"New Alien faction for Full Thrust now available" Topic

I am pleased to announce that I have released a new alien faction for the Full Thrust Universe. These are my own creations, and I have approval from Jon at Ground Zero Games to release them to the public.

They are an alien race that arrives in Human Space about 10 years after the Siege of Sol, which is the last notation in the Official Tuffeyverse timeline. They are a challenging faction to fight, and feature some new technology, including Faceted Shields, Heavy Grasers, and Plasma Cannon. They have no official status as of now, and so are considered "Playtest" material. I welcome playtest/Battle reports, and will adjust the rules as needed.

The new rules and ship guide are available here:
dropbox.com/s/80grlficg6yxut6/SSD%20book%20for%20the%20Insectoids%20final%20copy%20ready%20to%20release.pdf

You will need the following rules to use this supplement:

Cross Dimensions
dropbox.com/s/8mlvlrj8lxya5pj/full%20thrust%20cross%20dimensions.pdf

Jim Klein's Cross Dimensions Continuum Expansion
dropbox.com/s/uas8peexyvhyyqk/Full%20thrust%20Cross%20Dimension%20Continuum%202.0.01-%20with%20page%20numbers.pdf

Also available are the raw SSDs, without all the icons and information on the side of the official ship sheets, for those who would like to make Ship Sheets in another format for personal use. These are in a Zipped file.
dropbox.com/s/p57z0clfuiuc1i4/Raw%20SSD%20information.zip

I love bug-based races, this is very interesting! The Insectoid ships are on my wish list.

I used the Ground Zero Games "Mystery" Fleet, aka the Crusties for the ships, though you of course can use whatever miniatures you prefer.

I have been receiving some feedback suggesting that changes to the shield system may be a good idea.

Either raise the cost drastically, to 8-10 pts/mass for the generators, or lower the shield strength to 1/2 or even 1/3rd of current strength.

Anyone have any thoughts on this or any other aspect of the supplement?

I think the shield strength could survive being lowered at that cost certainly. Otherwise no complaints :)

It's being looked at. I won't be able to do more playtesting for 8-10 days, until the boy is in school and I have some quiet time around here.

One issue is that I was doing mainly fleet level testing 10-12 Insects vs 14-16 Human ships, and the shields offer less protection versus massed fire when there are that many ships firing at a given target. There are fewer opportunities to split fire on two shield facets, and a ship may get blown up and not be able to move off and regenerate shields as much as you can in a smaller squadron level game.

So in the smaller games, the shields get regenerated more, which is powerful over several turns. Especially versus damaged enemies who may not be able to generate enough damage per turn to overwhelm a fresh shield facet.

Anyone have any further comments on the Insectoids? I am seriously considering abandoning the Faceted Shield technology in favor of Regenerating Layered Armor.