Federation Commander

I've just bought the 2010 version of F&E (I had the 1986 version) to scratch an itch and have an actual non-solo go at it with a local friend, who had the 1993 version.

Reading through the new rules I'm a bit confused about the SIDS section, well I'm probably confused by more than that, but this ...

Single ship games are probably not the best to see some of the weapons working well, in particular where you facing something with a device specifically designed to neuter said weapon. FC works best at squadron to fleet level fights. I always thought the Hellbore was meant to be the fleet support ...

Any idea when requests for FedCom battle group thingies will be up for the next edition. I was a bit late seeing the last one.

ta.

I suppose I am confused, asteroids are all covered under 6B as just 'asteroids'. Why would you think the ESG rule just covers asteroids under part of that section, and if so why the part you are thinking? If anything I would have said it covered asteroid fields not individual ones, as individual ...

Well, that's interesting. Currently, the rules have nothing to say on the interaction between ESGs and asteroids. So, that would mean that ESGs do not damage asteroids, get reduced by asteroids, or protect the ship from asteroid damage. So, as currently written, ESGs are unaffected by the presence ...

3 games stand out in my mind.

My pure drone orions vs Patrick Doyles Gorns in a tournament game. It went pretty much the full 10 turns, I expended probably 80+ drones without a single hit in the first half of the game and was expecting to lose when one of Patricks ships ventured 1 hex closer than ...

So if the Federation can bring Gunboats to a battle without a tender, then why can't the Andromedans bring extra satellite ships? Because if I'm not mistaken Andromeda ships currently require a mother ship in order to be brought to a battle but those Satellite ships are for all intents and purposes ...

If you are into ASL then SFB probably isn't an issue, if you can get others to play it anyway.

Apart from the simpler system though the less obvious difference is that FedCom is better suited to larger actions. In the time you do a 1 vs 1 in SFB you can do a squadron vs squadron in FC, and by the ...

Not really.

ACTA is a simpler faster game aimed at fleet level actions. A lot of ships lose out on tweaky little bonuses or banes in moving to that sort of system.

The CS move bonus really isn't that huge in FC once you get to larger fleet level games (which is what ACTA is for). If your fleet has ...

From what you are saying the problem is that the galactic players have not worked out the tactics to deal with all the odd stuff the Andros can do.

2 Intruders and satellites is somewhere around 1050pts give or take depending on exact mix of sats. I'd certainly being playing on a good size map ...

Been stuck in the house ill for the past several days and in the boredom I was just re-reading this. Not sure why I didn't respond at the time.

Consider again our hypothetical Fed heavy cruiser. If you get, say, 20 internals and go for directed damage, then it really doesn't matter which you ...

I even have the laminated one, forgotten about that. The communique ships I have lost track of. But yes they are all escorts, with nothing to escort in the same way they had in SFB :) so just get stuck in with the gatlings.

The ship I most remember though was the Hydran 5 gatling escort based on ...

Perhaps the original intent of the phaser-G was more readily apparent during the Middle Years, in which Hydran ships had no hellbores (and fewer warp boxes) and Stinger-1s had no phaser-Gs of their own. But then, their enemies at the time had limitations of their own - no ESG capacitors for the ...

A defensive weapon? It may have been intended that way? but if it was then something was lost in translation to the game.

The Gatling is pretty much the ultimate offensive weapon in FC. If you have gatlings you can travel at high speed with out any problem; pretty much ensuring that you will ...

I'm also a big fan of FC and have played it massively, but don't like SFB even though I loved it as a teen, but it is way to complex for life as an adult.

I have also tried both starmada and ACTA (1st edition). I haven't seen the latest version of ACTA (must get round to downloading it), but was ...