Federation Commander

[Spacecowboy87]

Our FC group has on occasion dabbled in ACTA:SF, and one aspect we like is the chess-like feel of the movement system (if you haven't played, basically each side alternates moving one ship at a time until all ships have moved). The past few sessions of FC, we've applied that movement system to some rather large fleet-scale battles. The movement process is repeated each impulse, and the combat resolution is handled normally. We are pleasantly stunned at how fast the game goes, and we don't think the game loses anything -- in fact we like the flavor.
Has anyone tried anything similar? We'd love to get your insights and perhaps share some of ours
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Damn, these dice are cold!

[Paul B]

Mmmm, I've played a lot of games with the IGO UGO system of movement. Though to me Federation commander is about the movement, so if you simplify that you really take away the part I find appealing. To me the movement and manoeuvring is the most interesting and combat probably comes second.

I also tend to excel against my friends I believe because I favour manoeuvring and this is a game that really rewards it.

But to each their own. I like the type of movement system you're describing but I only use it in other games.

[DNordeen]

We don't mix the rules, but we have a house rule about non-ships movement.

Ships move normally.
All others move all their movement at end of imp 4 after all ships have moved.

Movement is much faster, and it doesn't really take away from the initiative concept. Fighters, shuttles, and drones are smaller and go last anyway.
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Speed is life; Patience is victory

[Garydee]

[Spacecowboy87]

Paul B, I get what you're saying, and I agree. We are limited in our sessions because we have to play in the small window of time between when everyone gets off work, and when the game store closes. Fleet scale games have always been out of the question, so this system allows us to get in some epic battles, when we couldn't before.
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Damn, these dice are cold!

[Mike]

I wasn't going to post about this, but thought, "why not?"

Our groups here have always been under a time constraint. Even when we played SFB back in the 90's, we had to invent ways to make things go faster.

There are two parts of a game of either SFB or FC that "bog it down", so to speak, with a lot of players and a lot of ships: 1) movement and 2) combat resolution.

I can see where alternating ship movement each Impulse in Federation Commander would speed things up. It's interesting that idea came from ACTA:SF.

QUESTION: How do you decide the order of movement?

What we did was to have each object combine all its movement for an Impulse into one continuous move (like Spacecowboy87 does) and use the Order of Precedence (2A5) to determine the order in which ships moved.

For combat, I developed the Alpha Strike diceless damage resolution system which kept the flavor of luck for how much damage was done, but used preset distribution percentages to assign actual numbers of damage points. It is in the Captain's Log #41 Supplemental File available from starfleetgames.com. If damage totaled 10 points or less, we assigned it the usual way, but if it was more than 10 points we used the Alpha Strike system.

One other thing we tried to do with some limited success was to use cards we made for weapons fire. When a player announced what was being fired at which target(s), cards for those weapons would be laid down on the table. This still allowed for "me, too" firing, but there was no question about how many of this or that type of weapon was announced when fire results were rolled. The down side of this is the number of cards required.

Back before FC came out, we played SFB and did 2 things to speed things up: 1) developed a movement system similar to what FC later came to use and 2) computerized all the combat tables in BASIC programming language.

The fast SFB movement system was pretty simple.
1. Take the number of hexes to move during the Turn and divide by four (or by eight in some games).
2. Round the result to the nearest whole number. This becomes a ship's movement number per Mega-Impulse.
3. The Turn is made up of four (or eight in some games) Mega-Impulses. A ship must move its target number OR within two hexes of it (either less or more) each Mega-Impulse. If a ship does not move all the hexes it is supposed to move for the entire Turn, it receives from 10-20 random internal damage points at the end of the Turn.

So, if a ship is to move 18 hexes during a Turn with 4 Mega-Impulses, its target number would be 5 (4.5 rounded to 5). Each Mega-Impulse that ship could move anywhere from 3 hexes to 7 hexes, but by the end of the Turn it had better have moved a total of 18 hexes or it would get whammied. There is a certain amount of an honor system with this, so players who play with a win-at-all-costs attitude and who would cheat to get the upper hand would probably not be allowed to play with the group again.

The firing opportunities were at the end of each Mega-Impulse. We played it with 4 sometimes and with 8 sometimes. Mid-Turn activities, such as using tractor beams, took a little figuring out to fit into the scheme, but everything usually worked out just fine. We played with as much richness and depth from the SFB rules that we wanted to use and had great times.
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Mike

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Sandpaper gets the job done, but makes for a lot of friction.

[DNordeen]

With my house rule, I should have mentioned the drone HET.

Drones HET whenever they're target is out of the FA arc then moves.

This keeps ships from moving by a drone during movement. The drone HETs first then moves to the target
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Speed is life; Patience is victory

[Mike]

So, do you allow drones to HET even though they may not impact their target that Impulse?
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Mike

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Sandpaper gets the job done, but makes for a lot of friction.

[Spacecowboy87]

Oh yeah, we'd also be lost without the Alpha Strike damage system
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Damn, these dice are cold!

[DNordeen]

[Mike]

(4F3e) basically allows for that anyway.

What I'm wondering about is if the ship ends up more than 1 hex away from a drone.

For example, suppose an Impulse begins with a ship and a drone facing one another off each other's #1. If the ship was moving 24 and accelerates, it will move 4 hexes. It could sideslip, move forward, sideslip behind the drone, and move another hex, putting it 1 hex away from the drone and off the drone's #4 aspect. This would mean the drone could not HET to impact the ship.

However, if drones were allowed to HET only if they could impact their target during their movement in that Impulse, then this maneuvering trick would be nulled out.
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Mike

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Sandpaper gets the job done, but makes for a lot of friction.

[mjwest]

I think you are missing DNordeen's point. He made a minor modification to the seeking weapon movement rules because of another change he made. That other change is that seeking weapons don't move until the end of sub-pulse 4. So, he *has* to have the modified HET rule to make that other change work.

So, if a ship moves around a drone (because it isn't allowed to move until the end of sub-pulse 4) and ends up one or two hexes away, the drone is allowed to HET immediately, then move to hit the target. The reason this is needed is because if normal RAW movement was performed, where the drone move in each eligible sub-pulse, the target would have been hit. The only reason it might avoid the hit is because of making the drone wait. This change to the HET movement makes sure a drone that would have hit with RAW still hits with his rule modification. (The result is *slightly* different, as a different shield could be hit, but it make sure a target that should be hit is hit.)

Basically, it means that if a target is three hexes or less from the drone, it is gonna get impacted. If it can get to four hexes, it won't and the drone can't HET. This is good, as it more accurate replicates what would happen if the drone moved each eligible sub-pulse instead of waiting for the end of the impulse.
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Federation Commander Answer Guy

[Mike]

OK. I see it now.
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Mike

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Sandpaper gets the job done, but makes for a lot of friction.

[Sgt_G]

I know this probably goes against the grain, but has anyone trying playing FedCmdr but using the SFB damage system??
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Garth L. Getgen

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

[Sebastian380]

That's never occurred to me and I love mashing rules together. I'll look into it with my group. And with a little android program that my friend put together it would be quick too!
That means the Mizia effect comes into play.