Star Fleet Battles

[DeusInnomen]

(Pretty sure this is an appropriate forum for this topic, and if it isn't then lock or move it. Thanks.)

So, as a long time fan of Star Trek, I'm just as excited for this game as many of you are. I'm particularly pleased that Cryptic Studio's is handling the game, but that kind of fanboyism is reserved for another thread. ;)

What I'm really interested in, though, is seeing who else out here has played or still plays (as many of us locally do) Star Fleet Battles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Fleet_Battles)? I'd LOVE to see some of the races from the variant Star Fleet Universe setting (which SFB, Federation Commander and the Star Trek RPG draw from) make it into this game, but I imagine they may only have the license for the official canon races. *wishful sigh*

Anyways, who else plays SFB?

[LunaticFringer]

Use to play it. I don't think I have any of my old SFB stuff anymore though. Got into that while my brother was going to SIU here in Illinois. I remember we tried to buy the original Star Trek RPG to pair with it then we eventually quit playing rpgs together around the time they got around to making the Prime Directive rpg to go along with SFB.

I'd almost forgotten about all of those fun filled days of overloaded torpedoes. :)

I'd still like to see another touch up on Star Fleet Command even with STO confirmed again.

[DeusInnomen]

I got lucky enough to inherit my buddy's SFB materials, which is well more than enough to play the game without having to borrow everybody else's stuff. (He also had separated and laminated all the SSDs and many charts, which is brilliant.)

Funny enough, Amarillo Design Bureau is still maintaining and releasing products for the game, nearly 30 years after its conception. :)

[Warp_Speed]

I wonder how they will handle ship battles in space. I mean who gets to drive? Who gets to "fire" on an enemy? Is it one ship per person? If that is so then how does a huge star ship with all those people who help operate it, operate with just one person?

Sooooo many questions, and only time will tell when Cryptic "wants" to answer them. There will be alot of speculation about all of this until we get more info. We will see.

But great topic!

[Susarian]

I too played a long time ago. Great game! I have been thinking about introducing it to some of my friends but (as usual) time is always a problem. Has anyone played around with Federation Commander? I hear it is fun but not as time consuming.

[DeusInnomen]

I too played a long time ago. Great game! I have been thinking about introducing it to some of my friends but (as usual) time is always a problem. Has anyone played around with Federation Commander? I hear it is fun but not as time consuming.

We've tried it. It's definitely lighter than SFB but still a lot of fun. If you've ever spent 3-5 minutes doing energy allocation for even one ship, you'll die of happiness when you can take one minute to figure out the EA for a cruiser-class ship. ;)

We joke that there are two prerequisites for playing Star Fleet Battles: a law degree and an accounting degree. *grin* FC is more like the undergraduate level.

[Susarian]

We've tried it. It's definitely lighter than SFB but still a lot of fun. If you've ever spent 3-5 minutes doing energy allocation for even one ship, you'll die of happiness when you can take one minute to figure out the EA for a cruiser-class ship. ;)

We joke that there are two prerequisites for playing Star Fleet Battles: a law degree and an accounting degree. *grin* FC is more like the undergraduate level.

Awesome! I do not even want to think about what kind of degrees you need to play Federation and Empire.

[Rance]

SFB was one of the first things I thought of when Jack was answering questions during the webcast. All the different Confederations and groupings might be something they want to look at and could prove useful in some way.
I still have my old computer games around here somewhere: difficult for me but fun (I'm more of a Civ or HoMM-type strategy player) :D
I wish them the best with this game. It has lots of potential.

[Fiach]

I used to play Starfleet Battles and Federation & Empire quite a bit. I still have all the stuff. Might start playing again while waiting for STO ;)

[Pyrometheus]

Old school SFB player here too.

As fate, or irony, would have it; I recently divested myself of all my old SFB stuff, some of whoch dated back to the original box. I am hopeful the devs at least puruse some of the materials of SFB as information sources.

[EnsignSkylarkThibedeau]

I have the original game that came in a ziploc baggie and the Boxed update of it. I've tried playing with my kids but its the same as the computerized Star Fleet Command command game and they like that better. I did like playing with lead ship miniatures many moons ago and also RPG'ing Trek with Traveller Ground Rules and SFB space combat.

[Susarian]

Star Fleet Command was a great computerized version of Star Fleet Battles. I still have nightmares about redoing energy allocation during combat though.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Star Trek license that Cryptic is using does not include anything from the Star Fleet Universe. I do like some of the things from the Star Fleet Universe RPG, Prime Directive, but I'm not sure it would blend very well with established Star Trek cannon. Besides, it would take another license agreement for them even to try.