Federation Commander

I will be releasing the next update to the client this week, included in this will be a room/plugin called "Federation Commander (Duels)". The idea is that it is like the SFB Tournament room but uses Fed Com. I have converted most of the SFB Tournament ships, including the ISC which you currently is not playable due to the PPDs not being implemented yet.

The idea is to use this room would be like the SFB Tournament room. It would serve two purposes:

1) A place that people can use for quick pickup games. (No having to decide what ships out of the possibly 100 to 200 ships)
2) A place that can be used for the Flying Duels (i.e. Flying Deuces for Fed Com).

I would like to people to jump on it and tell me what needs to be changed/improved for this room.

Not my place to nit-pick (since I'm not a subscriber) but tailoring a FedCom resource to single-ship duels kind of veers from the FedCom's "mission statement" as a multi-ship squadron action game.

SVC also just made a post in another thread stating that there would never be "tournament ships" for FedCom for that very reason.

I can understand the desire to satisfy the quick pick-up game with this addition. I'm just wondering if it is "mission creep".

Just dont mention the term "tournament". Call it the 1 v 1 room with only a select group of ships.

That is the idea. The only reason I started with converted SFB Tournament ships is because they are relatively balanced already, so pickup games should be relatively even.

That is also, why it is called Fed Com Duels and not Fed Com Tournament.

I have two related questions:

*Will the Middle Years ships from Briefing 2 be added in the new update?

*If you are looking for duelling ships, might it not be an option to use certain ships from B2 for the purpose?

There are a number of CAs in the 120-140 point price range (as well as a few oddballs like the Vulture, GSC and Royal Panther) which could be challenging options for duels... and would be more distinct (not to mention more historically accurate) than trying to port over the tourney ships, or using the same squadron format seen for the General War-era FC ships.

1) No. Because I need to request them from ADB and they would be added to the Library (i.e. not included with the client)

2) I might do that later if:
a) Enough people want it changed.
b) The current ships are found to be unbalanced for the Fed Com fish bowl.

Thanks very much for doing this, Andromedan. I just may re-subscribe.

My advice FWIW: Keep it simple. There are VERY few people using FCOL, so this should be seen as a way to attract new people. Forcing new people to use 3 ships at once to take advantage of this idea would be counter-productive. (sorry djdood, but I don't think the "mission statement" should take precedence over having a nice easy way for new players to start)

I haven't seen what's there yet, but if you have all the SFB Tourney ships then that should be plenty. No need to do any extra work until there are more people playing it.

I'll subscribe next time I get paid. No local players in my area, so it's FCOL or nothing.

Will a version of TFH be included? Ir wasn't included in the discussion on your show last week. Also, what about scatter packs? There was some talk about them.

By the way, I have been enjoying listening to your talk show. Please keep it up.

Yes to the TFH. But no scatter packs to start with. Just like no dogfight drones for the Klingon. No Pseudo Plasma for the Plasma players.

The Fed Com Duels plugin is now available. Along with other updates.

I realize I'm not the brightest one in the bunch ... but I had a hard time finding the FC Duel room. So just in case there are others like me who couldn't find it ...

Click on the TREE tab. (Not the TABLE tab)
Select Game / Chat Rooms
Games
FC Duel (double click or select and click Enter)

Then (I think) you need a second player to enter the same room and choose a ship before you start

If I have any of this wrong, or if there's a different way, please let me know!

The easiest is after you logged in to go to the "File" menu and select "New Game" and choose "Federation Commander (Duel)" from the list of room types, click "Ok" and then enter a room name.

Sorry it took us so long to start beta-testing. Sean and I had a few minutes, and although we didn't play a full game (only tested a few things) everything looked fine. Picking ships, EA, moving, accelerating, firing, and taking damage all worked.

Good to see somebody trying it out.

The next step is to test to make sure the ships are relatively equivalent.