There has been a discussion of this concept. As I'm the guy who designed and owns and publishes SFB, I commented that what was being called for by some already existed by simply buying BASIC SET and stopping at the basic rules. (I did not mention at the time, but it is true, that at the GAMA show every year I hear a hundred stores saying "go back to the pocket game SFB and we'll sell a ton of them!" and I never really believed them since the players could buy basic set and leave out half of the rules.) Some in that conversation in this topic a week ago wanted to go farther and have fewer impulses, easily energy allocation, and simplified damage allocation, three key SFB elements that eat up a lot of time (mostly as players agonize over every possible decision). This reminded me of the Star Fleet Action prototype we worked up a couple of years ago, which largely followed these lines. A few days ago, we were having a Board of Directors meeting to decide which of several projects to announce at the GAMA show (16 March) for the summer releases. The conversation wandered to a Christmas product and I recounted the above stories. Soon enough, we had the prototype out of the file and were puttering around. A few days later, we have the memo below which more or less defines the core concepts of a game that might be called Star Fleet Action, Star Fleet Commander, Federation Captain, or something else. I thought I would show you guys the memo and see if anybody had a question or comment. Note that the memo defines a game that is significantly different from SFB and when it was shown to SFB players they immediately started proposing modifications that would bring it closer to SFB (more complicated, longer to play). Anyway, here's the memo. No decision has been made on whether to print this in Nov 04, June 05, some other date, or never. STAR FLEET COMMANDER (Basic Rules) A simpler form of Star Fleet Battles which retains the excitement of the original with less clutter, faster play. Possibly retain ability to use SFB SSDs (ship diagrams) inside the new game system. Sequence of play streamlined by leaving out many rules. There would be no historical timeline in the sense of progressing technology (slow drones, medium drones, fast drones, refits, etc.) but we might introduce this in one of the more advanced modules. For the base game, everything would be a single time and level of technology. Energy Allocation (a key element of SFB) would remain but would be handled by tokens rather than written records. You'd have a token for each point of power and just spend them as you want to do stuff. At the start of the turn, you'd have to pay for heavy weapons, but other than that, the warp engines become a huge pool of reserve power. There would be some limits on how much of that power you could use in one of the eight impulses. Movement system: Similar to SFB but with 8 impulses instead of 32. We will use "impulse power to move and warp power to fight" to be compatible with what modern trekkers expect to see. Use 0.5 points of impulse power per hex adjusted by move cost (i.e., dreadnoughts pay 0.75 points and destroyers pay 0.25 points). To reduce the ugliness of fractions, a simple chart on each ship diagram would show you how fast you can go with the number of engines you have. Disengagement (leaving the battle and going home) would be possible by blowing a lot of warp points. Combat system: Weapons would work the same as SFB (power cost, range, damage, die rolls, charts). We shall have a leaky shield rule (every 10th point?) which might vary with larger ships having more leaks. Need to simplify damage resolution, perhaps with a modified Damage Allocation Chart that allocates five or ten damage points to various systems with a single die roll. Firing arcs, damage repair, and shields would work as per SFB. Note: we are fully aware that this means a radical change from SFB with slower ship speeds compared to weapons ranges. We don't see a problem with a new dynamic. If playtesting says this isn't working, we can cut weapon ranges down, but preliminary work says that this will better recreate what happened in TNG. We'd still have to check boxes on an SSD for damage. Might handle that with counters on a larger SSD but that would be an advanced option. Might put the SSDs (the whole game system would have only about 50 ships) on a web site so you can print them off as you want them. We could include a book of cheap newsprint SSDs in each box. Counters: megahex type, 1" with full color starships. Races: Feds, Klingons, freighters, monsters. STAR FLEET CAPTAIN (Advanced Rules): Seeking weapons, drones (only standard type-1 of constant speed 8), plasma torpedoes (envelopers?), cloaks, sideslips, critical hits, simple mines (no T-bombs!). Races: Romulans, Gorns, Kzintis, Orions. STAR FLEET COMMODORE (Extreme Rules): Terrain (much simplified, fewer types), tractor beams, transporters, boarding parties, high energy turns, warp micro-jumps, tactical maneuvers, docking (simplified), self-destruction, very simple ground combat, very simple tactical intelligence (you can tell he is loading weapons or you can't), hidden deployment (maybe as a scenario rule), anti-drones?, crew units, ship separation, tugs and pods (cargo pods only), Legendary officers (two or three of them), prime teams, STAR FLEET CHALLENGER (New Races and their rules): Tholians, Lyrans, Hydrans (hellbore, no fighters?), ISC, (Seltorians?) STAR FLEET CHAOS (Rules it is probably best to leave out, or maybe put on the web site): Electronic warfare, scout sensors, Andromedans (power absorbers, TR beams, displacement devices), WYN, Jindarians, maulers, whacky drones, advanced plasma torpedoes, erratic maneuvers, fighters, PFs, Interceptors, bombers, MRS shuttles, SWACS, Wild Weasels, positron flywheel, nimble ships, aegis, chain reactions, chaff, surprise, passive fire control, catastrophic damage, energy balance, shock, crew quality, cloak decoy, mid-turn speed changes. Back to Table of Contents -- Game! # 3 To Game! List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by George Phillies. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com