Again, I only played SFB once or twice in college, so I can't speak from experience. But in FC, weapons all fire out to 25 hexes, except for Phaser-3s and overloaded heavy weapons.

Constitution-class cruiser = D 64.6 / WDF 12.4 = CE 801.4
D-7 class cruiser = D 54.6 / WDF 20.4 each = CE 1113.84

The D-7 actually outclasses the Constitution...

Gosh, but I LOVED the FASA game.

They take TWICE AS MUCH POWER....

Power is life in SFB...

I'm not sure if you can hold an overloaded photon, either - it's been a while.

Hey Cricket, I would suggest going over to the FC forums and read about he tactics used in Fed Com. Then I would suggest playing a few games to get the feel of how it plays.

The game is all about maneuver and power. That is pretty hard to simulate in Starmada (power)

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

http://www.starfleetgames.com/federation/phpbb2/viewforum.php?f=5

also if you can find some Fed Com players near you or at a con to playtest.

Without power allocation it isn't too hard to see abstractly how maneuver will be important when weapon arcs and the different shield facing strengths are listed.  But with the slow speeds of Starmada compared to SFB (is FC similar?) maneuvering won't matter that much.  Still, it wouldn't hurt to play a few games of FC to help understand how the ships should be designed.

I decided to make a Star Trek specific version of the shipbuilder spreadsheet, changing some system names in the process (i.e., Hyperdrive to Warp Drive, Teleporters to Transporters), I came up with some ideas and/or changes, especially in relation to SFB. 

I changed "Science" to "Science Stations" (LABs in SFB) and made each one take up 50 spaces.  To me, this gives a better meaning to the SUs allocated to science equipment and laboratory room space than "Science (200)".  And perhaps, a Science Station can be used to determine something (like LABs do in SFB); nothing that important (no CRAT rating) but good for scenario specific actions (i.e., roll 1 die per Science Station and if any die rolls a 6 ... ).

I changed "Hospital" to "Hospital Beds" and made each one take up 10 spaces.  "Sickbay" would fit the theme better, but using Hospital keeps it Starmada-like; plus Sickbay might be a term for a larger area.  I'm not sure of the actual space for each bed, but it should include whatever equipment and storage is needed to support a hospital bed, and probably a portion of the operating space that might accompany it.

Quick question, and I'm sorry since I haven't thoroughly perused all the threads for the info, but: the shields work like fixed screens it would seem?

The problem is the scale of weapon damage and how Starmada shields/screens work. 

One thing I thought about trying is with the shielding Dan has shown us on these SSDs, but using the normal Starmada rules, is that when a ship takes damage from one source (i.e., one ship, one fighter squadron) then the shield facing that source must take at least one hit if any damage rolls results in a shield hit.  The rest of the shield hits can be assigned by the defending ship's player; although I'm tempted to have those other shield hits rolled randomly to determine which ones take damage.

An example: Ship Avarice takes fire from an enemy ship, which will check impact penetration through the F (forward) shield.  Six damage dice penetrate and are rolled for: 2,2,3,4,5,5.  Since there are two shield hits, then one must be applied to the F shield and the other one applied as the defender wishes.

Whatcha think?

I figure we keep tyring long enough, someone will come up with ablative shielding...or atleast a simulation there of.

this was initially kind of a strange thing for me. adding a die roll seemed a lot more fiddly, but in the end I think it manages to simulate "power" (you can take away a shield point on the opposite side of the ship, and call it power-reallocation)

That seemed to be the case this weekend -- the facing shields were knocked down rather quickly. On the other hand, it didn't matter much; since shield damage doesn't take effect until the end of the turn, it was relatively easy for players to rotate their ships to move the reduced shield out of arc...

I was also thinking of a 1/3 ratio, although in my case I was going to change the die roll: 1-2 = the facing shield takes the hit; 3-6 = player's choice.

I'm still liking my idea (of course   ) that the first shield hit automatically goes against the facing shield.  This guarantees, if a shield hit is rolled, that it will take damage like shields do in SFB.  Whether the rest of the shield hits are defender's choice, rolled for facing or not facing shield, or randomly distributed (there are 6 shield facings, and the game uses a six-sided die  ) which could still hit the facing shield, is a matter of testing and what effects are desired.

But I thought of something else, and the mentioning of 'reinforced shields' reminded me: pseudo power allocation. *ducks from flying objects*  .  I only thought about how to apply it to shields using the current shield system that was just tested.  Since a die roll of 1-3, or even a possible 1-2 as suggested, applies to the facing shield, then, like how Armor Plating protects against hull damage, Reinforced Shielding protects a particular shield in that a roll of 1 to determine what shield is hit is ignored.  But it has to be the facing shield that is reinforced.  How do you reinforce a shield?   From about the only power source that Starmada has: engines.  As a plotting option, you may reduce your current maximum engine output by 1 to reinforce one shield facing.  You may only reinforce one shield facing in each turn.  I know this could open up a lot of problems and/or a whole slew of options/suggestions for powering certain weapons systems, but right now if kept to shields then it may not get out of hand.  From the show itself, you hear many times that the captain asks engineering to reinforce shielding and this could help give KA that flavor.