Rick said:
Hmm - all comments taken in consideration, I have definite mixed feelings about this game - I love the idea of using the SFU and having fleets of Federation or Klingon ships engaging each other, but what I think would be a mistake would be to copy SFB/FC across into ACTA. What I mean is that B5 ACTA took the B5 Wars ships, kept the flavour of each one and the flavour of the individual fleets but built it into a new game where the fleets were individually distinctive. ACTA NA copied the ships across from NA and there just wasn't enough of a distinctive flavour to each fleet. What I would very much like to see is a different game from SFB/FC, where the ships were changed enough to give a different feel and flavour to each fleet - so that a Klingon fleet played very differently to a Federation fleet, for example. I'm just not really getting that from what SFB players are saying.
Actually, on the contrary - a klingon fleet plays very differently to a federation fleet...
The Fed ships tend to be very good at short-range alpha strikes, but then need to reload their photons before being able to hit again with the same strength, so need to hang back or take their punishment. The Federation ships are, at least initially, built partly for peacetime use - so have more labs and other non-warfare systems on board, but tend to be slightly (and I do mean slightly) weaker in all-out battle... but then have the advantage in the non-warfare scenarios and the anti-monster scenarios. They also get to pretty much cripple an enemy in a point-blank attack through overloaded photons, with the newer ships being probably some of the best ships in the game...
The Klingons get to shoot their disruptors each turn, so are better at the sustained shot battle, with their phasers also being arranged in more arcs than the earlier Federation ships (blame Paramount for that btw...). They tend to be weaker on the non-battle scenarios (Klingons aren't exactly renowned for their scientific skills).
Romulans basically got left behind in the arms race, so the earliest ship (the Warbird) is a non-warp ship, but it was upgraded to the War Eagle class. They're pretty weak, but get to play with the cloaking device and have an awesome homing plasma torpedo which takes a very long time to arm and a lot of energy to hold, but does a fair amount of damage, so Romulan ships tend to decloak, fire, cloak and recharge, making it a very tactical game. Modern Romulan ships are based on Klingon technology with Romulan tech added to it... so is better.
The Gorn ships are slow, heavy and incredibly tough... but can also deal a decent amount of damage.
Kzinti rely on fighters and drones (missiles)... and lots of them... they're pretty fun to play if you like watching your opponents face as they try to work out how to bypass the waves of drones and fighters you're launching at him in order to get into range of his own weapons... without getting blown up in the process. Not too tough when you do get them into range though... but tough enough after you've done some damage to other races' ships...
Tholians get to play with their webs, which can immobilise enemy ships (can't remember if they can turn or not - but they're pretty much defenseless when trapped). This can lead to some fun scenarios, but not really encountered them in my games.
The new races also add more, but I didn't get to play with or against those (we only had the basic set when I played) but I know that the Andromedans get panels which absorb incoming energy and (I think) make it available to the ship, but I'm not too sure on that...
But each race is unique as it can be without having a "mysterious master race that's just retreated from the galaxy" in the background...
