I am a big fan of Silent Death, myself. One of the systems that got me into the hobby in the first place.

This might have been too big for a first game.

Assuming this wasn't just inexperience with the game coupled with a large-ish battle, I'm not sure what to say. The three-roll combat mechanic is really what makes Starmada "Starmada". If it's too much rolling for your tastes, then Starmada might not be your thing.

Honestly, this isn't a common complaint. Sure, some people keep the number of weapons to a minimum because they don't like rolling "buckets" of dice, and the movement system has its share of detractors -- but few (if any) players have expressed a concern that the number of rolls is too high.

I'm not sure what you're asking for, but one could easily put together a combat chart, cross-referencing the number to-hit with the target's shield rating:

         SHIELD RATING
TO-HIT   0   1   2   3   4   5
2+       2+ 3+ 4+ 4+ 5+ 6+
3+       3+ 4+ 4+ 5+ 6+ 6+
4+       4+ 4+ 5+ 5+ 6+ 6+
5+       5+ 5+ 6+ 6+ 6+ --
6+       6+ 6+ 6+ 6+ -- --

I can't see how you'd reduce the number of rolls below two, however...

I've never thought that Starmada had too many dice--you should see B5W for insane dice rolling...:D

With a large number of ships, it is true, dice rolling can be a problem. I tend to build my weapons hefty with several weapon modifiers--not an option in the basic ships, but what the hell.

I'd suggest maybe playing with a dreadnought-type hull and two cruiser-type hulls. Three ships a side. Could make for an interesting battle.

There was a mechanic for banked weapons in the Compendium which enabled up to four weapons to roll to hit with just one d6. Maybe this could be what you need if you have large numbers of light weapons on your ships and a large number of ships.

But try it again. Its a fun game and the weapon design and ship construction are fantastic elements of the game.

If you are coming from Silent Death with its integrated roll to hit/damage mechanic, the 3 roll system in Starmada is gonig to be a bit much for your tastes.  Even with Dan's table, I'm not sure how you can make it a single roll for everything (and not take away from "starmada").  Also, the ships in Starmada have a lot more weaponry than those in Silent Death which is again not something you are 'used' to.

In terms of trying to make everything a 'single' roll, I got something, but it ain't 'pretty'.  Add a single different color die which acts for where all the damage for a single weapon is applied.  Of course, you have to roll each weapon separately (which is going to add to downtime).

A roll on that damage die is a
1-3: Hull hit
4: Weapon hit (your choice)
5: Weapon hit (opponent's choice)
6: Shield

My thought is with Dan's table, try it again and see how it goes.  I think the major difference is the scale of the games (fighter combat vs. starships) and your tastes may vary on that. 
-Bren

We have posted in the almost same moment

That's the goal, yes

That was what we was searching for: a big scale spaceship combat, so we like this. The only problem is that it "multiplies" the "3-rolls downtime" (new word learned, thanks!), but imho the problems arises from the "3-rolls", not from the insane amount of weaponry  

Does it lacks for the Engine damage? Anyway i think i got your point.

It seems a good step toward the direction i need, yes.

More or less.. they have to be from the same battery (X,Y or Z), or, more generally, they need to have the same ACC IMP and DMG, right? If not, there may be issues about what damage have to do that dice (from what weapon it belongs), etc.

I think i'm missing somewhat, here :?:

 
Well. probabilities are somewhat often hard to "figure", but i "feel" that using different die sizes and bonus/malus i can archieve a good aproximation of the original "3-rolls". I may be completly wrong, sure, that's why i asked here for some suggestion. Having a base of veteran players, and the game designer(s) on this forum may lead to a very cooperative work, or at least to an "assisted" one.
That's depends also about how much "Cricket" wants to reveals about the underlying weapons "statistics"... a thing i've forgot to ask  :oops:

Not a dumb question, but the language barrier may be confusing me.

Are you asking how the table is derived, or how to use it? I'll answer both questions.

The table is derived by combining the chance to hit and the chance of penetrating the shields. For example, to-hit 3+ yields a 67% probability, and shields 5 yields a 17% probability, for an  overall 11% chance of causing damage. This is roughly 1 in 6, so on the table if you cross reference to-hit 3+ with shields 5, you get 6+.

The difficulty with this table is that you'll need to fudge it for the various weapon abilities that impact the to-hit and impact rolls. Further, it doesn't account for the fact that a 3/1 weapon will act differently than a 1/3.

One thing you could try is to change the way that shields work to do away with the shields roll.
Have the shields stop their rating in hits per turn.
So that a ship with shields 3 ignores the first three hits per turn (in fighter phase , then any shields left undamaged are used in the same way for ship to ship) and all other hits being rolled for damage.

The shields being reduced as normal when damaged.

Of course a ship could come to a quick end if targeted by a load of weapons.

Paul

I think I may be the only person other than Parduz who's bitched to Dan about the dice herding in Starmada.

The problem isn't the sheer number of dice.  It's the iterations.

You can't resolve one weapon with one throw of the dice.  Then count the ones that beat your Accuracy number.  Then multiply that number by the Impact rating of the weapon and roll that many dice, compare them to a number that's on the other side of the table, sort out which ones exceeded that number, multiply by the damage value, and roll that many dice a third time.

This can result in unwieldy amounts of dice for each throw, but they do consume a lot of time due to sheer repitition

One way to speed it up is to use three batches of dice of three colors and roll them all at once...but for a RoF 3, IMP 3, DAM 3 terror weapon, that results in rolling 3+9+27=39 dice at once...so that's a false economy.

Or...
You all could play with smaller ships with fewer weapons.
But if you insist on playing with 20+ ships per side, each with 53 hull boxes and 20+ weapons with multiple dice capabilities, then you get what you get.

:wink:

A three roll resolution system works fine if you keep it under control and don't let the number of weapons get out of hand.
Kevin

Huh. I'd always thought your concern was with the number of dice, not the iterations.

The problem is that, if you don't like the three-roll system, there's not much that can be done about it. That is the heart of Starmada -- everything else is details that can (and have) been changed via optional rules.

But the "Roll to-hit", "Roll penetration", "Roll damage" system has been there from the beginning. If you like it, you'll love Starmada: if not, you won't.

This isn't to say I'm opposed to looking for solutions -- just that this is the one part of the game that is going to be highly resistant to change.

It's a bit of both - Roll & Count gets slow when there are more than 10 dice at a time on it.  And keep in mind, I still play 'mada every now and then, so I don't hate it to the point where I won't play the game.

On this I pretty much agree; it has some very pretty statistics, and it's very good on "I don't have to remember nuthin' but 1-2 is Engine, 3-4 is Shields, 5-6 is Weapons, and Odds are Hull Hits".  But it still has a handling time cost. 

I put a lot of work into cutting down handling time in Squadron Strike, because it became clear that once you got over the hurdle of learning the game, that handling time was the big time sink in completing battles.

One playtester, the week before Origins, came up with a brilliant suggestion for SS's damage allocation system.  Which I was opposed to, in large part because "Oh my god...I've got to re-do umptizillion formulas on the SSD display page!  Aiiiagh!"

I disagree.  I enjoy Starmada, but I think the cascading re-rolls are about my least favorite part.   I think your zoom to boom ratio is skewed a bit high to boom for my tastes, but that is just a taste difference.

The short answer is "It works, and nothing you can change is going to make both me happy and not piss off the vastly more numerous fan base.  They're more important than I am." 

I'll play 'mada and herd dice when I do so.  If I see a clever idea that might solve the issue, I will...but this is one of those fundamental design decisions that not only can't be changed, shoulddn't be changed without a very good reason.  And neither I nor Pazur constitute even a bad reason, let alone a reason worth listening to.

Cough!
Seems to me that we're going a bit too far...
I don't know if it is the passion for the game (OT: i like this forum a lot! Passionate players and game designers that discuss about everything! a dream!) or somewhat i have said.... but i don't want that Daniel (Cricket? do you like more to use nicknames or real names?) changes Starmada!
If the game is like it is it have some good reasons for sure.

All what i'm searching for is to find a way that fills my needs, and asking for a bit of help doing things (the probability math) that are a out from my formal school and knowledge.
If i can find a way to roll only one time to solve the attacks, and if that way is liked by more players, that's even better. But really, i can't ask to change a well tested game like Starmada.

Said this, some replies:

We have Silent Death for this. What we was searching for was a game with huge ships and Starmada is one of the answers, and maybe the best.
The whole Silent Death map fit just a Starmada hex. We like this change, and we want that insane amount of cannons for each battery

Not really. We have abandoned old "chart-based" games from many years. We are a group of 20-30 players, so we play dungeon-crawl games, RPGs, skirmish games and so on with the same frequency... the "hard-core" players plays Axis and Allies every time, now superseeded by The War of the Ring).  As i've said, we have not so much time to play (3 hours at max) so we have ceased to play some long games (i really miss Car Wars...sigh).
But the long games we still plays must have "short turns": Game of Thrones, Silent Death and many others all falls in the category of long games, but allows fast rounds.

I'd like this.... where you live?

Thanks, that's what i've asked for.....

....and this is what i'm trying to figure out, playing with excel and a lot of math that i don't handle so well.
Have you any table, graph, formula or a Rosetta stone that can show this difference?

Thanks to all for the tips and the whole discussion. Have i said that i like this forum?