• Registered: 2010-09-20
  • Posts: 1

Topic: New player questions

hello all.  my gang and i played a game of starmada this weekend and some issues / questions came up.  i wanted to get your opinions.

first off, i really like S:AE.  i liked S:X and AE is an improvement and fun to play.  we had two new players, and a 14,000 point game, which we finished in 2 hours.  no way you could do that with most other games.

questions:
1. can weapons in the same battery fire at different targets?  example: X batt: 1 weapon is arc A, 1 is in arc B.  can each fire at a different target, or do all batteries fire at the same target?  i think that may have been from full thrust or something and the rules didn't seem explicit.

2. a 6 fighter squadron rolls 6 attack dice, correct?

3. a weapon with inverted range modifiers fires on a target with stealth, at medium range.  the range increment is increased to long, and the weapon is effectively treated as if firing at short range because of the inversion.  is this correct?

4. does regeneration affect hull slots that are "captured by marines"?  what about hull damage from hyperdrive malfunctions?

5. a ship's weapon damage track goes like this: [1=X] [2=Y] [3=Z] [4=_] [5=_] [6=_].  all the weapons in the "Y" and "Z" batteries are destroyed.  next, the ship takes 3 weapon hits.  the weapon damage rolls are "2, 3, 6".  since the X battery is the only remaining weapon, are all three of these rolls wasted?

general comments:
1. we played on a massive battlemat that was roughly 6x4 feet.  my opponent and i began several feet apart, and although his ships had severely limited forward firing arcs, i got crushed because he was able to keep me in his front arc due to the huge board size.  how big are most games?  do most people play on something more like a battletech mapsheet?

2. i was absolutely demolished in one game where my opponent routinely took ships with "5" strength shields and weapons that were all "piercing" and had large numbers of impact dice.  i couldn't damage my opponent and all of his hits shredded my ships.  my designs weren't silly or anything, it was just a tough combination to beat.  how do other players deal with this?

thx in advance.  attached is a picture of my fleet.  see below:

  • Registered: 2009-08-03
  • Posts: 245

Re: New player questions

Welcome aboard, matey (also, happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day)!

14000 points?  Bloody hell...  we tried 5k points once and gave up after a couple of hours.  I salute you, sir.

1) Yep, weapons in the same battery can fire at different targets (though if they're dual-mode weapons, they all have to have the same mode on any given turn).

2) Correct again.

3) I believe the official ruling on that is that yes, firing Inverted Range Stuff at Stealthed ships works well.

4) I'm pretty sure Regen doesn't affect Marines, since they don't actually cause hull hits.  Should work on hyperdrive malfunctions, though.

5) From page 24: "Once all weapons of a given battery have been destroyed, further damage to that battery is ignored."  So yep, all three of those rolls would be ineffective.

Yeah, the 'forward focused fire' issue comes up a lot.  There aren't a whole lot of really good workarounds, other than Cloaking and Screens.

Hmmm...  a couple of options.  Countermeasures sounds like your best bet, since what doesn't hit you can't hurt you.  Armor Plating can help reduce the damage that gets through your shields, but I kind of prefer CM.  Upgrading to Ignores Shields weapons from Rules Annex helps to beat Shield 5 ships pretty handily, or putting piercing on your own weapons.  Lots of fighters can also put the kibosh on high-impact weapons, since the impact is totally wasted against them.  In theory you could deny your opponent the benefits of Piercing by using shields 0, but that tends to get ugly (I had a fleet with shields 0 and Ignore Shields weapons across the board.  It was entertaining to play with against high-shields, piercing combo fleets).

Also, nice looking ships!  Kinda have a Homeworld feel.  I think I've seen the same type of minis in some pics from con games, but I don't recall precisely.

  • Registered: 2022-11-15
  • Posts: 1,286

Re: New player questions

Nomad is correct on question 4. 

If your opponent is taking level 5 shields, then designing weapons to ignore shields or halve them, coupled with to hit 3+ paired with fire control is the next logical step if you're doing the one-up game. Honestly, the best answer is to set some design criteria/limits before hand to ensure that the lopsided build is reduced to more managable levels for enjoyable encounters. It's not all that fun getting your hat handed to you by a maxed fleet...  wink

  • Registered: 2008-12-22
  • Posts: 654

Re: New player questions

go0gleplex wrote:

If your opponent is taking level 5 shields, then designing weapons to ignore shields or halve them, coupled with to hit 3+ paired with fire control is the next logical step if you're doing the one-up game. Honestly, the best answer is to set some design criteria/limits before hand to ensure that the lopsided build is reduced to more managable levels for enjoyable encounters. It's not all that fun getting your hat handed to you by a maxed fleet...  wink

I'll second all of that. Some people like the challenge of "One-Up" games where design takes precedence to some degree. I have found that it is far more enjoyable to put restrictions in place, which seem to bring tactics more to the forefront. This is particularly true if you limit ranges...a max range of the entire table pretty much leads to a game where both sides just sit there and blast the crap out of each other.
The best thing to do is try and convince your group/players to try several different variations, or play a lot of the pre-made designs from the sourcebooks until the system becomes more second nature.
Erik

  • Registered: 2010-03-09
  • Posts: 630

Re: New player questions

go0gleplex wrote:

If your opponent is taking level 5 shields,

I have found that the CR difference between two equivalent ships but having different shild value can be tremendous. For exemple, there is almost no difference between a ship with a shield value of 0 and one with a shield value of 1 -about 5%). But there is a lot (something like more than 30%) between a shield 4 and shield 5 ships (everything else between equal).
I wonder if the CR difference is really worth it.

Marc