Federation Commander

Anyone know if the time line from Omega-4 was intentionally reprinted in Omega-5 or if it's a mistake?

There was no timeline in Omega-4.


The history of the Seventh Cycle - from Y205 to Y221 - was first published in the Omega Master Rulebook, and it is this Cycle which has been included in Omega 5.


Although, I really want to know when the Eighth Cycle will be printed!

You might email petrick (who never, ever, reads this BBS) about the eighth cycle timeline. Either he has a copy or nobody ever wrote one.

Noted.

I'll have to look into that.

I got Omega 5 today at my FLGS, and I like it!



*The cover art looks amazing in print - much more eye-grabbing than the DK cover (I also got Distant Kingdoms today, but compared to Omega 5, it's a somewhat distant second! Terrible pun, I know...) and great at ashowing off both the awesome Dominator and the valiant Maesron and Koligahr gunboats trying to bring it down!

*I like the 2610 map on the back cover - looks like the FRA has expanded somewhat, the Unihive must presumably be where that cluster of grey-coloured hexes attached to the Echarri Dynasty with the crossed swords on it, no-one seems to have occupied the now-abandoned Ryn nebula (thus far, at any rate) and the Paravians control a lot more space than I thought they did by that time!


*Interesting tidbits about just how far the Omega timeline might go - there is a reference to the Iridani using their Survey PFs in their home Cluster until at least 2650! With the time-dilatory effects of the wormholes popping up in the octant, one could explain why there is a discrpancy between this and the cut-off date of 2625 for Alpha.

(Heh - it would be fun to imagine that the 'data burst' in 1970 was really from records kept on Aurora by a date later than 2625, and that the aspects of the data files so far decoded just happen to have been the last known information picked up by the FRA! I know it's not gonna be the case, though...)


*There is a slight error on page 46 of the SSD book - the special sensors on the Loriyill Survey PF are off-set on the page.


*I'm somewhat surprised that the FRA didn't get more non-conjectural ships - there is no FRA CVA or real SCS (which, given the lack of PFs, could presumably be operated using a similar principle of matching regular with heavy fighters that is seen with the Federation Third Way - if not straight away, the Aurorans would at least have been able to see the examples offered by Star Fleet in the era after 2614, when the FRA had exchanged records with the Federation during the month-long wormhole link) or CLA/BC-based carrier (again, which could operate either a pure force of regular fighters, or a mixed force of standard an heavy fighters).

Plus, it would have seemed reasonable to have given at least one example of the kind of newer heavy fighters that the FRA could have flown in place of PFs...


...unless the intention is to include these kinds of ships and fighters in a future Omega module in any event.


*So, now that 5 is out, I wonder if the next module be Warships or First Great War?

Personally, I'd like to see Warships next (and, possibly, ask for a few of the oddball FRA ships to be added to it) - not least since it would then pave the way for a potential Omega X-module.

But then, your mileage may vary...

Got a reply back about the timeline for the Y221+ period.

From Petrick

Well, truth to tell, I would rather there not be any history in the next
product.

The problem is that from this juncture a history article is defining things
that would then have to be, and we do not even really have a grasp on what
we want to have happen from where we are now. So adding a "future history"
to (for example) a product about the "First Great War" (which happened
before Y100, much less Y220 or later) is a disconnect. The history would
have nothing to do with the product it is in.

I think we are more or less in a dilemma in that there was too much thrown
into Omega too quickly. Throwing more new races into it now would seem a
bad idea. There are 21 races there already that have ships and SSDs, and
about a half dozen or more mentioned that do not have a single published
SSD yet (and there are problems trying to track down the rules for some of
them that were part of their playtest packs).

I tend towards the idea of wanting to develop the existing races, more
bases and such, to make them more campaign compatable.

But defining the advance of the Echarri is going to be diffciult when their
is a lot more about them that needs to be done, and it would seem better to
do the "advanced technology module" for the Omega races first (since
supposedly they will have that tech to fight the Echarri) then to try to
force that into the Echarri product (robbing the Echarri of their own SSDs
and rules sections to force those rules in).

There is only so much that can be in any one product, and more needs to be
done with the existing races before the Echarri war can really be
envisioned.

So it looks like future Omega books will be used to fill in the races/time period we already have before anything more is added.

Makes sense to me.