Going back to the whole fighters thing, are fighters still going to be fairly customizable, at least in ways you can distinguish the tough ones from the throwaways, the attackers from the space superiority, and so on? I ask because this looks like the version of Starmada to run Wing Commander/Freespace/Colony Wars games in all other aspects.

Hey Dan, I know this is probably putting the cart way ahead of the horse, but I was wondering if it would be possible to get the S:AE to S:NE conversion process at some point before the game is actually available. I for one would be willing to commit to a pre-order if that is what it would take, and I would think that the converted ship data cards shouldn't give too much away without the context of the rules. I figured I'd ask because I have about a half a billion ships that I can convert over  and I wouldn't mind a head start!    If not, that's cool too, I'm still an addict and must buy...
Cheers,
Erik

I never had a problem with the amount of dice rolled. It's actually rather satisfying to "open fire" on an enemy ship with a good handful of dice. I'm also a big fan of the old weapon stats, which I personally find easier to understand.

Then again, I'm also intrigued by the added crunch to the defensive stats 8-)

Guys, believe me, the handfulls of dice are still there.
Or can be there depending on how you design yours ships.
But the nice thing is that now there are occasions where you only have to roll those handfulls one time to resolve combat. 
Kevin

What a cruel dilemn... Having no news or having no rules...

Marc

I'd still like to know about some things, here and there.
For example, will there be the notion of 'special actions', as can be seen in SAE and SFO (or new ones):
- Silent run
- Jinking
- Emergency acceleration
- Screening
- Extra pivot
- whatever...?

Marc

I don't think so for either of the above...

I believe so for both of the above...

I've been trying to convince the designer on this one, but so far he won't budge. 
So my guess is no.
Kevin

Perhaps "run silent". I kinda like it.

Depends on what you mean by "screening".

The problem with "extra pivot" is that, in a vector-ish movement system, the thrust required to perform this additional turn increases proportionally to the ship's speed... Perhaps something like "Overthrusters (X)" where X is the maximum speed at which a ship may perform an additional turn.

@Dan

Any mod that lets a ship have "better turning" would be much appreciated.  What you propose with overthrusters sounds like the trick.

IMHO 6 shield arcs was fine for Star Fleet Battles, as most players controlled only 1 or 2 ships at a time.  Once you have to manage half a dozen, its just a pain.  I suggest if you want to divide it up you simple do it as 2 sets of shields per ship - fore and aft.  That would allow for the tactic of "outflanking" to be there, but keep it as simple as possible.  (and it would help with what you do with hellbores too!)

-Tim

Exact!
Marc

I think I mentioned this before, but a simple alternative could be to have one Shield track, but have a modifier if the shot is coming through the front or rear hemisphere. +1 to shield rating for forward shields, -1 to shield rating for aft shields. This would seem to simulate the fact that most ships (not all but a great many) in the SFU have higher forward shield numbers than aft.
This could even leave room for simple optional rules for shield reinforcement.
Just my 2 cents.

Erik