Federation Commander

I've been trying to find some decent box storage for my SFB and FC materials. I do really like the boxes the box sets come in and I am looking for something similar. Because their interiors are nicely 8.5 x 11, fit the books and cards elegantly, and come with a deep lid. I've learned the boxes ADB uses are custom made and do not appear to be for sale.

I don't mind plastic and I've recently just found some wood boxes on Amazon that come close. A difficult part of this search is I prefer boxes that stand upright and not laydown flat.

As for counter organizers, there are a multitude of organizers of various volumes and materials and aren't as difficult to find.

I guess this is the thread where people share their homebrew organization ideas for their favorite hobby?

For the ship cards, I got 5.5x8.5 three ring binders and use appropriately sized sleeves. It works perfectly for the ship cards, though I need more than one binder, as there can be a LOT of cards! I got these items from Staples. While the specific items will likely be different, they should still have such items.

For the rules, maps, and counters, I found some cool fold-over 8.5x11 boxes that I use to hold them all. I got these from the Container Store. I doubt they still sell what I got. (I got them years ago!)

Problem: Organization of Federation Commander and Star Fleet Battles resources can be challenging to keep clean and organized. At the end of the day, this stuff ain't cheap man!

What I noticed is how nice, clean, and compact my orders were packaged in the boxes when I received them from ADB. Really slick work here. However, once I removed them from the boxes and put them on the shelf, they were never going to that cohesive again. Unless an item is boxed, there's always a small problem keeping the sleeved items together.

I also noticed that boxed items only have enough room for it's items plus a pencil and/or small blue dice on top of the items in their box. Punching out the counters and putting them in baggies doesn't fit unless I remove the maps from the boxes. Then where do I put the maps? I don't want to lay books and maps horizontally and the "punched" option on orders began to look more of a requirement.

Until mjwest said ...

I found some cool fold-over 8.5x11 boxes that I use to hold them all.

... that was just the piece I needed.

After searching Staples, Office Despot, Michaels, and Hobby Lobby I finally found some "cool folder-over 13x9x4" gift boxes with a magnetic lid on Amazon. I also purchased some 10x12 and 6x9 clear zip lock poly bags to sleeve my cards, books, and maps for that little extra protection. The world is a dangerous place, use an unprotected book at your own risk.

On BGG there are pics showing examples of a 5.5x8.5 three-ring Binder for Ship Cards, a counter organizer, and a 8.5x.11 three-ring binder for books and maps. If you want to go the binder route BGG shows a very nice configuration of that in pictures.

Pros: It looks nice and fits on my gridded square Ikea shelves. I have room in my boxed ADB games for counters in baggies and the maps all go in the new big box. It's not just some stack of books on a shelf, it's very presentable to any company that may come over and drool over my nerdiness.

A single 13x9x4 box holds 8 cardboard maps, Romulan Attack, Klingon Attack, Briefing #1, Scenario Log 1 and 2, 12 boosters, and 4 nice dry-erase markers from Amazon. All in their own 10x12 and 6x9 (boosters), zip lock clear poly bags.

I don't have the separate the booster ship cards away from their original packaging either. Each entire booster is in it's own 6x9 bag. Same goes for the "Attack" slip cover module items. Poly bags are cheaper overall than three-ring sheet protectors. Zip locked Poly bags make your items water resistant.

Cons: The box Probably isn't as durable as the binder setup but if I'm careful it'll be fine. I also have extra boxes. One box was $12 on Amazon which is usually more than a binder.

If you use minis, then you're going to use an organizer and you might as well use an organizer for your counters also. Maybe.

The 5.5x8.5 three-ring binder option means you likely use sheet protectors for your cards. Which means you can bring your ship cards to the table quickly with less setup/cleanup. There is more setup/cleanup with the boxed option.

In the end, I like the Federation Commander boxes. I wish the "Attack" modules had a purchasing option to come in a box. I also wish they're deeper like the old SFB boxes. The F&E box looks deeper also.

Have you ever tried to design or modify an existing box to better suit your needs? I think you can make use of A4 sized document boxes or file boxes, combined with foam or thin wood lining inside to protect books and counters.

I thought about it, didn't see anything online that looked to be easy to Macgyver into an ADB box. I thought about if I could get my hands on empty printer paper boxes and cut them down as a kind of "Plan B".

One thing I didn't mention, I did go to game stores in the DFW area. There are many.

One in particular, listed as a Star Fleet Games Reseller, Madness Comics and Games, (I know the list is out of date) had a couple isles dedicated to the organization and sleeving of many different gaming related things. Like cards, comics of different eras and sizes, books, etc. I was quite impressed yet, aside from sleeves and zip lock bags, didn't have the box sizes and type I was looking for. I definitely recommend them if you're in the area for organization as well as their huge selection of games and gaming related items.

As a curiosity, I did ask an associate if they had Star Fleet Battles or Federation Commander on a shelf somewhere. I already knew the answer but he didn't even know what it was. He went to ask someone at the sales desk and they said, "That is a print on demand from the publisher item". He was a young man.

Situation: It's a quiet night. You sit down in your lazy boy, ease the seat back, have your favorite episode on in the background, take a sip of that Mimosa, and decide to do some light reading. You pull out The Federation Commander Tactics Manual to sharpen your wit so that you will thoroughly humiliate Bob tomorrow.

Problem: Unfortunately, you get 9 pages into the Federation Commander Tactics Manual and half the books pages come loose from the spine. This is because the binding’s glue is poor and dries out over time and isn't really meant to last.

Solutions: No Problem! There are multiple solutions.

First, and simplest, is three-hole punch it and throw it in a three-ring binder. This requires going down to the Office Despot / Mikhail's, Hobby Potty, or Steeples to buy three-ring binder and a three-hole punch if you don't have one. It's cheap, it'll last, and you could put multiple books in the binder given whatever size you purchase.

Second, and my new favorite, you go down to the Kinkoo's and have it spiral-bound. It'll run a little more than a three-ring binder but it'll look good and be thinner. You'll need to separate all the pages from the spine. Then use their free and fancy straight edge paper cutter to cut away the front and back covers from the spine side. Finally give it to the employee with some money and he'll use their machine to spiral-bind it.

Books from ADB come in a couple differently options. Either they're sticky glue bound or their stapled. You can also buy almost every, if not every, book pre-three-hole-punched from ADB directly. The outer spine label is gone from both options. Although you could cut it away and put it in the three-ring binder's outer label section I guess, you're careful.

The three-ring binder option is cheaper and adds more rigidity to the books. Also, you can store multiple books to a binder and terrify your friends and newcomers with the massive rules library you've acquired! Many SFB'ers have been doing this method for years and it's quite successful.

The spiral-bound option is nice because you're only replacing the spine and the covers are still open and available. You can lay the book perfectly flat and flip it open 360 degrees. Spiral-bound is a little more expensive per book. I think it looks nicer. The three-ring binder option does offer more protection.

No solution lasts forever but I hope this helps someone in the deciding how to curate the "Space ..." for their favorite collection.

Thought I'd weigh in here for some best practices. The last time I was actively playing FC, it had gotten too big. If it doesn't all fit into a a single tote-bin, it attracts the wrong kind of attention around the house.

The combined rulebook is great. Put it into a pressboard report cover and it's wonderfully compact.

For counters, I'd always used tackle boxes in the past. Other than choosing a smaller box (to fit into the aforementioned tote), I think it's still the best idea. Any thoughts on how to make this any more compact?

This may sound sacrilegious, but I'm considering not keeping some of the counters that have duplicates in the 1" counters (which I really like) or counters that have more duplicates than I'm likely to use in my games.

For the SSDs, I'm thinking one envelope per race, stacked alphabetically inside. Should be much more compact than binders.

Thoughts, suggestions, ideas?