tidewater Darkstar
Les Pieces Des Resistance
To begin, I figured showing this first would be the most valuable to any who see this. Which is one way of making counters and ships for this game:
Card or cardboard or cardstock counters cut from old… sprues? frames? that came from various boardgames (& some boxed wargames) we’re what I was hoping to use, but then I tried the first flimsy wedges on my natty felt hex-mat, and that was a deadend. (Fine for any other smooth or solid surface maybe)
So, after hemming and hawing about buying beads (?!), I bought up a handful of randomly assorted letter and number cubes with cylinder shaped channels for cording. I’m hoping to find a foam-wrapped wire later, but some small “pipe-cleaners” cut to tiny lengths are serviceable for now
Ships were made from plastic parts, some inverted from normal orientation to hide their origins better. Also, because the rules featured INVERSION(tm), & I had remembered some Star Wars X-Wing models (e.g. the B-Wing) being attached from the rear/engine area, I knew I wanted basing to connect to the stern. Everything I looked at making was too complicated. For example, if I made a base that could comfortably & securely hold 3 ships, you would have to pluck a ship out Everytime you moved -1 ship at a time because of initiative- or atleast everytime they separated. So I was about to give up when I looked at my tiny drill bits and some tiny paperclips that had a coat of sorts (like sheathing for a wire). To make each base, the “trombone” inner loop was carefully extended up at an angle to one end, stripped off about a 1/4-inch, then bent from there to point level & “forward” to make the mounting pin. Tiny red/green ship lights were painted on the underside in an order that would clue an observer that not only was the “belly up”, but that starboard (green) & port (red) were reversed.
The 'code' of the markings/colors is letter first for type, then number. Numbers are always black over white; craft are neon color letter over black (fewer colors, but more of each letter). All ordnance (torpedoes, missiles) are black letters over various colored backgrounds, more colors to tell launching ships apart. 
Epic work, @charpentierDerosia – man, it always warms an old man’s heart when I see another community member start up a Darkstar thread. Thanks so much! I’ll be watching with interest, let me know if you have any questions or if you even want an on line game one of these nights (we play over Skype) – starting in ealy-mid March.
We certainly do have questions, as me and my opponent are using this campaign to work out more of the rules. Syglex Emitters have us stumped, because we keep running over prior damaged armor/core sections with them -and hitting the bow or stern. Can they actually go deeper than the 1st 2 surface boxes if damage has opened the way? Or do they simply work aft to shave off more armor?
@charpentierderosia – okay, syglex emitters always shave off armor in columns to a maximum of 2 boxes deep. So a syglex got that does five points burns two boxes deep, two boxes deep, and then one box deep, tracking aft. If they’re burning across armor that’s already taken damaged, they still burn aft and YES burn off more armor and into internal components (if you’re burned down that deep). They do not “skip” armor columns that have already taken damage. For visual reference, they are a very powerful x-ray or even gamma-frequency beam that is “dragged” across a moving ship… Read more »
Thank you; it turns out my opponent’s most recent deduction was right. We have more questions, but one that is more campaign related for now: if one side with 2 ships wipes out an enemy force but loses 1 ship (crippled, then scuttled), but has a just-now captured (crippled) ship of the same type, how quickly could that ship be given to the saved skipper & crew of the scuttled ship?
Perhaps there’s a better place to ask, but we hoped we weren’t missing anything with regard to extra time needed for enemy ships being “converted” for suitable use by their enemy; on a quick note, we discovered that by omission, CIC bonus DOES NOT add to Initiative -it just happens to be written so close to the other Relevant number, oh and we kept adding it to everything like it was ketchup or hot sauce or salt. Sorry…
Thanks for the heads up @heavygear02 , I’ll see about making that rule a little more clear in any future editions. It’s an easy mistake to make … in fact in the old, old, old pre-pre-pre-alpha versions of the game (way back in 2012) I’m pretty sure we had +CIC = a + to initiative. This was before I introduced the “Tactical Initiative” battle upgrade … expensive … but often worth it, especially for larger ships (Rule 5.7.9., p. 108). 9. Tactical Initiative (Battle Upgrade): This ship’s senior staff, bridge crew, or even AI is simply operating at the next… Read more »
Sorry for the belated reply @charpentierderosia (Gulf War 30th Anniversary blitz is almost over …) Okay, when it comes to campaign rules, things get much more murky. If you look on the base Darkstar campaign threads, each battle usually runs about a month after the previous one. If for no other reason, this is because of the rather modest FTL speeds described in the Darkstar ‘verse. FAST warships usually run at a max of a 10-magnitude wave, or “c” x 300, or less than one light-year a day. So it takes almost a “work week” to get from Earth just… Read more »
thanks for the extra replies; and I too should apologize for seeing the last few VERY late. It seems we may be moving the action along Very Fast. Mostly, we’ve realized by the math that it is impossible for us to get any crippled ship to make the next fight, since there is usually some others not crippled who can press on the attack or mount a defense. I’ve been doing most of the figuring of when the ships are clean and “coming out of the dryer”. By trying to mark down the number of days till mandatory repair work… Read more »