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mj12games.com/forum → Starmada → New edition of Starmada coming in January!
Dan,
I've been working on a 'Space Empire' building game since 1978, I'm now in my 9th iteration. Nothing published yet. So compared to me, you are way above the curve. And you are doing a better job here letting us know your status than at VBAM. Thanks for your hard work !
Dan,
I know that you worked with VBAM for the empire level to add to Starmada but have you ever thought or using Starfire for the Empire level? I do think the it is a better choice as it is both more comprehensive and more fully developed that what I have see with VBAM. It is also more complex also.
Dan,
I know that you worked with VBAM for the empire level to add to Starmada but have you ever thought or using Starfire for the Empire level? I do think the it is a better choice as it is both more comprehensive and more fully developed that what I have see with VBAM. It is also more complex also.
More complexity than VBAM (which is already insanely complex and unplayable for most people with family and normal working time) is not really a positive sign.
tytalan wrote:Dan,
I know that you worked with VBAM for the empire level to add to Starmada but have you ever thought or using Starfire for the Empire level? I do think the it is a better choice as it is both more comprehensive and more fully developed that what I have see with VBAM. It is also more complex also.More complexity than VBAM (which is already insanely complex and unplayable for most people with family and normal working time) is not really a positive sign.
I'll second that.
VBAM put has put people off campaigns although I cannot judge the version being worked on now. A less complex campaign system that gives reasons for space battles (without having to know that Joe Bloggs is upset that he did not become first minister of third planet on the left), that anyone can pick up and use is needed.
We need a KISS campaign book along the line of This is your empire, This is your spending money, You can buy these forces and lastly a set of objective cards (More space needed, capture/find a new planet : Pirate attack, go sort it out).
That way we can have fun without the lengthy headache.
Paul
Enpeze wrote:tytalan wrote:Dan,
I know that you worked with VBAM for the empire level to add to Starmada but have you ever thought or using Starfire for the Empire level? I do think the it is a better choice as it is both more comprehensive and more fully developed that what I have see with VBAM. It is also more complex also.More complexity than VBAM (which is already insanely complex and unplayable for most people with family and normal working time) is not really a positive sign.
I'll second that.
VBAM put has put people off campaigns although I cannot judge the version being worked on now. A less complex campaign system that gives reasons for space battles (without having to know that Joe Bloggs is upset that he did not become first minister of third planet on the left), that anyone can pick up and use is needed.
We need a KISS campaign book along the line of This is your empire, This is your spending money, You can buy these forces and lastly a set of objective cards (More space needed, capture/find a new planet : Pirate attack, go sort it out).
That way we can have fun without the lengthy headache.Paul
Agreed... the rest of my group was unable / unwilling to actually read the VBAM rules.
I'll 4th that. We ran a campaign using the sovreign stars rules found in the Rules Annex and that was just the right level of complexity.
A campaign should a reason to design and paint up your own fleet and give more meaning to your battles. Anymore than that and its not really a campaign system - just a game on its own.
-Tim
VBAM works but like most campaign games that try to cover every eventuality, they take time, sometimes a lot.
If you have the time to invest in the game and learning the rules a campaign can be enjoyable.
From my point of view, having the VBAM/Starmada ship conversion made the actual battles the best part. 
It all comes down to the individuals preferences, a campaign that uses Starmada to decide battles or a campaign system that simply gives you a nice reason to blast enemy starships to dust.
Paul
Dan,
I know that you worked with VBAM for the empire level to add to Starmada but have you ever thought or using Starfire for the Empire level? I do think the it is a better choice as it is both more comprehensive and more fully developed that what I have see with VBAM. It is also more complex also.
Current Starfire is borderline insane. Using the old Starfire III or Starfire New Empires would be more user friendly. VBAM is a lot to digest as well in my opinion.
you want a game the encurage combat than Starfire your game. the main issiue with the current version of starfire is the system and ship construction rules Starmada fixes that. Income and resource allowcation is done with an free excel spread sheet. I have play all version of starfire and my group major problem is keeping people from jumping ahead. VBAM just does not make any sence to many game ran political rules. I like the ideal of addption starmada for starfire because I believe that the ship construction and combat will solve many of the current problems. anyone wants to talk about it and help me with it can cantact me at the "starfire Starmada project " on facebook. I await the new edition because from what has been said it may solve some of my problems
In My Humble Opinion (How humble can a guy planning on ruling the galaxy be? :twisted: ) we overuse the word 'campaign'. In military terms a campaign is a series of operations which result in achieving (hopefully) a strategic goal. The goals and forces available to the commanders are often outside their direct control. It is normally only part of any war and often of relevantly short time scale, at least in terms of the overall war. 'True' campaign games would normally have no tech development as they are normally over too quickly and have limited forces and goals.
Wargame 'campaigns' however often include the Strategic/Political elements in which politicians and economists play the major rolls. If you want to play strategic games with a strong tactical battle system (and I do) you play the likes of VBAM or Starfire (both require a significant investment of time) with starmada as an addition. But if you want to generate battles with some relationship use other systems such as Sovereign Stars. It depends on whether your focus is strategic or tactical.
The important point however about all the systems above is they are really sets of tool kits to build the game you want. For example, VBAM is at its heart a quite simple system 
, but of course faced with the possibility of worrying about Joe Bloggs the Governor of that planet third from the left we all do and end up using all those optional rules! My personnel weakness is multi-planet solar systems 
.
This weakness for using all the rules is a problem with Starmada. Its meant, by picking rules and traits, to allow us to play any sci-fi background but judging by the threads on this forum normally we just allow all options and complain about imbalance in the system. Dan and the other game designers/authors are giving us the tools to design our own games and we bear some responsibility for the choices or non-choices we make.
In short I want VBAM, Starfire and all the other systems available so I can pick and choose each time I start a new game what and how I want to play. Greedy I know 
.
Different strokes for different folks and times.
In My Humble Opinion (How humble can a guy planning on ruling the galaxy be? :twisted: ) we overuse the word 'campaign'. In military terms a campaign is a series of operations which result in achieving (hopefully) a strategic goal. The goals and forces available to the commanders are often outside their direct control. It is normally only part of any war and often of relevantly short time scale, at least in terms of the overall war. 'True' campaign games would normally have no tech development as they are normally over too quickly and have limited forces and goals.
Wargame 'campaigns' however often include the Strategic/Political elements in which politicians and economists play the major rolls. If you want to play strategic games with a strong tactical battle system (and I do) you play the likes of VBAM or Starfire (both require a significant investment of time) with starmada as an addition. But if you want to generate battles with some relationship use other systems such as Sovereign Stars. It depends on whether your focus is strategic or tactical.
The important point however about all the systems above is they are really sets of tool kits to build the game you want. For example, VBAM is at its heart a quite simple system
This weakness for using all the rules is a problem with Starmada. Its meant, by picking rules and traits, to allow us to play any sci-fi background but judging by the threads on this forum normally we just allow all options and complain about imbalance in the system. Dan and the other game designers/authors are giving us the tools to design our own games and we bear some responsibility for the choices or non-choices we make.
In short I want VBAM, Starfire and all the other systems available so I can pick and choose each time I start a new game what and how I want to play. Greedy I know
Different strokes for different folks and times.
You, sir, just hit several nails on their respective heads. Your clarification of the definition of campaign is a good point (and something that we do often forget); arguably the best campaign system I have seen for that definition of Battlefleet Gothic's, where you as the commander really don't have much control over what you get, and where your scope of operations is limited to a small component of a much greater war. Simplest also does a relatively good job in an abstracted manner. VBAM and Starfire really belong to the Grand Strategy genre.
I agree that the core of VBAM is rather simple, but it is presented less than optimally for new readers (with the heroes / leaders rules being my weakness, I think). Also agree that option bloat generates imbalance across many, many systems; this is to some extent why I quit playing D&D. When you add more options, you get an exponential explosion of option combinations, and odds are very very good that some of those combinations were not considered by the publisher.
I personally love the "Space empire" grand strategy games. Just got the new Solar Starfire, waiting on the 'new' VBAM, and currently working on my 9th iteration of my own system. To me, they give purpose to all those battles I fight. Still, they are not needed for a quick pick-up game with friends who don't want to go that deep to fight others in SPACE, instead of some other Genre. So Starmada as a battle scenario builder, or an alternate combat system for the Grand strategy is viable for BOTH. Some basic empire building rules would be cool, but that is all that is needed at this time. If Dan gets a ton of feedback saying, We want a more complex system and are willing to put our wallets where our mouths are; I'm sure he can think about that and come to his own conclusion as to where Starmada can expand to.
I'm gonna have problems getting someone (other than my daughter) to play Starfire due to its complexity. But I'm sure gonna enjoy some very complex solo campaigns playing it. VBAM looks almost easy compared to it, so I might get others to go to that level, maybe even include some of the Campaign Guide rules (I also like the multi-planet rules). Different complexity levels isn't really an issue to me, it is a godsend that there is something out there for everyone, because some days I feel like working on my empire and other days I just want a fun 'Blast em' battle.
With respect to Starmada: Nova Edition...
"Is it soup yet?" 
Thank you Mikeaxe,Nomad, and Vandervecton I was having a hard time explaining things and all of you help. I have put my project on tempary hold while waiting for the new edition of Starmada but one of the thing I like about it was once I have a good ecc conversion I can create differnt tech style for deffernt starfire games.
I have tried, with more or less success, to generate ships. for Starfire (in the bourbaki basin), and although modelizing weapons was relatively easy, converting ships wasn't. Not only there much too many of them for each race, but there usually weren't racial enabling to differentiate terran from orion, for example. So i decided to use the universe as a basis and didn't tried to translate it as accurately as possible.
I'll take a look at it when the nova edition will be released.
What would you have done?
Marc
I'm getting the shakes from starmada-withdrawal. Help me Dan!
You all have been so patient, here's a tiny reward: The first 11 pages of the Starmada Nova Rulebook!
Hooray! Looks good. The clock-numbering on the arcs is more intuitive than their definitions in the previous draft rules. Also digging the partial VP rules on the last page; there's a good reason to keep on a heavily-damage ship, but also some benefit for inflicting non-destroying damage.
'course this happens just as some folks here were getting withdrawal symptoms too, and planning to start a Simplest campaign...
I can see the partial VP rules being quite useful to differentiate between a quick raid (use partial) vs desperate defence (don't use partial) scenarios, applying them different to either side in such a conflict
All around awesome!
I like the initiative system. I also like how if your opponent vastly outnumbers you, that you get to select one of their ships each phase to get moved. That will definitely mitigate the strategy of taking one or two big ships and the rest small ones to ensure that you could move last and shoot first with the big ships.
Love the fire arcs. Love the movement (thank you for no backwards movement). Glad that sideslips are in the mix too. Damage resolution looks pretty fast - faster than before and faster than Full Thrust.
Our group will definitely be into the partial VPs too. It will actually come in handy for a multi-force game where you don't want to just give the ship that scored the killing blow ALL the VPs.
Having thought about the new shooting system (with the table) and reading it again its quite brilliant. You don't have to worry about the probabilities getting out of whack when your to hit modifiers force you to "the end of the die". I can see where this was a necessary step when ratings (beyond 1) were added to ECM.
-Tim
All around awesome!
I like the initiative system. I also like how if your opponent vastly outnumbers you, that you get to select one of their ships each phase to get moved. That will definitely mitigate the strategy of taking one or two big ships and the rest small ones to ensure that you could move last and shoot first with the big ships.
Love the fire arcs. Love the movement (thank you for no backwards movement). Glad that sideslips are in the mix too. Damage resolution looks pretty fast - faster than before and faster than Full Thrust.
Our group will definitely be into the partial VPs too. It will actually come in handy for a multi-force game where you don't want to just give the ship that scored the killing blow ALL the VPs.
Having thought about the new shooting system (with the table) and reading it again its quite brilliant. You don't have to worry about the probabilities getting out of whack when your to hit modifiers force you to "the end of the die". I can see where this was a necessary step when ratings (beyond 1) were added to ECM.
-Tim
Ooh, good catch with the initiative system! I missed that bit, and it is a good notion. Movement order is going to become a much more interesting affair than most alternating games (ex: BattleTech). Looks like this might mean fighters are still going to move reactively, though - if an opponent forces you to activate a fighter squadron early, you really can't put it in a position where it can be guaranteed shooting opportunities. It's a significantly worse penalty than having to move a ship early.
Also, good point to NetWilk about using Partial VP to differentiate scenarios. I guess AE did that already with Hit and Run, but I think the "binary fraction per third of hull" system is significantly better than "full points for half hull". More broadly applicable.
@Nomad
I guess we'll have to see exactly when fighters move. I had assumed based on the outcome of that poll that they would have their own movement phase... but even then I can see some instances where you can force your opponents to move an interceptor type fighter first - which is suboptimal at best!
-Tim
@Nomad
I guess we'll have to see exactly when fighters move. I had assumed based on the outcome of that poll that they would have their own movement phase... but even then I can see some instances where you can force your opponents to move an interceptor type fighter first - which is suboptimal at best!
-Tim
You have more faith in democracy than I, sir
I suppose also it depends on whether or not Combat Air Patrol still exists. If it does, then there's really no trouble in being forced to activate a fighter flight early during a separate fighter movement phase. On the other hand, it does seem like an inelegant hack onto this particular movement system.
Fighters will have their own movement phase.
/sighs
I definitely hope there is an option for simultaneous movement...
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