Federation Commander

I am ALMOST always at a loss to pick the ship for each communique. One solution is the "pick a theme" and then just do all of the empires in order. It would be preferable to ME (the guy who has to do them) if these were ships that were easy to do. It migth be preferable to you that they be ships that are @#$% hard to do. Anyway...

Voted for Commando ships.

Ulterior motive for that, though.
I'd like to add Boarding Party rules to ACTASF Book 2 and having both Commando ships and rules in the source game would facilitate the cross-over.

Survey Cruisers. And if they could include callout blocks for things like Carrier or Commando Service all the better.

Perhaps the fast war cruisers from SFB Modules R11 and R12 could be an option?

Or the heavy war cruisers from R12?


If neither of those classes were viable, I'd then agree with Dal's SR suggestion.

In which case, could the Feds get either the NSR or CLS, since the GSC is already available?

And for the Romulans, since the SparrowHawk-C was done already, might the Pioneer Eagle (with the cargo sled pallet) work for them as a new ship of this class?

I'm actually going to second some of Gary's suggestions.

While I'd love to see carriers done, I'd prefer to see them in an actual "product" with finalized rules for massed-drones, etc.

Since the one I want is untenable, in my opinion, I think Gary is on to something about using some of the more obscure class-types that go through all empires as a theme.

They're not as sexy as carriers, but to basic "pick-up game" guys like me, a the DNWs, HCWs, or fast CWs would certainly be welcome additions to the stable.

Good catch on the DNWs, Will. Some of those would certainly be interesting, not least the one for the ISC.


One thought - could there be room for two ships per issue, or would that take up too much time?

My reasoning was that the first Ship Card per issue could be used for a new "hull variant" (such as a fast CW or heavy CW), while the second could be used for a "mission variant" (survey, commando, or what have you).

So, if one started with the Federation, they could get the NLF as the "hull variant", plus the NSR (or CLS) as the "mission variant". Then, the next time the Feds were up (sometime in 2015?), they could get the CM and CLG instead.

(The above is but one example, and could be changed depending on which hull or mission variants were to be given highest priority.)

I would actually like to see some variant pods. Romulan Tug Scout anyone?

But seriously, the idea of adding specialty pods has been kind of looked down at I believe, but communique would be a great place for them, not taking up valuable product space, but allowing the players who would like them to use them.

Voted for the 'Something Else Entirely' category.

1.) Tugs/Pods rank at the top of the list; already done, simple(-ish) to convert... one tug and pod sheet per issue (battle, cargo, troop) would give a good selection over the course of the year.
2.) Carriers would be a good second choice - they could serve as a wide-distribution playtest, helping to hone performance issues for the full product... and there are so many, you'd still have plenty for the pack.
3.) Commando ships are a distant third- mostly because they are just kind of boring and specialized. Whoo-hoo, ships with a bunch of transporters! with the simplified capture rules in FedCom, you can never fire an enemy ships' weapons, so capture loses some of its luster.

Scoutdad wrote:Voted for Commando ships.

Ulterior motive for that, though.
I'd like to add Boarding Party rules to ACTASF Book 2 and having both Commando ships and rules in the source game would facilitate the cross-over.

I like Tony's idea. I played Gorn in the last SFB campaign I took part in, and I dearly wanted to field a "commando" or "assault" ship that I could name "Iwo Shima"*

*For those who don't get the joke, the US Navy has an amphibious assult ship named the USS Iwo Jima after the famous WWII battle that took place there while Gorn-Shima is the site of a major Romulan/Gorn battle during the General War.

Commando ships are the last major support just class that is needed. Giving everyone a CW or DW version of the commando ship will help out.

to many choices. I would love to see any of these. I would also love to see ships from the want list ( like the Demon Hawk - sorry for the shameless pitch). I would like anything that will give us the most bang for everyone (while hopefully not causing to many headaches for Svc)

jeffery smith wrote:( like the Demon Hawk - sorry for the shameless pitch)

No problem, I like the ship, too.

However, let's set some expectations here. The Demonhawk has some strikes against it. Namely it was never built and it's big point is its ridiculous modularity. The problem with putting a never built ship into Federation Commander is that it suddenly becomes a built ship*. Steve is going to have to think long and hard before deciding to open that can of worms. And the big "sexy" part of the Demonhawk is how it uses both Sparrow/Firehawk modules and Skyhawk modules. In Federation Commander, it would just have to pick a set (probably A/A or K/A), but losing that modularity significantly cuts into the point of the ship. As a result, ever getting it published is always going to be an up-hill struggle.

[*] Examples of ships that aren't supposed to exist, but do in Federation Commander, you have all non-Klingon battleships, the disruptor-armed Neo-Tholians, Romulan Sparrowhawk-T and more than one Federation strike cruiser. With these precedences set, it becomes somewhat dangerous to port other "conjectural" or "never built" ships into Federation Commander.

If we did Demonhawk we would ignore modularity and just do the combat variant.

I voted for Commando Ships - the should be fairly straightforward for mr Cole to complete. However, I'd rather see a mix of ships than just War Cruiser variants. Examples might be the Fed CMC (based on the OCL), Klingon D6G, Romulan Commando Hawk, Kzinti CMG, etc.

Sneaky Scot wrote:I voted for Commando Ships - the should be fairly straightforward for mr Cole to complete. However, I'd rather see a mix of ships than just War Cruiser variants. Examples might be the Fed CMC (based on the OCL), Klingon D6G, Romulan Commando Hawk, Kzinti CMG, etc.

If you don't do them all as CW or DW variants, are you willing to have your favorite empire get stuck with the crappy one? Maybe the Klingon should get the D6G, but the Feds get the CFF. (Gotta have diversity and all, right?) So, before asking for a random assortment, make sure you are willing to have your empire screwed.

Oh, and why screw the Romulans? Do you honestly think that giving the Klingons a D6G, but the Romulans a crappy DD-variant works out well? (It does for the Klingons, that's for sure!) And I suppose the Tholians have to live with their POS PC-variant, right?