Well, I mostly did it to represent the dropfleet general active anti missile defenses (pinpoint lasers, counter missiles and jammers) and the seperate point defense turrets (used as anti-fighter systems).  It also allows for reduced defenses if the anti-fighter batteries are lost to damage.

I'm planning on randomizing the system damage and using the hyperdrive system to represent the anti-grav generators (lose them and either bug out or crash into the planet).

It's working fine now.  Thanks   

We only allow three weapon traits and no more than one can be a damage modifier.  We also don't allow expendable (as such).  I never thought of using the engine overload rules to go out in a blaze of glory.  I'll have to look into that.

The complaint seemed to be that after a certain point ships didn't need to bother with point defense because they were being overkilled by such a large margin.  My counter point was that all of that overkill was wasted points on my side of the equation, since I could have spread fire over more of his fleet and not lost so many hits to overkill.

I've always liked the Babylon 5 universe and its proliferation of ship classifications.  The best example is the Earth Alliance Omega destroyer, which out masses the Earth Alliance Nova Dreadnought (something you don't see too often).  Some of the other races have similar flips in the traditional (by this I mean WW1-WWII) order.  Given that such flips have happened in the past it makes for a neat little insiders joke.

Most of the ships I design vary in size by their assigned roles and I don't worry about size (hull or SU) vs. name.  It also varies by tech level obviously.  My Narn Battleships have the same hull as my BFG light cruisers, for instance.  In my group we usually simply designate each ship as being of a certain points value (After the Tyranid Kraken 60hull/40Armor 200point regenerating ship incident anyway)

Hi Lucas,

We've been playing with simultaneous combat for quite a while.  What we've been doing is to place all fired seekers when we declare (ship) targets.  We then go through every ships combat fire.  After all of this we resolve seekers that fired the turn before.  This gives every ship the option to fire at seekers before they hit.

I will have to admit that we almost never fire at just fired seekers though.

In my opinion fighters are not very effective.  They combine two hits with a pretty terrible gun and come out to 25 pts each.  If your opponent brought ECM or Stealth you shouldn't even bother deploying them.

I've been trying various methods to make them more effective.  So far I've come up with either making them a small ship with hull equal to fighter numbers, short range weapons and a high thrust value (10-12) or making them a seeker type weapon and just abstracting things.  The seeker method has the advantage of being simple and cost effective.  The ship method has the advantage of being closer to how fighters worked in previous versions of the game, but the disadvantage of the "flight" being slowed by damage.  If flotilla rules are reintroduced at some point that would be ideal.

Example one: (From Dockyard)
NAME:
Centauri ALTARIAN-class Destroyer  (179)
ARMOR[_][_] [_] [_]
HULL    [_][_][_] [_][_][_] [_][_]
THRUST    [5][4][3][2][1]       WEAPONS    [_][1][2][3][4]
ECM    [2][1][1][1][1]    SHIELDS    [_][_][_][_][_]
Hyperdrive
WEAPONS    ARCS    RANGE    ATTACK DICE    -4         -6         -8    -10
3× Matter Cannon    [FX1][AA3]    4-8-12    12    8    6    4    3    2    2    1    1    1    0    0
4× Twin Array (Pnp)    [TT2][FX2]    1-2-3    24    17    12    8    6    4    3    2    2    1    1    1
1× Sentri Fighters (Acr/Skr/Slw)    [TT]    6-12-18    4    3    2    1    1    1    1    0    0    0    0    0

Example 2: (also from Dockyard)
NAME:
Centauri SENTRI-class Fighters  (36)
ARMOR           
HULL    [_][_]    [_][_]    [_][_]
THRUST    [12][8][6][4][3]       WEAPONS    [_][1][2][3][4]
ECM    [_][_][_][_][_]    SHIELDS    [_][_][_][_][_]
Stealth (2)
WEAPONS    ARCS    RANGE    ATTACK DICE    -4         -6         -8    -10
6× Ultra-light Particle Beam    [FR]    1-2-3      12    8    6    4    3    2    2    1    1    1    0    0

Interesting.  As written, It sounds rather close to the system used in Battlefleet Gothic.

My 2 cents .  I don't particularly like fixed fleet restrictions (there are enough other games that restrict what you can take).  The only point I could see them at would be in a tournament setting and I would expect any tournament organizer to set such restrictions themselves.

Phroggelator: Looking at ship design from a standpoint of current wet navy building trends is only one way of looking at things.  What about a case where a single fixed volume system (a drive or power plant) necessitates larger ships?  Multiple science fiction universes work on such a system and it forces certain design considerations.  The best example would be David Weber's Mutineer's Moon series (+Armageddon Inheritance and Heirs of Empire) where moon size battle planetoids are the ship design of choice and smaller ships are used only as parasites on the larger ships or as in-system ships.  The system in question in this case is the core tap (power source) and faster then light drive (a variation on an old traveller stutter drive).

Another area or discussion would be organic or partially organic ships.  Would there be a ship yard requirement for a ship that grows itself?  In such a case wouldn't it be likely for one or two sizes or species of ship to be prevalent?

What about species whose societal structure necessitates larger ships?  Races like the Borg from Startrek or the K'kree from Traveller.

On page 16 the Rulebook says "All fighter counters in the same hex are considered a single target". 

Looking through the seeker rules on pg 25, there is no mention on how proximity weapons effect seeker markers.  A close reading of the seeker targeting rules shows that you target separate markers not a grouping of them.  It also says that they count as close range shots (not range one, where proximity would trigger against the firing ship). 

True enough, but it makes munitions (such as marines) far more likely to die before they can be used.  I actually like the opposite extreme (reinforced systems) more.  But that's more of a personal preference.

I agree and that is how we've dealt with them in previous versions of Starmada.  For reference I included one of my ships below.  The problem seemed to be that he couldn't focus enough fire power on a particular ship to knock it out with one punch.  I think that the fact that he had a lot of seeking weapons contributed to this.

Without regeneration the same ship comes to 274 points, so I am spending a 25% premium on the ability to recover a third (on average) of removed hull/armor boxes a turn.  It just seemed to be particularly effective in this battle.  I could put a 4+ shield on the ship for 361 and I think it would be more effective in most cases. 

Tyranid VOID FIEND-class Starship  (387)
ARMOR           
HULL    [_][_][_][_][_]  [_][_][_][_][_]  [_][_][_][_][_]
        [_][_][_][_][_]  [_][_][_][_][_]  [_][_][_][_][_]
        [_]                   [_]
THRUST    [6][4][3][2][2]       WEAPONS    [_][1][2][3][4]
ECM    [_][_][_][_][_]    SHIELDS    [_][_][_][_][_]
Regeneration
Marines
[_][_][_][_][_] [_][_][_][_][_]
3× Pyroacid Launchers    [FX3][PH3][SH3]    4-8-12    24    17    12    8    6    4    3    2    2    1    1    1
2× Bioplasma Spines (Vlt)    [FX]                             2-4-6    8    6    4    3    2    1    1    1    1    0    0    0