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Any translation of a board game into a computer program necessarily creates problems and issues that change the way the game is presented and played. The STTCS GameMaster is no exception to that rule, but hopefully I have minimized any changes that would adversely affect the way the game is played. Some of these changes, however, may make you re-think your old, tried-and-true strategies.
FASA did some pretty bizarre things as far as defining the data and statistics for starships, bases, and other space-going vessels. Outposts and bases that can move are simply goofy (I really HATED the fact that Deep Space 9 could move - TV writers SUCK), and are a waste of power at a 10/1 movement point ratio. Smaller vessels, such as shuttles and fighters, should be more maneuverable and more difficult to hit than your average starship. You should be able to dock these smaller craft on ships and bases that have a finite amount of room for them. These smaller vessels, not to mention bases, shouldn't have cloaking capability, being either too small to power such a unit, or too big to hide.
Therefore, I felt I had to create three different types of vessels:
Starships: Able to cloak, house shuttlecraft and fighters (if they have the room), both warp and impulse capable.
Shuttles/Fighters: Able to dock at a base/outpost or starship (if there is room), are more maneuverable than Starships, are more difficult to hit with any weapon, do NOT have cloaking capabilities, are impulse capable and limited-warp optional. Limited light weaponry is also optional.
Bases/Outposts: Have no movement, other than a 60 degree (automatic) rotation per game turn, do NOT have cloaking capabilities, can house (usually) large amounts of shuttles and fighters, have fairly large power generation capabilities.
One item that I keep as mandatory is that all vessels have shields, even if they are very minimal.
The only stellar bodies and natural space phenomena I have incorporated into this game are stars and their planets, each system having a maximum of three stars and thirteen planets. Here are some other items that I have excluded, and why:
Moons: Considering that the smallest planet is limited to a 2000-mile radius (the default "map unit"), having anything smaller than that - most moons aren't very big in our own Solar System - is rather ludicrous. Also, the extra data needed for orbits, size, etc. would make a system database record overly large and cumbersome to work with.
Asteroids: See Moons...plus, I didn't want to do the "asteroid area" thing, where shields would be "worn down" from movement through the field, it would have put a lot of strain on my admittedly-limited abilities at programming. I may incorporate it in the future, if there is enough demand for it.
Nebulae: See "asteroid area", pretty much the same thing applies here. Calculating boundaries for such an area (unless you make it square or circular, and that would be really stupid) would be tedious and data-intense. Also, running around blind in a nebula (unless you have a human "game master" to moderate things and give hints when needed) is a futile thing, despite the events of Star Trek II. They aren't a part of the hex-based STTCS anyhow.
Black Holes: My math is good, but not so strong that I wanted to make a player try to compensate for an extremely strong gravitational anomaly. Again, they aren't normally a part of STTCS.