• Registered: 2007-11-11
  • Posts: 2

Topic: Question about Damage

Hi gang!  Newbie here.  I'll jump right in:

1.)  I have a "philosophical" question about damage (I may be doing damage totally wrong). 

If "Weapon X" has a PEN of 1 and a Damage of 1 and it successfully scores a hit on, say, a small scout ship, then the Damage roll is made.  Let's say the ship has a Damage Chart of: H, E, H, a, H, b and a 2 is rolled.  The scout ship loses one Engine box.

If "Weapon X" successfully scores a hit on, say, a large cruiser with a Damage Chart of : Ha, Eb, Hb, Sc, H, Q and the same result is rolled, the cruiser loses an Engine box AND a Weapon box. 

The same weapon scores "more" damage against a larger ship.  That seems odd to me.  If that same weapon made a hit on a ship with, say, 4EQa in the "2" column, would 6 boxes be marked off!?  If so, that effectively makes a weapon "more powerful" against larger ships ('cause it effectively does more damage).

2.) To the Powers That Be: what about offering the portion of "Starmada X: Brigade" that is not included in "Starmada X" at RPGNow or other sites for a modest fee?  I'd happily pay to get those ships that I don't have because I was too quick and bought "Starmada X" before I realized the difference!

Thanks for the great game!

Lee

  • From: Denver, CO
  • Registered: 2005-03-27
  • Posts: 3,578

Re: Question about Damage

FASAfan wrote:

Hi gang!  Newbie here.  I'll jump right in:

Hi!

1.)  I have a "philosophical" question about damage (I may be doing damage totally wrong). 
...
The same weapon scores "more" damage against a larger ship.  That seems odd to me.  If that same weapon made a hit on a ship with, say, 4EQa in the "2" column, would 6 boxes be marked off!?  If so, that effectively makes a weapon "more powerful" against larger ships ('cause it effectively does more damage).

The difficulty here is in figuring out conceptually what one point of damage "means". Starmada has been designed with the assumption that one damage point is defined as the amount of weapon power needed to eliminate (on average) one-half of a hull point.

Systems (i.e., non-hull) damage is treated as incidental to this process. The damage track is built with the presumption that 50% of the ship's capabilities should be gone (again, on average) once the last hull point is eliminated. Thus, a ship with more "stuff" per hull hit will lose more "stuff" each time the damage die is rolled, because the rate of loss has to be higher to reach this desired 50% threshold.

Make sense?

(Also, note that, in general, larger ships have less "stuff" on the damage track -- so your last statement [a weapon is more powerful against larger ships] is reversed in practice... weapons do "more damage" against smaller ships, because their systems are packed more tightly in the hull.)

2.) To the Powers That Be: what about offering the portion of "Starmada X: Brigade" that is not included in "Starmada X" at RPGNow or other sites for a modest fee?  I'd happily pay to get those ships that I don't have because I was too quick and bought "Starmada X" before I realized the difference!

You might want to hang on to your nickels and dimes a little while longer... big_smile

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

mj12games's Website

  • Registered: 2007-11-11
  • Posts: 2

Re: Question about Damage

Thanks for the reply!  I follow you and understand your explanation.

(Also, note that, in general, larger ships have less "stuff" on the damage track -- so your last statement [a weapon is more powerful against larger ships] is reversed in practice... weapons do "more damage" against smaller ships, because their systems are packed more tightly in the hull.)

By George you're right!!  I'll have to take a second look at ship construction to figure that one out (how larger ships have less "stuff" on the damage track), but that's the case!  In my original post, I didn't look at the point values for the ships I chose as examples- I just assumed a ship with more "systems" (stuff) in the damage track was a larger/more powerful ship.  That just put to rest my "quibble" right there!!

You might want to hang on to your nickels and dimes a little while longer...

For the missing pages   big_smile  or for a copy of Starmada X: Brigade?   :shock:

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

Re: Question about Damage

didn't we do this once???

is has to do with belly dancing