Federation Commander

hey mazza,

You can be on my team, mate!

You can count me in. I just registered for online play.

Great!

(warning long post alert... sorry!)

So I would like to leave registration open for a while yet, but during that time I would like to start the talk about any rules updates before we get started with the business of picking empires.

I am assuming that everyone who has signed up wishes to run their own empire with the exception of the team of Mazza and guzzoid. Is this correct? Well, if we get more players then we can split into two groups ala Sweeper's post, or double up into teams as everyone thinks best, but for now I would encourage anyone else who wishes to play not to be shy and to sign right up. I wouldn't mind a partner myself considering I still have more Grad school to finish (fun fun fun )

So in the mean time - rules updates. I have posted a link to the current rules set here:

http://home.comcast.net/~hillpe/fc/fc_campaign.pdf

Currently I am mulling over two rules updates. The first is the current movement of the Dreadnought which is 3. I believe that Kerry had set the speed to this because he felt that should be the speed of a ship that large, and also to balance out ship sizes to encourage smaller ships. The only thing is that as far as I understand things that doesn't really match the fluff. I believe that the Dreadnoughts are supposed to be among the fastest ships in the fleet. Also I guess I don't really mind big ships so much, and economic pressures of fighting 4 opponents will encourage getting the ships out of space dock as quick as possible which will mean small ships. I was thinking a speed of 4. Thoughts?

The second issue that I have been mulling over in my mind is that of ZOC. F&E has a system of reactive movement which is really cool for a F2F game, but I just don't think we can use it in this distributed game. It would really slow down the movement phase. However I don't like the idea of ships cherry picking in enemy territory and refusing to fight. Now as I understand the fluff I believe that the reason you can't move at high warp past an enemy fleet and just ignore them is that if you tried and move faster then warp 3.2 or speed 32 (speed 31 in SFB) is that if you did, the warp effects would be such that even one phaser from an enemy would overwhelm the ships defenses and blow it up in one small hit. Thus you have to slow down when an enemy fleet is near by. This calls ZOC rules from other games to my mind. Something like you can move into a ZOC hex of an enemy non crippled ship, but not from one to the other unless you only move one hex all turn. Thoughts?

Last point, is everyone happy with the current races available, or does someone want to invest the time to get the Selts or the Tholains playable in the client. If they do then naturally they would get first pick of races.

Any other rules issues anyone would like to bring up?

Is it too late to sign up?

While I'm in Sydney (GMT +10), I do have weird working hours which will probably make it practical for me to play.

terryoc wrote:Is it too late to sign up?

While I'm in Sydney (GMT +10), I do have weird working hours which will probably make it practical for me to play.

No, but it is filling up pretty quick

Heh... At this rate, we may have to split up the group.

Another Aussie!

I am happy with the basic races. What empire shall we play guzzoid?

Dread_Lord wrote:Great!

(warning long post alert... sorry!)

So I would like to leave registration open for a while yet, but during that time I would like to start the talk about any rules updates before we get started with the business of picking empires.

I am assuming that everyone who has signed up wishes to run their own empire with the exception of the team of Mazza and guzzoid. Is this correct? Well, if we get more players then we can split into two groups ala Sweeper's post, or double up into teams as everyone thinks best, but for now I would encourage anyone else who wishes to play not to be shy and to sign right up. I wouldn't mind a partner myself considering I still have more Grad school to finish (fun fun fun )

So in the mean time - rules updates. I have posted a link to the current rules set here:

http://home.comcast.net/~hillpe/fc/fc_campaign.pdf

Currently I am mulling over two rules updates. The first is the current movement of the Dreadnought which is 3. I believe that Kerry had set the speed to this because he felt that should be the speed of a ship that large, and also to balance out ship sizes to encourage smaller ships. The only thing is that as far as I understand things that doesn't really match the fluff. I believe that the Dreadnoughts are supposed to be among the fastest ships in the fleet. Also I guess I don't really mind big ships so much, and economic pressures of fighting 4 opponents will encourage getting the ships out of space dock as quick as possible which will mean small ships. I was thinking a speed of 4. Thoughts?

The second issue that I have been mulling over in my mind is that of ZOC. F&E has a system of reactive movement which is really cool for a F2F game, but I just don't think we can use it in this distributed game. It would really slow down the movement phase. However I don't like the idea of ships cherry picking in enemy territory and refusing to fight. Now as I understand the fluff I believe that the reason you can't move at high warp past an enemy fleet and just ignore them is that if you tried and move faster then warp 3.2 or speed 32 (speed 31 in SFB) is that if you did, the warp effects would be such that even one phaser from an enemy would overwhelm the ships defenses and blow it up in one small hit. Thus you have to slow down when an enemy fleet is near by. This calls ZOC rules from other games to my mind. Something like you can move into a ZOC hex of an enemy non crippled ship, but not from one to the other unless you only move one hex all turn. Thoughts?

Last point, is everyone happy with the current races available, or does someone want to invest the time to get the Selts or the Tholains playable in the client. If they do then naturally they would get first pick of races.

Any other rules issues anyone would like to bring up?

You know Pat, I can't remember how Kerry explained Why DNs have a strateigic move of 3 either, but I do believe you're right on it encouraging smaller ships to be built.

As for pinning ships via retro-move, I'm not sure how that'd work with the way the client is setup. We may need to ask one of the SFB Campaign players how they run it and rip, er, borrow and build on how they work it.

The problem with working on the Selts and Tholians is that their heavy weapons and systems, (Particle Cannon, Web-Breaker, and Web Caster/Generator to be specific), haven't been implemented into the client. Now the Selt weapons an be faked rather easily if all parties have the rules. The Webs, on the other hand, will bog down the game rather badly w/o client support. Now preexisting webs might be workable, if both players know the rules. I think there might be some overlays in the client for such an occasion.

Oh, as for new rules, I'd like to propose the implementation the new rule from FC Briefing #1, Rule 2E3: Retirement. This is the FC version SFB's Disengagement rules. Basically, if your ship is considered 'crippled',(or some other condition is met), you can announce that that ship is retiring from combat. It must move at max baseline speed until it moves off the map or is far enough away to actually disengage. The rules are rather vague on what is considered disengagement range as they assume that it would be in the individual scenario special rules section.

For our purposes, I'd recommend adapting some of SFB's rules on the matter. In this case, any ship that moves away under retirement conditions for a full turn, (8 impulses, in other words), is considered to have left the combat area and can't return for the duration of the battle.

Rule 5X: Degraded Crew,(also from Briefing #1), I could take or leave. Unless we borrow some of Phil's ideas on ship experience, 5X wouldn't really add much to the game. OTOH, we could allow it under certain conditions, (such as discounting the cost of a new ship), and could remain in effect for X number of turns or battles that the ship participates in. This one would have to be looked at closely.

Dreadnoughts get really bad gas mileage and have to stop a lot to fill up....

This is going to be cool.

I don't have Briefing #1, but IIRC there is a rule in the basic rules stating that if a ship is 35 or more hexes from any enemy ship at the end of a turn, it can simply declare that it is disengaging and it is removed from the map...

The 35-hex rule comes from the fact that drones can't track more than 35 hexes from the controlling ship. So basically if you're completely out of weapons range you can just say, "I'm going, see ya" and that's it.

Ok let's see in order:

terryoc there is certainly still room. If you are concerned about scheduling I would give the same recommendation to you that I gave Mazza, and that is to join up with someone in the States. If you would like I still need a partner and you can join up with me, but it is up to you.

Sweeper, yeah, the ZOC rules I suggested above are admittedly not perfect. Let's brain storm about this a bit. I'll think about it and come back later in the week with a proposal.

Yeah I agree about the Tholians probably being an issue, but I would say that if someone wants to play the Selts badly enough it is cool with me (although it would be a bunch of work getting all the ships in the client)

I always thought the SFB disengagement rules made the most sense honestly, so I think that is a good idea.

As for Degraded Crew, I would be as happy to leave those kind of details out but either way from my point of view. I am cool with adding some rules from Borders of Madness if everyone else is (although I would recommend not adding a single rule without unanimous agreement). Still such a think could be delicate so it might make as much sense to leave it alone..... are there any that we might need/want?

SylvrDragon I am cool with adding any ships to the client with the obvious caveat that it be legal to add them as specified by the FCOL rules.

Anymore rules we need to consider? Right now the list is:
Speed of DNs (4 or 3)
ZOC (some variant anyway)
Selts/Tholains (possibly a non-issue though)
disengagement SFB style
Degraded Crew
Adding Ships (ex. D5D) to the client

I will put them up to a vote in a bit. Oh could I get everyone's email address? Mine is hillpe AT comcast DOT net

Feel free to just email me, you don't need to post it here. I will email everyone to distribute them.

How about we start picking races starting this coming Friday?

Drones can't track more than 25 hexes from the firing ship.

SylvrDragon wrote:How is everyone's feelings on user defines ssd's? Is it acceptable for me to make one for say the D5D, since it's not in the base library?

And, on that note, does anyone have some premade? I'm trying to convert some ships, but I am having fits doing so.

If you can figure out how to scan and scale the ship cards correctly where they don't look like complete crap, please let me know.

Sweeper wrote:

SylvrDragon wrote:How is everyone's feelings on user defines ssd's? Is it acceptable for me to make one for say the D5D, since it's not in the base library?

And, on that note, does anyone have some premade? I'm trying to convert some ships, but I am having fits doing so.

If you can figure out how to scan and scale the ship cards correctly where they don't look like complete crap, please let me know.

Still having fits. The program keeps putting huge blue boxes that cover the entire SSD...not good.