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New Player: What to get next?

 
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Darzoni
Ensign


Joined: 20 Jul 2012
Posts: 5

PostPosted: Wed Aug 08, 2012 5:48 pm    Post subject: New Player: What to get next? Reply with quote

So I find I'm really enjoying Federation Commander, even though I've pretty much limited myself to getting the rules down and haven't played a whole scenario/game yet. It satisfies something that ACTA:SF doesn't (probably a desire for a variety of ships).

I'm wondering what to purchase next though. I currently have Klingon Border, Klingon Attack, Romulan Border, and Booster #7 (I like the war-era Fed designs). I was thinking of either the Reference Rulebook or Romulan Attack, but I'm open to suggestions.
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Scoutdad
Commodore


Joined: 09 Oct 2006
Posts: 4754
Location: Middle Tennessee

PostPosted: Wed Aug 08, 2012 6:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Reference Rulebook.

With that, you can use the ships available in the Commanders Circle to see which empire strikes your fancy and plan future purchases accordingly.
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djdood
Commodore


Joined: 01 Feb 2007
Posts: 3412
Location: Seattle, WA

PostPosted: Wed Aug 08, 2012 9:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Concur with Scoutdad. The Reference Rulebook opens the floodgates of years and years worth of Communique material to being immediately usable (since you will have all the rules).

It sounds like you've already acquired most of the original "core" of the game, in the two Border products and the KA supplement. Because of that, I'd highly recommend adding Romulan Attack.

Adding it really completes the basic mainline "tv" empires and there are some fun ships that appear in RA. I'm particularly fond of the Fed FFB and NCF and Romulan FireHawk and King Eagle cruisers.

Beyond RA, what to get really boils down to your interests -

Battleships Attack is a lot of fun, and adds ships for all empires. However some folks think it (and the SFB modules it's related to) are nothing but munchkinism run wild. Personally, I love the Fed DNH in it. The ridiculously powerful BBs can be crazy fun, with the right group of gamers.

The later Attack modules are things you can add or ignore, to your taste. All the modules are self-contained, so you can ignore them if they don't interest you.

Tholian Attack adds copious amounts of new rules needed for all the bizarre things Tholians can do. While I own it, I've never had an opponent who wanted to bother with all the extra rules hassle webs require.

Distant Kingdoms adds more rules, but they are less crunchy. There's a lot of people who really, really like the Lyrans and their "ramming speed" ESGs or the Hydrans with their "up-close and personal" fusion beams and gatling-phaser armed fighters. This one also has the WYNs, a simple and fun hybrid of things from several empires.

Orions Attack covers all the pirates. A good choice if you are trying to avoid extra rules crunch (and it finishes out the token few Orions already included in the Border products).

War and Peace adds the truly odd Andromedans, another empire that adds a lot of rules crunch to cover all their funky weapons and abilities. Fun, if you learn them, but no where near as simple as a "beer and pretzels" game of Klingon vs. Fed. The ISC are also in this module, with some some extra rules (about on par with the Lyrans and Hydrans). The gameplay for the ISC is also fairly unique, but not as odd as Tholians or Andromedans.

The recent Transports Attacked is another one that services all empires, but will only really be of interest to players who enjoy scenario-driven gaming. There's neat stuff (tugs can be a lot of fun), but it really is a module full of "targets", glorified or otherwise. If you mainly play points-based "pickup" games, it is of much less use.
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Darzoni
Ensign


Joined: 20 Jul 2012
Posts: 5

PostPosted: Wed Aug 08, 2012 10:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for the responses, guys. I'm curious if the Reference Rulebook has revisions like the rulebooks I got from the Border boxes or if it is more recent than May 2011?
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Nerroth
Fleet Captain


Joined: 08 Oct 2006
Posts: 1744
Location: Ontario, Canada

PostPosted: Wed Aug 08, 2012 10:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If I'm not mistaken, the latest revision of the FCRRB is version 6a; at least, that's how my copy of the e23 PDF has it.
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djdood
Commodore


Joined: 01 Feb 2007
Posts: 3412
Location: Seattle, WA

PostPosted: Wed Aug 08, 2012 11:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

One thing I should add to my missive above is that Orions Attack and Transports Attacked both include a small number of "tv" empire warships (of the more esoteric/rare variety), along with a few for the non "tv" empires.
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Darzoni
Ensign


Joined: 20 Jul 2012
Posts: 5

PostPosted: Fri Aug 10, 2012 10:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Since I'm planning on getting the Reference Rulebook, I think I'd like to ask if is there a Captain's Log (or Communique or other product) that has campaign rules for Federation Commander?
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djdood
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Joined: 01 Feb 2007
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Location: Seattle, WA

PostPosted: Sat Aug 11, 2012 12:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Official campaign rules tend to not happen a lot in the SFU. They were tried, back in the dark ages, but too many local SFB groups had their own local campaigns that conflicted with each other and with what was proposed. ADB rightly focused their efforts on things less contentious. The closest they came to official campaign "rules" was the Campaign Designer's Handbook for SFB (which was more of a toolkit of ideas than a set of rules).

There is an official campaign system for FedCom coming (Federation Admiral), but it's been in the oven for a long time now. I'm sure it will come out eventually, but I stopped worrying about it and focused on other things.

There are several unofficial campaign systems, set up by folks who post on this board.
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Sneaky Scot
Commander


Joined: 11 Jan 2007
Posts: 475
Location: Tintern, Monmouthshire

PostPosted: Sat Aug 11, 2012 12:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If you have access to Star Fleet Battles stuff, there are a number of mini-campaigns in there that might be easily convertible to Fed Cdr. Economy of Force is an easy one; you have 6 scenarios to play, and a fixed number of points (1200 is probably a reasonable guesstimate for Fed Cdr) to buy ships. Scenario #1 will feature your Battle Station (which doesn't count against your 1200 points), Scenarios #2-#5 are in open space, and Scenario #6 will feature your opponent's Battle Station (which doesn't count against his points). You have to commit at least one ship to each scenario, with the players deciding secretly and in advance which group goes to which scenario. All of the forces assigned to each game are revealed simultaneously. Points are scored as per normal FC victory points, but the winner of any scenario gets 10 bonus points. You can choose to withdraw from a scenario if you feel you are outmatched (the trusty Federation POL decides that he probably can't take the B10 the Klingon allocated to the scenario for example), but the player who didn't withdraw gets the bonus points and may transfer the ships to an adjacent scenario (scenario #6 and scenario #1 are not considered adjacent). Winner is the player at the end with most points overall.

That's a fairly straightforward campaign, and you can extend it ad infinitum should you desire, by adding another batch of points to each fleet (say 250, possibly plus bonus points from the previous round) for the purchase of additional ships. You could consider that all ships are completely repaired between rounds (which fits with FC's damage control rules quite nicely), or you could assume that at the end of the scenario any damage scored on a ship (with the exception of shields) is present for the next round; using this option, ships can be completely repaired if they are sent away from the front for the duration of the entire round.

You could further jazz up the campaign by allowing reserves that join a scenario after a number of rounds (e.g. roll a single die at the start of each turn - if the die roll is less than the number of the turn, your reserves arrive), and could give fast cruisers and light dreadnoughts an advantage by allowing them a better die roll for when they join the battle.

just some ideas for a simple campaign, hope you find them useful.
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