Re: Point-costing Range

Another ship Beowulf fears:  smile

Ant Class 24 pts ea.

H1 E4 S0 X= Rng 30 Rof 1 Acc 3+ Imp 1 Dam 1 (Inv Rng Mods), and (Ex. Hull Dam.)  Arc G


"Just how many did you bring?"

BTW I did bring enough miniatures (painted too) to represent all 60 ships I used in that game at Rapier.

...................Doug

Re: Point-costing Range

I made a sheet of 25-point rng-30 ROF-2 ships that use up one line, half a column, each for the hull/engine (shields?  HA!) hits.  The sheet has 72 such ships.  But I haven't bothered to run that.

For the 2500 point battle we had last Monday, I could have had 100 of those ships, with a total of 200 shots per turn (minus losses).  Even with my bad die rolling I might have made an impression.  Instead I used my recently painted Battlestar Galactica and a "ragtag" fleet (the previous ship example is a new design for my next version of the same scenario).  I'm using other Traveller-based miniatures: passenger liner, laboratory ship (the one that looks like a wheeled space station), the triangular scout, plus a couple of SFB small freighters as bulk transports.  Those 6 ships total 95 points.

What he really did fear was the two big guns I had put on the Galactica: rng 30, 1/3+/3/5, Piercing, Double Damage, [AB] arcs.  I have since found some information on what the new BG is supposed to have for armament so have redesigned it (no big guns  :cry: ).  I like those big guns as I figure, if I ever do hit and penetrate, I want them to actually feel it instead of the usual few pinpricks  smile .

Re: Point-costing Range

GamingGlen wrote:

What he really did fear was the two big guns I had put on the Galactica: rng 30, 1/3+/3/5, Piercing, Double Damage, [AB] arcs.  I have since found some information on what the new BG is supposed to have for armament so have redesigned it (no big guns  :cry: ).  I like those big guns as I figure, if I ever do hit and penetrate, I want them to actually feel it instead of the usual few pinpricks  smile .

Of course, if you were using the old Galactica, those guns would be fine and dandy. smile

Re: Point-costing Range

<LOL>  My South Florida friends and I played Starmada four times at Gaming Glenn's excellent store.
I revised and refined my big ships and the DDGs.  They were Very effective in the last games we played on Friday. 
Beowulf does not fear the interesting ships mentioned in several early posts, and is confident in his fleet. :shock:

There was an interesting fleet played:
My nephew has designed ships that vary in size.   All have
{Cloaking Devices, Regeneration, and Slow-firing r=30 weapons}. 
They fire at you, cloak & regenerate & repair, then uncloak, fire,  and are only uncloaked for every other turn.  It is very clever and challanging to deal with.  Several times, a cloaking-regenerater-ship was heavily damaged and stayed cloaked for two turns.  It made for an interesting game.  When we had 4 players, we destroyed the ships of his ally, which did not cloak, but then had a stand-off with his cloaking ships.   We eventually hyperdrived both times on friday's games, but had destroyed more ships.
Any ideas from other players?  His biggest ship with these has
24 hull, speed 4, and level 5 shields, and CR=3001 :!:

Re: Point-costing Range

A couple of thoughts on range:

1. The solution that Dan instituted for range 24 and range 30 is elegant enough. Below these ranges, the impacts of range are "almost, but not quite" linear, in reality. But it is close enough to truth for the game.

If you wanted to slap the honest-to-goodness impact of range into the equation, one could argue that you would need to use the ratios of the total number of hexes that are "in arc" when you select a given range.

For example, at range 3, in one arc, you have 9 hexes that you can fire into. At range 6, in that same arc, yuo now have 27 hexes that you can fire into. This is x2 range and x3 total effect! But is this difference really worth delving into once you have square-rooted the effect at the end of the design process? Maybe. Maybe not.

After all...

2. The effect of the expanded arcs causes ships to have to pay too much for overlapping arcs as well.

For example, when you have a weapon in the AB arc, you get the full impact of 2.0 arcs... no so for overlapping arcs which can pay for 2.0 arcs while getting the effect of 1.5 arcs. So there is some fudge factors going on here. Is it worth messing with? Maybe. Maybe not.

And still...

3. Dan is a guy that likes math, and so we have a chart that is fairly complex when dealing with Black Holes. When I initially wrote the rules for Black Holes they were much, much simpler and did not take into account the square-of-distance effects of gravity that I thought were too fidly for a game like this. Was this a good thing? Maybe. Maybe not.

In the end... the three things above all blend together in an odd way. This much is (I think) undeniable. But none of them are broken. None of them make the game less fun. And all of them work.

I would say leave it as it is. The premium at the upper two ranges that were added is about right to account for the growing number of additional hexes available. The weapon arc formula is much easier to calculate as it is, even if it is off by a bit in the end. And the Black hole rules are interesting, and make you think (which you should be doing if you are insane enough to be having a battle near a black hole).

All in all. About perfect.

Re: Point-costing Range

Beowulf, wait until he gets my modified shipbuilder so he can have a hull 30 ship, the CRAT probably will be about 4500.   :shock:

As to fighting his ships, several BFGs work, or use those expensive missiles you like.  You saw what happened when some of my cheaper seeker versions hit him (then that ship that stayed cloaked an extra turn or two that other day).  It's just a matter of tactics to get them within striking distance on the turn he cloaks (so he can't shoot at them while they close).  You might have to design a missile cruiser that can survive his barrage to launch the missiles within range 30, next turn they'll move 15 closer while he cloaks and should be within range 15 to hit him on the turn he doesn't cloak (or fails to cloak).

Re: Point-costing Range

Hello Glen
The simplest way to defeat my Cloak and Dagger ships is with drones and BFG's, like Glan and my Uncle both already use.
Bombard the trash out of it, and it will be a bit too dead to regen.