Just out of curiosity, is anyone familiar with this game? It's an older miniatures one which I wasn't previously aware of and I saw some stuff at a local comic store today. The setting seems interesting and I like some of the ship models I've seen, but I admit in looking at some of the official rules and such, I find some aspects confusing.
I've seen them for years - Spartan Games created that line and game system (along with several other games). That company is "toast" though and some of their products, including Firestorm have gone to these guys: https://www.warcradle.com/ They do have the manuals online, if you want to look them over first.
Right, I was looking at that today. The main issue is, in looking at the core rulebooks and some of the ship related PDFs, it seems as though some of the essential ship information (like specific weapons on a given class, for example) is not actually included in the stat blocks given for each ship. It's possible I'm not reading elements of it properly since I'm learning aspects of the engine, but I got the impression that said information was only actually included with the specific ship models. If that's correct, it seems like a rather odd omission to me.
Well - if I am reading the documents I downloaded correctly (having not played this game) - they don't specify the weapons by name in the fleet manuals. They give a list of ships and what effect the given type of weapons have within a given range. 8 inches - hits with 12 damage to port or starboard, or something to that effect. Warcradle does have a forum online. Might want to ask questions there. Might also want to see if there are any players in your general area. Looking over the Warcradle site, it would appear that they bought Firestorm from Spartan Games and then - haven't done anything with it at all...?
Yeah, my understanding is they have the license but haven't yet done anything with it, which suggests it's in a weird sort of limbo right now. I think you and I have a similar interpretation, but I admit I still feel like it's missing important information (YMMV, of course ). I might take a look at the forums, but I'm not sure why this statistic wouldn't be included in the core rulebook. I seem to recall noting similar omissions when looking at some of their related properties like Dystopian Wars (although I'd need to look closer at that one also). I've been looking into Paizo's Starfinder recently and while I like aspects of it, some of the rules regarding ship construction and other aspects are a little wonky this way. They don't always clarify how a weapon or system is supposed to work or what distinguishes two similarly named weapons aside from basic statistics (a persistent particle beam is a separate weapon from a standard particle beam, but there is no explanation on how the "persistent" qualifier works). Even if the explanation is short and simply fluff, it can be a useful detail. To give an example of an alternative, the various books for Battletech always give full statistics for units regardless of whether players specifically use miniatures or not. All the tech books and some sourcebooks cover specific unit statistics, while the core books have information on how the weapons and other systems themselves work.
Pretty much all of your classic 1970's to 1990's combat type games usually included a wealth (sometimes - overload) of information in the manuals and supplements. I played games like Star Fleet Battles (to a point, got REALLY bogged down by the mid-80's), FASA Star Trek RPG and Starship Combat Simulator. Some Battletech - Renegade Legion and so on and so forth (plus very early D&D, Traveller)... Ah...good times...
If it means anything, Warcradle has been working on a rerelease of another former Spartan product, Dystopian Wars.