As one who likes pretty basic, "generic" designs (I like to think of them as "interchangeable" ), I feel your pain. Unfortunately, I don't know that there's much that can be done about it.

A purpose-built fleet that is used well is likely to win out over the vanilla fleet most every time -- especially with my die rolls.

On the other hand, a vanilla fleet is more "realistic" in that it's more strategically versatile ... for whatever that's worth in Starmada.

It's not a question of point values, IMHO, but of tactics.

With a purpose-built fleet, you have a pretty good idea of how to use your ships to their best effect.

With a "vanilla" fleet, there's almost too much choice in how to deploy your forces, move your ships, and concentrate your attacks.

I don't mean to imply that a vanilla fleet CAN'T win -- just that HOW to win is less clear; a good player can overcome this: formulate a plan and stick with it. Unfortunately, I get too caught up in the moment and tend to make some very silly decisions early on in a game and spend the rest of the time trying not to make it worse.

You said it yourself: "Play to your strengths." But if your fleet has no strengths (or EVERYTHING is a strength ), that's easier said than done.

Hey Andy,

I should probably chime in here right? 

The ships in question are the ones I posted here:
http://mj12games.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1729

When I built them I tried to stick closely to the FT stats Z4 gave me. Of course I added my own twists to it but overall the theme of the fleet was one that relied on huge spinal weapons and missiles for their "big guns". I intended them to kill quickly at range. That being said they do that and do it very well.

All and all these ships saw about 20 or so games by the time I played Andy, so not only did I know my fleet pretty well but the designs were pretty pretty lean with not much wasted space. Power gamed, ya probably, but it wasn't intentional. Those 20 are what my regular opponent (Matt) and I refer to as our "Arms Race". I added Marines and teleporters and captured half his fleet... the next time we played he had Marines. He swarmed me with fighters... the next time we played I added anti-fighter weapons to my destroyers.

Having said all that though, Matt and I have definitely implemented a few house rules from our games with the TDC. Capping out multipliers at 3x being one of them. Piercing and Increased Impact can utterly destroy ships with little shields and it got to the point where sometime I'd be rolling 15 DMG dice. We both thought that was a little too good. So now at most the Diplomat's Spinal Laser can roll at most 9 DMG dice in our games.

Another thing that seems to make a big difference in ships designs is weapon arcs. Most of my arcs are forward facing. Matt's are broadsides however. To be as effective as possible Matt needs to have targets on both sides of his ships. In a way, my weapons are more optimized because of their Arcs as the fire isn't spread out over a bigger area. Has this been taken into account in ORAT?

If I might chime in, I once built a race that favored broadside type ships, and when up against fleets with primarily foward facing guns, I usually didn't fare very well --- the issue with broadside fleets is that when facing a single opponent, half of your weapons are useless..... The ships did great when I could force my opponent into a close ranged cluster-melee type battle... but on the standard approach and fight style battles, I was hammered on the way in.

Nahuris

It's the nature of gaming to min-max one's forces. If you intend to destroy the enemy from far away, then you build long-range weapons designed to kill most efficiently at long range and you face them all in one direction (all frontal, or all on one side, if you intend to keep your distance).

I love Starmada's many options and so I would never suggest curtailing them simply on principle. I do think the combination of some of the weapon traits makes this sort of thing inevitable, though. In iterated games    of course, the arms race syndrome mentioned will occur, which is kinda fun, and which is the counter to min-maxing in various ways.* It does trouble me, though, that certain methods seem to work best -- namely, all long range killers facing forward -- and that players who design ships that way talk about tweaking their ships, not about having to alter their strategy because there is an effective counter-strategy.

One way to mix things up would be to take a page from some miniatures games -- add terrain. Roll some dice before a game (2d6?) and place that number of asteroids in the middle section of the battlefield, each player taking turns placing one. They block LOS and prevent firing through them. It might change how you and your regular opponents play and design ships. Just a thought.

* Arms races are the basis of many of the Starfire novels. One side comes up with a new weapon and starts to win but then the enemy counters it with something new.

I love terrain .....LOL

One of the best terrains we have found so far, is dust/gravel clouds.
Our house rule is that it halves the weapon ranges (rounded logically by range band) ---- if you have a weapon with range 21, as in 7/14/21 - your new range would be 12, 7 halved is 3.5, round to 4, and the new range bands are 4/8/12 --- range 12 weapons become range 6 -- 4/8/12 becomes 2/4/6 and so forth --- I make small areas marked in hexes out of grey felt to define the areas of dust / gravel -- and in special instances we compromise -- as in the ship with range 21 is 8 hexes away from a dust cloud, and fires through it - short range is 7, medium is out to 11, and long is out to 15

So far, we haven't had many arguments over it, and mixing solid terrain, such as asteroids, and then the clouds as soft terrain really spruces up the battle field. On a side note, ships going through dust clouds find that it negates stealth systems and cloaking, as the small particles smashing against the foward shields does provide enough energy to lock onto ---

We have found that the BFG Imperials, especially the heavy hitters with the broadside mounted weaponry, tend to do very well around the dust clouds. 

Nahuris

I have an idea for those who like broadside weaponed that fire similiarly to wooden warships of c200 years ago. 
Make some or even all of these broadside weapons slow firing.  It means that these ships will have to keep their speed to have of their engine ability so that they can make many U turns to fire one broadside, then the other.  Have one version of these ships with slow firing and longer range and another version with the broadside weapons firing regularly for fighting against those who can be closed with. 
It will be fun to watch you opponants try to figure out which version of these ships you have in a givin battle... :geek:

Zing :!:

That's a great idea!