We have found 2 Admirals.
Thanks.

Cheers
Frank

By Joseph Jackson (Bonneville) on Saturday, July 09, 2022 - 01:13 pm: Edit

Dawn rose over a dusty, blue-sandpaper sky. The chronometer ticked away the minutes as the miles blurred passed the asphalt. Two hours vanished into the distance behind me. Two more were consumed by the smell of grease and burnt metal as two men, a gaggle of children, and a pack of dogs fussed over an old green hatchback. Out with the old clutch, in with the new; as the saying goes. New pads and rotors completed the repair and a test drive proved the repairs as successful. It also provided pizza for a family of 13 and one guest.
The summer sun smoldered in the dusty sky and a hot, dry wind baked the air. Inside, the swamp cooler roared away, filling the house with a musty cool relief from the furnace outside.
With cheap pizza in hand and lukewarm soda on tap, we were at last ready for the main event.
Star Fleet Battles.
For me it was to be the Prax heavy cruiser, for my Bro, the Federation new heavy cruiser. Game one of our latest Captain’s Game campaign was about to begin.
My Bro barreled in fast, looking for trouble. He unleashed the big guns sending four overloaded photon torpedoes my way. His roll was three box cars and a deuce. I turned and mercilessly gave him a full broadside of plasma torpedoes, followed up by phasers. He veered off, but it was too late.
He took a hurts worth of internal damage, and on my second to last roll on the DAC I came up with those beautiful numbers on two dice, a five and a six. All the same, he managed to hit me in the face with a transporter bomb. Didn’t matter, my shields held.
Then I made a near fatal error. I turned away to reload. I had him by the jugular; I should have pressed the advantage. So he rolled around in a wide arc as Federation are prone to do. I tried to pick up speed and use ECM but it was no good. He was melting down his warp core to catch me, shedding weight by scraping any cost that might slow him down.
At range five I rolled out some payback and he took a transporter bomb in the teeth. At range two, his closest approach, I let him have it with my phasers. His forward shield collapsed. It was only two internals, but another eleven on the rolls was icing on the cake. Then there was the reprisal.
With several drones incoming, he once again unloaded his photon torpedoes and phasers. They did their job well, opening a shield and scoring good internal hits. The photons had been standard loads, which saved my bacon. I dispatched his drones and started to gear up for the ensuing dogfight. But he’d had enough. With 3 shields down and half his weapons gone, to my one shield down and all weapons ready, willing, and able; he turned away and disengaged.
It was a fast, short fight. Had those photon torpedoes hit in that first exchange, the outcome might have been very different. I think I’d like to try this matchup again sometime, it seemed a pretty even match overall. But I did spank him. Let’s not lose sight of that.
So game one is done and it’s off to fight a Sun Snake.
Until then, don’t be a stranger but go ahead and be strange.

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Sunday, September 25, 2022 - 12:55 pm: Edit

Where do I find the rules for starting forces in a full blown campaign. Not the Admiral's game but one which spans multiple borders, advances through turns and years, upgrades tech, tracks XP, etc.?

We played one back in the late 90s but I didn't run it and don't even know where to look for the maps we used, let alone the rules.

By Joseph Jackson (Bonneville) on Sunday, September 25, 2022 - 11:37 pm: Edit

Isn't there a fleet list by empire in F & E? I think it used to be in SFB but was moved. I'll try to find the reference.

By Joseph Jackson (Bonneville) on Sunday, September 25, 2022 - 11:55 pm: Edit

Annex #7C says the Order of Battle data was transferred to F & E.
But you can just expand the Admiral's Game in a variety of ways.
If say, the recommended fleet represents one border and a reserve:
Then just divide the fleet by 2 and place that fleet at every border.
Adjust to taste and available products.
Choose a start date and assume a battle line takes 3 months to fight. Again, adjust to taste and available products.
Or buy F & E.
Plenty of options.

By Ryan Opel (Feast) on Monday, September 26, 2022 - 01:03 am: Edit

The F&E orders of battle are available free on the BBS.

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Monday, September 26, 2022 - 12:50 pm: Edit

Here is a followup to my last question since there's nothing official we can draw from... What starting points, economy, map, and turn length would you use if starting a brand new campaign?

I'm thinking production based on sectors controlled. Asteroid belts and planets are, of course, worth more. I don't know what's a good amount per turn to keep production rolling and make conquest more economically impactful.

Maybe a faction can hire some Orions to raid a convoy using the SG scenario. Players could also assign guard ships but those ships would be unavailable for other missions. The hiring player gets whatever the pirates steal and the opponent loses whatever is destroyed. IIRC we did something similar way back in the day.

By Jeff Guthridge (Jeff_Guthridge) on Monday, September 26, 2022 - 01:35 pm: Edit

Ginger, are you starting a historical campaign based on historical fleets and stellar geography or is this a king/queen-of-the-hill type thing?

Have you looked at the Campaign Designer's Handbook from the store? If memory serves that title is light on order-of-battle level details but has a whole host of discussion on your follow up query.

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Monday, September 26, 2022 - 01:53 pm: Edit

Nevermind. We've decided to skip the difficult planning stuff and do the Admiral's Game instead. :D

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Monday, October 24, 2022 - 01:07 pm: Edit

Y180 as the feds fighting the Hydrans. What fighters do you build? Or if not fighters, what would you combat the Hydran PFs with?

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar3) on Monday, October 24, 2022 - 07:27 pm: Edit

DWs and FF(B)s ...but if you have that much to play with, he will have more on his side ...

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Saturday, December 03, 2022 - 10:18 pm: Edit

Our experience with The Admiral's Game was less than satisfying due to some flaws in that system. Basically there was no penalty for the defender losing battles and little incentive for the attacker to risk ships once they've made it to the third layer. We called it a draw.

This time we have a referee and will be doing a full blown campaign with exploration and empire building. It starts in Y170 and races are unknown until you stumble across a neighbor.

Who's interested? We have 2 seats full and 4 more available.

By Jeff Guthridge (Jeff_Guthridge) on Saturday, December 03, 2022 - 10:56 pm: Edit

I wish I had the time to invest. I really do.

I hope you fill those spots. If your still looking for a third later, email me with the rundown of just how much time I’d need to set aside how often to be fair to the group.

By Frank Lemay (Princeton) on Sunday, December 04, 2022 - 08:09 am: Edit

Hi Ginger,
I would be interested.
Sending you an email.

Cheers
Frank

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Thursday, December 08, 2022 - 05:40 pm: Edit

There is a new campaign starting up and we're looking for players. We have 3 so far and can take up to 3 more. The link to the full rules is below. Here are the big points:

* Y172 for the starting year
* Travel around the map to find other fleets
* Each empire has two and only two borders to fight for.
* Command ratings are halved and there are no starbases so fleets will be on the small side (6 ships max).
* Battles can be fought in person or online over SFBOL. Or really any other method you and your opponent can agree on.

Come join the carnage!

The rules (pdf)

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Friday, December 09, 2022 - 11:23 am: Edit

We have one more slot open.

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Saturday, December 10, 2022 - 12:17 am: Edit

We're full!

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Saturday, December 10, 2022 - 08:22 pm: Edit

Looks like a cool campaign. Good luck!

--Mike

By Robert Russell Lender (Rusman) on Wednesday, March 01, 2023 - 12:24 pm: Edit

Good morning all,

In a new campaign I'm starting locally, I'm looking for some printed documentation on planets and places located within the Alpha Octant and lists their names & F&E Campaign hex.

Somewhere on the StarfleetGames website, I recall seeing a downloadable PDF or or Word file that contains a list of many different planets as described above. I recall it has things like the Capitol hex location of each empire, Sherman's Planet, Blackfoot Pass, The location of certain important bases and pirate hangouts etc.

Does anyone know what I'm referring to and where I can find it?

Thanks,
Rus

By Nick Blank (Nickgb) on Wednesday, March 01, 2023 - 02:53 pm: Edit

Probably: here

Master site index: click on Gazetteer.

By Robert Russell Lender (Rusman) on Thursday, March 02, 2023 - 10:35 am: Edit

Outstanding. Thank you very much Nick. That was the one I was looking for.

By Robert Russell Lender (Rusman) on Monday, September 22, 2025 - 11:43 am: Edit

Hello all,

I'm wondering what program/s were used to create the F&E map found here:
https://www.starfleetgames.com/documents/F&EDocuments/F-E_map_colonies.jpg

I'd like to try and create my own maps with the same look & feel for a campaign I'm running.

I'm also looking for some software that will create hex maps within hexes so I can show individual parsecs within the larger main map and so forth for greater detail down to smaller areas. Can someone point me in the cor3rect direction along these lines?

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Monday, September 22, 2025 - 11:57 am: Edit

Link fails for me for some reason.

I'm no visual arts software person, but I figure at a minimum you could import a JPG into an art program like Visio, Photoshop, etc. and then revise it the way you like.

But that's probably cruder than building it from scratch.

My worthless quatloos in this regard if nothing worthier comes along.

By Russ Simkins (Madcowak) on Tuesday, September 23, 2025 - 02:21 am: Edit

Don't know what was originally used to make F&E maps but Visio will certainly do it (I used Visio back in the 90's to do just that).
As far as hex map within a greater hex I would ask how many lesser hexes and what plan to handle the inevitable partial hexes.
I assume your best case is to double click on F&E hex and drill down into the detailed map. It is possible with Visio but requires code work.

By Robert Russell Lender (Rusman) on Tuesday, September 23, 2025 - 09:06 am: Edit

Ted,
Not sure why the link didn't work. But you can always just copy/paste that URL to a browser which will load the image.

As far as what I need, I'm just looking for hexes within other hexes in order to drill down to finer detail. All hexes would need to be numbered so I can pinpoint which hex within larger hexes someone is in.

I do NOT need to click on a hex on the main map, then click again to get to smaller areas within that hex, though it would be nice. I just don't know how to fill an existing hex with other hexes. Although I suppose I could just use separate hex maps and block out the ones outside a zone so it represents what's in its larger counterpart. The important part is that I keep them all numbered.

As I understand it, each hex within the F&E map represents about 500 parsecs accross. So I think I definitely need a way to have a hex map at least 500 hexes wide in all six directions. It would need to be high enough resolution in order to zoom in and read the individual parsec hex numbers and (preferably), to fill in some detail in many of those hexes to represent what is in it (asteroid fields, star systems, nebulae etc). To this end, I need a program that can generate such a large map. It can be a PNG or GIF or something as long as it's hex-numbered and editable for the a fore mentioned stellar phenomenon details.