Federation Commander

Howdy. Space Cadet checking in.

I'm trying to teach myself SFB using the "Captain's Edition Basic Set". I've played (solitaire) the Cadet's Game Duel Scenario a couple of times to familiarize myself with the bare essentials of the rules (I had played the game a few times as a kid but never really knew the rules). That has gone smoothly.

So, in lieu of finding an SFB rabbi in my area... maybe just keep playing solos? I was thinking that maybe the monsters would be something to try next... that way I can learn rules for various subsystems (tractor beams, labs, probes, etc.) as they come up.

My main problem in games is that I always seem to suffer from "rules amnesia"... it's just hard to keep them all in my head all the time. There's a lot of stuff crammed up there already! But I was thinking that maybe if I create a habitus, so to speak, that would help. Also, the SFB rulebook does tend to make my eyes glaze over. I'm not proud of that, but there it is.

Also... I see that the big deal nowadays is Federation Commander. Is standard SFB being phased out?

I would have posted on the SFB BBS-thingamajig... but that thing looks more confusing than Carolingian paleography! I know not to mess with raw computer science mojo. I saw "Wargames".

SFB isn't going anywhere. The new X1R module was released at Origins just two weeks ago.

FedCom is indeed the "hot new thing", but SFB (and F&E, PD, etc.) are still getting new products and attention.

The other board isn't *that* scary (just click the 'Last Day' option to have it filter things to just topics with posts in them today - that cuts the clutter considerably). You'll find not very many people here on this board talking SFB; the vast majority of that crowd is over on the "legacy" board.

As a full-time FedCom player who has a small amount of SFB play experience and lots of SFB-reading experience (I own pretty much everything), I will say that FedCom is much, much easier to pick-up. Once you are comfortable with FedCom, you're in good shape for SFB, as the underlying mechanics are similar (FedCom is vastly streamlined SFB, with big changes to energy management, more modern graphics, etc.). The ships are essentially the same in all ADB games, so if you learn to successfully fly and fight a ship in FedCom, you would be able to transfer most of what you learned to SFB.

And, if you want to check out Federation Commander with no strings attached, please get the First Missions PDF. It gives you enough rules for a Fed/Klingon duel so that you can decide whether you like the flow of the game or not.

For Star Fleet Battles, just go to the main SFB Intro Page and download the Cadet Game. (Its links are in the middle of the page.) The Cadet Game is intended to be the introduction into SFB.

I want to echo 'dood: The legacy site is not really that scary. The forum is pretty easy to browse, and the pane on the left gives a lot of shortcuts to take advantage of.

Also check out the game play PDF, which walks you through a quick game..well, part of one anyway..

I'd suggest two things:

1. SFB Online. You can play for free (limited to certain ships - I forget which) or watch games being played.

2. Tournament. The rules are far more than FC, but far more limited than non-tournament SFB. The environment is also better balanced.

I'm an SFB "old-timer" looking to play. My problem is I fly a Fed, fire narrow salvoes at a range of 5 and roll sixes. Tells you what my beatability rating is. Anybody who knows anything about Feds can tell you what happens next.

There are no narrow salvoes in Fed Com. So you're already off to a better start in FC.

I hadn't tried Fed Com yet. As I said I'm an SFB old timer. It sounds interesting but I never let a big old rule book scare away a prospective player. I have almost everything SFB give or take a couple of the newer modules. I want to try to get SFB going again in my area but time has been beating me up.

I am no SFB master but a couple of my friends and I wanted to learn how to play. We played with all the rules in the cadet module until we were comfortable then each gaming session we would add one more rule to the mix from the captains module. It took a long time but none of us were overwhelmed as we added rules slowly and played a few games with the new rules. If we had a hard time getting one of the rules we would practice and ask questions on the legacy board. (this was a long time ago). I would defiantly try to get a group of 3 together. For us 2 would play and the 3rd would be the rule looker-upper-guy/judge. Plus the more the merrier.