Federation Commander

Forget the mission objective of the scenario you're playing

I have (and so have our opponents) forgotten the mission specific goals of several Federation Commander scenarios and have just concentrated on killing the enemy ships... sometimes to the detrement of my mission goal.

Partner yourself with an overly talkative ally

While playing a Tholian vs Romulan battle this past weekend, my ally (flying a Neo-Tholian Heavy Cruiser) remarked (outloud); "Hey if the Romulan continues to move his plasma torpedoes straight instead of slipping them to the left next impulse - you can pay to decelerate forthe following two movements and all four torpedoes will have to travel through 4 asteroid hexes rather than the one they would encounter by slipping left!"

Anyone want to guess how the Romulan player chose to move the plasma torpedoes on the next movement sub-pulse???

I'm, guessing the Tholian Commander dealt harshly with this unacceptable Intelligence Failure!

Actually, the joint Alliance was being commandered by the Captain of the Gorn HDD (under the nominal rank of Commodore - by virtue of his size advantage [and the fact that he owned the game ], but he did get his revenge - after a fashion.

Once the HDD was crippled and began to exit the board, the Romulans grabbed the NCA in a tractor beam and began pushing it through the asteroid field at speed 16 + 1.

It was like a bad scene from a teen-age comedy movie...

move, BAM! (15 points damage) - Oh, sorry 'bout that...

move, BAM! (20 points damage) - Oh, sorry 'bout that...

move, BAM! (15 points damage) - Oh, sorry 'bout that...

move, BAM! (30 points damage) - Oh, sorry 'bout that...

move, BAM! (20 points damage) - Oh, sorry 'bout that...

move, BAM! (20 points damage) - Oh, sorry 'bout that...

move, BAM! (30 points damage) - Oh, sorry 'bout that...

move, BAM! (15 points damage) - Ka-Boom!!! Oh, sorry 'bout that...

Ahhh, the old drag them through an asteroid field until they explode trick... not the best way to kill an enemy, but the most fun!

Actually, according to Plasmaboy (my son) it's the most fun he's had killing a ship since we started playing Federation Commander 2 or more years ago...



Although, to make the fun last, after he took out the front shield and did a few internals... he turned and started pushing the NCA through the asteroids backwards so he got to take out a whole new shield...

I am glad to see you are raising your son to always treasure the small things in life.

Ah yes, the raising of families. I have been playing SFB since 80 and it's now '06, so that's... ummm, [let me take off my shoes, this is the south you know and cyphering can be difficult] that's fingers and toes until the year 2000... then you write down a 0 and carry the 2... add one hand plus 1 finger and put down a six [ that's like an upside down nine, right?]... add those together and you get... a really long time.

My oldest is 24, so all the kids have grown up just waiting until they were old enough to play with daddy's toys, so they learned to appreciate things in the right order:
God First
Family Second
SFU Third
then education / career...

Although I can't see where I failed the youngest son (Plasmaboy). He doesn't like the true finesse weapon (Drones - especially early, slow drones) but prefers the hard-hitting Plasmas... Type-R's, Type-S's, Type-R's, Type-G's, Type-R's, and even Type-f's... did I mention the type-R?

Rely On Burn Through At Fleet Scale

Shield burn-through is a lot more effective at Fleet Scale than Squadron Scale. At Fleet scale, it usually takes 2 turns for a cruiser to fix a damaged warp box or weapon. At squadron scale, especially in a cruiser duel, burn through is more of a nuisance than a threat because the damage will simply be repaired at the end of the turn. If you play a lot of Fleet scale, you can develop the habit of relying on burn-through which is a problem if you switch to Squadron scale. Blasting through the shield and damaging his ship with a big volley works fine at either scale, and won't trip you up if you change scales.

Play Squadron scale ship with Fleet Basic Point Values or play fleet scale ship with Squadron BPV'S.(Easier to do on Federation commander Online:-)

terryoc wrote:Ahhh, the old drag them through an asteroid field until they explode trick... not the best way to kill an enemy, but the most fun!

It sounds as much fun as tractoring someone to hold them still so that conga line of 6 suicide shuttles can finally do something....

Forgetting to reload drone racks

It sucks to be on turn four, firing a wave of drones from your undamaged ship, and realize that your racks are now empty. If you fire drones at all in a turn and don't have high priority repairs to do, reload a drone rack.

Dropping a shield only to realize that you have no power to use transporters

Someone did this in a recent game. The ship he was pursuing then used transporters to do two successful hit and run raids on him!

Rely on the dice to save you

Turning a down shield towards an opponent at long range just before you say "they'll never hit anything at that range." Three successful disruptor hits later......

Sneaky Scot wrote:Rely on the dice to save you

Turning a down shield towards an opponent at long range just before you say "they'll never hit anything at that range." Three successful disruptor hits later......

Ow...

Big mistake. Always assume that at least one "lucky hit" will get through. 1 in 6 (everything except Hellbores, which use 2d6 instead) is actually big enough that gambling that it "won't happen" is somewhat risky.

That actually reminds me of a time I was discussing dice probabilities with a math teacher (spurred on by rolling four sixes while firing a full salvo of overloaded photon torpedoes), and one of the other students pointed out that a "Yahtzee!" (term from that game, if you're not already familiar with it) is even harder to get. And yet, I rolled one of those in the single game I played.