Federation Commander

I'd just like to have a CX in FC even without any special rules.

mjwest wrote a 2 part article in caplogs 37 & 38 that will allow you to convert pretty much any SFB ship to FC. i have to date used them to convert 2 peladine and 1 paravian ship. give them a read they will prove very useful.

jeffery smith wrote:mjwest wrote a 2 part article in caplogs 37 & 38 that will allow you to convert pretty much any SFB ship to FC. i have to date used them to convert 2 peladine and 1 paravian ship. give them a read they will prove very useful.

I don't suppose there is any chance these rules could end up posted here somewhere or in a future issue of Communique?

SVC mentioned sometime he would have to sit down and write them but I would not get to excited about X Ships untill after he has pushed out the ISC and Andros. Even then who knows if he will do X Ships or Ancient Eneimes first. Either way I really doubt it will be this year or even nexts. There is too much other info and races to do first.

I think that X-Ships should be placed in Borders of Madness.

My reasoning is that what FC does not need is a set of 'exceptions' rules like there are in the SFB X-Ships module X1. This is because in such an environment, you spend half the game looking up the exceptions; all the rules are in separate places.

This would slow the game down, and make it non-FC in terms of ease of use.

Kang wrote:I think that X-Ships should be placed in Borders of Madness.

My reasoning is that what FC does not need is a set of 'exceptions' rules like there are in the SFB X-Ships module X1. This is because in such an environment, you spend half the game looking up the exceptions; all the rules are in separate places.

This would slow the game down, and make it non-FC in terms of ease of use.

I 100% agree with Kang, I do not want to see X ships as a part of the main stream FC game, might as well play SFB, once you load the variances those ships would present to the game engine.

that would most likely be up to SVC (as i said these were published in caplogs 37 & 38 under the title "project Z parts 1 & 2")

Kang wrote:I think that X-Ships should be placed in Borders of Madness.

My reasoning is that what FC does not need is a set of 'exceptions' rules like there are in the SFB X-Ships module X1. This is because in such an environment, you spend half the game looking up the exceptions; all the rules are in separate places.

This would slow the game down, and make it non-FC in terms of ease of use.

Hmmm... I'm not sure I totally agree with this. X-ships in SFB are not exactly "special rules" really. They are like comparing Early Years ships to Middle era ships and rules, basically an evolution of ship design, not a special feature that is purely "boarders of madness". I do agree that the X tech rules definitly need to be streamline though.

Magnum357 wrote:I do agree that the X tech rules definitly need to be streamline though.

Actually that's my main beef. If they're easy to use, and I do mean easy, then X-ships are no problem. It's the rules integration that was not up to FC standards.

The same principle holds, imo, for any other ships that are non-standard in terms of operations, like Early and Middle Years ships.

I think Middle Years ships will be perfectly standard for FC. There should be only a change in the drone speed. All the other system rules were already in place in SFB when it was introduced and are the same as the standard FC rules.

Mike wrote:I think Middle Years ships will be perfectly standard for FC. There should be only a change in the drone speed. All the other system rules were already in place in SFB when it was introduced and are the same as the standard FC rules.

This is true. All of the rules necessary for the Middle Years is already in the game. Including the rule for the drone speeds.

The real addition is how to deal with any ADD racks, which become type-E racks in the Middle Years. (And type-E racks don't exist in FC yet.) But even with this, the rules don't change, per se, it is just a "new" weapons system.

mjwest wrote:This is true. All of the rules necessary for the Middle Years is already in the game. Including the rule for the drone speeds.

The real addition is how to deal with any ADD racks, which become type-E racks in the Middle Years. (And type-E racks don't exist in FC yet.) But even with this, the rules don't change, per se, it is just a "new" weapons system.

I don't understand the opposition to Middle years ships, as they don't require new rules, just ship cards, and those can be modified by the already published conversion rules.

As for the drone racks, when did ADDs become E-racks for Middle Years? Admittedly, I don't have all SFB material, but my pre-refit Klingon ships have F-racks, upgraded to A and B racks with the B-refits. Or maybe I don't understand what is referred to as Middle Years.

A bit off-topic, but ...

Anyway, in SFB, the Middle Years are Y120-Y160. (Or so. Some would argue the latter date should be Y150 or Y155. Regardless, you get the idea.) In the SFB forums, the big push around Middle Years is to create ships early in the period, so you get weird, interesting ships like the Kzinti CLC or the Klingon D6C, and odd ships like that. The idea is to get ships that aren't in the main game, but are still interesting.

For FC, the Middle Years is slightly different. The Middle Years Briefing, in SFB terms, will be focused more on, say, Y150 (with some fudging to keep all of the DNEs, and get warp powered Romulans). The idea here is to get the ships that we already know, but in their original, "unrefitted" states. That way you get familiar ships that aren't as capable and operate a little differently.

The other thing about the FC Middle Years is that you can think of them as "The TV Years".

We always used all the refits in SFB, so 'unrefitted' doesn't really hold much appeal to me.

But I'd play with somebody else's though

To each their own...

I prefer the "unrefitted" ships of what is being termed as the "Middle Years" for several reasons, one of which is because no one ever tries to change them. Once the refits started coming in, the slide to the GW was inevitable.

Here is something somewhat related that I'd like to know: When did Steve Cole actually decide on the direction that the history of the SFU would take?