Federation Commander

Drones should never have been allowed to be on fighters in the first place. It doesn't fit the pseudo science and they are wildly unbalancing. ATG drones DO NOT work in federation commander because there is no way to deal with that many drones. No t-bombs, no wild weasels, and no lock-on to break. Adding ATG would be a bad solution that would create more problems then it would solve.

Hod K'el wrote:. The real trick usually comes from Orions when they use MR-C racks.

Which again is an SFBism I assume.

Are we talking FC or SFB here?

Savedfromwhat wrote:Drones should never have been allowed to be on fighters in the first place. It doesn't fit the pseudo science and they are wildly unbalancing. ATG drones DO NOT work in federation commander because there is no way to deal with that many drones. No t-bombs, no wild weasels, and no lock-on to break. Adding ATG would be a bad solution that would create more problems then it would solve.

I can certainly understand your thinking, but instead of saying it will make more problems, I just said, 'Oh, things are going to get nasty!' And they do.

Do I think missiles on fighters should be limited? Yes, to Type VI only; Type 'D' for Romulans. And with a limited range, 80Kkm. (Range 8 for you nubes)

And for a better understanding, storeylf, I play many science fiction space games where fighters are involved, so I do not just talk FC on an FC site, but like to interject ideas from many. Some may help a player to think beyond here and now. So, yes, I get into SFBism. But the better question is, why don't you? FC and SFB is all part of the SFB Universe!

Hod K'el wrote: But the better question is, why don't you? FC and SFB is all part of the SFB Universe![/b]

I played SFB back when I was knee high to a grasshopper. I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole nowadays. Being part of SFU isn't a reason to play a game. I don't play PD, its part of the SFU, but I have no interest in it. It may be a fine game for many, but not my cup of tea.

If you are going to throw in SFBisms, could you at least explain what they are?

Hod K'el wrote:And for a better understanding, storeylf, I play many science fiction space games where fighters are involved, so I do not just talk FC on an FC site, but like to interject ideas from many. Some may help a player to think beyond here and now. So, yes, I get into SFBism. But the better question is, why don't you? FC and SFB is all part of the SFB Universe![/b]

Not to ever speak for Lee, but perhaps because he isn't interested in SFB?

Regardless, instead of using the SFBism, just say the effect. So, instead of saying "ATG", say "drones are self-guiding"; instead of referring to type-C drone racks, say "fast firing drone racks". Then, everyone can understand what you are talking about.

As for the cross-pollination, please do what makes sense to you. However, when your game drifts too far from what FC is and can be, don't be insulted when others say your experience is irrelevant, as it has drifted too far from FC to provide useful input.

Lee,
I don't think you really got a translation of the SFB terms, so a Type-C drone rack gets to fire twice in a turn (there is a 12 impulse delay in SFB that would translate to 3 Fed Cdr impulse) and it is the same size a a normal drone rack (4 spaces of drones). Some special Kzinti ships always had these (e.g. CC) but they became generally available in Y175 when the first 2 drone racks on a Kzinti ship were replaced with these fast-firing racks, others were replaced with Type-B racks that could hold 6 spaces of drones instead of 4. The Feds got extra ammo for their racks, the Klingons replaced all their racks with B-racks, and the Orions replaced their racks with the C-rack.

Hope that's a useful bit of fluff to inform the discussion.

I vaguely remember the 4 drone, 6 drone and fast fire rack, though couldn't be sure what they were called, so what does the MR bit of MR-C mean? that bit I have no idea about.

Each impulse is logged as a four minute span of time.

Each IMPULSE? One turn is subjectively about 1 minute in SFB. Not more than two hours... (Yeah, I know you meant one turn)[/quote]

In SFB the scale of the hexes and the declared speed of 1 hex per turn being lightspeed meant that one turn was about 1/30 of a second of 'real' time.

In addition, the [written in the Rulebook] claim of 'relativistic time distortion' meant that a turn felt subjectively like 1 minute to the starship crews, making an impulse (there are 32 impulses in a turn) approximately two seconds of subjective time.

Furthermore, the speed of 1 hex=lightspeed meant that there had to be rules governing the use of power such that any speed over 1 hex per turn had to be provided from the faster-than-light drives, namely the warp engines. And quite right too.

In Fed Commander, however, you can use any power (even batteries!) to move your ship at any speed. There is no declared speed or timescale; only the distance scale is specified. So this basically means that you can pick more or less any time frame you want to imagine it as. I would assume that this 'flexibility' is deliberate.

There are a couple of small provisos to this. The scenario 'Return of the Hood' has a sublight ship in it (the Hood's saucer) and that is restricted to four hexes per turn. See http://tinyurl.com/c63ht32 for details. Now that's not to say that four hexes per turn is necessarily lightspeed ('c'); indeed I seem to recall somewhere that the Trek technical manuals define full Impulse power as being able to attain something like 0.25c, making c about 16 hexes per turn or more.

In addition, there was another thread on this Forum here: http://tinyurl.com/c496fz8 which asked questions about sublight movement, and there were references to it in CL#43 ('A Measure of Fear') and also there are 'proper' sublight movement rules in CL#39.

Some of this is off-topic, I realise, but I hope it helps in getting a handle on the different timescales.

Time is wack in SFB/FC. I blame the Andromedans. It's pollution from their Temporal Elevators.

terryoc wrote:Time is wack in SFB/FC. I blame the Andromedans. It's pollution from their Temporal Elevators.

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