As it is, a large ship is almost always defeated by a wolf pack of small ships due to the debilitating effects of critical hits.
I agree that the game should really be about the big ships. Sorry, but I want to play Omegas against Sharlins and G'Quans vs Primuses (sp?). The small ships are cool but as a fleet escort more than anything else.
An idea: Have another roll to see if the critical hit causes a system malfunction or just extra damage. How easily a ship causes a critical hit is determined by what type of ship does the firing. The idea is that big ships have larger guns and do more damage.
So you have all ships broken into 3 classes: Capital Ships, Escort Ships, and Auxiliary Craft. You simply include a ship type in the decsription of the ship. As a general rule:
--fighters are all auxiliary ships
--Patrol, skirmish, and maybe some Raid ships are escort ships.
--Battle, War, and Armageddon ships are all Capital ships
For each hit, roll a d6, like now:
1: bulkhead hit (no dmg)
2-5: solid hit (1 pt dmg)
6: critical hit (1 pt dmg, roll to see what type of critical hit).
For critical hit, you roll a d6 again to see what type of critical hit. What table you roll on is determined by the ship type:
Capitol Ships:
1-3: Hull Damage: +1 pt dmg, nothing else.
4-6: System damage: roll on the critical damage table
Escort Ships:
1-4: Hull Damage: +1 pt dmg, nothing else.
5-6: System damage: roll on the critical damage table
Auxiliary Ships
1-5: Hull Damage: +1 pt dmg, nothing else.
6: System damage: roll on the critical damage table
That would dramatically reduce the effect of criticals in the game overall. Maybe precise weaponry would get a +1 on the second table as well? Or perhaps Beam weapons, as they punch through stuff?
Either way, it'd cut down on the number of critical hits. Now, whereas 1 in 6 hits equals a critical it'd be 1 in 12 for capital ships, 1 in 18 for escort ships, and 1 in 36 for fighters.
just a thought...
