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mj12games.com/forum → Starmada → SNE Flotillas
After a few months, I've decided to put together a single document regarding flotillas, including some of the latest ideas I've had. Feedback is not only welcome, but encouraged, specifically with regards to the Understrength/Half-Flotillas and Combat-Basing DEFSATs. I had considered making it a 'beta' release, but decided against it.
I just downloaded these rules and will look them over later. But it looks interesting. 8-)
Cheers
I have a question, or two.
Since each hit on a Flotilla destroys 83SU (Hull3 / 3) how would you represent the loss of ships?
Each hit destroys 13 Ultralights? (and a bit)
How do you calculate the firepower at each point of loss?
Do you have a mock up of how to display a Flotilla?
Just to be getting on with.
Paul
Ah, okay...
Because flotillas are/were an attempt to give people a feeling of commanding smaller ships without too many new rules, they were designed to slot in easily to the existing rules. Each flotilla is in effect a hull 3 vessel, so they are represented by a Hull 3 vessel and are designed as a Hull 3 vessel--the only differences are:
1) Flotillas should generally have a 'hull strength' one level above their corresponding ships--thus if the standard ship types have neither Fragile nor Reinforced Systems, the flotilla would normally have Reinforced Systems. This is to represent that while some units got hit, they might have been less combat-effective units
2) Flotillas have a TL of 1 above their corresponding ships (to give the flotilla more space to work with)
3) After the flotilla-wide SUs have been calculated, each flotilla unit gets an allocation that they may fill with weapons, fixed-SU equipment, or even (though I haven't done this, I've considered it) additional thrust, defences or escort/scout ability.
I hope this clarifies matters. If not, then quite a few of my supplements (which has several examples of flotillas) might help...;) [SHAMELESS PLUG DETECTED]
No this is a shameless plug! :shock:
[attachment=0]Shameless Plug.png[/attachment]
Paul
You're right. I stand corrected 
Just curious, having read your rules (and planning on trying to use them in an upcoming setting I'm working on), how do you think your rules will work with tech levels other than the standard +2/-2 range? For example, in my setting I'm using a +3/-3 range (using the old AE formula for tech levels).
They should work quite well--however, I limited it to the SNE tech levels because of the way I operate now (i.e., inputting the designs into OldnGrey's shipyard, copying and pasting it into a notepad file until I eventually write-up the document) and because his shipyard TLs range from -2 to +2, that's what I work with...:)
I would think, though, that -3 for the lower-hulled vessels would result in a vessel 'armed' with a tractor beam or a single probe--when I was designing vessels in SX (where the -3 TL was initially introduced as an unofficial expansion of the canon TLs, I think) I found that a vessel with -3 in engines, shields, weapons and equipment was slow, poorly-protected and barely armed. Perfect for the VBAM games I was playing (it represented early space-faring race's ships very well when confronted with even low-interstellar ships) but maybe not fun to actually set down in a Starmada game.
If I may, Tech levels -2 to +2 are as per the AE core rules (a default level range) but you can change the "Tech Range" as per Expanded Tech Levels (which just stretches the 0.5 to 2.0 modifier over greater levels) also as per core rules.
Example in the book is -5 to +5 but the shipyard will go finer up to -10 to +10.
Choice is at C1 on the tables sheet.
Paul
:oops:
I never used those expanded rules--rather, I used the SX rules instead, where a -3 TL incurred a 280% modifier and a +3 TL incurred a 35% modifier. For me, personally, that made it easier to do designs for VBAM, and it made sense (for me, personally) to stick to those TLs in SAE.
Note: nested brackets ahoy!
Now knowing which TL range I'm supposed to be answering the question with (thanks Paul 
) I can't see any major problems *at the moment*. I'll have to do a bit of calcs to see what you should multiply the base SUs by (should be just (100/SAE Tech Level Modifier) rounded to the nearest 1-10% (so the TL for +1 in SAE, which was 0.71 [again, I modified it to the SX value of 0.7] would make it 100/0.71=~140.8 rounded to 140)) and see if you've got enough levels between them to have noticeable improvements...
I know this is a bit of a necro, but have you ever figured out a good way to simulate flotillas not losing their thrust rating when they make a damage check?
It seems like they should lose firepower when they lose a 'hull point', but not thrust - since the individual ships constituting the flotilla are fewer in number, but not each individually damaged.
A simple special rule should be that flotillas automatically take weapon bank damage (no roll required) and have an increased chance to take special systems damage, but never take shield or engine damage.
Um, no, not really. My main concern was to insert flotillas with minimal changes to the rules--so it's not too much trouble to simply slot in, as it were. I like your idea, however I think there should always be the possibility of taking shield and thrust damage (think of it as shrapnel from exploding flotilla ships impacting other ships).
Here's a first draft of the flotilla damage concept:
"Units designated as Flotillas should be treated as having Fragile Systems for weapon, system and munitions, but Re-inforced systems for thrust points and shields"
That gives an automatic 50% reduction in weapon, system and munition damage but a much reduced chance of thrust or shield damage, representing the reduction in raw firepower and loss of unit coherency, but showing that ships are rarely physically affected by other ships being destroyed.
Um, no, not really. My main concern was to insert flotillas with minimal changes to the rules--so it's not too much trouble to simply slot in, as it were. I like your idea, however I think there should always be the possibility of taking shield and thrust damage (think of it as shrapnel from exploding flotilla ships impacting other ships).
Here's a first draft of the flotilla damage concept:
"Units designated as Flotillas should be treated as having Fragile Systems for weapon, system and munitions, but Re-inforced systems for thrust points and shields"
That gives an automatic 50% reduction in weapon, system and munition damage but a much reduced chance of thrust or shield damage, representing the reduction in raw firepower and loss of unit coherency, but showing that ships are rarely physically affected by other ships being destroyed.
I think it might be better to generalize that Flotillas always take weapons/munition damage with a Hull it and never take Thrust damage (and just leave Shields as is)...that way you retain the ability to use the Fragile Systems and Reinforced Systems traits in design. Just my $0.02.
Erik
Hmm, that works too...:)
Hmm, I agree. But a rule which says 'always take weapons damage, never shield or engines' isn't a totally 'fair' tradeoff - a ship could, if rolling damage checks, take damage in several at once. It also begs the question of whether a flotilla with one 'weapons bank' could be in bad shape under this rule, which one with the same points cost but two banks could be in better shape, since MC's rules assume we're using bank-specific damage.
Would the following rule work: "Flotillas, when damaged, never take shield or engine damage, but take two weapon damage results and roll as normal for special systems."
As long as every flotilla was required to have three or four banks, that would work very well (damage check one: two banks damaged, or one bank completely destroyed. Damage check two: all four banks damaged, or two banks destroyed).
It would also work well with Murtalianconfederacy's rules for how many ships and of what type they are, since those rules give some good ideas on how to set up the banks based on what kind of ships are in the flotilla.
Here's a sample flotilla from an IP we all basically understand:
(33) X-Wing Squadron -class Flotilla Nova TL: 2
Armor: 1 * 1 * 1
Hull: 1 * 1 * 1
Thrust: 12 8 6 4 3
Shields: 5 6 6 6 6
ECM: 0 0 0 0 0
Weapons: 0 1 2 3 4
[V]: 1x Red Leader and Red 1 (Dfs/Pnp) / [FH] / 1 - 2 - 3 / AD: 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Mode2 (Gid/Skr/Slw) / 2 - 4 - 6 / AD: 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
[W]: 1x Red 2 and Red 3 (Dfs/Pnp) / [FH] / 1 - 2 - 3 / AD: 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Mode2 (Gid/Skr/Slw/Dx2) / 1 - 2 - 3 / AD: 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
[X]: 1x Red 4 and Red 5 (Dfs/Pnp) / [FH] / 1 - 2 - 3 / AD: 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Mode2 (Gid/Skr/Slw) / 2 - 4 - 6 / AD: 2 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Special: Hyperdrive
Under the proposed damage rules, on its first damage check, two 'vessels' from the flotilla are gone and one 'bank' is destroyed (oh no! We lost Red 4 and Red 5!) or two 'vessels' from the flotilla are gone and two banks are firing at a -1 (Red 3 and Red 5 are both gone!). If you get unlucky and roll for damage, the whole flotilla can't go to hyperspace - maybe a destroyed ship had the coordinates, a damaged ship's debris are causing interference, who knows.
Hmm, I agree. But a rule which says 'always take weapons damage, never shield or engines' isn't a totally 'fair' tradeoff - a ship could, if rolling damage checks, take damage in several at once. It also begs the question of whether a flotilla with one 'weapons bank' could be in bad shape under this rule, which one with the same points cost but two banks could be in better shape, since MC's rules assume we're using bank-specific damage.
Would the following rule work: "Flotillas, when damaged, never take shield or engine damage, but take two weapon damage results and roll as normal for special systems."
As long as every flotilla was required to have three or four banks, that would work very well (damage check one: two banks damaged, or one bank completely destroyed. Damage check two: all four banks damaged, or two banks destroyed).
It would also work well with Murtalianconfederacy's rules for how many ships and of what type they are, since those rules give some good ideas on how to set up the banks based on what kind of ships are in the flotilla.
Here's a sample flotilla from an IP we all basically understand:
(33) X-Wing Squadron -class Flotilla Nova TL: 2
Armor: 1 * 1 * 1
Hull: 1 * 1 * 1
Thrust: 12 8 6 4 3
Shields: 5 6 6 6 6
ECM: 0 0 0 0 0
Weapons: 0 1 2 3 4
[V]: 1x Red Leader and Red 1 (Dfs/Pnp) / [FH] / 1 - 2 - 3 / AD: 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Mode2 (Gid/Skr/Slw) / 2 - 4 - 6 / AD: 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
[W]: 1x Red 2 and Red 3 (Dfs/Pnp) / [FH] / 1 - 2 - 3 / AD: 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Mode2 (Gid/Skr/Slw/Dx2) / 1 - 2 - 3 / AD: 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
[X]: 1x Red 4 and Red 5 (Dfs/Pnp) / [FH] / 1 - 2 - 3 / AD: 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Mode2 (Gid/Skr/Slw) / 2 - 4 - 6 / AD: 2 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Special: HyperdriveUnder the proposed damage rules, on its first damage check, two 'vessels' from the flotilla are gone and one 'bank' is destroyed (oh no! We lost Red 4 and Red 5!) or two 'vessels' from the flotilla are gone and two banks are firing at a -1 (Red 3 and Red 5 are both gone!). If you get unlucky and roll for damage, the whole flotilla can't go to hyperspace - maybe a destroyed ship had the coordinates, a damaged ship's debris are causing interference, who knows.
This is better than using traits to simulate and still simple enough. Oh, and Red 5 never dies.
Erik
Tried to put these discussions into a simple-to-read, organized form in case Dan ever wants to put them in something like a Starmada Nova Rules Compendium. How to create and use flotillas in one page, plus a few sample flotillas to give people an idea of the diversity that's possible.
Thanks again to MC for the origin of these ideas about small ship groups as hull-3 ships.
And here's my riposte...:)
I looked through your document and found some incompatibilities with your rules and some (maybe even most, if not all) of the flotillas I've employed in the past as well as a difference in the SU requirement for basing. So I quickly threw together this document.
No need for it to be a riposte, we're working together, not competing
You're right that my general values doesn't match some of your flotillas from supplements - I wasn't aiming for backwards compatibility. I don't think that's an essential part of the proposed special rules anyway, though, so I'd be happy to let it go - the fewer rules the better.
On your suggestion for a way to find a balance between a straight cost for basing flotillas and a cost for each individual flotilla on the mothership, I think you've hit on something. There does need to be a way to show that it's not just the flotilla itself, but also the basing capacity, that requires space in the ship.
As for your suggestions with regards to weapon damage, they really do capture the mechanical effect we want to go for with weapon banks being lost in a way that represents ships being knocked out of the flotilla. However, since Flotillas have the potential to be pretty darned numerous, having people rolling on tables every time they lose a hull point or two has the potential to create book keeping nightmares. I wonder if there's a middle ground between my version (which I agree is a little too simplistic and bad at simulating heterogeneous flotillas) and MurtalianConfederacy's system, which might create a bit too much book keeping.
I'm enjoying this discussion - lots of food for thought and many interesting ideas.
Re: weapon damage--I thought that just rolling one die per flotilla wouldn't be as bad, dice rolling-wise, but I can see that multiple flotillas could slow down gameplay somewhat...
Idea: An optional rule (for the optional flotillas) could be to allow players fighting large fleet actions the opportunity to simply say that each flotilla weapon damage roll is automatically 1--thus, for a weapon battery with four banks, the flotilla would lose two banks on the first hull hit, no roll required. I'd say making this kick in for 1000 or 2000pt-plus fleets would make sense--the larger fleet sizes would require some simplifying during gameplay, but for small fleets there should be some ability for a flotilla to retain capabilities for longer. I might have nicked this idea from Hard Vacuum for their fleet actions, but couldn't say for sure...
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