Is the 3.0 in the pipeline scrapped

[Sniddy]

While it had good points, it had some really bad ones too, I'm wondering if we'll be seeing  3.0 finished, a 2.5 retweaking what was there in 2.0, or a 4.0 ?

Any rough idea when the spotlight will shine over on FSA and we'll start hearing news?

[Doomkitten]

To be brutally honest? For my tastes I rather hope that 3.0 becomes a forgotten chapter and the next edition becomes more iterative than revolutionary as so many of the excessively change-y, er...changes were in the aforementioned 3.0

[Warcradle Stuart]

There will be a third edition of Firestorm Armada. We'll reveal more about what shape that will take in the New Year. 

[Kaptyn Krys]

6 minutes ago, Warcradle Stuart said:

There will be a third edition of Firestorm Armada. We'll reveal more about what shape that will take in the New Year. 

*Hype intensifies* 

[schoon]

2 hours ago, Warcradle Stuart said:

There will be a third edition of Firestorm Armada. We'll reveal more about what shape that will take in the New Year. 

Excellent news, and looking forward to hearing more.

...and hoping that balance and game design end up as pretty as the miniatures!

[Tekanan]

2 hours ago, Kaptyn Krys said:

*Hype intensifies* 

*Intensified hype escalating*

[Alex Mann]

I think it's safe to say that the Warcradle development team will be taking in a lot of input, as well as their own perspective on the game, before doing anything.

Will v3.0 be the one under development by Spartan previously? No.

Will it be their own? Yes.

Does that mean they will use some good suggestions and outcomes from other testing, including Spartan's v3.0 development? Well, why wouldn't they?

At the moment, anything posted here beyond these sorts of vagueness are going to be speculation - all that can be firmly said right now is that Firestorm is alive and well, and the future looks better than ever...Merry Christmas! 

[Ryjak]

I’m confident from the multiple interviews Stuart has provided that Warcradle will produce a starship combat game that will feel like it’s in space, instead of a naval war game with a sci-fi theme.

[wrongtrousers]

On 20/12/2017 at 11:34 PM, Doomkitten said:

To be brutally honest? For my tastes I rather hope that 3.0 becomes a forgotten chapter and the next edition becomes more iterative than revolutionary as so many of the excessively change-y, er...changes were in the aforementioned 3.0

I agree - I was not at all happy with the proposed rules changes and had already decided that whilst I would support the KS (for the models), I would still play V2 rules (which is always an option).  I believe V2 as it stands is fine, and simply needs a few tweaks as pointed out and solved by brains larger than mine on this very community forum.  I cannot see why games developers believe they need to throw the baby out with the bath water every time the opportunity arises to review a rules-set.  Onwards and upwards.....and I fervently hope the lads at Warcradle heed the clever suggestions found in these posts.  I mean, why waste good feedback?

[WestAustralian]

The game really could do with a 3.0, just not a half baked one. I look forward to seeing what Warcradle can do with it. 

[Warcradle Richard]

Keep the ideas coming, please. 

[Commodore Jones]

I'm also of the opinion that v2.0 is pretty damn good as is and only need a few tweaks to the rules and some stat changes.  A few amongst Terrans, a little more Dindrenzi, mostly to the Sorylians (Good Gawd Almighty do the Sorylians need some SERIOUS un-gimping!)

[Skyhawk]

Some changes to SRS( intercepters and fighters in particular) are in order.

[WestAustralian]

Don't remove any existing rules/abilities, modify/tweak the rules, but don't remove any. 

Special abilities of each race make them interesting eg, Stealth abilities, cloaking, battle jumps, weapon types, etc

[Wolfgang Jannesen]

I'd be in favour of trying to add more MARs, and then opening them up a little in your Tier 1 and 2 upgrade options for each fleet. Even one more available MAR is a leap forwards in options and play styles for those designs

[Toxic_Rat]

@wrongtrousers, my take (not necessarily Warcradles) on revising the ruleset was to hopefully bring in new interest for the game.  It's the same reason every other business would make changes to the product line, to improve on what they already have, and to generate buzz for a new edition.   It doesn't mean we need to change everything, but everything should be reviewed to see if there is a better way of doing things.  Warcradle wants to sell us miniatures.  If a new edition brings in new players while some are still playing 2.0, it's still a win for everyone because we get new models.

[Mathhammer]

On 1/11/2018 at 5:33 PM, Warcradle Richard said:

Keep the ideas coming, please. 

Hello @Warcradle Richard,

  I was doing the math hammering at the end on 3.0 rules, fire me a private message if you want me to do math hammering or simulation style work on 3.0. I was working through some comparisons of the TL changes that I have yet to post also.

mathhammer

 

[reddwarf]

On 1/11/2018 at 5:19 PM, Commodore Jones said:

I'm also of the opinion that v2.0 is pretty damn good as is and only need a few tweaks to the rules and some stat changes.  A few amongst Terrans, a little more Dindrenzi, mostly to the Sorylians (Good Gawd Almighty do the Sorylians need some SERIOUS un-gimping!)

That is unbelievably funny to those of us who remember what you thought at 2.0 rollout.

[Commodore Jones]

22 hours ago, reddwarf said:

That is unbelievably funny to those of us who remember what you thought at 2.0 rollout.

 

What? I never had much issue with the V2.0 rules back then, with the exception of Wings/SRS (the SRS levels of overpower I've gotten used to, but still don't like the lack of overall utility, and the brokeness of Interceptors) and Disorder Checks (still hate checks for half squadron loss).

Now Ship Stats were ALWAYS my first and foremost complaint issue with V2 and still are.

[Overread]

On 11/01/2018 at 11:33 PM, Warcradle Richard said:

Keep the ideas coming, please. 

I think the biggest question mark is really what Warcradle is envisioning Firestorm to be in terms of model count per side in typical battles. A huge portion of mechanics and suggestions hinges on how many models (or groups of models) a player is expecting to put down on the tabletop. Ideas that work for 5 models per side are going to be very different to if there's 15 or 30 or 40 models per side.

 

Personally I'd like to play closer to the "armada" side of the name and have more ships, esp since I feel that more ships allows for better balancing of super-ships like the dreadnoughts - plus it allows for more variation in army composition and lets players put more of their collection on the table to play with rather than having only a couple of models ever seeing battle time. 

 

Of course larger games means higher start-up costs - hence why we oft see many larger games have a simpler intro mode (eg patrol games in Warhammer). 

[Pok]

Larger games mean less maneuvering. With the size of the ships, you're quickly running into the same problem 40k Apocalypse had- you physically cant move the models due to table being occupied.

[Overread]

Apoc was massive games so it makes sense movement could get a big constricted there. 

However also space-based games tend to end up with less terrain in general, so there's often far more room on the table top to move around. 

I think you could easily have 30 models per side without having movement issues - heck consider that in regular 40K an army like Tyranids could have 100 models without breaking the ability to manoeuvre around the map. 

[Jeremie]

The biggest problem I have with the current rules is that FSA feels kind of a mix between a skirmish game (like malifaux or Warmachine/Hordes)  and a battalion wargame (like WH40k/Age of Sigmar). 

We  can move each model independently and each of them has different stats and can help others + we have to activate 1 "squadron" at a time like shirmish games. On the other side, the size of the battles quickly means we have quite a lot of models on the table and it takes ages to finish a turn (and we all know no ones like waiting).  

3.0 should either:

- simplify what each model can do if they are in a group and create the same "grunts (simple stats but more models) / hero (game changer but single focus)" differentiation that exist in skirmish games

- remove individual stats from squadrons and use them as 1 entity in term of firepower/abilities  (allowing for bigger games and more models)

Or we can do a combination of both (thought a lot more complex)  by creating 2 separate games at "less than X points" ==> skirmish rules /  "over X points" battalion rules

[Overread]

I think part of that is a result of Spartan's overall aim to have a rules set that would work at skirmish and army level; ergo the rules were trying to be both parts and then lets players choose how big a game they played. Thing is that if you lok at any other game system, the far larger games often steamline areas of the rules quite significantly to allow greater numbers of units to work within a sane amount of time (or at least retain a sane level of control if the game is going to last all day or the weekend). 

It's really in warcradles hands how big a game they make the core rules; how many ships they envision us having per group and per battle. From their point of view more ships makes balance more tricky, but it also means more sales, but in turn it also means more initial start-up-costs. 

40K has it about right - there's a patrol point level for small games for a quick start-up for new players; there's regular for a few thousand points  then there's Apoc for, well, everything including the cat on the table. 

[Hive]

I dunno, I like it like that. I think the small squadrons compared to other battalion-style games, and the fact that the options for each ship exist, lends to a pretty cool feel to the game- it's not quite a slugfest, but nothing feels insignificant to the point where it's just another member of a big unit. It's true that this is a detriment to time- I suggested elsewhere that squads not intending to do fancy stuff should be able to do some sort of simplified squad movement with potential other benefits, or move each ship individually if the player intends to pull some shenanigans.