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Ship Designer and Home Brews

#1
Big Grin 
Happy new year everyone!

I was very happy to discover that Silent Death had not become "extinct" when their website went down; but even more thrilled that its back in action. Watched the Bladestorm 2nd Editon videos; awesome!

On the note of action, I have two points and questions.

1) Are you looking into any re-vamp, add to or update to the ship creation system? 

Why? 
For a while now we (our small group in Calgary) have been using a custom built Excel spreadsheet to design ships from 1 ton (a probe) all the way up to 100,000+ tones (Capital Ships). Components can be added to designs for FTL travel, cargo, passengers, hangers and other toys. All this aimed to flesh out ships, scenarios and campaign games. We even tweaked components (weapons and others) to have different costs and slots based on a larger classification system. Military class ships and stock. Civilian FTL is cheaper but takes more slots. Then there are also Police and even Pirate class ships.

That's too much detail, SD is a simple skirmish game. 
I don't think this necessarily excludes Silent Death from its roots as a skirmish game, in fact I think it adds significant depth and story to play. Why should House Colos have all the fun, have some privateers (that's legalized pirates) attack a supply convoy under military or police escort. And what are campaigns but a self directed group of skirmishes?

What am I hoping for? 
I was hoping to get a sense of how SD might evolve. In particular we really want to see the Night Brood updates. 

Is there a place to share or "donate" ideas?
I suppose that is up to current owners. On that note I would be happy to share what we have but would always ask for permission first, rather than beg forgiveness. 

I'm a big fan of Talisman the Board Game and love that they have an open forum to share and discuss "Home Brews" additions to the game. Its a good way to blend a traditional board game into a technology driven age. 
(https://community.fantasyflightgames.com...ome-brews/).


2) Ships and ship models. 

Has there been any discussion on 3D printable ship designs? 

But we sell models , why make them printable?
Over Christmas my TIKO arrived (a sub $200 3D printer). Its not spectacular but it works and demonstrates that the technology has just about reached a point where its going to become far more common and affordable. After 20+ years in technology I can say with authority that this is going to change the world. 

Sell a design. 
Sure it might cost $20 instead of $5 but its an option. Shipping is a download, damage on-rough is negligible, no expensive molds need to be manufactured and to be frank, people are going to do this anyway. Its always been a challenge blending technology with the more traditional board and miniatures games. Information and idea management, selling the knowledge and ideas are what keeps something relevant.

Fans could donate ship designs?
Why would they do that? Donating to a cause can be done with time, money or ideas. Its usually hard to separate people from their money but ideas and time?People are funny, fans can be even funnier. Sometimes they do it for the love of the game, other times its to "immortalized" on the name of the ship. Admittedly its a more slippy slope, but engaging fans to help draw in new fans is always a good thing.


So I'm sorry about the length, I'm just happy SD is back online. There are so many ways this conversation could go, so I 'll stop here and just plant some seeds and see what grows.

TTFN.
All good things come to those who wait...
And when your tired of that there is always another way 
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#2
I would like to address some of this.  I used to play Silent Death a long time ago and have even contributed to some of the published works.  I played with Sheldon Greeves and Stephen Wilcoxson and other greats.  During that time I worked on cleaning up issues that were in the system and even adding new components and pushing boundaries.

I have lots of old notes that I have been trying to go through and don't remember some of the work.  I will try to list a few things that I have and would love to see moved forward:

"Brood Busters": A private lab that has designed anti-brood weapons to be installed onto ships

Updated core rules: An attempt to clear up issues discovered while playing, making some things easier, some things smoother, etc.

Star Wars adaptation: Researched and designed lots of ships from the SW universe to fit into the SD universe.  Translated weapon systems into SD in order to incorporate and balance the ships.

Wing Commander adaptation: Researched and designed ships from the WC universe to fit into the SD universe.  Translated weapon systems into SD in order to incorporate and balance the ships.

Custom ships: I have lots of ship designs, sheets included for over 300 ships, core ships included.

Ship Builder software: I have various attempts at an all-in-one software to design ships, from Visual Basic source code to Visio template/stencils.

I might have more buried in the notes, but I would love to see this work come to light and be used/produced.
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#3
Brian,

glad you've turned up at our little aerodrome, and do take a look at what is going on in the Forum entitled Your Works. I think you're going to like what you see what fans of Silent Death have been doing already on this front...
"Pathetic earthlings. Hurling your bodies out into the void, without the slightest inkling of who or what is out here..."

- Ming the Merciless
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#4
Some of the new ed I would like to see are:

Turn sequence

1. Initiative rolls based on Pilot's die.
2. Torps and missile lock ons
3. the usual movement
4. Torp results
5. Cannon fire
6. Missile results
7. Drift - I think it's fun and it can be used tactically here.
8. Everyone gets to use their DC roll

Also I don't think ammo should cost points.
Maybe any intervening ships between firer and shooter could warrant a -1 to hit.
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