones at the Dunkerque and Wasp.

The Eagle and her escorts accelerated and used the gravity well of Favelo Alpha
IV to slingshot around. The Klingons countered by accelerating away, a move
that brought them above effective maneuver speed for the large Klingon ships.
The Federation cruiser squadron turned toward the planet and were chased by the
inbound drone flights. The Klingons chose to ignore the damaged Dunkerque and
concentrated fire on the Command Cruiser, while the federation vessels
concentrated fire on one of the C7s.

The Klingons began their deceleration and turned back toward the Federation
fleet (several dangerous power spikes were observed from the Klingon engines) as
the Eagle and her group completed their maneuver around the planet and roared in
at high speed with overloaded photon torpedoes. The Klingon drone waves smashed
into the Federation cruisers, causing significant damage. In the following
exchange of fire the Eagle and her escorts were able to fire into the weaker
shields of the Klingon rear and one C7 was destroyed. However, the Command
cruiser was obliterated and the Eagle was severely damaged.

Another exchange of fire saw the USS Wasp and USS Eagle destroyed along with the
remaining C7. However, the War Destroyers had maneuvered to the weak aft port
shield of the dreadnought and inflicted significant damage. The battle was now
between the Klingon capital ship and the three smallest Federation vessels. The
Dunkerque's damage control teams managed to get her damaged 4th photon torpedo
launcher back online and the remaining federation ships harried the C8, with the
war destroyers able to remain in her aft port quarter and attack through the
downed shield. Not going down without a fight, the Klingon dreadnought
destroyed the USS Tudjman and began sending boarding parties against the Rabin
by transporter and shuttlecraft. As the Klingon vessel was destroyed, Klingon
Marines seized control of the Rabin. Faced with an ultimatum that they would
destroy the vessel and kill the entire crew, the Klingon ship was allowed to
moved toward neutral space. We are trailing the vessel while awaiting
reinforcements from Star Fleet.

Captain Cantwell, commanding
USS Dunkerque.

This was my second game of Klingon Armada (not counting the playtest games against myself) and we expanded our games a bit from my first one. Both of us tried using
Emergency Thrust a couple of time (with varying success). We used the damage
control rules and even played with boarding parties, which Doug used to seize
one of my destroyers. We had a planet on the map and I was able to use the
rules for orbiting a planet to slingshot around and rapidly change direction to
come in behind the Klingons. Much fun.

PS  I tried out my idea for allowing anti-fighter weapons to fire on fighters (drones) as they move.  It seemed to work fine and did not seem overly powerful in this setting (where the ships are not necessarily min-maxed).  I think I knocked down around 4 drones in this manner and was still forced to eat 30 or so drones during course of the fight.

Go to forum: Starmada

23 Topic by bcantwell

(1 replies, posted in Starmada)

I've been tinkering with a few minor modifications to some of the ships in KA/RA.  For instance, I was looking at creating Fast Cruisers that were actually fast by using Tech +1 engines, conversely slowing down the Romulan Eagle ships with tech -1 engines, or creating disruptor armed battle stations for the Klingons.

I've punched the ships systems into the various spreadsheets and even worked some out manually, but in only a few cases to the numbers come out right.  The space differences I have no problem with (many of the ships have way more systems on board than allowable in 'standard' Starmada hull size limits) since as far as I can tell, only the hull points actually on the ship matter for the CRAT calculations.  However, even looking just at the CRAT, I can only occasionally get a ship to match up exactly with the printed values.  The differences are usually small (10-20 points), but can get fairly substantial for something big (like the battle station).

Am I just missing something in my calculations or is there a certain amount of fudge factor (proprietary math?) at play.  I will happily fudge the numbers myself if that's the case, but if I'm missing something I'd like to find it, especially as it would allow me to post some of those ships onto the forum for others to use with reasonable confidence in the values.

Thanks

Brian

Go to forum: Starmada

24 Reply by bcantwell

(8 replies, posted in Starmada)

I've been thinking about a few similar ideas in terms of escorts (as a general concept - a cruiser can be an escort).  One thought I had was to allow weapons with the Anti-fighter characteristic (which I gather is considered weak for the multiplier) to shoot in the fighter phase.  These weapons can interupt movement of any fighter flight to fire on it, resolving the effects immediately before the fighter enters a new hex.  A given ship may only fire at a flight once for each hex entered (i.e. if the flight starts 2 hexes away, you'll only get one chance to fire an Anti-Fighter weapon at it before it is in the attack hex).  The use of Anti-Fighter in the fighter phases would be like Dual Mode - players must decide during the orders phase if weapons with this ability would use it and if so, they would not be able to fire in the normal firing phase.  Obviously, each weapon would only fire once in each turn.

I'm considering this specifically for KA/RA, where the Phaser-3, supposedly a point defense weapon against seeking weapons, is less useful in that role than the ships main Phasers.

The limitation on firing one weapon per ship for each hex would create a real place for escorts, as each ship would then be able to fire one Anti-Fighter weapon for each hex the flight entered.

Brian

Go to forum: Starmada

25 Reply by bcantwell

(11 replies, posted in Starmada)

I was not thinking of marking off a single engine box (which I agree would give vastly different results) but rather marking off all of the engine boxes down to the new permanent rating.  In the case of the undagaed Seltorian CA, that would be 3 boxes. 

If the same ship then took 5 engine hits it would end up with a 3 Engine rtating with a -1 notation in one case and a 2 engine rating in the other case.  There would be a difference in the two methods if the ship had previousky taken damage and was part way between the two values on the engine trackm

The -1 notation is easy enough, but do like the idea of damage control being able ti repair the effects of Emergency Thrust, which  the damage track plan allows.

Thanks again for the input.

Brian

Go to forum: Starmada