Topic: Babylon 5 Wars to Starmada Nova Conversion

Hello all!

3-18-14 Update: Ok, after some do overs, the conversions are looking good!

3-19-14 Update: Took down the pdf because I'm reworking weapons. It makes more sense to normalize slow to rof of 1/4 b5 weapons and normal weapons to rof 1/2

3-21-14 Update: Ok reworked the weapons to normalize slow to rof 1/4, nonslw to rof 1/2. The BAS numbers make a lot more sense. Also working on a version to model sustained, raking, and piercing lasers.

3-22-14 Update: Posted Version 7 with modeling for sustained, piercing, and raking lasers

I'm posting my Babylon 5 Wars Conversions. I spent a lot of time coming up with a conversion formula. Every single conversion is based on mathematical conversions from B5wars stats.  I also made it such that it met the relative scale of ships in the canon star trek books so that you can face them off.

B5Wars hull boxes -> Nova
Medium Vessels: Core Hull Boxes + (CArmor-3)^2
Heavy Combat Vessels: Core Hull Boxes + (CArmor-3)^2 + Front Hull Boxes + (FArmor -3)^2
Capital Ships: Core Hull Boxes + (CArmor-3)^2 + 2*( Front Hull Boxes + (FArmor -3)^2)
Then multiplied resulting number by 7/40 to get nova hull.

Thrust:
B5 Wars Thrust Cost 4 -> Nova 4
B5 Wars Thrust Cost 3 -> Nova 6
B5 Wars Thrust Cost 2 -> Nova 8

B5 Turn/Delay Average Cost of 6 or better adds  +1 Nova Thrust. Turn/Delay Cost of 4 or better OR agile  additionally adds overthrusters (see CR Vorchan-class and Demos-class Warships)

Weapons:
For BAS, I got Average Weapon Damage, then subtracted 4 for armor, then multiplied by 1/8 for BAS. I kept traits to a minimum overall.
-Particle Weapons: No traits.
-Plasma Weapons: Small bump to BAS (added 4 instead of subtracting 4 for armor) and Dfs.
-Interceptors  & Guardian Arrays: 1-2-3 dfs, pnp, and gives ship fragile systems (or negates reinforced systems) and ECM 1.
-Raking Lasers: Subtracted an additional 4 due to rakes hitting multiple armored components, and divided BAS by 3.5 and gave vlt to mimic the randomness of raking weapons. I had to normalize raking light lasers to slow (rof1/4) because they did too little dice damage at rof 1/2. This is most the default, if somewhat random, laser damage mode.
-Sustained Lasers: These were hard to model, because in b5, one usually needed to power down some systems to fire them this way, and the benefit they provided you was that if you hit them, the next turn you auto hit them if they are in your weapon arcs. No way to model this directly, so what I did was made sustained lasers slw, bls weapons because bls weapons can't fire at short range - this mirrors how difficult it is to keep a ship within your arc at close range and because you typically can't afford to power down systems at close range. Their BAS is modeled normally meaning that they have a slight damage boost over raking lasers since they only subtract 4 for armor once (whereas raking weapons subtract the 4 twice), and are much more consistent since their BAS is not divided by 3.5 and made volatile. These are your long range consistent laser damage mode.
-Piercing Lasers: These lasers were easier to model (no EA ships have them). They take a to hit penalty, but add tremendous firepower potential. They have prc, slw, dfs, and cts (BAS divided by 3.5 to normalize). This is your close range laser damage mode.
-Pulse Weapons: Normalized around 2*5 pulse damage - 2.5*4 and then divided BAS from above by 3.5 and gave rpt, vlt to mimic randomness and grouping of pulse weapons. I had to normalize medium pulse cannons to slow (rof1/4) because they did too little dice damage at rof 1/2.

Racial Effects:
EA: None (except Interceptors as modeled above)
CR: Fire Control, Reinforced Systems
NR: Reinforced Systems

Part of the difficulty was tweaking the Hull multiplier and the weapon damage modifier. But after a lot of trial and error, I like the resulting conversions.
Enjoy!

Re: Babylon 5 Wars to Starmada Nova Conversion

I'm not familiar with B5Wars, so I can't comment on the conversion per se, but these seem like some solid designs. I look forward to some after-action reports!

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

Re: Babylon 5 Wars to Starmada Nova Conversion

Having been working on a similar conversion myself, I'd like to offer you some suggestions:

Assign Standard and Piercing mode weapons with a ROF of 1 or less and BAS value of, say, 1.6 or more, Double damage and halve the BAS. For ones with a BAS of greater than 2.4, Triple Damage and third the BAS. This will be a little more realistic as those weapons tend to 'hit' less but with greater effect, as opposed to Raking weapons which would 'hit' more. The overall calculation looks very nice though; similar to what I've been using.

As for Thrust I think you'd be better off basing that on the actual thrust it can output, and giving Overthrusters to ships that are Agile.

The hull calculation seems a bit complicated (and time consuming) for my tastes. I've been using the Ramming Factor as a base, as it's much easier to work with.

I'd love to see the file, see what you've come up with.

Re: Babylon 5 Wars to Starmada Nova Conversion

Ok, posted a new version. I think weapons and armor kinks are finally worked out through trial and error haha. I'll look into thrust more deeply with your suggestions. For now, I've spent a lot of time on hull and weapons, and I'm very happy with them.


The conversion from hull isn't too bad since I just plug it into an excel spreadsheet and it does the calculations for me. I like the ramming factor idea, but it gets messy when you have a Centauri Republic Primus-class Battlecruiser (RF 260) have nearly the same nova hull points as a Earth Alliance Oracle-class Scout Cruiser (RF also 260) when the Primus has in fact very heavy armor.


Thrust is still a conversion process I haven't totally examined in detail, so thank you for the suggestions! I may play with changing raking only weapons to volatile, and maybe even pulse weapons as well. On the other hand, maybe it's just time to understand that it's impossible to really model the random distribution of damage raking or pulse weapons can do across b5 ship components and just not even try to address it except in a very superfical way. Under the current system I'm using, small amounts of raking b5 weapons are a bit powerful in nova because I don't deal with the distribution aspect, but as the number of raking weapons a ship mounts grows, it begins to approach b5 - ie, the fact that the EA Nova-class Dreadnought's 18 Laser-Pulse Arrays may be used as 18 Raking Medium Lasers isn't going to save a target, as likely 4-5 Medium Raking Lasers hits will already nearly all of your components on one side and the remaining lasers will just deal hull damage. It's an interesting issue for sure.

Re: Babylon 5 Wars to Starmada Nova Conversion

Having seen what you've done now I can see where the differences in our design philosophies are.

Mine tended to have a lower hull offset by armor, and a shield rating of 6 or 5 to reflect B5W armor ratings, interception modes of weapons, shielding, etc. I also wasn't concerned with hull space requirements; that's normally the first thing I stop looking at when I'm converting - keeps the hair from going grey.  lol

And yeah, it's impossible to covert everything nicely; and some weapons/systems just don't convert at all, or require a yet-as-to-be-converted/released trait (Ship-only/Fighter-only) that didn't come over from the previous edition. Wouldn't give raking weapons volatile though, keep them as is.

Re: Babylon 5 Wars to Starmada Nova Conversion

Not sure anyone is around to answer questions but I am curious where the FILE for this conversion is. I had zips and PDF files from ages ago but I some of them are corrupted.

Re: Babylon 5 Wars to Starmada Nova Conversion

I think you're looking for the "Babylon 5 Wars Vault". A quick google should get you there. smile

Re: Babylon 5 Wars to Starmada Nova Conversion

Unfortunately, all of the files previously uploaded to the Forum were lost in the recent transition to a new web host. Sorry. sad

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com