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Well, it wouldn't be a ship design thread without Babylon 5 now would it? And I wouldn't be borderline OCD if I didn't try yet another conversion of my B5Wars trove. So, here for your consideration, are some Earth Alliance ships.

EDIT: Okay, I'm going to start posting my designs here at the beginning of the thread from now on. Look here for changes, updates, et al.

To start everyone off, I give you a whole bunch of Centauri and Narn for your exploding enjoyment.

Quality stuff here.

I am curious: I don't have B5Wars, but I do have ACTA Babylon 5. Is one considered more accurate in reflecting the source material than the other? I know the game systems are vastly different, but (for example) does an EA Hyperion cruiser have the same weapons loadout in each?

I have B5Wars but not ACTA.

Let me dig it out and I can tell you what the loadout is and you can compare.

B5Wars Hyperion Heavy Cruiser (Theta Model)

(attached)

Looks like they have the same weapons. But I can't even begin to decipher how the ACTA stats relate to those from B5W.

They don't. B5 Wars was done by Agents of Gaming and was the second B5 miniatures game (the first one was tied to the original RPG that failed and was based on the original Full Thrust Rules); much more tactical I guess as opposed to Mongoose's ACTA. A simple comparison of systems would be like comparing SFB (Wars) to Starmada (ACTA). I can PM you a link to a web trove full of B5 Wars material (including a sort of comprehensive rules booklet for the system and all the B5 ships you could want, official and unofficial, and more).

B5 Wars was much more comprehensive and closer to the source material, given that it was around while B5 was still airing. Multiple ship variants, hex based, more complex damage resolution. Sadly they lost the licence before Crusdade, so there's nothing official for stuff like the Excalibur or Drakh.

I'll do up a few more ships for each of the other three (Minbari, Centauri, and Narn) and get input. Off the top of my head I'm thinking that the Minbari will have Stealth, Over thrusters, a/o better engine ratings (along with some tech increases to keep hull size down), while the Centauri and Narn will probably be just regular like the EA is. Might go back and tweak the EA engine ratings and shields/screens as I previously thought about as well.

More to come.

I agree. B5Wars is closer to the show and the 'official' material.

It is also a lot of fun (once you get past the serious balance issues the game can have). All hail the mighty Centauri Republic.

Okay... Was just finishing up my last ship when I realized that I made a large error, and now I'm stuck wondering what to do.

I'd abandoned the use of Shields in favour of Screens/Armor (as that fit the B5 universe better). Wasn't until I was finishing off the last ship (redoing the Shadow Omega) when I realized I'd given lots of shield defeating-based traits to weapons that didn't have shields to penetrate. (I also realized that without Shields IMP vs DMG becomes almost irrelevant, which affects some of the dual-mode weapons as the primary difference is IMP dice vs DMG dice.)

The rub is that with several weapons in the source material they more easily penetrate defenses. My first thought was Directional Shields, but I don't like how you can reduce any side's rating as opposed to being forced to reduce the side that got pounded. (Makes sense for shields, not armor). At the same time, there's nothing that does extra damage to Screens/Armor only and doesn't gut the ship when the screens are gone.

So after a few hours of work I find myself stymied. Right now it's Screens for all (directional on the larger, non-directional on the smaller) for the outer "armor", Ionized hull for capital ships (representing their sturdier core). I could always go Directional Shields for all instead, drop screens, and implement a house rule that Shields have to be reduced in the following order {facing, directly opposite, then evenly across the remaining two}.

Thoughts and input would be most appreciated.

MRCAcct wrote:I don't like how you can reduce any side's rating as opposed to being forced to reduce the side that got pounded. (Makes sense for shields, not armor).

Not necessarily related to your topic, but to answer the (unasked) question:

You are allowed to take the damaged directional shield from any facing for two reasons: (1) power can be rerouted from one side of the ship to another, and (2) the damage location results represent the cumulative effect of damage over time, and not necessarily the result of the specific attack for which you rolled the "6".

That being said, I can support an optional rule that would require the defending player to reduce the affected shield rating by at least 1.

Shields have to be reduced in the following order {facing, directly opposite, then evenly across the remaining two}.

Why directly opposite?

Thank you for starting the B5 thread for Unity. I am also trying to convert and upgrade my B5 designs once I get my DryDock mods and conversion to OpenOffice completed. Since I playtested and own both B5W v1 and v2 sets, I have a lot of source material as well as experimental designs.

I do agree with your decision to use screens/armor instead of shields. That better matches most of the B5 ship designs. My use of shields in designs were restricted to the First One races. The Shadows had energy absorption tech, but that just uses Unity shields as well.

I experienced your exact same problem of weapon effects. Therefore I created the Penetrating weapon trait (Pn1, Pn2) that has the same effects of Piercing, but does the extra damage to Screens/Armor. The cost is the same as the equivalent Piercing level. Dan can chime in if he feels that the Penetrating cost needs some modification. I already have my version of Unity DryDock updated with the Pn1, Pn2 weapon traits.

What do you all think?