February 2007

Download Transmissions

The latest Communique brings you more ship cards, scenerios, fiction and more news from the Star Fleet Universe! It can be downloaded from the Legacy Site . Don’t forget, you have to register before being able to download the latest full color Communique!

FC Forum Hot Topics

The Federation Commander Site and Forum are becoming a great tool for ADB, Inc. to reach new gamers. The new Forum continues to grow daily with new players finding the site and old ones rejoining the Star Fleet Universe. Some of the Hot Topics over the past month can always be found in the Rules category [see the thread titled "Booster Zero. (hydran fighters)]" and in the Tactics category (where the thread titled "How to play bad Federation Commander" still seems to famous). Mike West continues to give out his expertise to players that always seem to have questions for him. Other hot topics include "Tholian Attack?" in the General Discussions and "Looking for Nacelles…" in the Miniatures category. Also don’t forget to make your way around to the BBS Discus Board on the Legacy Site!

FC Tactic of the month
To Direct Or Not To Direct?
By James McCubbin

For anyone who thinks directed targeting has no cost, consider this example:

Klingon F5 fleet scale: Score 30 internals
Do it once for Directed Damage on Weapons.
Do the same rolls for Directed Damage on Power.
Then do it for non-directed.
I used 1,3,5 as my rolls

Results:
Directed weapons: Ship crippled, but has enough warp to leave the map. Seven missed hits due to the lack of the right kind of internals.

Directed power: Ship crippled, no power, but not destroyed, easy to capture. Seven missed hits due to the lack of the right kind of internals.

Non-directed: Ship explodes every time. (All weapons gone, as well as all power.) And I had damage points to spare.

It comes down to use directed damage if you wish to strip weapons, but not destroy the ship. Meaning allow the enemy to escape.

If you wish to capture the ship, use directed targeting on power.

If you wish to destroy the ship, then use normal targeting.

Café Press

Café Press is an online market place that allows the Star Fleet Universe to produce unique products such as coffee mugs, t-shirts, tote bags, and more with the Star Fleet logos, cover art, and other artwork used for our products. The newest items added are magnets with the Tholian, NeoTholian, and Seltorian logos. Want something you don’t see? Please contact Matt Cooper (Graphics Director) with your request. Visit our Star Fleet Café Press Store for a complete listing to the products available.

SFB Tactic of the Month
News Is Not Always Better
- Lieutenant Commander Andrew Harding, HMAS Victoria

Hydran X-ships should replace their packed Stinger-X with Stinger-2M. For the same cost, the Stinger-2M has similar firepower (counting the extra fusion charges as roughly equal to the phaser-2) and is far more durable when moving at typically high X-ship speeds. In campaigns where fighter production can be changed, the Stinger-3 from Captain's Log #21 fitted with a Megapack is better still.

SFB Strategy of the month

Double Your Stasis
Junior Lieutenant Paul Bonfanti, Uss Pennsylvania

Stasis ships can be a tremendous weapon to destroy key alliance ships. However, the drawback for the Klingons is the stasis ships almost always die on the spot. Keeping the ships alive is a good, but difficult, goal. A good tactic for preventing stasis ship destruction is to pair them up in a reserve fleet. Augment this reserve fleet with a penal cruiser and the obligatory mauler, and, if possible, a three or four EW scout. This reserve fleet should seek to deploy to a battle where the opponent has a good but not outstanding force-for example a line of about eighty ComPot. Then arrange the battle line with the two stasis ships, the penal cruiser, the mauler, enough EW to ensure a shift, and as much ComPot as possible. The stasis ships should attempt to freeze two targets each. The stasis should, on average, succeed on three attempts, which will reduce the opponent's ComPot by around twenty points. The reduced strength force will be hard pressed to generate the 19-20 points necessary to get past the penal sacrifice mission and destroy one of the stasis ships. Meanwhile, using the mauler, all three frozen ships should be destroyed. At most, the opponent should only be able to destroy one of the stasis ships, while the other survives for another day. This tactic becomes more potent when using a DN-based stasis ship, as the chances of freezing desirable targets increase, and the chance of losing the DN is minimal.

Federation & Empire Q&A
By Nick Blank

QUESTION: The Klingons capture a Kzinti planet, which then rebels. What happens?

ANSWER: The rebellion has no effect on annexation (448.28) which is based on when the province was occupied. For the Klingons to get income, it must both suppress the rebellion and must also wait for the second turn of the occupation. The two requirements (second turn and no rebellion) must both be satisfied. Even with a rebellion, however, the planet is part of the Klingon supply grid from the start of the next player-turn. If the Klingons had a PDU on the planet, that PDU would affect the rebellion die roll but if a rebellion happens, it would have no effect on the PDU (nor would the PDU have any effect on the ongoing rebellion). Now, if the PDU had an independent ground combat unit (IGCE) that unit could try to suppress the rebellion just like a Marine attack (537.133).

QUESTION: Can a captured monitor be assigned to one of your planets? Or is it automatically assigned to the planet it was originally based at (assuming the planet was also captured)?

ANSWER: See rule (519.23). Once captured, it is treated as any other captured ship (i.e., it is not under any monitor restrictions). You can "convert" it to your technology (like any other captured ship), after which it is treated as a newly constructed monitor and must be assigned to a planet. If you recapture your own previously-captured monitor, its status depends on whether it was "converted to alien technology". If it was, it's treated as a captured enemy ship (as above). If it wasn't, it is treated as a newly-built monitor.



February Releases

Communique #14

Federation Commander: Tholian Attack, SKU 4103, $29.95

Federation Commander: Squadron Boxes #13, SKU 4313, #14, DKU 4314, & #15, SKU 4315, $34.9

Time on target

While Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc. tries to keep everyone up to speed as to what is about to be released, there will always be some products that are released without any prior notification unless you receive Star Fleet Alerts due to products that are not in our sole control. Star Fleet Alerts is our form of press releases that goes out to our wholesalers, retailers and customers that ask to be put on the SF Alert mailing list. If you would like to be on this mailing list, please contact Vanessa Clark (Marketing Director) with "SF Alert Mailing List" in the Subject line.

The following is what is currently on the product release schedule for the next 3 months:

2007 February:
Federation Commander: Tholian Attack, SKU 4103, $29.95
Federation Commander: Squadron Box 13, SKU 4313, $34.95
Federation Commander: Squadron Box 14, SKU 4314, $34.95
Federation Commander: Squadron Box 15, SKU 4315, $34.95
Starline 2400, Orion War Destroyer + Double Raider, SKU 0818, $14.95
Starline 2400, Seltorian Fleet Box, SKU 1500, $39.95

2007 March:
Federation Commander: Booster Pack #13, SKU 4213, $9.95
Federation Commander: Booster Pack #14, SKU 4214, $9.95
Federation Commander: Booster Pack #15, SKU 4215, $9.95

2007 April: Federation Commander: Border Box 5, SKU 4405, $99.95

Make sure to make plans for the ORIGINS CONVENTION in July! Here’s some of what you can look forward to if you plan on attending:

Wednesday night Sing-along: 4 July, in the food court, 7pm
Tournament opens 9am on 5 July.
Finalist list closed 11pm on 6 July
Tournament playoff rounds Saturday 7 July
Final battles, 8 July

 

Star Fleet Fiction

A Mission of Vital Importance
by Randy O. Green
Chapter 3

Warp Lab, Research Facility, Coration-III-Moon

Fale Vilenus entered his lab and walked over to his desk, placing his PADD in its communication cradle as he did so. He ordered it to upload its latest simulation requirements. Next, he walked over and stood in front of his workstation. (More...)

Ask admiral Growler

by Mike Filsinger
Tractor Beams

Peter Bakija asks: A Romulan has a Klingon tractored at range one. Both ships are moving speed zero. The Romulan launches a bunch of plasma at the Klingon. The Klingon launches a bunch of drones at the Romulan. The Romulan gets concerned about all the drones, and decides to weasel. He drops the tractor and weasels. Klingon sees tractor drop, and weasels too.

Rule (G7.333) is kind of ambiguous, in that it does not specifically say "the tractored ship sees the tractor involuntarily drop, and can effectively me-too weasel", which makes perfect sense to me. However, the rule 'could' be interpreted to mean "if both ships secretly and simultaneously decide to weasel, then they both work, but if the tractoring ship secretly and simultaneously decides to weasel and the tractored ship does not secretly and simultaneously decide to weasel, the tractoring ship is kind of hosed." Again, every time I have brought this up, it has been interpreted to mean "you get to see the tractor drop *before* you have to choose to weasel or not." which is apparently how the rule is supposed to work. But in the rulebook, it simply is not that clear.

Thus, the focus of my post - could the sequence of play get clarified, maybe, such that right before the "launch shuttlecraft" step, there is an "involuntarily drop tractor/AFC" step included, to make this make more clear? Or make rule (G7.333) a bit less ambiguous? [I realize that it is possible that in the most recent MRB printing, (G7.333) might have been made clearer, but I do not have the MRB, so I do not know. But if it has, feel free to ignore all of this :-)

ANSWER: This is not ambiguous, rule (G7.333) plainly states ship A must decide in the Shuttle Functions Stage to launch a wild weasel, and to do this must drop its tractors in that Stage. It cannot drop its tractors in that Stage if it is not launching a wild weasel. The dropping of the tractors tells ship B that ship A is launching a wild weasel, and ship A IS COMMITTED to launching that wild weasel, and ship B can, at its option, launch its own wild weasel. (More...)