We plan to do Romulan Armada next year keyed to use Squadron Boxes #7 through #12.

After that, I'm not sure. We would (in the first two) combine two FC products, so we might combine Tholian Attack and Orion Attack, then combine Distant Kingdoms and Hydran Attack.

The battleship thing should stand on it's own since the boosters have so many new ships.

By Phil Shanton (Mxslade) on Friday, August 14, 2009 - 04:08 pm: Edit

How would Briefings #1 & #2 be handled since a lot of those ships don't have minis?

Possibly a kit-bashing guide with the book so that players could create minis of the variants in those books?

Also what about Booster and Squadron Box #91?

(I apologize for so many questions in each of the topics, but you told me at Origins to hold my questions till you were futher along and put something up on the BBS)

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, August 14, 2009 - 04:14 pm: Edit

I must have been tired at Origins. I cannot say I recall having anybody ask me anything about starmada. That said, don't apologize for giving me a chance to explain and talk up the product.

You can use a cork with three toothpicks and call it a D4 if that amuses you. You don't need "true" minis, just pick something close.

91/FJ ships is interesting as the royalty situation means we have to pay extra, but that just means we have to put all of them in one product, not that no product would be done.

Daniel can do Starmada products as fast as he wants to, but the release into the market would depend on sales. If we sell 11 copies of Klingon Armada, we may do a few PDFs sometime later. If we sell 1,234 copies, count on seeing new Starmada products at regular intervals.

By Daniel Kast (Mj12games) on Friday, August 14, 2009 - 04:41 pm: Edit

I would hope we'll at least get Romulan Armada out before the market crashes...

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, August 14, 2009 - 04:52 pm: Edit

I would hope for nine or ten products before that happens! There are SO MANY ships in SFU that can be ported over to Starmada.

By Daniel Kast (Mj12games) on Friday, August 14, 2009 - 07:08 pm: Edit

I like the way you think, SVC.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, August 14, 2009 - 07:14 pm: Edit

Daniel: I don't know if you got the emails I sent. I need to know the font you use for starmada titles (we might as well use it for Klingon Armada) and thought you might like to meet when I'm in colorado in three weeks.

By Sean O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Friday, August 14, 2009 - 08:26 pm: Edit

Random thoughts...

Looking forward to this product. I hope it will be very successful.

Most of the ships in Briefing #1 or #2 are so similar to the ships they're variants of that at the scale of the minis, they'd be identical.

I'm glad to see that Starmada, previously only a PDF/Print on demand game, is finally getting a chance to get the audience it deserves.

By Daniel Kast (Mj12games) on Friday, August 14, 2009 - 08:30 pm: Edit

Steve- emails received and replied to.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Sunday, August 16, 2009 - 12:38 am: Edit

How difficult mechanics-wise might it be to convert the Andromedans and the empires of the Lesser Magellanic Cloud to the Starmada ruleset?

Or the Omega empires, for that matter.

By Sean O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Sunday, August 16, 2009 - 01:39 am: Edit

The weird shielding of Andros and LMC ships should be OK in Starmada, you just use the Starmada "shields" mechanic and call it PA panels or whatever.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, August 20, 2009 - 05:18 pm: Edit

What about the kind of soul shield mechanics of the Souldra?


(Indeed, does Starmada have any details regarding a ship's crew? If so, it might help facilitate the potential use of Black Shards...)

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, August 20, 2009 - 07:00 pm: Edit

That is 7 or 8 (or 14) products down the road, so I'm sure somebody will stumble into something brilliant long before then, even at 3 or 4 products a year.

By Daniel Kast (Mj12games) on Thursday, August 20, 2009 - 10:03 pm: Edit

Starmada does have rules for what we call "Crew-Killing" weapons...

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Sunday, October 11, 2009 - 12:14 am: Edit

One thing I noted was that while the Klingons and Kzintis get at least a look at their 'war' classes in the KA spread (as they did when Fed Commander was first being released) the Federation will have to wait for Romulan Armada to get the likes of the NCL and DW worked up for the system.


What kind of difference in Starmada terms might one look forward to, in terms of how a 'war' fleet made up of the Romulan Border and Romulan Attack Fed ships might fare in comparison to one built out of the (mainly) upgraded Middle Years ships already in the system?


Also, on a side note - how much of a conversion would it take to change the Terran-hull ships in Klingon Armada into their Federal Republic of Aurora counterparts and derivations (such as, for example, the Auroran frigate out of the Federation POL)?

Even leaving weapons like tachyon missiles and SRCs to one side, I'm guessing that light and heavy photons at least might not be too much trouble to develop out of the pre-existing photon rules - would this be a fair assessment?

By Daniel Kast (Mj12games) on Monday, October 12, 2009 - 12:06 pm: Edit

"What kind of difference in Starmada terms might one look forward to, in terms of how a 'war' fleet made up of the Romulan Border and Romulan Attack Fed ships might fare in comparison to one built out of the (mainly) upgraded Middle Years ships already in the system?"

Not being an experienced SFU-er, it's difficult for me to answer this question. Once I have done the ships for Romulan Armada (assuming I get the go-ahead from SVC ) I will be in a better position to respond.

Regarding the light/heavy photons; to date, all of the ship/weapon values in Starmada have been based on FedCom. I do not see these weapons on the "Master Weapons Chart" -- am I missing something, or is this an SFB thing I'll have to look up?

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, October 12, 2009 - 04:17 pm: Edit

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Quote:

Not being an experienced SFU-er, it's difficult for me to answer this question. Once I have done the ships for Romulan Armada (assuming I get the go-ahead from SVC ) I will be in a better position to respond.

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Quote:

Regarding the light/heavy photons; to date, all of the ship/weapon values in Starmada have been based on FedCom. I do not see these weapons on the "Master Weapons Chart" -- am I missing something, or is this an SFB thing I'll have to look up?

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By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 01:50 pm: Edit

I was looking at the new fighters and shuttles on the shopping cart, and got to wondering - how difficult would it be to put together workable rules for SFU fighters (or fighter squadrons) and carriers in the Starmada system?


If it's not that complex, perhaps a future module detailing at least one carrier for each faction, as well as rules covering the kind of fighters representable by the new minis, could be put together.

(The Hydrans would still be in line for their hybrid carriers if/when a 'Distant Armada' book was to be done one day, of course.)


While FC had to wait for the Hydrans to get its first taste of fighter craft, maybe KA could find a quicker way to make more use of those new miniatures?


Indeed, if such rules were to be on the cards, could a preview set of such rules for the five published empires be included in Captain's Log, or posted online somewhere? (If Communiqué will be kept for FC only, could some kind of 'Armada Bulletin' be created to serve the new system?)


Oh, and also, does KA already have rules covering the use of regular shuttles?



And one other thing, for now - is there scope for a Starmada equivalent of Briefing 2, which could bring the Middle Years over to this system?

By Todd Warnken (Toddw) on Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 03:01 pm: Edit

Gary:

It would be fairly easy to add fighters. Starmada has rules for fighters including rules for designing them. You can vary the speed, and combat modifiers (increased ROF, DMG, etc.) Seeking weapons are a bit trickier to add to fighters. The best way is to use the dual mode function and use the second mode as one-shot seekers

By Daniel Kast (Mj12games) on Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 03:03 pm: Edit

Starmada has extensive rules for fighters/carriers, so putting something together for the SFU would be pretty simple.

Of course, I would have to first become familiar with how fighters work in FC/SFB...

Klingon Armada does include basic rules for the use of shuttles, both as marine transports and as suicide bombs.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 03:13 pm: Edit

Sounds interesting.


One thought I had was that such a setup could help fill out whatever module the Tholians and Seltorians would get.

Klingon and Romulan Armada would cover 2 FC product's worth of ships each. Also, now that Hydran Attack exists alongside Distant Kingdoms, the same ratio is true for the time if/when the Lyrans, Hydrans et al make the transition.

However, since there is only one FC product highlighting the Tholians and Seltorians, perhaps the extra space could be used to add in some carriers and fighters?


Alternatively, one could take the other 'attack' modules - Tholian, Battleships and Orion - and put two in one Armada book, and the other with carriers and fighters in another.


Or something.

By Sean O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 08:51 pm: Edit

Gary, we'll burn that bridge when we come to it, I think. I still haven't had a chance to order a copy of KA yet, waiting for my local distributors to get it. I'm looking forward to playing it.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 11:02 pm: Edit

Hey, I'm waiting for it to show up in my FLGS too - but it doesn't hurt to post ideas about future Armada products in a topic about future Armada products, right?

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Sunday, October 25, 2009 - 01:22 am: Edit

Actually, given the stuff in the opening post, which I should have checked already, scratch most of those last suggestions...

(The part about where, if anywhere, a potential set of fighters and carriers might go could still be worth thinking about. Maybe with the battleships?)

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, December 02, 2009 - 12:47 pm: Edit

One topic which came up on the other board, for those who don't visit it much, was adding the Frax to the game, in one form or another.


Indeed, if a carrier module was to be done before we see empires such as the Lyrans of Hydrans enter the fray, perhaps Frax carriers could be added there, too.


Further, there are the WYN 'fish ships' - whose carriers could be given Kzinti (or Klingon?) fighters and not need any new weapons to be added. Plus, they would be useful both in scenarios defending the WYN Cluster, and in acting as the Usurper's trump card in War of Return scenarios.

Could the fish ships jump the queue, at least in terms of getting carriers shown?