BM101 some kind of terrain minefield with one minesweeper per empire.

BM102 strict warning that a phaser capacitor rule is a horrible idea, but heck, here it is.

Move Carnivons, Paravians, Borak, Peladine to eight card PDF packs on their own. Possibly Juggernautium as well.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, June 30, 2019 - 01:06 am: Edit

BM 103 super intelligent computer ships.

BM 104 maulers , cruiser and war cruiser size

BM 105 stasis field generator

BM 106 Tholian pinwheels

BM 107 Klingon firing arcs

BM 108 battle tugs

Moved to the main game
Scouts
Aegis
Frax

Rules of the Darned
Scatterpacks
Sabot torpedo
Double size drones
Enveloping torpedoes

Rules of the No Way In Hell
Wild weasels
Various drone types
Pseudo torpedo

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, August 22, 2016 - 01:20 pm: Edit

The problem with "just don't use them if you just don't want them" is that if some in your group do and some do not then the group can break in half and the two halves can be too small to survive the normal ravages of people dropping out of the group (moving, new girlfriend/wife/baby/job, burnout, personality conflict, etc.)

The other side of that coin is that if some want a more complex game and don't get it they'll eventually wander away.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, June 30, 2019 - 01:34 am: Edit

Shock rules, NO, we will just limit the number of weapons fired.

Shield reinforcements, NO, the FC rule is in concrete.

Klingon mutiny, NO, just do not need it.

Tactical Intelligence, NO, doesn't mesh with open records and transparency to reduce accounting.

Crew Quality, NO, fiddley accounting, tedious.

Legendary officers, NO, leave that as a special event bonus card.

Positron flywheel, NO, not even used in SFB any more.

Ship separation, NO, requires new cards for every ship for three Empires.

Energy balance due to damage, NO, not even used in SFB any more.

By Terry_OCarroll (Terryoc) on Wednesday, December 06, 2006 - 05:07 am: Edit

archived

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 03:28 pm: Edit

If you mean color-laminated, it would probably be too expensive to produce.

You MIGHT possibly convince me to produce a generic "SFB add on" color-laminated sheet (just one) with weapons, crew units, turn mode, shuttle notes, and weapons charts on the front and an EAF on the back. There might be enough market for that add-on, so that you could use any FC card and that add-on card to get what you want.

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar2) on Sunday, June 30, 2019 - 06:41 pm: Edit

non-sequiter

By Mark Steven Hoyle (Markshoyle) on Sunday, June 30, 2019 - 07:16 pm: Edit

non-sequiter

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Sunday, June 30, 2019 - 07:28 pm: Edit

non-sequiter

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Sunday, June 30, 2019 - 11:14 pm: Edit

SVC says that Gary is trying to name the grandchildren's dog again. We can worry about the Drex computer rules when we print the Drex.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, July 01, 2019 - 05:28 pm: Edit

BORDERS OF MADNESS WORKING LIST 1 JULY 2019
=================================
Jean says I cannot start on this until THE FIVE EASY PIECES (Ryan’s Index, Merchants of the Federation PDF, GURPS PD19, Gorn MSSB, ACTASF2) are finished, and even then I can do a few pages a week and consider publication in 2020.
=================================
BM101 some kind of terrain minefield with one minesweeper per empire.
I have not officially decided to do this at all, but if we do it will require one page of rules and about a dozen ships (24 pages of ship cards) to be created.
=================================
BM102 strict warning that a phaser capacitor rule is a horrible idea, but heck, here it is. Basically, leftover power (white poker chips) can be converted into blue battery chips or red phaser capacitor chips.
=================================
Move Carnivons, Paravians, Borak, Peladine to eight card PDF packs on their own. Possibly Juggernautium as well.
=================================
BM 103 super intelligent computer ships.
One page of rules exists, no ship cards are needed.
=================================
BM 104 maulers , cruiser and war cruiser size
One page of rules and two ships exist. We would need to create several more Lyran, Klingon, and Romulan ship cards, and possibly the conjectural alliance maulers from SFB.
=================================
BM 105 stasis field generator
One page of rules and one ship card exists. We would need to create at least two more ship cards and perhaps three or four.
=================================
BM 106 Tholian pinwheels
One page of rules and one ship card exist. We would need to create at least two more ship cards, maybe three.
=================================
BM 107 Klingon firing arcs
One page of rules exists, nothing else is needed.
=================================
BM 108 battle tugs
This could be "the biggie" as we need one quarter page rule that exists, four battle tug cards that exist, and then would need more battle tugs and light battle tugs, possibly 15 or more new ship cards.
=================================
These items have already moved to the main game
Scouts
Aegis
Frax
=================================
Rules of the Darned: Easy enough to write rules for these rather less than outlandish weapons.
Scatterpacks
Sabot torpedo
Double size drones
Enveloping torpedoes
=================================
No Way In Hades am I allowing these rules into FC.
Wild weasels
Various drone types
Pseudo torpedo
=================================
Shock rules, NO, we will just limit the number of weapons fired.

Shield reinforcements, NO, the FC rule is in concrete.

Klingon mutiny, NO, just do not need it.

Tactical Intelligence, NO, doesn't mesh with open records and transparency to reduce accounting.

Crew Quality, NO, fiddley accounting, tedious.

Legendary officers, NO, leave that as a special event bonus card.

Positron flywheel, NO, not even used in SFB any more.

Ship separation, NO, requires new cards for every ship for three Empires.

Energy balance due to damage, NO, not even used in SFB any more.
=================================
Possible inclusions
Project Z: How to convert SSDs into FC cards.
Conversion card to turn any FC card into SFB.
Special bonus cards from organized league
=================================

By Art Trotman (Drneuro3) on Wednesday, July 01, 2020 - 04:27 pm: Edit

SVC-I was wondering if you were thinking of doing anything with the rules down below? I think some of them are ready for inclusion in Federation commander to help inject new blood into this awesome game. Especially super intelligent computer ships, more status field generators(maybe C7A and B10A?) maulers, and the Sabot torpedo. I have an awesome scenario idea for the computer ships and more scenarios involving the stasis field generators (one was already published in a captains log )and maulers. All the other stuff is interesting too as I would love to see more Paravians and Carnivons added to what we already have.

Move Carnivons, Paravians, Borak, Peladine to eight card PDF packs on their own. Possibly Juggernautium as well.
=================================
BM 103 super intelligent computer ships.
One page of rules exists, no ship cards are needed.
=================================
BM 104 maulers , cruiser and war cruiser size
One page of rules and two ships exist. We would need to create several more Lyran, Klingon, and Romulan ship cards, and possibly the conjectural alliance maulers from SFB.
=================================
BM 105 stasis field generator
One page of rules and one ship card exists. We would need to create at least two more ship cards and perhaps three or four.
And under special conditions such as later years or experimental ships/battle stations/Sector bases etc.:
Rules of the Darned: Easy enough to write rules for these rather less than outlandish weapons.
Scatterpacks
Sabot torpedo
Double size drones
Enveloping torpedoes

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, July 01, 2020 - 08:55 pm: Edit

Not this month.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Friday, July 31, 2020 - 04:46 pm: Edit

Huh. Missed this last year. Still gonna make a few comments:

- Anything in Steve's list that says "one page of rules and X number of ship cards" is already in a Captain's Log somewhere. So, if you want to see it, you can go buy it right now. (Or it's in your Captain's Log collection.) See the parallel topic to this one for the very specific list.

- There is no "crew quality", but there are "degraded crew". This is the (5X) rule. (I know; when anyone says "crew quality" they really mean "outstanding crews". Ew, no.)

- There is mutiny of a sort in (5X9), which covers Klingon penal ships. Only applies to penal ships, though, as it is the only thing making penal ships worth bothering with.

- Positron Flywheel. Heh. Here's the secret on the Positron Flywheel in FC: it's already in the game! There is no reason to add this rule, as it is functionally part of the game already.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Friday, July 31, 2020 - 04:59 pm: Edit

Writing the rules for sabot torpedoes and double-sized drones is easy. How they affect the game balance is hard. In fact, they are so easy, they could even be done in the same CL article.

Please, no on the scatterpack. If you want to make it a one-time trick (I dunno, the rule being "spend 6 repair points to make a scatterpack and any ship may only create one at a given time, and all launched drones must move as a Swarm), it *might* be OK. But if you give it the flexibility from SFB, then the rules are gonna suck (and suck hard) and it will be unbalancing. The best solution for scatterpacks is to just say, "No."

Not sure on enveloping torpedoes. Not sure if they are a good idea. Don't know if they are unbalancing or not. The rules for them would be trivial.

For the record, prior to this topic, the answer from Steve on all four of these had been a pretty vehement "No." I have asked on all of them (except the scatterpack), and asked several times on the double-sized drones.

On the other hand, I'd love to write the "mine as terrain" rules. I doubt anyone would ever actually use them, but they'd be fun to write!

By Michael Bennett (Mike) on Friday, August 07, 2020 - 02:16 pm: Edit

Weren't some of these covered in those special cards from the early days of Federation Commander?

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Friday, August 07, 2020 - 02:39 pm: Edit

From a post above ...

---

Quote:

=================================
Possible inclusions
Project Z: How to convert SSDs into FC cards.
Conversion card to turn any FC card into SFB.
Special bonus cards from organized league
=================================

---

By Zac Belado (Pixelgeek) on Monday, March 22, 2021 - 08:45 pm: Edit

Scatterpacks
Sabot torpedo
Double size drones
Enveloping torpedoes

As a former SFB and now FC player I could do without all of these.

By ART TROTMAN (Drneuro3000) on Thursday, March 25, 2021 - 09:28 pm: Edit

As a current SFB and Federation Commander player, I would love the addition of Sabot Torpedoes, at least for x-ships, Double size drones used for special missions/ships(Battleships, x-ships?), Nuclear space mines on Romulan ships, and maybe enveloping torpedoes available to x-ships

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, March 25, 2021 - 10:44 pm: Edit

Scatterpacks
Sabot torpedo
Double size drones
Enveloping torpedoes

All of those items would have to be part of a total overhaul of the seeking weapon balance equation. That's a trip I decided not to take.

By Steven Zamboni (Szamboni) on Friday, March 26, 2021 - 12:20 pm: Edit

As an ex-Romulan player, the preview for that message made me hesitate...

"Scatterpacks: Sabot Torpedo, Double Size..."

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - 11:09 am: Edit

In "vanilla" Federation Commander, there is no "acceleration limit", in terms setting a faster Baseline Speed from one turn to the next.

Could there be a potential "Borders of Madness" optional rule that would limit most units to going no higher then the next-highest Baseline Speed on the next turn? Or perhaps no more than 2 Baseline Speeds higher for "fast" ships, X-ships, and gunboats?

As in, say that a given ship starts Turn #1 at a Baseline Speed of 8. At the start of Turn #2, a "regular" ship (such as a Federation CA) can set a Baseline Speed of 0, 8, or 16; a "fast" ship (such as a Federation CF) or X-ship (such as a Federation CX) can set a Baseline Speed of 0, 8, 16, or 24 on Turn #2 instead.

This would not affect paying "acceleration points" during the course of the turn.

Such an optional rule might have an impact on seeking weapon empires, while also putting a premium on "fast" ships when conducting raid scenarios - not least if they involved landing on a planet.

Would that be something worth considering for use along the "Borders of Madness", or would it be best thrown on the "SFB concepts never to be introduced to any form of FC" pile?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - 11:25 am: Edit

Not interested in such an acceleration rule. Nothing to be gained.