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mj12games.com/forum → Posts by Vandervecken
Yes, that will make it easier for new players. It takes up more room but New players shouldn't have more than a few ships to print out anyway.
Someone will always go for the big guns. They wont have as many as someone with more basic weapons, but when they connect, someone will know it in a very painful way.
Would having a very small spreadsheet where all you do is input the first Number (whether whole or fractional) and it figues the string for you to then: transfer, or print, or put to a personal weapons table be more useful ?
Why a weapon that hurts armor a little more (for a relatively low cost I suspect) by adding Burrowing, you ask?
Because I have friends (1 in particular) that will probably go hog wild over armor, and this proposed optional rule(if adopted, possibly as a house rule - if not 8-) . If the other players know that I could make a weapon that hurts those armored mega-dreadnoughts a bit more than some other trait and I dont have to pay 1.85 (like DX2)for it, probably only 1.2 or 1.3, it would give them something to think about. Would my entire fleet have it, only if the armor fanatic in my group is the Empire with the upper hand. Could I just go for DX2 or DX3, of course, but we are looking to give each of our races a personality, with strengths and weaknesses, and since armor is the choice of one of my friends, not having something specific that helps counter this seems unfair when compared to Shields and ECM. It's 85% for flavor, but at my age, the flavor of the game is the draw to play it versus something else. It is not just finding the ultimate combo, and everyone making copycat fleets. We all still want to win ... but we want to do it with STYLE, hehehe.
proposed Optional Rule's optional Rule: Weapon Trait - Burrowing
Burrowing only modifies damage to armor.
For 'Ablative' armor: the weapon with Burrowing does 2 damage to armor for each actual damage point done to the leftmost armor section. Any single armor box left, is destroyed by 1 point of damage (the extra damage is not transferable). Damage to the other Armor section by burrowing weapons is - do 3 damage, get the 4th box of armor destroyed as well (if the vessel has that many) so 9 points of armor in the 2nd section would only take 7 points of burrowing weapon damage to take out that armor section and 9 points of armor in the 1st section would only take 5 points of burrowing weapon damage to destroy all the armor in that section.
For 'Incremental' armor: the weapon with Burrowing does an extra point of Armor damage for each 2 regular points of damage done on the leftmost armor section, and does an extra point of armor damage for each 4 regular points of damage done to the center armor section.
Example of weapon trait in use vs Ablative armor: The Methosians love their armor and have chosen to use ablative armor. Their Battlecruiser in standard has armor of 7L - 7C - 6R, which translated to 7 - 6 - H1 - H2 - H3 for our Ablative vessel. 3 Gweenee vessels: a Frigate and 2 Destroyers (new builds with Burrowing) find the BC alone and without escort. Battle ensues. In a stroke of luck, the BC long range weapons are ineffective while closing, the next round sees the two forces close, The Gweennee have initiative and DD#1 fires his 2 Burrowing weapons at the BC doing 2 points of damage , this takes 4 armor off the leftmost section of armor. The Methosian BC's main weapon again misses, but it's secondary weapons both hit DD#2, getting 1 box from taking down it's centre hull structure (nothing left of it's leftmost armor/hull and taking the center armor out as well.
It fires back but misses. Then The Frigate with a standard weapon attacks the Methosian BC and does 2 damage at this range, that leaves 1 box of armor left in the leftmost compartment. The next round Has the Gweenee DD#2 attack first, doing 4 points of damage. The 1st point of damage takes the last armor of the leftmost section, no carry over of burrowing to the next section with that 1st damage point. The next armor is hit by 3 points of damage from a burrowing weapon so the other section loses a 4th point, leaving it with 2 points left. The BC fires on the injured DD#2 and destroyes it., DD#1 isn't in his weapon arc save for some close in weapons that are out of range, so he fires on the Frigate with his secondaries, and nearly takes it out. The Gweenee DD#1 fires his Burrowing battery and also does 4 points of damage, if there had been 5 points of armor left, the Gweenee would have gotten a free armor hit, but because there were less, (2) it does standard damage from now on as after the first 2 points of damage, only hull is left. which it does 3 points to, which is not enough to get thru to the middle Hull. The Gweenee were able injury the BC before they met their demise, but it was more main battery poor shooting by the Methosian. Hopefully the Gweenee Cruiser with Burrowing will fare better vs their enemy.
Cost multiplier - T.B.D.
On another note, I'm open to other names aside from "front-loaded armor".
Ablative?
Could be O.D.A. or Oda ; which is short for Omni-Directional Armor'
why not directional armor?
Directional armor to me suggest some sort of movement, which I don't see this Armor doing to cover multiple attacks from different specific facings. Add Omni to it and you can take on all commers.
I just want to say that I like both styles, and would love to see some people go for the "Incremental Armor", while others would gravitate to the "Ablative" armor. To me, if this optional rule is tested out to be a "Good Fit", that would make different peoples empire have more personality when fighting against each other.
Keeping two armor sections could be disturbing with this options, just because someone coult forget that and apply damage to hull instead of armor 2. I don't see the reason why all armor couldn't be located in the first section.
I understand where you are coming from, but I think if the people playing can get the original Armor/hull/armor/hull/armor/hull splits right; that Dan's explaination a few posts up, will be no issue. And by having the armor split, it allows some diabolical person to be able to come up with an Anti-armor trait that could exploit that division of armor for an optional rule (or a house rule).
in the 5 armor that becomes 3 Front-Loaded armor, will it matter where that 3rd armor goes: Armor area 1 or Armor area 2 ??
If you ever allow an anti-armor weapon function , it could make a difference depending on if that function used the difference in those two block for whatever.
The idea is to use the same ship display (divided 2-2-1) but just ignore the middle section (2-X-1).
roger I got it finallly. I was using extra math, why, I don't know
Edited this in as a favor to my sick 5th grade daughter who is watching me enter stuff on this forum as an amusement while she does some Minecraft adjacent to me. She said to me "Dad, extra math is BAD, very BAD." I agree, thats why Nova has a lot going for it, fewer die rolls, and some nice simplification of rules (with the possible exception of Firing arcs needing a special function on a calculator - if I have read correctly).
in the 5 armor that becomes 3 Front-Loaded armor, will it matter where that 3rd armor goes: Armor area 1 or Armor area 2 ??
After rereading the proposal :oops: , I kinda like this proposed Armor optional rule. Will it matter if the extra armor is in first or second batch when there isnt a neat 3 to 2 armor divider ratio, or is there any rounding? What would happen if there was 7, 8, 10, or 11 original armor? Can you give me the breakdown, or did I miss that too? I still like my own version of standard Armor - giving in another Subject Post, but this can work quite well. Way to go Dan !
I'm gonna run this by my friend with the armor fetish later tonight (he has an old copy of Starmada X-Brigade, while I'm still trying to get wife to let me spend just a few more bucks on space games, with Solar Starfire in hand and the Boardgame 'Eclipse' (2nd Printing) on order. They were this year's previous purchases). I was hoping to buy the Starmada Nova pre-release already but it looks like May will have to be my new target. Then I'll sneak in VBAM 2E in July (if they ever get it done, hehehe), then possibly look at what Stephen Cole has done in his latest version of Star Fleet Battles. 2012: the year of space games !
Unless there is a: Double damage to armor weapon, or a Half of damage skips armor, or a ??? vs Armor weapon also used with this optional rule, I see armor as being too powerful. I've worked on some sort-of-front ended armor styles that give players a taste that armor isn't hull, without making it much better than it currently is, and even then I'm thinking of some weapon trait that will prevent the 'Armor Aficionado' from ruling over Shields and ECM equipped vessels.
Dan, because you blocked the armor into 2 halves, perhaps you have an Idea :twisted: in mind for those who rely on armor as their only defense ???
Dynachrome metals starting with Durachrome, then Duralloy, then finally Endurachrome - what they make Bolos out of. maybe use 2nd table for Durachrome, 1st table for Duralloy and some other rule (Such as 6 boxes of armor for the space of 5) for the Endurachrome,still using 1st table. Useful, if your campaign has any tech levels . Pick your poison if not.
I note that for smaller amounts of armor, up to eleven armor boxes, there won't be a change. For example, the three armor-sections being 4-4-3 occurs now if you have 11 armor and 4-3-3 occurs if you have 10 armor, etc.
Not quite, 9 armor boxes is different: a 4-3-2 vs a straight 3-3-3 in rules as they stand in Nova 1.1
My Armor lovin' buddy who prompted me to work on alternatives would want to use the first table I made, But I'm leaning on the less dramatic 2nd table I posted. Many smaller designs wont be affected, but the big boys will show where armor makes a difference compared to Hulls. Hopefully Cricket will like it even though it does add a tiny big more to the complexity of the system, maybe just us people who want armor to stand out will have to add this as a home-rule. Does the second system stand out enough? I made it as a compromise between what is currently there and whan my fiendish friend wants, which also still includes a weapon trait that is better against or penetrates, or even ignores armor (He might not get that because balancing weapons is much harder than what I did with armor placement.
I have been playing with a breakdown of armor that is not straight 1/3rds, but not 3/6, 2/6, 1/6 breakdown. It is in between and uses 6/15th (round up), 5/15ths(round), and 4/15ths(round down) as the fractions. if armor total # is 1 smaller than it should be, add 1 to first armor section; and if armor total # is 1 larger than it should be, subtract 1 from the last armor section. This gets you a table that is close to the original, yet gives you a hint that those boxes are something other than Hull for those who want their armor to have at least some flavor. The table looks like ...
Total Front Middle Rear
Armor 1/3rd 1/3rd 1/3rd
1 1 0 0
2 1 1 0
3 1 1 1
4 2 1 1
5 2 2 1
6 2 2 2
7 3 2 2
8 3 3 2
9 4 3 2
10 4 3 3
11 4 4 3
12 5 4 3
13 6 4 3
14 6 5 3
15 6 5 4
16 7 5 4
17 7 6 4
18 7 6 5
19 8 6 5
20 8 7 5
21 8 7 6
22 9 7 6
23 9 8 6
24 10 8 6
25 10 8 7
26 10 9 7
27 11 9 7
28 12 9 7
29 12 10 7
30 12 10 8
31 13 10 8
32 13 11 8
33 13 11 9
34 14 11 9
35 14 12 9
36 14 12 10
37 15 12 10
38 15 13 10
39 16 13 10
40 16 13 11Because the slope from 1st section to last section is not as pronounced, I think that very little if any cost increase should accrue with the caveat that you can never have more armor than hull unless you want to pay an extra surcharge for it.
A contemporary of mine, a British bloke named Stephen H., suggests that Dan lives in a semi-connected alternate universe, that has been loosing about 1/61 trillionth of a day each year since both universes were simutaniously created. :geek:
Hmmm. Would it be too ridiculous to only apply that at Short range when the attack dice would normally be at their greatest?
I like the Flavor (or Flavour to some) of only applying at Short Range. If you know anything about Space ... it gets big, real quick.
I agree that my proposed Armor distribution listed a few posts ago should have a 'Slight' cost increase; but that makes sense, as whatever ARMOR is in S-NE, it is probably a little more expensive to install than standard hull. That also makes it "feel more right", my armor fanatic friend said. I'm not going to even try to guess what this small multiplier value should be; I'll leave that to the people who have been playing and play-testing Starmada Nova.
Had a conversation with my armor lovin' friend. He is against front loading armor but believes there should be a bias toward the front as to where armor would be placed in this new 3 section Nova edition. We worked on a few formula and think that we will impliment this variant house-rule (and drop the anti-armor weapon rule he was trying to develop - although the 'penetrating' idea mentioned above might whet the grindstone for further debate)
The Formula is:
1st section = Total armor / 3 * 1.5 Round up
2nd section = Total armor / 3 Round up (unless total is more than original total, then subtract 1 from this sections armor
3rd section = Total armor / 3 * 0.5 Round down
1st 2nd 3rd Tot
2 1 0 3
2 2 0 4
3 2 0 5
3 2 1 6
4 2 1 7
4 3 1 8
5 3 1 9
5 4 1 10
6 4 1 11
6 4 2 12
7 4 2 13
7 5 2 14
8 5 2 15
8 6 2 16
9 6 2 17
9 6 3 18
10 6 3 19
10 7 3 20
11 7 3 21
11 8 3 22
12 8 3 23
12 8 4 24
13 8 4 25
13 9 4 26
14 9 4 27
14 10 4 28
15 10 4 29
15 10 5 30
3 thru 30 armor look like this.
I am considering a house rule that for every 5 full boxes of Armor you would normally get, you get 1 'FREE' box of Armor. So too bad for certain hull/Armor combinations, and the smallest vessels couldn't get a free box either, but my friends seem to want this to work, so I'll be trying to balance it in. (One friend is definately a '1900 - 1950' naval junkie). My friends like armor and and it's destruction.
We are also are considering a Semi effective 'Anti-Armor' kind of weapon trait which has three versions : skip 1st armor, skip first 3 armor, skip first 5 armor style of damage (nothing would modify the armor skip value - this may chance when I get Nova). These anti-armor traits would be tied to the spaces a certain race's weapon took up. Weapons under a certain space size would get no bonus, and weapons from x to y spaces get skip 1st armor, from y to z spaces get skip first 3 armor, and weapons above z spaces get the skip first 5 armor.
How much exra space would you add to a weapon to get the 'skip first 2 un-destroyed armor' trait; and remember that the really big vessels in this campaign will be getting a nice amount of 'Free' armor if they go that way, so you'll want some sort of anti-armor tech hehehehe. It cant be much or you really would just buy another weapon, but cost wise, its a trait that cost a little extra space and not your cash. I also suspect my friend will want his fighters to have a skip 1st armor wpn trait for his fighters as well, but that will have to cost him a little cash as there is no space to trade up to; but that is if the anti-armor fighter trait is allowed at all.
Dan,
Thanks for the Nova Bourbaki Basin !
Was confused for a sec when the link went to the Admiralty Basin, hehehe.
I know you won't always be able to get us what we want (especially when WE sometimes have up to seven different opinions about a single subject), but you keep coming thru time and again. Danke, Domo Arigato, Thanks !
The Drydock is a fabulous tool, but not having a Bourbaki Basin, to augment it is overall a step backwards in the Starmada community. Think about it, the active players and the semi-trolls like me will be the primary people using the Drydock; the same people who spend a lot of time contributing to and reading the stuff that goes into the BASIN. I hope MJ12 reconsiders. Is there a financial reason to not have a 'Nova' Basin we don't know about ?? (Server storage space costs or something?)
Never heard of Nathan F., Zoe, Jayne, or Browncoats.; thats Castle, a mystery writer I think. I I saw him on the T.V. Box thingy.
Nice looking and playable, thanks for putting this out.
Can you make a new post and then migrate this topics post data to the new and more accurate post ?
mj12games.com/forum → Posts by Vandervecken
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