Federation Commander

[Grimmshade]

Thanks guys!
I'll admit, while I like story behind my games, I do like the 3 main era approach for choosing ships.

[Nerroth]

Technically, the three settings currently supported in formally published products for Federation Commander are the Main Era, the Middle Years, and the M81 Galaxy (i.e. the Tholian and Seltorian home galaxy).

For the time being, the Early Years has a similar playtest status to that of Omega and the LMC here in FC; all three have their own respective modules in formal publication for Star Fleet Battles.

That said, there is still a lot to flesh out for M81, in both SFB and FC; though there are a pair of M81 Pirate Ship Cards in Captain's Log #40, which are explained in a short article published in Captain's Log #41. The M81 Pirates work quite differently to the Orions in the Alpha Octant (or to the Jumokians in the LMC, or to the Zosmans in Omega); the OGR and OGD are each designed to dock a target freighter underneath their oversized port wings and then cart it off with them.

One of the long-awaited "empire sourcebooks" for the Prime Directive RPG is for the Tholians, which (one hopes) might have more to say on the home galaxy, as and when its time comes around.

Also, if you want to see which PDF packs are available for FC - to include those based on the Middle Years ships in Briefing #2 - there is a list of them here.
_________________
FC Omega Discussion (v3)
FC LMC Discussion

[Grimmshade]

Ended up making a fourth (and last for a while, so my wife doesn't kill me) order. I was going to get Orion Attack, but decided to round out the Boosters for all the sets I have so far. It's nice having several of the various ships, and cards for all the tokens.
I also went ahead and ordered the individual cards I've been wanting from some sets (mostly Orion): Commercial Platform, Ground Bases, Defense Satellites, Monitor, as well as 2 more normal map panels.
That should cover me for a long time.

Having a blast with the game!

[Grimmshade]

Question about sublight ships, particularly the early Romulans:
Is it exactly as it sounds? Did it take the Romulans years to travel through space?

[ElizabethB]

[djdood]

The common fan trope that the Romulans were sub-light only is based on an interpretation of a line of dialog and based on an assumption.

The SFU went with a (better, in my opinion) assumption.

The specific line of dialog (from a renowned starship engineer) was that the propulsion for the Romulan ship they were chasing was "simple impulse". Because the warp-powered Federation ships used impulse engines for sublight travel, the common fan assumption is that the Romulans do too.

A different assumption is that a subspace "warp" field can be generated using the power from nuclear fusion impulse engines, just not a very powerful one. As ElizabethB notes, speeds were severely restricted and the SFU refers to these as "non-tactical warp" ships.

They would still be hyper-light and a very good thing to have, but several orders of magnitude slower than what a ship with a matter/antimatter reactor and warp nacelles strong enough to take advantage of it can do. They also could not produce such a warp field in any kind of a combat situation, so they would be easy pickings for a modern ship (for practical purposes, they are nearly immobile).

The idea of impulse engines having subspace field manipulating "driver coils" was later adopted by TNG-era trek and later productions (for apparent mass-reduction and managing of relativistic time-dilation), so the idea obviously has merit.
_________________

[Grimmshade]

Cool, thanks for the info.
Thanks to Scoutdad I now have the Captain's Log #49 with rules for sub-light movement. I just didn't understand how they were effective space nations without FTL travel, but now I know!

[Sgt_G]

A bit of SFB history as to how "Non-Tactical Warp" came about: Way back before the .WWW, there was GEnie where ADB made its on-line home. One day I hit upon an idea and posted it suggesting some sort of claw adaptor for Fed Tugs to recover separated saucers and bring them back to Star Base.

SVC give it a little thought (probably all of ten minutes) and declared that "Any ship (to include Fed saucers and Klingon booms) that has at least one working Impulse engine can limp home on its own power." He explained that impulse drive can build up a warp field of sorts to move that ship at some speed FASTER than Warp 3.2 for a number of hours or days. It would stop and take a navigational reading before spinning up for another warp hop/skip/jump. As it takes a bit of time to generate such a warp field and/or due to interference from other ships in the area, this mode of travel CAN NOT be used in combat nor to escape combat.

Somebody, and I don't remember who, replied back with, "Well, hey! That explains how the Romulans could build and control their Star Empire." SVC said, "Precisely so." And there you have it.
_________________
Garth L. Getgen

Master Sgt, US Air Force, Retired -- 1981-2007 -- 1W091A

[djdood]

Yup.

It's also how the hard working remnents of U.S.S. Hood's engineering crew were able to limp their ship's detached saucer back behind Federation lines, years after being presumed lost on "Day One" of the Klingon invasion that drew the Feds into the General War. There's some great CapLog fiction telling their story.
_________________

[Grimmshade]

Cool stuff!
Does Fed Com make mention of detaching saucers and such anywhere? (If so, I haven't seen it yet.)

[djdood]

Other than the boom of the giant B-10 battleship, itself the size and capability of some cruisers, no.

For that level of detail (and the rules crunch that comes with it), you would have to look to SFB.
_________________

[ElizabethB]

Boom and saucer separation are cool and definitely part of the Star Fleet Universe, but I am glad the rules weren't replicated in Federation Commander. I like the streamlining.

But I mean I say this as someone who can turn to SFB whenever I want so yeah.

[Grimmshade]

My battles take long enough without added complication! It's a nice bit of fluff to add to an AAR though.

[mjwest]

Separated ships (at least booms and saucers) can't really work in Federation Commander for two reasons:
1) The ship cards don't segregate the boxes well enough to easily identify which are "boom/saucer" boxes and which are rear hull boxes. You can figure out most ships, but there are a couple that would cause a lot of problems.
2) The main use of separation was being able to immediately attempt "sublight disengagement". Federation Commander has no such thing. So, if a boom or saucer tried to separate within a battle, it would just be taking one target that can move and replacing it with two targets that cannot move and cannot hide.

So, while there might be the occasional scenario where a boom or saucer starts the scenario in that condition (in which case the scenario rules would explicitly state what boxes are in the boom or saucer and which are now long gone), you will probably never see any scenarios where the separation happens within the scenario.
_________________

Federation Commander Answer Guy

[Grimmshade]

Makes perfect sense.

Just played a Middle Years game last night.

Fed CA USS Exeter escorting two heavy freighters.
Klingon D7 IKV Conqueror attacks.
Exeter performed HET but couldn't get a good angle on the Conqueror. First pass the D7 fired 4 Overloaded disruptors, 3 Phaser 1, and 2 Phaser 2. The Feds were lucky as 2 of the Disruptors missed even at close range. Still, the freighter suffered a down rear shield, and lots of system damage, as well as warp damage and a frame hit.
The Conqueror also launched a drone at the Exeter, but the Heavy Cruiser tractored it.
The D7 tried to maneuver ahead, but the Exeter outmaneuvered it and got a rear alpha strike with 4 overloaded photons and 4 Phaser 1's which took out the rear shields and did heavy hull, weapon, and power damage.
The D7 performed a HET, firing 3 Phaser 1's at the wounded freighters front shield, taking it down and causing damage to the cargo and the frame.
Then the D7 swept in a wide arc to the rear, completely outmaneuvering the Exeter, and circled in for another attack on the freighter. Three overloaded disruptors from the rear finished the Freighter, causing it to explode.
The D7 turned back towards Klingon territory as the Exeter finally got off some phaser fire that caused weapon and hull damage.
The second Freighter escaped, and the Exeter took a medium range shot at the retreating Conqueror with 4 photons and 4 phaser 1's, but only caused some more power and weapon damage before the D7 escaped.
The Exeter was undamaged, as was the second freighter. The Conqueror only had 3 disruptors and 2 phasers left, as well as heavy hull damage and moderate systems and weapons damage.

I've played several games by this point, but this one with a different objective than "attack each other" really made me notice how the D7 can outmaneuver the Feds, and basically how differently ships can play in this game. Great stuff.