The folks responsible for Star Fleet Battles have come up with a new faster-playing, cut down version of the game. Called Federation Commander, it promises better play for larger scale conflict in SFB's oddball alt-Trek universe. The official website makes it look like they've kicked production values up a notch as well. Check out this fullcolor Ship System Display:
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The commentary I've seen on this one on Boardgamegeek amounts to "still pretty complex and book-keeping oriented." It's a definite step down in complexity from full SFB, but they might have been well served to have asked an outsider to redesign SFB, because "simple" for SFB grognards still isn't all that appealing to people who don't play.
ReplyDeleteLike me, at any rate. But I'm not really interested in SFB because the battles don't feel very Star-Trecky to me, and that's the only reason I'd pick it over some of the other unrealistic space combat games I already own.
Along what alexander said, I think the ADB folks listen too much to the hardcore fans on their forum. Those guys kept telling them to add more SFB stuff back in.
ReplyDeleteI'm tempted by SFC but I've pretty much had it with them. I used to like SFB and especially F&E but it is all too fiddly for me no, too much bookkeeping. And the addons just add more complexity and chrome instead of taking it in new directions.
Stan
Hey, jeff, this game is a little bit less complex thatn SFB but I'd still say that those that think SFB was too complex will still think FC is too complex.
ReplyDeletebeen playing this on and off for several months in the UK.
ReplyDeletegreat stuff, dont believe for one minute its dumbed down because its a LITE version.
That ship display whatchamacallit looks a lot like the old Star Fleet Command PC games, which I found to be pretty fun, even if the battles were a bit slow (energy recharge seemed a lot slower than in the show, for example). I wonder if I should check out this game next time I see it at the FLGS.
ReplyDeleteI'm fairly fond of an earlier streamlined SFB called "Introduction to Star Fleet Battles," which was a slender little all-you-need-to-play booklet ...
ReplyDeleteIs this one more or less streamlined than that, I wonder? The main "failing" of Introduction was that it didn't make me want to invest in the full game at all ... I was content just playing Introduction.
Freyar, Starfleet Command was heavily influenced by Starfleet Battles. This game is a cleaned up version of that so the similarities are no accident.
ReplyDeleteStan
As a follow up, a friend and I designed a "Star Trek space battle game" to use with some Star Trek Micromachines I'd picked up. This was maybe when we were sixteen or so. Each ship had a move score in inches, and one or two attacks with a to-hit score and a damage score.
ReplyDeleteShips may have had single-hit shields.
Anyway, the core of the system was the damage chart you rolled on when a hit made it through your shields. From memory, it was sort of like this:
1: Half move next turn
2: Guns don't work next turn
3: Crew stunned -- no action next turn
4: Ship moves 1d6" in random direction
5-6: Ship explodes
It was pleasantly surprising how faithful this was to space battles from the Star Trek shows.
(These days, my preference would be for a system that allows fleet actions, so I can pit old-school Federation against old-school Romulans, or modern Romulans against a horde of Jem'Hadar, and so forth -- maybe a Federation fleet against a Borg cube, although that sounds suspiciously like a game of Ogre...)