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House rules
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Bolo_MK_XL
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Joined: 16 Jan 2007
Posts: 836
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Sun Aug 09, 2009 5:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dummy cards are like a Feint ---

Use these to make your opponent believe your doing one thing (turn/slip/het) when you may not be doing anything at all ---

Keeps things less than predictable ---
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Mike
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Joined: 07 May 2007
Posts: 1675
Location: South Carolina

PostPosted: Sun Aug 09, 2009 7:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I like the idea of combining the left/right separate cards into single cards that can be flipped over to indicate which direction the turn or sideslip is going. That would eliminate 4 cards from the set.

I think there was a misunderstanding about the need for all the HET cards. The idea was to have the card state exactly which way the ship would end up pointing after a HET and there are 5 different directions. Instead of making 5 different cards and using the left/right flip idea, there would only need to be 3 HET cards: 180 degrees, 60 degrees left/right, and 120 degrees left/right. This is assuming that there wouldn't be more than 1 HET done by a single ship during an impulse.

QUESTION: Can anyone think of any situation in which a player would do more than 1 HET during an impulse? Keep in mind that these impulses would feature all the sub-pulse movement combined together and kept secret from all other players until the cards are revealed.
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Kang
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Joined: 23 Sep 2007
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Location: Devon, UK

PostPosted: Sun Aug 09, 2009 7:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

MajerBlundor wrote:
*Yes, yes, I've heard the rationale that BoM is a gateway from Star Trek to FC. If that were true we wouldn't see so many FC players on this forum drolling over BoM. The simple fact is that a lot FC gamers will adopt BoM and use it as part of their routine FC experience.

At first, and I suspect like many FC players, I felt threatened by BoM. I felt that FC was going to become another SFB. But I believe Steve Cole's adamant statement that FC is not going to become another SFB; there is already SFB for people who want that.

And there's the thing, you see. Because SFB exists, there is no need for FC to become another one like it.

Personally, I now think that BoM has its place. Sure, it can be used to bridge SFB players to FC. The converse is also true; some FC players who have not played SFB may well like the idea and be attracted to it. That's simply good marketing, in both directions.

However there is another point, what I often call the 'Thunderbolt' principle. In SFB, the Feds did not have Fast Patrol Ships [PFs]. But because Steve felt that people would design a Fed PF anyway, he designed one - called the 'Thunderbolt' - so that there was an 'official', but still non-historical, Fed PF. That way, all players would have the ship cards for the Fed PF and all players who wanted to use them would have the same ships.

The same 'Thunderbolt' principle applies for BoM. If people are going to create hybrid FC/SFB or SFB/FC games, all well and good. But for those people who want a standard ruleset to define the 'grey' areas, where people feel that perhaps some FC games could be played with additional detail, like fighters or Scouts for examples, then there would be a standard ruleset.

I think it's common sense. No-one is going to force BoM down the throats of the FC players; I'm sure nobody wants to. But for those who fancy using the extra detail, there is the standard ruleset of BoM - because of the Thunderbolt principle.

That's quite the opposite of what I call the 'Windscreen Wiper Principle', though. In the Windscreen Wiper Principle, someone thinks of a really good idea, such as a simple device to keep car windscreens clear when it's raining. Before you know it, some g1t has made it a legal requirement that all vehicles be fitted with them. The Winscreen Wiper Principle can be seen spoiling good ideas in all walks of life. But not, I feel in the Star Fleet Universe Smile
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Mike
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Joined: 07 May 2007
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 09, 2009 7:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've never seen Full Thrust, but it seems as if teaching codes for movement would be just another level of learning that new players would have to deal with.

I like a cards idea because it would be fairly self-explanatory. The ones the player wanted to use would merely need to be put in the correct order for what he wants his ship to do that impulse. Once all the players have selected their cards, they proceed one player at a time. A player lays his cards down one at a time, moves his ship, and pays energy for the actions that have energy costs. It doesn't matter who goes first because it would all be considered simultaneous.

After thinking more about this, here are the cards that would be needed:
4x Deceleration (4, because someone might announce acceleration for a speed 24 ship at the start of the impulse, but then decel all of it to not move out of the hex).
4x Move Forward 1 Hex
2x Turn Left/Right
2x Sideslip Left/Right
1x HET 180
1x HET 120 Left/Right
1x HET 60 Left/Right
1x TAC Left/Right
1x Emergency Deceleration

Total of 17 cards.

I decided against doing acceleration cards. That can remain "Me, too!" as it already stands.

If one wanted to do a written system:
F = move one hex forward
SL = slip one hex left
SR = slip one hex right
TL = turn 1 hexside to the left
TR = turn 1 hexside to the right
HET 180 or HET 3
HET L60 or HET L1
HET R60 or HET R1
HET L120 or HET L2
HET R120 or HET R2
TAC L
TAC R
ED = emergency deceleration
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MajerBlundor
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Joined: 03 Apr 2009
Posts: 123

PostPosted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 11:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kang wrote:

I think it's common sense. No-one is going to force BoM down the throats of the FC players; I'm sure nobody wants to. But for those who fancy using the extra detail, there is the standard ruleset of BoM - because of the Thunderbolt principle.


So, when it comes to what constitutes "Federation Commander" BoM has no more status than, say, someone's house rules?
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mjwest
Commodore


Joined: 08 Oct 2006
Posts: 4069
Location: Dallas, Texas

PostPosted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 1:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

MajerBlundor wrote:
Kang wrote:

I think it's common sense. No-one is going to force BoM down the throats of the FC players; I'm sure nobody wants to. But for those who fancy using the extra detail, there is the standard ruleset of BoM - because of the Thunderbolt principle.

So, when it comes to what constitutes "Federation Commander" BoM has no more status than, say, someone's house rules?

In effect, yes.

"Federation Commander" does not include Borders of Madness. Rather, "Borders of Madness" is its own entity that uses Federation Commander as its foundation.
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Mike
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 4:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ben and I used the cards today to play the sub-pulse movement as gigantic total impulse movement using the Make War, Not Peace scenario from Briefing #2.

We found the cards to be somewhat cumbersome. I printed them using blank white business cards from an office supply store. The cards seemed a little longer than they needed to be. Because they didn't have a slick surface, they tended to stick together when we tried sorting through them to find the ones we needed.

Ben said they were kind of cool to use, but he is more into that European style of gaming that features fancy graphics and more of tactile approach to gaming materials.

I thought a simple written notation system would have worked at least just as well, if not better. This system was described earlier in this thread.

Aside from all of that, we both agreed afterward that the regular official way of doing movement would have worked better for this scenario. Our reasons for this conclusion were:
1. We were both experienced in FC and the sub-pulses came naturally for us.
2. We noticed that it really was a bit of a guessing game as to what your opponent was going to do. That could have its good side, but since it was not how the game was intended to be played, it would probably mess with outcomes to a great extent. One point worth noting about this is the fact that even the slow ships get to see what the faster ships are going to do in the sub-pulse system. When all the sub-pulses are combined, if the slow ships have to move first, the faster ships have even more of an advantage. When sub-pulses are combined and the movement is planned secretly and revealed simultaneously it can create a total guessing game that can result in ships passing one another or turning out of arc. Under the official rules, even a speed 8 ship will get to see 2 hexes of movement from a speed 24 ship before it has to commit to move.
3. The combined impulse movement system should work fairly well for ships that are far apart. It might work okay for games with several ships and several players. It has for us in the past, but I don't believe I will follow up any more on the card idea. If we decide to combine sub-pulses, we'll just have the slower ships move before the faster ships.

One other idea that we tried a long time ago, but still think might help speed things up has to do with firing direct-fire weapons. If a player had counters for each weapon on his ship and placed them in front of his ship or somehow next to an opponent's ship card when he announced direct fire, there would be no question of what was being fired. We have found that after players have declared fire and announced which weapons were being fired at whom, when it came time to "go around" and roll for the hit results, players had to often ask or try to recall which weapons were being fired all over again.

Having simple counters printed with something like, "Ph-1" and "#1" to indicate what kind of weapon it was and which number of weapon on the ship it was would help a great deal. Generic counters could be made for this with there being several "Ph-1, #1" counters along with "Ph-2, #1" counters for ships that had only phaser-2's. Heavy weapons wouldn't even have to state what kind of weapon it was since the vast majority of ships have only one type of heavy weapon. Simple counters with "Wpn A" or "Wpn C" would work for those. Another type of counter that could be useful would be a range counter. When a group of weapon counters are put forward for a volley, a range counter could be put with them. This way, no one would need to re-count those ranges multiple times.

By the way, Ben was the D7C and I was the CC. He played the sabre dance rather well. Because of the guessing game nature of using the movement cards, I was able to close for a range 3 shot and let 3 Ph-1's and 2 fully overloaded photons fly at him. Both photons missed. He kept chipping away at my shields while pestering me with 3 pairs of drones coming from different angles. Though I was able to repair a lab box 3 times from his fire, I could never get enough hits to do much to him. I was willing to give him a tactical victory; he thought it was more of a draw. Avoiding those drones and a terrible turn mode sure makes charging in to deliver an alpha strike a very difficult task.
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Wolverin61
Commander


Joined: 16 Nov 2008
Posts: 495
Location: Mississippi

PostPosted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 11:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mike wrote:
One other idea that we tried a long time ago, but still think might help speed things up has to do with firing direct-fire weapons. If a player had counters for each weapon on his ship and placed them in front of his ship or somehow next to an opponent's ship card when he announced direct fire, there would be no question of what was being fired. We have found that after players have declared fire and announced which weapons were being fired at whom, when it came time to "go around" and roll for the hit results, players had to often ask or try to recall which weapons were being fired all over again.

Having simple counters printed with something like, "Ph-1" and "#1" to indicate what kind of weapon it was and which number of weapon on the ship it was would help a great deal. Generic counters could be made for this with there being several "Ph-1, #1" counters along with "Ph-2, #1" counters for ships that had only phaser-2's. Heavy weapons wouldn't even have to state what kind of weapon it was since the vast majority of ships have only one type of heavy weapon. Simple counters with "Wpn A" or "Wpn C" would work for those.


I put a dot beside the weapons I'm firing (a carryover from SFB) and put a slash through it on the Weapons Used track, then a slash the other way and finish the X when I roll for it.
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terryoc
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Joined: 07 Oct 2006
Posts: 1386

PostPosted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 12:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The card idea reminds me of RoboRally. Hmm... idea for a scenario there... something the Masters might come up with, hee hee.
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