Federation Commander

When PD first came out, I remember a few players said they tried to use SFB for a ship-combat system, but had little luck making it work for them.

Has anyone thought of using Fed Cmdr instead? It plays a lot faster than SFB, so it might work.

Perhaps you could use the SSD cards somehow, but without moving counters on the map. The GM would decide on the damage allocation, etc, based on what the player tell him they're trying to do, what tactics the employ, etc, etc. Of course, the GM has to know Fed Cmdr and/or SFB well enough to be able to see in his mind's eye what the battle map would look like.


Think it can work???

Not a bad idea...sort of a "mapless" FC. This would only really work for duels.

I had a big long post here but it turned into something that would do better as a formal submission; I'll repost it over on the Star Fleet Games message board. Later in the day, that is. I'll also take a stab at rewriting the PD20 rules for a FC context.

It is tough to use a tactical game in an RPG because it tends to leave most of the players throwing a few token dice and awaiting an out come between the GM and one player.
Totaly RPG leaves out the exciting tactical elements that give the encounter its feel. I am not a big GURPS fan...I am waiting on Prime Directive D6...but Gurps Space has an interesting, abstract, starship combat system that I tweeked up for use in a sci-fi game I was running.
It worked well, all of the players had a real roll to play in the combats, I need to figure out a way to include range into it so it retains that Fed Com feel.

Ok so what are the ruleset choices for prime directive? And if I use d20 what players handbook do I use?

I'm thinking of running a star trek special forces game where the players end in up romulan space with their ship getting blown up.

I would be very interested in running FC in PD

DuckDodgers

It is tough to use a tactical game in an RPG because it tends to leave most of the players throwing a few token dice and awaiting an out come between the GM and one player.

That's why I was suggesting a mapless version: to try to speed it up.

Also, you could require players to announce where on the ship their character is at, so if that SSD box gets hit, they might get hurt.

Another idea might be to lay out the bridge stations, and any hit on the bridge will cause a random console or three to explode. Again, a player-character might get hurt if too close.

battlestations is great for this, to bad it's not trek related.

Another idea might be to lay out the bridge stations, and any hit on the bridge will cause a random console or three to explode. Again, a player-character might get hurt if too close.

The Gurps method was mapless...your other idea is similar to FASA's Trek RPG. They used a tactical hex grid with some method of each player doing their thing at the bridge stations. I never really understood it...to busy with SFB at the time.
It may be a simple matter of giving each player a chart of the systems they are responsible for and let them keep track of all aspects of them. In my version the commander made a tactics roll vs. the opposing commander...if successful the crew got bonuses because of the advantage gained.
I always reminded myself that I was running a role playing game that may include starship combat...it kept me focused on the characters and story...regardles of where it went.

Actually, Sinister, the Siadek brothers and I have been working on Star Fleet Battle Stations for a year now. This uses "gunboats" (e.g., Klingon G1) since you need 400 characters on 14 decks to run a cruiser, but it's great for RPGs since it gives you the "Too bad that Fred was in the engine room when that missile hit" situation. No release date set but sometime in 2007.

Steve Cole wrote:Actually, Sinister, the Siadek brothers and I have been working on Star Fleet Battle Stations for a year now. This uses "gunboats" (e.g., Klingon G1) since you need 400 characters on 14 decks to run a cruiser, but it's great for RPGs since it gives you the "Too bad that Fred was in the engine room when that missile hit" situation. No release date set but sometime in 2007.

Hehe (I knew but was sworn to secrecy),

I was hoping others would say "Yeah that would be cool" and then you would respond. I've seen some of the very early stuff for it when Jeff was asking for orginal imput. Haven't seen it in about a year. Good to know you have a release date. I WILL be purchasing it. WHat I really want to see for it is the Artwork for the tiles, the battlestations artwork just doesn't fit the Star Fleet stuff.

On a side note we are now stocking the full line of FC at our gaming store.

Duckdodgers,

The way the FASA system worked is each character had a chart representing their bridge position. Each character would then do that job for during ship combat. For example, The Chief Engineer would keep track of total power and determin how it would get spent, the Chief Helmsman controls weapons, Chief Navigator controls the shields... etc. The Captain coordinators everthing by doing things like tell the Engineer who has priority for power, the Helmsman who to target and where to move.

I also play battlestations I think the RPG will go good with it. What are the pros and cons of the GURPS vs D20 system or is the D6 system the one to wait for

The GURPS book can be played as is (no need to buy another book), and has a better range of the other races in the Alpha Octant that aren't on tv (such as the ISC member races - I was particularly sad to see them not included in the D20 version... good thing I got the GURPS one anyway!)

So for pure background use, the GURPS book is the way to go.


EDIT: When will there be a thread (either here or at discus) for the Star Fleet Battlestations game? (And given the issue you had before with the words 'Star Fleet', will it have a different name upon release?)


Gary

The Gurps book also gives guidelines for how to use SFB for ship combat they should apply the same way to Federation Commander. Of course if you have a figher pilot PC then Federation Commander won't work.

What is Star Fleet Battlestations???

Apparently there is some talk about a Star Fleet version of the Game Battlestations, which is produced by Gorilla Games. I don't know if it is a joint venture of some sort or anything else at this point.