I think I could be your huckleberry. I'm a Hydran by choice, but could fly almost any non-plasma ship

By Patrick H. Dillman (Patrick) on Monday, March 09, 2015 - 03:13 pm: Edit

I have one for tonight, but next week is still open.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Monday, March 09, 2015 - 04:51 pm: Edit

ah i also have some Monday nights free. To bad it is so late as i am eastern time.

By Ed Meister (Edthefed) on Saturday, April 25, 2015 - 03:30 pm: Edit

I am going to be off work most of next week and if I have time I'd like to try and play a scenario online. Tourney play is way out of my league and I prefer patrol stuff anyway as it's more apt for me to try crazy stuff. I haven't got one picked out yet but it'll probably be a smaller historical scenario.
If anyone has lots of free time and wants to blast me apart let me know. It's not for sure yet that I'll have time but I'd like to keep the option open. Thanks!

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Saturday, April 25, 2015 - 07:16 pm: Edit

Sure, I'll play. Any day but Monday. I have a convoy battle I'd like to balance test but if you don't like that I'll play most any scenario.

By Derek Walters (Jagr35) on Thursday, June 04, 2015 - 07:55 pm: Edit

Hi all,

Been 38 years since I played SFB. Would love to get back into it online. How do I find an opponent

Derek

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Thursday, June 04, 2015 - 09:47 pm: Edit

Go to SFBOL there is some one on every night some times a lot some times a few. Were are you from. Norfolk Va here.

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Friday, June 05, 2015 - 02:54 am: Edit

Heh. And Paul just told him to come here

Here's what I have to say on the subject.

Most games that are played are tournament-style games. That doesn't mean that they are all part of some organized tournament, that's just the style of game that is most often played. That also doesn't mean that it's everyone's favorite. Myself I very much prefer campaign and scenario games. It's just that tournament-style games have about two minutes of setup time and can usually be played in a single session. But if you are just hanging around on SFBOL looking for a random game, in practice, that means a tournament game. Tournament games are duels between specially-designed "balanced" tournament cruisers and eliminate most of the rarely used rules (Klingon mutiny, ship separation, etc.), but the biggest difference is that there is no EW. The other biggest difference is that there are no fancy drone warheads and only Klingons and Kzinti can use scatterpacks (and only one each).

Scenarios usually involve scheduling a time to play and setting up in advance, but there are usually opponents available subject to availability. If you have a particular scenario you want to play, and post it here, somebody will probably volunteer to play it against you. I'll probably volunteer, heh. If you like campaigns better, there is sort of a lull in the campaign world right now, but generally, there are campaign battles available to fly most of the time.

I would recommend watching a couple of games first, then trying out a tournament game. The first couple of games will mostly be learning how to use the software. Once you have that down, you are pretty much ready for whatever.

There is something of a shark tank effect with SFBOL. Even a below-average SFBOL player is probably better than the best player in your old gaming group. Most of the players are pretty friendly though and willing to help you learn.

SFBOL likes a lot of monitor space. The software will run on just about any computer, but the more pixels, the better. There is a lot of information to display and it's easier to keep track of everything when you can just spread it all out on big screens instead of having to keep switching between windows.

Since you are an old hand, it's worth mentioning that everyone does use the latest 2012-edition Captain's rules, and almost everyone who played "back in the day" knows a few things that have either changed since then or turned out to never be right. Imagine my surprise when I came to SFBOL and learned that you can make warp tacs on any impulse (except 1), not just when speed 4 moves! If you have an older Captain's rulebook, you'll be OK, but you might want to consider getting the master rulebook (available in both PDF and print form). But this is only really necessary if you are still using Commander's edition (or older!) rules.

By Derek Walters (Jagr35) on Friday, June 05, 2015 - 08:37 pm: Edit

LOL..yeah checking the new lists. BTW, I didn't say I was good...just old. LOL

Currently in Maryland..Ft Meade

By Pete DiMitri (Petercool) on Sunday, August 30, 2015 - 03:29 pm: Edit

Looking to play some SFB again. Pickup, scenarios or campaigns. Not really into tournaments.

If anyone is interested, let me know.

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Sunday, August 30, 2015 - 11:17 pm: Edit

I'll play whenever I have time. You might also be able to pick up a battle from my campaign against Princeton.

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Tuesday, September 01, 2015 - 11:06 am: Edit

Looks like there's some rumblings about wanting more campaigns.

This is a post soliciting "Yes I'm interested" posts and what sort of campaigns everyone would be interested in. I would also accept "No, I'm not interested" and also "go jump in a black hole" posts, if people think my ideas are terrible.

Frank and I are already in one, in the style of the admirals' game, but with my own rules. It's going ok so far, a little slow, since Frank's life makes it hard for him to schedule battles and I can never be bothered to do my pre-battle setup on time. But I think there is starting to be enough interest for a second campaign. After long hard thought, I finally came up with multi-player campaigns that avoid the grind of the expand-explore-exploit style campaigns, and the euro-boardgame dynamics of something like DBOM that just doesn't feel like a real SFU war no matter how you squint.

Neither of the following ideas have full rulesets, but I could probably draw the rules up in a week or two if people actually want to play. All of them incorporate my concept of "initiative," in which players who win battles earn only modest economic rewards, but lots of deployment and setup advantages. (This came from the Falcon series of computer games where it was a core mechanic, although they didn't use the same name). Frank and I are using that in our campaign currently, but we aren't far enough in for it to have had a really dramatic effect yet (maybe next campaign turn). Like all my campaigns, they have simplified economics (and as these are both fairly large-scale ideas, the economics would be quite a bit simpler than usual, although not quite as simple as F&E).

One drawback, if you can call it that, of both of these campaigns is that, unless you just set an arbitrary time limit, nobody's really going to be able to say "I met my victory conditions, and I win." You just play until nobody wants to play any more. That seems to be the way most multisided campaigns go, anyway.

---------

One idea I've had is one set in the mid-180s, where everyone is trying to continue the General War, except the ISC are trying to stop them. It is loosely based on F&E ISC War. Players get rewarded for beating up on their enemies, and the ISC gets rewarded when they don't. This campaign would work best with one or two ISC players and as many Galactic players as could be found. I like this because it actually uses the ISC in the way they're meant to be used rather than trying to pretend they were a 160s and 170s power by nerfing all their ships. It's also nice because, while it's a pacification program era campaign, it's not just everybody vs. the ISC - the Klingons would rather be fighting the Kzinti and Feds, and will be most of the time. It's GM-less as well, so I could play (and I would be willing, but not insistent, on playing the ISC). The downside is, you do have to play in the Y180s. Which is not all bad, it's just a limitation. An Andromedan player could possibly be accommodated.

This campaign lends itself well to a "soft time limit." Players keep fighting until there are just too many Andromedans to bother squabbling among each other.

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Another idea I've had is a "General War Lite" campaign since obviously, you can't play the full GW. Well, you can, but it's called F&E.

In an alternate history, the Doomsday Machine was not destroyed, but rather the Enterprise established communication with it as occasionally happens on the monster encounter table. The secrets of the Doomsday Machine were unlocked and the Federation learned to reproduce them; unfortunately, the secrets were immediately stolen by Klingon and Romulan spies, the Federation was forced to give the secrets to the Gorns and Kzinti to protect them, and the empires of the SFU suddenly faced mutually assured destruction. Massive military buildups still took place - but nobody wanted to launch an all-out war, for fear of igniting a galactic holocaust.

In this campaign, players would have quite large fleets representing a near-GW-level of military buildup, but if they deploy excessive force, time ticks off the Doomsday Clock. If the Clock reaches midnight, the empires all release their Doomsday Machines, inflicting devastation on all players, but the ones who participated in the excessive violence suffer the most. (This does not mean a bunch of scenarios against the usual wimpy Doomsday Machines. These are unstoppable killing machines that simply wreck your empire. You can't stop them.)

The objective of the players is to control the most territory (mostly represented by neutral zone and border planets) with relatively few direct strikes on the other players (but it will still happen). Full size fleets would be allowed... but their deployment runs the Doomsday Clock, so you don't want to deploy them unless you really need them. The loss of a few ships is acceptable here for the greater good, as ships are more easily replaced than the planets they would defend.

This campaign was obviously inspired by the Cold War, but really it grew out of what I feel is an unmet desire to play something that "looks like" the General War, but without having to actually play the General War. Scaled down empires (which somehow still have the same ability to research technology and design ships that their full-scale real counterparts have) never really felt right to me. It does not have free diplomacy ("let's all get together and gank the Romulans") but it does force players to decide which of their fronts, and therefore indirectly their allies, are most important to them today. Like all my campaigns, economics are partially but not totally disconnected from battle results, in order to prevent "snowballing death." You will have to lose rather seriously for three or four turns in order to actually be in serious jeopardy.

Like most GW-oriented campaigns, this one probably works best with seven or eight players, but it would probably work just fine with four or five. An Orion player could possibly be accommodated.

By Pete DiMitri (Petercool) on Tuesday, September 01, 2015 - 12:19 pm: Edit

William,

I'm totally interested in getting into another campaign. So if any of this is stuff that is going to get off the ground, I'd like to be a part of it.

For the record, I have no problem with historical enemies and I actually prefer it because I find that non-historical can sometimes present balance issues. That said, I'm willing to play in either situation.

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Tuesday, September 01, 2015 - 12:30 pm: Edit

It's likely that any campaign I would design would be either two-sided or historical enemies. Of course, there's no rule that I have to design it.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Tuesday, September 01, 2015 - 06:03 pm: Edit

Well Sheap i would love to play in a campaign. Mind you i prefer a combat heavy deployment type game. With very few economics. With set victory conditions. I have something I have done before (years ago)if you like i could send it to you. It is a bit rough as my writing of rules and such just plain suck.

By Francois Lemay (Princeton) on Tuesday, September 01, 2015 - 08:58 pm: Edit

William,
I'd be game to play but as you know, my work situation is kinda crazy at the moment.
I would definitely need a Captain to fly any battles on my behalf.

Any one out there interested in being a Captain only while I steer our chosen Empire into as much mayhem as I can muster !!


Cheers
Frank

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Tuesday, September 01, 2015 - 11:17 pm: Edit

Both concepts are intended to allow people to pick up each other's slack in the battle department, since every player will have two or three enemies at least.

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Thursday, September 03, 2015 - 09:48 pm: Edit

So, this is a little less interest than I was hoping for. Three players (one of which doesn't really have the time) is a low turnout.

Anybody have anyone they can ask? I could ask Neonpico and Gaius Baltar if they would want to play, but I know they are both away for good reasons at this point and might not be able to play.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Friday, September 04, 2015 - 05:09 am: Edit

Well Sheap that is one of the things i see here. Lots of tournament stuff. Duels and the like using the tournament rules. Not sure why people are not playing more scenarios are pick up games.

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Friday, September 04, 2015 - 06:01 am: Edit

They are harder to set up, more investment of time, and SFBOL still has its heritage, from more than a decade ago, of being a tournament-only system.

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Friday, September 04, 2015 - 06:24 am: Edit

I emailed a few old hands who have had interest in campaigns in the past, we'll see if anyone wants to play.

If it's just the two of you, then we probably won't be able to use my concepts above, but there's probably something else we could do.

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Friday, September 04, 2015 - 06:46 am: Edit

William,
I am interested. Sounds interesting. Obviously, the one that lets me play the Andromedans would be preference. :-) But I would play either one.

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Friday, September 04, 2015 - 07:02 am: Edit

I would prefer for you to be able to play the Andromedans too I don't know if there's ever been a campaign that allows Andromedans. I don't think even Galactic Conquest allows them, which is actually kind of ironic.

There are no final rules and I cannot guarantee Andromedans will end up working out, but I would love to be able to.

Andros would only be available if there are enough other players and would, naturally, have rather different victory conditions.

By Pete DiMitri (Petercool) on Friday, September 04, 2015 - 09:28 am: Edit

William,

While you may not have many responses, I have a feeling that "if you build it, they will come". I think people are hankering for a campaign since the ones run by Matt and Josh folded. My suggestion is to start a topic in campaigns and I wouldn't be surprised if you get people involved.

I want the Romulans!

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Friday, September 04, 2015 - 09:50 am: Edit

Yeah, that's why I am sending out some emails. Matthew Potter (neonpico) already wrote back and said he was open to the possibilities, so that gives us five (six if you count Frank) which is close to a quorum.

I haven't started or requested a topic yet because I don't know which concept is more appealing to more players yet and I don't have rules, but I will ask for one soon if it looks promising!

Do either of the concepts appeal to you more?