I am interested on why you different arcs for the lasers on ther Discovery.

From my memories of Starfire all weapons had the same arc of "everything but backwards" so I would expect them to also both be [ABCD] like all the other weapons.

I edited the first message as I modified the way I will do the work.

After having worked a lot on this project, and after much thoughts, I decided not to convert each and every ships as it would have been a daunting task. The Terran would have more than 60 designs, discounting bases and freighters. Not only that, but Starfire allows every ‘race' to use any available systems as they wish. In fact, aside Rigelian, and maybe Gorm, I didn't find any real difference between races ships. No distinctive trait. I would have been dull.

So I decided to reduce the number of ships, usually one for each size. Then to use distinctive racial traits for each race, even if in Starfire this is not really the case.

First of all, I determine the size of each ship category. Easy to do, I divided the starfire hull size by 6, FRU, giving me the following numbers:

Escort ES/Corvet CT 2;
Frigate FG 3;
Destroyer DD/Escort Carrier CVE  5;
Light Cruiser CL/ Small Carrier CVS 8;
Heavy Cruiser CA/Light Carrier CVL  10;
Battlecruiser BC 13; Carrier CV 14; 
Battleship BB/Battle Carrier CVB 16;
Super Dreadnought SD/ Assault Carrier CVA 21;

There are bigger ships than that, but I feel that a 21 hull super dreadnought should be a big enough ship to handle.

Then the engine. I use a base of 6 for all ships, minus 1 for CL/CA, minus for bigger ships, plus 1 for FG or smaller ships, and plus one if using advanced maneuvering.

The shield value will be the sum of both shield and armor divided by 6, FRU.

In the end, the national traits will be the following:

Terran: All ships will have Fire control and anti-fighter batteries, the latter increasing in value according to the ship size. As weapons Terran ships will use  W (a double-mode weapon, firing either as a short range railgun or a long range missile), F (force beam, in essence a very powerful and long-ranged weapon, tearing apart the enemy ships) and occasionnaly P (primary beam, a very narrow beam, able to easily pierce defense but needing time to recycle). Bigger ships will be able to use Rc (capital missile launcher) instead of W, Fc (capital force beam) instead of F, and Pc (capital primary beam) instead of P.

Khanate: According to the Starfire unverse, it seems that Khanate were a bit behind the terran in the arms race. I decided to make their ships more bulky and using less powerful weapons. All ships will have armor plating. They will also have anti-fighter batteries, but in lower numbers. Their weapons will be R (missile launcher), L (laser cannons, good medium range piercing weapons) and P. R are replaced on bigger ships by Rc, P by Pc.

Ophiucci: They have less ships than the previous empires, and makes them more technologically advanced than other races. All of them will have Fire control and stealth. They developed a unique weapon, E (Energy beam, able to skip a lot of systems and killing the most important ones). Their secondary weapon will be the W, upgraded as a Rc for big ships. Their tertiary weapons will be very short ranged missiles, useful against fighters.

Gorm: Their ships benefit from countermeasures and, using special engines, overthrusters, and some anti-fighters batteries. Their weaponry allows them to use mainly W, upgraded to Rc, and F, upgraded to Fc, and occasionnaly N (needle beam, a powerful version of the primary beam).

Last but not least, the Rigelian. They put the emphasis on carriers, contrary to all other races which use them sparsely, if not at all. Their ships will have countermeasures and a better engine value, due to the extensive use of advanced maneuvering. Their main weapons are Wa (quick firing W) and Fc.

The fighter used by all those races deploying them will be in four flavours:

Those equipped with ‘guns' will be treated as fast interceptors. Those with missiles will have a better defense (able to shoot from a longer range, although they still fire from an adjacent hex) Those with rockets (short range missiles) will have dmg 2. Those with laser with piercing.

The carrier capacity can also be used by some ships to carry anti-ship missiles (seekers) but not in a systematical way.

Next step, designing the weapons.

Marc

How are you planning on representing XO-racks?

What about Point Defense (D, Di, etc)? I recall it played a big part in our ship design.

Maybe you could give the ships countermeasures if they have at least X D/Di per hull size?

I know it isn't great given that this would also work against lasers, force beams, etc, but the only other option I can see is to make the missile launchers into seekers and make D/Di anti-fighter batteries (or fighter exclusive weapons).

I agree that many of the later ships ended up feeling the same (just lots of missile and anti-missile systems) until the arrival of the Thebans and then the Arachnids and their different weapons/doctrines.

You could use the K/E/B shields from the VBAM/ Starmada books.It has been a long time since I played Starfire, but if I recall correctly, Shields only tripped against energy beams, Armor was a more general defense (and the only one that stopped damage from the kinetic weapons found in Alkeda Dawn), and D, Di, & Dx only served as defenses against ballistic weapons.

You could base the Energy value of the Shields on the number of Starfire shields, the Kinetic value of the Shields on the number of plates of Starfire armor, and the Ballistic value of the shields on the number and rating of D systems present.

As I do not have my Starfire information where I can find it quickly, I do not know whether dividing by 6 will always suffice to fit these values between 0 & 5. however, you could always try the proposed Extended Shield Ratings if you want to try converting the later modules.

As a side note, I modified the fighter values (characteristics and price) and introduced the anti-ship missiles, but alas, the data I have on my USB key are corrupted.I will update them as soon as I can. But, I designed all fighters in order for each flight to cost a bit less than 30, and for missiles to cost less than 15, in order to chose any number of them easily.
BTW, about carrier capacity, if I had to reproduce the same one as in Starfire, I would have end up with a lot of vacuum inside carriers. Especially when they are unarmed. On the other hand, it makes them very expensive compared to their counterpart.

Marc

The Rigelians, with a low number of ship type and fosing mainly on carriers.

If everything goes well, I should have the opportunity (at last) to try some of those design.
Next work; The Theban wars.

Marc

After having used another excel file to verify my designs, it appears that the one I sed was (a really tiny bit) flawed. Also, I feel that some ships, mainly the Kanathe ones, are a bit two expensive for their worth. I will have to review them.

Marc

The last ones (for the moment).

marc