A very vague idea here, but it might be fun...run a sort of continuous Admiral's Game at a con. There are multiple tables set up, and each one has a mapsheet. Forces fight on a table, and they can move from table to table by disengaging in the appropriate direction. Fighters can't do it; if they disengage they're destroyed. PFs which disengage are subject to K6.0 when they get to the next table. Ships which disengage by acceleration can hop over tables.

There are various referee-controlled repair units scattered about the game (FRDs, repair freighters, etc.) They won't disengage from the map that they're on, and they'll switch allegiance whenever only one side has ships on that map. If they're destroyed, they respawn a few turns later. They have an infinite repair capability.

Disengaging ships get their HET bonuses back before they arrive at the next map; they also reset their CDR and EDR points. They can only reload drones by in-game methods, but there are resupply freighters scattered about the game (like the repair freighters.) These freighters have an infinite supply of drones and T-bombs. Spare fighters and replacement PFs can be had at the starbase.

Players get assigned a more-or-less random group of forces when they enter, and they all start at their side's starbase. A player who wants to take a break can order his units to retreat; if they all disengage from the map, they automatically return to the starbase and can't engage in combat until that player returns. Players don't get replacement ships; once a player loses all his ships he's out.

The victory conditions are per player, and based on number of enemy destroyed, number of scenarios "won" (all enemies disengaged or destroyed), number of times you captured a neutral unit, etc. One-time bonuses for raiding the enemy's base (being on the map and firing weapons at a military target), destroying special enemy ships like carriers, etc.

Depending on who's going to be at the con, you will probably want to grossly simplify SFB. No special drones, only explosives. No scouts or EW. Repair would probably be "one power to one repair box at the beginning of the turn = one repaired box on the SSD at the end of the turn" (CDR and EDR limits still apply.)

Seems pretty complex, but it might be fun if you had enough SFB people together. You could come up with rules limiting discussion between tables, not allowing people to look at other tables before they arrive (to allow the enemy to lay traps), things of that sort. Maybe ships with special sensors could look at other tables.

By Les LeBlanc (Lessss) on Thursday, January 06, 2005 - 10:58 pm: Edit

An FRD IIRC has plenty of cargo to store those drones in.

Get rid of the bases and starbases, and limit it to a squardon of 3 ships.

By Michael Powers (Mtpowers) on Friday, January 07, 2005 - 07:23 am: Edit

My thinking about "unlimited supply of drones" was more for book-keeping than anything else. If you always have drones, then you don't need to keep track of how many drones you've off-loaded.

I was assuming that the players would get, say, a frigate squadron, or a pair of cruisers, or something.

The reason for the starbases is to provide context, as well as a large repair base that you've always got (unless the enemy somehow manages to wipe it out.)

By Greg Ernest (Grege) on Friday, January 07, 2005 - 09:48 am: Edit

This sounds like a lot of fun! I wouldn't bother much with carriers or PF tenders.

Also, coordinating the number of turns played on each table would be a issue. If one group of players is going really slow (due to lots of damage allocation or some such), if someone were coming on to that table they might have to wait awhile.

By John Kasper (Jvontr) on Friday, January 07, 2005 - 01:05 pm: Edit

Do you really need to coordinate the turn numbers at the various maps?

If you do coordinate them, can I shoot the long range drones, whatever their number is, from one map to another?

By Michael Powers (Mtpowers) on Friday, January 07, 2005 - 01:50 pm: Edit

I wouldn't say that you'd need to coordinate turn numbers, or much of anything else, between tables. Since victory conditions are per-player and not per-side, all that matters is when you show up to the table and when you walk away.

With that in mind, I don't know how well drone-bombardment would work. Same thing with long-range fighter or PF strikes. I had considered "endurance" chits for attrition units; a unit has one, and loses it if it goes to another map. Fighters with no endurance chit can't leave the map they're on; PFs can, but they are hit by degradation as soon as they get to another map. But then you have one player trying to affect things on two maps at once, which introduces confusion that I'm trying to avoid (this whole affair would be crazy enough!)

You're probably right that fighters and PFs would be more than anyone wanted to deal with anyway.

By Kerry Drake (Kedrake) on Friday, January 07, 2005 - 02:15 pm: Edit

As far as drone reloads go, you could give each ship infinite "storage", but still require the reloading of racks normally as they run dry. Require the racks to be out of service a turn for each 2 spaces of drones reloaded into the rack.

By Michael Powers (Mtpowers) on Friday, January 07, 2005 - 02:28 pm: Edit

That would probably work ok, but I liked the idea of a group needing to return to base to reload (or trying to capture a supply freighter.) That gives "objectives" that a side can go after, rather than simply wandering around the scenario pointlessly.

By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Saturday, January 08, 2005 - 05:28 pm: Edit

I like the kernel idea here; run an Admiral's game campaign concurrently at a con.

Scale it down a bit, and run a round every day over a 3 day weekend. Setup each table as a map area with pre-established forces to make things interesting, and let them go at it. Next day, setup the next round based on the previous days results and carry on.

Additional rules aren't necesary, just use a scaled down Admirals game (perhaps 3 layers of 5,3,1 map areas) and do all the ship selection and force prep ahead of time.