December 2009

FC TACTIC OF THE MONTH [Continued]

TIPS FOR SFB PLAYERS PLAYING FC

* Keep a few phasers for drone defense: once the drones hit no one can help you.

* You can only fire every fourth Star Fleet Battles impulse. Plan accordingly; you probably will not get a "perfect" shot.

* Your opponent does not have to move. Just when you plan on nailing him because he "must" move forward, he does not. He pays power to "decelerate" and cancel that hex of movement. Then he turns.

* There is no quarter-turn delay between firing the same weapon on consecutive turns. Even if your opponent fires in the last impulse, he can still fire in the first impulse of the following turn. Even so, the ships will move (up to four hexes) between those two firings.

* Do not get too fancy on movement. Fiddling with movement uses power quickly, and you could lose the option of overloading.

* Do not plan on reinforcement saving you. You can only stop a very few points in a volley, equal to the number of batteries you have. There are no bricks.

* Do not starcastle either. In Federation Commander you just become a sitting duck.

* Do not forget to repair something every turn; there is no limit to the number of repairs you can do, as there is in Star Fleet Battles. At the least fix a few hull boxes every turn.

* Move those shields around! This is a totally new ability in Federation Commander. The rules allow you to transfer five boxes from one shield to the adjacent shield.

* Even when your shields stop the damage, they don't. One damage point "burns through" on any volley of ten or more.
These are the big ones that nailed (or almost nailed) me while learning Federation Commander.

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