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Does anyone else have 'preferred' designs for anti fighter weapons?
I was going to try high ROF, low IMP and DMG but was wondering about range, ACC and whether to include special options such as Range based ROF etc.
I play hexless and use a FT vector system (which is simple but a bit fiddly as you have to have a marker chit to show heading) or more recently the cinematic system (which whilst less 'realistic' avoids the jousting contests that often ensued).
If I used hexes (we are planning to try thm out soon) I rather like murtalians system. Simple and easy to grasp. It doesn't take into account facing vs heading and the latency involved in rotating a ship.
erm, I got it pretty much on the first read too. Admittedly I've played a lot of SX games using FT vector and cinematic movement and had to keep remembering the orders stated final velocity and not the thrust being applied, but the mechanics all made sense.
So well done Dan. The concepts may take some getting used to but overall very well described.
I don't own excel, and won't.....
who does (offiically):lol:
Damn!
there I've been telling fellow gamers how good Starmada is and now I'll have to admit there is/was room for improvement as a newer (and better) version is coming out 
Does the ECM(X) option have a counter with EWS(X)?
I like the idea od Armour(X) too.
Apologies for resurecting this thread, I was wondering if anyone had developed the ECM II etc idea further.
I have been considering something similar and spotted this thread. Essentially my ideas are around ship 'signatures' and the amount of target tracking they perform.
In current day submarines, there are active (seeking out) and passive (listening sonars). The more active a sub is, the more visible it is. My idea is to extend the EWS, Long range sensors and ECM ideas and have variable Sensors and ECM. ECM will mask a ship, whilst sensors, dpending on how many are employed each turn) will give the ship a to hit bonus but will also make it easier for other ships to hit it. Therefore each turn, the captain needs to decide on a stealth tactic or ensure a better chance of a successful hit by exposing himself :shock: . For each sensor employed its +1 to hit and also to be hit (the ship is showing itself). For each working ECM its -1 to be hit. I thought up to 3 of each could be installed on a ship.
A +1 on a d6 is a big difference, so as mentioned earlier I think the to hit roll would need to move to a d10 or 12. D12 is the easiest conversion. The rest of the rolls could remain on a d6.
E.G Ship A is using sensors of 2 and ECM3
Ship B is sensors 1 and ECM1.
Ship A can target B with a modifier of +2 to hit (+2 sensors A, +1 sensors B, -1 ECM B)
Ship B can target A with a modifer of 0 to hit (+1 Sensors B, +2 Sensors A, -3 ECM A)
As a ships ECM units are hit they will be playing a risky game if they want to ensure a good target lock.
Comments welcome.
I wa very interested to see this post. I play StarmadaX and have just got Aeronef. I love the idea/conceptof the game but also feel the Aeronef rules are a little too basic. Fine for large actions but not for smaller battles. I therefore have started to look at a conversion to the SX rules engine.
Shields replaced with armour.
In addition to engines which dictate max speed and acceleration, there are lifters which dictate the amount of lift the nef has which in turn dictates the number of altitude levels it can climb (looking at up to 10 levels). As lifters are damaged the climb rate is affected and eventually the nef will start to lose height (sink).
Gun elevation rules are similar to those already described with minimum ranges being x inches per level. Also max range is reduced by y inches per level if shooting at a higher target.
As part of the design process for a nef I am conisdering 5 basic hull configurations - v fast, fast, average, slow, v slow. This is to give the designer some tolerance in hull shape and aerodynamics. The wider the hull the slower it will be but the more forward or aft facing guns it can bear. Normal/average hulls would be battleship shape but with say only 50% of its guns able to fire forward, but 100% on a broadside. A V fast hull would be very stream line and so only be able to bear 25% in the forward arc, but would fly faster per engine unit.
Next thing to work on is turning capability and cost. Also a ship stand design that holds the model at different altitudes.
I suspect I may also need to extend the SX damage track to d10.
Very rough at the moment, but getting there.
I'm with RedShark on this one.
We use FT movement and ships but Sx everything else. We've never found the gauges to be an issue and as we play a lot of non-starship wargames as well where scenary and visual appearance are of a higher importance we prefer an open tabletop rather than a hexed one.
As Jimbeau says though, whatever works for you. The game is more important.
thanks I'll have a read of the demo rules and let you know what I think. If they are as good at SX they'll be good. I am an AoA fan though so they'll have to be really something to make me change
After getting back into wargaming a year or two back, I returned to WHFB (used to play it way back when it was first produced). Soon decided I didn't like the new version and looked around for an alternative. AoA had got glowing reviews (which proved to be correct) and is really what WHFB should have become - similar mechanisms but based on common sense and some realism.
However, I'm always open to alternatives. Is there a basic copy of For the Masses that can be downloaded (like SX) or is there a review someone can point me at?
General point to note here:
GW never respond to questions/suggestions.
I play Arnies of Arcana for fantasy battles, FT and now SX for Sci Fi.
FT, SX and AoA are small fry in comparision to WHFB but in each case the designers have paid more attention to what the rules were trying to achieve and answeresd all questions (intelligently) that have been posted to them.
It is the actions of Thane Morgan, Jon Tuffley and now Daniel Kast that really push the wargame hobby forward. Hats off to you chaps. F***ing excellent game systems, even better attitudes! RESPECT!!!
Hi
just finished our 2nd battle and myself and Andy (my long standing opponent) really like SX. We are both FT fans initially and don't want to get into the who's best argument. For our battles we use FT ships/background, FT movement (vector) and SX everything else.
Tonight was a 900 CR per side. Andy had 5 ships, I had 3. We used screens and there were no fighters or damage control/
Points to note
We think shields/screens a bit too powerfull. Love the screen allocation process but we think enforcing a screen value of 1 on each side and the rest to a max of 4 may be better. We had battleships with shields of 5 facing each other and not making a dent (each had a good mix of heavy/med/light laser combos)
Damage control is a bit too easy. We are thinking of one roll per 3 hull boxes of having a fixed roll (4+?) per hull box and then the fix roll.
Other than that, bloody brilliant. Love the game (combined wih certain FT elements).
In the morning I feel a need to order fighters and carriers from GZG (to match our 2 fleets)
Trouble is when are we going to get back to Armies of Arcana (the best fantasy mass combat rules going) ?............
I think the GW approach of make it complicated, don't base it on any mathematics and add a special rule whenever possible is the way to go! Not to mention ignoring customer comments and refusing to answer/accomodate suggestions and questions.
I'm just off to get my medication now
Hi Daniel
I've got a better understanding of the damage allocation process now and done a few 'what if' scenarios and am happy now. Seems almost too simple to work but it does! I like it.
Hi
I may be missing something here but does the damage system in SX take into account the size of the ship. An example probably best describes what I mean.
The hit location system in SX is lovely and elegant and appears to be based on how much of a ship a system takes up. So the larger the percentage of the ship that the engines occupy, the more times it appears on the damage table i.e. it is more likely to get hit. Now if say a laser hits a large ship that has the same percentage of its space allocated to engines as a smaller ship then the chances of it hitting the engines is the same but should the damage effects be the same? i.e. one point of engine damage is as easy to inflict on a battleship as it is on a frigate.
Assuming percentages for both ships is the same, there is a lot more metal in a battleships drives than a frigates so should they not take more damage before being affected? Hull points represent the size difference but the hit boxes for crives/shields/special equipment are independent of the actual space they occupy.
If I have misunderstood the design rules feel free to hurl abuse as required! :oops:
one system per die.....
I'll let you know how we get on after the next game.
We particularly liked the screen allocation. It helps add to the tactics of how to best defend your ship.
Hi, just got hold of Starmada X and quite like what I've seen so far. I was a Traveller fan and played a lot of that back in the 80's. I loved (still do) the High Guard ship construction and when I got back into wargaming I did consider writing some rules to covnert HG to miniatures. However, I then found Full Thrust and liked the similarities to modern day battleships. I still really like FT but wanted a bit more detail in the ships and combat hence thought I'd try SX.
We've played one game so far to test out the mechanics. We used FT vector movement (not a fan of hexes) and I've had a first pass at converting the FT ships from Fleetbook1 to SX as we like the FT universe.
We didn't play with damage control parties but I have since read the rules for them and am wondering, don't they make it kind of difficult to kill ships off. On a large ship, say hull 14, every turn you get to throw 14 dice (assuming all the hull is intact) which will fix various systems. I can see you needing to knock out every weapon system twice and keep shooting out the engines and shields until all the hull points are destroyed. Is this how it plays out? In FT it becomes steadily harder to repair systems. One because the 'to fix' roll is harder ans two because you have fewer parties working on the fixes. Obviously the number of dice you throw in SX will reduce as the hull take damage but it does seem a bit too easy to fix damage.
Any views before we try it out next game? Are there any house rules people often play for this?
thanks.
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