Federation Commander

We are thinking about the rulebook thing.

The rulebook did include most of the rules that later went into W&P, but those would need to be updated.

Jim, the corrected version of Pack D is up and can be downloaded. Thanks for your patience!

Got it. Thanks.

Leanna went home early with an allergy attack yesterday, and didn't get E uploaded. She'll do that sometime today, and F for Friday.

Then I have to figure out what we're uploading next week, and the week after.

I suspect there will be a combination, over time, of two kinds of packs.

One kind of pack will be cards available in lamination, including bonus cards. The bonus cards in the boosters will be mixed into packs, one or two per pack. That's why they're called bonus cards.

The other will be "cards not available in laminated form" which means a mix of communique, captain's log, and other (entirely new) cards.

Given that all packs will be single-empire, one option is to just pick an empire (might as well start with feds) and randomly pick 12 existing laminated cards and then pick 12 non-laminated cards for the other one.

Looking at the MSC, I see the BCP, DDF, OCA, and DWD, so we'd need to pick eight entirely new Fed variants for that pack. Suggestions?

Is the CB an option for the Feds, or even necessary? What about the Commando Cruiser, or is that slated for Briefing 3? *Possibly* the Police Frigate? I think that the Federation is hard to get ships that aren't already in Federation Commander that aren't Borders of Madness at this point. At least from my limited "Not-much-SFB-experience." view.

Otherwise I have no other thoughts until later tonight.

If you're still intent on doing already laminated card packs, which I probably won't buy anyway (maybe the feds and General), I'd say:

DN
CC (Bonus ship #1)
CA
CL
DD
FF
POL
CF (Bonus ship #2)
NCA
NCL
DW
CB (Bonus new ship #3)

Again, I'd say that counters would be a good thing to include in these, especially for the new ship packs. It would also be nice to see a description for the new ship.

Now, for packs I would buy, in list of importance:
1. Frax
2. Omega
3. Early Years
4. Borders of Madness
5. Other New ships in general

I am not interested in buying any of the Middle Years packs. But I would buy other empires that I can match against the main ships in FC in scenarios or a campaign to keep it fresh. Omegas will be cool.

However, if the Omegas are released, I would love to see a PDF with an overview of the history of the Omega to make FC'ers who don't play/own SFB Omega products understand the background.

Feds have tons of ships. Hmm, let's see ...

First, I assume we can completely ignore the Tug and DD variants. Since these require royalties, they can't be used. So, let's just skip them. I am also skipping the non-GW era ships from Booster #91 and Briefing #2.

Basic ships: DNG, DNF, BCG, BCJ, BCF, CA, NCA, CS, NCL, CL, DW, FFB, FF, Pol. That's fourteen laminated ships that are in primary products.
Bonus ships: DNH, DNL, CC, CF, NCC, NCF, NCD. That's seven more laminated ships that are only in Boosters.
Double-sized ship: BB.

That is a total of 21 laminated Federation ships, plus the BB. Not quite enough for two PDF packs. Note that I have studiously avoided the Tug and DD variants, as they require royalties. If we can throw them in, then we get two full PDF packs with only laminated ships. Without them, we are just short.

Extra published ships: BCP, OCA, CLC, LTT, DWD. That is five more ships that already exist, but have never been laminated.
Available ships: CLH, FFD, FFL, NAL. That's another four ships that don't add any new classes (e.g. CB), support ships (e.g. troop), or BoM (e.g. GSC).

So, the Feds kinda suck on the breakdown. Either some ships will be shoe-horned in, or some will be left on the table. But they are easily good for two packs with only published ship cards. To do a third will require adding whole new ship classes (e.g. CB) to fill the rest of it.

Another series that can be done in preparation (or replacement) for Briefing #3: Support Ships. For each empire, do some variation of this:
Tug, LTT, FFT, CW-troop, DW-troop, old-troop, CW-scout, DW-scout, FF-scout, survey, BATS, MB.

Obviously, this would be varied slightly for each empire (e.g. the Feds don't get the Tug). But, this gives plenty of support ships for everyone, instead of just a "representative model". Plus, it can later be "strip-mined" to create Briefing #3, or just used directly for Federation Admiral. This is also an opportunity to give empire-specific bases to each empire.

As an example, the Klingons would get:
TGB, D5H, E4T, D5G, F5G, D6G, D5S, DWS, F5S, D6E, BATS, MB.

The one danger with this suggestion is the scouts and survey ships. These all include special sensors, which is definitely "BoM" material. But, we do have usable rules in Hydran Attack (+CRUL), and they are absolutely necessary for use in Federation Admiral. So, they might as well be included in the single package.

If we're going to include BoM, does that open up the possibility of carriers and escorts? At least initially a cruiser-hull CV and a DWA (and the relevant fighters) for each fleet?

I'd also like to see all fleets getting HDWs, with limited customisation rules.

And for my favouite fleet... the Apache & Commanche Medium Command Cruisers, the Cheyanne NCA, HMS Anarchist, the Lion Hunter (or whatever it hunts) DWL, the Picket and Outrider SRs, the Caravan and LTT, and the NSC, DWS and Hunter Scouts. That's the first twelve.

I would prefer if everyone tried to find ways to NOT include BoM in FC releases instead of finding ways to include them.

If it's unavoidable due to needing to fill out 12 ships in a given pack and not having any other options...fine. But if there is another way to group the offerings that keeps BoM and FC separate that would be better.

As written MJW's example means I get only an 8 ship pack for the same money as other 12 ship packs.

If there are usually 4 special sensor ships per empire I would suggest instead to combine 3 empires into a 12 ship BoM scout pack.

DirkSJ wrote:If there are usually 4 special sensor ships per empire I would suggest instead to combine 3 empires into a 12 ship BoM scout pack.

Really, I was only touching on scouts like that for three reasons:
1) Scouts are a very important component to campaigning (aka Federation Admiral). Even if the scout channels were to do nothing at a tactical level, they are still necessary for campaigns like that.
2) The other "support" ships are what can be generically termed "targets". If you don't have a campaign that requires such things, there really isn't a point to any of them. Why are you worrying about a toothless troop ship when pretty much any "blob of boxes" will suffice?
3) Usable scout rules are already in FC to a degree. This isn't adding anything to the mix.

Put another way, if you are using Federation Admiral, you need the scouts. If you aren't using Federation Admiral, then you don't need any of the ships. Seems like a fairly safe grouping to me.

Dan Ibekwe wrote:If we're going to include BoM, does that open up the possibility of carriers and escorts? At least initially a cruiser-hull CV and a DWA (and the relevant fighters) for each fleet?

Well, I am only making suggestions here. I am not a decision maker.

However, if carriers and escorts are going to be done using the PDF pack idea, then they fit in quite nicely as a pure BoM package.

So, you could have a mix like:
CVS, CWV, DWV, FFV, CE, CWE, DWE, FFE, fighters1, fighters2, FCS, plus one more.
Since this is BoM, let's throw in a CVA just for fun as the one "missing" ship. [I still think CVAs will break the FC game engine, but it's BoM and no one wants to believe me.]

For the Klingons, that would be:
C8V, D7V, D5V, FWV, F5V, D6E, D5E, FWE, F5E, Z-V, Z-D, F5?

I'd also like to see all fleets getting HDWs, with limited customisation rules.

While I think twelve HDW variants for each empire is a bit excessive, why not? Steve should be able to hammer those out like crazy. Some empires have multiple (e.g. Hydrans), so that could be one pack per ship.

mjwest wrote:Really, I was only touching on scouts like that for three reasons:
1) Scouts are a very important component to campaigning (aka Federation Admiral). Even if the scout channels were to do nothing at a tactical level, they are still necessary for campaigns like that.

I would think a FC campaign system would require only FC ships, not BoM ones. I don't really see any reason why it would need scouts.

There have been posts and posts and posts that say FC is FC and BoM is BoM. That they are separate entities. I keep seeing people blurring the lines.

2) The other "support" ships are what can be generically termed "targets". If you don't have a campaign that requires such things, there really isn't a point to any of them. Why are you worrying about a toothless troop ship when pretty much any "blob of boxes" will suffice?

Simple: Scenarios.

I played a scenario the other day that hinged around dropping troops on a planet. Taking a troop variant could be an interesting alternate strategy. Any ship that does not require BoM rules could be useful in an FC scenario.

3) Usable scout rules are already in FC to a degree. This isn't adding anything to the mix.

They were unwelcome but present, yes .

I use the scout rules from communique. they just work better.