Jeff,
How much SFB have you played? The explosion rules are meant to discourage the stacking of ships. But it doesn't really. The only rule that is effective is Fed Com's rule that limits the number of ships that can fire out of the hex. (i.e. there is a maximum of 3 ships that can fire at the target(s) in the same hex) The problem with the SFB explosion rules is that the explosion value will not penetrate a fresh shield. The only thing that the explosion rules do is to make sure that fighters avoid the smaller ships in the fleet so as to not make the smaller ships a target and have the squadron of fighters disappear in the explosion of the small ship.

When it comes to repair,  I don't think it should be added due to this. Fed Com already has this and it extends the games way too long. In addition to this, in SFB is the WE loses it's Plasma-R for the most part it is out of the game. I think it take 2 turns to repair it and another 3 turns until the Plasma-R is ready until the point the War Eagle is basically out of the fight because it is just a target.

When it comes the issue with "Active"/"Active", I think that it is a little late to discuss that. Though, I do agree with you on that regard.

My only concern about the fighters is if they are allowed to have seeking weapons themselves and therefore making them over powering which is the case with SFB.

Ouch.  Epic gamer put down!  (Answer: only a couple of real fleet battles... aaaand about 50+ CA/D7 and pirate scenarios.)

That is where I'm headed.  I'm thinking that a flight of six fighters should be able to launch a drone wave... and then retire to the mother ship to reload.  The drones and fighters should soak up some of the overpowered phaser-1's....  (It has been my life long dream to do a big battle with Module J... but I've never been able to train an SFB opponent to that point.  I never get past duels and the occasional fleet battle with Basic Set ships.)

Carrier designs are easy: just give 12 fighters to any CA and call it a strike cruiser.    Or... remove the heavy weapons and call it a carrier. 

Most SFU carriers retain their heavy weapons.

An extra couple of turns to a game is not a problem IMO. I dislike games which are not long enough for anything really interesting to happen. That was my problem with Warhamster 40K, the board was so large relative to the movement rates of the models, and the game lasted about six turns, so that the game was often won or lost in the setup.

I think any kind of increase at shorter ranges would be bad. SFU ships just carry so darn MANY phasers, that multiplying their damage at close range makes them overwhelming. Far deadlier than they are in the base games, at any rate. We can't reduce the # of phasers, because we need to be faithful to the background, but we can reduce the damage each does.

That's what I did, for both Phaser 1 & 2. I don't Know about phaser 4 but as they are used only by bases and that currently I don't play with/against one, it's not a big deal.
I also increase the ACC b y 1 for both laser (ACC 3+ for ph 1 and ACC 4+ for Ph 2). In the end, a lot less damaghe at short range but I have to test it though.

I reworked the shield by giving them more alike their FC counterparts. For example, a D7 shjould have the same shield a sa Fed CA, and I gave this CA better shield overall.

At least, the game shouldn't be over after two game turns of long-range fire. 

Marc

SFU ships don't have  "phaser banks", they have individual phasers, each of which is capable of firing at a different target. They do have multiple phasers grouped into the same arc, such as the Federation CA which has six phasers in the saucer grouped into three "banks" in distinct arcs.

On another point: while phasers do get better at close range in the SFU, you need to be REALLY close (like right in the same hex!) before a single phaser can compete with the output of a heavy weapon. As written, that's happening at Range 5 or so, which means that a Federation CA is vaporising a Klingon D7 at that range. At that range, a CA should have a decent chance of inflicting serious damage. But having a better than even chance of blowing the target up? No way. I feel that the increased damage from a ship's phasers is adequately represented by the fact you're firing them more accurately at close range. Since most ships have a lot of phasers, this will result in phasers reliably dealing damage up close. Which gives the right feel.

Shields are working very differently between FC and Starmada. In FC, they soak off a lot of damage before giving up, helped by batteries, and leaking a few damages. With Starmada, it's the opposite (or so). They stop a good part of the hits (usually half of them), but leak a lot most damage points are translated in engine, weapons and hull.
In the end, the  first fires between ships in FC damage shield whilst the first fires in Starmada can kill them. With a medium battle (about 1000 points), I was able to kill a klingon destroyer with disruptor long range fire from two cruiser. I would never see that in FC.
Last point, if I don't want my games to drag a lot, I don't them to last two turns (I'm exagerrating, but here is the point). I want enough maneuvers to avoid them becoming long and medium -range  turkey shoot. Also, it could make tractors and marines a bit more useful as they never enter in action because ships are usually destroyed before that.

Marc

Daniel, the systems need to produce roughly consistent results... and if Star Fleet Mada is producing situations in which ships are dying, effectively, 2.5 times faster than the background says they should, then IMO that is a genuine problem.

Huh. My initial response to this appears to have disappeared into the ether...

I have to disagree. The idea is not to recreate the SFB/FC "experience", but rather to express the Star Fleet Universe in Starmada terms. Thus, while internal consistency is important (e.g. the Fed CA and Klingon D7 should be a good match for each other) consistency between game systems is much less so.

For one thing, while there is no specified Starmada time scale, the length of a Starmada game turn is certainly different than the length of a SFB/FC game turn.

One issue that I do believe may need to be addressed and nailed down more effectively is ships' relative thrust ratings. I have tried many different methods, but I still am not happy with how SFB/FC power translates to Starmada movement. Any suggestions on this front would be appreciated.

Not sure this would make a difference. While the Fleet Scale ships have 1/2 the weapons of Squadron Scale, they also have 1/2 the damage boxes. Thus, the hits-to-kill ratios would remain the same regardless of which scale is used as a basis for conversion.

I like the fighters in SFB and look forward to seeing PF's and Fighters making their way into Starmada.  The game is very open for this type of system tweak.  BTW, but my calcs, a fighter shuttle with drone counter should take up about 16 space points.