Archive through November 01, 2004
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Federation & Empire: F&E INPUT:
F&E Proposals Forum:
FOLDER: F&E in the Omega Sector:
F&E Omega:
Archive through November 01, 2004
Hi!
Just wanted to see whether there was much of an interest in the idea of cookng up an Omega variant of Fed and Empire, with a new map, OOBs for the major Omega races (maybe one set of Y188 OOBs to allow an Andro invasion campaign - as one would assume we'd see the Andro War release before we'd ever see an Omega module - as well as a Y168 OOB to allow a free campaign or Stellar Shadow alpha v. omega - or Xorkaelian vs. both - scenario)
As regards Stellar Shadows, one could play a 'Scramble for Omega' campaign, where one (or a random munber of) conduit/wormhole/gateway/whatever-dragged-the-Federal-Republic-to-Omega
appear on the alpha map, terminating at a random location in Omega (or have it less random, so the Feds have a conduit which appears in FRA space) and have an equivalent race by the alphan powers to conquer as much of Omega as they can that the European powers did in Africa and Asia in the nineteenth century - and as the likes of Japan proved too thorny a prospect for the European powers in the 1800s, with certain Omegan races proving quite a tough nut to crack!
Alternatively, one could work out how many months or years it would take for ships to traverse the Void, so either leaving from the ISC Distant Zone, the Romulan offmap area or the bunch of neutral hexes coreward of the Distant Zone, Alphans could send expeditionary forces to conquer and colonize parts of Omega akin to the European explorations in the 16th century - where the historical expeditions had rather less contact with their homelands than those from the 19th century had, and much less of an edge in technology or manpower.
Any thoughts?
Gary
Sounds interesting. However, F&E doesn't really have good rules for eploration & conquest - just war. It would take some beefing up of the non-combat rules (IMHO) to get this right.
I have a draft first cycle campaign. (Played once). But for the map I used ADC. If you dont have ADC, the draft SIT and scenario may still provide ideas.
melwinger at cfl dot rr dot com
The rules from Planetary Ops on claiming provinces would be a good enough, but unless one was running both sectors simultaneously (In which case, we know what the Romulans are actually doing with their wartime economy turns 1-9), then there's little reason to relate the quadrants at all.
If one wanted to do a "simplified" invasion, where only the Omega board was used, one could have "beachhead" provinces pre-captured, and ships arriving per turn on a pre-defined schedule. Then the local economy would go into repair, conversions, replacement PFs, and so on. It would be amusing to run a game like that, where one side had an economy of 2EP, but got their "build schedule" free. Salvage would become critical. One would be happier about the EP in a tug shipment than the tug itself! The Planetary Ops shipyard slips would become quite interesting as well, to give more local production. (Similarly, the frigates built at starbases). It would be an interesting resource management campaign.
Frankly, if it did occur, I'd like to see it totally stand-alone. If we're moving away from the Alpha quadrant to do Omega, keep it just Omega. A brand new balance of power with brand new ships and brand new 'tech. Sadly, F&E probably wouldn't notice that much of a difference, as most SFB differences only show up as different strengths on the F&E counter.
I'd certainly give it a look.
I like the Omega F&E Map idea very much.
There would need to be a few processes defined for an Omega Space Grab scenario. Certainly we would want a process for Colonies to become Minor Planets. However, I do not think that shuch a process would be applicable back to Alpha octant F&E. It would need to be specific to the scenario.
An Omega map sounds great, and would be even greater with pieces, and rules, and a box, and a little blue die. This is a long way off, is my guess. ...but to get there, we need to start with something.
You might propose such a thing to SVC on the same basis as the Large Scale Map of the Alpha octant. It would not have to be as large; but the main idea is that it would be a one-time-only printing for the purpose of Omega octant F&E playtesting. I would certainly buy it.
BTW, does anybody know if there is any working F&E map for the Omega octant? I have read the excellent Captains Log section, and saw the races delimited on a map over time (very nice). Is there no idea where Cosmographical features are? ...Major, Minor planets etc?
F&E Omega is a great idea!
In my opinion best as a stand alone product with one or more "linking" modules added later
It would also be a good opportunity to revamp, change, and clean-up rules from scratch.
Just think, we can sort CEDS, Mauler effects, even tweak the basic combat, and not worry about balance.
It would be good if someone could write Omega on F&E cyberboard.
You could experiment with the F&E omega concept as follows.
1. Get a big blank hex map.
2. Mark it off into six-hex provinces.
3. Pick several "capitals" at random places.
4. Give each player a capital, a set of existing F&E counters, and a build schedule.
5. Explore, conquer, raise money, buy more ships, repeat.
That works, but I'd like to see some rules to better define exploration and diplomacy with "found" planets, etc.
Garth L. Getgen
That is something I had playing around with. A blank map of provinces, start with just some capital hexes, and small build schedules. Next use something similar to the romulan province exploration rule.
A scout/survey ship must end the turn in an unexplored province. In F&E this means the Roms then get the province with whatever planets/bases are there. In my version the survey ship then gets to roll on a chart showing what was found in the province, it might be empty, minor planet, major planet, 2 minor planets, find a cache of EPs, derelict ship, whatever. I will see if I can dig out my charts. Of course, then you need counters for planets and such if you want the random map instead of predetermined map.
My version had small build schedules and economy only counting for half as much as normal in F&E (or something like that) with the idea in mind of using the F&E strategic system + exploration rules as a SFB scenario generator. So a race might have a couple dozen ships running around instead of 150 ships. And since everything in F&E is open, no GM is needed.
I think I'd do a survey per hex, not per province. But I'd allow regular ships to do survey, too, but give survey ships a bonus somehow. Perhaps it takes three ships (or three turns for one ship) to do what one survey ship can do in one turn.
Garth L. Getgen
So has anyone out there got the existing Omega territory maps and a copy of cyberboard in order to - with SVC's permission, of course - post up an Omega map for playtest purposes?
Also, do OOBs for each race - or at least the major races - exist in a means which would allow their representation at a common start time period?
Maybe leave a few of the smaller powers, like the FRA, as neutrals for now and focus on bigger players like the Souldra, Iridani etc.
Gary
if someone wants to layout the map and create the SIT I can make the online map support this.
There is appears to be a void between the ISC off-map area, and the nearest inhabited portion of the Omega quadrant. For starters, does anybody know roughly how wide this void is?
-If we infer the width from the galactic chart in CL27, the void could be up to an entire sector wide. This is about 20 hexes. A more than sufficient obstacle to operational movement and supply.
The Omega Map in CL29 appears to be 64 hexes wide and 32 hexes deep. This is roughly the width of an Octant, but the Omega map is 50% deeper than the F&E map. A sliver of void appears on the western edge of the map. Given the widths: it would also seem that the void pushes some of the Omega map into the PHI sector (home of the Zosman raiders). The map in CL29 gives the approximate outline of the Omega empires, but does not place planets capitals or bases.
-Anyone wanting to mock up an Omega map as SVC suggested would find Scott Tenhoff's article and maps in CL29 to be very useful. There is also a chart of relations between the 25 races that is excellent.
The problem is that the existing maps show wildly varying territorial areas over time. No fixed items are shown, no planets, bases, or even capitals. Not that you couldn't do it, but it would take a lot of guess work. You would have to compare all the maps and find the one area of each race that is present in all eras, the capital for that race should be in that one common zone somewhere.
I am not sure the hexes are the same scale either, overall it is a much larger number of hexes than the alpha area F&E map has, but I am not sure it is really supposed to be that much bigger parsec wise. Maybe though, I can't remember.
And what about the Vari, they had no one capital, but a number of independent cells. Did the Hivers have a homeworld, or were they made up of independed queens/hives?
It might be a good idea to pick one of the major wars to do as the first scenario, and only deal with the major players in that given conflict.
First Great War, lasted 45 years, or 90 turns, probably a bit too much. 
The Maesron Collapse might be a fun one, lasted 14 years (28 turns) and involved 4 major races. That might be a good one to do. The Maesron start big with LOTS O SHIPS, but spread out and with rules requiring the various Maesron factions to protect certain areas. Vari, Trobrin, Kolighar have invasion fleets and try to wipe out the three Maesron Homeworlds. Probr could be a fifth race if needed, and perhaps a few Fed Republic ships to use as a minor power.
Superpower Wars could be another, 17 years or 34 turns with Probr Kolighar Trobrin and Vari.
Or do one of the smaller Hiver/Alunda conflicts or something.
Or do the Andromedan invasion and Souldra expansion, assuming an Andro War supplement is ready by the time any serious work on an Omega F&E supplement would feasibly take off.
As an aside, which year is the Omega map from CL29 set in?
As regards capital hexes et al: If one of us does up the Omega F&E map (whichever year suits best, maybe Y188 for the Andro arrival) could someone state 'officially' where the capitals are supposed to be?
Gary
As regards the Vari, one oould refer to their territories as special partial supply grids, each with a given shipyard (maybe only one or two of these could build larger vessels, otherwise they could act in a similar fashion to the old shipyard in the Hydran Old Colonies - so instead of one big shipyard, many small ones supplied locally)
Gary
You could use the new shipyard rules in Planetary OPs and custom build the shipyard from a set allocation amount
Gary, CL29 article has all 4 of the back covers maps of the Omega Products in it.
Each map is of a different era, and the Y-date is printed with each map.
The way to determine where the major/non-obvious capitals are (gee, where is the FRA capital, within it's 3 hexes?) would be attempt to overlay the pictures and find out which areas stay the same during the various times of the known history, including the Souldra/Andro rampaging, and the introduction of the other races (Blosco, Branth expansion, etc).
are we talking about using the F&E races or the other Races in that off area I call it.....
didn't I read a ways back somewhere that F&E Magellanic Cloud (Module C5) stuff is like 90% complete?
based on what little I know of both this and Omega it seems that Magellanic would be more realisitc and easier to print. the Magellanic has far fewer races, a shorter time period, a more permananent set of borders etc.
then again C5 hasn’t even been printed yet…
Ken Burnside included an F+E map for the LMC. (the link is buried in the archives of the C5 development).
But Andro's haven't been done yet, so why bother trying to figure out just the LMC without the Andros to conquer them?
AN OMEGA COMBAT SYSTEM.
Note that this a adapted for the alpha quadrant, to show how it would work there. (I don't know omega ships that well).
The compot values can easily be extended upwards without making the table unreasonably big. I have done it to about 70.
VARIANCE (left, 1-6 values)
| |
| 1 | 1-3 | 4-6 | 7-9 | 10-13 | 14-16 | 17-19 | 20-23 | 24-28 | 29-33 | 34-38 | 39-43 | 44-49 | 50-55 | 56-61 | 62-68 |
| 2 | 1-3 | 4-6 | 7-9 | 10-13 | 14-16 | 17-20 | 21-24 | 25-29 | 30-34 | 35-39 | 40-44 | 45-50 | 51-56 | 57-62 | 63-69 |
| 3 | 1-4 | 5-7 | 8-10 | 11-14 | 15-17 | 18-21 | 22-25 | 26-30 | 31-35 | 36-40 | 41-45 | 46-51 | 52-57 | 58-63 | 64-70 |
| 4 | 1-4 | 5-7 | 8-10 | 11-14 | 15-17 | 18-21 | 22-26 | 27-31 | 32-36 | 37-41 | 42-46 | 47-52 | 53-58 | 59-64 | 65-71 |
| 5 | 1-5 | 6-8 | 9-11 | 12-15 | 16-18 | 19-22 | 23-27 | 28-32 | 33-37 | 38-42 | 43-47 | 48-53 | 54-59 | 60-65 | 67-73 |
| 6 | 1-5 | 6-8 | 9-11 | 12-15 | 16-19 | 20-23 | 24-28 | 29-33 | 34-38 | 39-43 | 44-48 | 49-54 | 55-60 | 61-67 | 68-74 |
| |
| 0 | - | - | -9 | -9* | -8 | -8* | -7 | -7* | -6 | -6* | -5 | -5* | -4 | -4* | -3 |
| 1 | -9* | -7 | -6 | -5 | -5* | -4 | -4* | -3 | -3* | -2 | -2* | -1 | -1* | 0 | 0* |
| 2 | -8 | -7* | -5 | -4 | -3 | -2 | -1 | -1* | 0 | 0* | 1 | 1* | 2 | 2* | 3 |
| 3 | -8* | -6 | -4 | -3 | -2 | -1 | 0 | 1 | 1* | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 4 | -7 | -5 | -3 | -1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
RANGE (0-4 values above on left)
RANGE DETERMINATION. EACH SIDE CHOOSES A BIR 0-4 SECRETLY.
1) AT A BASE, RANGE = ATTACKER BIR (0-4)
2) IN AN APPROACH, RANGE = DEFENDER BIR (0-4)
3) IN OPEN SPACE, RANGE = LOWER BIR (0-4)
4) IF ONE SIDE HAS SLOW OR OVER 50% CRIPPLED UNITS, OTHER SIDE CAN INCREASE THE RANGE UP TO THEIR CHOSEN VALUE.
5) THE RANGE IS ONLY ZERO IF BOTH SIDES DECLARE BIR 1 or 0. OTHERWISE, IT IS AT LEAST 1.
CALCULATING COMPOT.
1) At range zero, do not include the compot of any ships less than 6 strength or any fighters.
Exception – fed frigate.
2) At range 1 multiply the strength of Fed, Zin, Klingon and Lyran fighters by 0.5. Other fighters have no effect.
3) At range 2 multiply the strength of Hydran, Gorn, Romulan Tholian, and ISC fighters by 0.5. Other fighters have normal compot.
4) At range 3 all fighters have normal compot.
5) At range 4 all fighters have *2 compot except Hydran fighters which are *3.
After BIR for each battle has been declared, a D6 is rolled for the variance. Cross-index the variance against your compot to find the column you read on. Look down that column against the range to generate your combat result.
e.g. you have 34 compot. You (attacker) select BIR 2 and the enemy selects BIR 3 for a base battle. The variance is rolled as 3 and the range is 2. You look across the “3” variance row to the 31-35 bracket, generating a result of “0”
AFTER AN APPROACH BATTLE, the attacker rolls D6 with a -2 modifier. IF the attacker rolls greater than the defender BIR he can proceed to attack the base.
Having generated your result you D10 and add on to this result as many times (each separate) as the combined BIR selections of both sides. Each time you point to and target an enemy ship of your choice. You may not target the same unit twice. Exceptions
(1) it is a base,
(2) it is a slow unit (can only be targeted max twice) and
(3) you have already shot at all enemy ships except those in the form or scout bonus boxes once already. You need not target supporting ships before a second shot on a battleline ship.
In the example above, you will have 5 rolls. (BIR 2 + BIR 3), each with a base modifier of 0.
This total is then modified as below
Modifiers to any one specific roll.
Shooting at the enemy ship in the formation or scout bonus boxes -6
Shooting at an enemy ship supporting the enemy battleforce -6
Shooting at an enemy carrier -4 for the first (any type) escort, -2 each subsequent
Shooting at an enemy outside true escort -1.
Shooting at an enemy inner true escort -2 per true escort outside that escort.
Shooting at an enemy uncrippled scout -1
Using a CA mauler (one roll only) +2
Using a CW mauler (one roll only) +1
For every second roll (roll 2,4,6,8,10), +1 if your result has a *.
Modifiers to all rolls
EW -3 to 0
(will require a slightly different EW system, or could use the existing one for -2 to 0)
If you chose BIR 4 and the enemy a lower BIR, -4
If you chose BIR 3 and the enemy a lower BIR, -2
Special treatments.
For a -7 penalty on each of the rolls, you may shoot at two ships.
For a -12 penalty on each of the rolls, you may shoot at three ships.
For a -15 penalty on each of the rolls, you may shoot at four ships.
E.g. you had a initial result of 16. You can change it to two “9” results. three “4” results, or four “1” results.
You may only do this if the sum of your initial result and the penalty is greater than zero.
DAMAGE resolution.
Compare your result to the enemy ship’s (defence) compot rating.
If it is less, you have no effect.
If it is equal to or more than the compot, you cripple the ship.
If it is equal to or more than the sum of the compot and the crippled compot, you destroy the ship.
If the ship is already crippled, and was crippled previously in this same battleround (i.e. this is your second or later shot at it), you destroy it if your result was equal to or greater than the crippled compot.
If the ship is already crippled, and was crippled in a previous battleround, you destroy it if your result was equal to or greater than the original compot.
David, just curious, is math your favorite thing in the universe?
Well, the math behind this is moderatly complex. But it works. Each result relates to a certain bracket of SFB damage, and is designed to reflect 1 turn of an SFB scenario. Range 0 is about R30 in SFB. Range 4 is about R8 in SFB. I lightly assumed that full fleets would more or less never go inside R5 due to seeking weapons, mines, ship preservation orders, or ships already having fired at R8 (although the chart does assume the odd close approach). A range 5 braket in the chart would be truly ruinous, and would repreasent point-blank full fleet exchanges. You would have at least a 16 result for 50 compot.
I can do math. Well.