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Favorite Race and Ships...
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Maxwell Luther
Lieutenant JG


Joined: 10 Apr 2013
Posts: 75

PostPosted: Tue Jun 18, 2013 7:47 pm    Post subject: Favorite Race and Ships... Reply with quote

I played with the Fed NCA in my last game and I absolutely love that ship. It has exactly the balance of power, weaponry and systems to fit my play-style perfectly.

I also love the tight hull design and triple nacelle configuration. In fact, even though I'm pretty much playing with counters only, as it's a pain to haul minis around to school and back (and I'm really waiting for the 2500 Lyrans before I start collecting them), I am sorely tempted to get a single NCA and a Klingon FD7 for introducing new players using the Duel scenario.

I prefer Lyrans and will typically go with the good old standard CA when I play them, but if I had to play any other race of ship, it'd be the Fed NCA. Anyone else have a preferred race and ship?
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Mike
Fleet Captain


Joined: 07 May 2007
Posts: 1675
Location: South Carolina

PostPosted: Wed Jun 19, 2013 12:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I like the middle years era. Take a guess which I like the best...
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Spacecowboy87
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Joined: 03 Jan 2012
Posts: 209
Location: Colorado

PostPosted: Wed Jun 19, 2013 12:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think the coolest ship in the game is the Fed NCF. Whoever came up with that one deserves a bonus Very Happy I also use 2500 series Firehawks / Sparrowhawks with my 2400 minis, cuz they're cooler and the scale difference is not too horrible. I also think the wings are better if you reverse them (swooped upward) but that one has to catch on Laughing
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DNordeen
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Joined: 05 Apr 2007
Posts: 564

PostPosted: Wed Jun 19, 2013 1:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kzinti. The DF is probably my favorite. Love watching my opponents face when a lowly frigate launches a double broadside of 12 drones over the turn break.
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Maxwell Luther
Lieutenant JG


Joined: 10 Apr 2013
Posts: 75

PostPosted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 4:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mike wrote:
I like the middle years era. Take a guess which I like the best...


I'm totally thinking of starting my campaign with MY ships (great, slimmed down and requiring different tactics) and then allowing the upgrades to occur as the years progress, according to their year of service entry, actually.

Haven't used the NCF yet, but I'll have to see how it works as a companion to my NCA on Tuesday

I played my first game against the Kzinti yesterday, and the long range droning they can give you is a pain in the #4 shield. I won by placing the dust rings around a planet between me and them, forcing them to take damage as they moved through them to get at me, occasionally popping out to plink away at the mothership's shields.
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Klingon of Gor
Lieutenant SG


Joined: 01 Jun 2011
Posts: 150

PostPosted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 7:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well my favorite race, is (Big surprise here) the Klingons. I have a fondness for the old D7. I know, the D5W outclasses it in many respects, but...the D7 is is a classic, and it looks wicked cool. My second favorite Klingon ship is probably the F5W, which is one of the deadliest light ships out there.

Other favorite ships:. The Romulan King Eagle is another classic. The K7R is also a fine ship, and well handled, a threat even to Fed war cruisers. The Orion light raider and pirate raider are always lots of fun. I like my pirate raiders tricked out with disruptors on the wing mounts and a phaser G in the nose. Light raiders I like to fit with phaser 1s, and a phaser G in the nose.
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Mike
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Joined: 07 May 2007
Posts: 1675
Location: South Carolina

PostPosted: Fri Jun 21, 2013 1:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Maxwell Luther wrote:
Quote:
I'm totally thinking of starting my campaign with MY ships (great, slimmed down and requiring different tactics) and then allowing the upgrades to occur as the years progress, according to their year of service entry, actually.


So you're blending the historical elements of SFB with the ships and game system of FC? Great idea (IMHO)!
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Maxwell Luther
Lieutenant JG


Joined: 10 Apr 2013
Posts: 75

PostPosted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 3:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mike wrote:
So you're blending the historical elements of SFB with the ships and game system of FC? Great idea (IMHO)!


Certainly. It is the background history that drew me into the SFU in the first place. I'm pretty much a TOS fan and never really cared for the follow ups, as I felt those shows traded the wild west feel of that series with an inconsistent utopian vision that didn't seem to me to be a natural progression of events.

And, having run many, many wargame campaigns over many decades, I'm firmly of the opinion that the best ones have a solid historical reason for the conflict instead of acting as a simple leader board for unrelated battles. The SFU history is chock full of material for campaigns of any size. In my case, I'm thinking of running a 'Fleet' campaign, where each player controls a single border fleet for every other player empire bordering their territory, with restricted actions for the MY to represent brushfire conflict and border skirmishes, opening up into major wartime actions once the General War breaks out, with ship upgrades appearing as they did historically. The combination of smaller fleet actions combined with a historical timeline will hopefully result in some emergent play properties as players pull back or slow down attacks to gather EP or save ships as major upgrades or major alliances appear on the horizon.

This is partially why I want SVC to write up the history of the SFU not just as a timeline, but as a proper history book with not only events and ship construction dates, but details on the activities that occurred behind the scenes and the specific perceptions of those events by each of the races involved, kind of like The Star Fleet Technical Manual meets The World at War. I figure that would be useful for all the game lines, especially Prime Directive. I just think it would be an uber-cool read all on its own...
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storeylf
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Joined: 24 Jul 2008
Posts: 1897

PostPosted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 6:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Campaigns beat straight one off points games hands down. It doesn't really matter the style of campaign too much, so long as there is some noticeble campaign cost to losing ships.

Tourney style play is just massively different to campaign battles.

Tourney games always just play as a fight to the death, very rarey do you see ships disengaging, or people worrying about what ship is in what state.

On the other hand our campaign games seldom see significant numbers of ship losses in a battle, there may be one or 2 losses, and a few cripples/damaged ships, but usually someone withdraws when it is clear they cannot achieve what they set out to do.

The ships you try to kill also make games more interesting - it isn't simply about scoring points, sometimes you go in to a fight looking to simply take out the command ship, or scouts etc. Against ISC taking out escorts has proven a good way of crippling future ISC ops if they have gone too PPD heavy, Andros get protective of their motherships etc.

Our campaign battles just always feel that much more 'real', naval forces didn't/don't usually fight to the last ship, withdraw when there is no point continuing so you can come back to fight another day.

It's one of the reasons I'm always slightly wary of balance based on tourney style play. It seems such a second rate way to play the game IMHO and does result in differing tactics. Not to say I don't like the odd 1vs 1 trying out some new ships, tactics etc.


As to the topic, I like most empires. Andros are probably my favourite, I like klingons a lot as well, and Gorns. I'm not keen on Fed or Lyran (both potent empires, I just don't like their general style of play).
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TrotskyTrotsky
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Joined: 15 Oct 2012
Posts: 58

PostPosted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 7:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Klingons for me. I also have a soft spot for the D7 - whilst not the best ship in the fleet it always gives me a smile when I fly it...
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Nerroth
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Joined: 08 Oct 2006
Posts: 1744
Location: Ontario, Canada

PostPosted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 4:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

For my part, my interest in a given empire is based more on my view of it from a background perspective, as opposed to how it plays in a given game system.

Of the local Alpha Octant empires, the Inter-Stellar Concordium is the one which interests me the most, from a background perspective at least. (I'm looking forward to seeing what the ISC's what-might-have-been "Mapsheet P" timeline will turn out like once Module C6 is published later this year.)

The Andromedans are also of interest, not least in how they help tie so many of the different known regions of the Star Fleet Universe together. Their initial invasion and occupation of the Lesser Magellanic Cloud, their various machinations at investing the Milky Way Galaxy, how the success of Operation Unity led to the liberation of the indigenous Magellanic empires (and how the "dark mirror" shown in Module C3A showed just how grim things could have been had a certain Galactic Survey Cruiser not made it back from its unexpected journey through a temporal rift), and how the pursuit of other chains of RTN nodes helped lead an advanced technology survey cruiser over to the new home of a set of "lost colonies" in a wild and warlike region of the galaxy.

(And once Module X2 is out the door, and the focus shifts to who will be coming from the far side of the galaxy in 2610, I'll be very to keen to see what happened if/when the Andromedans tried to make a play for the Xorkaelian Empire.)

But my real interest in the SFU is with the various non-Alpha settings: the Omega Octant, the LMC, the Triangulum Galaxy, and suchlike.

Of the various Omega empires, I personally find the stories of the Maesron Alliance*, the Iridani Questors, and the Federal Republic of Aurora to be the most compelling. However, the Octant as a whole is a vibrant and dynamic setting, for which the current crop of SFB modules (and the current set of playtest materials for FC) have only begun to scratch the surface.

In the LMC, both the Baduvai Imperium and the Eneen Protectorates make for a great dynamic; alternating between chucking warp-tuned laser shots at each other and dabbling in political intrigue while working to fend off mutual threats like the Maghadim Hives and the Andromedans.

And for Triangulum, I like the Helgardian Protectorate; an ancient species doing what it can to guide a bunch of primitive planets into the galactic community, and being honestly surprised when it all goes horribly wrong. (I'm sure the Vulcans would consider the Helgardian experience in M33 as Exhibit A for the case in favour of the Prime Directive.)

I hope that, in the fullness of time, more of these non-Alpha options can find a home in FC. (And that I won't be the only one to be glad should that eventually happen...)


*The "ae" in "Maesron" is meant to be one of these, but this particular forum doesn't like displaying it for some reason.
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Mike
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Joined: 07 May 2007
Posts: 1675
Location: South Carolina

PostPosted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 6:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Maxwell Luther wrote:

Quote:
This is partially why I want SVC to write up the history of the SFU not just as a timeline, but as a proper history book with not only events and ship construction dates, but details on the activities that occurred behind the scenes and the specific perceptions of those events by each of the races involved, kind of like The Star Fleet Technical Manual meets The World at War. I figure that would be useful for all the game lines, especially Prime Directive. I just think it would be an uber-cool read all on its own...


I can see a fleshed out history from two perspectives. Yes, it would be nice and certainly a thrilling read IF its done right. But would such a work close off opportunities for further works of fiction? As much as I would like to read a good quality history, I rather like the approach that has been taken with the outline format so that the possibility for specific actions (both in peacetime and in wartime) are practically innumerable.

Some random thoughts about SFU fiction...

I've been contemplating an idea that pieces of SFU fiction longer than Captain's Log can accommodate might find an audience in an e-print format instead of ink on paper. I have no idea how much it costs to host an e-product on SJG. ADB could follow their existing policy of declaring anything submitted to them as their property and paying the author a set rate or they could take a percentage and allow the author to get a percentage. The problem would be in quality control. They cannot allow fictional works to be e-published under their name that contain gaping inconsistencies or contradictions to the SFU.

One other aspect with fiction is related to specific game systems that are geared toward the SFU. I believe that right now any fictional piece that describes battle situations has to be consistent with the SFB game. This is a fine standard, but it might be discouraging potential authors who are focused on some other game platform such as FC, ACTA, Starmada, or others. If a battle is described and the battle action was derived from a scenario for one of those other games, it will not read the same as a battle description from SFB.

Didn't mean to get too far off topic. Please forgive the digression.
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storeylf
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Joined: 24 Jul 2008
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2013 4:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A single place to read up on a reasonably thorough SFU history (or at least start of the general war to end of andro threat) might well be something that would interest me if done right. A fictional history book could be nice. Though I'd want something more than a list of dates, it would have to include something on the politics and reasons why certain events 'happen'.

It would be interesting if it listed the key/interesting battles/campaigns in a game agnostic format - i.e. list the forces, general terrain, setup, an idea of when additional forces arrived late etc. SFB, FC, ACTA players could then play them using their preferred system. I don't think such a book would be a place to list actual scenarios in any specific game format. Just as a history book doesn't describe the Battle of Waterloo in terms of any game, and things that are specific to a game system (wild weasal, EPT etc) are not likely the things that would be described at that level of book which would be more high level tactics/strategy.
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Mike
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Joined: 07 May 2007
Posts: 1675
Location: South Carolina

PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2013 6:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A work like that would require an entirely new paradigm for ADB. While it would be nice, I'm imagining that the amount of time or personnel required to do it would not be a profitable investment them. It would be aimed at a very narrow audience with a limited potential of return.

"The General War in the SFU"

???
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Jean
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Joined: 18 Sep 2008
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2013 9:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Any fiction/history that we publish MUST be tied to one of our games. That's why in For the Glory of the Empire, each story includes a scenario.

http://store.starfleetstore.com/merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=S&Product_Code=2201&Category_Code=19
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