Topic: Unity: Seeking Weapons deployment Limits?

Welcome.

Yes, there doesn't appear to be any limits on how many seeking weapons you could have on the board (or your ship). It's more of a common sense thing - Starmada was designed to be played in a friendly environment. Deploying that many seeking weapons, while not against any published rule, is likely to result in the ire of other gamers, flipped tables, and real life volleys of dice. Either that, or you're playing with a bunch of people who have no issues with tracking that many counters... If that's the case you might actually have bigger problems.  big_smile

Starmada isn't supposed to be rules heavy, SFB has that one wrapped up nicely. I've gotten the impression that there's the unwritten rule of "no min-maxing tolerated". House rules can always fix most problems. We're a light hearted group.

As for a magazine/ammo based system; there was one in the older Admiralty rules. I know Dan said that he wanted to simplify starship construction (Appendix Z I believe), and ammo was another calculation on top of the weapon one, so I can see how it got turned into the Expendable trait.

If you want that kind of system either a) make a house rule that states you can only fire X amount of seekers per turn/battery/etc. and load them to the gills, b) wait a bit and someone *cough*murtalianconfederacy*cough* will probably come up with an unofficial rule, or c) wait and see if Dan releases a rules annex with that as an optional rule.

Just my 2c CAD.

Re: Unity: Seeking Weapons deployment Limits?

/door bursts open

Someone say my name? big_smile

On a serious note, I too would like to see a UE system for ammunition, because I too would love to have a system whereby you have to keep an eye on ammunition expenditures a la Honorverse (or indeed any setting where logistics plays a role). But, seeing as how there's other books in the works, as it were, I'd hesitate about doing house rules at the moment only for an official rule to address that issue much, much better.

With that in mind, however, seeing as AE did have an ammunition setting, I'd suggest looking at that to see if some workaround could be used. I won't be doing that myself because if I did, and released settings with my house rule only for official ammunition rules to be brought in, I'd have to go back and re-do those settings. And no-one wants that...right? Right?

Re: Unity: Seeking Weapons deployment Limits?

All of this is true. While I haven't gone to the extent of 1000 missiles, this design is simple enough:

Munchkin MIGHTY MITE-class Uber-Frigate (278)
 
Hull: 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1
Engines: 5-4-3-2-1
Weapons: 323-259-194-130-65
Shields: 3-3-2-2-1
 
Mini Missile (MA 6) 1×6+/1/1 (Exp)
323x ABCDEF // (162)

This may seem impressive, but consider:

On average...

323 will be fired, but only 54 of those will hit (not counting defensive fire).
Of those, 27 will be blocked by an average shield rating (3).
Of those, only 14 will cause hull damage.

So, this design can be reasonably confident of eliminating one CA-sized target in a single volley; after which, it is useless.

Broken? Maybe. But given a game or two, I'm sure any competent opponent can find a way of countering it.

Fun to play? Not really. And that, frankly, is the ultimate answer to any attempt to min-max the game; "Is it fun to play and/or play against?"

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

Re: Unity: Seeking Weapons deployment Limits?

Carp. I accidentally deleted godsgopher's original post.

I assure you, that was just a mistake, not a values judgement. smile

You were asking whether it would be possible to implement a weapon system in which X missiles can be fired per turn, drawing from a limited stockpile of Y.

As others noted, this was something available in a previous edition of Starmada, of which the Expendable trait is an adaptation. Based on your feedback, and that from others, the "Ammo" rule is likely to be among the first to be re-implemented in a supplement. wink

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

Re: Unity: Seeking Weapons deployment Limits?

mj12games wrote:

As others noted, this was something available in a previous edition of Starmada, of which the Expendable trait is an adaptation. Based on your feedback, and that from others, the "Ammo" rule is likely to be among the first to be re-implemented in a supplement. wink

Mj12games, thanks for the reply. I'm actually glad to hear I was correct in my assessment of the game. Not because I may have detected any serious flaw, but because it means I am picking up the rules correctly. Its always a little bit of a worry when I follow a rabbit hole and come out the other end that I understood everything correctly. I am after all new to these rules with no experience with previous editions.

I'm glad to hear that launchers and magazines will likely see a return as an option. I understand the desire and the need to simplify a game when and where possible. Needless complexity is the death of any good game, however I do believe this is a good trait to offer as an option. I do say option and not requirement. Here's a short list of setting that I know use this system.

David Webers "Honor Harrington" series.
John G. Hemry "The Lost Fleet" series.
Starfleet Battles: "Drones"
Renegade Legion: Leviathan
The Expanse (Sci-fi TV show, watch this if you haven't!), also a book series.

For the moment I'm thinking Ill limit myself to a base seeker limit equal to the "hull" value of the launching ship. So seekers in excess of this are just considered in the magazine. Perhaps what we need are two systems...

1. Use the current Seeker system with limit on the total seekers a single ship can control at one time. Seekers could still be destroyed by weapon loss.

2. A Launcher and Magazine configuration, where the launchers can be destroyed, but the magazine remains secure except maybe to some kind of major critical.

Consequently, I was able to design a seeker that was 2+ accuracy, damage 5, "expendable" and "catastrophic" that require 3.1 spaces each.  So a thousand spaces would allow me to load 322 of them. I don't have the experience with the game to call that a fleet killer, but I'm not prepared to say its not balanced, fair, or fun.

Ironically, this very situation is how David Weber directed the evolution of starship combat in his Honor'verse. Ships eventually just became massive launching platforms for scatterpack missiles, utterly overwhelming any hope of a battlegroups point defense.

Re: Unity: Seeking Weapons deployment Limits?

Couple things to keep in mind:

1) In order to get your 3-space-unit missiles, you have to give them a movement allowance of 4, and a single 60-degree firing arc. You can mount a lot of them, but they will be almost trivially easy to outrun or outmaneuver.

2) Each hit scored by defensive fire will eliminate as many as 15 potential damage points.

I'm not suggesting seeking weapons cannot be abused -- they certainly can, and it's possible a limiting rule or two will need to be enacted. But so can direct-fire weapons. On a hull-8 ship with an engine rating of 5, I can mount 1000 range-9 1x6+/1/1 (Exp) weapons.

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

Re: Unity: Seeking Weapons deployment Limits?

I have always used the same limits for firing expendable ordnance as for firing drones. When even a large ship can fire no more than a handful in each turn, they are less than an unbalancing weapon. However, I agree that letting a weapon fire from a magazine gives a closer simulation of some backgrounds.

Re: Unity: Seeking Weapons deployment Limits?

I've come to realize the crux of this discussion is the Expendable trait, and not Seeking weapons. Clearly, the two will go hand-in-hand in a lot of settings, but the concerns raised here are really about the former. I don't know if that changes anything, just a light bulb that went off in my head. smile

I personally believe the fighter/drone launch limits are a bit restrictive to apply for ALL expendable weapons on a ship. I think a more realistic place to start would be to limit a ship to firing a number of expendable weapons per turn equal to its hull size, and work from there.

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

Re: Unity: Seeking Weapons deployment Limits?

I know in Squadron Strike this is somewhat mitigated by restricting the number of weapons a ship can have... or maybe I'm wrong, its been a while!

Other ideas:
-If using defensive weapons or Anti-fighter batteries in defensive mode - you are allowed to roll AFTER the to hit roll of the seeking weapon, that way you only have to shoot down ones that were on target. (I think this one was in Squadron Strike too)
-Ships have have a limited number of seeking weapons they can "control" at anyone time (star fleet battles had this)

Strictly speaking, its the expendable that is the problem here, not the seeking weapons.  While you are right to give a discount for a weapon you can only use once, what that tends to mean is that someone just brings a weapon that is 5x more powerful and just shoots it off once during the approach and pulls off a devastating attack.

I think another way to mitigate that might be to have "expendable or ammo" weapons take up the exact same room as a weapon with unlimited shots, but have a cheaper cost.  That way you couldn't pack that many into your ship to begin with.

-Tim

Re: Unity: Seeking Weapons deployment Limits?

I have been wondering if it's not worth stipulating that at least 50% of a ship's ORAT must come from non-expendable sources.

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

Re: Unity: Seeking Weapons deployment Limits?

Does all of this mean that the adjustment for Expendable is, perhaps, not costed properly? I know Dan is exceptional when it comes to these things, but even he is human. Mostly. As far as I know.

Re: Unity: Seeking Weapons deployment Limits?

I do not believe a case has been made that Expendable is unbalanced or "wrong". (That could happen, but it hasn't happened yet. smile) Reasons why I believe the point value is fine as-is:

1) The same numbers have been in use (more or less) since 2008.

2) The discount (in terms of ORAT) progresses from 50% to 90%, with an average of around 75%. Most ships have the opportunity to fire their weapons at least four times per game, so charging a quarter of what an unlimited weapon would cost seems reasonable.

The problem, as I see it, is that the flat 80% discount on space means you can mount a metric crap-ton of cheap weapons on a middling-sized hull. But this has ALWAYS been the case, yet no one has ever done it. Why? Because (a) it's not fun and (2) you won't win that way.

That being said, with the introduction of seeking weapons, I believe Expendable (and Ammo) will become more and more desirable as a way of modeling specific universes. So I'm not opposed to coming up with simple methods to discourage their abuse.

Regardless, the conversation so far has been nothing but theoretical. I don't want to consider modifications to point costs until some models have hit the table.

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

Re: Unity: Seeking Weapons deployment Limits?

As stated: you are exceptional with the numeric balancing of this game -- so, if upon reflection you think it is right, then I am not in any position (without a lot of evidence) to disagree.  big_smile

Re: Unity: Seeking Weapons deployment Limits?

I agree, I don't think the "cost" of the expendable/ammo weapons is incorrect.  The abuse is a huge amount of them, especially as seeking weapons.  Not so much fun to play against.  Doesn't really matter if you brought something to shoot them down when there is that many.

Philosophically, expendable/limited ammo should be a disadvantage, and right now it almost feels like its a loop hole to get an advantage, not just save a few points on a ship.

I think space is the issue.  Most seeking weapons that have limited ammo would have a "launcher" component and an ammo "magazine".  Could hold true for non-seeking limited ammo weapons too.  I think the Launcher part should make up a large amount of the "space" the weapon requires say 50% of a weapon without limited ammo - then the reminder is ammo (maybe assume each volley needs 5-10% space, compared to a weapon with no ammo limit).

Anyway, just an idea.  I'm not a big fan of just hard restrictions (e.g. no more than X% can be spent on ammo limited weapons), but I do like it when there are construction rules that push you in that direction.

-Tim

Re: Unity: Seeking Weapons deployment Limits?

mj12games wrote:

I have been wondering if it's not worth stipulating that at least 50% of a ship's ORAT must come from non-expendable sources.

Having this kind of limitation in an universal setting is an issue in my opinion. I would leave it for the  specific settings/ universes and/or 'tournament' play

Re: Unity: Seeking Weapons deployment Limits?

Agreed. An arbitrary limit is not all that desirable (to me anyway). Something that limits it indirectly would be better -- again, just my opinion. smile

Re: Unity: Seeking Weapons deployment Limits?

When it comes to point cost I honestly don't see an issue. When discussing space issues its going to boil down to how "accessible" those weapons are. If I have a thousand seekers on board my ship and I can only launch them one at a time there use is extremely limited. If however I can launch them all at once as independent self guided spacecraft there usefulness and value increases exponentially. 

As I said before I found it very interesting that this is exactly what ends up happening in the "Honor Harrington" universe. Ships become little more than hollow missile packs due to technology allowing ships to depart from using "traditional" launchers. Naval warfare simply shifts to who can launch the most missiles, from the greatest distance, first. ...in my personal opinion kind of boring.

Seeing as I started this mess I should at the very least offer some solutions.

1. Make non-launcher seekers externally mounted. They are literally attached to the hull and so may be launched in any number desired. However you can then only mount say twice or three times the hull value to limit the number of seekers carried in this way. So a hull 10 ship could carry and launch 20 or 30 external seeking weapons. Remember the space of a ship takes into count its internal volume, if seekers have an unlimited launch rate we must assume they are open to space otherwise they would need a mechanism to move them from internal storage to a launching point, a.k.a they need a launcher. There is only so much surface area on a ship.

2. Require seeking weapons to be under the launching ships control. Modern weapons for all their guidance capability are still for the most part under human control even when they are moving to their target. There remain serious moral implications for removing the human component from the attack equation. So an easy solution is to simply set a launch limit on the number of seekers that may be controlled at one time by a single ship. This keeps players from simply turning there ships into giant missile packs for a single launch strike.

Additional options here could be for ships to hand off responsibility for controlling seekers to other friendly ships in their battle-group. Or even mounting special equipment to increase seeker control limits. Could also be interesting if you could kill the controlling ship and your opponent would then lose his launched seekers, something like what used to happen in Vietman when Intruders flew "Iron Hand" and allowed themselves to be missile targets to kill the launching radar system. This would discourage people from building hollow shells to quickly launch seekers.

3. Require seekers to be launched from a magazine, and the number of mounted launchers then controls the seeker limit.

Or do all three.

Re: Unity: Seeking Weapons deployment Limits?

godsgopher wrote:

When it comes to point cost I honestly don't see an issue.

Point cost is the ONLY issue. The game couldn't care less whether you are allowed to mount 10 weapons or 1000 weapons on a given hull, so long as the cost of bringing either ship to the table is balanced. Space units are a distant second in terms of importance.

1. Make non-launcher seekers externally mounted.

2. Require seeking weapons to be under the launching ships control.

3. Require seekers to be launched from a magazine, and the number of mounted launchers then controls the seeker limit.

You need to remember the issue at hand isn't "Seekers", but "weapons with the Expendable trait." I know for the purposes of the universes you are wanting to simulate they are one and the same, but in game terms, they are not. You can have unlimited-use seeking weapons, and you can have expendable direct-fire weapons.

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

Re: Unity: Seeking Weapons deployment Limits?

I think the situation is just more exacerbated with seekers - because they are inherently cheaper than their direct fire equivalents, and don't require the ship to maneuver into range to use them.

Seeking weapons are of course cheaper because they can be shot down or out maneuvered - however when they are either fast enough or come in a vast wave, those disadvantages are mitigated.

If you want to focus only on cost, I'd increase the cost.  If most weapons only get 4 chances to fire in a game - and slow (x0.7) reduces that to 2, maybe make expendable be like 0.35?  There are games that will be shorter, and expendable will be a boon - other games will go longer and make people think twice about having boring ships that just alpha strike on first contact and then have to run home.

-Tim

Re: Unity: Seeking Weapons deployment Limits?

Hello everyone,
I have some questions about seeking weapons:
If the ship that launched a flight of seeking weapons has Fire-Control does this FC cancel the "-1" to hit caused by the target having Anti-fighter_batteries?
Do seekers used to attack a fighter flight have a "-1" to hit.  If so, does the presence of Fire Control on the firing ship cancel this -1?
Cheers,
Steven

Re: Unity: Seeking Weapons deployment Limits?

Hello everyone, my friends & I have been wrestling with how to make seekers less overpowering. Open to suggestions.
We have been playing Starmada here in Jacksonville twice a week. The last two games we played involved large amounts of seekers, speed 12, 1x3+/1/5. They are nasty. On Wednesday 1/31, we played a game with c5,000 points a side. My opponent was able to fire 110 of these drones each turn. It was impossible to shoot all of these down. His "C-G" has a PV=320 and fires 80 of these each turn. On my side, two ships survived but managed to destroy the cruiser, the only loss my opponent had. Our other five ships were obliterated. We can think of no way to limit these very powerful weapons, so we are going to prohibit them unless a reasonable solution is found. These seekers do not come from expendables, but fire Every Turn.
Any seekers on the book ships will still be allowed so these will be the only seekers in our games for now...
Does anyone have any idea on how to balance or limit these seemingly over-powerful weapons. They are Brutal....
Cheers
PS: Here is my design to counter my friends ship before we decided on a seeker-ban:

Volcano-class BCG (500) -Tech: Weapons +2

Hull: 16-15-14-13-12-11-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1
Engines: 4-4-3-3-2-2-1-1
Weapons: 46-41-35-29-23-18-12-6

X-ray Laser Missiles (MA 12) 2×3+/1/3 (Mdl)
CD ☐| CD ☐| CD ☐| CD ☐| CD ☐| CD ☐ // (3)

X-ray Laser Missiles (MA 12) 2×3+/1/3 (Mdl)
CD ☐| CD ☐| CD ☐| CD ☐| CD ☐| CD ☐ // (3)

X-ray Laser Missiles (MA 12) 2×3+/1/3 (Mdl)
CD ☐| CD ☐| CD ☐| CD ☐| CD ☐| CD ☐ // (3)

X-ray Laser Missiles (MA 12) 2×3+/1/3 (Mdl)
CD ☐| CD ☐| CD ☐| CD ☐| CD ☐| CD ☐ // (3)

X-ray Laser Missiles (MA 12) 2×3+/1/3 (Mdl)
CD ☐| CD ☐| CD ☐| CD ☐| CD ☐| CD ☐ // (3)

AA PlasmaGuns (2-4-6) 1×3+/1/1 (Dfn; Rpt)
360° ☐| 360° ☐| 360° ☐| 360° ☐| 360° ☐| 360° ☐ // (3)

Equipment: Hyperdrive ☐| Overthrusters ☐| Tractor Beam ☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐ // (5)
Traits: Cargo (6)
I have not used this ship yet, but imagine that it would be devastating because it fires 30 seekers each turn that ignore shields...
S.O.S.  <LOL>

Re: Unity: Seeking Weapons deployment Limits?

Have you considered lowering the weapon TL? I have personally found that keeping everything at TL 0 as a baseline makes pretty much every version of Starmada for the last 10 years less subject to things like this, fighter swarms, etc...I know that everyone plays differently and has different philosophies & points matching should mean things have a balance, but lower TL does seem to mitigate things like this imho.
Erik

Re: Unity: Seeking Weapons deployment Limits?

That is an interesting idea.   :idea:
I will see what my gaming friends think.
Cheers

Re: Unity: Seeking Weapons deployment Limits?

But the game should be balanced at all TLs.

How about this for a defense against massive seeker barrage:

Wave Burst  (1-2-*)  3x3+/*/1 (Crn; Dfn; Pnp; Prx; Sct)

You fire it 2 hexes away.  You could fire it in the same hex of the seekers so you don't suffer the -1, if you don't mind taking damage as well.  Does Countermeasures work against your own weapons?

Does Scatter increase the IMP if an adjacent hex is one range band closer?  In this case, at range 2 (medium) IMP is 2, does IMP become 3 at the adjacent targets now at close range?

I suppose one cannot fire into your own hex?  So you would need pairs, one to fire in either direction, if seekers are coming in all direction.  If not, that's more to fire in one direction.

edit: hadn't looked at Scatter option until after first post.

Re: Unity: Seeking Weapons deployment Limits?

Do seekers have their own targeting, or can they use the Fire Controls of their launching ship?

If they cannot, then Countermeasures is a way to lessen the effectiveness of seekers.