OK, I hope Matt et al. don't hate me for posting this but there are some questions and a bit of criticism. Sorry guys.
First of all. I want to say that my criticism is mostly light and may actually have to do with the limited time I've read (I have NOT run sims yet). However, most of my problems were already verified in playtest sim runs.
Overall, I'd give this book a B+ or A-. I do think it's that good. It's a very clean system overall.
I do not have the problems with the art. It's minimalist, sure but I don't feel like Chevy Chase should be walking around a corner, either. Owners of T-20 will know my reference.
1. Chargen:
Some of the art bleeds into the text. It makes for a slightly harder read for me, but it might be that I am just getting used to my first pair of glasses (two days old). I Love most of the chargen but...
I have a small issue with ship shares. If a share is 1% of the price of a particular ship, then its value changes as a character walks the lot (so to speak) looking for his new toy/home/business. The number of shares given to mustering characters didn't increase in number even as most of them decreased in value. a share of a scout is 270KCr. The table is incorrect. You either meant to remove two zeros (1%) or the shares were supposed to be 10%.
But that is beside the point. If I muster out of the Navy with ten shares, my shares are worth either 2.7mCr for a scout or 5MCr for a yacht. I know you wanted to avoid players cashing in their shares but I'd say the cure here is worse than the disease since most players would jump at a ship and most GMs wouldn't allow cash values.
2. Skills/Combat:
I like the revision of timing and effect. Very nice compromise. I'm glad to see the entire thing streamlined.
3. Random Encounters:
The stats for common NPCs are very useful. I'm glad you guys made sure to include them. Very nice touch.
4. Starships / Ship Combat:
Thanks for the Police Cruiser. That's a great addition to common ships!
I do wonder if it was such a good idea to completely remove power from ship building. I was among those who didn't care for the anemic ship power settings in the playtest but now, why bother with missiles? I can use nothing but upper-end energy weapons, especially since pulse lasers and missiles appear to be fairly weak.
In the playtest, I assumes pulse lasers were short range but powerful energy mounts while beams could hit farther and more accurately. Now the pulse laser is only good for someone with no budget.
Missiles are even less powerful. They take up cargo space, are limited in capacity until reloads, are seemingly very vulnerable to point defense and can't penetrate armor to any real degree. 10% of TL10 armor will defeat most missile hits (that manage to get past the point defense) and the few that do cause damage will inflict a scratch.
If they were able to do more damage using batteries that would be different. They might be able to cause some damage to an opponent.
Instead, if I could afford it, I would have nothing on a ship but particle beams or multiple beam lasers.
I know this much text looks like I'm disappointed but I'm not. I already have fixes in place for most of it. I'm houseruling shares to 1MCr, and I think I'll allow missiles to scale up if placed in the same turret (I need to run sims for the best effect on this) I'm thinking a triple shot from a single magazine will be good for +2 or 3 points (point defense would wipe this away quickly) for three separate missiles hitting in close proximity.
I'm not sure what to do with energy weapons, though. Money concerns aside, it would be child's play for have a scout to offensively outclass a missile laden ship with armor and more hardpoints.
I may be wrong and if so, I'll be back with my mea culpa.
Questions:
I'm not sure I understand the point defense rules. I can't make an anti missile attempt until the missiles are in close but how many attempts can be made per missile or per turret? I see the cumulative -1 but I don't see how a player could retarget another missile with that turret in the final round before impact or how the number of shots could exceed the allowed combat shots for that round.
Do missiles burn out after 10 rounds? If two ships are on the same course when one launches at extreme range, would it be possible for the target to outrun the missile's endurance?
I would definitely buy this product again. I have far less work to do than I normally expect on a new release.
THANKS!
First of all. I want to say that my criticism is mostly light and may actually have to do with the limited time I've read (I have NOT run sims yet). However, most of my problems were already verified in playtest sim runs.
Overall, I'd give this book a B+ or A-. I do think it's that good. It's a very clean system overall.
I do not have the problems with the art. It's minimalist, sure but I don't feel like Chevy Chase should be walking around a corner, either. Owners of T-20 will know my reference.
1. Chargen:
Some of the art bleeds into the text. It makes for a slightly harder read for me, but it might be that I am just getting used to my first pair of glasses (two days old). I Love most of the chargen but...
I have a small issue with ship shares. If a share is 1% of the price of a particular ship, then its value changes as a character walks the lot (so to speak) looking for his new toy/home/business. The number of shares given to mustering characters didn't increase in number even as most of them decreased in value. a share of a scout is 270KCr. The table is incorrect. You either meant to remove two zeros (1%) or the shares were supposed to be 10%.
But that is beside the point. If I muster out of the Navy with ten shares, my shares are worth either 2.7mCr for a scout or 5MCr for a yacht. I know you wanted to avoid players cashing in their shares but I'd say the cure here is worse than the disease since most players would jump at a ship and most GMs wouldn't allow cash values.
2. Skills/Combat:
I like the revision of timing and effect. Very nice compromise. I'm glad to see the entire thing streamlined.
3. Random Encounters:
The stats for common NPCs are very useful. I'm glad you guys made sure to include them. Very nice touch.
4. Starships / Ship Combat:
Thanks for the Police Cruiser. That's a great addition to common ships!
I do wonder if it was such a good idea to completely remove power from ship building. I was among those who didn't care for the anemic ship power settings in the playtest but now, why bother with missiles? I can use nothing but upper-end energy weapons, especially since pulse lasers and missiles appear to be fairly weak.
In the playtest, I assumes pulse lasers were short range but powerful energy mounts while beams could hit farther and more accurately. Now the pulse laser is only good for someone with no budget.
Missiles are even less powerful. They take up cargo space, are limited in capacity until reloads, are seemingly very vulnerable to point defense and can't penetrate armor to any real degree. 10% of TL10 armor will defeat most missile hits (that manage to get past the point defense) and the few that do cause damage will inflict a scratch.
If they were able to do more damage using batteries that would be different. They might be able to cause some damage to an opponent.
Instead, if I could afford it, I would have nothing on a ship but particle beams or multiple beam lasers.
I know this much text looks like I'm disappointed but I'm not. I already have fixes in place for most of it. I'm houseruling shares to 1MCr, and I think I'll allow missiles to scale up if placed in the same turret (I need to run sims for the best effect on this) I'm thinking a triple shot from a single magazine will be good for +2 or 3 points (point defense would wipe this away quickly) for three separate missiles hitting in close proximity.
I'm not sure what to do with energy weapons, though. Money concerns aside, it would be child's play for have a scout to offensively outclass a missile laden ship with armor and more hardpoints.
I may be wrong and if so, I'll be back with my mea culpa.
Questions:
I'm not sure I understand the point defense rules. I can't make an anti missile attempt until the missiles are in close but how many attempts can be made per missile or per turret? I see the cumulative -1 but I don't see how a player could retarget another missile with that turret in the final round before impact or how the number of shots could exceed the allowed combat shots for that round.
Do missiles burn out after 10 rounds? If two ships are on the same course when one launches at extreme range, would it be possible for the target to outrun the missile's endurance?
I would definitely buy this product again. I have far less work to do than I normally expect on a new release.
THANKS!
You have no idea how important those are to a GM with limited time to number crunch the stat blocks of NPCs.
