Federation Commander

[Sebastian380]

Reading about WWII naval battles I've found that fleet commanders will usually organize their ships so that a smaller group of ships, a vanguard, precedes the main group of ships and sometimes another group of ships will bring up the rear or be positioned on a flank of the main group.
I can understand why this would be useful on a 'map' as large as the Pacific ocean where knowledge of surroundings is minimal.
For the same reason I've read of carriers sending planes out for reconnaissance.
Are there any scenario-specific rules that can be used in FC that could create this need to organize a fleet of ships in this way?

[Dal Downing]

Okay are you looking for actual formation or ship.placement rules? If so then no.. Are you looking for Fleet building rules and limits? Then see if this is what you want.

[/url]http://starfleetgames.com/ACTASFFleetDoctrineRules.shtml[url]
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-Dal

"Which one of you is the Biggest, Baddest, Bootlicker of the bunch?"
"I am."
"ARCHERS!!! THAT ONE!!!!"

[djdood]

Like Dal said.

I will note that some folks I've brought into the game try too hard to apply modern or ancient "wet navy" tactics to FedCom, such as "crossing the T".

There is a lot of romance to those old tactics, but they very often don't apply to an game that is as fire-concentration and energy-management driven as FedCom.
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[Nerroth]

I wonder if the concept of fleet formation tactics is more applicable in those games where no-stacking rules are in place, such as Starmada Nova Edition. (From what I can tell, Admiralty Edition allows allied ships to stack, but prevents enemy ships from finishing a move in the same hex. Whereas Nova Editon prevents any two ships from finishing a move in the same hex, be they friend or foe. Although I defer to a Starmada expert on that front.)

That said, the factions which are more known in-universe for applying specific formation tactics (such as the ISC, with their famed Echelon) are still in playtest mode for Starmada, or have yet to be ported over there.

In the long run, I would find it interesting to see how those factions which are more directly inspired by "wet navy" fleets, such as the Frax or Iridani, might be able to pull off "crossing the T" in those game systems - or, at least, if doing so would be more advantageous for them in a no-stacking environment than it is at present in FC or SFB.
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FC Omega Discussion (v3)
FC LMC Discussion

[jdemichele]

In the SFB Tactics Manual, there are some examples of different fleet formations used by the various Alpha octant powers. They really don't match up with Crossing the T though (since SFB/FC ships don't generally fly in long lines).
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[Sebastian380]

Those are all good points and this is just idle curiosity...but if the ships in FC were only able to see in a radius of 5 hexes (but always had perfect communication with each other) then there would be some value to organizing a fleet with an advance unit wouldn't there?
And if ships were subject to different Weapons Status based in part on what they knew about the area they were in then there would be another reason to use advance units.
I do understand that ships in the SFU are not wet-navy ships and the same tactics don't translate--I'm trying to understand why this is the case.
Outside of D17 Tactical Knowledge rules in SFB the SFU assumption is that all units have a perfect knowledge of the map. If this wasn't the case then would the fleet organizations begin to resemble more traditional fleet formations?

I think some large-scale email SFB games were played in a fog-of-war setting. Does anybody here have experience with those games?

[Dal Downing]

Sebastian380 if your proposed restrictritions were in place the Universe would be filled with Fighters and ATG Drones and would not be the SFU we live in. Plus the Ships would probably be designed radically different. To fit your restrictions and probably look a lot like David Webber's Manticorian Navies.
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-Dal

"Which one of you is the Biggest, Baddest, Bootlicker of the bunch?"
"I am."
"ARCHERS!!! THAT ONE!!!!"

[Steve Cole]

The technology of the universe, as defined by the tactical intelligence rules for SFB, says that you can usually see the enemy far enough away to have your weapons armed ahead of battle. Advanced scout ships exist in the universe but the distance is more like 50-500 hexes, not 5, and it's actually much superior to use a "scout" which stays with or even behind your fleet and uses electronic sensors to see 50,000 hexes in front of you. It's the way the technology works. You're talking about an entirely different game in an entirely different universe.
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

[Nerroth]

Is there a particular terrain feature in SFB which might allow for a limited degree of "fog of war" conditions - which may oblige ships, shuttles, and/or PFs to spread out as "spotters" before concentrating forces once the battle is joined?

Nebulae and fighters don't mix, but I was wondering if there was some other phenomenon (be it temporary or permanent in nature) accounted for in the rules which might oblige SFU fleets to go about things in a different way than they do in open space - and whether or not that phenomenon is already represented in the FC ruleset.
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FC Omega Discussion (v3)
FC LMC Discussion

[Dal Downing]

Dust Clouds maybe?
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-Dal

"Which one of you is the Biggest, Baddest, Bootlicker of the bunch?"
"I am."
"ARCHERS!!! THAT ONE!!!!"

[Sebastian380]

I tried to follow the last Fog of War email SFB games but I wasn't able to follow closely enough to see how the different sides managed the problem of not being able to see the whole map.
I do seem to remember, however, that each of the sides sent ships out on recon missions through the barrier that divided the map in two.
I'd really like to hear from some of those Fog 8 players to understand how they managed the game.

[Magnum357]

Man, I hope I don't regret posting this, but I can give my two cents on this topic. I use to play a few games of SFC years ago (took to much battle damage). In my experience, most of the concept of SFB (and I guess Fed Commander) is to sabre dance. Granted, SFC only allowed up to "3-ship" squadrons but none-the-less sabre dancing is still prevelant even in squadrons.

I, as well, when I was introduced to SFB as a boy many years ago thought that the game system followed a similar pattern as wet navy fleets, but in my experience this is not the case. The closest pattern I could come up with to match wet navy tactics in SFC where probably... as pointed out above... Carrier operations, and even that is not entirely similar to wet navy tactics. Sabre dancing is the pattern I noticed in SFC.

I could never play SFC anymore because of all the injuries I sustained, but I
try to keep up to tabs with Fed Commander.

[Sgt_G]

Some time back, I toyed with an idea of how to build mega-fleets made up of several squadrons. The desire was to come up with battle fleets of more than 12 ships.

My idea was to use the same command rating as per SFB / F&E, with a lot of the same restrictions. The difference being that the fleet's flagship would have command over squadron leaders, which in turn have control over their own ships.

Each connection between the fleet flag and squadron leaders takes a command-rating slot on both ends. In other words, a Heavy Cruiser with a CR of 8 can only lead a seven-ship squadron because the eighth slot is being used to talk with the fleet flagship.

There would be restrictions in that the ships of a squadron must stay within "X" distance of the leader and may not be closer to another leader than it is to its own leader. Failure to do so results in the Fire Control computer rebooting, thus preventing weapons fire for "X" amount of time.

There would be rules for how to replace a leader / flagship lost in combat and how to transfer ships from one squadron to another.

As the fleet's flagship must have escorts / consorts, one cannot build a mega-fleet with ten squadrons. Even so, with five or six squadrons, I can see mega-fleets with 35 or 40 ships total. And if that's not enough, perhaps there could be a second-tier of squadrons under the first, in a pyramid organization.
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Garth L. Getgen

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

[Paul B]

ADMIN: Paul B was banned from the SFU. On July 7, 2016, on the BBS, Jean Sexton posted:

Paul Brown, by order of the Board of Directors, you have earned a lifetime ban. This applies to the BBS and Forum.

Jean
WebMom

Paul B stated elsewhere that he was banned, so he was aware of the situation, thus this was a willful breaking of the ban.

His post is hereby deleted and any further posts by him will be as well.

[Scharwenka]

Not to derail the topic, but in a game ruleset based off my own writings, it makes significant use of admirals and officers with similar rules and restrictions to what you mentioned Sgt_G.
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