Wow thanks that was a great review! And you called it in every respect, too.

The Nanuchkas are little convoy raiders. they lurk in dust shoals and creep into the convoy lanes to ambush the fleet train or the unwary merchants. In Fleet engagements they hang back until everyone is worried about the bigger boys and then creep forward to fire and run.

The Beam frigates in my setting are actually refitted Orbital Beam weapons that were too vulnerable to attack. When the First wave of satellites were swept from the skies by Republic Orbital Fighter squadrons, the PAE had nearly 30 of the Beam arrays built for satellite deployment. Rather than let them go to waste they constructed an armored hull around them and commissioned them as fire support Frigates. The Shang-B was an attempt to overcome the cool-down issues of the Shang-A's main gun. The extra mass is primarily taken up by more Heat Sinks and Liquid Nitrogen tanks.

All of these are scratchbuilt models and are set in my "Legacy of the Homdur" universe (If I ever get the books finished, lol) They were originally constructed as a design exercise to work out the feel of the forces graphically. I have about 10 more classes that I don't have pics up for yet as well.

Thousands of Suns... burning.   

Georgeous pictures, Warlock.

I think, if I find spare time/CPU cycles, I may try to 'review' a few more navies.. either Basin ones, or ones from the setting material.

Id be curious to see your often-discussed fleet up in the 'Basin, Beowulf.  The massive range on your firepower, coupled with large hulls and armor plating must make them... pricey, to say the least.

My anticipation is that having that many points tied up in singular (however tough) hulls would tend to create either a really overwhelmingly good force, or a very vulnerable one.  I also recommend avoiding the damage control rules with ships that big, as they turn into shambling, unkillable zombies.  Damage Control and Regen really 'balance' best on smaller ships, IMHO.

Then again, were all engineers here.  After paying appropriate lip service to balance and flavor, the temptation to run the numbers and make all the best decisions is.. often overwhelming.

There is?  So what's the Achilles heel of the Iowa class BB?

As for the Iowa..

Taken within her context, (IE, not comparing her to warships of a half-century or more later, but only to ships of her era) she has a couple of 'Achilles Heels'.  First and foremost, shes not at all equipped to defend herself against torpedo attack, either from a submarine or from a squadron of torpedo boats.  This isn't really fair of me, though, because battleships of that era DIDNT defend themselves from those things.. it wasn't their job.

Also, for her -displacement-, she wasn't all that well armed and armored.  Iowa was really quite large compared to most of her predecessors, while carrying not-particularly more firepower or armor.. because she was rather alot faster than her predecessors.  This speed, while strategically wonderful (and allowing her to serve as a much needed escort for the fast carriers!) means that, in starmada terms, she was under gunned for her cost.  The real world isnt points balanced, however, and sometimes its well worth a disparate $ expenditure to buy a capability that can be gotten no other way.

In terms of achilles heels of the aforediscussed Starmada fleet?  Id have to see it on paper.  Given the use of screens and range 30+ hyper-accurate guns, my initial thought is a very, very fast knife-fight style fleet might be the way to go.  Another thought, given the huge point values (and thus limited targets) that the fleet represents... answer them with the 'glittering creschendo of doom'... massive, long range, one-shot firepower.  Not all that great against a 'normal' fleet, because youve so many targets that your going to overkill some and get wasted by the survivors, having shot most of your CR downrange as soon as you hit range 30... but if your only up against 1-2 ships, then you can much more easily get away with it. 

Another option, against any fleet that relys on screens, is fighters.  Fightesr will make screened ships hate life.   Ditto, argueably, AOE weapons.  If LoS is only counted for AOE weapons from the firing ship to the target hex, then LOS for purposes of which shield is hit OUGHT to count from the target hex to the impacted ship.. meaning that the firing vessel could, as a practical matter 'call the shield' hit.  Sure, AOE is expensive, but so is trying to shoot through lvl 5 screens.

Whatever you do, don't try to slug it out at range with them.  The ships, as hes described them, are -utterly- optimized for line-of-battle engagements at max range.  Screens, R30 2+ guns, Armor plating coupled with massive hulls and (one assumes) Damage Control rules to keep fixing anything that DOES break... its an attrition war you wont win.

That said, they'll probably curbstomp anything not at least moderately 'beardy', and may well require a one-off fleet to beat.

I picked the Iowa, but it could be the Bismarck, North Carolina class, King George V class, or Yamato.  These were pretty much the best of the BB type of ship.

Torpedo boats operated by ambushing their targets.  To do that in space you have to use "terrain", which is something we don't do often (but should do a little more than we have).  There is also a fog of war aspect missing in table top games, unless you have a referee and set up the playing area accordingly (two different maps that only the referee sees); and some decent sensor rules, which Starmada severely lacks.

As in 'Bourbaki Basin', a forum wherein ship designs are posted....  its near the bottom of the MJ12 Forums Page.

Yeah - like I said - torpedoes....