I think the first thing that should be done, is to drop the phrase "Trekmada".  This upcoming conversion will be based on the Star Fleet Universe, not Star Trek.  The Star Fleet Universe makes only tangential mention of any events in TOS (referring to Captain Kosnett as "the second most famous Captain in Star Fleet", "two hot headed captains almost sparking a war in the first Gorn/Federation encounter", etc).  The ONLY ships that are directly from Star Trek are the Federation Heavy Cruiser (and arguably the Command Cruiser), the Klingon D7 Battlecruiser, the Romulan Warbird, the Romulan version of the Klingon D7, and the Tholian Patrol Corvette.  You could probably pick one of the Gorn ships and say that it was the one in "Arena", and possibly one of the Orion ships might have a direct corollary to a ship in TOS.

If someone wants to restrict Starmada's version of the Star Fleet Universe to only including those ships that are ALSO in the 'canon' of Star Trek (at least 'on screen'), those are the only ships and races that you could have.

Like it or not, the Star Fleet Universe has the Kzinti (which appeared  in the Animated series) and a variety of SFU specific races (Hydrans, Lyrans, ISC, Andromedans, etc).

There won't be cloaking devices on Klingons, or disruptors on Romulans.  Klingons won't be able to shoot photon torpedos.  (Of course, given the weapons, nothing will stop players from creating these types of ships).

The Star Fleet Universe is much more warlike and I dare say hangs together FAR better than the Star Trek universe which, well, already has to use the concept of alternate realities to explain the complete lack of continuity.

I'm guessing many people on this thread haven't played SFB, or even Federation Commander, and I'm not saying you should, but one of the neatest things about SFB is the tapestry of history behind it.  Each scenario is one of the threads, and just reading the fiction in the Captains Logs (the Star Fleet Universe 'magazine'), and the historical scenarios, you begin to see how everything hangs together.  The USS Kongo with Captain Kosnett, Ardak Kumerian a great Klingon strategist but not so great tactician and his various commands and missions, the sudden destruction of the USS Hood in the opening days of the General War and the efforts of the survivors in the Saucer section in hiding and eventually making it back to Federation territory.. These are all events that 'feel' as real to me as the events that happen in the Star Trek universe.

If you want a taste of the Star Fleet Universe (specifically, the General War), take a look here:

http://starfleetgames.com/sfb/sfin/general_war.htm
http://www.starfleetgames.com/documents/Timeline.pdf

THAT'S the Star Fleet Universe, and that's what MJ12 bought.

All I can say is thank you gambler that was what I was trying to argue but you have manged it much better than I.

I have to agree with Gambler on the richness of the history - - I also agree with the various races that are unique to SFB. I personally like the Gorn, Kzinti, and Lyran designs.

And I also agree that we want to change the rules as little as possible, while preserving the "flavor" of each race.  We might want to start making a thread for each race, where we hammer out the ideas in Starmada terms... Especially in relation to the speeds of the ships. Starmada is not set to support the turn structure of SFB, nor the tabletop speeds for the ships themselves....

The first answer would be what speed ratio do we want to use? This becomes important for a number of reasons. If we set it high, and then make all ships capable of the same top speeds, then some of the larger ships would risk either being severely undergunned, or lacking in defenses due to the space taken up by engines. If we set it too low, then the game devolves into "advance and shoot", as none of the ships have the speed to get away from the weapon ranges once the shooting starts.

However, as we are looking at using ADB's source material, we do need to note that most of the ships move at approximately the same speeds....

(Maybe we can set speed ranges per class ... DD, CN, CC, ect... and per race)

Second, we need to consider shields, and how we will simulate the flavor of the Star Fleet Universe.

Weapons, as has been stated, are actually easy. Almost every weapon in the system has a Starmada equivelent....

Mind you, I haven't played SFB in about a decade... but as far as I can see, this might be where we need to start.

Nahuris

Wow, your group(s) played differently than mine does.. Speed 16 would be on the low end of most games I played.

It's an interesting problem.  SFB has some fascinating ship designs.  A Federation Destroyer which has the same photon firepower as the Cruiser, but once it's fired its held photons (holding weapons in SFB is much easier usually than charging them) would have to come to almost a dead stop to recharge all of  them to full strength.  As near as I can tell, things like that will be impossible to simulate in Starmada.

One thing that blurs the boundary of "Is it mechanic, or is it flavor" is that every ship (well, almost all of em) have heavy weapons which can be overloaded.  The upshot is they do more damage, but can only do said damage within a certain range (which is  the same for all weapons - 8 hexes in SFB).  The problem with putting such a mechanic in Starmada is twofold. 

The first problem: you would need different modes for each weapon that could be overloaded (and there are other weapons that have different modes... plasma torpedoes can be turned into 'enveloping' torpedoes which hit all sides of a ship at once, or they can be 'shotgunned' which means they launch a number of smaller plasma torpedoes primarily as fighter defense, or they can even be 'bolted' as a direct fire weapon for less damage).  Modes seem relatively trivial... 

The second problem: This one's much less trivial.  In SFB, overloading a weapon is a somewhat complex tactical decision, especially if a ship might not get into overload range during that turn.  It requires a tradeoff between strength of the heavy weapon and movement (plus other energy related actions).  In Starmada, movement and weapons are independent.  There would basically be no reason NOT to fire overloaded weapons if you're in overload range. 

One quick thought how to handle the problem (note in advance that I don't like it however):

You set the mode at the start of the turn.  Each 'Overload' mode weapon reduces speed by a set # for that turn or prevents the same # of phasers from being fired on that turn.

This feels too kludgy and fiddly though.  One of the beauties of Starmada is its simplicity in rules.  But if you don't have different modes for the weapons a significant portion of the SFU flavor is lost.  But if you add different modes for the weapons, there should be some tradeoff. 

An alternative would be to add one turn to the normal arming time of the standard mode for a weapon if it's fired as an overload.  This is significantly different than how SFB handles overloads, but since everything else in Starmada is very different, I don't consider this a major problem.

The way I look at and compare weapons in most wargames I play is damage over time.....

An overloaded weapon may give you a big boom all at once, but between the charge time, and the fact that it takes enough energy to make you slow down means that you really don't get more overall damage over an entire battle, than you would if you just fired normally......

I'd leave torpedoes at a set level, and just allow larger ships to load more of the weapons.... to simulate the fact that they have the energy to overload more often.... using the fire linked rule....
Yes, you would have a larger ship using 8 torpedo launchers instead of 4, but the end effect would be equivelent damage.

Again, though, this does need more discussion, so that we get the concept right for everyone.

John / Nahuris

That might be an option.

I disliked overloading as an option, anyway.  Weapon overpowering or other alterations was rarely done in the shows, usually only in desparate situations and not in regular combat.  It took a lot more than just adding extra energy, otherwise they'd have done it more often.

Something else to consider: the cloaking device did not fail in the shows, or in SFB.  It was up to the sensing ship to find a cloaked ship, usually by then it was too late.  Starmada's cloaking rules fails in this and would have to be changed.  Something off the top of my head: a sensing ship rolls 2D6 for each cloaked ship just before ships are moved: on 11-12 the cloaked ship is detected and can be fired upon, on the 12 the cloaked ship is always detectable for the sensing ship until the cloaked ship uncloaks for a turn and then recloaks.  Also, a cloaked ship can only use half of its current engine rating for movement.

Glad I'm not the only one that feels this way.  SFB went in directions I did not like (i.e., overloading weapons, fighters).  And don't get me started on the Federation fleet being based on the modern (as of circa 1990) U.S. Navy.   :roll:  :roll:  :roll:  :roll:

Trekmada    could pull the SFB feel back towards the shows.

Overloading weapons is a mechanic and it shouldn't be included in Trekmada.

I'm not looking for the game to deliver "modern era" trek ships, I understand the limits of the license.  However, given the stats for a Constitution Class cruiser, it should be easy to extrapolate what an Enterprise Class battlecruiser would look like if I were so inclined.

I agree with the other poster that SFB has a lot of stuff in it that really doesn't fit in the star trek universe themewise.  Fighters anyone?

As far as "history" goes. . . that's what I have Grand Fleets for.  From trekmada all I'm looking for is a fast paced, fun starship combat game.

Again, the target market for trekmada are the people who DON'T play SFB.

Drones and fighters have been in since the beginning - or close to it - of SFB; drones were a weapon on the Klingon D6/7 and Kzinti BC, and the Kzinti also had fighters. For the Hydrans, introduced later, fighters are essential, as drones are for the Kzinti.

Starmada is so adaptable, why limit its interpretation of something as wide-ranging as SFB? If you just want to play with TOS-canon non-Franz Joseph ships, go right ahead, but to keep the wealth of SFB's expansion out of Trekmada would be a bit silly and restrictive.

Most weapons in SFB take one hit to destroy, and most cruisers tended to have 8-10 phasers and 4 heavy weapons (photons, disruptors, etc.) I'm hard-pressed to think of any weapon that had more than one hit box. Maulers had huge battery complements, but those weren't really the weapon.

The Commanders Version Rulebook I own is actually 3 books, and each one is approximately 50% bigger than the ISS Book. In addition, there are SSD books, supplements, and stuff in the magazine whose name currently escapes me.

I don't have all the available SFB stuff, and I can almost fill a drawer on my legal-size filing cabinet - it's over two feet deep - with SFB stuff.

I can see that the +5 Rules Chainsaw is going to see a LOT of use...

Those cannot be ignored, but they can be downplayed. 

Kzinti ships armed with drones is Cole's addition, he even said so in some designer notes.  Hydrans and all the later races are ADB additions and could be ignored for the first Trekmada book.  I always disliked the drones on Klingon ships (when did you EVER see a Klingon fire a missile in Trek?), but since they only fired one or two drones at a time in SFB those were more of a tertiary weapon and could have just one small-sized (4 missiles) salvo on the D7.  Ignore drone ships.  But, if the book has pre-made weapon designs then it can include drone racks for people to design their own drone ships.

Fighters were also an ADB addition.  Most Kzinti ships did not have fighters, only one had such in the first book (way back when).  Fighters really took off with the Hydrans.  (IMO, the more the Hydrans are left out the better.   :twisted:  ).

Also, isn't "Kzinti" a property of Larry Niven?   He may have something to say of their use in another publication.

They appear for most of the latter half of the Dominon war with several close ups if I remeber correctly. But the point is there is a on screen precident for fighters, minor or not.

It might be but the liscene is for the SFU which means drones et al. Why change it to something else? more to the point why would ADB let it be altered that much? I would think they have a bit of over sight esp. since they will be the publishers.

If it was a Trek liscene I would be all for making it as close to how its portrayed in series as possible, but its not Star Trek won't even be able to be mentioned I would think. (ADB's lisence is rather arcane and closely monitered by paramount.) It would be better to be honest about what the product rather than give a false impression to a potential buyer.

Thing is when it was mentioned on the SFB/FC boards there was alot of intrest people have played/heard of starmarda and like the idea of a game where they can play fleet engaments rather than skirmishes. So it would be abit short sighted I think not to make of intrest to them.