Federation Commander

I wish shuttles had that Ph-3...

pinecone wrote:I wish shuttles had that Ph-3...

You can add the Gorn Balcony and Track shuttle system too...so then you can launch ALL your shuttles at once.

I voted for al the alpha races.

I like the simpler system as SFB got bogged down to 1 day of Bragging, 1 day of photocoping SSD's, 4 hours of first turn set up, and 2 hours to play the first turn. Most games lasted fewer than 5 turns. FC is a lot quicker to set up and play. I also do not miss the tax forms from SFB.

Fighters, adjustable drones, and ecm/eccm overcomplicate the game too much. I still like PF's though just get rid of the special ones or have a squadron counter for them. That way they have to stay together in one hex but you can still check off damage for each boat as it gets hit. Give them a PT flotilla feel.

I do miss my NSM for the Roms though. It fit right in with the first gen ships.

Just had a quick thought. For the PF Squadron have 6 boats for Squadron scale and only 3 for Fleet scale. You get the proper damage/firepower ratio without trying to make 6 half sized PF's.

I still like PF's though just get rid of the special ones or have a squadron counter for them. That way they have to stay together in one hex but you can still check off damage for each boat as it gets hit. Give them a PT flotilla feel.

Ken, don't forget that no more than three ships or fighters (or presumably PFs) can fire out of a hex (this is different from SFB).

This is very true.......Hmm...being as it is a single unit maybe it should count as one ship for stacking.

Ken Redington wrote:This is very true.......Hmm...being as it is a single unit maybe it should count as one ship for stacking.

Can't do that... Stingers have already been declared individual units for purposes of movement and firing.

If Stingers are individual units, Gunboats should also be individual units.

Not only that, but if a flotilla of 6 PFs were counted as a "unit", imagine the damage that a stack of 3 such "units" [18 Harriers, anyone... ] could cause by firing from the same hex.

I think FC should have explosions. Not exactly like explosions in SFB, but simpler.

Each ship class could have an explosion strength (police size, frigate size, destroyer, light cruiser, heavy cruiser, dreadnought, battleship). Shuttles and fighters would have no explosion strength (puff and they're gone).

The explosion would only affect other objects in the same hex.

The strength of the explosion would be applied to the affected ship's shield facing the ship that exploded.

How complicated is that?

This would help prevent "hex clustering" and make using minis more attractive for some.

(In modern warfare, commanders do not pack their forces into small areas when the threat of artillery bombardment is possible.)

The issue with explosions are not that they are complicated. Quite frankly, ship explosions in SFB are pretty simple. The issue with explosions is that you are turning the ship itself into a "weapon of last resort". That is not desired. It is not intended for the explosion of a ship to be a part of the overall strategy.

And the issue of stacking is dealt with by rule (4A3).

Mike wrote:Shuttles and fighters would have no explosion strength (puff and they're gone).

shuttles wouldn't have an explosion strength because nobody would ever attack them anyway .

Yeah, I know...I know.

I see the point. Stacking is not that big of a deal. And I remember how ships could be intentionally put in positions to explode in SFB to blow up all sorts of other things that were unintended.

Still, though...

Mike: You are correct, explosions would be a simple addition to the current rules...
but waaaay back during the initial development of Fed Comm, Steve made a conscious decision to omit explosions from FC. This was done for several reasons:
1) Simplicity
2) To prevent tactical abuses (I once saw the concentrated fire from a Lyran SB take out a Hydran Hunter and about 75 Stingers at the same time...)
3) To force you to make the most of your ship w/o intentionally blowing it up
4) To keep the rulebook as thin as possible...

With that in mind, I don't think you'll convince Steve to change his original thoughts.

What should be included in FC? Easy!

Whatever the players of FC are willing to buy in sufficient quantity that it's worth ADB's while to publish it!

I don't mind seeing new empires and technologies. Sure, adding things like Webs, or Cloaks, thickens the rulebook but most battles aren't going to include either and you can learn FC in bite-size pieces.

Gunboats: depends on how they're done. If I have to do energy allocation, even simplified FC allocation, for 3-6 gunboats, yuck. I'd rather take 3 frigates. Same firepower, more capability. Now if gunboats were simplified to be more similar to big fighters, say base speed 24, can decel at will, fire all weapons every turn no energy alloc, but have shields and simple damage allocation, then I could go for that.

Scoutdad:

I understand the decision not to include explosions and collateral damage in FC.

I guess there is some precedent for that. When the refitted Enterprise was destroyed in ST:III, the Klingon ship was unharmed and would've been "in the same hex." The same was true of the Romulan War Eagle in TOS's "Balance of Terror" and the Orion raider in "Journey to Babel."

I do remember, however, seeing a couple of ships vaporize when the Borg cube exploded in ST:First Contact.

So, with all those examples from TOS, I'm wondering why explosion damage was ever included in SFB in the first place?

Mike wrote:So, with all those examples from TOS, I'm wondering why explosion damage was ever included in SFB in the first place?

My guess is that it sounded like a good idea at the time.

Although in retrospect...