A Call To Arms Star Fleet question

[katadder]

obviously klinks are better at turning

My bad - misread the turn mode chart - yes, the Klings are slightly better at turning than the feds...

Kat: one question - will we see labs in use for non-warfare and monster scenarios? Those were fun in SFB and should only add an extra stat to each ship... the advantage is that sometimes in a campaign (we made up our own rules) there could be a monster (just like the series) that needed dealing with or (even better) a monster that two opposing sides had to deal with... (combat AND science in one scenario).

labs are going to be in there, and probably even a monster (am sure there is one in the pack but cant remember off the top of my head).

 

[BFalcon]

labs are going to be in there, and probably even a monster (am sure there is one in the pack but cant remember off the top of my head).

Sweet... thanks Kat...

Rick: np... I hope so too in that case.

 

[Rambler]

obviously klinks are better at turning

My bad - misread the turn mode chart - yes, the Klings are slightly better at turning than the feds...

Kat: one question - will we see labs in use for non-warfare and monster scenarios? Those were fun in SFB and should only add an extra stat to each ship... the advantage is that sometimes in a campaign (we made up our own rules) there could be a monster (just like the series) that needed dealing with or (even better) a monster that two opposing sides had to deal with... (combat AND science in one scenario).

Oh yeah we have monsters in SFU. Juggernauts, Planet Killers, Sun Snakes, Space Ameobas, Space Dragons and about a dozen more. BTW, your going to absolutely adore the Juggy- :twisted:

 

[Rick]

obviously klinks are better at turning

My bad - misread the turn mode chart - yes, the Klings are slightly better at turning than the feds...

Kat: one question - will we see labs in use for non-warfare and monster scenarios? Those were fun in SFB and should only add an extra stat to each ship... the advantage is that sometimes in a campaign (we made up our own rules) there could be a monster (just like the series) that needed dealing with or (even better) a monster that two opposing sides had to deal with... (combat AND science in one scenario).

Oh yeah we have monsters in SFU. Juggernauts, Planet Killers, Sun Snakes, Space Ameobas, Space Dragons and about a dozen more. BTW, your going to absolutely adore the Juggy- :twisted:

Yes Rambler, but I don't want to play SFB by another name - I want to play ACTA:SF. If everything in SFB is slavishly copied across into an ACTA format it will not be the game I want to play - there has to be a middle ground between what ACTA has been and what SFB has been - too far over towards ACTA or too far over towards SFB and it won't work, you might as well use the ships to play another game completely!

 

[BFalcon]

Rick: you don't need to play the monster scenarios if you don't want to, but they are fun as a change of pace - especially when you have to compete with an enemy ship.

You can get the feel of a game without destroying the streamlined mechanics of the other rules system and that's what I see as the main benefit of the partnership - streamlined rules that allow massed fleets without the nickpicking detail of SFB (I only got to glance at my FC box before packing up for the move - and 3 years on, I'm still looking in the spare room for that last (naturally) box with my RPG and gaming stuff in...). FC seems to have gone some way, but ACTA is where it's at.

But I'd say also.. don't expect the same gameplay as ACTA: B5... that was set up to represent the Babylon 5 combat scenes, just as the SF version will have to represent the SFB combat, so should have a different feel to it, just as NA and Babylon 5 probably have differing feels. Besides which, if you make all the games with the same system feel the same, nobody would buy both - they'd just buy the one and stick to it...

That having been said, I don't want to see the ACTA: SF rules get too complex - it's a nice system (I now own both ACTA: NA and VaS). The one thing I think you'll see is shields hard to get through, but once they're gone, the ships die pretty quickly - that's generally the way SFB seemed to play out, although I'm not sure how they're going to translate the directional shields from SFB which made it so tactical (nothing like having to keep your damaged shields away from an agile enemy to tax your mind...).

 

[Rick]

Rick: you don't need to play the monster scenarios if you don't want to, but they are fun as a change of pace - especially when you have to compete with an enemy ship.

You can get the feel of a game without destroying the streamlined mechanics of the other rules system and that's what I see as the main benefit of the partnership - streamlined rules that allow massed fleets without the nickpicking detail of SFB (I only got to glance at my FC box before packing up for the move - and 3 years on, I'm still looking in the spare room for that last (naturally) box with my RPG and gaming stuff in...). FC seems to have gone some way, but ACTA is where it's at.

But I'd say also.. don't expect the same gameplay as ACTA: B5... that was set up to represent the Babylon 5 combat scenes, just as the SF version will have to represent the SFB combat, so should have a different feel to it, just as NA and Babylon 5 probably have differing feels. Besides which, if you make all the games with the same system feel the same, nobody would buy both - they'd just buy the one and stick to it...

That having been said, I don't want to see the ACTA: SF rules get too complex - it's a nice system (I now own both ACTA: NA and VaS). The one thing I think you'll see is shields hard to get through, but once they're gone, the ships die pretty quickly - that's generally the way SFB seemed to play out, although I'm not sure how they're going to translate the directional shields from SFB which made it so tactical (nothing like having to keep your damaged shields away from an agile enemy to tax your mind...).

I think you mistake my point. I quite liked some of the monster scenario's, I quite like the whole SFU and I used to play SFB - but I stopped playing because it was simply too unwieldy for the games I wanted to play - 5-10 ships a side - which is where ACTA:SF should be brilliant. IF and I say again, IF, there is a good fusion of the 2 rule systems. What I don't want to see is a situation where the best of the ACTA mechanisms are replaced because they're not enough like SFB for some of the SFB players or vice versa. What would be ideal is if both ACTA and SFB players found enough from both systems to make it a good game without losing too much. Yes, I liked the directional shield thing from SFB - that made the games extremely tactical and positional!

 

[Rambler]

Yes Rambler, but I don't want to play SFB by another name - I want to play ACTA:SF. If everything in SFB is slavishly copied across into an ACTA format it will not be the game I want to play - there has to be a middle ground between what ACTA has been and what SFB has been - too far over towards ACTA or too far over towards SFB and it won't work, you might as well use the ships to play another game completely!

Rick I am not looking to play Star Fleet Battles with a different rule set. I am looking to play a game in the Star Fleet Universe. If I am playing a tactical level duel between D7L and a NCA I will most likely use Star Fleet Battles. If I am playing a squadron level engagement between 2 Destroyer Squadrons I will use Federation Commander. If I am looking to play a Massive 20 on 20 Fleet Action that is where I intend to use A Call to Arms; Star Fleet. It is already a given that the more ships you add to the game some of the rule detail has to give. If I wanted to play a strategic level game with entire Fleets involved I will use Federation and Empires to set up those Fights. Now F&E can resolve whole fleet actions with a single die roll but I want to look at the match ups and say, This Fight here, I will play with SFB, this fight here I will resolve with FedCom because I just like the look of it, and this one here is going to be fought in A Call to Arms. The rest can be fought using F&E then we will move on to the next turn. Regardless of which System I use I want them all to feel like a Star Fleet Universe Game.

Now I know how much detail was shed between SFB and FedCom, And I expect just as much detail to be toned down playing ACTA:SF that is a given. But regardless of the scale the weapons should have the same effect the ship systems should have the same effect and damage should be translated the same between the 4 Systems.

And yes I look forward to taking a Death Probe up against a Klingon Fleet and try to annihilate them. Similar to a opening scene form a movie I once saw. I always thought it would be cool to play in a much larger scale.

Edit:Rick jut so you know I am not trying to bump you I started writing this before your post came up.

 

[BFalcon]

Cool - we're both in the same place then... I like the ACTA rules too - but I'd love to see the rules bent or twisted and the stats to the ships given in such a way as to make the feel the same as SFB/FC without breaking them or making them too hard to remember.

One thought, actually... if Matt could source them, they could use hex bases instead of the ACTA round ones (bear with me) - they could then use the same shield facings and firing arcs as the FC ships - it'd mean recording 6 shields instead of just one (the firing arcs and shields would be dictated by the side of the base the tape measure passes through, dicing for close calls), but that's very little record-keeping compared to the tactical benefits... without any complications... It wouldn't break or bend the ACTA rules, but might go a long way towards translating the tactical level of SFB/FC into ACTA...

 

[BFalcon]

Actually, I think I'd be tempted to bypass FC, personally - for 3 on 3 I'd be borderline still using SFB, but would be open to using ACTA... but that's purely because I own just one boxed set of FC...

 

[katadder]

as a player of SFB, FC and CTA for upto about 6 ships I would use FC everytime, but thats personal preference.
I would never go back to SFB as even if I am fast waiting ages for your opponent is annoying.
CTA is better for big fleet scale (although i dont mind massive fleets for fedcom either)

 

[Rick]

Cool - we're both in the same place then... I like the ACTA rules too - but I'd love to see the rules bent or twisted and the stats to the ships given in such a way as to make the feel the same as SFB/FC without breaking them or making them too hard to remember.

One thought, actually... if Matt could source them, they could use hex bases instead of the ACTA round ones (bear with me) - they could then use the same shield facings and firing arcs as the FC ships - it'd mean recording 6 shields instead of just one (the firing arcs and shields would be dictated by the side of the base the tape measure passes through, dicing for close calls), but that's very little record-keeping compared to the tactical benefits... without any complications... It wouldn't break or bend the ACTA rules, but might go a long way towards translating the tactical level of SFB/FC into ACTA...

I think we could all be happy with a good set that brings the best of the systems together. I'd settle for having 4 shield arc's - a good compromise between SFB's different shield facings and ACTA's 4 firing arc's. I think you'd still have all the tactical play with that.

 

[BFalcon]

Rick: yeah, I'd be happy with 4 I think - I'd need to actually play to be sure...

I just thought of the 6 faces thing with the hex bases and just thought I'd share... you know... just throw it out there and see what happens.

 

[Rick]

Rick: yeah, I'd be happy with 4 I think - I'd need to actually play to be sure...

I just thought of the 6 faces thing with the hex bases and just thought I'd share... you know... just throw it out there and see what happens.

I think it all depends on what you think are the best mechanisms from SFB and what ACTA players think are the best mechanisms from ACTA. There are probably some rules from ACTA that, if they were changed, I'd feel it was not an ACTA game any more and the same is probably true of SFB/FC players.

I'm very much hoping that the new game will be the very best compromise between the systems, not just the least worst option!! :shock:

 

[katadder]

well currently its one shield, basically like the abbai in B5.

 

[Ben2]

Would shields on different facings (either 4 or 6) cause many book keeping issues?

I'd imagine not if it was shields like Noble Armada, but yes if they were like FC/SFB.

Noble Armada we track using a coloured dice.

 

[Greg Smith]

ACTA does try to keep book-keeping to a minimum. Tracking multiple shields on multiple ships may be too much. Although Klingons do have better front shields - so manuevering to fire at the best shield facing is not totally absent from the game.

 

[BFalcon]

I don't know the answer to that one, Ben... although the boxes filled in isn't that bad, I can see how the dice for shields idea is a good one.

I guess it comes down to one question - are some kind of ship sheet (like VaS) a bad thing or a good thing?

Edit: thanks Greg, good to know.

Do you know if there'll be a "reinforce shields" special order to keep them alive longer, or will the emphasis be on killing each ship quickly like NA seems to be?

Seems to me that if you're recording hit systems, changing one shield number on a bit of paper isn't that hard - provided you've named/numbered your ships, of course...

 

[Rick]

From what I understand, it's more like the existing damage track than the shields in NA. If you use a single shield score, you'd need about the same space as you need for damage, so this wouldn't be too problematic to divide into 4 or 6 arc's. At the moment, in ACTA NA or B5, turning is important to bring different weapons to bear on a target, if you had different shield facings, then turning would become critical, both to bring weapons to bear and to turn a damaged shield away from incoming fire. I don't envisage much more complexity in different shield facings than for just one; after all you'd still have to keep track of them somehow. But I do think it would add a bit more tactical thinking to the game and add a lot of flavour. After all, a lot of the flavour of ACTA:B5 was in the different weapon systems - Star Trek never had all that many different weapons, lol!

 

[Rick]

I don't know the answer to that one, Ben... although the boxes filled in isn't that bad, I can see how the dice for shields idea is a good one.

I guess it comes down to one question - are some kind of ship sheet (like VaS) a bad thing or a good thing?

I always use a form of ship sheet in ACTA - both B5 and NA; I don't think you can really play it without one - so I don't think it will be very different.

Think of it this way - keeping track of your shields will not take any more record keeping whether you use 1 arc or 4-6; it's just a matter of dividing the shield track into different facings. But it would add a lot more tactical thinking and subtlety to the game, without making it any more complex!

 

[BFalcon]

Rick: Tbh, that's the way I see it... if you have problems with maths, then just use a bunch of boxes like SFB does - although I prefer numbers, personally...