Fighters provide 50 CR, I believe, and a quick check in teh SXCA seems to confirm that.

Also, by changing only the hull value with no engines, tech, weapons, or shields the CR provided by fighters is not changing outside of recognizable rounding.

Unless, I am missing something.

Yes and yes.

The base CR of fighters is fixed at 50, and is affected by whatever options you assign to them.

However, because fighters are considered an integral part of the ship, their cost is combined with that of their carrier by adding 50 (or whatever) to both the OR and DR of the ship before combining them.

For example, if a ship has an OR of 100 and a DR of 250, then its final CR is 158. If you add two fighter flights, then its OR becomes 200 and its DR 350, resulting in a final CR of 265.

Okie, thanx. I just wanted to be sure it wasnt just a bug in the spreadsheet.

So, from what it appears, its better to have dedicated carriers than hybrid ships. Interesting way of getting there.

It is better from the Min/Max point of view.....

This brings us back around to a discussion we had in my group.... (now down to 4 of us......

Ships are usually designed with various roles in mind.  Most of my ships for my Terran Alliance Fleet contain a science lab, 1 fighter bay, and med centers, ect.

My Kayeshi fleet doesn't even have medical centers on some of it's ships
(I assume that you can have basic first aid without the medical center.... you just cannot do sustained injuries...... kind of following the lines in the book where medical centers are there for campaigns)
All of my fleets include freighters, and I field them on the board with the ships (they carry food, medical supplies, and extra ammo). The only time I don't have at least one freighter on the board, is when the points are really low, and then we assume that my fleet is a short patrol, OR, the freighters are in transit.... and just not available at the moment.

One of the recent players that left us designed all his ships for combat...... if a piece of equipment didn't give an immediate advantage in combat, he didn't use it...... individually, his ships are usually tougher to face.... but he gets limited in storyline scenarios..... In one campaign we ran, he ended up beaten, because he literally ran out of crew to man his ships.... as he wouldn't use medical centers (we even let him partially crew ships, and counted the first hull hits as only hull hits.... there was no crew in those sections to hit. (hull 5 ship with only 2 crew..... the first 3 hits would only hit hull and there was no crew damage until you reached the last 2 hull points)

Also,  as he didn't like designing repair bays... he tended to suffer with accumulated damage.......... it got messy after a bit.

What I like, though, is that Starmada is flexible enough to allow us to design unique fleets from the ground up. The CR system is farely balanced when it comes to the value of ships within the game.....

It's all in how you play it.

John

Min / Maxing is not necessarily bad... it depends on the game. If the game is a one off battle of raw tactics, then you definitely want to go for the most combat effective ship you can design.  I have a few of those laying around. In campaigns, you want more equipment to support, other areas..... if you are running a Storyline driven game, then the situation is a tad bit different.

I was stating that if you are going for the most efficient design, then dedicated carriers are the way to go. I have several in some of my various fleets.....

Other fleets are purely story driven.... and against my combat fleets would get pounded fairly quickly.....

I even have one battle that we did where all the ships had a +2 in all categories.  It was brutal, and violent, and we used quite a few points on each side, just to field 6 ships each (it was a while ago.... I think each fleet was somewhere around 8000 points for 6 ships... I know that one of my ships was 3100 points)

You are right when you state that the group has to decide, early on, how they plan to play. Having a group that is in agreement goes a long way towards avoiding arguments.

John

I don't think any of these ideas "break" the system..... some allow more options than others..... but as far as games I have been in go, the CR still manages to balance things out.......

I posted this on another Forum (Starship Combat News) but I think it will also fit here..... Remember, you can build the most awesome 20 hull level 8 technology monster out there, and still not win...... There is a final variable that most people don't consider..... the "to-hit" roll.

The weapon may be 3/3/3... but if you had to choose a 5+ targeting, in order to fit it, don't expect to count on it killing someone every turn.

Here's the story.......

Ok, recent game of Starmada. My fiance and I were fightning and decided to use the same forces on each side. Basically 1 heavy cruiser, and 2 lighter ones. We ended up pretty much closing on each other through an asteroid belt, and it became a classic line battle. On my left one of my light cruisers engaged hers, and they both vaped each other in the first turn....... total destruction. On my right, the two cruisers proceeded to damage each other, but could continue to the next turn. However in the Middle, where the two heavies were setting up, we had the most impressive display of weapons that anyone could ever want to see (we decided to run this battle without fighters). Unfortunately, neither ship could seem to hit the other.

Round two, the two light cruisers continue to pound on each other, and due to some impressive luck, hers loses all of it's engines, while mine still has one left. Meanwhile the two heavy cruisers pass by each other at one inch apart, blazing away with everything, and nothing hits....not weapons being stopped by shields, but specifically, that every weapon fired misses. By this time, I am a little frustrated, so as part of my orders for next turn, I intentially give myself a crew hit, and eject my gunnery crew. At the same time, my new bridge crew notes that there are little objects being ejected from our opponent cruiser..... her gunnery crew (we had a ref, and our orders were secret from each other) The light cruisers finally finish their fight by destroying each other's weapons and engines, so they are now sitting 2 inches apart, can't move, and have nothing to fire.

Finally, after 3 more turns, our two heavy cruisers managed to work around the asteroids and go at each other again, and we both open up. This time, only one weapon from each ship hits the other, and both roll 1's for the shield penetration roll......... At this point, my captain offers hers a deal, she can tow away her remaining light cruiser, I'll tow mine, and we'll call it a day......

John