In recent years, wargaming has seen a new type of campaign system appear and gain a lot of popularity. First seen in Warhammer 40,000’s Crusade system, it abstracts and simplifies the campaign tracking as compared to more traditional campaigns. More radically, it breaks from the traditional closed group structure - rather players independently create and track their own forces, being able to play against any other player with such a force. This style of system exists to provide a degree of “past and future” connective tissue to what would otherwise be one-off or pick up games, and ways to advance units within the force, giving players a deeper sense of ownership and connection. It doesn’t replace more traditional campaign systems, which provide more detailed and in-depth strategic decision making, but is another way of approaching play.

Another game system that recently released such a system is BattleTech, with the Mercs Chaos Campaign system that debuted in the Mercenaries boxed set and saw a full fledged implementation in the Hot Spots: Hinterlands sourcebook. Starting with two BattleMechs, players are in charge of their own mercenary commands, growing their forces by purchasing and salvaging Mechs, while trying to avoid losses in combat. The campaign rules fit in a handful of pages and a single resource is tracked and spent for purchases, repairs, and upgrades. This system has been exceptionally well received by the BattleTech community - the initial print run of the Hinterlands sourcebook sold out within two weeks of release.

I have long been idly thinking about how such a campaign system for Star Fleet Battles might work - thoughts that got spurred into action seeing Ed Crutchfield’s recent posts here and on Facebook about a 500 BV league format. The Battle Force article series in Captain’s Log is a key touchstone for this, and gave me the idea for the working name: Theatre Command. The core conceit, looking at those articles, is the player is a step up from the Battle Force commanders - they are the theatre officer (or at least they play one on trideo) who is arranging and dispatching these forces from a (slightly) wider pool of available ships - but a far cry from being a full fleet admiral or the like.

At this point, I’m still very much in the jotting down notes and ideas brainstorming stage. I’ll be sharing those (very rough notes) in the next post. I decided to share this idea now to see what kind of interest there may be for such a system - and of course get feedback, ideas, and suggestions when they are much more easily tossed into the pot. So have at it!

(I’m posting this on the Proposals Board not because this is something I expect ADB to work on, but because this is one of the few places where usrs can create topics, and it seemed more fitting than under Player Campaigns, as this is about developing a system rather than looking for players.)

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Friday, August 22, 2025 - 12:36 am: Edit

Lightweight, group agnostic campaign system inspired by 40K’s Crusade and BT’s Mercs Chaos Campaign.

Provides a “wrapper” around otherwise disconnected games. Force conservation matters, ships advance.

Framing is players are a theatre commander in charge of an X BPV force, from which they dispatch smaller forces to play scenarios.

Draw on existing SFB rules where appropriate, but streamline, especially bookkeeping.

Less of an emphasis on historical accuracy, being more of a Federation Commander/cinematic excuse to use cool stuff.

Not intended to replace any existing campaign systems or compete with them, but provide another option for a different play experience.

Two campaign modes:
Open - predefined tech and force building limits in. A player can create an Open force and play a game against any other player that also has an Open force. The rules answer 95% of the pre game “what are we able to use” questions. Less of a specific Y-year and more “here’s what’s avaiable”. E.g. No X-ships, drones are medium speed with fast as a Restricted item (Trideo option: speed-24 drones), etc.
Closed - a given play group makes their own choices to what is allowed and usable and starting theatre size. Then plugs those into this system. Groups can tailor the level of historical accuracy versus anything goes. See also: league play.

Ships can advance using the (G21.2) outstanding crew and (G22.0) legendary officer rules. Rather than any existing XP or similar system, each ship has an advancement track for crew and each officer. As advance along the track, unlock abilities of the appropriate rule. At full advancement, rules fully unlocked. Provide a clean, usable tracking sheet for this. Maybe a form for each ship that also allows for recording Commander’s Options and other relevant info?

Four (no five) Scenario modes:
* Patrol - Open combat.
* Battle Force - A La the Captain’s Log articles. Pick one and play it. Random determination if players pick force before or after knowing the scenario (sometimes theatre command knows what’s happening ahead of time, sometimes they just route the nearest available force).
* Existing Scenario - pick a suitable scenario and make it work.
* Take One For the Team - One side plays an NPC force (they still get some advancement and another round of repairs/upkeep). Useful for buying time if a player’s force is badly beaten up, or to add variety in play. This will include (but not be limited to) scenarios featuring unit types not normally allowed in a player force, e.g. a fast raider, a planet with a monitor, a convoy including auxiliaries, base attacks, etc. Also works with 3. above.
* Orders From Sector Command - One side is assigned to escort/protect a key asset operating in the area (eg a tug in either some sort of combat role or setting up a base, the sector admiral’s dreadnought), while the other gets a proportionate extra allowance in ships from outside their force (their sector command assigning extra assets to deal with the thing). Again, gives players opportunities to use units not as commonly seen.

Use (U1.0) as the benchmark for recovery between scenarios. Define ability on how many ships may be sent for overhaul (one per round, is out for the round?). Limit on the number of ships able to use (D9.4) between rounds? See also: Theatre Upgrades

Advancement: each player gets a crew advancement check. Each player gets to assign an advancement check to the opponents force (?). Winner gets an officer advancement check. Mechanism to encourage variety of officers (make the more desirable ones cost more checks to fully unlock?). Total spitballing here - finding right pace of advancement very important.

Force growth - small BPV increase per round. Players earn a conversion opportunity every X rounds? New ships represent more forces allocated to the theatre command. Lost ships are replaced after one round, but all advancement is lost. This system isn’t about managing construction and the like, but playing with a force that feels like it belongs to the player.

Review (S8.0) and determine what applies at the theatre force level [e.g. (S8.36) for leaders and command ships] and at the scenario force level [e.g. (S8.2) for command limits].

Theatre Upgrades: Sub system whereby the player can upgrade their theatre capabilities beyond simple BPV limits, representing a greater allocation of resources to the player. Eg - additional (D9.4) repair slots, being able to take mega fighters, unlocking an X-ship or limited deployment variant (eg a mauler), etc. Also hiring of an Orion mercenary (costs less than permanent upgrades/unlocks, look at other temporary boosts).

Theatre Upgrade Unlocks: Start with a few more restrictions on force building than the (S8.0) default, such as no X-ships (per above), no PFTs, no SC 3 carriers, no limited production (maybe one) or unbuilt variants. Theatre Upgrade Points (TUP, stored in the Theatre Upgrade Points warehouse) can be sent to unlock/purchase slots in the force for a given unit type. Such units must then still be bought for the force as per the normal rules for adding units. Will also cover things like maulers, drone bombardment ships, stasis variants, etc.

Allow players to take up to a small X% of a scenario force as fighters or PFs not in their theatre forces, representing reacting/supporting forces from nearby - this is to help fill out points for a scenario.

SFB due to its smaller playerbase and nature of gameplay doesn’t have the same culture of pickup play that 40K or BT has - thus Closed mode will be the most common, but Open is still important to provide a baseline “out of the box” experience. Something where a group can pick up the system and go straight to drawing up force rosters and playing to get a feel for it, then start modifying and customizing from there. Or even just being able to read what the default assumptions are and going straight to the customizing. Either way, Open mode is a clear starting point.

Give ideas and tools for ways to customize the system and variant play.
* Most obvious: pick a Y-year and use that to define available tech and units
* If doing above, can also set up a mechanism by which the year advances every X games or every X real world interval. See also:
* League play: a more structured form of a Closed campaign, organized into rounds that last for X time (usually 1-4 weeks). * * * * Each round players are matched up to play game - scenario can be determined for all for a given round or it can be up to individual pairs. Key point is everyone plays the same number of games at the same pace.
* Enforce more historical accuracy in forces or be even looser, allowing conjectural ships etc
* Starting BVP and rate of increase
* Adjust rate of ship advancement, particularly allow for quicker advancement for a faster campaign in a more limited time.
* Fleet Flagship - Each player includes a BCH/DN/BB (as defined by the campaign set up) as the ship the player is on. Losing it knocks the players force out and they have to start with a new one.

Core idea is to encourage players to play more SFB and reward them for doing so, and give more opportunities to use ships and units not used as often.

Goal is for a robust system, not a bulletproof one. A certain level of good faith buy-in from players is not just assumed, but will be explictly called for. Sure, you can agree to an Open game with someone and have your fully upgraded X-squadron which you totally did *NOT* play the scores of games it would take to unlock…but really, why? And of course individual scenarios will still be balanced by BPV.

What to do for modular ships? Initial thought is treat Romulan Hawks as any other ship - that they can be easily swapped doesn’t mean a theatre commander gets to simply order the modules they would like (and this doesn’t give a Romulan player any undue advantage). HDWs would need to be unlocked, but once an HDW is purchased, allow for reconfiguration for a small TUP charge - part of getting an HDW assigned to you is also having enough pull to sometimes get it changed for different missions. Most empires have an HDW design, and this is another way to get mileage out of an interesting class.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Saturday, August 23, 2025 - 01:51 pm: Edit

Hammering things into an outline:

(UTC0.0) Theatre Command
The Theatre Command campaign system puts the player into the role of an officer overseeing a relatively small portion of space, dispatching ships from the pool that has been assigned to them to perform various missions. As they play scenarios against other players with their own Theatre Command forces, they have to consider force conservation and the repair capabilities available to them, but their ships’ crews and officers will improve and the player will be expanding their order of battle, as their theatre becomes more important to their empire’s ongoing war efforts.

(UTC1.0) Introduction
(UTC1.1) Core Concepts - uncased/lightly cased overview of core concepts of the levels of abstraction, good faith buy-in, system intent, etc
(UTC1.2) Modes
(UTC1.21) Trideo Mode
(UTC1.22) Custom Mode
(UTC1.3) Campaign Forms
(UTC1.31) Order of Battle Roster
(UTC1.32) Ship Status Form
(UTC1.4) Flow of Campaign
(UTC1.41) Starting a Campaign
(UTC1.411) Choosing a Mode and OoB
(UTC1.42) Playing Scenarios
(UTC1.421) Players decide to play
(UTC1.422) Pick a scenario
(UTC1.423) Play scenario
(UTC1.424) Post-scenario
(UTC1.5) Ending a Campaign

(UTC2.0) OoB Generation and Management
Creating an initial OoB, how it grows and advances, repairs and replacements, upgrades. The meat of the campaign side of the system.
(UTC2.1) OoB Creation
(UTC2.11) Staring BPV, choose empire, Assumed y-year (Trideo)
(UTC2.12) What’s available
(UTC2.13) What’s not
(UTC2.14) What parts of (S8.0) apply and other such notes
(UTC2.15) Initial repair assets
(UTC2.2) OoB Growth
(UTC2.21) BPV limit increase
(UTC2.22) Adding a ship
(UTC2.23) Retiring a ship
(UTC2.24) Converting a ship
(UTC2.25) Destroyed ships
(UTC2.3) Theatre Upgrades
(UTC2.31) Theatre Upgrade Points
(UTC2.32) Unit Licenses - reference Annex?
(UTC2.33) Orion Merc Contract
(UTC2.34) Repair Slots
(UTC2.4) Ship Advancement
(UTC2.41) Outstanding Crew
(UTC2.42+) Legendary Officers

(UTC3.0) Scenario Play
Types of scenarios and choosing from them, selecting a battle force, how campaign rewards are earned from play.
(UTC3.1) Type of Scenario
(UTC3.11) Patrol
(UTC3.12) Published Scenario
(UTC3.13) Battle Force (technically a 3.12 above but worth a call out?)
(UTC3.14) Player Defined
(UTC3.2) Scenario Lenses
(UTC3.21) Take One For The Team
(UTC3.22) Orders From Sector Command
(UTC3.3) Campaign Level Rewards
Uncased section covering suggestions and ideas on which published scenarios to use and how.

(UTC4.0) Custom Campaigns (Variants?)
More detailed advice and ideas - less a bunch of tightly defined rules and more a discussion of ways to adapt from the baseline established by the Trideo Campaign. Variants included here? Uncased or lightly cased.

(UTC5.0) Empire Specific Notes
What it says on the tin.

Scenarios
Include some additional scenarios to cover Orders From Sector Command situations, maybe?

By Sean Schoonmaker (Schoon) on Tuesday, August 26, 2025 - 12:55 pm: Edit

Very interesting.

Looking forward to seeing this developed.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Tuesday, August 26, 2025 - 01:06 pm: Edit

Thank you! I’m storming away and pulling notes together and just starting to draft from the rough outline above. I decided to go with Trideo Mode as the name of the default/open mode, as SFB has a long history of non-historical scenarios and background based on trideo producers making the shows they want without much concern as to actual events, and the intent for this mode is to take a leaf from Federation Commander and prioritize playing with cool stuff over historical accuracy.

By Eddie E Crutchfield (Librarian101) on Tuesday, August 26, 2025 - 01:49 pm: Edit

Interesting Alex, similar to an idea of a league idea I have been looking at. See some of the ideas below.
Rules
SFB League
We will play a number equal to the number of players +1 game schedule The first will be 1 game against each of the other players. The last two will be a random draw against 1 player, In these two games each player will assault the others Battle Station. Your ships are the players on your team. The time frame of the games will range from 172 thru 184. Round 1 will be 172 with it proceeding up 2 year each round, the last 2 rounds with the base assaults will be 184. The size of the fleets in each engagement will be randomly determined, it will be be between 500 and 800 BPV. The size will be determined by rolling a 6 sided die, the result is multiplied by 50 and that is added to the base of 500. The larger size will give players that might wish to field a team that might include a carrier or PFT group. The engagement will be fought on 2 standard 30X42 maps stacked top to bottom for a 60X42 play area, terrain will be used, it will be used in 172, 174, 180, 182, in those engagements the top of 1 map and the bottom of the attached map will consist of the standard asteroid map, I have built an overlay that we can use. Starting positions will be anywhere along the opposite edges at the top or bottom. In order to speed things up and to push engagements the battles will be limited to 8 turns. Victory will be determined by standard victory conditions.

Picking the team:
Each squad will have 2000 base points. Each ship is considered a player on your team, and during the course of an engagement it may be injured(damaged). Any ships(players) may be selected with the following restrictions.
1. Only 1 size class 2, no Battleships, or battleship variants.
2. Only carriers capable of carrying 12 fighters or less. A carrier must carry at least ½ of its carrier group in the engagement.
3. The carriers must have at least 1 escort accompany it, unless it says it can operate without escorts, then it is players choice. Also you may operate 1 SC4 escort(Frigate/Battle Frigate/Destroyer) without a carrier being present
4. S8 rules on using command ship rules must be followed when forming your engagement group, nothing with all command ships.
5. When purchasing your ships, you may pay for all refits and drones at the beginning, or you may pay for them each year as they become available, but If you want to pay as you go you will have to have those points available from you beginning base points. If you pay ahead, you cannot use the refits until the year available.
6. EW will be used.(I enjoy using EW some don’t. This might be adjusted, and use a limited EW, Limited would be scout sensors used, but EW lending limited. ), also if lending is used OEW will be limited to 3 points, not 6.
7. You may have 2 each of Unique(Unq), Unbuilt variant,(UNI), Conjectural (CNJ) not to exceed 150 BPV as long as it does not fall in other restrictions, these must be from your primary race.
8. In order for a ship to be used in any one year, its date of availability must be that year or prior to the year. A ship you pick with availability of 180 will not be available for any engagements prior to that.
9. One Ship with an availability date prior to the beginning date of 170 will be allowed to have an outstanding crew no ship may have a crew and officer . No SC2, your choice of which..
10. Officers: Each team will have 1 legendary officer of each type except Captain and DR. These officers can be placed at the team managers choice on any ship, but only 1 can be placed per ship
11. Damage results to ships(players). In any team sport injuries occur, this game is no different. All damage to ships will be fixed between years, with the following limits. If a ship is destroyed it cannot be replaced for 2 game periods, example destroyed 172 back 178, crippled 75% damaged back after missing 1 so 172, back 176. All others back the next game period.
12. No X-Class
13. XP refits will be allowed starting in 181, they are allowed 20 points extra to the base BPV. The number of ships allowed by year are in the XP rules. The battle stations receive 20 points not included in the before mentioned limit. If we cannot adjust ships in SFBOL then this section can be ignored. SFBOL does not have the X-P refit, we will need to adjust individual ships if possible.
14. Battle Station engagements: The battle station will have 3 modules , with no more than 1 module of any type(may have 2 normal power modules). The defender is allowed 600, including the battle station and defending forces, no minefields. Attacker is allowed 800 points.
15. The rule of if you use Fed PFs does apply about not getting the F111 Federation fighters. Federation ships may use the R1 rule to add mech links, but will be limited to ships with flag bridge or ships designed at PF Tenders. If a tender is picked, it must have at least ½ of its PFs available. All PFs will be available in year 180. Federation players must decide before games starts whether heavy fighters or PFs
16. The base fleet will be 500+20% CO. For each engagement a 6 sided die will be rolled, the die roll will be multiplied by 50 and added to the 500 to determine the engagement size.
17. Crews and officers do not count against the point total for the contest. The battle station cannot have legendary officers or outstanding crew.
18. I would expect most of the encounters will be played of SFBOL, unless some of you are near each other. Please check your ships to the official SSD book for accuracy. One of the ships in a game played recently was incorrect. Also as a note there appears to be a problem with the X-Class ships. While on the SSD for X-Ships it shows the correct number of boxes for APR/AWR/XPR the power on the EA form is doubled for those. In addition on the EA form the value for the phaser capacitor is only ½ of the correct value. There is no X-P refit on SFBOL, when we reach that point I think we can just add the needed values.
20. If a ship is destroyed you do not get the officer or crew on it back when it is returned.

*Federation, Klingon, Romulan, Gorn, ISC, Tholian, Neo-Tholian, Lyran, LDR, Kzinti, Hydran, Orion, Vudar, Wyn, Paravian, Carnivon, Seltorians, Andros..

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Tuesday, August 26, 2025 - 02:36 pm: Edit

Eddie, more structured league play is something that is going to addressed an an option for a Custom campaign - mainly along the lines of instead of leaving it up to individual players to arrange games and scenarios, there would be someone running the league, with a fixed scheduled of rounds, which the pairings and scenario for each round being determined as it goes.

By Dan Bivona (Admiraldan) on Friday, August 29, 2025 - 10:13 am: Edit

I've thought of something like this before, but some different ideas too. Haven't read all of your posts yet, but wanted to make a comment about your ideas with the crew and officer advancement - in a nutshell, I really like it.

One thing that always bothered me about the Outstanding Crew rules and Legendary Officers was the "all or nothing" concept of them. In pick-up battles or historical scenarios, the rules make sense. But in a campaign setting, not so much. I have ideas about different levels of unlocking written down somewhere - just not sure where I have them. (In a notebook somewhere - came up with the idea years ago while sitting on a beach in Delaware.)

The other idea I had about crew was creating something like the Experts found in Babylon 5 Wars. (Not sure if I am remembering the name for them exactly.) Not quite legendary (and maybe not an officer) but an expert enough in a particular system or technology to warrant being tracked separately and provide some sort of bonus.

If I find my notes, I'll throw them on here for everyone's thoughts. They have been sitting in notebooks for nearly 15 years. It's about time for them to get out in the open for someone to use even if it isn't me. LOL!

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Friday, August 29, 2025 - 11:27 am: Edit

I am definitely looking at using and plugging into existing SFB systems and dynamics when and where it makes sense, while also looking at how to both streamline tracking and make for a more interesting and dynamic experience.

The thinking around crew improvement and legendary officers is borrowing from Gloomhaven/Frosthaven and Kingdom Death: Monster. While the rules for what those things *do* in the game are perfectly crunchy as is (this is about playing Star Fleet Battles after all!) the provided XP tracking and the like is way too fiddly for the goals of Theatre Command. Instea, it will be something like:

Crew Advancement: this is a track of (say) 20 checkboxes. Every so often a box is bolded. Every scenario a ship participated in it gets another check (and probably some mechanism for allocating a bonus check). When a bolded box is checked off, select a benefit from the rule. When the track is full, the complete rule comes into effect.

This will, overall, provide for more outstanding crews and legendary officers then normal/realistic, but that’s fine and intended! It will also tie into the force conservation dynamic: a ship that gets destroyed is replaced at no cost (just a delay) except that comes with a fresh crew. So *when* and *how much* to risk a ship you’ve gotten tooled up with a great crew and a couple of developing officers becomes is a real consideration.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Friday, August 29, 2025 - 11:46 am: Edit

While I'm guessing that the initial focus here is on "modern" (GURPS Prime Directive Tech Level 12) Alpha Octant ships, it would also be welcome to see variations of this proposed setup for Early Years era play in Alpha, as well.

Or, indeed, for use over in the Omega Octant, in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud, and/or in other non-Alpha settings also.

Of those in the latter category, it would probably be easier to support an LMC setup, given the degree of "campaign compatibility" provided for the three Magellanic Powers in Module C5.

Omega might have to wait until more progress is made on that region's "campaign compatibility" project. Although, even for now there might be some interesting empire-specific quirks to consider over there: how the Hivers handle crew and officer qualities under (OR10.033), for example.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Friday, August 29, 2025 - 12:00 pm: Edit

Trideo mode is Y-agnostic, basically anything that isn’t IMPOSSIBLE or stuff like the C3A Andros would be fair game. If a player wants to limit themselves to a specific year for their own thematics then more power to them.

Similarly, Trideo mode will be basically “any empire goes, though ones with fewer ships available will obvs have fewer options.” There will be a section addressing empire-specific issues, from access to Fed fancy fighters to how to handle Hivers and beyond.

As for variant setups: that’s what Custom mode is all about. If a group goes “Hey, let’s go an Early Years Theatre Command campaign” then all they need to do is set a Y-year or just go “anything from or for use with the Y-modules”, maybe adjust starting BPV down a bit to reflect the lower points values of the period, and start playing games.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Saturday, August 30, 2025 - 02:08 am: Edit

A specific bit of brainstorming:

In Theatre Command, players cannot add FCRs to their Orders of Battle. Rather, they will be represented by purchasing the theatre upgrade of FCR Support.

FCR Support allows a player, in the post game campaign phase, choose a carrier they control and instead of gaining replacement fighters as per (U1.23), all lost fighters, including empty storage, are replaced. Once used, this ability cannot be used again until after the next post game campaign phase.

In addition, if a player does not have sufficient uncrippled escorts to either field a carrier without crippled escorts or not field a carrier at all (players cannot field understrength carrier groups without the explicit permission of both players) for a scenario, then they may choose to include an FCR in their force. This FCR is not added to the player’s Order of Battle and there is no tracking of any campaign information for it. If the FCR is destroyed or captured during a scenario, neither ability of this theatre upgrade may be used in the next three post-game campaign phases.
———
Obvs this is going to subject to at least a bit of tweaking, but this really gets it the heart of what I am aiming for with Theatre Command.