ACTA SF

[Lincolnlog]

Jean, Steve or Matt:

Will we ever see stats and miniatures for the earlier standard ships, such as the Fed DD and Tug? What is the estimated time line for an expansion on this project?

Bob

 

[Rambler]

Lincolog - What you are asking about in SFB and FedCom is called Squadron Box #91 it includes the Franz Joseph Destroyer, Scout, Heavy Cruiser, Dreadnaught (Less Weapons with Engines angled uplike a CA) and Tug. It has been asked about several times and pretty much gets the, we will see in a year or 2. When those ships make it over there will be another set of royalities involved to be paid out so they will all probably be in the same box set and not sold individually.

 

[Lincolnlog]

Rambler, Didn't realize there were royalties to be paid on those designs. So bottom line, don't throw out the old 2400's. Wouldn't have anyway. The 2500 Fed DN looks enough like the FJ, but definitely want a similar destroyer/scout hull. Hmmmmm.

 

[Rambler]

In SFB Pirates had very specific rules governing what weapons could appear in their weapon mounts. Basiclly there are 11 Cartels each has a Home Territory, Main Empire it hunts, and may operate on the edges of 1 or 2 more Empires. 70% of the Weapon mounts for a given Pirate Fleet should be from its Home Territory with another 20% coming from the Empires that it boarders. Only 10% of the Weapons in a fleet can be from another Empire all together. This is why a Pirate operating in the Cirentus-Ta Cartel (Romulan Space) might have a Hellbores in its Weapon's mount. This rule also explains why the WYN's Fish Ships Option Mounts are limited to Phaser, Drones, or Anti Drones.

As far as the Tholians go. The original Heavy Weapon of the Tholian Will was the Particle Cannon. It is a weaker version of the Disruptor that can fire twice as fast. When the Tholians first arrived the Phaser 1 allowed them to run ramp-shod over everyone that cam into there territory but eventually due to the decay in their Technology bases they lost the ability to make Particle Cannons and Web Casters. To offset this they acquired, read stole, Disruptor Technology from the Klingons. Some time between the Four Powers War and the General War they acquired, read were given, Photon Technology by the Federation. Until the 312th Battle Fleet reach the Tholians during the General War the most power full ship the Tholians could build was a DP, or a 3 Patrol Corvette wielded together Dreadnaught that received a pair of Photon Torpedoes in place of some of its Phasers.

Note: A couple of variants of the Tholians that may not make it into the first book but all the rules are present for would be converting PCs into DPC or PPC both conversions swap 2 Phaser 1 for a single Torpedoe a Photon on the PPC and a Disruptor on the DPC. and a CAP is easy to do as well replace the Midline Disruptors with a Photons

 

[Rambler]

Rambler, Didn't realize there were royalties to be paid on those designs. So bottom line, don't throw out the old 2400's. Wouldn't have anyway. The 2500 Fed DN looks enough like the FJ, but definitely want a similar destroyer/scout hull. Hmmmmm.

Actually, a Fed Destroyer or in my case a Destroyer Escort is a pretty easy conversion to make. Once the Initial push is over i am planning on order a Heavy Cruiser Saucer and a Dreadnaught Ceneter Engine from spare parts to Kit Bash one or 2 myself.

 

[scoutdad]

Dal is correct.
The Franz Joseph Designs ships require that aditional royalties be paid to FJD, on top of Paramounts cut.
For that reason, these ships were released in a separate booster for Federation Commander (Booster #91) which contained nothing but the FJD ships. That makes the accounting easy.

I'd expect something similar for ACTA: SF (eventually). A fleet box with just FJD ships in it and maybe the ship data, too.

And it's not a hard conversion to make. I'm not sure if Mongoose will sell spare parts or not... but if so:
The Federation CA saucer has a slot on the underside for the dorsal neck.
The Federation DNG will most likely have a slot in the top into which the upper engine/nacelle will fit.
Turn that engine over and mount if to the CA and you've got a DD. For more realism, cutthe engine off the pylon, rotate the engine 180 degrees (though it's horizontal axis - we're not looking to build a U.S.S. Kaufman here!), and reattach.
Viola. Fed DD

 

[MarkDawg]

I would like some information on the bases these ships will be on. Are they going to be like the ones in Noble Armada? Also are all of the measurements done from the base post.

 

[scoutdad]

I would like some information on the bases these ships will be on. Are they going to be like the ones in Noble Armada? Also are all of the measurements done from the base post.

Yes. Same "ball and post" bases as Noble Armada... two sizes, large dn small.

And yes, range is measured from post to post.

 

[AdrianH]

It's bad to post house rules? Why would anyone care? Thanks for the information I found a kick ass sight with some cracking minis I plan to use. I will be buying the Klingon and Fed Fleets from Mongoose once they come available.

In the past MGP have been VERY tolerant about house rules/ fan publications etc - it may be different given the issues with the ST licence. When /if people put stuff up we will probably find out the limits.

We're still allowed to post about B5 despite Mongoose having given up that licence years ago. It would be unfortunate if the new version of ACTA limits our discussion more severely.

As for the Bird of Prey, it could always be used as a proxy for some existing ship, e.g. the F5. In fact, I have a number of old FASA models which I hope to use in just this way.

 

[Da Boss]

It will be interesting to see what is and is not allowed - looking over at the FC forum it has hugely different rules to our relaxed version over here!

Although at least one long time SFB / FC player was posting pics of his FASA Klingon Dreadnought he uses.....

Although a mirror universe supplement appeals to me as I so loved the Enterprise episodes (building on the great work of the orgiinal and the DS9 ones) its not on my every growing project list the powers that be will be pleased to hear.

thanks to all for their inputs about Tech Slosh - I can see the in game arguments about dilution of uniqueness of Empires.....

I am still quite interested in the official policy of House rules and posting on this "official" forum of completely made up ships - ie stuff that neither appears in the SFU or resembles any of those in the Paramount licences. For instance if someone wanted to kitbash a totally new [insert race] Cruiser out of spare parts - stat it up and show how its made - I assume this is all fine?

 

[Jean]

Creating new empires is fine as long as they are not "wink, nudge" copies of other ST series/movies empires: no Gorgs with cube ships, no Fardassians, etc. In fact, one of the fan-created empires will be seeing print in module E3: the Borak. The Peladine were also fan created. They do stand a better chance of seeing print if they are not totally web-published as people get unhappy about paying for something that was free.

House rules that don't go off into forbidden territory shouldn't threaten our license. If you don't like the way something plays, then suggesting a house rule shouldn't affect anything (as long as Mongoose doesn't care). However, it has been our experience that house rules may be compensating for local play styles and would be unbalancing if another play group adopted them. Adopt house rules at your own risk and it voids the warranty if the game breaks for you.

Do we care if you paint up FASA or other legally acquired models? Nope. Do we care if you kitbash one of our models, stat it up for TNG, and post it here? Yes. You're fine until "post it here." I cannot tell you it is fine to post it anywhere on the web. That would count as encouragement of breaking our license. I can tell you that we have far more pressing things to do (such as designing games) than surf the web. If it is reported to us, we would of course take action.

Does that help clarify things?

I hate to sound so negative, but it is what we have to do to keep the license we have which keeps us in business.

 

[Shadow Queen]

Creating new empires is fine as long as they are not "wink, nudge" copies of other ST series/movies empires: no Gorgs with cube ships, no Fardassians, etc. In fact, one of the fan-created empires will be seeing print in module E3: the Borak. The Peladine were also fan created. They do stand a better chance of seeing print if they are not totally web-published as people get unhappy about paying for something that was free.

House rules that don't go off into forbidden territory shouldn't threaten our license. If you don't like the way something plays, then suggesting a house rule shouldn't affect anything (as long as Mongoose doesn't care). However, it has been our experience that house rules may be compensating for local play styles and would be unbalancing if another play group adopted them. Adopt house rules at your own risk and it voids the warranty if the game breaks for you.

Do we care if you paint up FASA or other legally acquired models? Nope. Do we care if you kitbash one of our models, stat it up for TNG, and post it here? Yes. You're fine until "post it here." I cannot tell you it is fine to post it anywhere on the web. That would count as encouragement of breaking our license. I can tell you that we have far more pressing things to do (such as designing games) than surf the web. If it is reported to us, we would of course take action.

Does that help clarify things?

I hate to sound so negative, but it is what we have to do to keep the license we have which keeps us in business.

Yes Boss.

 

[AdrianH]

Do we care if you paint up FASA or other legally acquired models? Nope. Do we care if you kitbash one of our models, stat it up for TNG, and post it here? Yes. You're fine until "post it here."

How about if we kit-bash or scratch-build a model to look like something from TNG (or, in my case, probably "Star Trek:Enterprise), post it here, but use it to represent a ship with official ACTA:SF stats?

Or if we paint a stock ACTA:SF or other SFU ship in TNG colours, then post that here?

 

[SFU_FEAR]

Folks, to let you know who SFU_FEAR is, I am the official Federation and Empire answer guy. I have been playing SFB since 1982, F&E since 1986, for FC, I was a member of BGM (Battlegroup Murfreesboro, a playtesting and development group of several advanced and long term players of everything SFU) and was one of the alpha and later beta testers of that system. I am still involved in BGM and am involved in testing of ACTA:SF. I am also an assistant admin for the discus BBS that ADB uses for game development.

Now, now that you know what my credentials are, which I thought was important with what I am about to say. Some entities that have provided licenses to ADB would really like to change the terms of said licenses if not just fully revoke them. ADB needs to be very, very careful to not violate the terms of said licenses which are mission critical to the existence of ADB. This, in turn, is the way a small group of people make a living. Everything is based on this.

Now you know why you must not do anything that might violate the licenses. This is something I keep forefront in all my duties as FEAR. It is second to nothing else.

Ok, I will go back to lurking and play-testing this very nice and fast moving game.

 

[Jean]

AdrianH, I've taken your question to SVC. It has to be his call on that on whether it threatens the license and his livelihood.

 

[MarkDawg]

I think what your are saying is simple and I get it. Wargamers like to make conversions and tinker it's a hobby. Your position is it can't happen on our boards or you can loose your life work and your only means of supporting your family. So if you want to post things like this take it to Dakka Dakka and enjoy they have a section for SCI-FI ship games.

 

[Jean]

take it to Dakka Dakka

* sticks fingers in ears and shuts eyes *
LALALALALALALALALALALALA!

I legally cannot advise you that there is any place to discuss such matters.

MarkDawg, you have it right. It isn't me that would be affected as much as I have a RL job. But real people named Steve Cole, Leanna Cole, Steven Petrick, Mike Sparks, and Joel Shutts would be hurt badly.

Jean

 

[Jean]

Ok, I have SVC answers for you. They are what I suspected to be true.

No "reverse engineering" things so the Klingons get a cloaked ship class. That's too close to "wink, nudge." Basically, if we cannot legally produce the ship, then we cannot allow our fans to "produce it for us."

No kitbashes of TNG ships or anything else that would violate the license if we did it ourselves. You can post all the kitbashes of ships you made up that you want to post, but not kitbashes of ships somebody owns that we are not licensed to use. So feel free to enjoy your kitbashes, but please don't post TNG or Enterprise era kitbashes on this forum.

Please note that posting a note saying (in effect) that you've posted ships (ones we cannot allow on owned forums) elsewhere is probably a Not Good Thing.

These are the rules that the lawyers tell us will keep both Mongoose and ADB out of hot water. If you would help us all play by those rules, we'd all appreciate it.

Thanks for your understanding.

 

[Nerroth]

That said, one thing to bear in mind is that while the SFU does not have access to the material from Star Trek: Enterprise, it does have its own Early Years setting; which has plenty of ships for the pre-Star Fleet Federation members (such as Vulcan and Andor) as well as the first wave of unified Star Fleet hull designs.

It might be quite a while, if ever, before Mongoose get around to those; but if you really want to kitbash some sort of "dawn of Star Fleet" ships, they might be an option to consider.

Yes, there are things that the SFU can't do; but at the same time, there is still quite a lot that it can (and, hopefully, will, in the ACtA context, as things move forward for this new meeting of system and setting).

 

[LimeyDragon]

OK, just so i have this right in my mind.. It's ok to kitbash using MGP models and SFB models to make a new original (non-copyrighted) model for the SF setting.?

If so then i'm so going broke and making the wife hate me..