As we had so much fun in the A-11A7 specification thread, here is another crazy brainstorm from my Ewok imagination.

Which fraction would it belong to? (I'm again pro Rebel on this, but your opinion do matter )

Which ship from the excisting Star Wars universe would fit this profile?

Point value? (I'm venturing something in 150pts range on this one, but your opinion do again matter )

Battlecruiser specification: A-21G9

Ship size: Large

Hull: 9

Anti Squadron: 2x Blue

Command: 3

Squadron Command:2

Engineering: 4

Fire arcs and shields:

Forward arc: 2x Red, 2x Blue, 2x Black 3x Shields

Side arcs: 2x Red, 2x Blue, 2x Black 3x Shields

Rear arc: 1x Red, 1x Blue, 1x Black 3x Shields

Defence Tokens:

2x Brace

2x Redirect

Speed and Yaw: (left most is the first yaw joint)

Speed 1: 1x yaw

Speed 2: Naught, 1x yaw

Upgrades:

Title

Officer

Weapons team

Defensive Retrofit

Defensive Retrofit

Turbolaser

Reserved to added comments

First the underpriced 'frigate'. Now this? More redundant defense tokens and defense retrofits. :/

First the underpriced 'frigate'. Now this? More redundant defense tokens and defense retrofits. :/

At least i put the price tag at 150 points.

I'm not really sure you understood the nature of the criticism in the other thread. List/fleet/deck building games like Armada are interesting because they force people to make interesting choices. Every ship you can select, even the most expensive ones, have strengths and weaknesses that can be built around, mitigated and exploited. Most Imperial ships face forwards with shorter range dice, most Rebel ships have long-range broadsides with weaker armaments in the direction they're facing. Wave 4 has been exciting in part because it's each faction's first chance to play with the other's toys.

Building a ship with redundant defense tokens, 2 defensive retrofit slots, equally strong armaments on all sides, and well rounded shields, and other reasonable upgrade slots, makes a ship that is good. What is this thing's weakness? What was the last ship in the other thread's weakness? In what way are they interesting?

Yes, I'm sure you can come up with a fair point cost for any ship, but if this thing is pointed fairly, then there's no better reason to build an interesting list that tries to exploit the strengths and weaknesses of any of the quirky ships that we have access to, or just jam a few of these things and not have to worry too much about strategy or planning.

I get the impression that you really want to have an all-around strong ship to be able to play with, and want to custom design one because FFG hasn't given you one. FFG hasn't given you one for a reason. If they launched this as a product, it might be exciting while it was new, but it would quickly become ubiquitous and boring. Nobody likes playing a deep strategy game where the correct play is to play a straightforward game with no great test of skill or depth.

If you want to custom design a tank with high shields, defensive retrofits and redundant defense tokens, give it a weakness. If you want to make a well-rounded attacker with dice on every side and the range to hit anything nearby, give it a weakness. But don't confuse good with fun, because I can guarantee that games against any of these ships would soon turn out to be lacking strategic depth, and not any fun at all.

I think context is everything here.

GAThraawn has a very good point with a very clear explanation. I found something similar in my old roleplaying days (M.E.R.P.). Some of my friends would design character after character, seeing how high they could push the stats, trying to make a 'perfect' character (using dice. huh). What I quickly discovered was that this, by itself, was boring. Characters with weak spots had character. Perfect characters did not. (Same goes for most novels. I still have a beef with a certain David Eddings book)

But....context.

In the context of regular Armada play, I agree whole heartedly with GAThraawn. What would intrigue me is using them in the context of some sort of boss fight for a GM'd campaign. The problem of 'quickly gets boring' wouldn't apply so much as you wouldn't need to use them more than once or twice. I've not played Mass Effect, but I believe something along those lines? Start the players off by giving them each individual, conflicting, objectives. Then see if they can put them aside in time to gang up on the surprise, tough, non-Achilles heeled, not very killy VSD's/AFMKII's?

Hmmmm.....ok, not very StarWarsy (besides Bakura). And the purpose of a points value is somewhat non-existent. But, maybe....just the once....

Oh I'm sorry that the design teams at the Kuat Drive Yards or Correllian co-operation, want's to make a ship that can scrape through one round of concentrated fire from two ships + bomber attacks.

There was a reason why I didn't go higher than three shields on one arc on this.

There was a reason why I didn't go higher than six upgrade slots on this.

There was a reason why you can't go higher at best than 4 red dice when double arcing at long range.

There was a reason why It has no Ordnance upgrade slot.

There was a reason why It it has the same speed profile as a VSD

And people have not even considered or suggested what the fire arcs would be layed out.

It takes in most cases two rounds of concentred fire to bring down a upgraded ISD or MC80, with various combinations of ship or bomber attacks or both. But no one seems to be iffy over that.

All in all I believe i didn't go totally overboard on this, I did set limitations that could make it tricky to play, such as making it hard to double arc, you have in a single arc only two dice at long range, four dice at medium and six at short. So its not something that can outright one shot an 100% healthy opponent, it needs atleast two rounds of shooting to accomplish this, hence the need to be able to stay alive for atleast two rounds of shooting.

And I find it somewhat amusing, that if I had sugested this as a layout for an SSD, everybody would most like complain that its not powerfull enough.

Opinion: If you don't post a picture of what the arcs look like, you can't suddenly claim they are going to be bad, and bash others for not taking it into account

Also, VSD speed profile isn't a big deal if the side arcs are good at shooting.

Opinion: If you don't post a picture of what the arcs look like, you can't suddenly claim they are going to be bad, and bash others for not taking it into account

Also, VSD speed profile isn't a big deal if the side arcs are good at shooting.

Point taken.

So which would be the most challenging to play with:

A VSD/ISD/Liberty style fire arc layout?

or

A AF2/Neb/MC80 H1 style fire arc layout?

Opinion: If you don't post a picture of what the arcs look like, you can't suddenly claim they are going to be bad, and bash others for not taking it into account

Also, VSD speed profile isn't a big deal if the side arcs are good at shooting.

Point taken.

So which would be the most challenging to play with:

A VSD/ISD/Liberty style fire arc layout?

or

A AF2/Neb/MC80 H1 style fire arc layout?

Depends on the arc layout.

Opinion: If you don't post a picture of what the arcs look like, you can't suddenly claim they are going to be bad, and bash others for not taking it into account

Also, VSD speed profile isn't a big deal if the side arcs are good at shooting.

Point taken.

So which would be the most challenging to play with:

A VSD/ISD/Liberty style fire arc layout?

or

A AF2/Neb/MC80 H1 style fire arc layout?

Depends on the arc layout.

Thats his question. Which arc layout would be toughest to play with on a ship with equal front and side armanents?

A ship designed with that firepower should probably have a Neb b type arc. The black dice indicate a lot of short range punchy armament, I would replace one redirect or brace with a contain token. I've always thought of contain as a ship designed to have extra protections for critical systems, essential for a slow, close in brawler.

For that matter, this could totally be a galactic alliance star destroyer, from the EU.

Opinion: If you don't post a picture of what the arcs look like, you can't suddenly claim they are going to be bad, and bash others for not taking it into account

Also, VSD speed profile isn't a big deal if the side arcs are good at shooting.

Point taken.

So which would be the most challenging to play with:

A VSD/ISD/Liberty style fire arc layout?

or

A AF2/Neb/MC80 H1 style fire arc layout?

Depends on the arc layout.

Thats his question. Which arc layout would be toughest to play with on a ship with equal front and side armanents?

Oh I see I thought it was a more general question about it being easier to point your front or side at people. I reckon if all arcs are the same strength, the weakeast arc layout is the one with a big front arc, and the strongest is one where all arcs are the same. size. Of course if you can take gunnery teams this is less applicable.

A cruiser with most of it's firepower on the port or starboard side would be interesting.

Oh I'm sorry that the design teams at the Kuat Drive Yards or Correllian co-operation, want's to make a ship that can scrape through one round of concentrated fire from two ships + bomber attacks.

There was a reason why I didn't go higher than three shields on one arc on this.

There was a reason why I didn't go higher than six upgrade slots on this.

There was a reason why you can't go higher at best than 4 red dice when double arcing at long range.

There was a reason why It has no Ordnance upgrade slot.

There was a reason why It it has the same speed profile as a VSD

And people have not even considered or suggested what the fire arcs would be layed out.

It takes in most cases two rounds of concentred fire to bring down a upgraded ISD or MC80, with various combinations of ship or bomber attacks or both. But no one seems to be iffy over that.

All in all I believe i didn't go totally overboard on this, I did set limitations that could make it tricky to play, such as making it hard to double arc, you have in a single arc only two dice at long range, four dice at medium and six at short. So its not something that can outright one shot an 100% healthy opponent, it needs atleast two rounds of shooting to accomplish this, hence the need to be able to stay alive for atleast two rounds of shooting.

And I find it somewhat amusing, that if I had sugested this as a layout for an SSD, everybody would most like complain that its not powerfull enough.

I'm afraid the argument "I could have made it stronger" isn't an adequate dismissal of power level concerns. It doesn't matter how overpowered something is, it can always be stronger. And attempting to compare it to a SSD, even just to demonstrate that it's not overpowered, is woefully missing the point. Half the audience never wants to see a SSD precisely because they don't want something that overpowered in the game, and the other half acknowledge that it would have to be an epic level combat module all its own.

You say people aren't complaining about the MC80 or the ISD...let's quickly compare this thing to the MC80 Assault Cruiser: 1 more hull, 3 fewer shields, which works out almost the same; swapping a contain for a brace, which is huge, and will up this thing's survivability over the MC80; and both have two defensive retrofit slots. Currently, the MC80 Assault is one of, if not the, tankiest ship in the game, and you just added a second brace.

Compared to an ISD, it has the same number of shields, -2 hull and a second brace, which at least balances; plus a second defensive retrofit.

Now maybe this could work if you wanted to make this the biggest tank in the game, with its poor speed and maneuverability and few attack dice...but let's go back to comparing it to the MC80: same anti-squadron batteries, similar broadsides (two reds downgraded to black), now don't forget, this is similar broadsides to the biggest broadside attack ship in the game, and yet its forward armament is doubled. The entire challenge of the MC80 is that it's a durable ship with incredible broadsides, but it's not very maneuverable, and easily gets stuck if enemy ships are in its weak forward arc. Oh, and it can't take weapons teams, so it can't maximize its potential if the enemy are all on one side of it.

This thing also gets a weapons team. So if this is a rebel ship, not only are you more durable than the Rebellion's toughest ship, your broadsides are stronger (even if you do less damage at medium range, you can have a weapons team to do it twice, which compensates), and in addition your forward arc is nearly that of the best forward attacker in the rebel fleet.

Going back to the ISD, you're losing two dice from the ISD-I's front arc (the most punishing front arc in the game), but you're adding two blue dice on either side, which totally removes the ISD's weakness: you have to always be pointing at the enemy, because once they slip past you your broadsides are only okay. Yes, your maneuver chart is worse than the ISD, but moving like a VSD is not a drawback when you have a VSD front arc on every facing. You are no longer worried about positioning yourself optimally, because your guns all point in every direction, and you only need to trundle in the general direction of your opponent.

On the other side of the table from this beast, what am I supposed to do? Just move all my ships to the other side of the table and hope to dodge it? It trundles along like a VSD, but without concern as to if I'm in its front arc or not, and can take 2 red potshots no matter what arc I'm in, no matter where I am. And If I get close, I'm facing some of the strongest attack pools in the game, on all sides, from something that shrugs off anything other than a full on assault. Yes, obviously if you point it highly enough I can overpower it with more ships, but...where's the strategy? How to I out maneuver, out think, out play this ship? You've set out to create a good ship, and you've succeeded. It's all around, generically good, and you don't seem to understand why some people have an issue with that. The problem isn't the exact execution, the problem is the original goal.

Oh I'm sorry that the design teams at the Kuat Drive Yards or Correllian co-operation, want's to make a ship that can scrape through one round of concentrated fire from two ships + bomber attacks.

There was a reason why I didn't go higher than three shields on one arc on this.

There was a reason why I didn't go higher than six upgrade slots on this.

There was a reason why you can't go higher at best than 4 red dice when double arcing at long range.

There was a reason why It has no Ordnance upgrade slot.

There was a reason why It it has the same speed profile as a VSD

And people have not even considered or suggested what the fire arcs would be layed out.

It takes in most cases two rounds of concentred fire to bring down a upgraded ISD or MC80, with various combinations of ship or bomber attacks or both. But no one seems to be iffy over that.

All in all I believe i didn't go totally overboard on this, I did set limitations that could make it tricky to play, such as making it hard to double arc, you have in a single arc only two dice at long range, four dice at medium and six at short. So its not something that can outright one shot an 100% healthy opponent, it needs atleast two rounds of shooting to accomplish this, hence the need to be able to stay alive for atleast two rounds of shooting.

And I find it somewhat amusing, that if I had sugested this as a layout for an SSD, everybody would most like complain that its not powerfull enough.

I'm afraid the argument "I could have made it stronger" isn't an adequate dismissal of power level concerns. It doesn't matter how overpowered something is, it can always be stronger. And attempting to compare it to a SSD, even just to demonstrate that it's not overpowered, is woefully missing the point. Half the audience never wants to see a SSD precisely because they don't want something that overpowered in the game, and the other half acknowledge that it would have to be an epic level combat module all its own.

You say people aren't complaining about the MC80 or the ISD...let's quickly compare this thing to the MC80 Assault Cruiser: 1 more hull, 3 fewer shields, which works out almost the same; swapping a contain for a brace, which is huge, and will up this thing's survivability over the MC80; and both have two defensive retrofit slots. Currently, the MC80 Assault is one of, if not the, tankiest ship in the game, and you just added a second brace.

Compared to an ISD, it has the same number of shields, -2 hull and a second brace, which at least balances; plus a second defensive retrofit.

Now maybe this could work if you wanted to make this the biggest tank in the game, with its poor speed and maneuverability and few attack dice...but let's go back to comparing it to the MC80: same anti-squadron batteries, similar broadsides (two reds downgraded to black), now don't forget, this is similar broadsides to the biggest broadside attack ship in the game, and yet its forward armament is doubled. The entire challenge of the MC80 is that it's a durable ship with incredible broadsides, but it's not very maneuverable, and easily gets stuck if enemy ships are in its weak forward arc. Oh, and it can't take weapons teams, so it can't maximize its potential if the enemy are all on one side of it.

This thing also gets a weapons team. So if this is a rebel ship, not only are you more durable than the Rebellion's toughest ship, your broadsides are stronger (even if you do less damage at medium range, you can have a weapons team to do it twice, which compensates), and in addition your forward arc is nearly that of the best forward attacker in the rebel fleet.

Going back to the ISD, you're losing two dice from the ISD-I's front arc (the most punishing front arc in the game), but you're adding two blue dice on either side, which totally removes the ISD's weakness: you have to always be pointing at the enemy, because once they slip past you your broadsides are only okay. Yes, your maneuver chart is worse than the ISD, but moving like a VSD is not a drawback when you have a VSD front arc on every facing. You are no longer worried about positioning yourself optimally, because your guns all point in every direction, and you only need to trundle in the general direction of your opponent.

On the other side of the table from this beast, what am I supposed to do? Just move all my ships to the other side of the table and hope to dodge it? It trundles along like a VSD, but without concern as to if I'm in its front arc or not, and can take 2 red potshots no matter what arc I'm in, no matter where I am. And If I get close, I'm facing some of the strongest attack pools in the game, on all sides, from something that shrugs off anything other than a full on assault. Yes, obviously if you point it highly enough I can overpower it with more ships, but...where's the strategy? How to I out maneuver, out think, out play this ship? You've set out to create a good ship, and you've succeeded. It's all around, generically good, and you don't seem to understand why some people have an issue with that. The problem isn't the exact execution, the problem is the original goal.

In short you want that all ships in Armada, must have a major advantage on no more than two arcs and a major disadvantage on atleast two if not three arcs.

So if it was a assymetrical design, Instead of a allround well balanced ship design would you be happy?

Okay going back to the drawing board got a new specification in mind, much inspired by people's comments.

So wait a sec this will be fun

I'd actually be interested in seeing an all around well balanced ship, I suppose the Assault Frigate is about as close as we've got to one in the game right now; but it would have to be okay to decent at everything, not decent to excellent. But that could fill an interesting niche, especially on the Imperial side. Otherwise yes, I think that the game components are more interesting to play with when they have challenges associated with them. Generically good ships may be strong, but they don't interest me. And given the designs FFG have released so far, I believe they agree.

I can only agree with GA here. The whole design philosophy behind Shipyards was to propose ships with glaring weaknesses, because they are so much more fun to play. So much more full of... character. (Of course, whether I succeeded or not is a different story)

It doesn't come naturally to newbie custom content creators, as the instinct is to make something that's simply "awesome", or that scratches every itch, or that enables some invincible combo. An easy, if somewhat ham-fisted way to subvert this tendency is to start out that way, and then go back and chop something off - give it crappy defense tokens, a terrible arc layout, useless upgrade slots, an unwieldy maneuver chart...

Another approach is to find an official ship you like, pick out one or two features and make them better - then pick out another one or two features and make them worse.

The key, at any rate, isn't to make ships that are bad. It's to make ships that aren't good at everything.