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mj12games.com/forum → Posts by Silvaris
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One could reduce a ship to a number of dice for each arc (Bow/Stern/Port/Starboard) and for each weapon level (Primary/Secondary Batteries) based on some sort of attack rating, which may be affected by damage.
Thus a BB may roll 4d6 Primary 2d6 Secondary dice for a broadside. Even though there are many more actual guns in the secondary they just are not as lethal and take more guns to create a die (attack value).
Rolling a bucket of dice for each ship will be time consuming with 15-20 ships. IMO.
Why not roll for Turrets and Multi Ship salvoes when resolving fire?
For example- BBs X, Y & Z are all within main gun range of an opposing BB they wish to target. The BBs have 7 Turrets that they can bring to bear. Thus they roll 7 dice. This is much faster than rolling 10 dice for each ship. 
Another idea that could work with the above would be using different dice types to represent different weapon turrets.
Examples-
4”-8” Single Turret 1d4
9”-12” Single Gun Turret 1d6
13-16” Single Gun Turret 1d8
Each Extra gun in a turret bumps up a die type, thus-
Twin 5” 1d6
Twin 11” 1d8
Twin 14” 1d10
Triple 16” 1d12
(Note I'm just tossing these numbers out there as far as which caliber guns should be within a grouping)
Another way of speeding things up would be if the attack roll also indicated the effect of the hit.
Using the above dice types perhaps the lower dice can only really affect a BB indirectly knocking out com, radar, etc. In other words hitting something not armored.
The larger dice would chew up a lighter ship but would need to roll well to cause major damage to another large ship.
Just some ideas to to ponder. 
Rich
As a long time Starmada player, what changed to make this an issue?
In Compendium it was part of the core rules to for it to be possible have range 24 standard weapons and range 40 spinal mounts.
In X range 33 spinal mounts were still possible.
Several of the standard navy's in both Compendium and X employed these.
Oddly in AE none of them do.
Further the current IS designs seem to treat range 15 as the default max range for the IS setting. This is lower than it has been in the past. Previous editions all had designs that maxed the range for many ships. This is pretty logical for any navy. The navys with exceptions to this had ways around it (cloaking for example) and didn't need to have long ranges.
Rightfully any navy will design ships to have an ability to hit max resolution range or have a good reason not to.
It is also unfair to compare ships designed under different assumptions. One designed using optional rules not available to the other will give unfair results.
And yes Tech controls a battle just as much as this current range discussion. A navy with significantly higher tech levels will control a battle. Consider the Vorlons/Shadows vs the younger races in B5 or the Borg in Star Trek.
If your opponents are all under the assumption that all techs are –2 and max weapon range is 9 and you design a navy with tech 0 and range 18 weapons; the same situation will occur. The later navy will dominate and destroy much of the opposing fleet before it can close.
Starmada portrays this very well. It doesn't matter that you have more ships.
Also with all the terrain rules in AE I think the material is there to spice up a battlefield a lot. I would expect that most battles should take place around such for objective purposes.
Deep Space battles would be rare. Navys will always want to fight to their advantage or for an objective. A cloaking pirate navy that raids shipping will only engage an opposing fleet if it has to. Perhaps after its main base/manufacturing facility deep in an asteroid belt is discovered and a fleet has been dispatched to destroy it. Is this an optimal situation for the attacker, certainly not, but it's the only way to stop the raiders.
Consider this; A person designs his dreadnoughts in a porcupine fashion. Giving them Speed 2, Shields 3 and a ton of range 3 weapons. This person would be at a different extreme than Beowulf. The IS ships would likely tear it apart easily. Should this DNs Combat Value be revalued do to its inability to win? Not all designs are equal.
Another thing with Beowulf's designs [not picking on you B 
], they are very high tech ships with +2 in every area that matters for the design. Advanced tech ships have many advantages over standard tech 0 ships. Take the other extreme and build a fleet of –2 in all techs and throw them at IS ships.
I put this together, it's just a fast design based on Beowulf's. I'm sure it could be improved upon.
Prinz Eugen (Tech +2 ship) CV 465
Hull 10, Engines 18, Shields 3 (Screens)
Plasguns: Range 12, 1/3+/1/2
Piercing
4x GHIJK
AA Lasers: Range 6, 3/3+/1/1
2x ABCDEF
Armor Plating, Anti Fighter Batteries, Fire Control, Overthrusters, Countermeasures
(It is very easy to alter this vessel to have either Stealth or Cloaking.)
I think two of these have a very decent chance of winning vs. the Mississippi and are cheaper.
It was mentioned that the intent was flexibility. That a Speed 6 Range 12 ship has the same chance as a Speed 3 Range 15 or a Speed 12 Range 6 range design.
Is it even possible to design an effective Speed 24 Range 6 ship or a Speed 12 Range 18 ship?
Just wondering
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mj12games.com/forum → Posts by Silvaris
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