Telling the ships apart.

Inari7 · Post by **Inari7** » Thu May 21, 2009 2:38 pm

Kind of a noob questions for Fed Com.

I have Klingon border and have a bunch of ships like the Fed, DN, CA BC, ect..
I am thinking of getting some of the expansions they also have a Fed how would tell the difference between the CAâ€™s?
This game system does not seem to use class names.

Why not?

Thanks in advance.

Bolo_MK_XL · Post by **Bolo_MK_XL** » Thu May 21, 2009 3:03 pm

Due to the ease of play FC was designed for, they used ships at a point when all upgrades had been completed --- Ships of a certain size CA, CL, DN are mostly consolidated into one class of ship, with exceptions (more for Feds than other empires) ---

I assume with class your talking Constitution for CAs and so forth ----
For the Feds you have CA, CC and CAD which designates the different versions, for Battlecruisers BCH, BCJ, Dreadnoughts there is the DN, DNH, DNJ etc --

As for when your playing multiple ships of the same type, you just give them a name you like, write it on top of the card, or the number of the counter --
If your into minis, Fed ships would have identifying numbers on the saucer (of which I'm sure your aware) once painting is complete ---

Scoutdad · Post by **Scoutdad** » Thu May 21, 2009 3:13 pm

The counters in FC:KB have numbers in the bottom corner... 1, 2, 3, etc.
When you pick up the boosters that have additional heavy cruiser ship cards, you simply write the counter number on the corresponding ship card.

That way, when those low-down, dirty-rotten, methane-breathing, trashcan-looking Hydrans fire at the nearest Federation CA (counter #2, in this case) you can accurately determine and mark the appropriate damage (just before you return the kindness they showedyou and turn them intoa slowly dispersing cloud of scintillating gases and metallic debris)

Edit: Whoops - must have been typing when Mark was posting.

Bolo_MK_XL · Post by **Bolo_MK_XL** » Thu May 21, 2009 4:01 pm

Edit: Whoops - must have been typing when Mark was posting.

A person can never have too much information --

Your much more eloquent than I am

djdood · Post by **djdood** » Thu May 21, 2009 5:19 pm

Inari7 wrote: I am thinking of getting some of the expansions they also have a Fed how would tell the difference between the CAâ€™s?
This game system does not seem to use class names.

Just to cover all the bases (I'm not sure any of us is answering the question you were really asking, but we're all giving it a good try) -
Like scoutdad said, the Boosters come with extra copies of ship cards from the associated "Border" or "Attack" product, so if you want additional Fed CA's (for example), then Booster #1 gives you an extra one (along with a Command Cruiser variant and a bunch of smaller ships). Each card does indeed have a blank line at the top to fill in the name of your choice (and a list of official names is provided HERE for ideas).

Class-names mean a lot less in the SFU than in other venues. Due to refits, etc. a Early or Middle-years Constitution-class Heavy Cruiser is a shadow of the ship a General-War-era Command Cruiser is (which would also nominally be a Constitution-class ship, although it's the type of variant that naval historians love to argue about class-naming on).

In every cases though, the cards uniquely identify a type of ship. All the cards in Briefing #2 say "The Middle Years" on them, naming them distinctly from the GW-era cousins in the other game products.

The "Attack" expansions are a different animal. They add a set of different ships to the game than the original "Border" box-sets. The earlier Attack expansions added more ships for the empires in the box-sets, later Attack expansions added completely new empires and their ships (Lyrans, Hydrans, Tholians, etc.)

I hope this helps.

dave · Post by **dave** » Thu May 21, 2009 5:40 pm

There are two ways of telling ships appart.

To distinguish between individual ships of the same (or similar) class, the counters are numbered (and miniatures need to be numbered or painted differently).

To distinguish between different ship Classes or Types each ship's type is marked on the counter and each type has a corresponding ship card.

In most cases each class or type has it'sown miniature as well. Somesuch as the Klingon D6, D7 and D7C use the same mini as the differences are not readilly appearent enough at scale to be worth distinct minis.

It is handy to wite the ship Name or counter ID on the ship card if playing with more than one of a given type.

FC has many fewer varrients with in a given hull type, so thi sis less of an issue than in SFB

Inari7 · Post by **Inari7** » Fri May 22, 2009 1:59 pm

Thanks everybody!

I was refering to the ship cards not the counters.

It just seemed to me that there were alot of diffrent CA's and it might be difficult to tell them apart.

............Doug

Scoutdad · Post by **Scoutdad** » Fri May 22, 2009 2:36 pm

Inari7 orignally wrote: I have Klingon border and have a bunch of ships like the Fed, DN, CA BC, ect..
I am thinking of getting some of the expansions they also have a Fed how would tell the difference between the CAâ€™s?
This game system does not seem to use class names.

Why not?

and then wrote:I was refering to the ship cards not the counters.

It just seemed to me that there were alot of diffrent CA's and it might be difficult to tell them apart.

I think I understand the question now:
Let's start with CAs...
Klingon Border is the only product that contains CAs. No other expansion has a CA ship card.
Other products have Federation Strike Cruisers (CS), Fast Cruisers (CF), New Heavy Cruisers (NCA), etc.... but there is only one type of CA in the game - so no issue telling them apart.
[OK - Briefing #2 does have a Middle Years CA... but it's labeled Middle Years, it's in B&W, and it's not a laminated ship card. Even my mother-in-law wouldn't confuse that one with the one from FC:KB!]
BCs are another story. The BC included in FC:KB is the drone armed BC, FC:KA has the Photon Armed BC, and FC:RB has a ship card for the Plasma-F armed BC. In these instances, the class names are printed on the ship card... i.e., Kirov Class in FC:KB, the New Jersey class in FC:KA, and the Bismark class in FC:RB.
DN's are done the same way.

I hope this clears up the issue a bit and answers the question you were originally asking.

Kang · Post by **Kang** » Fri May 22, 2009 7:12 pm

While on the subject of Fed BCs, can anyone remember where the BCP is? That's the phaser-boat version, where the drones/plas-F's/photons are replaced by phaser-1's.

I was sure it was in a Communique, but can't find it, and I've checked the Master Ship Charts and it's not there either as far as I can see.

Dal Downing · Post by **Dal Downing** » Fri May 22, 2009 7:41 pm

Kang wrote:While on the subject of Fed BCs, can anyone remember where the BCP is? That's the phaser-boat version, where the drones/plas-F's/photons are replaced by phaser-1's.

I was sure it was in a Communique, but can't find it, and I've checked the Master Ship Charts and it's not there either as far as I can see.

Last Captian's Log # 38, Kang.

pinecone · Post by **pinecone** » Fri May 22, 2009 9:14 pm

BC's of most races are equal to the CA's. Plus, the Firehawk CA was in a sety other than klingon border.

Scoutdad · Post by **Scoutdad** » Sat May 23, 2009 12:13 am

pinecone wrote:BC's of most races are equal to the CA's. Plus, the Firehawk CA was in a sety other than klingon border.

Huh???

Kang · Post by **Kang** » Sat May 23, 2009 7:52 am

Dal Downing wrote:Last Captian's Log # 38, Kang.

Thanks Dal

So close to my own eyes I couldn't see it. Duh.

Federation Commander

Telling the ships apart.

Telling the ships apart.

Re: Telling the ships apart.

Re: Telling the ships apart.