Author Topic: Starfire solo play?  (Read 6131 times)

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Offline frater (OP)

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Starfire solo play?
« on: January 13, 2014, 05:52:48 PM »
Hey guys,

I'm a big fan of Aurora and a massive fan of Weber, so I was thinking about giving Starfire 3rd a look now that you can buy digital rules from SDS.

My question is, can it be played solo? Whilst i'd like to have a shot playing it multiplayer, odds are good that the majority of play would be solo and i'm not sure it'd be worth it if it couldn't be. . .

Nick
 

Offline Paul M

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Re: Starfire solo play?
« Reply #1 on: January 15, 2014, 08:12:36 AM »
Since you are using 3rdR that means you can use SFA (Steve's Starfire Assistant) that will allow you to easily keep track of what the NPRs are doing.   Steve played out most of the Rigillian campaign solo so it is more than possible, Kurt has done his Terran Empire and a few other takes on it also solo.  So there is nothing preventing you from doing it that I know of.

It is fairly easy now to play multiplayer via EMail and with Vassel to do the fights though.  You just have to mail around the database.  You might ask if anyone is interested in playing in an email group.  I've done a few email games in the past and they work well. 

The problem will be the exploding economy under base 3rdR/SM2 as relatively quickly the fleets will expand beyond what is at all fun to try and play solo (or even with a group).   I am in awe of both Kurt and Steve's ability to deal with battles of the scale they do.  Though with SFA's battle resolver I suspect the constant flipping of pages is not so much an issue.

Hope this helps.
 

Offline Kurt

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Re: Starfire solo play?
« Reply #2 on: January 15, 2014, 08:14:11 PM »
Since you are using 3rdR that means you can use SFA (Steve's Starfire Assistant) that will allow you to easily keep track of what the NPRs are doing.   Steve played out most of the Rigillian campaign solo so it is more than possible, Kurt has done his Terran Empire and a few other takes on it also solo.  So there is nothing preventing you from doing it that I know of.

It is fairly easy now to play multiplayer via EMail and with Vassel to do the fights though.  You just have to mail around the database.  You might ask if anyone is interested in playing in an email group.  I've done a few email games in the past and they work well. 

The problem will be the exploding economy under base 3rdR/SM2 as relatively quickly the fleets will expand beyond what is at all fun to try and play solo (or even with a group).   I am in awe of both Kurt and Steve's ability to deal with battles of the scale they do.  Though with SFA's battle resolver I suspect the constant flipping of pages is not so much an issue.

Hope this helps.

The way the economy and the resulting fleets expand exponentially is the reason the Phoenix Campaign ultimately died.  I tried to resurrect it recently, but I couldn't sustain it. Of course, by the time I gave up the Phoenix Campaign was in what most people would consider a very late-game stage, and I didn't consider it unmanageable until then. 

Kurt   
 

Offline frater (OP)

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Re: Starfire solo play?
« Reply #3 on: January 16, 2014, 03:28:24 PM »
Thanks guys.

I've bought copies of the main books from SDS, though it's very irritating that portions of it refer to other books (particularly Crusades for boarding rules) that aren't available for digital purpose.  I hate the idea of buying a cd and waiting for it to be shipped all the way across the world, just to throw it away once i've copied the files off it.

They're definitely interesting.   I'll have to give SA a look, though i'm thinking about playing around and building my own little tool to assist in playing - the more I read, the more ideas I get for little custom rules and changes.  :)

 

Offline MWadwell

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Re: Starfire solo play?
« Reply #4 on: January 25, 2014, 02:40:36 AM »
Thanks guys.

I've bought copies of the main books from SDS, though it's very irritating that portions of it refer to other books (particularly Crusades for boarding rules) that aren't available for digital purpose.  I hate the idea of buying a cd and waiting for it to be shipped all the way across the world, just to throw it away once i've copied the files off it.

They're definitely interesting.   I'll have to give SA a look, though i'm thinking about playing around and building my own little tool to assist in playing - the more I read, the more ideas I get for little custom rules and changes.  :)

That's funny - the SDS sells Crusade!!

What pack did you buy off the SDS?

Later,
Matt
 

Offline Paul M

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Re: Starfire solo play?
« Reply #5 on: February 03, 2014, 04:16:13 AM »
The way the economy and the resulting fleets expand exponentially is the reason the Phoenix Campaign ultimately died.  I tried to resurrect it recently, but I couldn't sustain it. Of course, by the time I gave up the Phoenix Campaign was in what most people would consider a very late-game stage, and I didn't consider it unmanageable until then. 

Kurt   

Well I'll never forget the 200 CT battle Starslayer and I fought once...I believe I fell asleep while playing it at one point.  After that I told him...never again.

In one of the last battles in our München campaign my assualt fleet was around 100 ships (there was a further 100+ ship fleet waiting to exploit), and trying to keep track of what ship was where was a nightmare.  It is entirely personal but I find battles in the range of 10-30 ships fun.  Outside of that range and either the lack of detail to the combat system or else the book keeping crushes the fight's fun.

As I said I'm in awe of both your and Steve's ability to fight out battles involving hundreds of ships.
 

Offline Ghidorah

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Re: Starfire solo play?
« Reply #6 on: February 05, 2014, 10:31:43 AM »
Frater,

Check out the Starfire forums for ideas that can lengthen the time till your empire (Solo or multi-player) gets big, bigger, too big.   These house rules are often listed under 'time decompression' and can be "searched'.   Procyon, a name well known for his write-up for his Nemesis campaign on both this and the SDS board, has a lot of ideas that have allowed his family run a long term campaign that the Nemesis campaign is based on.   My current SOLAR Starfire campaign uses some of the ideas Procyon and others have discussed.   I didn't go and cut good systems down to 10% of the normal rolls but even the 40% reduction I used has made a difference.   Plus, the great systems are really worth fighting for and protecting compared to a standard campaign.   A few other things mentioned in the SDS Starfire forums also have helped, including not having your colonies grow as if you were part tribble.   In other words switching to a population growth rate that is more realistic, hence the term 'time decompression'.   Still, many fine players of starfire want to field a fleet of multiple Juggernauts to go and wipe the enemy from the galaxy, and that can happen a lot faster if you play without using some home rules.   There probably will not be a computer version of SOLAR Starfire soon, so I do use some House rules to keep the empires smaller.   There is no SA to help me do my spreadsheets.  But worse is that I just don't have the time to do the grand battles I've read about, I'm not retired yet.
I weary of the chasssse.  Wait for me.  I will be mercccciful and quick.
 

Offline Starslayer_D

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Re: Starfire solo play?
« Reply #7 on: February 14, 2014, 01:46:06 PM »
Well, the Theban empire campaign Paul and i've been playing has slashed Research and build imes by half, and reduced the economy by disallowing Asteroid Settlement and using quite slow growth rates.. not quite 1/th but maybe 1/8th of normoal, and so far we Ave very manageable battles.
 

Offline Tregonsee

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Re: Starfire solo play?
« Reply #8 on: April 13, 2014, 09:39:13 AM »
Well I'll never forget the 200 CT battle Starslayer and I fought once...I believe I fell asleep while playing it at one point.  After that I told him...never again.

In one of the last battles in our München campaign my assualt fleet was around 100 ships (there was a further 100+ ship fleet waiting to exploit), and trying to keep track of what ship was where was a nightmare.  It is entirely personal but I find battles in the range of 10-30 ships fun.  Outside of that range and either the lack of detail to the combat system or else the book keeping crushes the fight's fun.

As I said I'm in awe of both your and Steve's ability to fight out battles involving hundreds of ships.

When doing a battle with lots of ships, we would group ships by type and make them groups of five or ten.  This is assuming the designs for the ships were the same or very similar.  It helped a lot.