Sorry currently there is no button. You need to do that by hand.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Saturday, March 24, 2012 - 02:27 pm: Edit

PAUL: I am considering getting into SFBOL, and found a dead link on the webpage to download the install40_jre.exe online client.

The link on that page under the download button to the TEACHERS page is dead/404.

By Clint Woodall (Vix_Sundown) on Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - 09:47 pm: Edit

Hi, I've been thinking about getting into SFBOL. How long can you try it out using the demo?

P.S. This info is probably out there somewhere already but I can't find it. Thanks!

By Matthew Potter (Neonpico) on Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - 11:05 pm: Edit

You can keep playing from the demo as long as you like. As long as you like the Fed TCC or the Klink D7CT

By Clint Woodall (Vix_Sundown) on Friday, March 30, 2012 - 08:56 am: Edit

Great! Thanks for the info. I am going to give it a shot this weekend.

By Eric Phillips (Ericphillips) on Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - 10:36 am: Edit

How do you add warp booster packs to shuttles? I can't figure it out.

By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - 02:13 pm: Edit

You can manually change their speeds, and remember to double the damage they take.

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Saturday, April 14, 2012 - 01:26 am: Edit

Couple of questions...

1) Is it possible to create, in a SFB or SFBTourn room, a window that has just the chat, not attached to either the map or the game control window?

2) Is it possible to configure the font or font size used in the various text-only grid displays (game control, EA form, ...)

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Monday, April 16, 2012 - 10:35 am: Edit

Is tactical intelligence something that SFBOL supports?

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Monday, April 16, 2012 - 05:50 pm: Edit

In a word, no. Because SFBOL always shows SSDs, there is not even any easy way to do it manually. The best you would be able to do is create your ships in a private room for EA and damage purposes, then use generic counters on the tactical map in the "main" room.

There's not really a lot of demand for tactical intelligence, except in special circumstances.

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Monday, April 16, 2012 - 09:13 pm: Edit

William,
Q: Is it possible to create ... a window that has just the chat...?
A: At the moment, no. You can separate the board but not the chat.

Q: Is it possible to configure the font or font size used in the various text-only grid displays (game control, EA form, ...) ?
A: No. This is under the control of the Swing UI. It might be possible with some of the more configurable Look-n-Feels. But I don't know of any LnF editors.

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Tuesday, April 17, 2012 - 04:36 am: Edit

Hmm, ok thanks. Actually, separating the board might be good enough.

On a similar note, is it (still?) possible to connect to the server with an ordinary IRC client for chat-only purposes? I think I remember some people doing this at one point.

By Justin Royter (Metaldog) on Tuesday, April 17, 2012 - 02:15 pm: Edit

Paul is it possible to get the client to update the game log in a goom room when a new player or spectator joins to the games start? ie: Turn 1, impulse 1.

By Mike Kenyon (Mikek) on Monday, April 30, 2012 - 07:16 pm: Edit

Okay, I can't find a question for this. I don't know if it's me or I'm dumb.

I've got a battle coming up and I've got some fighters in it. Wanted to see if I could set things up so that it wasn't 18 hours before 1.1 happened and I can't seem to figure out how to actually put drones on my fighters. I figured there'd be something like the SP editor somewhere, but I'm just not seeing it. If I hit the "Edit" button on a fighter, nothing happens.

Bug, am I being dumb or is it hidden somewhere?

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Monday, April 30, 2012 - 09:17 pm: Edit

Mike,
Where are you in the client? Because, I don't see a "Edit" button. If you add a ship on the board and then go to the "Expendables" tab. Select the fighter in the "Kind" column and click on the "Load" button on that line, if the fighter has expendables (i.e. drones, plasma) you should see the fighter and the expendables below.

Note: I just tried this and it looks like there is a bug.

By Mike Kenyon (Mikek) on Monday, April 30, 2012 - 10:08 pm: Edit

Sorry Paul, I meant "Load". Not in front of the computer.

Glad to hear im not crazy, but sorry to hear about the bug.

By Matthew Potter (Neonpico) on Tuesday, May 01, 2012 - 02:49 pm: Edit

Related question to Mike's:

I've got a battle coming up where I'd like to pre-stage where my units are located and what they have loaded up (perhaps even do T1 EA). How should I go about this so that when my opponent and I sit down, I can bring that up and begin playing?

By Mike Kenyon (Mikek) on Tuesday, May 01, 2012 - 04:02 pm: Edit

Matt,

How I've been doing it (for my battle with Frank) was to create a game with just myself, put the things where they need to be and save it. Then I'll have Frank join and add his things (as he's got less configuration to do).

I'd LOVE (but don't think it exists) a way for each of us to do our sides ahead of time and then "merge" them.

Mike

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Wednesday, May 02, 2012 - 12:41 am: Edit

You can merge games in that way. You just both create your own room, set up your stuff and save it. When you are ready to play, you join the "real" game room, then each of you load your own savefile. You might have to resync the board afterward. You can even fill out your turn 1 EA during your private setup session - just don't submit it.

By Kerry E Mullan (Nomad17) on Wednesday, May 02, 2012 - 07:50 am: Edit

For ftrs what I had been doing months ago is if the specific ftr is in the expendables tab then when you pull up your expendables tab and select the type from the dropdown. To the far right is a "load" icon which then allows you to load each specific ftr.

Care must be taken in knowing the correct designation for you ftr etc ie a ZY and ZYC gave different drone options etc.

As well outside of tourney you can just save your game seperately than your opponent and when game comes on for real each of you loading your saves in the same room overlays them. Again resynching may be necessary but otherwise it works well. As well you can do your EA and submit it or not. If Submitted you can't go back and make changes though.

With tourney you can load saved games and do things to them(like do the EA) and resave it for reloading when you play next.

By Mike Kenyon (Mikek) on Wednesday, May 02, 2012 - 10:28 am: Edit

Sheap, good to know. I'll give that a try tonight!

Nomad, it looks like the Load button is offline at the moment for fighters. See Paul's post above.

By Mike Kenyon (Mikek) on Wednesday, May 02, 2012 - 10:36 am: Edit

More questions from the "Things I've never done before" section. All have a similar basis. I've got a base with modules. I've "attached" the base, but certain things aren't working QUITE the way I'd expect.

Q1. I'm not seeing anything in SFB rules saying that (fighter/drone) storage is separate for modules. If I've got a module that's got storage attached, do I have to seperately segregate those (artificially) and move stuff between them to be able to get the drones to where they need to go?

Q2. Same question on power. I'm getting separate EA forms for the modules. Am I doing something wrong?

By Matthew Potter (Neonpico) on Wednesday, May 02, 2012 - 12:56 pm: Edit

I think Mike's question on power also affect TUGs. I ran into that last night and ended up picking lines on the EA where the tug spends power "on the attached pod" and the pod receives power from the tug.

When I tell the client to attach a pod/pallet and also attach the pod to the tug, I've noticed that the connection is mentioned when you look at the info. But that seems to be the only benefit: the pod doesn't move with the tug and the EAs don't share.

By Mike Kenyon (Mikek) on Wednesday, May 02, 2012 - 01:21 pm: Edit

Matt,

I've taken to moving the pod/pallet/module to the "off-board" area, which solves at least part of the issue (not moving).

I've also noted, you can just modify the main ship's power lines to acheive the required results, but that seems somewhat odd.

Mike

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Wednesday, May 02, 2012 - 04:16 pm: Edit

The thing with attachable pods, pallets and such. The counter almost always appears on top of the unit it's attached to, which is annoying. Moving the piece to the off-board area works sort of well, but if the detachable piece has weapons or shuttles, you can't use them while it's off board.

Attach piece is used to merge the shields and damage allocation. Unfortunately it doesn't merge EAs or weapons.

The only real choice, unfortunately, is to use attach piece and then "tractor" it so it stays in the hex, and try to ignore the superfluous counter. Most detachable pieces are defined with move cost 0, so it doesn't matter. However, certain tug-pod combinations have move costs different from the sum of their individual move costs, and in that case you might have to override the EA's move cost calculation.