Topic: Armored Gun Batteries and Redundant Shielding

I got around to buying AE recently and was a little upset due to the lack of Armored Gun Batteries and Redundant Shielding.  Rather than complain though I took a little time to apply them in a manor similar to Armored Plating in AE.  Here's what I came up with minus filler/explanation text.

Armored Gun Batteries

The effect is to negate any damage roll result of 6, eliminating 50% of potential weapon damage.

In starship construction a ship with armored gun batteries has the Total SU Cost for each battery multiplied by a factor of x1.5. In addition, the Total SU Cost of each battery should be should be multiplied by a factor of x1.75 when calculating the ship's Battery ORAT values.

Redundant Shielding

The effect is to negate any damage roll result of 4, eliminating 50% of potential shield damage.

In starship construction a ship with redundant shielding has its Shield Factor multiplied by a factor of x1.5. In addition, the Shields value should be multiplied by a factor of x1.75 when calculating the Starship DRAT.

The SU mods for each (x1.5) was ported directly over from X.  I modified them to follow Armor Plating's example in not requiring an extra die roll.  This resulted in the two options being slightly better than the X version (negating hits 3/6 of the time as opposed to 2/6 of the time). I upped the ORAT value for the AGB's and theDRAT value for RS's by 1/6 to follow suite.

Thoughts and or criticism? Apologies if someone already came up with the same idea.

Re: Armored Gun Batteries and Redundant Shielding

Great Ideas! 
The armored batteries is especially useful for those who have a few heavy weapons in one battery.  It would be gret if these could be incorporated into SAE-AE.
I would use the armored batteries on some of my ships... 8)

Re: Armored Gun Batteries and Redundant Shielding

That's why I wanted to convert them.  I made some stats for the Zandris IV stuff in X. Because I tried to stay to true to what was on the model and what the sculptor had come up with for FT stats they had a limited armament. They also kind of looked like they had AGBs too.

http://z4miniatures.blogspot.com/

Re: Armored Gun Batteries and Redundant Shielding

Interesting, but probably a bit too effective with automatic saves.

If the groups that you play against agree, why not use the old rules for these.
If you use the shipyard they can just be coppied from the starmada X Tables sheet to the Starmada AE Tables sheet.

I had been toying with putting the option for ablative armor back into the shipyard for WWII ships, perhaps where the Belt/Turret armor exceeds 10" thickness?

Paul

Re: Armored Gun Batteries and Redundant Shielding

I actually like ablative armor for some of my starships -- I had a race designed that had poor shielding technology -- most of their ships either had no shields, or occasionally, a shield at level one.....

I used the rules for ablative armor with that particular race, and it fit wonderfully.... I was hoping that someone would make it available in AE

Nahuris

Re: Armored Gun Batteries and Redundant Shielding

Where were the rules for Ablative Armor?

Re: Armored Gun Batteries and Redundant Shielding

See http://mj12games.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1170

This was a forum option giving additional armor which took hits before the ship.

Nahuris, if you want I could post Shipyard version 10A (A=Ablative) (and show the Armored Gun Batteries / Redundant Shielding.)

Paul

Re: Armored Gun Batteries and Redundant Shielding

Ah, thanks. Personally, I would just rename shields to ablative armor before I implemented something like this.  That being said, if you like it do it up.

Re: Armored Gun Batteries and Redundant Shielding

The idea of Ablative Armor is that it soaks up initial damage which gets through the shields without the loss of weapons, shields or engines.

Paul

Re: Armored Gun Batteries and Redundant Shielding

Hello everyone!

A year ago, I used Ablative Armor on all my Starmada"X"ships.  I put on an amount equal to how much hull the ship had.  This increased their cost, but worked very well.  It would be great if this could be added to SAE.  I definitely would add it to all my ships just as I did a year ago. 8)

Re: Armored Gun Batteries and Redundant Shielding

I like the idea.... the universe I am working on has a number of races... some older with better tech, some fairly new with limited tech.... I loved the VBAM rules with Starmada X, as it fit the universe very well, and am really hoping we can get some of it updated for the improvements for AE.

I am currently still using Starmada X right now, as some of the items (kinetic, ballistic, energy.... ablative armor.... spinal mounts, ect.) haven't been ported over to the new addition yet. I am, however, using the new movement rules, and as much of the constuction rules as I can.

The only other item I would love to see would be an official change to 4 or 5 weapon batteries. The 3 battery limit especially hit hard on the V'rdraan (one of my races...think exoskeletal reptilian), as they armed their ships with spinal mounts (using my suggestion of light spinal mount cannons from the Starmada X threads...), heavy railguns (extra hull damage decent range), plasma cannons(mid range standard damage cannons) , and rotary plasma guns (short range high volume of fire) for close in defense.
Their smaller ships are relatively unchanged, but the heavier ships tend to lose some firepower now, as I have had to drop the spinal mounts, and the additional railguns just don't give me the initial strike ability that they were known for. Since they use few fighters, and no drones, seekers, ect.... they kind of get hurt in a long range firefight now.

Nahuris

Re: Armored Gun Batteries and Redundant Shielding

Nahuris wrote:

I am currently still using Starmada X right now, as some of the items (kinetic, ballistic, energy.... ablative armor.... spinal mounts, ect.) haven't been ported over to the new addition yet. I am, however, using the new movement rules, and as much of the constuction rules as I can.

Kinetic,Ballistic & Energy weapons are still in the shipyard along with the KEB shielding damage chart on the starmada sheet (Along with many other bits, I hate throwing anything out!)
Starmada AE page 72, Spinal mount is not ruled out. In the shipyard  have a separate spinal mount option. I suppose it might be possible to have more than one (with the same stats) if needed.

Nahuris wrote:

The only other item I would love to see would be an official change to 4 or 5 weapon batteries.

I am sure that having more than Three batteries has never been ruled out. I think that the "Limit" had more to do with the official sxca and starship data cards. I seem to remember a reply on one of the threads where Dan told someone that you just calculate the additional battery as per the other three.
When I changed the shipyard for Starmada AE I did away with having a separate one for Five Batteries and included them.

Paul

Re: Armored Gun Batteries and Redundant Shielding

Understood.. I'm digging through the spreadsheets now... unfortunately, Excel and Open Office are not software apps I use often enough to actually understand well.... so, I am trying to learn as I go.

Nahuris

Re: Armored Gun Batteries and Redundant Shielding

Nahuris wrote:

Understood.. I'm digging through the spreadsheets now... unfortunately, Excel and Open Office are not software apps I use often enough to actually understand well.... so, I am trying to learn as I go.

Nahuris

I have tried to keep the ship data entry as simple as possible while including as much choice as possible.
Is there a particular thing that you are having a problem with?
Could the "How To" pdf be improved upon? I tried to keep that as simple as possible too.

You may have noticed that the Spinal Mount is in addition to the weapon batteries. I had to put it that way to tie in with the VBAM stats calculations.
If you (or anyone else) would like the option of more than one spinal mount just say so and I will include this in the next version.

I bet there are about 20 people thinking OH NO not another one!

I know the data card "Bits" can look confusing as just about everything you could need on a data card is there. I believe that using copy and paste everyone can have the data card of their choice.

Paul

Re: Armored Gun Batteries and Redundant Shielding

Actually, it has to do with an idea I was using a while back. In the game I was currently playing at the time, one of the races used some Hull 6 and Hull 8 ships with spinal mounts. When they would hit... the damage was pretty much overwhelming, especially since spinal mounts out-ranged everything else in Starmada X -- we came up with the idea of "Light Spinal Mounts" -- basically, the hull 6 ship would have 2 spinal mounts, but each only did 3 die of damage, ect. for the Hull 8 ship, I either used 2 at 4 die damage, 4 with 2 die of damage, or in once case 2 at 2 die with a single mount with 4 die of damage.
As long as the final damage was still the same as the hull, we left the total cost for the spinal mounts at the base 10 percent.
One of my players likes the Earth Alliance, and Narn, ships from B5 -- so he used these to simulate the battle lasers both of those fleets tend to have. We would use the overall hull of the ship to factor the range, and since they were listed in the special equipment section of the rules, allowed them to be taken out with Q hits.

I am reading through the "How To" PDF at this time, so I'll PM you later if I have trouble with any of it...

Thanks Much for answering my questions, though, it is much appreciated.
Nahuris

Re: Armored Gun Batteries and Redundant Shielding

No problem. Just happy to help.

I should have mentioned that the spinal mount does appear in the weapon damage chart as "S".

I have decided to make multiple spinal mounts available (up to 6) and I will change page 6 of the pdf to show this. the data card bit will have check boxes added to reflect the number of mounts.

I know it must be a real pain my keep updating the shipyard and pdf. If I find anything wrong, something which may be done better, look better or something that can be added I just have to make the changes. Sometimes I make mistakes when adding things (like making room for the dual mode fighters) so I post the corrected shipyard as soon as possible.

Paul

Re: Armored Gun Batteries and Redundant Shielding

Hello everyone!
Is their a consensus on how much Ablative Armor should cost?  I used it extensively when playing Starmada X over a year ago.  It would be great to install it on my SAE ships now.  My 14 & 15 hull BBs will need it. :!:
I will be in South Florida next weekend 'til New Years and I think we will be gaming at Gaming Glenn's aweesome store on Saturday 12/27.  All are welcome.  My nephew's creative & formitable designs will be there...  8)

Re: Armored Gun Batteries and Redundant Shielding

Re Ablative Armor cost. These are the calculations from the shipyard.

SU= ((Armor Points required/Hull)^2) x Roundup((Hull^1.3) x 100)

CRd= (((Armor points required x 2/3) + Hull) x 2) x Shields (or 1 if shields = 0)

There must be an old post with these somewhere here for me to have included them in the shipyard.

Hope that this helps

Paul

Re: Armored Gun Batteries and Redundant Shielding

Speaking of record sheets, can we have a spot for notes?

Puh-leeeze?

I'd also like to see a default spot for a graphic of the ship, although to do fancy-schmancy handouts, I copy the official record sheet as a graphic and then paste it onto the rh side of a MS Word doc.