This seems to be a pretty decent explanation. I like it!

By John V. Christiansen (Roscoe) on Thursday, January 29, 2009 - 01:25 pm: Edit

Thanks. I hope whoever asked the question gets to read it.

By Jonathan Jordan (Arcturusv) on Friday, January 30, 2009 - 01:33 pm: Edit

Only hole I can see it in involved a published scenario with a Souldra base (old, but an obvious sign they had been there before, and supported enough to actually build bases but not aggressive enough that the scenario's enemies actually knew about the Souldra) in the LMC. If they could make it there, why couldn't they pass right on through the Alpha Octant on to the void next to Sargasso?

Though overall I like the theory. It's nice, simple, and plausible.

By John V. Christiansen (Roscoe) on Saturday, January 31, 2009 - 03:10 am: Edit

Jon,

I'm not sure for three reasons. The first is that I am not familiar with that published scenario; please direct me. The second is that I am not sure of the general movement of the Milky Way galaxy and LMC in the universe for possible dark matter clouds in extra-galactic space trailing to the LMC. The third is Tequila.

Although all three reasons are true, only the first two matter. Plus, one must consider that the LMC is about 210,000 LY away, and the diameter of the Milky Way is only about 100,000 LY. It must be considered true that extra-galactic travel is somehow faster and less fuel taxing than travel inside a galaxy. This truism may apply to both warp power and dark warp power (OR13.033), thus giving us the needed thread of plausibility.

In any case, thank you for your compliment, and thank God for spell checkers.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, June 02, 2009 - 09:55 pm: Edit

Would it be reasonable, or at least possible, that the Iridani Cluster has at least one hex which is equivalent to one of the multi-system capital complexes seen in most Alpha empires, or perhaps as noted in the WYN Cluster?


Given how small their cluster seems to be in terms of hex size, such a density of worlds in the hexes they do have might help explain where the resources for their massive fleets came from...

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, June 03, 2009 - 10:15 am: Edit

Gary Carney:

The Iridani background largely indicates that their Cluster had to have possessed incredible wealth in resources, but it is not going to be something I am going to be looking into developing until it becomes necessary to try to do a "Federation & Empire" expansion for the Omega Octant (and such a thing is not even a distant gleam in SVC's eye). For now, they had th resources to build the ships they built, and the Population to provide the crews to operate those ships. That is enough to create an "Admiral's Campaign" (U3.0). More than that (their economic output compared to the Loriyill, for example) is just not needed right now.

Sorry.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, June 03, 2009 - 12:31 pm: Edit

I understand - and I can wait.


Also, there were a couple of things I wanted to mention, when going through the Omega MRB again recently. Apologies in advance if they have already been noted.

*In the FRA tactical primer (page 301-303) the Trobrin are referred to as the 'Trobin'.

*The Ymatrian primer (page 300-301) states that the Ymatrian antiproton phaser was something the Ymatrians salvaged from old Worb battlefields. However, it was the other way around - the Worb (and later on, the Paravians) were beneficiaries of scavenged Ymatrian weaponry.

By James Hallmark (Jhallmark) on Sunday, August 02, 2009 - 06:10 pm: Edit

I just recently acquired Omega 1-5 rules and ships (not counters). So far I have read the racial descriptions, 60% of ship descriptions, all scenarios, 50% of tactics and most of the timeline (in that order).

I just wanted to say that I like it. In particular I like the races, the interesting history, and the interesting weapons. The people who made this up were creative. Good job.

I have recently decided to switch to Federation Commander and look forward to adapting a few of these races to that game.

By Aaron Day (Hedgehobbit) on Monday, August 10, 2009 - 02:59 pm: Edit

Awhile back, I got Omega one and now I want to get the rest. I was planning on ordering the SSDs from 2,3 & 4 since they are on sale and then buying the master rulebook. First, is this everything? I don't really need the counters since we've been using miniatures lately. Also, are there different versions of the rulebook? My local game store has a couple but I'd rather have the latest version. I didn't notice any dates or version numbers of the cover.

Oh, I really don't like pseudo fighters so I probably won't ever get #5.

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Monday, August 10, 2009 - 03:09 pm: Edit

Pseudo fighters! Aaron's been around as long as I have!
regards
Stacy

By Andy Vancil (Andy) on Monday, August 10, 2009 - 03:24 pm: Edit

I assume you mean the Omega Master Rulebook, as the regular Master Rulebook does not have Omega rules.

By Aaron Day (Hedgehobbit) on Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - 12:55 pm: Edit

Yep, I meant the Omega Master Rulebook. I'm wondering if it has all the ship listing that the O2-O4 rulebooks had and that you don't need anything other than the SSD's. Its just that all the SSD books are 1/2 price so I figure I should get them all while it lasts.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, August 20, 2009 - 05:15 pm: Edit

James:


In case you are interested, there is an Omega Conversion Project thread over on the FC forum.


It's a little quiet right now, though.

By James Hallmark (Jhallmark) on Friday, August 21, 2009 - 12:17 am: Edit

Aaron,

All the SSD books plus the Omega Master Rule book gives you everything for O 1-4. Except the counters of course.

By Henry Meyer (Henry2) on Thursday, December 03, 2009 - 12:34 pm: Edit

Well - that's it.

Selling my SFB collection this week. Nobdy here wants to play anything other than Tournament rules, and nobody's interested in Omega that I can find. So, I'd like to say 'bye to a fun game and the people that make it fun!

Sandy (firemane), the Omega tactical sheets were overtaken by Captain' Log, but YOU were first. Thanks, and good luck with the family problems. Hope you can come back!

Tim Longacre, Good luck with the toasters, dude!
Wish I could have tried more of the stuff you came up with, but it was not to be. Sorry. Have fun, maybe we'll be able to talk again someday. Lost your address in a computer crash long ago.

By Stephen E. Parrish (Steveparrish) on Friday, December 04, 2009 - 01:47 pm: Edit

Henry,

This is probably too late, but I would be glad to play Omega with you via email if you are interested.

By Andy Vancil (Andy) on Friday, December 04, 2009 - 03:37 pm: Edit

There's plenty of interest in Omega, you just need to get online. In fact there is an Omega tournament running right now on SFBOL.

By Jonathan Jordan (Arcturusv) on Friday, December 04, 2009 - 07:24 pm: Edit

Too bad you're not in my neck of the woods. We love Omega sector out here. Probably because the guy that heads our group created the Branthodon Regime. But we get a lot of Omega played, as much as the Alpha Sector ships.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Friday, December 04, 2009 - 07:52 pm: Edit

One of the guys I'm training up on SFB is becoming obsessed with reading up on the 'other' races - Omega, Magellanic cloud, Triangulum galaxy, etc. Kinda annoying, as we still haven't gotten through all the primary SFB races yet, but...eh, it's definitely interest.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, February 02, 2010 - 01:10 pm: Edit

In case anyone has missed it, four of the five published maps for the Omega Octant are now up - which really highlight just how volatile the ebb and flow of Omega history can be.


They look pretty cool!


(As do those Omega factions linked to on the same page, for that matter.)

By Charles Gray (Cgray45) on Saturday, February 06, 2010 - 08:12 pm: Edit

Got a question--anyone have any opinions about the Omega PF product? did it have any new rules/systems? What did the FRA have out of it? Any major new ship classes other than PFT's?

Yes I'm askign this a lot-- sadly I have enough money for X1r, Omega5 or Y2 so I'm trying to decide...

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Saturday, February 06, 2010 - 08:43 pm: Edit

Charles Gray:

Omega #5 had a lot of stuff on fighters in addition to the PFs. The FRA got CONJECTURAL PFs as they continued the general Federation attitude about life (even with the other Empires mixed in). It had the updated PF rules to include the damage conversion tables. You can get those, however, by checking the Omega Errata as they were included as changes to the Omega Master Rulebook (the updates to the Omega OK.0 rules).

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Saturday, February 13, 2010 - 03:42 pm: Edit

Here is a link to some rules I created for three new Maesron Missile types. Note that these are unofficial and do not have the blessing of ADB, although they have been submitted to SPP.

https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AfB8N-Hr7tCIZGhka214OThfMTBkdzhtdjlmaA&hl=en

By Daniel Riegler (Futonrevolution) on Wednesday, March 24, 2010 - 02:14 pm: Edit

On the last page of OA 'Notes on Omegan Fighters' (page 22 in the MRB):
"By the end of the Pax Maesra, nearly every race in the Omega Octant (with the notable exception of the Chlorophons and Sigvirions) had at least one early fighter type in their arsenal."

The Ziggy "home" worlds and racial backup memory bank (Je'shar) were destroyed forever, but they were in the Qixavalor Cloud throughout the Pax Maesra. Granted, the Qixa didn't have fighter facilities until they retook the Cloud, but basic shuttles with gauss cannons were available for improvement. Pulse Emitters can't be put into mines (though KWLs can), but do fit on MRS shuttles (which KWLs can't).

Is there a historical/racial reason why the Sigs would only have 'infected' carriers & fighters available? I'm assuming (from the lack of them in O5 and the cited note lumping them in with the Phons) that they never developed fighters at all.

Edit: Remembering that the Frigate Escort was available very early on, I thought to check if there was a tachyon missile upgrade that would validate its existence (one isn't jumping out at me yet) and accidentally flipped to (OFP3.15). Oops. However, I'm still confused as to why they would be a "notable example."

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, March 25, 2010 - 04:12 pm: Edit

Daniel Riegler:

Blame me. Somehow I missed the reference in (OFP3.15) when I was combining the rulebooks into the Omega Master Rulebook.

Add to that I probably had two other biases (Honestly).

Those being:

First: Why does every empire have to have fighters? Can't some empire be different?.

Second: The Sigvirions do not use Admin Shuttles, all of their shuttles are GAS shuttles, i.e., optimized for landing on planets to spread contagion, so perhaps they did not feel a need to have fighters.

There is also the problem that Bruce Graw suffered a computer meltdown, and much of what he had for the Omega Octant was lost.

Even at that, there could still be Sigvirion fighters as the description you have noted simply says they had not deployed any by the end of the "Pax Mæsron", which ended either in late Y146 or early in Y147. The Sigs might have developed fighters sometime after (perhaps in conjunction with the Nucians) that period.

Even the Chlorophons may eventually get fighters (and PFs), albeit with their existing background structure these units would be STRICTLY Planetary Defense Units operated by remote control by Chlorophons on the planet's surface. Any Chlorphon carrier groups would pretty much have to be mercenary organizations (fighters operated by pilots of other empires as there is just no way in the background to use Keepers as fighter pilots). There is also no way to have Chlorophon operated fighters from a carrier (if there were, then every Chlorophon admin shuttle would be armed and operated as an adjunct to the ship just as the shuttles of other empires).

But Sig Fighters and carriers could appear in the future.