• Registered: 2006-01-18
  • Posts: 90

Topic: Quick Observations/Questions

Hey all,

OK, I just recently picked up Starmada X and I'm now busily designing ships and fleets....very fun, very cool. smile

I wonder about a few things that have crept up in my musings and design scratchings:

1) Tech Levels. There appears to be no 'cost' in CR for higher tech. How do you evaluate fleets for 'balance' with regard to tech? Does the CR system only hold true for comparisons between similar tech ships or does it really hold true regardless of Tech Levels?

2) Spinal Mounts. Is there a downside to these guys other than Arc? Unless my math is buggered (quite possible...), Spinals seem to be considerably more CR-effective than similar Battery mounted weapons.

For example, for a speed 4, size 12 Hull, a Spinal will take up 252 SUs and 74 OffR. A similar Battery weapon (Range 18, 5+, 2/2/3) would be 108 SUs and 132 OffR. Note that the Battery has only 2/3s the range of the Spinal and a similarly restricted Arc (since increasing the Arc increases the SUs again).

The Battery also seems more vulnerable to loss as a single hit could take it out, whereas the Spinal is still kicking out good damage for quite some time. I suppose that could be considered a wash if you are lucky and the Battery never takes a hit, but if you are unlucky, you could lose the whole kit and kaboodle in one hit.

On a straight comparison, the Spinal takes up a little over 230% of the SUs, but weighs in with only 56% of the OffR. That seems like it might be a fair trade-off considering the Range advantage that the Spinal enjoy, but to me, the Spinal is a fairly clear winner. With that kinds of Range advantage its likely to hurt opposing ships with far less threat of retaliation. Add in some judicious reverse movement to hold the range (a tactic that doesnt thrill me) and I just dont see the downside. And that is at only 56% of the OffR rating, meaning that the ship will weigh in with less CR with a Spinal than with a less effective, but similar Battery weapon.

Ok, so what does this mean? For one, it appears you should probably almost never 'design' a weapon that comes even close the Spinal Mount's profile. It would just be more CR effective to add the Spinal instead. Assuming Tech Levels are 'free', simply increasing the TL of the Equipment should help alleviate the SU problem.

FWIW, I'm not trying to design 'munchkin' ships or anything of the sort. I actually prefer theme-built fleets and ships. I also prefer a more limited game atmosphere that does not allow player total free reign to abuse game mechanics. But the reason this one popped out at me was that I wanted to get a quick comparison of my initial ship designs to already pre-made ones floating around out there.

I went to the Cold Navy site and they had a design (Avatar BC) that was similar to one of my own, but it would annihilate my design quite easily, but for cheaper CR.  :shock:  I plugged the Avatar into the Spreadsheet and found that it was way over the SU limit unless Tech Levels were used (they arent listed on the provided 'spec sheet' at the Cold Navy site). Upping the Tech Levels in various combos on the Spreadsheet quickly turned the design 'legal' in terms of SUs. But its CR cost was still cheaper than my own design and it seemed considerably more powerful. One thing that stood out immediately was the Spinal Mounts (it has 2 on a size 18 ship meaning up to 36 damage at a very long range). The other is the Tech Levels required to 'legalize' the ship. If they dont cost CR, why not crank them?(or again, is the CR system only valid within similar Tech Levels).

So basically I'm trying to get a common frame of reference in which to evaluate my handiwork. TLs seem to skew the CR system and Spinals just seemed to be a really good bargain, especially when coupled with the TL system. Any thoughts on all of this?

If you are still reading, thanks for any input!!  smile

  • Registered: 2005-03-27
  • Posts: 811

Re: Quick Observations/Questions

1) Tech Levels. There appears to be no 'cost' in CR for higher tech. How do you evaluate fleets for 'balance' with regard to tech? Does the CR system only hold true for comparisons between similar tech ships or does it really hold true regardless of Tech Levels?

This should be in the FAQ: and now it is smile

http://mj12games.com/faq/index.php/Tech_Levels-what%27s_up_with_that

I can't address # 2

  • Registered: 2022-11-15
  • Posts: 1,286

Re: Quick Observations/Questions

While I could be wrong myself, I believe one of the main differences between battery weapons and spinal mounts is that the battery weapons may be built with special abilities...increasing weapon cost accordingly.  Without such bonuses, these weapons tend to be actually cheaper in SUs that a spinal mount.

  • Registered: 2006-01-18
  • Posts: 90

Re: Quick Observations/Questions

Go0gleplex wrote:

While I could be wrong myself, I believe one of the main differences between battery weapons and spinal mounts is that the battery weapons may be built with special abilities...increasing weapon cost accordingly.  Without such bonuses, these weapons tend to be actually cheaper in SUs that a spinal mount.

Battery Weapons definately are allowed a flexibility in Abilities that Spinals are not. No doubt that is a benefit. Thats why I mentioned that its not a good idea to design a weapon with similar parameters to a Spinal...(ie, lots of damage but with no RoF/Pen and no abilities).

Incindentally, I *think* I discovered why it is that Spinals are more cost effective for the same damage output. It goes back to the RoF problem I mentioned in another thread. Battery Weapons are paying a penalty even for RoF of 1 (the +1), So in order to duplicate the damage output of the Spinal, they are eating a bigger multiplier.

Example:

Size 12 ship Spinal has a RoF of 1, a Pen of 1, and Dmg of 12 for a 'firepower' of 12 potential damage.

For a battery weapon, it would be RoF 2, Pen of 2, Dmg of 3 to get the same 12 'firepower'. However, the multiplier of the battery weapon is not 12, its 18 because of the +1 thrown in on RoF. Ok, so you could get the multiplier down to 16 by increasing RoF to 3, making Pen 2, and Dmg 2, but you are still going to end up paying more OffR (and hence more CR) for the same Damage Output (ie Firepower) of a Spinal.

And again, I think this goes to show that the RoF 'penalty' is backwards for what I think its intended for. From what I understand, all other things equal, a weapon should pay more to increase RoF rather than increasing Pen or Dmg. All three increase Damage Output, but RoF provides more flexibility in hitting Fighters. But as the above example shows, its RoF is actually the MOST SU efficient way to increase Damage Output, not the least...and its still better vs Fighters to boot.

  • Registered: 2005-03-29
  • Posts: 330

Re: Quick Observations/Questions

Uncle_Joe wrote:

1) Tech Levels. There appears to be no 'cost' in CR for higher tech. How do you evaluate fleets for 'balance' with regard to tech? Does the CR system only hold true for comparisons between similar tech ships or does it really hold true regardless of Tech Levels?

Hey back! smile

This has been explained so I won't go back into it

2) Spinal Mounts. Is there a downside to these guys other than Arc? Unless my math is buggered (quite possible...), Spinals seem to be considerably more CR-effective than similar Battery mounted weapons.

For example, for a speed 4, size 12 Hull, a Spinal will take up 252 SUs and 74 OffR. A similar Battery weapon (Range 18, 5+, 2/2/3) would be 108 SUs and 132 OffR. Note that the Battery has only 2/3s the range of the Spinal and a similarly restricted Arc (since increasing the Arc increases the SUs again).

The Battery also seems more vulnerable to loss as a single hit could take it out, whereas the Spinal is still kicking out good damage for quite some time. I suppose that could be considered a wash if you are lucky and the Battery never takes a hit, but if you are unlucky, you could lose the whole kit and kaboodle in one hit.

On a straight comparison, the Spinal takes up a little over 230% of the SUs, but weighs in with only 56% of the OffR. That seems like it might be a fair trade-off considering the Range advantage that the Spinal enjoy, but to me, the Spinal is a fairly clear winner. With that kinds of Range advantage its likely to hurt opposing ships with far less threat of retaliation. Add in some judicious reverse movement to hold the range (a tactic that doesnt thrill me) and I just dont see the downside. And that is at only 56% of the OffR rating, meaning that the ship will weigh in with less CR with a Spinal than with a less effective, but similar Battery weapon.

In most of my games, I limit the number of spinals on a ship to 1.  That makes the most sense to me considering what a 'spinal' is, but you might not think that.  Whether that is an actual rule that you follow is up to you, but it matters not for the next point.

Secondly, a spinal weapon degrades as the hull is damaged which comes up on 3 of the 6 damage chart numbers. So in theory,  it can lose its punch fairly quickly. The other big kicker is a spinal mount can be knocked out completely by a Q hit (per the faq).  If there isn't any way to 'soak' the Q hit, the spinal mount is also gone in one hit.  There aren't any 'special' abilities for spinals and all of them are governed by a 5+ to-hit roll (remember that's 5+ in medium range).

For those reasons,  I don't think it is any more 'powerful' than Battery weaponry.

-Bren