You know, I really wish I had read this thread before you did all this work on the gun turrets. I actually know of a part which would be perfect for laser cannon barrels:

See the little part on the left? Looks like a laser cannon barrel, doesn't it? You can find them in disposable lighters, and this one was from a Bic lighter. They look like this:

Anyway, if you take it apart you'll find an assembly on the inside which can be disassembled to reveal several small parts, among them a little nozzle which can be used to make a pretty cool cannon barrel. You'll probably want to get a similar brand for all the turrets, as the design of the nozzle can vary from lighter to lighter. I found a deal on ten of them from Walgreens for $5 total, which isn't too bad for such a cool little part. And as you're using pop-rivets for the barrels and I know what they are, I can tell you that these are about the same size and could be used if you want to replace the barrels with something more turret-like.

Sorry about the sloppy editing.

This is what I've considered thus far for 200 points.

Pilot skill zero.

I thought about allowing the engine area to forfeight movement to regain one shield token for any area of the ship.

Ideas?

Those cards are looking cool and the costing of 200 points seems plausible, now the Empire can send waves of TIE Bombers.

I was thinking: each of the 4 cards basically could act like a normal ship and be able to perform an action specific for that section. The Bridge hands out target locks, the weapon bays "focus" and the engines can use their action to move or remain stationary (burn retros). Instead of these actions maybe a "regenerate shield" action could be done by each section representing power and crew boosting the deflector screens, possibly you roll a green die and on an evade gain a shield token in that section. When a section is reduced to 0 Hull I guess any additional damage would then be transferred to the next closest section (of the attacker's choice). If a section is knocked out then it loses all special abilities (actions/weapon systems).

Will the movement actually be like the small ships with the ship moving front to rear of the move template? This may not be practical depending on the size of the playing area.

The only small issue is the number of target locks available, as I think 7 is probably too much as it could get messy keeping track of which guns have got which TL on what ship. I think this is where a special "concentrate fire" sort of TL could be used, unique for these larger ships and the Gunship certainly is built for massed firepower. The Bridge's action could be treated like a sort of weapons engineer and generate up to 2 "concentrate fire" TLs per turn. A target ship would be selected as normal and then the combined attack dice of all available guns could be rolled against it as a single attack. I am thinking of this more in terms of "barrage fire" ie: filling the area with a high concentration of "flak" rather than selective pin point targeting. This therefore would not give rerolls to hit or use focus results but hopefully rolling between 5 and 10 attack dice vs a single defensive roll would still prove beneficial.

Thanks again for the inspiration.

Those cards are looking cool and the costing of 200 points seems plausible, now the Empire can send waves of TIE Bombers.

I was thinking: each of the 4 cards basically could act like a normal ship and be able to perform an action specific for that section. The Bridge hands out target locks, the weapon bays "focus" and the engines can use their action to move or remain stationary (burn retros). Instead of these actions maybe a "regenerate shield" action could be done by each section representing power and crew boosting the deflector screens, possibly you roll a green die and on an evade gain a shield token in that section. When a section is reduced to 0 Hull I guess any additional damage would then be transferred to the next closest section (of the attacker's choice). If a section is knocked out then it loses all special abilities (actions/weapon systems).

Will the movement actually be like the small ships with the ship moving front to rear of the move template? This may not be practical depending on the size of the playing area.

That is exactly what I was thinking. I tried to base power and defense on 200 points of rebels or imps. Tie bombers could plop bombs on the mid section and hit more than one area of the ship. Proximity mines would also be difficult to avoid.

As for movement, I was thinking that the ship should only be able to move straight 1,2 and bank 1,2. I thought about placing the movement template, marking the end of the template with a movement token and removing the template, then moving the ship up to the marker. You are probably right, a larger than 3x3 game mat is needed.

Someone recommended that fighters who are overlapped by the capital ship are forced to make their movement without an action.

The only small issue is the number of target locks available, as I think 7 is probably too much as it could get messy keeping track of which guns have got which TL on what ship. I think this is where a special "concentrate fire" sort of TL could be used, unique for these larger ships and the Gunship certainly is built for massed firepower. The Bridge's action could be treated like a sort of weapons engineer and generate up to 2 "concentrate fire" TLs per turn. A target ship would be selected as normal and then the combined attack dice of all available guns could be rolled against it as a single attack. I am thinking of this more in terms of "barrage fire" ie: filling the area with a high concentration of "flak" rather than selective pin point targeting. This therefore would not give rerolls to hit or use focus results but hopefully rolling between 5 and 10 attack dice vs a single defensive roll would still prove beneficial.

Thanks again for the inspiration.

This is very good dialogue. This is one of the issues I've been pondering. There are 18 different weapon systems on this ship. I thought that a concentrated fire would work better than 18 seperate attacks, so I organized them into batteries. The aft batteries only make four attacks instead of ten. I chose seven TL, one for each battery and one for each concussion missile (x2 each round). They cold be kept organized by placing the blue TL on the base, by the battery to which it is assigned. Do you think that seven TL and auto focus makes it too powerful? I'm starting to think so.

My goal is to design the capital ship so that it is well balanced for play. I have a mission in mind. I'm going to take this to Xwing night and see if anyone wants to throw 200 points at it.

We beta tested tonight. A room full of nerds provided feedback. We will reconvene next week with modifications. In short, the bombers melted this thing. We took away the agility and moved all pilot skill down to zero for this test. It was a good time. They suggested that I reduce the cost, alllow for upgrades, and beef up the hull.

Breathtaking, that ship is a massive piece of art!

It is good to hear about the first run of the ship in combat. Those Bombers must have been carrying multiple ordnance and even against agility 1 ships these hurt a lot! Roughly how many turns did it last? What enemy ships did it shoot down?

So if the points were reduced by half (100) that might be a good starting point. Do you think that the ship should then be able to add some standard upgrade cards? I am not sure these really fit the huge ships and the most applicable upgrades (crew and sensors) are somewhat already covered by having multiple guns and target lock capabilities.

These ships do need some unique rules, for example if they move and bump into a fighter they should probably not lose their actions.

At the moment it has 20 shields and 30 hull, I still think this is about right. If there is a recharging shield ability this should help. An agility rating of 0 does sort of fit due to the huge size. Another option is to replace the Agility rating with an Armor rating. This idea (inspired by others) would only be used once the shields are down. Any attack against the hull would have the Armor rating subtracted from it. So a ship with Armor 1 that is hit for 2 damage would only suffer 1 damage. This Armor rating might only affect certain weapon systems like the standard laser cannons on fighters to represent their relative weakness against huge targets. However missiles and torpedoes might be able to ignore the Armor rating. This could be ruled as "All primary attacks must subtract the Armor rating from their damage. Secondary weapons (and mines) ignore the Armor rating." An Armor rating of 1 would be standard, but certain areas could have an Armor rating of 2 (engines perhaps?) Basically missiles and torpedoes should be the ideal big ship killer but laser cannons are much less effective.

This brings up another question: What affect will ion cannons have on these huge ships? Perhaps a successful ion attack will "disable" a system in a given section (lose a target lock action, lose a weapon system etc...) for the next round, then remove the ion token as normal.

It is good to hear about the first run of the ship in combat. Those Bombers must have been carrying multiple ordnance and even against agility 1 ships these hurt a lot! Roughly how many turns did it last? What enemy ships did it shoot down?

It took out two interceptors, one bomber, and 2/3 of a tie. That 2/3 damaged tie was destroyed by friendly fire when one of the bombers hit me with assault missile. We agreed that assault missile would cause damage to adjacent ship sections, same goes for bombs. when multiple sections were within range. The bombers were all decked out! They caused the most damage. We moved the DP20's agility to zero at range 1-2 and one agility at range 3. Once combat began, the DP20 lasted four or five rounds. Basically, the imps destroyed the ship from front to back. One section of the ship died every combat round.

So if the points were reduced by half (100) that might be a good starting point. Do you think that the ship should then be able to add some standard upgrade cards? I am not sure these really fit the huge ships and the most applicable upgrades (crew and sensors) are somewhat already covered by having multiple guns and target lock capabilities.

The consensus was that the ship should be 160-165 points and allow for upgrades. I argued against it, saying that those options would really only be used if the DP20 was used during regular play, which is not why I designed it. I designed it for one particular mission. The house players unanimously said that they wanted the DP20 to be an active part in casual play. However, they also said that they wanted multiple cards available for various skill levels. Most players argued that the entire ship should have one common skill value. The rules which we discussed yesterday were supposed to be for the lowest skill level gunship, "2." On nearly all of the ships which FFG has produced, pilot skill has had no affect on the integrity of the ship. I propose the following:

Officer upgrades.

Lieutenant, +2 to skill

Captain, +4 to skill

The above officers would add their skill to the skill of the base ship (2).

So, a DP20 without an officer has a skill of 2,

A DP20 with a lieutenant would have a skill of 4

A DP20 with a captain would have a skill of 6

A DP20 with a captain and a lieutenant would have a skill of 8.

Everyone agreed that the gunship would have droids and crew "all over the thing." I have looked through the FFG crew cards and found that a few of them will work. Some of the cards work perfectly. The crew effects would only apply to the section to which the crew are assigned. For example, I put Chewie and an R5 astromech in the engine bay. I divided the ship into four segments and gave each segment is a little different but they all take a droid and two crew options.

Some people suggested that the gunship should be able to TL anything on the board, which I agreed with. Some thought that the whole ship should have anti-pursuit lasers built in, which I am unsure about.

I only gave the ship two TL during the test. Those two were controlled by the bridge, which would have launched two concussion missiles from the aft section each round. The bridge was destroyed in the first combat round so no missiles were fired and the TLs were lost. The house agreed that each battery should have its own TL or focus action. In addition to the two concussion missiles from the aft, they also recommended that two missiles be launched from the bridge section. Cannon said that the DP20 had four missile launchers.

If there is a recharging shield ability this should help. An agility rating of 0 does sort of fit due to the huge size. Another option is to replace the Agility rating with an Armor rating. This idea (inspired by others) would only be used once the shields are down. Any attack against the hull would have the Armor rating subtracted from it. So a ship with Armor 1 that is hit for 2 damage would only suffer 1 damage. This Armor rating might only affect certain weapon systems like the standard laser cannons on fighters to represent their relative weakness against huge targets. However missiles and torpedoes might be able to ignore the Armor rating. This could be ruled as "All primary attacks must subtract the Armor rating from their damage. Secondary weapons (and mines) ignore the Armor rating." An Armor rating of 1 would be standard, but certain areas could have an Armor rating of 2 (engines perhaps?) Basically missiles and torpedoes should be the ideal big ship killer but laser cannons are much less effective.

This issue was discussed. They basically said that a ship of this purpose would have be have at least ten extra hit points per section. So now, it will be 90 hit points instead of 50 and will be 40 points cheaper. I think it will be way to powerful, but it did get its afterburner handed to it. The guys that intent to fly with it, and against it, helped come up with these rules.

I forgot to mention that the engine bay can choose to move or redistribute 4 shield tokens to anywhere on the ship.

http://home.comcast.net/~jason.fuller/cardGenerator.html

For card generation...

Will be flying this bad toy at Little Big Wars game store in West Fargo, ND next Wednesday. That is close to MN. Still hammering out rules but she gets plenty of table time. Last week she got beat, hard. This week she reaped her revenge!

First she needs to be commissioned with a name.

Then you need to give some more details of what changes you have made...

https://www.facebook.com/LittleBigWars <- The fb page for our LGS.

DB- since Dp20s were used by both factions I thought of having two names. Incursion (rebels) and Retribution (imps).

Last weeks results indicated that we needed to increase the hull and shields. I beefed up the overall points by 40, 10 per section.

This week we discovered that the armament might be to strong.

We kept the missile launchers at 2 per round, from the bridge.

The mid section now gets only one attack, but for 7 attack dice (+1 at range 1 ).

The aft section will not only have four attacks with 5 attack dice each.

To be fair, my opponents got slaughtered because they flew big ships with low agility. 2 lambdas, 2 bombers, and 1 firespray.

We said that if a section received stress, maybe from shooting at a rebel captive, that that one section cannot have an action that next round.

We talked about ion hits, how many and where. We came up with 2 hits to the bridge or 3 hits to the engines and the ship can only move 1 forward the next round.

Next week we will test again. I think we are getting closer to some balanced rules.

I used a lambda dial and ignored red maneuvers effects.

My buddy will be flying Incursion next week. I'll be taking her down!

When I get to making stats for my huge ships they will have at least 100 hull all day every day. We are talking about big craft after all.

For their size they probably should have a 100 Hull but in the movies they are kind of more fragile if I remember correctly. For playability giving them a healthy Hull rating around 30 to 50 with shields that can be recharged or reallocated should provide quite a bit of resilience. I still like the Armor idea for these vessels to stop the "death by a thousand mosquito bites" that a Hull only rating has. Ordnance (bombs, missiles, torpedoes) should be the main weapons for crippling these monsters. Therefore a simple rule that says all primary weapon attacks must bypass the Armor rating to cause Hull damage would be easy to implement. That way standard laser cannons are not great but HLCs will live up to their name.

Of course they are many ways these monsters can be modelled in the game so it will come down to playtesting ideas to get the best balance.

For their size they probably should have a 100 Hull but in the movies they are kind of more fragile if I remember correctly. For playability giving them a healthy Hull rating around 30 to 50 with shields that can be recharged or reallocated should provide quite a bit of resilience. I still like the Armor idea for these vessels to stop the "death by a thousand mosquito bites" that a Hull only rating has. Ordnance (bombs, missiles, torpedoes) should be the main weapons for crippling these monsters. Therefore a simple rule that says all primary weapon attacks must bypass the Armor rating to cause Hull damage would be easy to implement. That way standard laser cannons are not great but HLCs will live up to their name.

Of course they are many ways these monsters can be modelled in the game so it will come down to playtesting ideas to get the best balance.

Very good post man. Yes there needs to be some clear (and cool) rules to represent these ships. Standard Lasers are not going to kill these ships in most games. HLC and Bombs, ect will kill them.

The DP has 90 HP

Bridge 12 hull, 10 shields, 2 concussion missile attacks and one TL jammer per round.

Mid section 12 hull, 10 shields, 7 attack

Aft section 14 hull, 10 shields, 5 attack four times.

Engineering 12 hull, 10 shields, Move the ship up to bank or fwd "3." Regenerate 4 shield tokens to distribute to the ship.

TL & focus, zero agility for the whole ship.

1 droid per section, 2 crew per section (3 for the bridge).

Bridge has unlimited missiles.

I made two officer crew cards to create a variety of (pilot) skills. I havn't played them yet but I hope to be able to use neither, one, or both to have skill levels 2, 4, 6, and 8.

Leautenant: +2 to ship skill, ship gains anti-pursuit lasers, ship may move fwd "4." (7 points)

Captain: +4 to ship's skill, +1 attack die against enemy ships if they are within range 1 of a friendly ship. (14 points)

Base ship costs 160 points

There you go...Baby!

This week we bumped the offense down again. The center section now shoots 3 dice twice. The aft section now shoots four dice four times.

We gave the small ships an additional green dice against the turbolasers. The gunship and 3 xwings rolled over 6 academy pilots, two named bombers, a shuttle, 3 tie heroes, and 3 alpha squad interceptors.

One xwing died. The gunship took no damage. It wiped out the skill 1 ships like it was nothing.

Will revisit and revise.

Amazing work. not sure if I missed it somewhere but about how long did the entire project take?

Tony - I worked on the DP20 for eight months starting in February, but I didn't touch it during the summer. After this scratch build I decided to take on a kit bash to make an Imperial customs corvette. There is a thread about it.

Thanks for looking. :-)

We ain't getting paid by the hour, and these ships are a labor of love, not an ego tripe...

Tonight we divided the ship into 8 sections. We redistributed hull and shield values. It still has 91 hit points. We have each turret an attack, so targeted ships roll evade against each attack. Survivability of fighters increased. We gave small ships an extra agility against the turbo lasers but not laser cannons.

We gave the DP20 automatic focuses but only gave it two TL for the missile attacks. Next week we will take away all actions except the two TLs.

This was the most balanced game thus far.

Photo of setup at the LGS.

The DP has 90 HP

Bridge 10 hull, 10 shields, one TL jammer per round.

Mid section turbo lasers. 5 hull, 5 shields. Two attacks with two dice.

Mid section laser cannons. 5 hull, 5 shields. Two attacks with three dice.

Aft laser cannons left. 5 hull, 5 shields. Two attacks with three dice.

Aft laser cannons right. Same as left.

Aft deck turbolasers. 5 hull, 5 shields. Three attacks with two dice.

Aft belly turbolasers. Same as deck.

Engineering. 5 hull, 5 shields

Zero agility for the whole ship except at range 3 (1agility).

Small based targets gain one agility againt turbolasers.

Base ship costs 160 points. Skill 2.

When 5 of the 8 sections are destroyed, the crew abandons ship. The vehicle becomes terrain.

This is the best so far. We had a ton of fun. We will run it this way again. Then we will begin designing officers.