Topic: Design Questions for a Concept Fleet

I've been tinkering with the idea of building a concept fleet for a Starmada AE campaign, but I haven't come up with any good ideas.  I thought I would come here and see if anyone had any insights.

I am trying to build a race of psychic pacifists that are against hurting others, and would prefer to persuade them into not fighting.

My gaming group and I have already decided that this race's weapons will do 'phantom' hull damage because not doing Hull damage of any sort was not working at all.  Any hull damage will be considered a 'crew' hit of some sort such as stunned, mesmerized, or pacified, and not cause explosions when ships lose all of their Hull.  We agreed that no explosions is of mutual advantage to my ships, though more often theirs. 

I would like the ships to be able to displace their appearance to be a number of hexes away from where they really are.  I was looking at cloaking for this, and considering making a house rule that redefines cloaking a little, unless there is something out there that will work.  Stealth might also work, if rules are going to be bent a little.  Ideally, my opponents would have to get into a short range and de-cloak before they found out for certain where my ships actually were.   My end goal is to not always have my ships be sitting there waiting for my opponent to de-cloak.  Another tactic could be to perhaps teleport them a few hexes after movement orders are revealed, if there is such a thing available.  I read something about Stutterdrive, but can't seem to track down more info.

Additionally, I would very much like to be able to apply movement offensively.  Is there anything in Starmada that would allow me to do this?  If at all possible, I would love to be able to turn enemy ships one hex facing.  Any additional forced movement would just be icing.

I understand if these ideas are too goofy to be implemented.  I just wanted to check with you guys before I gave up on the concept.  Thanks for any help you can offer.   smile

Re: Design Questions for a Concept Fleet

In the latest Starmada: Iron Stars supplement, there is crew killer weapon trait available which would allow you to have your psychic weapons without undue hull damage.

Countermeasures is probably more of the 'displacer' gimmick effect you are after than cloak...without any real modification needed since it affects the to hit chance. Another option may be to use the cloaking field cost, but rename it displacement field...the ship's actual position is in one of the adjacent hexes to that wherein the ship appears to be. This gives six possible positions without getting too complicated in tracking...and would allow you to utilize the "screen" diagram on the ship sheet for the displacement field instead.  The problem would be how to apply modifiers to hit and/or at what point the actual position becomes obvious...hexes targeted by active sensors?  Range band? Or simply a to hit penalty of +1 or +2? (I'll let more mathematical heads than mine figure that one out)

There currently is no weapon trait or effect that would allow or take into account offensive/forced enemy movement.