| Archive for Axis & Allies ForuMINI Specialised in the World War II Axis & Allies Miniatures and War At Sea Games |
| Jesse_James |
Starmada?anyone play this?I saw it being played the other day. Looks pretty cool. How are the rules overall? do you have to buy a ton of books for various factions? |
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| ehenry0623 |
Boring.
You can only take so much of the Uruk horror plasma weapon. Or the Diglett needle bomb. It's all meaningless crap. Even star fleet battles, the originator of meaningless crap, at least attempted to model something; Star Trek. |
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| Duck Crusader |
I prefer Full Thrust, but Starmada has a strong following as well. | ||||
| ehenry0623 |
Full Thrust is better, but still has the problem of Generic Zapper, Large.
The key to space naval combat is Newtpn's law. If you're not following that the it's mostly pointless. |
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| Duck Crusader |
Not really. It's science fantasy, which has mostly eclipsed science fiction. The basic premise is that effective stardrives and new sublight engines based on technology we don't have/understand yet modifies movement in space games. Remember the Wrath of Kahn's two-dimensional thinking zinger... | ||||
| ehenry0623 |
Yeah i get that. The issue is you aren't playing a space naval combat game.
Would you play a tank game set in the sky? you could but what's the point? How about an air combat game where the planes roll around the ground shooting each other. Once again what's teh point. Space combat is a different a medium. Planes fly through atmosphere. Ships float on water. Subs move in water. Tanks and humans fight on land. If the medium doesn't interest you then just play axis and allies and pretend it's in space. |
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| Duck Crusader |
Totally not the same. Given reactionless drives and gravity control ships would be able to maneuver like that. I can understand the appeal of a newtonian space game like the new Honor Harrington one, but that in no way invalidates the other type. | ||||
| ehenry0623 |
How do you know? May as well play chess and pretend it's in space. |
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| Duck Crusader |
Because by definition gravity control (firmly science fantasy) allows you to circumvent newtonian laws, since you can manipulate gravity to your advantage. Elementary. | ||||
| ehenry0623 |
yes, no doubt. My question is, how do you know these manipulations will work as described? Because the designer says so? Designer fiat?
Like i said, chess. |
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| Duck Crusader |
No, because of the physics. Even if we can't reproduce the technology necessary, we can do the math to show what they'd have to do. Chess would bear far more resemblance to a space game with newtonian restrictions. | ||||
| Jesse_James |
LOL at this thread. 
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| SJG Gamer |
I have been playing Starmada for over 5 years and I enjoy it very much! It is a great game and well designed. There are now movement rules that are semi-Newtonian and very usable. The game allows you to design your own weapons: their ranges, weapon abilities, and accuracy. The stronger, the more costly. The ship designer programer then calculates the ship's combat ability.
I have played Full Thrust many times and although I have enjoyed it a lot, I enjoy Starmada much, much more. 
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| ehenry0623 |
Not true. There is no math to describe reactionless drives. It violates thermodynamic laws and thus cannot be calculated and modeled in real life. Which leaves the designer free to make it all up. Which is fine. But it is as close to a space naval combat simulation as is a rock fight. Actually the rock fight is closer because we can comfortably conclude that rocks obey physics. |
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| Duck Crusader |
Not true, sci fi is based on science, and the majority of them in the business of psychics. X result requires Y amount of energy applied along Z axis. Larry Niven, Issaic Azamov, and a host of others both inside and outside the community long ago worked out the psychics for Reactionless drives, Ftl drives, different methods of gravity generation and a host of other issues. The base line is getting enough POWER to get any of them to work, or reducing their power requirements to something we can understand. Might as well have a rock fight and pretend it's in space as model what current tech would allow us to do... |
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| ehenry0623 |
I've got a website for you. It may ruin how you look at space warfare though. It certainly ruined my "understanding". Now i'm just a curmudgeon.
You will hate it but you will learn a lot. http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/ |
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| Duck Crusader |
Been there, good site. Doesn't change anything for me though. Yes, that's what it would be like now, not seven centuries from now. Remember that powered flight is impossible, and the human body will disintergrate at any speed over 26 MPH... | ||||
| ehenry0623 |
I have no ideas what that means.
All i know is a game designer cannot model something that doesn't exist. Yes, a game designer can make up things out of whole cloth and that's fine. But it's not a simulation of anything real. Ergo, checkers in space. |
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| Duck Crusader |
The math is real. It's been on the bluddy discovery channel for crap's sake! Math is math. 'Real' space combat would sell probably twelve copies. I'd buy one, you'd buy one, ten other people would and then you're done. Not much basis for gaming. So you don't like it? Oh well, the market's out-voted you.
And both of those are firmly held scientific principles from the early twentieth century. |
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| SJG Gamer |
This discussion is interesting. I play Starmada because I enjoy it! Not because is "realistic", etc. We can only speculate about how things will be in two centuries. This game allows and encourages players to design their own ships, even their own weapons!
I enjoy designing my own ships and seeing how they perform in battle. The Ship-design program also gives a combat value for these ships. I love it! For me the gam is Fun, nothing more.
I also like BattleTech because it too allows gamers to design their own units. This appeals to me a great deal... |
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| ehenry0623 |
THat's good. Play the game because it's fun. I play chess because it is fun. But i don't make the mistake of telling people chess is a model for space combat. | ||||
| SJG Gamer |
Rest assured that I will never tell anyone that Chess is a model for space combat.
But I Will tell them that Starmada is a good space combat simulation game. 
Since no one knows for certain what future technology will be like, whether Starmada is an accurate model for space combat or not is mere speculation... |
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| Duck Crusader |
Chess is WAYYY too rock paper scissors. Go beats the crap out of it. | ||||
| ehenry0623 |
i've never had the pleasure. someday... | ||||
| ehenry0623 |
We don't need to know technology, we only need to know physics. And if accuracy is mere speculation then it really isn't simulative now is it. |
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| ARK |
I enjoy go and even have a fairly decent little travel board but I have far far to little experience and have a tendency to get stomped. |
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| Autarch |
Ship design was one of the reasons I liked FASA's Star Trek Tactical Space Combat game. All the in game ships were so underbuilt it was impossible not to improve on them with the Starship Construction Manual.
The only Newtonian style space combat game I've had experience with (don't recall the name) was a tedious exercises in trying to burn off excess delta v in order to stay on the map or lose. Yay. Fun. |
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| Duck Crusader |
That's the problem. They're fun if you're into that sort of thing, but if not they're boring as hell. | ||||
| Thuddeus |
I find 2 dimensional naval combat tactically dull. I much prefer land based combat where terrain has a large affect on the battle. | ||||
| Autarch |
Terrain also has a large affect on naval combat. Islands, coastlines and shoals plus environmental factors like fog, squalls, smoke, darkness and even wind direction play a role in historical naval battles.
Currently playing Samar. Smoke and squalls are the only thing keeping Taffy 3 from annihilation. Hardly dull. |