Zeropoint wrote:Hi, everyone!
While I've had the Starmada books since the Compendium, I have only recently found someone local to play against--and this online community. Greetings to you all, and may the stellar wind be always at your back!
I do have a noob question, though: how much weight does the design phase of the game carry? In other words, how often does it happen that fleets with the same point total are so badly mismatched in design that one side stands no real chance?
The reason I ask this is that in the only game of Starmada X I managed to play, I had equipped my fleet with accurate, long-range guns, while my opponent had gone for short-range firepower. The result was grossly imbalanced, as he was unable to get into effective range. Based on that experience and some of the threads here, I'm definitely avoiding the 30-hex guns this time around, but I still have to wonder: how balanced do you find the point system in practice? Are there any design pitfalls to avoid?
Hi, and welcome!
I have to say that when playing equal points games, both with "canon" designs from the sourcebooks and those that we have designed there is generally a very good balance. However, I would say that just about every game that I have played has been with ships at the exact same tech level, and MadSeason and I imposed some limitations that make the games more interesting to us (shorter ranges being the primary one). In most games, if one side or the other doesn't make a dramatic mistake (hey, that heavy cruiser was supposed to turn to Starboard, not to PORT! D'oh!) we have found that the winner is better described as the "survivor", often shredded/battered, and deep fried. We have had equal points battles that come down to a single die roll determining the winner. In games that we have played ships that we have designed, we have very different philosophies, especially for armaments, and the result is more often than not close-fought, bloody affair.
That said, I would endorse imposing limits on range and Tech Level as the higher numbers might not be totally "unbalancing" in points battles, but they have the potential to make the game less enjoyable. If you are going to be playing mostly with player designed ships and constantly changing the designs to match something your opponent does, there can be a real "rock-paper-scissors" feel that develops, which can suck some of the fun out of things, unless the challenge of outdesigning your opponent is what you find most enjoyable. A small scale campaign which imposes limits on how you can change your ships has been what we have been playing and it has focused us on how to adjust our tactics rather than our designs. Working to find the strengths and weaknesses of our ships and fly them accordingly rather than just redesigning them for the next game has proven to be a far more enjoyable venture for me at least.
Hope this rambling has helped!
Cheers,
Erik