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November 2018
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Star Fleet Universe News BIG NEWS: SHAPEWAYS 1200
Our store on Shapeways continues to expand with over 60 new items released on 20 October and over 20 more on 1 November.
Ships released for both 3788 and 3125 scales include: Federation Heavy Drone Cruiser, Heavy War Destroyer, Scout Frigate, and War Destroyer Scout (all in smooth and gridded versions); Klingon E4S Scout and F6S Battle Frigate Scout (the latter in smooth and Aztek patterns); Romulan SeaHawk-A Frigate and Snipe-B Battle Frigate; Tholian Combat Tug and Heavy Command Cruiser; Neo-Tholian Survey Cruiser; Gorn Heavy Destroyer Scout (regular and refitted); Kzinti New Heavy Scout Cruiser and Escort Frigate; Orion Pirates War Destroyer and Heavy War Destroyer; Lyran and LDR Heavy War Destroyer, Police Flagship, War Destroyer Scout, and Lioness Heavy Cruiser; Hydran Baron Light Command Cruiser and Heavy Gendarme Police Destroyer; ISC Dreadnought; WYN Kzinti-built War Destroyer and Pocket Battlecruiser; Seltorian Scout; Omega-Bolosco Guild Cruiser; Omega-Hiver Battlecruiser; Omega-Singer Frigate; Omega-Worb Scout. Ships released in 3125 scale: Klingon F6SB Battle Frigate Scout (to match the windows on the metal 2500s). Omni scale units included in this release are: Young Female Space Dragon, and Omega-Hiver Barb-2 and Barb-H fighters. Fighters in 285 scale include: Federation A-10 'Wart-hog', and Gorn G-10 'Dragon' Fighter. Check all these out here: https://www.shapeways.com/shops/amarillo-design-bureau-inc Don't forget to follow us: https://www.shapeways.com/designer/adbinc
WEBSITE:
Our website, www.StarFleetGames.com, continues to grow and improve. You are welcome to send us your requests, comments, and suggestions. Simone Dale, our graphics director, continues to update the website, do covers for the new products, shut down pirate websites, help out around the company, and learn more about the game business.
TWITTER: VIDEOS: Star Fleet Marines Part 1 DOING VIDEOS OF THE SFU
A customer asked about posting "tutorial videos" for our games. We like it when people do that (and even give commendation medals) but you need to have us check the videos to make sure you aren't violating something somehow (or that you didn't make a rules error). Doing such videos to make money is not cool. Please drop us an email before you post the videos.
STARBLOG: STAR FLEET'S LEGIONS EXPAND: This month we feature Battle Group Tacoma, WA. CO William Z. Cohen reports that this group is active, playing Star Fleet Battles, Federation Commander, Federation & Empire, and A Call to Arms: Star Fleet. They are an active group, playing frequently and painting minis. They also have three Rangers in the group and page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Battle-Group-Tacoma-Star-Fleet-Battles-197549980818347/
Do you have a battle group? Be sure to report your activities here: http://www.starfleetgames.com/battlegroup/report.shtml
Do you want to see if there's a battle group near you? Check out the map here: http://www.starfleetgames.com/battlegroup/gather.shtml#US
Facebook Fan Pages
So join us on Facebook and get a fix of your favorite game there, too!
JAGDPANTHER
Custom Decals for Starline ships Tenneshington Decals continues to provide custom decals for all currently produced Federation Starline 2500 miniatures. For more information or to download the order sheet, check them out at www.tenneshington.com. Or if you prefer, email Will McCammon at: will@tenneshington.com or Tony L. Thomas at: scoutdad@tenneshington.com.
Jupiter IV Decals is a source of decals for the 2400 line and will do custom decals as well as all official SFB names. In the near future Jupiter IV will move into the 2500 line and will work to get every listed name on the Starfleet registry completed in both scales.
Their website is: JupiterIvdecals.com
ONLINE TOURNAMENTS Masters 2018 has 15 of the 16 Round 1 games played and two of the Round 2 games are completed. Andy Koch is the judge in this "just for fun" tournament. DEMOS AND CONS WITH SFU GAMES On October 13 From 2-5 pm at Rocket City Gaming Lounge (819 New York Avenue, Alamogordo, New Mexico) Ranger James Darby hosted a Federation Commander demo. he reports several people showed interest.
Star Fleet Battles games are held weekly in Tempe Arizona each Friday at Game Depot from 2:00 -7:00 pm. Eric Phillips is the person to contact.
Star Fleet Battles games are held regularly in Indianapolis, Indiana at Family Time Games. Anthony Harding is the contact person. For more information see: http://www.meetup.com/Star-Fleet-Battles-Indy/. Star Fleet Battles games are played regularly in Columbus, Ohio, on Sunday afternoons at the Soldiery. Lee Hanna is the contact person. Games are held in Spokane, Washington on an irregular basis. Contact them to see if there's a game scheduled. They meet at The Gamer's Haven, 2114 N. Pines St., Suites 1 & 2, Spokane Valley, WA 99206, (509) 443-5992 http://www.thegamershaven.net/ Download Transmissions HAILING FREQUENCIES: This is our newsletter and will let you know all the news for all our games. You can subscribe here. Have you missed an earlier newsletter? Click here to get caught up! COMMUNIQUE: The latest Communique brings you more Ship Cards, scenarios, and more news from the Star Fleet Universe! It can be downloaded from the Commander's Circle. FC Forum Recent Posts
F&E Strategy of the Month When engaging in high-risk survey, a die roll of six is an encounter with a space monster that cripples your survey ship forcing it to spent a turn getting repaired. While it is true this ship cannot now survey, it need not mean you have lost the turn of survey. There is a limit to how many ships can do off-map survey: three more than your at-start allotment. However you can build additional survey ships for use on the map.
After you have built your quota of survey ships, at the first opportunity build an additional survey ship, and have it wait at a base. Survey ships make excellent scouts, and you can use it offensively each turn and then retrograde it to a base. Then when the dreaded high-risk survey die roll of six comes, take your extra survey ship and move it by Strategic Movement to the off-map area to take the place of the crippled survey ship. Then when the cripple is repaired you can bring it onto the map by free Strategic Movement. You already have the logistics setup in the off-map area, and for the cost of a Strategic Movement you can avoid the loss of a survey turn. Now a survey ship is expensive, but using it each turn as a scout gets some good value, or later you can use the SRV variants and get escort capable electronic-warfare platform. You can also use the extra survey ship for on-map survey, which will gain you one Economic Point per turn. You will need to detail a TG, LTT, or TT to be ready to move beneath the survey ship and go into supply mode to allow the survey ship to move by Strategic Movement to the off-map area. A Call To Arms: Star Fleet Tactic of the Month Many players of A Call to Arms: Star Fleet use terrain to control their opponent's movement or to provide coverage to their flanks. This is all well and good, unless your opponent happens to be a Romulan (or an Orion Pirate with cloaks). Most types of terrain completely block line of sight and some have potential penalties for passing through that are so severe that many people will spend turns going around rather than one turn going through.
So if you are on one side and your opponent is on the other, you can relax and take heart that you are relatively safe from enemy fire, right? Wrong! While asteroid fields and dust clouds can be of any size (up to and including the size of the entire map), most of us have created terrain pieces that are a few inches wide and about twice that many inches long. If your opponent is on one side of the terrain and cloaked, he may decide to uncloak on his next movement.
When uncloaking, units may move up to six inches in any direction and make one turn in lieu of making a standard maneuver. If the terrain separating you is less than 6" wide, you may suddenly find yourself facing an unexpected opponent who has suddenly crossed an entire asteroid field without having to face the risk of shield damage from collisions with wayward rocks, or has crossed a Tholian Web you thought would protect you for another turn or two. So if you have a cloaking device, remember this tip and you will rarely have to worry about that bothersome terrain again. If you do not have a cloaking device, then make sure your terrain pieces are at least 6.1 inches in each dimension, and you will never have to worry about those pesky cloaking devices again!!!
(End of A Call to Arms: Star Fleet Tactic of the Month)
Mini of the Month Christopher Albrecht painted this Federation strike group in 1/3788 scale. Battlecruiser and three strike cruisers.
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New Releases Communique #155 has been posted to the Commander's Circle Click here to see our previous issues of Hailing Frequencies. Recently Released To be released in 2018
A new Starmada book for both editions.
Federation Commander Reference Starship Book
Traveller Prime Directive Core Rulebook
New starships for the 2500 (1/3125) range including Klingon B10
New starships for the 2400 (1/3788) range including heavy war destroyers and the jumbo freighter.
SHAPEWAYS:
We’re now offering some of our miniatures and some new designs on Shapeways. You can check out the store here: https://www.shapeways.com/shops/amarillo-design-bureau-inc?sort=newest
PDF and EBOOK SALES: RECENTLY RELEASED ON Warehouse 23
Bridge, Tholian Heavy Cruiser Antrex
"The Klingons say that the Romulan ship will arrive in one-half hour," Communications Worker Jex reported. "The Klingons have assigned the Romulans a position to our starboard. The Klingons are moving somewhat closer to us, and the Federation ship is moving to a position directly across the star from ours, to clear room for the Romulans to take a station." "Baxx, don't make a panic of it," Lorexxt said, "but bring the ship to full alert. We need to be ready for anything. Arm the disruptors and cycle them to stay armed, standard loads." "The Klingons will see us arm the disruptors," Science Worker Jolkks cautioned. "Should we notify them?" "No need," Lorexxt replied. "As you said, they will notice it, and we don't take orders from the Klingons." "I had noticed that," Baxx said. Bridge, Klingon D7 Devastator "The Excalibur is starting to move," Korm said, "as you directed. The Formidable will be able to take its station." "Very well," Korath said. "Commodore!" Kyrolian announced, "the Tholians have armed their disruptors. Their fire control remains fully active." "What?" Korath asked. "They have no need to waste fuel that way. Dunkar, contact the Tholians and demand that they stand down." At the weapons station, Captain Kyrolian began arming the Devastator's disruptors. Korm saw him doing it and did nothing, but began rearranging power so he could make tactical maneuvers if things got ugly. (Continue reading here)
Ask Admiral Vanaxilth BACKGROUND QUESTIONS
Q: How many hand phasers are on a typical ship?
A: There is a phaser rifle and a heavy phaser-II pistol for every Marine, including a repeating phaser for every fifth Marine in place of the phaser rifle. There are small phaser-I weapons for about 25% of the crew and heavy phaser-II pistols for about 25%; these are used for away teams and when it is necessary to arm crewmen to repel boarders or use them for landing operations. There are also two or three spare phaser rifles for the Marines. Q: Is the shield generator for a ship a single device that projects six (or two) shields, or separate devices? A: This varies from ship-to-ship and empire-to-empire. It doesn't really matter in game terms so we never went looking through the Air Force tapes for an answer. Q: Could a future empire have 12 shields or some other number? A: In theory anything is possible, but it might be too hard to write rules for something like that and too much trouble for players to put up with the special rules. Q: How does the Juggernaut regenerate its shields? A: Those "shields" are actually electro-static armor. Being extra-galactic technology, we're not sure how they work. It's easy to analyze battle reports for the effect, and much harder to determine the method of producing the result. Q: Are there any "ring worlds" in the SFU? These are common in science fiction, and we do have the Tholian Dyson Spheres. A: None have been published, but nothing rules them out. If we ever have a good reason to print one, we'll consider it. On the other hand, there never has been a good enough reason proposed for us to print one, and they'd have to be the work of some ancient extinct empire that had a lot of time to figure out how to do it. A ring 186 million miles across would take a lot more material than the fairly small Tholian Dyson spheres and those only work with advanced web technology. (There is a ringworld in Module E2 but few details are given and it's in another galaxy.) Q: Did the Tholians arrive in this galaxy with "main era" technology or did they have to work their way up from "early years" technology like everyone else? A: Published history says they arrived with "main era" technology (except for a few specific items, such as T-bombs, fighters, and special sensors).
Q: Did any empires allow police cutters to enter private (corporation, research institute, mercenary) hands?
A: Every empire had many colonies and other planets to defend, and those colonies no doubt had all kinds of ships. (Refitted older ships have already been published, and there are no end of armed freighters, auxiliary cruisers, and armed skiffs in the game already). There is no doubt that major planets in many empires effectively had their own police ships. These would nominally have been part of the national police, but were crewed, supported, and even paid for by the planets. As for any ships entering purely private hands, that isn't going to be common but older ships are always being sold off and maybe some corporation looking for "any ship with warp power and capabilities suitable for our corporate goals" might have bought one (after the heavy weapons were removed). However, we don't see any corporation operating a fully armed police ship or warship. Q: Later products introduced "heavy superiority fighters" to the universe. Does that change the data about the Orions not having such things?
A: Not so far, although it might be worth us looking into. Q: How long did the older (early years and such) ships remain in service after the next generation of ships was introduced? A: For as long as they were useful. Seriously, the question is too complex for any answer that would not require listing every single ship and exactly when it was converted into something else, scrapped, or destroyed. If it's a ship and it runs without breaking, someone will find a reason to keep it around, so you might see even early ships remaining in some kind of service long after they were obsolete. There are a few World War I and several dozen World War II ships still in service on this planet. Some are simply parked at docks and used for storage or barracks, others were converted into construction ships, cargo ships, or other uses. At least one Lyran LCA survived long enough (albeit not as a combat unit) to be destroyed by the Andromedans. Q: Why don't the Federation and Klingons build dreadnought saucers/booms as regular production destroyers? A: Because real regular production destroyers designed to function as complete units work better.
Q: Is there an F&E-type hex map showing the empire borders for the Early Years period?
A: We have never done one, or seen a need for one. Presumably if we ever run out of General War things to do for F&E we might create one. Given that it's going to take a lot of research into published and unpublished histories about when various planets were contacted, and that sounds like a lot of work to do without a specific product to use it for. Q: The Lyrans and Hydrans both have off-map areas, but these apparently do not touch. What's going on? A: There is a triangular terrain feature, the pointy end of which touches the edge of the map at the point of the Lyran-Hydran neutral zone. This terrain feature cannot be crossed. Q: How far is it from the edge of the F&E map to the "void" that separates the ISC from Omega? A: This data has never been published, but assuming that the ISC is round, there are five more hexes of ISC territory off of the map. Assuming that all octants are 20 hexes wide, any reasonable "thickness" for "the void" (say 10-12 hexes) and any reasonable off-map territory for the empires on the edge of Omega (say two-to-five hexes) is not going to leave any unclaimed space between the far side of the ISC and the void. In all probability, ISC territory directly touches the void.
Q: The Andromedan Intruder has a service date of Y166, more or less the year that the Andros became known to the galactic powers. However, all of the Andromedan bases have service dates 10 years later. They had no bases for a decade?
A: Those dates are for when the units were first seen by the galactic powers, not the year they were first built.
Q: Why don't the Seltorians, Tholians, Bolosco, and a few other empires say whether or not they fought certain monsters (such as Igneous for example) in their home galaxies?
A: No matter how logical it seems to humans that they would answer those questions, they chose not to. Q: If an empire created a monster but failed to control it, would not they tell other empires? A: Not necessarily. Maybe they were destroyed before they could? Maybe they sent the monster to their enemies as a weapon and don't want to get blamed? Maybe they're just embarrassed that they lost control of a creation?
F&E Q&A
FATE OF COMMANDO UNITS Q. Rule (521.394) is not clear if uncaptured commando units that landed as part of a special commando attack are eligible for salvage by the owner if he retreats or what happens in the case where both players retreat.
A: Units that landed as part of a special commando attack are ineligible for salvage even if they are not captured by enemy forces. If both players retreat from the commando-attacked planet, then the fate of the landed commando unit is determined by whoever retains or regains control of said planet after all units retreat. If the enemy retains control of the planet, then a capture attempt on the landed commando unit is possible. If the original owner regains control of an enemy-captured planet after all forces retreat, then the commando unit returns to normal operations. (This is possible as an original owner of a captured planet could conduct a special commando attack upon enemy garrisoning PDU/PGBs holding one of his original planets. If both forces retreat and no enemy forces remain to garrison the captured planet, then the planet reverts control to the original owner.) (End of F&E Q&A)
ASK AUNT JEAN
Dear Aunt Jean, Each week I read about what Wolf has done in ADB's "This Week" blog. You do know that some of those dinosaurs would consider Wolf a snack, right? A: Steve Cole gathers information from each of us on what we accomplished. I have no doubt that Wolf reports accurately from his understanding of what he did. Do remember that Wolf reports he is 10-feet tall and 375 pounds. Make of that what you will.
Send questions to Jean at marketing@StarFleetGames.com and she will answer as soon as she can.
(End of Ask Aunt Jean ) Cool Stuff on the Website In this section we will provide links to various web pages and items that we think you will find "cool". We have also uploaded new Xander wallpapers to our Wallpapers section on the website: Wallpapers STAR FLEET ALERTS These are the press releases we send to the wholesalers, retailers, and media. You can get on the mailing list for them by asking Marketing@StarFleetGames.com to add you to the list. (Obviously, they are free.) They are uploaded to the Star Fleet Alert page FC Tactic of the MonthDON'T FEAR THE BOLT As a plasma torpedo player, it is very easy to fear using the bolt. A seeking plasma torpedo is a "guaranteed" hit (no die rolling is required), while a plasma bolt has very bad to-hit rolls (one-to-four out of six at best) and does only half the damage of the seeking plasma torpedo that was bolted. However, it is important to remember that plasma bolts always have their uses.
Bolts have three very advantageous characteristics. While their overall to-hit numbers are not great, they have two ranges where it is relatively good. These are Range 5 and Range 9-10. Also, plasma bolts can use directed targeting. Third, they cannot be shot down by phasers. At Range 5, the to-hit roll is one-to-four, which is directly comparable to disruptors, a fairly "accurate" weapon. This is usually just outside the most effective range for other weapons.
At Range 9-10, the to-hit roll is one-to-three, which is fairly good for that range, especially considering that heavy bolts (plasma-G, plasma-S, and plasma-R) do fairly significant damage. This is also outside overload range. This means that if you can take your shot at Range 10, and stay outside Range 8, you are guaranteed to score better damage than you receive. (Range 9-10 is termed the plasma bolt's "glory zone.") Bolting is the secondary mode of plasma torpedoes, but is still a very important option. This is especially important when fighting opponents who will not slow down below a baseline speed of 24.
If you use your decoy transporter bombs to mess with your opponent's mind, you might also want to use one of your real transporter bombs to psych them out.
Use your decoy and real transporter bombs as usual except at least one of your real transporter bombs has a "count delay" on it or is programmed to ignore some potential targets. Later, fly over the transporter bomb and use up its last "ignored target" when your opponent is chasing you. The enemy might then conclude this is one of the fake transporter bombs and so run over it for a nice bang on one of his forward shields. Probably the greatest benefit of this tactic is the unending doubt your enemy will have from this battle forward every time a decoy transporter bomb does not explode when a drone or ship enters its detection/trigger radius. (End of SFB Tactic of the Month)
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show our games and to teach potential players some basics. 
