Egyptoid Posted June 5, 2009 Report Share Posted June 5, 2009 Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peregrine Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles Yeah. We need to quit hijacking other threads... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles I think the game is known as Federation Commander, but it's still alive and well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theltemes Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles Pffftt... There is no other version than the Doomsday™ edition. I like my ship combat rules to barely fit into a 3" 3-ring binder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sundog Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles I think the game is known as Federation Commander' date=' but it's still alive and well.[/quote'] Federation Commander is a cut down, streamlined version of SFB. A worthy game in it's own right, but Captains/Doomsday edition is still being supported. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peregrine Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles Federation Commander is a cut down' date=' streamlined version of SFB. A worthy game in it's own right, but Captains/Doomsday edition is still being supported.[/quote'] Yep. Same setting, AFAIK, but different rules. Fed Commander is supposed to be easier to learn and quicker to play. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles I've always been curious about the system. I used to play the starship combat system that FASA created for its Trek rpg. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vulcan Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles Starfleet Battles is to the FASA Starship Combat Tactical Simulator as the HERO System is to Marvel Superheroes (the old FASERIP system)... only SFB is a lot more cumbersome than HEROs. On a more serious note, there are a few superficial similarities - as is to be expected, since both games cover some of the same source material. But there are HUGE differences between them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Outsider Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles I've just recently found a .wps file converter online, have converted my old ship & fighter design materials to an accessible format, and am looking over them again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheQuestionMan Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles I was a Master of Tactics, but was a failure in Building. Cheers QM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
incrdbil Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles I could never get into SFB becvause it was too boring, too many cumbersoenm rules, and as a trek fan, ..it just wasnt trek. It stole some background material for a sci-fi warship game that just wasnt trek. Races that didnt belong, and the use of stuff that just didnt exist in the Trek universe, or combat platforms that werent viable in Trek (mines, shuttles as fighters, etc). I liked the FASA Star Trek game better for ease of play and keeping faithful to the feel of Trek combat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninja-Bear Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles I only played a couple of times my older brothers were be into it. But what I played was a blast! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Mackinder Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles I played SFB for quite some time. I WAS a very keen player. Began with the original boxset (Trekker from way back, so it was inevitable), and stuck with it up to the Commander's Rulebook. I was very keen on the Federation in general, and (as mentioned elsewhere) "X-ships" (1st Gen) in particular. We tended to run battles as straight-out duels, with budgets of so many BPVs with which to buy ships and extras. Used geomorphic maps (I made up my own set) - none of this nonsense of being in space and somehow cornering your opponent against a map edge (save that crap for 'Q'). Some friends did weird stuff with the ship modification rules. One guy took an old Federation CL, stripped out the Photon Torps and a couple of other things, then somehow squeezed in a Type S Plasma Torp. Called it the "Garbage Machine", only ever used once (and we had to stop before things were resolved) but it was memorable. Good times. There was the first time I took a Federation CX into battle. The other guy took some "normal" Klingon battlecruisers (three D5s, I think). I still was a little unsure - knew about the thing with the batteries, and had also noticed the thing about overloading the ship's Phasers (turning them into Gatling Phasers, cool!). So, we set up, and the Klingon player starts closing in, wondering why I keep moving away (mainly charging all weapons to maximum overload). He tries for a high-speed run and englobe move, possibly a Gorn Anchor - and, I confess that I got a bit carried away. Most of one full broadside - 4 fully-overloaded Photons, all hitting, and maybe a dozen-plus overloaded Phaser-1s - into his lead ship. Not just killed, but OVER-killed to a ridiculous degree - the Klingon player basically conceded there and then (yeah, not a very good Klingon, I guess). Agreed, total lack of tactical subtlety, but I fell in love with the X-ships there and then. Worked up a few designs of my own, and other SFB players soon learned to fear my technological superiority. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vulcan Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles Captain's Edition did away with the modification/construction rules.... more's the pity. But then, hearing about the Fed CL with an S-Torp explains why they did it. The first time I played SFB, I wondered why the Klingon D-7 didn't have any photon torpedoes. It took me quite a bit of reading to understand the reasoning behind that, and now it makes perfect sense to me. It also makes sense now, that the SFB Klingons never bothered with getting cloaking devices - the power consuption would be murderous on a ship with Disruptors! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edsel Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles I liked SFB way back when it first came out. But years of new additions to the rules made it a non-enjoyable exercise. When all this foolishness about fighters and myriads of new weapons (with the huge amount of rules) showed up the game lost its appeal with me. I recently took my massive collection of miniatures (Fed, Rom, Kling, Gorn, Tholian and Kzin) to my FLGS where they are for sale. I never liked the addition of more races either (Hydrans, Lyrans, ISC, etc.) I like Federation Commander OK but it too is beginning to suffer from additional rules being piled on. I still have a copy of Federation Space, the first campaign system put out by Task Force games. I didn't really like Federation and Empire very much (again it got too rules heavy). Rules Heavy... kind of an odd argument coming from a Hero gamer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vulcan Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles Heh. 5ER has nothing on SFB for sheer complexity. Not to mention mass... The Captain's rules have their own discernable gravitation field, I swear! I love playing the Klingons, but it took me a while to figure out how to play them against the Feds. I kept going toe-to-toe on the first pass and (predictably) getting my block knocked off. Once I figured out what they meant by saber dancing things got a lot easier - my opponents had gotten used to me doing half their work for them and didn't know how to cope with me playing tactically. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinecone Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles I used to love SFB, but I stopped playing long ago...one Task force kills all their games the same way...more rules till death! And I found that I did not enjoy playing with hyper competative rules lawyers.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmadanNaBriona Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles I used to love SFB' date=' but I stopped playing long ago...one Task force kills all their games the same way...more rules till death! And I found that I did not enjoy playing with hyper competative rules lawyers....[/quote'] yeah, the same thing killed it for me. I played because I enjoyed the tactical challenge, not to see who can win using the most obscure trump card rule... for the record I have to say... Go HYDRANS! Stubby li'l green dudes FTW! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vulcan Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles I think the Hydrans are pretty cool too. Of course, part of that comes from the first F&E game I played. The Hydran player tied down the majority of the Klingon and Lyran fleets, ripped out their border BATS, preserved a good portion of their fleet, and generally turned the tide in our favor by holding out until the Feds (my turn!) had built up a ridiculous economy. I could afford to build everything my shipyards could turn out... and loaning money to the Kzinti and Gorn to help max out their builds too! But as far as SFB goes, anyone who can win with the Fusion-armed Hydrans deserves extra credit. Talk about winning your victories the hard way! The only race worse off is the Kzinti with the 8-SPD drones... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadowcat1313 Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles I picked up a complete set of the old Commanders Rulebook edition for 5.00 at a con auction a couple of years back, I havent played since that version, there are some great simple sets out there besides SFB, I really like Full Thrust, A Call To Arms, and Starmada. I remember reading somewhere that there was going to be a joint Starmada/SFB project actually. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeropoint Posted June 7, 2009 Report Share Posted June 7, 2009 Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles Oh, yeah! I've got Full Thrust and Starmada. Wish I could find someone to play against! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmadanNaBriona Posted June 7, 2009 Report Share Posted June 7, 2009 Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles But as far as SFB goes, anyone who can win with the Fusion-armed Hydrans deserves extra credit. Talk about winning your victories the hard way! The only race worse off is the Kzinti with the 8-SPD drones... Fusions take some practice to use well, I concur, but when coupled with Hellbores they make a decent ordinance set. And, IIRC, the power cost is really low, comparatively speaking, so you can get away with overloading them on a more regular basis compared to Photons or Disruptors. The trick to using Hydrans correctly is to stay flexible, use pack tactics, and ruthlessly concentrate your Hellbore fire on any target you can hit that has at least one breached shield. And the Hydran small craft draw enough fire that the capital ships often survive longer than you'd expect from their SSDs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Mackinder Posted June 7, 2009 Report Share Posted June 7, 2009 Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles Fusions take some practice to use well, I concur, but when coupled with Hellbores they make a decent ordinance set. And, IIRC, the power cost is really low, comparatively speaking, so you can get away with overloading them on a more regular basis compared to Photons or Disruptors. The trick to using Hydrans correctly is to stay flexible, use pack tactics, and ruthlessly concentrate your Hellbore fire on any target you can hit that has at least one breached shield. And the Hydran small craft draw enough fire that the capital ships often survive longer than you'd expect from their SSDs. And those Gatling Phasers are really nice for knife-fighting, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
austenandrews Posted June 7, 2009 Report Share Posted June 7, 2009 Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles We played the heck out of the game for a year or two. But with all the drones and whatnot the game got increasingly slow and cumbersome, so we stopped. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmadanNaBriona Posted June 7, 2009 Report Share Posted June 7, 2009 Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles And those Gatling Phasers are really nice for knife-fighting' date=' too.[/quote'] Totally! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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