This is a reminder about a suggestion for a board game from way back in 2008 that I don't think is on the boards anymore (I looked and couldn't find it).

Star Fleet Shipyard.

The game would center on the economics of starship construction. Specifically, each player plays a contractor from a major Federation planet trying to make as much profit as possible by building starships to meet government requests. Part of the game is building your own ships (where you are the prime contractor) and part of the game is gathering resources and developing systems for use on other players' ships (where you are a sub-contractor).

Central Concepts:
a) You can build civilian or military ships. There is no ship movement or combat of any kind. You build the ships and (hopefully) sell them; it's up to the fleet/merchant marine/whoever what happens to them after that.
b) Complexity would be a little higher than simple train games like Ticket to Ride but not on a scale of all-day affairs like Twilight Imperium. The idea would be to keep it squarely in the "family board game" category.
c) Actually building a ship that passes government testing is a big plus, and gets prestige and money for everyone involved. But it's not the only path to victory; in the end, it's the player with the most profit who wins.
d) Resources are important: there is a finite supply, and a market for trade. So even if your shipbuilding is not going so well you might win anyway by cornering the dilithium market and forcing other players to pay you through the nose if they want to build any more warp engines.
e) Another path to victory would be the profit from developing superior ships systems for use in other players' ships. Or mediocre but very well marketed systems.
f) Plenty of opportunity for tongue in cheek humor about the ups and downs of defense contracting. For example, thanks to the scheming and lobbying of your sub-contracting "partners", the ship you were hoping to submit for the heavy battlecruiser contract is unlikely to pass acceptance testing because it is currently sporting more bowling alleys and saunas than torpedo tubes. A certain amount of silliness would be encouraged, but not outright cynicism.
g) Depending on the state of the market, a lot of the output of your shipyards might be headed straight for the next "Ships that Never Were" SFB expansion. Nothing wrong with that, as long as it's profitable.

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Thursday, April 26, 2012 - 07:16 pm: Edit

Card game idea: Klingon Shipyard. The deck is full of random ship parts (booms, rear hulls, engines, etc) and you have to match them together to make a ship, then sell it to the Empire to raise cash. I mean, this is how the E5 got built, right?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, April 26, 2012 - 11:45 pm: Edit

Shipyard board game: virtually no interest. I'm a registered engineer and even I find the concept boring. Feel free to try to change my mind. it's happened before. Despite a pretty good gut feel for things, I've been wrong a few times, such as picking V3.5 over Modern.

Shipyard card game: Ok, THAT I can play. Maybe we'd include miniatures parts designed to snap together. Or maybe we'd have the parts cast in steel and the main hull would be magnetic?

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Friday, April 27, 2012 - 12:19 am: Edit

Expanding on Terry and SVCs idea. Extra packs of Munchkin, I mean Klingon shipyard can add new pieces and new ships but be fully compatible as an add-on to the main game. Different core sets could be different empires, Federation Shipyard, Romulan shipyard etc. Then more expansions add more ships for each empire. Perhaps you could start off with Zocchi plastic ships and snap them together as you get the correct cards, then unsnap them for the next game? I suppose with a little modification the Mongoose ships could work if they were molded with more pieces and pegs and holes to assemble them.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, April 27, 2012 - 12:48 am: Edit

Shipyard game: Either would be interesting to me IF it generated two opposing ships that you then play against each other (include rules for all SFU game systems).

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Friday, April 27, 2012 - 04:45 am: Edit

My suggestion was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I believe there is a card game out there in which you make your spaceship out of plumbing parts using random cards (representing pipes and the like) and then fly it against various challenges. I forget the name, Galaxy Trucker I think? Or maybe I'm thinking of a similar game.

Edit: It was! Galaxy Trucker on Boardgamegeek

Might be possible to adapt the theme - build your ship then fly it against various challenges (Klingons, pirates, space monsters, rescue the colonists et cetera)

By Joseph Gallagher (Draxdreadfeare) on Friday, April 27, 2012 - 09:19 am: Edit

Challenge Accepted!

By Dal Downing - Rambler (3deez) on Friday, April 27, 2012 - 10:16 am: Edit

Since it would be a card game make the final assembled ships compatable with Star Fleet Battle Forces maybe?

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Friday, April 27, 2012 - 01:33 pm: Edit

I was thinking it would be something more like a 'rummy' variant.

IE., you have booms, rear hulls, warp engines (except the 'small' rear hull...the E4, which has the warp engines on the hull, itself) in the deck.

You build your hand by drawing and discarding cards, and can only 'play' a combination of cards for points when they work together. Booms, hulls, and engines would have certain requirements (an F5 rear hull requires either two F5 engines or one D-series engine) limiting what can be played.

The idea would be that you'd want to allow for a couple different strategies for scoring - building a lot of low-point ships (the E4 only taking two cards...a boom and the 'small'/E4 rear body) or try to build your hand up to a few huge point ships (a B10 obviously needing a B10 boom, the 'large'/B10 or C8 rear hull, and four D-series warp engines...6 cards total).

As with a few rummy variants, discards are placed face up, and on your turn, you can draw from either the face-down deck of cards or face-up deck of discards (and as far down that deck as you want, but you have to be able to immediately 'score' the last card you pick up).

Just thinking out loud, but something like that...

By John C. Barnes (Nitehawke) on Friday, April 27, 2012 - 01:38 pm: Edit

Years ago there was a computer game called Ports of Call, in which you ran a tramp shipping company. You had to manage fuel and repairs, select cargo for each of your ships, and determine where each ship would take cargo. The amount you could earn for each cargo varied each trip, and was different for each destination you could reach. From any given port, there were a limited number of destinations you could reach, from a minimum of two to a maximum of eight, out of a total of about thirty.

Something like that set in the SFU and done as a boardgame might be entertaining.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, April 27, 2012 - 01:46 pm: Edit

That sounds like Jay W's train game which is already listed as a future Kickstarter project.

By Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Saturday, July 07, 2012 - 07:34 pm: Edit

I like the "rummy" variant idea.