"However, there is no guarantee the Gorn player will ever actually roll the needed 1 (for example) and thus may never get that particular ship activated."

In my current game, turn 32 has passed and the Gorn TG is still exploring random areas of space....

By John M. Williams (Jay) on Friday, January 12, 2024 - 05:19 pm: Edit

Out of curiosity, does anyone know/remember what the rationale was for giving the Gorns a randomly released reserve fleet vs. giving them scheduled activations like everyone else? Just wanted them to be different?

By Warren Mathews (Turtle) on Friday, January 12, 2024 - 06:14 pm: Edit

The random release of the Gorn Off Map fleet has been in the game since I started playing in 1992-1993 time frame and I suspect it was in the original rules.

By Eric Snyder (Esnyder) on Friday, January 12, 2024 - 09:13 pm: Edit

I am creating a master ship list for my gaming group, using information from the Master Starship Books and the F&E SIT tables, and I came across an apparent discrepancy: The Fed MSB says that the NCL "entered production in Y170", while the SIT lists the Date Available as Y169. Are one of these in error or am I misunderstanding the terms?

By Kevin Howard (Jarawara) on Friday, January 12, 2024 - 09:14 pm: Edit

I thought the ships were way off map, and the random release schedule was that you roll to see if one of them returned or not. And thus, they should not be convertable until they return.

By Eric Snyder (Esnyder) on Friday, January 12, 2024 - 09:31 pm: Edit

Edit to my question above: I see that in the Fed Order of Battle, NCL's are listed in the Spring of Y169, so I am assuming that the Fed MSB is in error.

By Soeren Klein (Ogdrklein) on Saturday, January 13, 2024 - 12:24 am: Edit

Eric,
some time ago I had a similar issue with the Klingon F5W (Y175 in FnE but Y176 in SFB) while provide a force for the Battlegroup 550.

SVC explained, that the difference is the strategic/empirewide and the tactical/fleet level for some ships in both games.
The FnE date on the SIT is when the first ships became ever available empire wide and only a few select fleet commanders would be able to use them.
Only a year later there where enough of them built to be commonly available for all the fleet commanders to be bought (requested) for the SFB fleet/squadron level games.
Therefore the difference in YIS between the MSB and the SIT.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
Soeren Klein

By Eric Snyder (Esnyder) on Saturday, January 13, 2024 - 03:12 am: Edit

Soeren, that makes sense. Thanks!

By Eric Snyder (Esnyder) on Saturday, January 13, 2024 - 03:29 am: Edit

As long as I am on the subject of MSSB vs SIT, the Federation heavy carrier pod (R2.22): It is designated as P-CVA in the MSSB and as VAP in the SIT. Does F&E use generalized designations for pods that are the same for each race, rather than what each race calls there own?

By Jason E. Schaff (Jschaff297061) on Saturday, January 13, 2024 - 07:49 am: Edit

Many of the abbreviation differences between SFB and F&E result from controlling text length. For most of the history of F&E there was an attempt to keep ship abbreviations to not more than 3 letters when possible. Although this seems to be changing recently. This was mostly, I suspect, a matter of ease in designing counter graphics. Thus "P-CVA" (5 characters) becomes "VAP" (3 characters).

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Saturday, January 13, 2024 - 07:11 pm: Edit

As an add-on to Jason they try not to repeat the same designation in the same empire.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, January 14, 2024 - 11:37 pm: Edit

Actually, the F&E date (the earliest you can build the ship) is usually two years before the SFB date (the "squadron service" date) but this varies considerably. In some cases, variants become "available" before they were historically built. It's a matter of keeping things from going off the deep end. If you had the "first ship" date in SFB then you'd be able to unrealistically buy several of them. If you had the squadron date in F&E you would unrealistically be prevented from buying what history says happened. Also, in F&E you can make your own decisions. If you hit the "DW availability date" you often get the "DWE available even if it wasn't built yet" and you can decide if you are willing to give up a DW to get a badly needed light escort.

It's a corollary to the rules on DNs. In SFB you can only buy one for the scenario because there would be no consequence to other fleets in putative other scenarios to buying nine for one fleet. In F&E you have all of the real DNs and if you want to put them in one fleet go ahead but every other fleet you have will be one ship smaller because of the command rules.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Tuesday, January 23, 2024 - 10:21 am: Edit

Paul wrote:
>>Ignoring Mike's valid point - is the issue with the Gorn Mothball fleet is that the shoips are in very poor condition (hence the 2 Ep Fee rather than 1 Ep)?>>

I'm pretty sure that the 2EP activation cost for the Gorn off map fleet is justified by ships needing refits--the off map ships aren't up to General War standards yet (i.e. they still have fixed G launchers rather than the swivel S tubes of the rest of the fleet by the time the war starts).

As to why the Gorn have the random off map fleet, it's always been how the Gorn off map fleet has been since the inception of the game, and likely just some fun variation was envisioned.

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Thursday, January 25, 2024 - 12:10 am: Edit

Gorn Off map fleet was not originally part of the game. I believe it was an F&E2000 thing. It is not in the 1993 version of the game I started with, and I do not believe it was in the earlier versions.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, January 25, 2024 - 09:12 am: Edit

I'll check the older rulebooks when I get home, but I'm fairly certain they are there; I don't think they were originally listed in the Gorn OB--they were listed in a special rule somewhere as a line item (probably under "Off Map Zones").

By Warren Mathews (Turtle) on Thursday, January 25, 2024 - 10:12 am: Edit

(506.5) is the Gorn Off Map fleet. It is been there since DF&E, and probably before that rule book. My collection only goes back to DF&E93.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Thursday, January 25, 2024 - 10:19 am: Edit

I thoight the Mothball Fleet was added to help balance some of the extra ships the Romulans got in F&E 2000 - but 'we' was concerened if too many Gorn ships was added it wasn't good for the game.

Getting 3-5 ships over 8 turns say was felt to be the right balance????

With lucky rolls - the Gorns would get an extra ship or too quicker - and with bad rolls might not ever release all 6 - and so it was self balancing.

i.e. the better you rolled, the less chance you would get a ship the following turn and the worse you rolled, the more chance you would get a ship the following turn.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, January 25, 2024 - 04:50 pm: Edit

Nick wrote:
>>Gorn Off map fleet was not originally part of the game. I believe it was an F&E2000 thing.>>

Turns out, this is the correct answer.

(506.5), which is the Gorn off map fleet shows up for the first time in the F+E 2000 yearbook.

I checked all three older books (F+E 86, DF+E, F+E 93) just now, and could have sworn it was in there, but it was not. The first reference to the Gorn off map fleet is in F+E 2K.

By Daniel Glenn Knipfer (Dgknipfer) on Wednesday, February 07, 2024 - 02:56 pm: Edit

Have conversion costs been formalized for all the Aux units? I have been digging around and cannot find conversion costs from SAD to LAD to JAD or HAD. The Aux units section on most SITs is still very incomplete; especially when jumbo and heavy aux units are concerned.

By Ahmad Abdel-Hameed (Madarab) on Thursday, February 29, 2024 - 08:06 pm: Edit

What product is the Federation Reaction in?

By Jason E. Schaff (Jschaff297061) on Thursday, February 29, 2024 - 08:11 pm: Edit

AO - 318.30

By Ahmad Abdel-Hameed (Madarab) on Thursday, February 29, 2024 - 09:32 pm: Edit

Thanks, Jason!

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Thursday, February 29, 2024 - 11:22 pm: Edit

Dan,

No we haven't.

By Daniel Glenn Knipfer (Dgknipfer) on Friday, March 01, 2024 - 11:04 pm: Edit

Thanks Ryan. I'll cobble together basic approximations for the counters I have. None of the existing jumbo or heavy counters cover the unusual variants like the 6 fighter factor jumbo auxes. They're just upgrades of the large aux hulls that effectively add the capability of a SAC or an LAC to an existing aux.

We might want to put some kind of limiter on the crazy variations that are possible with jumbo and heavy aux units too. Potentially they are effectively only limited by the number of variant combat aux hulls you can match up. Honestly they are somewhat like Klingon and Kzinti tugs with pods; but that leads to a huge (and slightly insane) number of combinations considering that the heavy can potentially have 4 completely different combat hulls.


Yes, this has come up in our current game because I'm playing the Kzin, I've built a JAD, and I'm looking to convert my at start LAD to a JAD. The DND is available next turn, and having 2 JAD and a DND as my drone bombardment squadron in my main element is going to make it possible to threaten the NR SB starting on turn 11 (next month). Wish me luck.

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Saturday, March 02, 2024 - 12:40 am: Edit

I'd be interested in what uou come up with. Currently I'm working on SIT update.