In defense of this tool, I find it very very useful for creating fleets within one faction or universe, or in quickly comparing multiple ship designs.

In addition, it provides a way to convieniently work 'universe elements' into each shipmaking process automatically.

-Adso

Wow!  This thing is lookin' good -- I loved the original, and this will speed up the creative process equally well for admiralty.

One question -- the VBAM Scout requirements.  You could change them to requiring Fire Control and a certain number of Science units, since Fire Control fulfills many of the same functions as LRS used to.

-Adso

I think we're in agreement, Dan the Designing One :-)

Fighters have been toned down a little -- as you said, 'halves shields' is no longer a default ability.  I also agree that little else has changed in terms of available deterrents (though the new movement system may make things a little less predictable).  I am surprised at the consensus against AFB -- I always found it an important deterrent when picking targets, as did my group.

Two more questions, sorry to pester:

1) I think the OP wanted something not merely to lessen the effectiveness of fighters, but to interdict and attrit them actively.  So while I agree that the countermeasures is a good idea, it doesn't go to the heart of his question.

2) How would you price such a 'Close Defense System'?  SUs, ORAT, DRAT, etc.  Would you consider it interesting and useful enough to include in Admiralty 1.1?

3) And one question of my own, in a similar vein: what happened to 'interceptor' fighters?  There are two ways for fighters to get -1 against other flights in excahnge for greater vessel-damage, but no way to exchange vessel-damaging ability to flight-damaging ability.  I assume this is intentional, but why?

-Adso

From what I can tell, it's going to be a tricky matter of engaging fighters and seekers rather than letting them engage you.

Example: A Rng-3 weapon won't be able to hit a fighter if it move up next to you during the fighter phase and blows you away.  BUT if the fighter is a few squares distant, and you move up to it, the weapon becomes a respectable anti-fighter gun, and hits it BEFORE the next fighter phase ever happens.

Example:  The enemy flights fail to knock your vessel down, at which point your RNG-3 weapons become an asset.

So really, it's more a problem of making sure the fighters don't get to make their move-in during a fighter-phase, or that you have 'picket' vessels with high thrust ratings which can move up to them and engage them swiftly.

I do wish there was a "Point-Defense" mod for weapons, at, say, x1.3.  "Weapon takes -1 on all IMP and Acc. rolls against vessels, but does not take the -1 Acc. Penalty for attack small craft.".

Or somesuch.

-Adso

....it's been the better part of a two years since I was playing Starmada once or twice weekly, and got third place in that Bourbaki basin contest.  A combination of time and the open-ended abuse of special equipment brought me away, but the release of the admiralty edition compelled me to open my wallet.  Congratulations, MJ12 -- this thing looks and feels professional, and seems quite smooth (if only you could afford an artist rather than cheezy computer graphics...but perhaps that's part of the charm).

One question I have -- though IMP works more or less as PEN used to (barring the 'impossible values' addition), it seems odd to me that ships can be assigned a shields value above 6...unless I missed that critical stricture somewhere.  It's only noted in the 'definitions' section, and the field isn't limited to values 1-5 on the spreadsheet.  I assume this is just a matter of clarification and not a fundamental change.

That's really my only criticism, though.  I love the integral vector system in theory, though I'll have to see how it flies when I get some folks into a game or two.  The new firing arcs are perhapss the most commonsense element -- matching them to the actual hex sides makes them much, much easier to remember.

Soon, the Colonial / Miranda Confederacy and their old foes, the Ryzan Republic, shall sail forth again!

-Adso

Good points, all!

Here's a revision -- does this reflect how you'd like to see them repped?

TRANSFORMATION / BOARDER (x1.33): At the beginning of the fighter phase, this flight may declare that it is transforming/boarding.

During the following round, each ship which successfully hits and penetrates the enemy vessel do not roll on the damage table as normal.  Instead, the fighter is translated into a single Marine squad on the enemy ship. This squad has boarded the enemy ship and may fight in a boarding action THAT ROUND and all following rounds.

Fighters in the flight which fail to damage remain in play as normal, and may attempt to transform/board again next turn.

At the beginning of any subsequent fighter phase after boarding, a marine squad may declare it is disengaging/rembarking.  Each surviving marine squad becomes one fighter in a flight, which may act in that fighter phase.

The end -- I hope this covers it.  Oh, and in VBAM, this has fun potential, especially if you're using the 'detailed ground combat' rules.

-Adso

<sound of cackling as he ponders Heavy Bomber Transformable boarding mechs...>

Wow!  This does indeed make a big difference.

Now if only we had a good points spreadsheet for firearms.... <nudge>

-Adso

Yes, morale checks in Ares are or can be VERY tough.  However, remember that a shaken unit can still act, just not TWICE, meaning they are by no means out of the fight.  Also, we usually let units of figs get bonuses to individual morale checks based on being hit if there are other unit members nearby, or give them a bonus to rally based on the same thing.

But just remember: shaken is only half the battle.  I've had shaken archers sit back and do just fine at making the enemy keep their heads down.   

You can also be cheap and design one-wound models, so that when they get hit, well, morale is a smaller issue than mopping.

Glad to see someone else out there is playing!

On a general note to the ARES board:  I love the scifi variant that was up on the Yahoo group...but we never played much of it because designing our troopers without the aid of a spreadsheet was a hassle.

Any interest in designing or altering an XLS for longer ranged weapons and/or multishot weapons?

Actually, it seems to me a bit easier to standardize the weapons into 'batteries', consisting of an abstract-but-large number of gun mounts.  Thus, a Nebulon-B would have the same 'turbolaser batteries' as a Star Destroyer, just fewer of them, and likely on different firing arcs.

But people have been using this idea, just never stated quite so plainly.  Here's what I propose for the basic weapons systems of Star Wars -- bearing in mind three constants:
1) Laser Cannons are quite short ranged.
2) In all the computer type games I've played, torpedos and missiles outrange cannons and turbolasers, but only by a smidgen, and then they're inaccurate/likely to be shot down.
3) There are only five basic weapons.  I'm not well versed enough in Star Wars stuff to know of any more, but people are welcome to chip in.

I'm still unsure about how the missiles are represented, appreciate inputs.  But running some trials, at TL0, these numbers seem to let me fit about the right 'scales' of firepower onto ships -- hence, a Star Destroyer can fit eight ABCD Turbolaser Batteries, some ion cannons, and some concussion launchers, along with Armor Plating (c'mon!) and some fighters and all that.

Laser Battery    (7.2 SU)           
(E)    R3    4+    2    1    1    Re-Rolls To-Hit Dice               
Turbolaser Battery    (42 SU)           
(E)    R6    4+    2    2    2                               
Ion Cannon Battery (30.24 SU)               
(E)    R6    5+    2    2    2    Halves Shields    /No Hull Dmg                               
   
Concussion Missile Launcher Battery.    (11.9 SU)           
(B)    R7    5+    2    1    1    Variable PEN                                                   
Proton Torpedo Launcher Battery  (48.3 SU)
(B)    R7    4+    2    2    1    Increased DMG

Indeed, but by making the 'size' of the bay dependent on the CR of the fighters carried, I think I take the equipment factor into consideration.

For example, if your ship has one set of Fighter Racks, it could variously hold:

5-6 light, TIE-style crappy fighters (costing between 4-6 CR each).  This makes sense because the vessels themselves are small, and are not equipped with any particularly maintenance intensive special systems or weaponry, keeping maintenance and stowage space down.

2-3 high-quality fighters (costing 8-12 CR each).  This makes sense because although the fighters themselves may not be much 'bigger' than the crappy ones above, their higher CR, and thus, the fewer carrier, reflects more sophisticated weapons, drives, crew, maintenance, etc.

1 huge 'heavy bomber'  or 'assault shuttle' (costing 15-25 CR), makes sense because such a craft obviously requires a lot of supplies, ammunition storage, and even crew bunking capacity than either of the two examples.

But any of these would fit into the 'fighter rack' equipment -- which could represent, in your ship design, the varying launch facilities required for whichever one(s) you choose.

-Adso

This seems to introduce an awful lot of rolling for what is essentially a simple idea: Make a weapon cheaper, but introduce a chance it will harm the firer.  Variant on this is that the harm done to the firer is in proportion to the harm done to the enemy (the shield reaction idea).

So...

Weapon Mod: Volatile.   CR:  -.05 OCR    SU: -.15 SU
   When this weapon rolls a 1 or a 6 to hit, its volatility comes into play.  On a 1, immediately apply a number of damage dice equal to 1/2 weapon's DMG rating, rounding down to a minimum of 1, to the firing ship.  When the weapon rolls a 6, apply the same damage to the firing ship as if it had rolled a 1, but also apply 1 extra point of damage per "6" to the enemy vessel.

Thus, a volatile weapon can be normal, screw up badly and backfire, or have a "power surge / shield interaction / chain reaction" and damage the enemy ship more, as well as inflicting damage on your own systems.

Jimmy,

Now that fighters have 'engines' on your SCXA Fighter, do they also have to keep track of their facing?  Or are they just considered to have 'infinite overthrusters'.

On another note, we played a couple battles last night, neither was super fighter heavy, but the little guys did do some interesting things.  In one battle, by carefully sneaking them around and concentrating them just out of enemy range before striking, I disabled my opponent's Warhawk class cruiser (once again, see the Bourbaki board) with four squadrons of Defenders.  In the meantime, he sent three squadrons of Cropduster-D's and one squadron of Tiger heavy fighters in a straight but staggered wave at my formation of two Ranger-I light cruisers and one Warhawk.  Though they disabled one Ranger-I, the combination of AFB, the manuverability of the Warhawk (which ran like hell), and the four ROF-2 4+ to hit batteries on each Ranger meant the results were dissapointing to him, at best.

In the second game, a number of Warhammer heavy bombers had an inconclusive slugging match with a Thunderchild (the exact sort of ship that was supposed to be able to counter them), while successful interceptions led to several long running dogfights that kept most of the other fighters (Impis, Cropduster-D's) tied up.

Anyhow, we've expressed interest in that 'constructed fighters' idea, but as my question above indicates, there are still issues to be worked out with it...

-Sam