Federation Commander

Hi guys,

It's been a while since I played Federation Commander but I saw Orion Attack and Tholian Attack and Battleships Attack (yes, I've been out of the loop that long) and I picked them up. I'd been jonesing for Q-ships for a while since I had all these freighters from the miniatures boxes and wanted to build up, for the Federation, their version of the British 10th Cruiser Squadron of WWI.

So armed merchant ships meant to patrol for blockade runners, other armed merchant cruisers, and so on.

I was looking at the weapon mounts for the large Q-ship and it has been a while since I've dealt with optional weapons mounts. Say, for a Federation player, can I make one of the fleet scale mounts a Phaser 1 or photon torpedo and the second a drone? Or do both have to mount the same weapon?

Thanks all.

Best,

Michael

Historyadmiral, welcome to FC. In the section on option mounts [rule (5L1) I think] it notes that each option mount can have a different identity. So a small Federation Q-Ship could have a photon torpedo in one mount and a phaser-1 in the other. Or any other combination of choices from the weapons available to Federation Q-Ships.

Hi Terry, thanks! I can't believe I missed that!

What are Q-ships?

They are freighters equipped with weapons and reactors to enhance their power. Occasionally there will be one amoungst a convoy. The pirates who may be raiding won't know untils it's far too late

And I'm surethe question will come up so I'll answer it now: You can find them in Orion Attack, along with the special rules concerning them.

Q-ship.

The SFU version is the same (a secretly heavily-armed freighter).

Q ship.

Whether or not the captain of such a ship might wish he were able to snap his fingers and land a different kind of starship to command is, of course, another matter...

Before I understood the ADB policy of fiction pieces having to meet the requirements of SFB and not just FC, I did a much more in-depth rewrite/enhancement of a piece I did back in the 80's that appeared in Nexus magazine (Frontier Patrol). This newer one was submitted under the name, "Q-What?" In it the idea of the Q-ship was explored. And yes, the captain of the Q-ship in the story wished he could have snapped his fingers (or, claws) and gotten another ship. I don't know if it will ever see print, but ADB has had it for awhile and has never said anything about it. It may be in the holding file somewhere.

The most famous Q-ship of WW2 was the German ship Atlantis,which cruised the worlds oceans for over two years. She covered over 161,000 kms,and captured or sunk 22 ships totalling 144,384 mt,before she ran into HMS Dorsetshire in 11/21/41 when she was sunk.

Which weapons can be used in the Q-ship option mount?

USS Enterprise wrote:Which weapons can be used in the Q-ship option mount?

It varies by empire. The options are listed right on the Q-ship cards.