Federation Commander

[Voidhawk]

I've been thinking of running a Federation & Empire game alongside a free-form political role-playing campaign, to provide context and situation. To this end, I'm considering dropping out certain elements of play (though I don't want to simplify game-play options too much, because I need a dynamic environment for politics to happen). However, things like Carriers (and likely Drone ships) seem like a relatively easy thing to do away with (besides, carriers and fighters really aren't very evocative of traditional Trek anyhow).

However, I don't want to destroy the entire balance in the quadrant by a careless sweeping away of all carriers. To that end, I'm hoping some experienced players might offer some advice, especially in regards to replacing carriers with other ships while maintaining at least some form of parity.

So, what to replace starting Carriers with? Any unfortunate side effects going to occur? Who's comparatively losing the most down the line by not getting them? Does CV-less play really even simplify things all that much? Drone ships seem very easy to do away with as well (as they enter play by conversion), but is there a clear loser by dropping them? Any other simple ideas outside of these to streamline play? If you have any ideas for these or any other thoughts on the subject, I'd love to hear them!

[Steve Cole]

People I know who tried it describe the results as interesting.

Remember to replace all carriers and escorts with the base hull warship.

It DOES affect play balance. The Kzintis get destroyed, the Feds get hurt. You can, to some extent, balance that by getting rid of maulers, but it's really a very dynamic thing. Because you change the units, you change the tactics, and the results can be dramatically different.

As for drone ships, again, the Kzintis get destroyed and the Feds get hurt (less than carriers). They seriously rely on that firepower.

Rebalancing the game would take years of playtesting. Your mileage is going to vary, a lot, in unpredictable ways.

That said, I'm the first guy to ever propose doing it to create a version of F&E with fewer rules. Get rid of all the special-rules ships (carriers, PFs, PFTs, fighters on planets or bases, commando ships, diplomats, prime teams, penal ships, survey ships) and limit scouts to enabling two-hex intercepts, but no EW in the battle zone. The results are unpredictable and unrealistic but there are a lot fewer rules.
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

[Voidhawk]

Thanks for the insights!

Doing away with Maulers is no problem, esp. if that helps out balance things. That, of course, no doubt has its own ripple effects around it, but is also a simplification.

What would be right hulls to replace the Federation's carriers: the CVA, CVS and CVLs? The escorts from the carrier groups I can just throw in as they are, or as near non-escort variants.

I'm thinking I could keep Carriers/Drones for the Kzinti, as an exception, to keep them more competitive. Don't think that would be much of a problem.

[mjwest]

Fed CVA is replaced by a DN.
Fed CVS is replaced by a CC or CA.
Fed CVL is replaced by a GSC. If this is too much, make it a CA.

Replace the escorts with their base hulls. (DE is DD, FFE is FF, NEC is NCL, CLE is CL, DWE is DW. For other, CWE is CW.)

If you keep carriers for Kzinti, I recommend eliminating Hydran carriers, but keeping the casual fighters. If you kill all fighters, consider giving the Hydrans the option to go all Hellbore all the time (ignoring any fighter factors).
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Federation Commander Answer Guy

[Nerroth]

Another option could be to set the campaign in the Middle Years, as portrayed in the Four Powers War scenario from Federation and Empire: Fighter Operations.

In that time period, only the Hydrans have carriers (although the Kzintis deploy their first ground-based fighters near the end of the war); most Alpha Octant empires have their "early" dreadnoughts, such as the Klingon C6 and Hydran Templar; and the various "wartime" hulls, such as war cruisers and war destroyers, do not (yet) exist.

Notably, there are numerous economic and logistical limitations which help define the Middle Years era; provinces produce less income, empires are "exhausted" at a slower rate, and so on.

The "Middle Years" ships are mostly represented in Federation Commander form in FC: Briefing #2; while there is a set of playtest F&E rules in Captain's Log #52 which define the era without being tied to a specific scenario, such as that for the Four Powers War.

I should note, however, that these rules do not cover the "pre-Smarba" Romulans, and nor do they cover the "pre-contact" ISC; however, one way to get around that could be to activate one of the "Paravian timelines" featured in Star Fleet Battles Module C6, and previewed for F&E in Captain's Log #48. (To put a long story short, two of the three alternate timelines detailed for the Paravians in Module C6 have them survive as an "on-map" power in the Alpha Octant; the alternate timeline "Mapsheet P" shows the territory which they claim from the Gorns and ISC, which in turn drives the latter to "pre-empt" Romulan eastward expansion by expanding towards the Galactic Rim.)
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FC Omega Discussion (v3)
FC LMC Discussion

[Steve Cole]

The Ship Information Table lists the base hull of each carrier/escort/variant.

Don't use the escort rules if you aren't using carriers, nothing would be gained using escorts as they are.
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander