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Posted by: Kurt
« on: May 24, 2023, 06:40:29 PM »

Well, when the first Corvette blew up, I was full of hope.
Initially, CT where very unlucky with scoring hits. But when they caught up with the FT, it was a massacre...
And when one of them managed to get in the destroyer's blind spot and take out some of its engines, it was over.

I wonder if it is at all possible to win this scenario as a destroyer?

Good question.  The destroyer is out-massed by the corvettes, which means it's in trouble from the first.  The only saving grace, from the destroyer's point of view, is that the corvettes will be distracted by firing at the freighters, allowing it to engage the corvettes.  However, given that the corvettes' primary mission is to take out the freighters, not the destroyer, they can do what I suspected happened here, distract the destroyer with one of the corvettes and send the other two after the freighters.  If the freighters are bunched up, the destroyer might have a chance to defend them, otherwise it's going to be a free-for-all for the other two corvettes.  This might be an interesting scenario for a newbie vs an experienced player, with the experienced player taking the destroyer. 
Posted by: Kiero
« on: May 23, 2023, 12:11:42 PM »

Well, when the first Corvette blew up, I was full of hope.
Initially, CT where very unlucky with scoring hits. But when they caught up with the FT, it was a massacre...
And when one of them managed to get in the destroyer's blind spot and take out some of its engines, it was over.

I wonder if it is at all possible to win this scenario as a destroyer?
Posted by: Kurt
« on: May 23, 2023, 11:41:20 AM »

I guess this would be a strategic loss for the destroyer, as it lost its transports.  However, it was out-massed by the corvettes, so well-done for surviving, I guess. 
Posted by: Kiero
« on: May 23, 2023, 07:17:42 AM »

The defense of the convoy did not go as it should:
The destroyer 'Guardian' was assigned to protect the convoy, which was attacked by three corvettes. As a result of the battle, all the transport freighters were destroyed. The destroyer, suffered heavy damage.
The enemy lost two corvettes and the third was heavily damaged.

I have also included ship tokens that I created myself and used in this battle.


Posted by: Paul M
« on: February 22, 2022, 11:55:24 AM »

Unfortunately there really isn't a way to resolve a conflict without playing out the battles.  If you wished to avoid that you could use the ground combat rules with space craft (sum up the PV of all the ships in the two fleets and roll dice to determine how much losses happened) until one side or the other was defeated.  I think there is some sort of resolution system to sort out two NPRs in one system that you could look at as well.

But really the point of starfire campaigns is to generate interesting battles to fight out...
Posted by: Kiero
« on: February 21, 2022, 01:55:26 PM »

Thanks for the suggestion.

How do you resolve NPR - NPR conflict if you don't want to use "standard battle rules"?
Posted by: Paul M
« on: February 21, 2022, 11:34:24 AM »

I would suggest the following:
Each of you build a TL1 fleet of 1 DD, 2 FG and 3 CT.  Then fight a battle where you start at 30 hexes from each other.  The winner of that battle then gets to take their fleet through a WP while the other defends it.  To be clear, this is a second battle with same designs not surviving ships.

After that each of you roll a d6.  On a 1-3 you are TL3, 4-5 you are TL4 and 6 you are TL5.  Upgrade your fleets to that TL as you wish and re-fight the two battles starting the meeting engagement at 60 hexes.

This will show you how initiative is decided, will introduce break off and surrender rules, the fleets are small so the battles will go fast, and the last one will show you the effect of technology on combat.  And assuming you don't both end up with the same TL how sometimes TL can make a huge difference.

Don't worry about relative costs and such it is just to learn the system.  Also any, even them most bizarre combination of weapons and design, strategy works...sometimes.  The trick is figuring out where and when it will be viable.  Ships armed with Pg and P can make mincemeat of a close in WP defence but suffer horridly in a long range fight for example.
Posted by: Kurt
« on: February 20, 2022, 05:15:54 PM »

Quick update:
After some consideration, we decided to play the first campaign using the 3rd edition rules. I'll post some initial setup and the first few turns (with two empires) when available.

Are there any examples of play (that is showing ship maneuvering) or tactical hints that you can give?

I have found that you can learn pretty quickly as you play.  Also, the battles tend to start out pretty small, with low-tech ships and a limited number of them, which adds to your ability to learn the theory and practice of the game. 
Posted by: Kiero
« on: February 20, 2022, 02:34:41 PM »

Quick update:
After some consideration, we decided to play the first campaign using the 3rd edition rules. I'll post some initial setup and the first few turns (with two empires) when available.

Are there any examples of play (that is showing ship maneuvering) or tactical hints that you can give?
Posted by: Kiero
« on: February 18, 2022, 10:34:58 AM »

Test Scenario #2 "Small Fleet Action" in progress
Posted by: Kurt
« on: February 18, 2022, 08:58:30 AM »

Quote from: Kurt link=topic=12927. msg158821#msg158821 date=1645121809
Quote from: Paul M link=topic=12927. msg158819#msg158819 date=1645120309
I own Galactic Starfire, and I have made spreadsheets to handle it, but my solo game collapsed when I ran into my first NPR and I realised I would have to make a set of 3 EXCEL spreadsheets for it and every other race in the game.   I don't think spreadsheets work, and I have played Starfire Play By Mail where I had a binder full of system data sheets and so on, I have also played PBEM with spreadsheets but only for a single race.   What I would never want to do is run a game like that.   Marvin likes short games with small numbers of stars. . . for that the overhead may be sufficiently small you can do it as a spacemaster.   That this sort of game tends to keep fleet sizes small and the changes to starfire's mechanics push the exponential growth till later likely means the game is over before the paperwork crushes it.

SFA makes the sort of games that Kurt, myself and starslayer, or for that matter Steve played possible.   Frankly I have never seen a game aid with the features of SFA, when I have tried to interest Starslayer in Galactic Starfire or other systems (Squadron Strike, or VBAM) it is "does it have a SFA-like program?" . . .  as the answer is always no, we stick to starfire 3rdE or play Stellaris.

This sums up my feelings on this pretty well.   When I was looking at starting the Cold War campaign, I seriously looked at the latest version of Starfire for the campaign, but the lack of SF Assistant or anything like it was too large of a roadblock.   As Paul said, spreadsheets would be unworkable for the size of campaign that I wanted, particularly because I would be running all of the races.   I periodically consider learning more about how SA was programmed to try to fix some of the things that were left undone when Steve moved over to Aurora, but it would take a lot of time, if it was even doable, and that would be time away from the Campaign.   Maybe one day.   

Kurt

Is the code for SA open source?

I'm sure some sort of agreement would have to be made with Steve.  Whether he would go for something like that would be up to him.   :)
Posted by: Rewstyr
« on: February 18, 2022, 03:53:31 AM »

Quote from: Kurt link=topic=12927. msg158821#msg158821 date=1645121809
Quote from: Paul M link=topic=12927. msg158819#msg158819 date=1645120309
I own Galactic Starfire, and I have made spreadsheets to handle it, but my solo game collapsed when I ran into my first NPR and I realised I would have to make a set of 3 EXCEL spreadsheets for it and every other race in the game.   I don't think spreadsheets work, and I have played Starfire Play By Mail where I had a binder full of system data sheets and so on, I have also played PBEM with spreadsheets but only for a single race.   What I would never want to do is run a game like that.   Marvin likes short games with small numbers of stars. . . for that the overhead may be sufficiently small you can do it as a spacemaster.   That this sort of game tends to keep fleet sizes small and the changes to starfire's mechanics push the exponential growth till later likely means the game is over before the paperwork crushes it.

SFA makes the sort of games that Kurt, myself and starslayer, or for that matter Steve played possible.   Frankly I have never seen a game aid with the features of SFA, when I have tried to interest Starslayer in Galactic Starfire or other systems (Squadron Strike, or VBAM) it is "does it have a SFA-like program?" . . .  as the answer is always no, we stick to starfire 3rdE or play Stellaris.

This sums up my feelings on this pretty well.   When I was looking at starting the Cold War campaign, I seriously looked at the latest version of Starfire for the campaign, but the lack of SF Assistant or anything like it was too large of a roadblock.   As Paul said, spreadsheets would be unworkable for the size of campaign that I wanted, particularly because I would be running all of the races.   I periodically consider learning more about how SA was programmed to try to fix some of the things that were left undone when Steve moved over to Aurora, but it would take a lot of time, if it was even doable, and that would be time away from the Campaign.   Maybe one day.   

Kurt

Is the code for SA open source?
Posted by: Kiero
« on: February 17, 2022, 03:00:07 PM »

Well. I didn't want to give my opinion on "Solar Starfire" until someone who knows both versions spoke up.

I am currently trying to start a campaign. Initially, I wanted to run it for myself and one other player. However, after an initial encounter with the rules... we will be running one race together.

Initially, Starfire charmed me with its simplicity of rules allowing to play quite big battles in a relatively fast way. Without losing the flavor of such a space encounter. And I was hoping for something similar in terms of the campaign.

So, about the rules.
It seems that every rule has its exception which you need to have in your head.
Some of the rules seem unnecessarily elaborate, killing the simplicity of being able to lead a large star empire.
Some of the mechanics are poorly explained, despite plenty of examples at the end of the manual.
There is no index of terms!!!
And I wouldn't even mind the complexity of the rules if you could easily search for information on a given topic. Unfortunately, they are sometimes scattered all over the manual. Sometimes they are not in the place where you would expect them to be.

So the overall impression is that this is a draft for a computer game, there are too many things to keep track of.

However, overall I really like the idea. So my approach will be to simplify the rules that we will use. I'm still really, really into it...

That's why I asked about comparing the complexity of the campaign rules from version 3 and version 6.

PS. I'll get back to you after the first game :)
Posted by: Kurt
« on: February 17, 2022, 12:16:49 PM »

I own Galactic Starfire, and I have made spreadsheets to handle it, but my solo game collapsed when I ran into my first NPR and I realised I would have to make a set of 3 EXCEL spreadsheets for it and every other race in the game.  I don't think spreadsheets work, and I have played Starfire Play By Mail where I had a binder full of system data sheets and so on, I have also played PBEM with spreadsheets but only for a single race.  What I would never want to do is run a game like that.  Marvin likes short games with small numbers of stars...for that the overhead may be sufficiently small you can do it as a spacemaster.  That this sort of game tends to keep fleet sizes small and the changes to starfire's mechanics push the exponential growth till later likely means the game is over before the paperwork crushes it.

SFA makes the sort of games that Kurt, myself and starslayer, or for that matter Steve played possible.  Frankly I have never seen a game aid with the features of SFA, when I have tried to interest Starslayer in Galactic Starfire or other systems (Squadron Strike, or VBAM) it is "does it have a SFA-like program?" ... as the answer is always no, we stick to starfire 3rdE or play Stellaris.

This sums up my feelings on this pretty well.  When I was looking at starting the Cold War campaign, I seriously looked at the latest version of Starfire for the campaign, but the lack of SF Assistant or anything like it was too large of a roadblock.  As Paul said, spreadsheets would be unworkable for the size of campaign that I wanted, particularly because I would be running all of the races.  I periodically consider learning more about how SA was programmed to try to fix some of the things that were left undone when Steve moved over to Aurora, but it would take a lot of time, if it was even doable, and that would be time away from the Campaign.  Maybe one day. 

Kurt
Posted by: Paul M
« on: February 17, 2022, 11:51:49 AM »

I own Galactic Starfire, and I have made spreadsheets to handle it, but my solo game collapsed when I ran into my first NPR and I realised I would have to make a set of 3 EXCEL spreadsheets for it and every other race in the game.  I don't think spreadsheets work, and I have played Starfire Play By Mail where I had a binder full of system data sheets and so on, I have also played PBEM with spreadsheets but only for a single race.  What I would never want to do is run a game like that.  Marvin likes short games with small numbers of stars...for that the overhead may be sufficiently small you can do it as a spacemaster.  That this sort of game tends to keep fleet sizes small and the changes to starfire's mechanics push the exponential growth till later likely means the game is over before the paperwork crushes it.

SFA makes the sort of games that Kurt, myself and starslayer, or for that matter Steve played possible.  Frankly I have never seen a game aid with the features of SFA, when I have tried to interest Starslayer in Galactic Starfire or other systems (Squadron Strike, or VBAM) it is "does it have a SFA-like program?" ... as the answer is always no, we stick to starfire 3rdE or play Stellaris.