Star Fleet Battles is a two dimesional Balancing act.

A Balancing act between Relative Damage inflictance and Energy Allocation.

Most games, such as chess, are mere one dimensional balancing acts; Relative damage inflictance ( until one gets close to going for check at any rate ).


So the Question gets asked.
Has anyone come up with a third demension to balance the game in?


I personally think that there may be room for allowing computers' processing power to be ALLOCATED like EA to allow for the extra dimesion.


Does anyone else have a dimension they'ld mention or is the idea of increasing the complexity of SFB through the addition of another dimension, just too silly?

By Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside) on Thursday, May 23, 2002 - 01:58 am: Edit

Let's see. We have a rulebook that, with all Omega and LMC rules is breaking 1000 pages.

And you want to make it MORE complex, across the board?

Is what you're smoking legal in Australia? It probably isn't in the US...

By Mark Kuyper (Mark_K) on Thursday, May 23, 2002 - 02:14 am: Edit

Ken,
As I live in California thats not saying much...

MJC,
WHY would you want to make SFB any more complex? As is for a "3rd way" / 3rd dimension, just run a squadron instead. Then you've got position tossed into the mix IMMEDIATLY.

By Captain Ebersole (George_Ebersole) on Thursday, May 23, 2002 - 02:48 am: Edit

3d SFB isn't anything new. It was proposed, done, and practiced many an sfb eon ago, but was never official.

By Mark Kuyper (Mark_K) on Thursday, May 23, 2002 - 03:15 pm: Edit

George,
MJC isn't proposing a 3D version of the game (ie, changing movement rules). He's talking about another ... SOMETHING ... to make the game more of a challenge.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, May 23, 2002 - 03:24 pm: Edit

Better opponants. Of course teaching new players is one of the greatest challanges of all.

Not real constructive for this thread, but true none the less.

By Stephen W. Fairfield (Sfairfield) on Thursday, May 23, 2002 - 03:58 pm: Edit

MJC,

If you're looking to add another level of management complexity, my guess would be Crew Allocation. i.e. having to assign crew to specific functions and the ship operating at degraded efficiency if assigned crew fall below a certain level. So maybe phasers take 1 crew unit each to fire and recharge, heavy weapons might take two. Using labs or damage control might take assigned crew as well. Probably would change the Crew casulty system to having a chance of losing the crew assigned to a system when the system is damaged.

Mind you, I'm not sure why you'd want to add another whole level of complexity, though I guess I can see it in light of a 'Difficulty Level' system:

• Commander Level SFB: No EA, just maneuver and shoot
• Captain Level SFB: EA, all standard rules used.
• Admiral SFB: As standard, but use most of the optional rules like energy balance due to damage, hidden cloak, tactical info, perhaps the above mentioned crew allocation, etc.

By Kevin M. McCollum (Sfbl5r) on Friday, May 24, 2002 - 11:13 am: Edit

Mr Fairfield,

Have you read the rules on crew units and minimum crew requirements? It only takes 4 total crew units to run a ship.

By John Trauger (Vorlon) on Friday, May 24, 2002 - 01:51 pm: Edit

Run, yes. Until you start taking damage. Then you need spares to cover for the ones brought down by gratuitous panel explosions.

Maintain? Need still more.

By Stephen W. Fairfield (Sfairfield) on Tuesday, May 28, 2002 - 12:18 am: Edit

Mr. McCollum,

I'm aware of the minimum crew requirments. Obviously, if managing crew was added as an extra complexity factor, the minimum levels would be changed. The "Crew Allocation" suggestion was simply an off the cuff example to illustrate the type of "third dimension" (i.e not literal 3-D maneuvering, but a third dimension as in an extra variable to manage) that I thought MJC was looking for.

Other equally off the cuff suggestions might be:

• Fuel supplies: Ships can have very long tours of duty at cruising speed, but at high combat speeds, having to charge weapons, etc. they might have to be concerned about fuel levels;
• Crew Morale Levels: Crew performance possibly being degraded by combat damage, or inspired to higher acts of heroism.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, May 28, 2002 - 03:23 am: Edit

Even I've said we coyuld plit crew up into different roles.

1) Ship control.
2) Militia.
3) Dam Con.
4) First Aid Parties.
5) Deck Crews.
6) Combat Engineering.


The allocation of forces will then become another balancing act.


Though the other ideas are Stategic rather than tactical additional dimensions.

By Dan Ibekwe (Danibq) on Thursday, January 30, 2003 - 03:48 pm: Edit

My first thought was that SFB needs more complexity like I need another speeding ticket, but...

One aspect of WW2 to present-day naval wargames I've always liked is submarine-vs-submarine actions with both boats tiptoeing around trying to
pin the other down. Sometimes called hide & seek with bazookas; very much Hunt for Red October.

Star Trek:The Wrath of Khan tried to do something similar with the Mutara Nebula sequence. The SFB nebula rules IIRC simulate the vulnerability (minimum sheilds) but not the suspense (no hidden movement).

To avoid rewriting the game this should only occur
with opponents agreement in a specific scenario, or possibly in a new type of terrain distinct from the existing game nebulae (say a 'Dark Matter Cloud'. Or whatever).

Both sides operate under the following restrictions;

1) All units must plot their movement for three turns in advance. at game start, movement is plotted for turns 1,2 and 3, after energy allocation on turn 2, movement for turn 4 is plotted, & so forth. This movement plot can be ignored by units 'in contact' with the enemy (see below)

2) All units start the game on Passive Fire Control: they get the 32-impulse ECM benefit. Fire Control may be re-activated by any unit 'in contact'.

3)All unit start 'Hidden' from the enemy, ie with no sensor contact. This is due to the nature of this volume of space/type of terrain. Obtaining and refining contact is most of what this game is about.

4)'hidden' status is immediatly lost when a ship

a) raises sheilds
b) starts to activate FC

These actions may only be performed by units 'in contact' with the enemy. Loosing hidden status immediately releases the enemy from all plotted movement restrictions.The enemy is also then free to raise sheilds, activate FC and the game will probably proceed as normal from this point.


Detecting the Enemy

Each ship rolls once per Dogfight Resolution Interphase against any ship in range to attempt a detection. Rolls of '1'(modified as below) result in success, the searcher then being considered to be 'in contact' as long as detection is maintained.

The effective range is given by;

The number of warp boxes on the target ship - this is the original total on the SSD
ignoring damage

Halved if outside the searching ship's Primary
Sensor Arc (=#1 sheild arc)

Halved if Target is 'Upsun' of searcher
(within 60 degrees of direction to the
system's sun).(Specified in scenario setup)

No detection is possible if the target is in
the searcher's Baffles {submarine term) - this
is the RA arc, where the engines interfere
with the sensors, unless the searcher is
stationary

Mods to the detection die roll (all cumulative):

+1 if the target reduced speed since the last
roll

+1 for each 60 degree change of the target's heading since the last roll including TAC's & HET's

+1 if the target is at less than half the adjusted detection range

+1 if the target's speed has exceeded 10 but not 19 since the last roll

+1 if this is the second successive time this searcher has detected this target

+2 if the target increased speed since the last roll

+2 if the target's speed has exceeded 19 since the last roll

+2 if this is the third or subsequent time this searcher has detected this target

-1 if the targets speed has not exceeded 4 since the last DRI

-3 if the target is now at speed zero

- the difference between the searcher's sensor rating and '6'

Shuttlecraft, Fighters, drones and plasmas are immediatly detected at any range on the first DRI after they have launched or entered the map, and continuously from then on. The enemy counts this as 'contact'!

Detecting an enemy unit for the first time allows it to be fired upon with 8 points of 'natural' ECM (in addition to the usual PFC penalties) to reflect a poor firing solution.
This ECM penalty is reduced by 2 for each succsessive succsessful DRI detection roll.

A few other issues - dummy decoy counters, variable weapons armed status, ranging pulses, umpires, play on separate tables, interaction with cloaks, that sort of thing

The objective is to detect the enemy first, and then creep up for that suprise killing blow on an unsheilded victim. Of course, if the target gets a reverse detection on you...