Posted by: Paul M
« on: August 25, 2014, 07:28:47 AM »
Some comments on the systems:
Bridge: this is covered by a crew grade reduction when you lose your Lh or last Qs. As formulated it adds nothing but a free HTK and cost to all ships. (A) is rather pointless as no one would ever not put the bridge behind the last LhQ, or Qs. And after that is rather more often then not only a few HTK of either engines or a single weapon. So the effect of loosing the bridge is nothing critical. I'm not opposed to the existance of a bridge...somewhere is a post where I suggest them but only if you change how the current ship design process works (in particular for electronics).
Improved CIC: There is a HT12 system that is pretty much identical to this CIC2 (1 HS rather than 2). Personally I believe that it is balance that any of the electronics takes space. Given the size of Starfire ships (they are not small) things like ECM, ECCM, Mx, etc should be 0 space systems that add to the cost. CIC at 4 HS is for game balance: +1 initiative is a big advantage as it means you most often have initative and that can make a huge difference in tactical combat. 4thE has I believe CICx which get smaller or give bigger bonuses or something. But given the existance of the CIC2 at TL12, I would suggest:
TL1 CIC (4 HS), TL5 CIC2 (3 HS), TL9 CIC3 (2 HS) and TL12 CIC4 (1 HS) instead.
Li I don't understand why you want to do this. The D-series is laser turrets on the hull with a small counter missile launch system. L can fire on fighters anyway. The anti-shipping beam weapons can't fire on missiles becuase they aren't deisgned to do that, although they are allowed to intercept mine attacks for some reason or another. Why should you be able to fire the weapon twice? A -1 to damage or shorter range doesn't matter in a WP assault or defence where the range is low anyway...though I'm not sure of the point even there. L: does 0:3, 1:3, 2:2, 3:2, 4:2; Li: would do 0:2, 1:2, 2:1, 3:1, 4:1 (twice) so at 0 and 1 range you would do one more damage and at 2-4 you would do the same damge with twice the rolling. Plus D is superiour to Db so why would you even want to use L for point defence rather than just carrying D on your ships? It is useless for small ships as you then need 6 HS which are better devoted to L plus D rather than Li plus Lp.
As some sort of oddball NPR tech system thing for a SM to surprise a low tech Player with it isn't all that bad a system but I can't otherwise see much point in it.
Za: absolutely not. At HT11 the command datalink system Z2 exists. It takes 3 HS and by itself allows 3 ships to form a regular datalink. No system that does that should require less than 3 HS. The Zi at HT8 and 1 HS is a bad idea, and while I understand why players may wish it, it is far far far too good. Zi has a huge effect on fighter attacks as ships with it can't be knocked out of datalink until they are destroyed which makes fighter missile attacks ineffective unless you can fire into the datagroups blindspot. Consider also that at TL7 the Dz is available and you get back in 50% of the time in one turn the datalink coverage. It also means more rolling, more paperwork and so on. Also why bother using the Z when the Za is much better (not being so easily destroyed)?
I'm sorry to be more negative then positive here on your ideas. One thing that I find differeniates say SFB or Attack Vector: Tactical from Starfire is that Starfire is about fleet actions. Neither of the other two games can handle those effectively, but Starfire gives up a lot of ship details to allow you to fight 30 ships fairly easily. Rules for Starfire, in my mind, need to focus on enabling combat between fleets rather than things that matter only to a single ship meeting engagement. That is boring in Starfire, but exciting in SFB or AV:T. Most of your suggestions look to be more focused on single ship engagements. I don't want to be tracking which weapons can and can not be used in datalink or if the datalink comes back this turn or next. In general combat with the empire state formation you blow one ship to smitherenes before engaging the next anyway so your rules on (A) or Za would be wasted. Neither Starslayer nor myself use that combat style but we are weird that way...most people do.
Starslayer and I are playing a SA game...we are on turn 213.