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mj12games.com/forum → Starmada → What now?
A Starmada/Defiance genre book would be very cool...and you wouldn't have to convince another company to play ball with you, either. You might even be able to convince Tony at Brigade to sculpt some compatible ship minis for you, eh?
Rich
Okay. So let's say that the next supplement should be a "genre-specific" sourcebook -- any suggestions?
Defiance! :wink:
Is this official permission to mess about in your backyard, Demian?
> Hi All!
>
> More items for the Starmada wishlist.
>
> Weapon modifiers:
>
> Extra Engine Damage - when this weapon causes damage, 1
> engine box is destroyed along with the normal damage.
>
> Extra Shield Damage - when this weapon causes damage, 1
> shield box is destroyed along with the normal damage.
>
> Extra Weapon Damage - when this weapon causes damage, 1
> weapon battery box is destroyed along with the normal damage
> (roll 1D6: 1,2 = a, 3,4 = b, 5,6 = c).
>
> That's it for now.
There's a reason we didn't include these to begin with... it's because the frequency of engine/shield/weapon hits varies according to the ship; and thus the effectiveness of such "extra damage" weapons would vary as well.
I could, however, allow a weapon that re-rolled engine/weapon/shield hits, and did additional damage if the re-roll also came up engine/weapon/shield...
> Look for a multipage formatted PDF with ship guide, sample
> factions, a few experimental rules, VBAM notes, and more.
>
> By Monday! Clear out some space on the post baord for me ;-)
>
> -Sam
>
> A small free sample...
>
> Ranger-Class Light Cruiser
> No one is really sure what keeps the Ranger class
> going: hope, mythology, duct tape, or pure ruggedness, but
> what is for sure is that none of the dozens of Rangers that
> litter the Confederacy will likely be retired soon. The
> class was inaugurated early in the Confederate Rebellion, and
> underwent a significant revision twice after the war's end,
> producing the common Ranger-G General Cruiser and the less
> common Ranger-D Attack Cruiser variants. The Ranger-G is a
> ubiquitous symbol of the Confederacy, plying the stars as an
> exploration vessel, military cruiser, and long-range scout
> all at once.
> However, the Ranger remains a light cruiser, and one
> designed and built largely according to budgetary and
> industrial constraints by a fledgling Confederacy. As such,
> her armament and shielding leave a bit to be desired, and her
> sublight drives are underpowered, using older, more easily
> serviced fuel-efficient engines. However, a pair of proton
> turrets and guided Firefly missiles can still ensure that the
> Ranger gets respect on the battlefield, and her complement of
> 8-12 Colonial Tigershark or Thunderoll class fighters keeps
> her flexible. Perhaps the most important aspect of the
> Ranger-G is her improved sensor suite, making her capable of
> mapping and tracing stable jump routes and conducting
> planetary surveys or scientific field work, and it is this
> flexibility that has made the Ranger such an important part
> of the Confederacy navy, which is always looking for ways to
> multitask it's overstretched resources.
I am officially holding my breath...
(insert blue emoticon here)
Is this official permission to mess about in your backyard, Demian?
Sure, as long as there's some room for me in the sandbox.
> How about ship lists for existing miniatures lines?
> How about scenario books, set up similarly to what we did in
> Grand Fleets?
> How about campaign rules, set up similarly to what Matt and I
> were working on for Grand Fleets?
I'm not sure I'm up on where you and Matt were... care to give an update?
You might even be able to convince Tony at Brigade to sculpt some compatible ship minis for you, eh?
Or the Cold Navy people. Granted, they have their own universe to play with, but as they have what, half a dozen races/empire already planned, it seems there might well be room for "not-Altai", "not-Meraxilla" etc. in there as well.
I'm new to the scene and I love the "construction set" approach that starmada has taken.
...but I'd love to see supplements like a scenario book with history of races, ship cards that include images of the vessels, and matching color counter sheets with unique-looking ships for each of the races - for those that cannot afford the mini investment, and don't have the time to always make up our own designs...
BTW Can anyone tell me what the update.PDF is about? I have purchased the StarmadaX: Brigade book, and the update seems to have a whole bunch of race designs that aren't in Brigade...are they "X" compatible or are they old?
Also, can someone explain what the Twilight Imperium Starmada book is?
In re: to the Grand Fleets campaign....hypothetical WWI scenarios set in the Med. Wins or losses caused you to branch in different directions.
That idea had merit, I think. I'll have to look to see where my notes are buried. The big stumbling block was balancing the scenarios (I don't think Kevin and his playtesters were really satisfied with the first drafts of the battles -- and they had good reason) and getting buy off on my "dry dock" idea.
In terms of Starmada X, has anyone ever looked at C&C rules for your fleet? I'd like to see a fleet enjoy certain advantages in terms of manueverability or coordinating its firepower as long as its flagship is kept intact.
Of course I'm assuming that the Brigade X thing was a win-win product for both companies...right Dan?
Rich
no complaints 
Steve: Glad to hear it. Any ETA on the next batch of IS minis? Know you've been busy with Celtos...
Xombe: I'm not sure about the update.pdf, but Twilight Imperium Starmada is a crossover book that lets you use the races from Starmada in the second edition of Fantasy Flight Games' Twilight Imperium game. Not bad, but a little dated these days, since TI 3rd edition is out now.
Rich
I mentioned this elsewhere......but maybe adding Enhanced Life Support at 5 percent of your total SU's It would be the same as having Armor Plating on your crew when they are attacked by crew casualty weapons...
And also, the inclusion of various races and peoples. I am working on the concept of creating scratch built ships with supporting races and technologies. I would love to be able to post them where people can look and critique to their hearts content.......LOL
I really like the idea of an expanding universe with more races and ships being discovered.
I did join the new Yahoo group that was posted elsewhere, so I am going to be placing stuff there, but it would be awesome to see finallized versions of the races added here. I plan on scratch building my own ships, but also, if we have the people here who can do it, maybe have a counter section for the races as well. That way, we can share our creations with each other and see how our creations fare when pitted against others..........
Nahuris
There's no reason not to send us links to your ship designs and/or PDF them and upload them here.
If there's enough of them, then the newer races will simply slide into the current canon and it'll all be good.
I dunno, maybe we do need a section for player submitted ship designs...
In terms of Starmada X, has anyone ever looked at C&C rules for your fleet? I'd like to see a fleet enjoy certain advantages in terms of manueverability or coordinating its firepower as long as its flagship is kept intact.
The Starmada Edition VBAM book has some ideas on this line...
Which (for the earlier post on campaign rules) are about as comprehensive a source as you could want.
It looks like there are some rules tweaks in order. Specifically:
- The various errata and clarifications in the FAQ
- Whatever Dan decides to do about "the ROF problem"
- Some generalization to make bring regular weapons and spinal mounts under the same rules
- Add campaign rules (I of course plug my "Maximum Burn" rules)
Beyond that, I'd like to see a book with (a) more and better artwork and (b) lots of scenarios. In my humble opinion, scenarios should name specific ships, not just "spend 500 points".
A plan:
1) Fix up the rules and release a PDF file with all of the changes.
2) Dan enumerates design constraints (available technologies, etc.) for each of four or five official races.
2b) Shipyard and SXCA are independently modified to be compliant with the new rules; ships can be double-checked this way
3) A Brigade-style contest is held to gather ship designs for each race. Assuming there are enough submissions, ships from more than one designer may be accepted for a given race.
4) Once the ship designs are published, a second contest is held to design scenarios. These are tested out at conventions.
5) ...
6) Profit!
There, Dan, aren't you glad you have me to tell you what to do with your copious spare time? :-)
It looks like there are some rules tweaks in order. Specifically:
- The various errata and clarifications in the FAQ
Easily to do an update to the PDF (which you noted later).
The book is another matter...
- Whatever Dan decides to do about "the ROF problem"
Problem may be overstating it.
Issue.
And I don't have any heartburn about it.
- Some generalization to make bring regular weapons and spinal mounts under the same rules
Not sure what you mean here.
- Add campaign rules (I of course plug my "Maximum Burn" rules)
While I fully understand the max burn bit, :wink:
with "VBAM: Starmada Edition" out, I wouldn't know why this one wasn't addressed. :?
Beyond that, I'd like to see a book with (a) more and better artwork and (b) lots of scenarios. In my humble opinion, scenarios should name specific ships, not just "spend 500 points".
Agreed. I like deeper feel to the scenarios.
As for the rest of your plan, I would leave that in more capable hands to discuss...
mundungus wrote:- Some generalization to make bring regular weapons and spinal mounts under the same rules
Not sure what you mean here.
Starmada seems to have a philosophy of elegant combination of many orthogonal options -- witness the way weapons are now defined, compared with the Compendium way.
Given that, it feels odd that spinal weapons have to be defined separately from regular weapons. Among other things, they can't have any of the other weapon options. The differences between spinal weapons and normal weapons are:
- Spinal mounts have a special narrow forward arc. I'm not sure if this is important.
- Spinal mounts are really big. We could just raise the ceiling on PEN.
- Spinal mounts take damage as the ship is damaged. This used to be a way to prevent a single hit from crippling a ship based around a spinal mount, but that can happen now with a Q hit. Maybe some kind of "several hits to destroy" option is in order.
- Anime spinal mounts have area effect. Two different area effects are conceivable: one hex and along-the-beam.
- Anime spinal mounts effectively have ROF 1/2. Fractional ROFs should be allowed in general, although it might reduce bookkeeping to limit these to 1/n, where n is a positive integer.
I'd like to see all of these things moved into the regular weapon options, so we don't need special rules for spinal mounts.
mundungus wrote:- Add campaign rules (I of course plug my "Maximum Burn" rules)
While I fully understand the max burn bit, :wink:
with "VBAM: Starmada Edition" out, I wouldn't know why this one wasn't addressed. :?
Through a gift error, I have "VBAM: Starmada Edition" but not the campaign book. Still, it's apparent that the VBAM rules are extremely detailed. Simple campaign rules would only take up a few pages in a Starmada rulebook.
Starmada seems to have a philosophy of elegant combination of many orthogonal options -- witness the way weapons are now defined, compared with the Compendium way.
Given that, it feels odd that spinal weapons have to be defined separately from regular weapons. Among other things, they can't have any of the other weapon options. The differences between spinal weapons and normal weapons are:
- Spinal mounts have a special narrow forward arc. I'm not sure if this is important.
- Spinal mounts are really big. We could just raise the ceiling on PEN.
- Spinal mounts take damage as the ship is damaged. This used to be a way to prevent a single hit from crippling a ship based around a spinal mount, but that can happen now with a Q hit. Maybe some kind of "several hits to destroy" option is in order.
- Anime spinal mounts have area effect. Two different area effects are conceivable: one hex and along-the-beam.
- Anime spinal mounts effectively have ROF 1/2. Fractional ROFs should be allowed in general, although it might reduce bookkeeping to limit these to 1/n, where n is a positive integer.
I'd like to see all of these things moved into the regular weapon options, so we don't need special rules for spinal mounts.
Now I am with you: X evolved the regular weapons while the spinal mount stayed largely unchanged.
We don't play with it enough, and when we do it is on smaller sized ships so I have not given it much thought.
Through a gift error, I have "VBAM: Starmada Edition" but not the campaign book. Still, it's apparent that the VBAM rules are extremely detailed. Simple campaign rules would only take up a few pages in a Starmada rulebook.
Ah.
And that clarifies that one.
Would like to see an updated SXCA with all fighter options and the 4 new systems from VBAM The Starmada Edition. That would be the atmospheric, command center, diplomatic center and military cargo bays added in.
I've done well on modifying the standard SXCA to handle the 4 new systems but have had no luck modifying the SXCA Fighter Plus Version to take the new systems.
Help? :cry:
Roy
There have been a few things that I have seen that I think would be nice additions here and there along the lines of new Weapons Enhancements or Special Equipment:
* Armored Engines (armoring or engines)
* Area of Effect (weapon enhancement that would be like repeating, but the weapon would hit every target in the hex)
Those are the major ones off the top of my head.
In regards to ballistic packages and drones, I had the epiphany that drones are considered ballistic weapons in the VBAM/SX book, so you could easily just have Drone Packages analogous to Ballistic packages to get added effect at an extra economic cost there.
-Tyrel
I know this is a bit of an old topic, but I would like to throw my support behind the things listed above.
The largest frustration for my little group is that we shoot out the engines of our ships very rapidly. I don't know if that's from flws in our designs ofr that it's just easy to do in Starmada. It's only moderately fixed in my opinion with the an Armored Engines option, but it's better than nothing. Hard to those slow heavily armored races when they lose all manueverability with the first two or three '2's are rolled for damage and are dead in the water.
If 'Ballistic Packages' means characteristics to customize drones. I'm all all for that. If it doesn't then I would like to suggest characteristics to customize drones. :mrgreen:
Great game overall. I recommend it often to people.
thanks,
Indy
...but I'd love to see supplements like a scenario book with history of races, ship cards that include images of the vessels, and matching color counter sheets with unique-looking ships for each of the races - for those that cannot afford the mini investment, and don't have the time to always make up our own designs...
I like this idea. I do think the counter sheets (sized for the new disks in the MJ catalog) are necessary if you're going to have ship minis. I like my mini / counter to match the ship illo, and I'll cop to getting more confused when using proxies in Starmada.
Can't promise anything, but there's new things in the works on that front too!
jim
I'd like to see some type of data networking system like the VBAM rules use. This would give a lot more emphasis to flag ships and give a more command and control feel to the game.
A catastrophic damage table/system would also be a great idea.
Jonas Skinner
I too would like to see customizable Drones.
I also support the customizable drones..... since my primary race and ship designs use them, the option to customize them would be awesome.
One idea I am working on right now is technical readouts. With the possibilities inherent in the game, we have the possibility of creating an ever expanding universe, with new races and ideas coming from all of the different players.
My only request as to change in the system, would be the ability to have seperate tech levels per each piece of equipment. Or maybe more categories if possible. I am not familiar with the VBAM material, so cannot comment on that, other than from what I have seen here, it sounds interesting. Also, if we have people good at the graphic art needed (I'm not one of them), then I'd also like to see counters made for those that can't or don't want, figurines.
Just my humble offering to the game....
John
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