I don't want to do that, Gary.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, December 20, 2022 - 05:27 pm: Edit

I tried a sample layout. Doing it one-portrait means 55% o the original machine size, while two-landscape is 40% of machine size (and for some, harder to read). I mean, shucks, I can put 18 gunboats on a card but you'd need a magnifying glass to read it. Anyway, take some time and think about this.

G1 Size Test Dec 2022.pdf g1_size_test_dec_2022.pdf (443 k)

By Dal Downing (Rambler) on Tuesday, December 20, 2022 - 05:49 pm: Edit

There small enough I vote for the 2 per side landscape one. I only need 3 cards for a full Flottila not 6.

Plus if Leaders and Scouts are on one card in a booster, the more the merrier in my opinion.

By Eric Silverman (Ericsilverman) on Tuesday, December 20, 2022 - 06:50 pm: Edit

I vote for 2 per side landscape, as well. A very easy decision. Printed out they're more than useable, the SSD boxes on that card are still larger than other FC cards I have in print. Plus the value proposition for us players is far better. With 2 per card it would be much more possible for me to buy and store enough gunboat cards to have a good amount of them for all my favourite empires.

By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Wednesday, December 21, 2022 - 01:49 am: Edit

The 2/per, landscape seems perfectly in keeping with what had been done previously for small freighters and the like. Certainly works for me.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, December 21, 2022 - 09:40 am: Edit

The current plan from some time above is to give you a card with one-portrait on one side and two-landscape on the other side.

By Eric Silverman (Ericsilverman) on Wednesday, December 21, 2022 - 10:18 am: Edit

If the plan is one-portrait two-landscape, then I could see Mike West's idea fitting really well; the two-landscape could be two standards, and the one-portrait could be a combat variant.

That would mean three cards gets you 6 standards and three variants, giving players all kinds of cool combos to play with.

By Eric Silverman (Ericsilverman) on Wednesday, December 21, 2022 - 12:41 pm: Edit

Speaking of combat variants, out of interest I went poking around for what combat variants have been published so far, and came up with the list below. I share it here in case it helps discussion about what to include. The bold ones are the variants I personally find the more interesting ones to fly:

Fed: PFD (Drone), PFB (Assault), Thunderphase/PFP (Phaser), PFE (3xADD-6)
Klingon: G1D (Drone), G1B (Assault), G1P (Phaser)
Romulan-Cent: Cent-E (3xPl-F, 2xPl-D LS/RS)
Romulan-Star: A (2xPh-1, 2xPl-F), B (4xPl-F), E (2xPh-1, 2xPl-D), D (4xPl-D)
Kzinti: A (4xPh-3), B (2xPh-1), D (4xDrn), E (2xADD-12, 2xPh-3), PFD (5xDrn)
Gorn: E (Escort, Ph-3 + Pl-D), D (2 Pl-D, 2 Pl-F)
Tholian: P (Disr -> Ph-1), W (2xPh-3 -> Web), WP (both W+P)
Hydran: Hellion, Howler
Lyran/LDR: Bobcat-P, Fi-Con PFs
ISC: PFE (1xPl-F, 2xPl-D LS/RS), PFP (1xPl-F + 2xPh-1)
Seltorian: PFP (Phaser)
Andro: ADR-A (Assault), ADR-P (Phaser)

The WYN, Orion and Vudar don't have combat variants like these, so far as I'm aware.

One thing I'd suggest is that the phaser variants could be done by just including a note somewhere for each gunboat with a phaser variant that says 'Players may elect to swap out [weapons] for [phasers]. Adjust the PV to [number].' That would free up more room for other variants in the boosters, etc.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, December 21, 2022 - 02:41 pm: Edit

In the first pack (GUNBOATS ATTACK) you get (I said this) nothing but standard gunboats. One on the front of 15 cards, two (of the same boat) on the back of 15 cards. The 16th card would have both versions of Banshees.

When we do a booster pack we could easily have a leader on the front and a scout (or a leader+scout) on the back.

So perhaps (emphasis on perhaps, I am thinking out loud not promising or decreeing):

Booster G1*: Feds, Gorns, Kzintis, Tholians, Hydrans, WYN, ISC, Civ/Skiff. [Leader+Scout, Leader]

Booster G2*: Klingon, RomCent, RomStH, Lyran, Orion, Selt, Andro, Vudar [Leader+Scout, Leader]

Booster G3*: Feds, Gorns, Kzintis, Tholians, Hydrans, WYN, ISC, Civ/Skiff. [Two Combat variants, cargo/commando]

Booster G4*: Klingon, RomCent, RomStH, Lyran, Orion, Selt, Andro, Vudar [two Combat variants, cargo/commando]


(*I will figure out the real number later)

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Wednesday, December 21, 2022 - 05:10 pm: Edit

I was going to suggest putting a standard+scout on the back, with a leader on the front. Then I realized you are planning for anyone to use both sides at the same time. So, if only one side is going to be used at a time, then the leader+scout/leader arrangement is required. [SVC NOTES: If you are building a flotilla, use two landscapes and the leader+scout thing. If you just want to use up a few points with one gunboat that option is open. Not much reason to use a scout gunboat by itself.]

Just thinking out loud here ...

Also, as Eric points out above, some empires don't have two combat variants and some don't even have one. Now I look at that as an opportunity to add in some combat variants (more fodder for SFB Module K2), but I don't know if you want to go there.

By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Wednesday, December 21, 2022 - 06:17 pm: Edit

I know it's already been decided, but I'll put in that I'm not keen on having both sides in active use, while gaming. [SVC NOTES: Will seems confused. That decision was never made.]

I get it that this is the chosen direction, but it doesn't make "everything out in the open, all the time" as easy as it normally is.

I can see a lot of "Hey man, can you flip that PF card over so I can see the shield damage on the one on the back. Okay, thanks, now back to the other side. Ok, cool. Wait, back to the other one - did you already use the ADD rounds up?"

That's why I like Mike's idea of scout/leader on the back. Not as likely to be used in a more-typical FedCom game and therefore not as much hassle to keep everything easily visible all the time (which my player's appreciated about the system).

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Wednesday, December 21, 2022 - 09:42 pm: Edit

I misstated. The point is to NOT use both sides at the same time.

If the back is standard+scout, then you get a full flotilla with two card, front and back. But that is not what is intended. Instead, the point is to either use the bigger front by itself or to flip it and just use the pairs. In that case the back needs to be leader+scout. That gives you a full flotilla with three cards: one of the leader+scout and two double-standard cards.

Again, I see that the intention is to never require the use of front and back at the same time. In that case, it does need to be leader on front and leader+scout on back. Just as Steve outlined.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, December 22, 2022 - 03:54 am: Edit

Indeed, the "normal" way of doing any FC card including these is one side at a time. If you just tossed in one PF to use up points you can use the bigger one which is easier to find the boxes. If you want to use two you can either use the big side of two cards or the small side of one.

You could in theory use both sides if you just wanted to or didn't have another card; I cannot control what you do at home. However, the design of the 2+1 system is to avoid using both sides at one time.

By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Thursday, December 22, 2022 - 03:04 pm: Edit

I apologize if I muddied the waters. Thank you for clarifying things.

I am very much looking forward to the official introduction of gunboats to FC (and to new releases for FC in general)

I'll need to make decals for the Fed Thunderbolt gunboats a priority.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, December 22, 2022 - 04:37 pm: Edit

I was wondering if you wanted to make bigger scale gunboats as display pieces?

BTW, nothing to apologize for. Confusion is easy, even the rule, around here.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Thursday, December 22, 2022 - 05:56 pm: Edit

I would absolutely love some bigger gunboats. That would be a great display piece for me.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, December 22, 2022 - 09:36 pm: Edit

I can send Will the very very very detailed G1 blueprints we have.

By Dal Downing (Rambler) on Thursday, December 22, 2022 - 10:55 pm: Edit

So out of curiosity what size is a 6mm Gunboat?

By Jack Bohn (Jackbohn) on Friday, December 23, 2022 - 02:19 pm: Edit

If I'm guessing right, about 120mm or 5 inches.

There are injected-molded models of three empires' ships .They come in three scales, 1:2500, 1:1000, and 1:650. The current sets of PFs are close enough to 2500th to just say go with those. 1000th would be 35mm, 650th would be 54mm, or 2 inches.

By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Friday, December 23, 2022 - 04:52 pm: Edit

SVC - If those would be the RPG deckplans/blueprints, I have those (and used them extensively for the Shapeways G1 and to size all the Shapeways gunboats). Thank you, though.

Currently, we only do decals for Federation ships. Our decals only look good on white/very light gray base hull colors - doing decals that would work on dark colors requires different, much fussier printing tech.

We may eventually add Romulans and WYN, since they tend to be light color ships, but we would have to be cautious. There will always be a customer who decides to do TNG-style green Romulans and then is frustrated that the decals disappear in the dark color.

By Steve Stewart (Stevestewart) on Saturday, December 24, 2022 - 01:40 pm: Edit

Oh boy, excited to see this on the way!

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, December 27, 2022 - 05:03 am: Edit

Progress on Monday. I got the four gunboats we already did into a file, created the "formats" for the other 12 (which have generic charts and stuff to save time later). Added empire specific weapons tracks and emblems to all cards. The next step is just to get Module K and look up each gunboat's boxes and rearrange the standard boxes on the format sheet then add the ship picture under them. I do not want to risk the wrath of gods or Jean by predicting a completion date. You could help by recommending SFB PF scenarios which would be suitable for conversion to FC.

By Sebastian Palozzi (Sebastian) on Tuesday, December 27, 2022 - 10:05 am: Edit

Suggesting (SL152.0) A Nest of Vipers, or (SL153.0) Stalking Siegebreaker, both from Captain's Log #16

And, if the Interceptor rules from Hailing Frequencies #177 can be used then (SL150.0) Interceptors. Also from Captain's Log #16--one of my all-time favourite CL issues.

By Steve Stewart (Stevestewart) on Tuesday, December 27, 2022 - 10:08 am: Edit

An excellent fight to the death would be Death Duel (SH116). I also enjoyed No Escort, No Problem (SH66) but IIRC the Hydran LTT had a PFT pallet, and I don't think we're seeing them in FC? No necessarily a drama, a cargo pallet would probably be OK.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, December 27, 2022 - 10:49 pm: Edit

Got diverted today to handle reprints on two maps and all I got done was to set up the PDF master file and place the 16 gunboat-single cards into it (only four of which are complete). At least I got all the ship card numbers into proper empire colors.