I have spent a lot of time over the last few months putting together another supplement for Stars & Lasers.
It is at the finishing off stage now, I am adding the last few photos and spell checking for the hundredth time!!
The supplement has come about because of a request from someone that plays lots of Spaceship games, he asked for more ship versions, so players have the option of taking different types of ships based on the same class… i.e. a light cruiser or a destroyer or whatever your opponent has on the table may be different than the light cruiser or destroyer you have on the table, it may have different weapons load-outs or stronger shields or even faster engines.
Well I took this onboard and started working out some different load-outs ( based on a few of his suggestions )
The idea behind this supplement is that these ships are from different human colonies spread out across known space, each colony has fitted out their ships the way they believe is best for them and their way of fighting.
They may have changed the basic ship just by moving a few weapons around or removing some, or even changing the weapons totally.
What I have ended up with is five different sets of ships for five different colonies, each is a different style of ship which will give players more choice in what ships they can use in their games.
Just as an example of these ship changes I have given a sample below…
Omicron Class ships:
This re-fit is from several colonies in the Omicron system, these colonies have developed some unique ships and some of the fastest ships around, they have adopted an unusual style of fighting that sees their ships carrying large numbers of missiles, they believe in hitting their enemy from a distance.
Their engineers have increased the effectiveness of their ship’s engines, giving them the ability to keep well out of the enemies close range shots, but to help achieve this increase in speed they have had to reduce the weight of their ships, this has been done by reducing the number of main weapons systems that they carry, and by reducing their point defence systems, and lastly they have also reduced the amount of armour that these ships carry.
This has of course made their ships less resilient than most other ships of a comparable sizes.
To balance these severe reductions in their ships primary attack and defensive systems they have increased their secondary weapons systems, and their shield generators.
They carry an increased missile load on most of their ships as they believe it is better to hit their enemy with massed missile volleys and hit them with laser fire from a distance rather than closing with the enemy, although because of their increased shields they can still get in close if they have to.
They will fire off salvo after salvo of missiles keeping the enemy away, as they have found that enemies tend to try and manoeuvre around missiles rather than fly through them to get to their ships, it doesn’t always work but because of their superior speed they can always get away and fire another salvo of missiles.
Also, in the new supplement are a couple of new ship types, these are again to add a little variety to Stars & Lasers.
The first one is a ship that I felt was probably needed as I found that after the first couple of games people seem to have fun just ramming each other!!
This of course is a valid tactic, but now they will be able to do this with a ship that has been specifically designed for the job!
So not only does it dish out more damage when it rams an enemy ship, it doesn’t suffer as much damage as a normal ship does.
To make this possible this ship has had all of its forward firing weapons removed and had huge amounts of armour added to its front sections to allow this ship to be used as a ram.
Also, there is a new small ship on the block… ok more of a weapons platform than a ship, the Gunboat.
There are three versions of the Gunboat available, one has more lasers, one has more missiles, and one has a more even mix of both.
Included in the supplement are all the datasheets needed for all these ships.
And finally, I have written a couple more scenarios using some of these new ships, the first is “Defend the line” a planetary defence battle where a small advance force has to clear an area ready for the main attack force.
The second is “New Eden” a new system has been discovered containing several planets perfect for colonisation, but two enemy forces have arrived to claim this prize at the same time… and negotiations are not high on the agender!!
So hopefully a little something for everyone in this supplement.
I do still have a few more bits to test before it is fully finished, but hopefully it will be ready for release soon.
