It’s been a slow couple of weeks!!

Well it’s a bit of a mixed bag of stuff for this post, first off, I have spent the last week adjusting datasheets for some new ships that will be for use in games of Stars & Lasers, these ships are variants on existing ships.

It was suggested a while back that it would be good to have ship variants so that there would be more choice in what ships you take in your fleets, so for example two ships of the same class may not be exactly the same, they may have different weapons load-outs, or have slightly different defence systems etc. etc.

What I am trying to have is complete fleets of ships with maybe their weapons mainly in their front arcs or ships with their weapons mainly focused in their side arcs, this would give the opportunity to use your ships in particular fighting styles.

These changes had to be done in a way that would not change the points value of the ships and the changes could not give any ship too much of an advantage over other ships in the same class.

But what I found was that these changes often did give an advantage over ships in the same class from the smallest Corvette all the way up to a Dreadnought, but what I also found was that these changes also gave them a disadvantage as well…

So, if a ship had its weapons moved more to the front they had more of a problem if an enemy ship got around to its side or rear, because it now had fewer weapons there.

And problems will arise if a ship had its weapons moved more to its sides, they will not be able to simply fly straight their enemy, so they would have to manoeuvre a lot more, and there would be a problem if an enemy ship attacked from their front or rear, because they now had fewer weapons there.

As well as all the adjustments to the datasheets I have also been designing some other new ships as extras that can be added to fleets, ships like small Gun Boats with their different weapon load-outs making this a ship for all occasions, and a Missile Ship which has sacrificed many of its lasers for extra missile capacity.

Also, I have been working on two other new ships that carry new deadly weapons, one of which is a new guided energy weapon, and the other is a new deadly spinal mount weapon, both of which could do enough damage to destroy a battleship in one shot!!

So, lots being done for Stars & Lasers rules.

I will post updates as I slowly get things done, and hopefully I will be able to release these new ships and weapons sometime in the early part of 2019

Another thing I have been busy with ( for a work project ) is putting together a Warlord Games Pegasus Bridge MDF model in 28mm, this thing is great, and big, but it’s also a bit of a nightmare to actually put together, damn this thing is fiddly, and the instructions are not the best around, the worst part of the model is the railings that go around the bridge, it says to make sure the sections line up to allow for the lugs on the bottom of the railings to fit, but that is almost impossible, I eventually realised it was easier ( and necessary! ) after lining everything up I just filed the lugs thinner so that they fit… anyway it’s almost all together now and only after a few hours work.

I still have the gantry and control room to do, and the Gondree Cafe and the bunker to do… oh, and then probably all the figures that come with it, not sure if I have to paint it all yet, I need to find out from work.

And last but not least I have been working on the ACW rule set, my son put together a small program which will read all the details of the ships from a simple spreadsheet and save a copy of each ships datasheet for me, this means that I don’t have to spend hours and hours adjusting these sheets, once the information about guns, armour, speed etc. have been put into the spreadsheet the program runs through them and does it all for me, at the moment it does about eighty ships in a few seconds!!!

I have hit a bit of a wall at the moment with the rules, I am trying to find a good and simple way of doing fire-arcs and working out if a target is obscured or not, this should be easy to do but for now the solution escapes me…

And I also need to adjust the bases of my Ironclads as I have been informed that my ships look like they have frilly skirts on!!  ;O)

And finally I put a few more spaceships together ( actually quite a few! ) and will be trying to get them painted over the Christmas break so that they will be ready for some more games of Stars & Lasers when the club opens in January.

Amongst the many ships now ready for bases and painting are several new freighters which will be used either as pirates or just normal freighters, plus some of the ships I will be using as gun boats and missile ships, I have two heavy cruisers ( plus one more which still needs putting together ) to add to one of my existing fleets… I have also just found two GZG intro fleets, one United Nations and one KRA’VAK still new in their boxes, and a box of about 35 painted GZG Federal Stats Europa ships that I still need to put on bases!!

Oh dear, my spaceship collection seems to be growing!!

Mac