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 Federation Commander is a wargame depicting tactical spaceship combat in the far future. It and its predecessor, Star Fleet Battles, are based on the Star Trek Original Series, though licensing issues have since caused the game line to diverge into its own setting, the "Star Fleet Universe". Federation Commander is supposed to be a simpler, more playable iteration of Star Fleet Battles. I'll be playing through the "First Missions" edition, which is an introduction to the game. I'm trying to learn the game from scratch, but if you're familiar with this already and want to share some input or corrections, please do so! How does it play? It plays on a hex map representing space, with (star)ships represented as counters. Gameplay is turn-based, with each turn divided into 8 "impulses", where actions are resolved simultaneously.  An important part of the game is the Ship System Display, or SSD, which gives you all the critical information about the ship. The game's main conceit is power management. A ship outputs so many power points per turn, and every action costs a certain amount of power to execute. A lot of the game boils down to managing how you want to allocate your limited amount of power points between propulsion (read: movement), firing weapons, and other ship systems. Sidebar posted:One of the big simplifications from Star Fleet Battles to Federation Commander is how power is managed. In SFB, you had to "pre-pay" your power costs - adding up all your power generated, doling it out to all of the ship systems, then executing your turn. FC instead uses a pay-as-you-go model, where you simply spend the power as you want to from moment-to-moment. Scenario: The Duel First Missions comes with just one scenario: a Federation Heavy Cruiser and a Klingon Battlecruiser meet in deep space, and must deal as much damage to each other within 10 turns. For narrative's sake, let's call the Federation Heavy Cruiser the USS Francisca:  Federation Heavy Cruisers are armed with: A Photon Torpedo, Forward arc B Photon Torpedo, Forward arc 1 Phaser-1, Forward Hemisphere 2 Phaser-1, Left+Left Forward arc 3 Phaser-1, Right+Right Forward arc 4 Phaser-3, 360 degree arc (a Phaser-3 deals less damage than a Phaser-1, but also consumes less power) 5 Phaser-1, Right-Hemisphere Sidebar posted:According to technical canon, this is the same ship class as the original USS Enterprise, NCC-1701 - a Constitution-class Heavy Cruiser While the Klingon Battlecruiser will be referred to as the IKS Ogrek:  Klingon Battlecruisers are armed with: A Disruptor, Forward arc B Disruptor, Forward arc 1 Phaser-1, Forward Expanded arc 2 Phaser-1, Forward Expanded arc 3 Phaser-2, Left+Left Rear arc 4 Phaser-2, Right+Right Rear arc 5 Phaser-2, 360 degree arc (a Phaser-2 deals more damage than a Phaser 3, but less damage than a Phaser-1) Pre-Turn 1 The Francisca has 19 power points available The Francisca sets a base speed of 24, and pays 12 power points for it (7 points remain) The Ogrek has 21 power points available The Ogrek BC sets a base speed of 24, and pays 12 power points for it (9 points remain) Turn 1, Impulse 1 A base speed of 24 allows a ship to move three hexes per pulse. Both the Francisca and the Ogrek move forward. After the movement phase of an impulse comes the offensive direct-fire phase, where ships can fire weapons. Right now the two ships are 17 hexes apart, and at that range, phasers would need to roll a 1 or a 2 on a 1d6 to deal any damage, while the Ogrek's Disruptors would need a 1 to 3. The Francisca's photon torpedoes are also not armed yet. Both ships withhold fire. Turn 1, Impulse 2 Both ships advance another three hexes. After the movement phase:  11 hexes is still too far for phasers, but the Ogrek decides to fire its Disruptors. To do that, a d6 is rolled, and the following chart is consulted for the result:  The Ogrek gets a 6 and a 3, which translates to one hit against the Francisca's forward shield for 3 damage (12 shield points remain). The Ogrek pays 4 power to make those two shots, so it has 5 power remaining. SSD status at the end of the impulse:  To be perfectly clear at what this is supposed to illustrate: * there are three boxes in the Francisca's forward shields that are struck-through, indicating the damage taken * the 7 on the Francisca's Power Track is highlighted, indicating 7 power points available * the A and B boxes of the Ogrek's Weapons Used indicator are struck-through, indicating that they've already been fired this turn * The 5 on the Ogrek's Power Track is highlighted Turn 1, Impulse 3 Both ships advance another three hexes, and both of them turn to the left to face each other. After the movement phase:  Sidebar posted:In order to turn, a ship must first move forward a certain number of hexes, called the Turn Mode. The Turn Mode is determined by the ship itself, and the ship's current base speed, as indicated in the SSD. The Francisca, for example, has a Turn Mode of 5 if the Base Speed is 24. Since it moved forward a total of 9 hexes since the first impulse, it was eligible. The ships are now only 5 hexes apart. The Francisca opens up with her phaser batteries, banks 1, 3, 4, and 5. That's a total power consumption of 3.5, leaving her with only 3.5 power points left. Phaser 1 rolls a 2, for 4 damage Phaser 3 rolls a 4, for 3 damage Phaser 4 rolls a 5, for no damage Phaser 5 rolls a 2, for 4 damage The Ogrek takes 11 damage. Sidebar posted:There's a rule called "Shield Burn Through" where any volley of damage that deals at least 10 damage, but does not penetrate shields, instead deals 1 point of damage to the hull and the rest to the shield. As a result, the Ogrek takes 1 damage to its hull, and 10 damage to its forward shield (5 shield points remain). Sidebar posted:In the full version of the game, there's supposed to be a die roll to randomly determine which ship system is damaged when the ship takes hull damage, but in this introductory version, the defending player simply chooses. As a result, the Ogrek takes 1 damage to its generic hull damage (4 such points remain). The Ogrek also fires, with phaser banks 1, 2, 4 and 5. That costs 3.5 power points, leaving the Ogrek with 1.5 power points remaining/ Phaser 1 rolls a 4, for 3 damage Phaser 2 rolls a 1, for 5 damage Phaser 4 rolls a 2, for 4 damage Phaser 5 rolls a 4, for 1 damage The Francisca takes 13 damage, but it only had 12 shield points remaining, so 1 point goes right into the hull. The Francisca takes the 1 penetrating damage point into its generic hull damage (7 such points remain). SSD status at the end of the impulse:  When looking at shield indicators, a purple box represents five points, so the three purple boxes struck-through on the Francisca represent 15 points (or all of the forward shields), while the two purple boxes struck-through on the Ogrek represent 10 points (with 5 points remaining) Turn 1, Impulse 4 The Francisca continues straight ahead, while the Ogrek side-slips twice - both ships knew that they were going to overshoot the other before the end of this movement phase, and neither of them wanted to pay for the energy to decelerate, and neither of them had fulfilled their Turn Mode requirement. Sidebar posted:A side-slip is a special maneuver that lets a ship move into one of the "ahead and to the side" hexes, as a consideration for the impreciseness of a hex-grid. Both these ships have a Turn Mode of 1 when performing a side-slip, so the Ogrek side-slipped immediately (based on its previous 3-hex forward movement), moved forward 1, and then side-slipped again (based on its just-completed 1-hex forward movement) After the movement phase:  Turn 1, Impulse 5 The two ships continue to pull away from each other After the movement phase:  Turn 1, Impulse 6  Turn 1, Impulse 7  Turn 1, Impulse 8  By now the two ships have almost turned back around on each other, but the angles are wrong: the Francisca's one remaining phaser bank covers the left arc, but the Ogrek is on the right, while the Ogrek's one remaining phaser bank covers the left-rear arc. End of turn actions Shield reallocation: The Francisca takes 5 shield points from its front-left shield, and reallocates it to the front shield. The Ogrek does the same. Battery charging: The Francisca takes its two excess power points and charges her batteries with it, giving her 21 points on the next turn. The Ogrek does the same, but only had 1.5 points of excess, so it will instead start with 22.5 points Weapon recharging: all weapons are recharged and are ready for firing on the next turn Repairs: both ships generate 2 repair points per turn, and a single point of generic hull damage takes 1 repair point to repair. Both ships recover their damage completely. SSD status at the end of the turn:  End of turn 1 Looking ahead to the next turn, both ships will probably look at slowing down, both to avoid overshooting each other, as well as to have more power for other tasks. Shields can be regenerated at the price of 2 power points per 1 shield point. The Francisca in particular will want to set aside some power to arm her photon torpedoes, but if she starts loading now, she won't be able to fire until Turn 3. Meanwhile, the Ogrek has no such limitations and can bear in immediately.
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Dec 28, 2017 14:21
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| # ? May 3, 2024 00:26 |
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