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

Topic: Seekers in the Nova Edition

The week before last I played many games of Starmada with my Dad, Nephew, & Gaming Glenn at his store near Ft Lauderdale.  My nephew used seekers on two of his support ships.  They were formitable and their weapon traits were: {Acr,Dx2,Fcs,Tls}  They were range 18 in a FF arc battery. While the seeker-carrying ships stayed at long range, his other ships and my ships (I was on his side) entered into medium & short range of our opponant's fleet. Am I correct in calculating that any weapons that fire at these seekers get a -4 to hit? (-1 for being seekers, -1 for Acr, -2 for Dx2).  Very few were shot down by the target ships.  Even ships with Shields 3+ were ravaged when c40 of these hit them. 
Do fighters get the same minuses to hit strikers, etc. that ship weapons have, or do the ignore the -1 for shooting at seekers?

I have installed "AA Batteries" in my ships to deal with fighters, seekers, etc.  These are range of only 3, and since Sct & Dfs don't affect fighters, etc. these AA Batteries have {Acr,Pnp,Rpt}.  At short range, and with Fire Control, which all my ships have, this should give a +3 to shoot at seekers, etc.  I have these in TT mounts of up to TT8.  Is there anything I could add to these "AA Batteries"?  Are we handling seekers correctly?

  • Registered: 2005-03-29
  • Posts: 859

Re: Seekers in the Nova Edition

Accurate doesn't give a step bonus, it means that hits hit on a 4-6 instead of a 5-6. So your AA batteries would have a +2 to hit...

  • Registered: 2006-07-24
  • Posts: 158

Re: Seekers in the Nova Edition

He means acr as a trait on the seeking weapons

  • Registered: 2005-03-29
  • Posts: 859

Re: Seekers in the Nova Edition

But he's also got accurate on the AA batteries...

  • Registered: 2022-11-16
  • Posts: 516

Re: Seekers in the Nova Edition

BeowulfJB wrote:

The week before last I played many games of Starmada with my Dad, Nephew, & Gaming Glenn at his store near Ft Lauderdale.  My nephew used strikers on two of his support ships.  These strikers were formitable; their weapon traits were: {Acr,Dx2,Fcs,Tls}  They were range 18 in a FF arc battery. While the striker-carrying ships stayed at long range, his other ships and my ships (I was on his side) entered into medium & short range of our opponant's fleet. Am i correct in calculating that any weapons that fire at these strikers get a -4 to hit? (-1 for being strikers, -1 for Acr, -2 for Dx2).  Very few were shot down by the target ships.  Even ships with Shields 3+ were ravaged when c40 of these hit them. 
Do fighters get the same minuses to hit strikers, etc. that ship weapons have, or do the ignore the -1 for shooting at strikers.
I have installed "AA Batteries" in my ships to deal with fighters, strikers, etc.  These are range of only 3, and since Sct & Dfs don't affect fighters, etc. these AA Batteries have {Acr,Pnp,Rpt}.  At short range, and with Fire Control, which all my ships have, this gives a +3 to shoot at strikers, etc.  I have these in TT mounts of up to TT8.  Is there anything I could add to these "AA Batteries"?  Are we handling strikers correctly?

When you say strikers, I assume you're meaning seekers?
If so the following applies.
If not, just disregard.  smile

Attacks against seekers are at a -1.
If a seeking weapon has the accurate trait, attacks against it are at an additional -1.
If a weapon attacking a seeking weapon has the double damage trait, then it has an additional -2 to hit.

So in your case the modifier to hit, just taking into account the seeking weapon, should have been -2.

Kevin

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

Re: Seekers in the Nova Edition

<LOL>  I did mean Seekers.  I used the wrong term.  I went back & changed this in the original post.
When I calculated that the "AA Bateries" on my ships had a +3, it was because of these three things:  Short range, Pnp on the weapon, and Fire Control. 
Another question:  If a ship-weapon has Pnp, does it also get another +1 to hit if the ship has Fire Control?  If not, then the best a weapon can get to fire at seekers, fighters, etc. is a +2.   
If so, I will remove the Pnp from all AA weapons on my ships because they all have Fire Control. 
I will be playing Starmada Thursday and Saturday at SunCoast Comics here in Jacksonville.  The fleet  sorties tomorrow!  8-)

  • From: Denver, CO
  • Registered: 2005-03-27
  • Posts: 3,578

Re: Seekers in the Nova Edition

underling wrote:

If a weapon attacking a seeking weapon has the double damage trait, then it has an additional -2 to hit.

No, he had it right to begin with. The modifiers on p.25 all apply to traits possessed by the SEEKER (i.e. the target) not the firing weapon.

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

mj12games's Website

  • Registered: 2022-11-16
  • Posts: 516

Re: Seekers in the Nova Edition

cricket wrote:
underling wrote:

If a weapon attacking a seeking weapon has the double damage trait, then it has an additional -2 to hit.

No, he had it right to begin with. The modifiers on p.25 all apply to traits possessed by the SEEKER (i.e. the target) not the firing weapon.

I looked at page 25 again, and yep, it looks like I misinterpreted the rules.
Although I'm not sure I understand the logic behind having minuses to hit just because the target has the double or triple damage, or catastrophic damage traits.

  • From: Denver, CO
  • Registered: 2005-03-27
  • Posts: 3,578

Re: Seekers in the Nova Edition

underling wrote:

Although I'm not sure I understand the logic behind having minuses to hit just because the target has the double or triple damage, or catastrophic damage traits.

The meta-game reason is that otherwise, players would never design seekers with traits like Dx2 or Dx3, since such weapons can be shot down more efficiently than weapons with 2x or 3x the attack dice.

The in-game reason is that such weapons are probably much larger than "normal" seekers, and thus take more damage to destroy.

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

mj12games's Website