by Morpheus on Thu 07 Dec 2017 01:42
I'm just now getting around to answering, but here are my thoughts. I will say that I tend to favor the older versions of Starfire, and tend to only play tactical level scenarios like the ones in Stars at War and Crusade as I just don't have the time to play a long game and have no desire to do all of the associated bookkeeping. That to me becomes more of a job in and of itself than fun. I also like how the older versions of Starfire have a very rich history with the novels and all.
In general, shipbuilding and the simplicity of the ship system display and being able to completely customize your ships is what originally drew me to Starfire from Star Fleet Battles in the first place, and it is one of my favorite things about the game.
#1 - To be honest I rarely play with the strategic rules. That being said, I think the ship building rules and the tech trees are essential, as well as system generation, however, if there were a pre-fab universe provided, the system generation rules wouldn't be needed for a "quick start" type game.
#2 - I think the spying/espionage rules seem like more trouble than they are worth.
#3 - I feel like economics could be greatly simplified and the more complex version of them left to optional or advanced rules. Currently, I feel like the economics rules are just too much work to be fun. I also feel like the land/ground combat rules would be best left to the optional rules.
#4 - I agree with some of the others, who said that system generation is pretty simple if you use a universe generation application. It takes almost all of the work out of it.
#5 - Essential technologies to Starfire: Shields, Armor, Reactionless Drives, Guns, Missiles, I really like the old "W" Gun/Missile launcher in the 3rd Edition rules a lot better than the current "W" box launcher, Lasers, Primary Beams, Force Beams, Point Defense, and Datagroups/Datalink.