Federation Commander

Hello,

I think that I will jump the gap and start SFB

But I heard that there is some little things that are better in Fed Com and could be incorporated back (as HR obviously).

Is it the case ? what rules/element would you bring back from Fed Com to SFB ?

I think the laminated and colored ship cards are nice, but that can be easily done with plastic protector and underliners.

Perhaps the Damage Allocation Table wich seems faster ?

At this point, the only thing of FC I would suggest using in SFB is the ship cards, including fleet scale. (And, I have a nice article in the last Captain's Log that explains how to. ) I would hesitate on the rest, as the unintended consequences could be pretty brutal.

Three examples that could be done that would have devastating repercussions to the rest of the SFB game engine:
- All power is reserve. You only have to "pre-allocate" movement, multi-turn arming weapons, and continuation power (e.g. tractors) in Energy Allocation. Everything else is reserve.
- Decelerate at any point in the turn (for energy, of course).
- Allow mid-turn speed changes with "all power is reserve" on a one-to-one basis. (None of this sometimes two-to-one silliness.)

Doing one of those three would be a pretty impressive change. Doing all three (which is still only taking a very small part of how FC works) and putting it into SFB would completely change how the game is played.

Seriously, I recommend just playing SFB as SFB.

EDIT:
Eh, I guess you could use the FC damage allocation. However, several things in SFB are designed around how the SFB DAC works, so, again, you are staring down those unintended consequences again.

I tend to agree with Mike on this one.

I'd at least learn to play SFB the wya it's meant to be played and gain at least a passing familiarity with the rules. After that, if you want to attempt to incorporate some FC'isms into SFB, at least you may be aware of the potential pitfalls awaiting you.

I might suggest three possible 'improvements' to SFB using FC rules (after playing with SFB 'as written'):

1. Moving in reverse costs double the normal cost.

2. The stacking limit of three ships per hex.

3. Possibly something limiting specific shield reinforcement to the number of batteries the ship started with (not exactly the same as Federation Commander, but something I've been toying with).

I don't really use any of the above (but playing with miniatures tends to take care of #2 as we don't like it when we can't show all of the miniatures on the map at the same time - plus we've added a rule that says that any ship firing out of a hex treats all targets as having +2 ECM for each friendly ship in the same hex as the firer ). #1 basically eliminates a couple of specific tactics that feel a bit cheesy. #3 also removes the incentive to stop and use massive reinforcement.

I would note that....

the "stacking limit" is three ships FIRING OUT OF a hex in a single 60 degree arc on a single impulse, not being in a hex, and may not have much effect on a per impulse basis since SFB has four times as many impulses.

The last time I tried to suggest moving some FC rules in SFB caused a riot.

Ah, right... I'd forgotten the specifics of the 'stacking rule'.

I think the problem with moving rules from FC into SFB is that each group has rules they really like, and others they don't.. and each group has different versions of the above.

I personally like SFB mostly 'as is', with minor tweaks to eliminate what my main gaming partner and I view as cheesy tactics, or what we consider 'not fun'. We also know the rules 'as written' and played with those a great deal before making minor tweaks.

There are some game groups who would probably love to drop Energy Allocation for a pay as you go system, or to change the damage allocation procedure for the one in FC. I'm not one of them. I find the 'pay as you go' pretty brilliant actually, but I also love the planning involved in SFB.

My one major wish for SFB to change to be more like FC would be an eventual change in the SSDs to be as slick looking as its younger brother. And again, I know I'm probably not in the majority there.


Oh yeah, and I might drop the whole concept of mines... Mainly because I can't seem to stop running over my own (see my recent post in the SFB thread).

Steve Cole wrote: The last time I tried to suggest moving some FC rules in SFB caused a riot.

I supposed that is because when you make suggestion people tend to expect them to be mandatory :p

I really like your point 3 Gambler, as one thing that made me refrain from SFBing earlier was all the talk about excessive turtling and how FC was a better game in this aspect.

In fact, had you not mentionned it, I would probably have made a mistake in reading the rules and kept playing with the BAT limitation.

Part of the issue is that some tactics, like turtling, are defeatable but highly annoying to play against. There's a school of thought that says, "Just learn how to beat it, and your opponent will stop doing it." And that's fair.

My gaming partner and I have almost never gone to Speed 0: he did in the last game, and not to overly reinforce, rather he did it so he could charge all his weapons and overload them. Heck, I pounded 'speed is life' into his brain so much, that he's never even weaseled yet (and for that matter, I haven't when playing him).

One of the reasons I tend to stay away from tournaments is quite often it seems to end up with one or both ships at close range at Speed 0. If you do historical battles, especially scenarios, this tends to be somewhat less common of an occurrence.

IKerensky wrote:Hello,

Perhaps the Damage Allocation Table wich seems faster ?

My two favorite things about FC are the DAC (note this WILL change tactics somewhat) and the 8-Impulse turn order.

The DAC would be easy to do, just translate the terminology from FC to SFB (Frame = Excess Damage, etc) and start using it.

The 8-impulse would be a lot of work (normalizing ship speeds and turn modes, etc etc). I don't think it is doable without a lot of work.

You could also easily add "me too" firing as this is a behavioral change and not a mechanics change.

Fleet scale you could probably do.

if you do too much, why bother? Just play FC.

duxvolantis wrote:

IKerensky wrote:Hello,

Perhaps the Damage Allocation Table wich seems faster ?

My two favorite things about FC are the DAC (note this WILL change tactics somewhat) and the 8-Impulse turn order.

The DAC would be easy to do, just translate the terminology from FC to SFB (Frame = Excess Damage, etc) and start using it.

The 8-impulse would be a lot of work (normalizing ship speeds and turn modes, etc etc). I don't think it is doable without a lot of work.

You could also easily add "me too" firing as this is a behavioral change and not a mechanics change.

Fleet scale you could probably do.

if you do too much, why bother? Just play FC.

With the SFB SSD ? why not I suppose it work both way

Or perhaps I will just incorporate more SFB into FC like dedicated power source... time will tell. That and if I manage to convert my partnair to make the jump with me, I have several people eager to play Fed Com but only one had read the rules (only partly) I am unsure if I can teach them full SFB only by oral way.

Always found the best way to learn/teach SFB was for a newby to stand over the shoulder of an experienced player --
Hearing/reading the rules not as good as seeing them in use -- -

Bolo_MK_XL wrote:Always found the best way to learn/teach SFB was for a newby to stand over the shoulder of an experienced player --
Hearing/reading the rules not as good as seeing them in use -- -

I can teach SFB in about an hour (including the first turn power allocation) and have people playing after that... I focus on movement, shields and direct fire weapons. I go through the energy allocation with them, and basically tell them what they need to fill in (without always explaining what everything does - except movement, weapons and shields). I give them their general options with weapons (overload, standard, prox - since they're usually Feds). Then we start playing with frequent pauses as I explain a strategy decision point.

Near the end of the first turn, I introduce drones by launching a couple of them, and then describe tractor beams for purposes of dealing with drones. Often I introduce batteries at this point. And during the turn I talk about 'downfiring' phasers when dealing with drones and labs.

By the third turn, I usually bring up High Energy Turns because often my opponent's in a Fed with the Klingon behind him... I might even ask them if they wished they could go fast at the beginning to possibly catch me with their photons, and then slow down later... And then I do the mid turn speed change plot for them that lets them do it.

If at any point they seem overwhelmed, I just say "That's alright, we can try using this in the next game."

I usually try to play a second game using all the above rules, and in the third game, introduce shuttles, etc.