Recent content by Kadorak

In terms of overpowering smaller ships, it looks like the beam changes would be a big part of that too. The balancing factor against hordes of small ships in 1e was that SAP beams could eat a hull 4+ ship in one shot. Now low hull is not penalized near so much, while high hulls mean less against...

Just curious what people thought of these two potential changes to 2e. I just got the book three days ago: I tried to support my local gaming store by purchasing through them, but apparently the U.S. distributors don't carry it (I eventually had to order directly through Mongoose after several...

It's not a panacea for game balance. Thats not the point. The point is to allow more diversity while being remotely balanced. This will sound bizarre, but I like a realistic 'feel' to my sci-fi games: not that the technologies or aliens are realistic, but that within the assumptions of that...

Now that ship viewer is out, I intend to play more games of VaS. One thing I've noticed in the couple of games I have played, though, is that concentration of fire seems to be the order of the day. Is there some mechanism I'm not understanding that prevents each fleet from focusing all fire on...

Yup, that's correct. It seems to mosly be left over from ACTA, but can become a factor with smaller ships which CAN be decrewed by a crew-type critical pretty easily. In larger games you could very well just forget about crew so you have fewer numbers to jot down; I did this for pretty much...

This is repetitive, but excellent work :) Can finally get on to playing more now, was waiting for some of these cards!

I will actually say, I found the PL system in ACTA seriously problematic (my reasons for which have been elaborated elsewhere), but I think it's much better in VaS. I don't know if others who didn't like the ACTA PL system would agree with me, but I like the VaS PL system better for the...

"Yes, I realize this, but didn't (almost) all Naval Vessels of the time carry scout/recce aircraft? Couldn't they simply grab some binoculars and get a visible conirmation?" Actually, according to "Sea of Thunder" (an excellent book itself, by the way - I got it for Christmas and picked it up...

A wiki was started for unofficial content for ACTA a few weeks back, and is available at www.b5acta.com - some custom ship designs have been posted, and a few scenarios. Also there's a link on the projects page to my Paladins & Pirates supplement, not nearly up to the quality of RBax's...

Someone did a wonderful breakdown and analysis of the fleet boxes. The original topic has apparently disappeared - I could swear there was a 2nd one for Armageddon too, but couldn't find it - but the original is duplicated in this thread...

Agree ACTA in itself would make a poor adaptation to ground combat. There was talk in one of the earlier S&P Wargamer issues of a Babylon 5 Ground Combat game I believe, though I believe it had only surface similarities to the ACTA system (probably more to SST, though I've never played that...

There's such a thing as being too simple, IMO ACTA is already close to the line. It's true crew scores double the record keeping and mechanical portion of complexity without adding that much depth, so maybe they could be replaced by something else. But please...no simpler =/ Just make a cut-off...

Nice battle pics- I *LOVE* the paint job on those Vree ships. And re: a new ISA fleet, check out my Paladins & Pirates supplement over at ACTA Fleet Command (under Projects page). Haven't been doing much ACTA recently so the second part (w/ scenarios) and other stuff is on hold...but at least...

But with torps a very big component is the enemy's reaction - break formation to evade the spread etc. Is there any attempt to simulate that?

Just curious if VaS will include any sort of optional rule remotely approximating the 'original' torpedo rules presented in the earlier S&P previews. I'm not a historical realism fanatic in any way, and I'm not looking for Command at Sea series style complexity, but I would really have to be...