• Registered: 2010-10-21
  • Posts: 55

Topic: Old Starfire players playing Starmada

Before I played SFB, I played Starfire.  I really liked the elegantly simple game play, although keeping track of all the letters and weapons could be a pain.  Roll forward a couple of decades and I decided to take a look at the current version of SF and was mostly disappointed by the over complications the current owner has put into the rules.

The came STARMADA!  I just picked up Imperial Starmada from e23 and I am very pleased with it.  It is a worthy successor to my old Starfire Game.  My wife and I are getting ready to run through a Imperial/Arcturian cruiser level engagement to give the rules a try. 

Keep up the great work guys?

  • Registered: 2005-11-02
  • Posts: 130

Re: Old Starfire players playing Starmada

Welecome to Starmada!
I see you live in GA, I attend a CON in Jacksonvill FL, and we play Starmada there if you are intrested.

  • Registered: 2006-01-17
  • Posts: 740

Re: Old Starfire players playing Starmada

I am planning to run at least one Starmada game at the June gaming convention in Jacksonville: Rapier 2011.  8-)

  • Registered: 2005-04-25
  • Posts: 39

Re: Old Starfire players playing Starmada

The original starfire was a beautiful thing in many ways... great for playing fleet battles and very simple.  I agree that its gotten WAY too complicated over the years and they have destroyed what was so good about the game.  On a high note I think even they realize this as I read on their site about work on a new simpler version.

Starmada is a nice alternative though, the ships take alot more room to represent but the game plays very well.

  • Registered: 2010-10-21
  • Posts: 55

Re: Old Starfire players playing Starmada

I would love to see some Starmada run at Siege of Augusta XXI.  I can't make Rapier due to financial constraints.

  • Registered: 2022-11-15
  • Posts: 1,424

Re: Old Starfire players playing Starmada

Have you thought about the new Starmada: Fleet Ops thing that's coming out?

Never played Starfire, but I have a copy.

  • Registered: 2010-10-21
  • Posts: 55

Re: Old Starfire players playing Starmada

I am definitely looking at checking out fleet ops! smile

  • Registered: 2010-10-21
  • Posts: 55

Re: Old Starfire players playing Starmada

and.. what version of Starfire do you own?

  • Registered: 2022-11-15
  • Posts: 1,424

Re: Old Starfire players playing Starmada

I've got the boxed version, and the ziploc verson of Empires - as well as the Khanate, Orion, (and Fighter?) expansions.

I'd be more precise, but it's in a wood box under the TV.....
:roll:

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

Re: Old Starfire players playing Starmada

alchemist wrote:

Starmada is a nice alternative though, the ships take alot more room to represent but the game plays very well.

I never played biggest battles than what were proposed in the first, ziplocked, version. But when I seen the ones proposed in The Stars at Wars, I wonder how they could be played in one afternoon.
Not only that, but you have a lot of writing preparation, tedious to say the least, and in the end, Starfire is, although simple in the beginning, not what I called a realist space op game. Movement is simplistic and the treatment of damage is not realist at all. Otherwise, it was an interesting universe.

Marc

  • Registered: 2005-11-02
  • Posts: 130

Re: Old Starfire players playing Starmada

BeowulfJB let me know when you are going to run your game.

I am also going to run somthing, not sure if it will be Starmada or maybe War Rocket. Maybe Starmada Fleet Ops!

  • Registered: 2006-01-17
  • Posts: 740

Re: Old Starfire players playing Starmada

Definitely, I should know more details in April.    8-)

  • Registered: 2006-03-23
  • Posts: 241

Re: Old Starfire players playing Starmada

I played starfire from the second edition (Imperial Starfire) through 4th edition (Ultra). To me, the economic rules were severely broken, with players getting way too much money and fielding massively unweildable fleets. Campaigns began to feel like throwing money down a warp line;the most money wins. I loved the ship design and tactical rules though. I casually follow the progression of the new edition of rules (Cosmic?) but they seem to be making little or no progress and it seems it has become a very small niche game. Too bad, It had a lot of potential and good tie ins with David Weber's Starfire books that they just didn't exploit. There is a new Steve White Starfire book, the sequel to Exodus and the owners of Starfire are ignoring it...free publicity for their game and they are ignoring it?!?

  • Registered: 2022-11-15
  • Posts: 1,424

Re: Old Starfire players playing Starmada

My understanding is (I could be wrong) that the new owner and a significant part of those that followed the game got in some sort of pi**ing match. I have no clue what the current owner is up to. How do you take a game that - had a small but fierce following - and then go on to totally loose most of your players? All he had to do was add a few races.

The tactical system worked - the economic game was dang near unintelligible.

It seems to me that he wanted the name, but not the system - could be wrong. <shrug>

I was on one of the Yahoo Groups devoted to Starfire after the meltdown, and got snippets here and there.

  • Registered: 2010-10-21
  • Posts: 55

Re: Old Starfire players playing Starmada

Yeah, the guy running it seems pretty clueless. I really did like the new d10 driven combat system, but that tac rules were a a cluster.

  • Registered: 2010-04-22
  • Posts: 6

Re: Old Starfire players playing Starmada

Campaigns began to feel like throwing money down a warp line;the most money wins.

Isn't that pretty much how WARS, as opposed to battles, are won in the real world? You know, "tactics wins battles, logistics wins wars" and all that?

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

Re: Old Starfire players playing Starmada

thedugan wrote:

My understanding is (I could be wrong) that the new owner and a significant part of those that followed the game got in some sort of pi**ing match. I have no clue what the current owner is up to. How do you take a game that - had a small but fierce following - and then go on to totally loose most of your players? All he had to do was add a few races.

The tactical system worked - the economic game was dang near unintelligible.

It seems to me that he wanted the name, but not the system - could be wrong. <shrug>

I was on one of the Yahoo Groups devoted to Starfire after the meltdown, and got snippets here and there.

I agree the economic system was a total mess, in fact I would go so far as to say that the entire campaign system became unplayable (though I must admit that I stopped trying when 3rd ed was retired). To me Starfire was (is?) a cautionary tale of how a perfectly good system can get totally screwed when you try to put in a rule to cover every single possible condition that can exist in an infinite universe. I thought construction system also made the game boring after a while, becoming too 'rock-paper-scissors" for my taste, unlike Starmada which definitely lends itself to more imaginative ship construction!
Cheers,
Erik

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

Re: Old Starfire players playing Starmada

As much as I loved Starfire in its first edition (simple game, although totally unrealistic when it comes to space movement and attribution of damage), a bit cumbersome when it comes to write the SSD but it was simple to play.
I bought a later, boxed, edition, along the imperial module.
I didn't understand a thing when it came to set-up the game, there were too many systems to remember, and the scenarios were too big to imagine playing them in an afternoon.
In the end, a total failure. But it's a good basis for creating ships using Starmada.

Marc

  • Registered: 2011-04-21
  • Posts: 20

Re: Old Starfire players playing Starmada

You can have my pocket edition Starfire, Starfire II, and Starfire III: Empires books when you pry them from my cold, dead fingers (after making your militancy roll, of course).  I wish they had just cleaned up and fixed Empires a bit rather than all of the things that came in later years.

Very excited to discover Fleet Ops (and to learn that there's a SFB-to-Starmada conversion project underway!).  Is VBAM worth checking out, and does the VBAM-to-Starmada link work with Fleet Ops?