In my opinion this will be a much much bigger book than in the past.
Most likely the biggest book Mongoose will ever turn out.

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"Official Naval Boffin"

So how substantive is this update, only played a few games using counters at home; finances and lack of opponents has made it difficult to get too into it?

Depends on what you mean substantive?
The ship list will be much larger if not overkill compared to version 1.0.
Alot of historical info and background.
Quite a few scenarios from all fronts.
As stated before different types of games: such as convoy duty, carrier raids, Naval base raids,
coastal actions, etc.

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"Official Naval Boffin"

I guess that my most important question is:
"Will there be any manner by which players can easily add new ships?"

I understand completely the need to sell books and expansions... but it is can't be economical for the staff of Mongoose to codify every little vessel from the 1860's on down. It makes sense for players to have some method of adding some of the lesser-known vessels which they might want to put into their campaigns.

We actually have a half-crazy idea that this will not be necessary - butwe ill have to see how it goes. Quite a way to travel on the new rules yet.

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Matthew Sprange

Mongoose Publishing
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com

Always necessary to add more ships- even if the ships one adds are only rough sketches or long-forgotten springstyles. The more, the better!

If its not whole fleets you can always request something here and most people will help you. As for formulaes I cant give that out without Matts permission but I can help with stats, also when S&P comes out again that is where we can see fleets or at least scenarios for VAS includding the Russo-Japanese war and others. My understanding is most of that kind of stuff will use the VAS AOD WWI system. After the supplement book for AOD comes out we might talk Mongoose in coming out with rules for older wars.

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"Official Naval Boffin"

See, this was the problem- for me, it will include full fleets.
I needed a flexible system that could sim large battles quickly and simple, but which allowed me to put ships that exist only in people's imaginations into the game. The only other option was dropped by the studio for a cheesy card-based game before air combat rules were developed. They saw that A&A's cheesy card game was selling so they hopped on the bandwagon, and a perfectly good system was killed.

So, if VaS doesn't have any plans to put out a system where people can integrate designs that didn't exist... it makes the game, while fun, a lot less like what I want to invest in for a new edition. In truth, I'm less interested in the historic ships than I am in the ability to have battles involving those from my playgroup's imaginations.

unfortunately I dont know any naval games like your wanting. But anythings possible. If you look at the rules you are talking about rules were it doesnt have to be acurate.
think of it this way most DDs have 12" guns thats simple if you own the rules just pick the size ship you want from the rules then pick guns from similar sizes of ship what ever nation and you can build any ship you want. If your wanting a point value it doesnt have one in VAS 1.0
just BBs vs BBs.

Big Battleship genaric(MayFlower)
Speed: 5"
Turning: 1
Target: 4+
Armor: 6+
Special: Aircraft 2
Torpedo Belt
Armored Deck
Damage: 43 / 14

Main Turrets
A Turret 4x14" 46 4 3 AP
B Turret 4x14" 46 4 3 AP
Other turrets
Secondary Armament 14 4 1 W
AA 5 8 - -

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"Official Naval Boffin"

That's basically what I'm going to have to do. Find the ships with the closest match to my intended weapon, transfer it to the basic hull type and speed. Not as exact as I was hoping for, but it'll serve.

The game that allowed for precise adding of any ship was Grand Fleets. They just changed it to be more like Axis & Allies War at Sea, right as it was getting interesting... the Russo-Japanese war book was coming out.

Sounds like it should be alright then, not too many drastic changes and as counters appear to still be a viable option I can still play without having to layout on a fleet of models - so no need to split expenditure between ACTA: SF and this as a matter of urgency.

Looking forward to the inevitable preview and future pre-release articles.

Well in their defense Grand Fleets III is not out yet - so hard to say if it will be like A&A. They will be using a table of "how many dice do a roll and I need 5's", but other than that I don't think the games will be that similar. I'm sure it is true though that you won't be able to add your own weapons anymore.

While I did like Grand Fleets II, and the cool ship conversion rules, the lack of aircraft was disappointing for me. That's one reason I'm really looking forward to VaS 2.0.

Now given that MG is promising an insane number of ships, one would presume they are using some sort of design forumula to come up with not only ship stats but ship points. I'm sure there will be some tweaking based on playtesting, but given the huge volume of ships I can't imagine each ship would have to be designed without some sort of formulaic approach. Perhaps they will make this public and allow it to be used for "unofficial" ships? Could be handy for a campaign!

Now speaking of VaS 2.0 - how is testing/development going? Can we get any previews or commentary? For one, what's different from Vas 1.0?

-Tim

I can tell you the gun systems for each fleet is coming along nicely. There is a very specific system. Designing fleets is coming along slower but progressing do to amount. I cant tell you much since Im not the main man here and he's quite busy. The previews of planes and ships Rock, and at 1/1800 they will shine. Hope I didnt say to much.

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"Official Naval Boffin"

No you didn't say too much, it all sounds great. Now how many Bothans died to bring you this message?

All great news. I can't wait!

The switch to 1/1800 scale ships sure tipped my hand. I will be buying them.
I just hope they fill in some of the gaps in the WaS line. The future of that game is very uncertain, WotC has not had any announcements for a while now....just silence.

All this is gonna prompt me to splurg and buy a new gaming mat!
My old one is starting to look a little ratty.

Peace