Federation Commander

[pinecone]

Would you like FC to stay nice and simple, or would you want it to expand to have everything in SFB, except with less complicated rules. I'd like it to at least have fighters for all the races, so that they could make scenarios for the attack on Remus, the Ghostlight fighter squadron, the pleadies Turkey shoot, and many others. Ultimatly, I voted Everthing that SFB has, because I love to have historical context (and ships, scenarios, ect.) What do you think?

[pinecone]

Note: my apologies, "Any combination of the above" should include the Omega Octant races.

[Scoutdad]

I would like the entire Alpha octant... but would like to retain the simplicity of Fed Comm. If I want everything, I can play SFB.

With that stated, I would like a caveat: I'd like to see the Borders of Madness rules continue. I would like the option (eventually) to play massive SFB type battles with scouts, X-ships, carriers, maulers, etc in fleet scale.
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Commander, Battlegroup Murfreesboro
Department Head, ACTASF

[pinecone]

[djdood]

You left out my choice;
All the races in the alpha octant (excluding Andros), but not complicated scout, fighter, and X-rules. [subtle difference from the two presented options].

I don't think Andros in FedCom would be in keeping with the spirit of the game (simplicity). The scouts, fighters, etc., work just fine as BOM rules for those who want them and I think the Andros would work there as well.

Personally, I think the Tholians came with way too much rules-baggage when they were brought in. They got added the way they needed to be, but I kinda wished they hadn't been added.

I know my play-group won't touch them when I show them how many pages it takes to cover webs and all their weirdness. My group are war-game newbies and are just barely handling the game, as-is, with just Feds and Klinks.
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[Mike]

Fighters present a real dilemma. Even SVC has written that they should probably have never even been introduced into SFB, much less FC. But the "official" SFU history has them appearing in SFB for the 15 year time period in which FC is set. To narrow the timeframe for the ships of FC and not to include fighters seems contradictory. Therefore, we have playtest BoM rules for fighters and "other associated things."

[pinecone]

The option is there, just without the word "Complicated"

[mjwest]

I would like to continue with the Alpha Octant for a while.

One huge item that is not listed is gunboats. I think they would work even better than fighters and would be a really cool addition to FC. As long as they can be made to work.

Another thing that isn't listed that I would like to see is an earlier time period covered. Not the full "Early Years" (though that would be cool, too), but rather the "pre-refit" years before the General War. You know: the "TV years". It would use many of the same ships already in the game, but none of them would have all of their "refits".

But the most important thing right now, besides the Orions, is the ISC. We need to see them before we really start worrying about how FC will branch out.
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Federation Commander Answer Guy

[DKeith2011]

I went with "All the races in the alpha octant (including Andros), but not complicated scout, fighter, and X-rules."

The depth and variety of the SFU is one of its greatest strengths. I think the depth and variety can be retained with simpler rules.

I played B5 Wars from AoG from launch and found it just as much fun as SFB with massively simpler rules. That tells me it can be done.

Eventually I'd like to see an "Omega Commander" as well, but I know it will be a long time coming.

[pinecone]

I'm not an old SBF'er, so I only know limited info on what SFB includes . Thats why I put "Anything else SFB has" as an option

[Alex Knight]

I had to say some combination of and here it is:
In-
Scouts: To me, they are like any other weapon system. I pay energy to get an effect.

Andros: I'm sure there is a simplified way of getting Andros in without being too powerful or too weak.

Tenatively in-
X - Ships: If you're gonna' have Andros, you may as well have these. Much like the Andros, I don't think it'd be too difficult to make X-Ships. Besides, I like the CX art work over in the other thread and would love to have a mini of it for Fed Com.

Maulers: The rules are a little more complicated for a weapon system, but it'd still be nice to have around.

Gunboats: I like that term better than PF. It would open up more ship options for several races. However, the downside is that a certain race doesn't do them. Since their "third way" falls under the next category...

Would not like to see-
Fighters: I think I like them left as the Hydran "cool thing". Besides, then you get into the whole mess of drone fighters and control, etc.

Pipe Dream-
Maybe not a *pipe dream* per-se, but I'd like to see the Omega and even the Magellanics added as well.

Indifferent-
Early Years: Just indifferent on them. Haven't seen anything with them, so...

That's my two cents, anything I missed toss in with indifferent.

[pinecone]

Which race doesn't have gunboats? Tholians? Seltotorians? (this one would hurt) Federation?

What about if none of the races' fighters had drones?
Fed with two photons and a 360 ph-1.
Klingons two distruptors and a 360 phaser-1.
Kzinti with 2 distruptors and two ph-3's (LS,RS).
Lyran the same as the klingon fighter.
Tholians one photon, one distruptor, and a 360 ph-1.
Romulans with two pl-F and two ph-3 (LS,RS)
Gorn with two pl-F and one 360 ph-1.
Ect.

Okay, so plasma might be difficult. Mabey if they could only use the bolt funtion.....

Out of curiosity, are there X-fighters?

[Scoutdad]

The Federation doesn't use gunboats (they have the "third Way" instead)

The newest Captains Log will have Borders of Madness playtest ships cards for a Federation and a Klingon Carrier. There are also Borders of Madness rules for other empire's fighters. Then there are multi level rules depending on how deep you want to get into it:
Direct fire weapon fighters only
Direct Fire and Drones
and a special rule for using drones as a direct fire weapon (kinds weird - but...)
Our group will definitely be using these rules, along with the scout rules to play some bigger battles.

Yes, there were X-fighters, and the pre-eminent type that comes to mind is the Stinger-X
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Commander, Battlegroup Murfreesboro
Department Head, ACTASF

[pinecone]

Guess I won't shoot the messenger, and it would be eaiser to if I had Federation Gunboats ( ). Thanks anyway

[pneumonic81]

I would like to see the Andromedans for sure. Other cool races I enjoyed in SFB were also the Frax (simulator race) and the Jindarian.

But in addition to that, all races having fighters or PFs is pretty cool and gives players flexibility in senario design. X-ships would also be nice and would add spice to the game.

This is an excellent game system. The more love it gets, the better.