Subtopic	Posts		Updated
	Archive through April 07, 2005	25		04/07 12:33pm
	Archive through April 07, 2005	25		04/07 09:15pm

...what about allocating action "chits" instead of "cards" - and allocate them to groups/squadrons rather than ships. (This also allows legendary captains, et al to have more "chits" to spend or whatnot).

Basically, you just have a huge pile of generic action disks (I mean, not HUGE, no more than 20 or 30 or so). Small disks, 1" round, for example. On the front is a picture indicating the action to perform, on the back is just a generic image for the empire (Starfleet logo for the Feds, etc). You place the disks face down with each group of units to allocate orders. Each player then reveals all their disks simultaneously by flipping them over, then the orders are executed one at a time - each one, once executed, removed from the table.

I dunno, just an idea...

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, April 08, 2005 - 12:27 am: Edit

I'd just as soon do it without cards and fight the battle of Wolf 911 (or whatever it was) with a hundred ships.

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Friday, April 08, 2005 - 08:21 am: Edit

K.I.S.S.

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Friday, April 08, 2005 - 11:01 am: Edit

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Quote:

I still don't have a simple way to handle turn modes and maneuverabilty

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By Craig Tenhoff (Cktenhoff) on Friday, April 08, 2005 - 01:03 pm: Edit

Actually Wizkids doesn't usually give you action chits.

They recommend you use coins, pebbles, whatever. I've bought a couple sets of colored stones to use (need at least two sets since most units can only take actions every other turn), but have seen some people use pennies and other art beads. Too each his own.

By John Erwin Hacker (Godzillaking) on Saturday, April 09, 2005 - 05:01 am: Edit

SVC:

I know this is going to sound "rather elementary" but how about deviding the B.P.V. of the starships by 10 to get the "root cost" of each starship then if the player wants to put "any goodies" onto it then maybe devide the "commander's cost" of that item by 10 as well?. This is just a suggestion to "speed the developement of the game" along.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, April 09, 2005 - 08:49 am: Edit

Like, whatever. I am not going to worry about the design until I see some kind of plan to actually manufacture this.

By Jeff Williams (Jeff) on Thursday, July 14, 2005 - 06:25 pm: Edit

Just to be largely inneffective while simulating being helpful, the battle was at "Wolf 359".

By Mark Ewbank (Mark_Ewbank) on Tuesday, January 09, 2007 - 08:51 pm: Edit

SVC,

An alternate to clicky-base: Go with plastic, pre-painted miniatures without clicky-bases, like the Star Wars and D&D minis. (May or may not be cheaper to produce.) Game stats for each mini are in a small card, the cards and minis packaged together.

You have two customer groups (clicky-base or not) - (1) those who will buy and play the game, and (2)those who will buy the kewl starship minis for use in other games.

For instance, I own several Mage Knight and MechWarrior clicky-base minis. I've played Mage Knight maybe a dozen times, and MechWarrior once (and still cringe at totalling the dollars I've spent on them), but consider them good purchases and still buy them on eBay occasionally because of their use in the other games I play. A role-playing Game Master may have no interest in playing the Star Wars mini game, but having a dozen or so stormtroopers and battledroids help in *so* many games. If the GM likes playing the minis game, it's that much more incentive to buy.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, January 10, 2007 - 09:59 am: Edit

Mark: Write me a check for $50,000 and I'll do it, and pay you back out of sales. Seriously, that's what it costs for the minimum production run of plastic pre-painted miniatures. I'm not terribly interested in betting the entire company on any one project, but if you want to invest, I'm all for it. When can I expect your check to arrive?

By Mark Ewbank (Mark_Ewbank) on Wednesday, January 10, 2007 - 09:01 pm: Edit

SVC,

Understood. I wanted to throw out an idea that might be less expensive than and/or avoid clicky-base patent issues.

You've been successful at supporting yourself in the games business for many many years. Betting the company on a minis game would be imprudently (to use a mild term!) risky.

As far as writing a $50,000 check, I'd need my wife's approval. I'll let you know how it goes, but I'm not optimistic...

(Thought sequence: "But honey, worst case, if it doesn't work out and we lose money, I'd still have thousands of kewl plastic starship minis!" *SMACK*]

By John Erwin Hacker (Godzillaking) on Wednesday, January 10, 2007 - 09:55 pm: Edit

MARK :

YoUr NuTs BuT I lOvE It DuDe

UnTiL nExT tImE fRoM gLoRiOuSlY cOnFuUuUuUsEd GhDaR pRiMe..........

"ThE gOdZiLlAkInG"

P.S. Sorry everyone I had to do it

By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Saturday, December 27, 2008 - 11:45 pm: Edit

I apologize for the necro on this thread, but an idea came to me while thinking about this project. (I admit, it's a slight obsession, this one. I've even tried drafting a couple rules sets already - no, you can't see them.)

ADB already has an existing mini's production in place, and the major problem with this is the $50K that would be required to buy-into the whole 'clix' style of base.

What if we could skip that? Wizards of the Coast has a system used in DnD, Star Wars and Privateer Press' Iron Kingdoms / War Machine, where the minis are quite normal (although unpainted in the case of WM, Mischa has a nice looking army or 6) - each mini comes with a corresponding data card, a sheet of stats, as well as other things, between the size of a baseball card and a 3x5 note card.

If you do eventually choose to go this route, it cuts out the one biggest cost in the idea, the minis, as you already have those available, and all that's needed is a ruleset, and data cards for each ship you want to 'publish'. Something that can be done in-house and with Print-on-Demand tech.

Sample WarMachine rules here; http://www.privateerpress.com/docs/warmachine/WMQS1_3.pdf

Sample data cards here;
http://www.privateerpress.com/docs/warmachine/WM-Demo-Cards.pdf

By Greg Maynard (Gregarious) on Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - 12:41 am: Edit

There is now a Star Trek game with clix models - actually there are two, both from wizkids.

Star Trek: Expeditions is co-operative game about winning over a prospective new Federation member planet while avoiding a Klingon battlecruiser and brewing civil war. It uses the characters from the 2009 movie but could equally well have been set in the original universe.

Star Trek: Fleet Captains is about 2-4 players controlling a fleet of ships exploring (and possibly battling over) a new region of space using a random setup of hex tiles. This is set across the main ST universe including old and new ships - a bit wierd but there has been much discussion about how to restrict ships to one era.

I don't own either but have been following comments with interest.

By Lee Hanna (Lee) on Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - 10:50 am: Edit

Expeditions is fun, I've played it with my wife and sons a few times. It's easily replayable, in that the location cards are shuffled and it plays at least a little differently each time. It also scales up, so that you have less time to beat the game when you play at advanced levels.

I think an expansion (new cards, different planet, maybe more character clix) would be cake-simple for Wizkids.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - 01:18 pm: Edit

First expansion (there will probably be many) is due in October, IIRC.

FWIW, word on the street is that - although the mishmash of timeframes (Kirk in the Enterprise-A exploring space alongside Picard in the Enterprise-D) is truly weird, the gameplay itself is considerably more rich and engaging in the other game. At least, what I've heard.

Worth noting that the 'Fleet Captains' game is competitive play, while 'Expeditions' is co-op.

By Mike Slade (Therealmxslade) on Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - 05:39 pm: Edit

The designers had some interesting things to say about SFB:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/4441/designer-diary-star-trek-fleet-captains

By David Zimdars (Zimdarsdavid) on Thursday, September 15, 2011 - 12:45 pm: Edit

If they didn't think SFB was worthy competition, they wouldn't be giving it back-handed compliments. Note that the designer didn't say he was playing FASA's "Star Trek Combat Simulator" back in the day either. So in this guy's mind SFB was equating to a "Star Trek" game gold standard. Which, as I said, in a back handed way is a compliment.

Too bad this is the second time SFB has been dissed for not having names and faces within the context of this company, though.

Seriously, I haven't played this game, but it looks like it is completely different than SFB, which seems to me that it will attract customers on its own merits - not in relation to SFB or not.

SFB is upfront about its focus. I mean, it has the word "Battles" right in the title. Back in the early days of the Designer's Edition, concepts like non violent combat, monsters, crew quality, and legendary officers took up a greater percentage of print - they felt a little like hooks for a RGP or campaing point of view. And as the SFU has filled in, the focus has been understandably on the combat, less so the other stuff, as this is what SFB players want.

So maybe back in the day, SFB was a little easier to relate to Trek if you wanted, but it still isn't that hard if you wanted. So I think the objection is overblown.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, September 15, 2011 - 12:51 pm: Edit

I think this is a symptom of what I see all too often out "in the wild", so to speak; the idea that nothing to do with ADB exists other than SFB, or perhaps SFB as they remember it.

The non-combat aspects of the SFU are really far more at home in Prime Directive than they are in any of the tactical games; but the profile of PD (in any game engine) is a lot lower. Hopefully the new Mongoose release can help turn a few heads in that regard.

Plus, when it comes to actual combat, a lot of people seemed not to notice that the likes of FC exist...

...or any of the newer alternate settings explored in SFB itself (such as the Early Years).


It will be interesting to see which type of gamer A Call to Arms: Star Fleet will be more likely to bring in; older gamers who ditched SFB before things like FC or PD came along, or new gamers who have not been exposed to the SFU before.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, September 15, 2011 - 04:24 pm: Edit

Seems to me that most games don't change or grow that much. This contributes to the misconceptions of ADB and SFB.

Maybe ADB needs to publish that 10 Things article (or was it 10 Misconceptions article) all over the internet.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, September 15, 2011 - 04:30 pm: Edit

A question for anyone more familiar with clix games; are there any generic clicky bases which one could add one's own minis to?

I was thinking that if there was ever some sort of agreement in the future to do a SFU clix game, it might not necessarily require doing whole new ships; if there was a set of bases which could be used that were compatible with Mongoose flying stands, they could be marketed for use with the Starline 2500 miniature range instead.

By Mike Slade (Therealmxslade) on Thursday, September 15, 2011 - 05:59 pm: Edit

There was a company a few years back, but they got shutdown but the previsous incarnation of whizkids.

Try google, I'm sure something might be found.

By Mike Slade (Therealmxslade) on Thursday, September 15, 2011 - 06:01 pm: Edit

Loren the best bet would be to put the article up over at BGG.