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

Topic: Hulls greater than 20

beowulfjb@aol.com wrote:

> Is there a way to modify the SSCA 2.0 to allow hulls bigger
> than  20?   My
> friends up here in Jacksonville still use the Starmada 
> Compendium rules and I was wondering if there was a way to
> modify this excellent  program to allow ships larger than 20.

Yup.

1. Open the SXCA.
2. Select "Tools > Protection > Unprotect Sheet"
3. Click on cell C5.
4. Select "Data > Validation..."
5. Change the value in the "Maximum" box to whatever you want.
6. Select "Tools > Protection > Protect Sheet..." and click "OK".

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

mj12games's Website

  • Registered: 2006-01-17
  • Posts: 359

Re: Hulls greater than 20

Does anyone actually field any ships with hulls greater than 20?

I haven't yet really found the need, although I have faced a ship with a hull of 24, about 3 months ago.  It was slow enough, that by the time it got to the battle, I was able to use several ships against it, and the extra 4 hull points weren't that much of an issue.

John

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

Re: Hulls greater than 20

Nahuris wrote:

Does anyone actually field any ships with hulls greater than 20?

I haven't yet really found the need, although I have faced a ship with a hull of 24, about 3 months ago.  It was slow enough, that by the time it got to the battle, I was able to use several ships against it, and the extra 4 hull points weren't that much of an issue.

John

StevenGilchrist in Jacksonville here,
     All of my Battleships have hull sizes ranging from 30, to 26.  Their costs are from c200 to c1500.  The extra hull gives them survivability.  In one battle where these ships were soundly defeated, all the extra hull ment is that when all weapons, engines, &Qs were gone, it took an extra turn to destroy the now defenseless ship...   sad       
     But I do like the larger hull and have redesigned these ships to make them more effective...    smile

  • Registered: 2005-04-04
  • Posts: 40

Re: Hulls greater than 20

I was contemplating how to design a Death Star the other day, and I figured that I could design six Hull 20 segments.  Each one would have only the weapon arcs for the direction that segment was facing, and the big frickin' planet-bustin' gun would be represented by having eight spinal mounts in a single segment (can you even have more than spinal mount?).  The other segments would be festooned with turbolasers, laser towers, armor plating, etc.

Ah, the dreams of youth...

  • Registered: 2005-03-28
  • Posts: 65

Re: Hulls greater than 20

javelin98 wrote:

I was contemplating how to design a Death Star the other day, and I figured that I could design six Hull 20 segments.  Each one would have only the weapon arcs for the direction that segment was facing, and the big frickin' planet-bustin' gun would be represented by having eight spinal mounts in a single segment (can you even have more than spinal mount?).  The other segments would be festooned with turbolasers, laser towers, armor plating, etc.

Ah, the dreams of youth...

I went with the same approach when I did a star trek/ star wars crossover a couple years ago.  I wanted to keep the ships in scale with each other, but allow the federation ships to have hulls greater than 8.

Thus a star destroyer was made up of three  hull 20 segments. 

2 segments were all weapons and fighter bays, and 1 segment was all drive engines and shielding.

Destruction of any single segment had a 2 in 6 chance of destroying the whole.

JP

  • Registered: 2005-03-28
  • Posts: 287

Re: Hulls greater than 20

You could do a borg cube similarly.

In general, though, I don't see such large ships being useful for games.
You can pack a lot of stuff on hull 12 to 15...

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

Re: Hulls greater than 20

Stephen Gilchrist wrote:

>      I like having 30 hull; lotsa hit points is  fun.  0nce I
> put on the weapons & equiptment that I wanted, I  stopped.  I
> must admit that my ships have not been attacked by fighters 
> yet.  If their AA should prove to be  inadequate I can add
> "40 mm  guns" which will probably be 3+, 3/1/1, range = 6.  I
> would put them  in "C" battery on the ship if needed...

This topic makes me laugh...

When I first designed Starmada, there was an arbitrary limit of 10 hull points. Gradually, this increased to 12, then 15, and finally 20. Now you're talking about 30!?! Sheesh... wink

I had thought that the non-linear increase in SUs would alleviate this apparent urge on the part of players to have Ubernaughts, but I guess not...

Well, as they say, "Starmada's made for tweakin"!

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

mj12games's Website

  • Registered: 2006-01-17
  • Posts: 359

Re: Hulls greater than 20

I designed one ship with a hull 24.....

However, I really don't like anything greater than 16 or so.......

I think the issue is that "hull points" are so arbitrary, and that it is hard to scale out what is a Hull 3 vs. what is a hull 6....

John

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

Re: Hulls greater than 20

I designed a hull 30 ship once. As I've lost my enchantment with spinal mounts (and boosted the range of normal weapons up to 30) this monster had five examples of this weapon...

War Lance:

R: 30, TH: 3+, 1/3/1, Shield-Resonant, Extra Hull Damage

Yes, five of them. Sure it took up a third of the ship (with weapons +2) but was I satisfied? Like heck I was. So I added ten examples of the heavy rail cannon. If all weapons were to hit at full strength, it could produce 135 hull hits--without the other damage dice...:D

Yes, it is cheesy. Do I care? No big_smile

  • Registered: 2005-04-03
  • Posts: 68

Re: Hulls greater than 20

In converting over ships from Babylon 5 Wars to SX, I have had to make a few 20+ Hull ships. Of course the space isn't *used* in most cases, but to get the raw mass converted over it was necessary. Starbases, too, end up with a lot of hull -- which makes taking a starbase down a very difficult job.

There was also that Scarran Dreadnought that necessitated a larger ship smile

For the most part, I have set a personal cap at aout 40 Hull, simply because that is what the Excel sheet can hold without me going in and tinkering with it some more.

When I am just designing my own ships and not converting over from another source, I do tend to keep myself at about the 7-12 Hull range for most cruisers (light through heavy). But, then, that is usually because in my campaigns I am quite cursed when I roll on the prototype chart. Invariably the larger and more expensive the ship, the more likely it is to blow sky high when Ensign Red Shirt flips the power switch in engineering (*sobs*).

-Tyrel

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

Re: Hulls greater than 20

Scarran Dreadnought?

/ears prick up

Mmmm...:D

I only started designing hull 30 ships because of Go0gleplex. Blame him! If it wasn't for his ships in the Bourbaki Basin, I'd have stuck to 20 hulls!

big_smile

  • Registered: 2022-11-15
  • Posts: 1,286

Re: Hulls greater than 20

murtalianconfederacy wrote:

Scarran Dreadnought?

/ears prick up

Mmmm...:D

I only started designing hull 30 ships because of Go0gleplex. Blame him! If it wasn't for his ships in the Bourbaki Basin, I'd have stuck to 20 hulls!

big_smile

But I'm legally nuts! I can't be held liable for my actions...yeah...that's it.  :twisted:
Of course paranoid parakeets in space are gonna go for a big ship or two.  hehehee...baaaaad ol' puddy tats out there don't ya know. lol

  • Registered: 2005-03-28
  • Posts: 101

Re: Hulls greater than 20

it's also useful to do if one is converting BFG and wants to keep the "scale" correct. and if one wants to be playing against something from another "universe", not just gothic ships. like B5 ships versus gothic ships.

cruisers average 5 km in length and escorts average 1 km in length.

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

Re: Hulls greater than 20

Hello everyone! 

When I played Starmada using the older 'Compendium rules, I gave most of my ships "ReinforcedHull"  which effectively doubled the ammount of hull points a ship has.  So I think of my hull 30 battleships as being actually half the size, but with the equivalent of "ReinforcedHull" in StarmadaX.   And considering the battles we have been having here in Jacksonville with my opponant's love for expendible weapons, I need the 30+ Hit Points!   Even with Screeens@Level4 facing his firing ship & a PDS (so that he needs a "6" to cause damage), and all of my  ships having Armor Plating, he usually destroyes or badly de-hulls my big ships.  When they are not eliminated in the first shot, they usually only have less then 10 Hull left... Whew! 
[My 30 Hull Bttleships cost between 1642 and 1939 each...and have a total tech of only +3]

Steven GIlchrist,
Jacksonville