I'm an old school grognard, like playing my non computer games without computers. Besides, I love rolling the bones.
Not only that, but a lady known as Jessica Orsini went so far as to add two species (from the same planet) to the setting! Granted, they are both now slave species in the Lyran Star Empire, but it's better than nothing, I suppose...
I've taken out multiple Klingon D7s with a small Federation scoutship in Uncle Twitichy's Starfleet Adventures total conversion for EV Nova...
I also enjoyed that EV Nova mod turning it into the Star Trek universe. Been a long time since I played the Star Fleet Battle board game, I still have a lot of the books.
One of the few times I played SFB, I used a Klingon Mauler. I was purdy stoopid about the starship combat at the time (late 80's), and I wanted to score a glorious kill. I took my mauler close toward a heavily damaged Federation Heavy Cruiser, (as in, under 5 hexes away) to ensure the best shot chance, and fired its prime weapon. Did lots (lots) of damage! GameMaster: Well, you certainly blew that ship up! Heavy Cruiser Ship Captain: (groans) Me: Hell yeah! GameMaster: And you blew yourself up in the process. Heavy Cruiser Ship Captain: (laughs raucously) Geseundheit! Me: (laughing right along with the HC Captain) Thank you. I also remember one time, in that same era, making an SSD for a Galaxy class cruiser. When I showed it to my buddies, one of them said: "You come into my side of the board with so much as a point of shields up, and I am sending my entire fleet after you!" Now I realize that what I am about to discuss next is more on the FASA Star Trek Starship Tactical Combat Simulator, and not the Task Force Games StarFleet Battles, but I did have to share this. I and two of my friends got together for a session of FASA Trek. I played the Klingons, my friend played the Romulans, and my other friend GM'd the session. We were both running with cloaks on. (We played fast and loose with the cloak rules.) At one point, during maneuver phase, the GM ended up falling out of his seat, laughing his head off. We laughed too, in curiosity, but he would not tell us what he was laughing about until after the game was resolved. After we finished (I don't remember who won), the GM started laughing again. My opponent and I were both like: "Are you gonna tell us what had you in stitches a little while ago?" He showed us our course plots on his own miniature starmap. At some point midway during the game, we both had passed within one hex of each other, not even realizing the other was just a stone's throw away.
That sounds fun martok I have all of the FASA Star Trek stuff, been meaning to go back and reread the rules, its been a long time. SFB would probably also work better with a GM.
Does anyone else remember a computer game from 1982 called The Cosmic Balance? It was similar to SFB, but as I remember was only ship vs ship, not fleet engagements. I bought a copy of it, though I only had access to an Apple II at work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cosmic_Balance
No, I knew of "Warp Factor" but I see now it was connected in some way to "The Cosmic Balance" Warp Factor info at Mobygames
Oh, yeah, I miss FASA Trek. I used to have the deluxe RPG which came with the Starship Tactical Combat Simulator. (For 30 bucks, I got two games in one. ). I also used to have the all three major race ship recognition manuals, the starship construction manual, three miniatures (Enterprise refit, Reliant, and a scout class wessel...er..I mean..vessel ), and tons of other stuff.... I also used to have an exhaustive library of Star Wars (West End Games) RPG materials. When we played FASA Trek, we fudged a lot of the rules, and played fast and loose with construction rules and combat actions. (At one point, we built missile cruisers which made for fast STCS sessions, but started taking the fun out of it after a while....so we made a sort of Geneva Convention of starship construction....no more than 40 percent of our overall ship's armaments could consist of missle weapons.) In truth, if we were to have played the game in front of those who were far more versed in the rules, we'd have gotten laughed out of the room.
I think the most important thing is having fun. Actually the SFB version that I enjoyed most was the pocket edition, it was just the right amount of rules. But like everyone else I wanted more and then we got it and the game became unplayable with the amount of minutia from all the expansions.
I remember a web page where an electronic Super Star Destroyer toy was used as a miniature, surrounded by SFB dreadnaughts, and ended by the Yamato...
I've seen a few Ship Data Cards for 24th century ships. It looked pretty much like a challenge just getting one ship to work. The Galaxy class was basically a Battleship/X-ship hybrid. I'd like to see Amarillo Design Bureau get the rights to the rest of the license, but I think some streamlining is in order if it were to be a playable game. Either that or they need to limit the number of huge ships. I assume that there are less than a dozen Galaxy class ships in service, and there would be more focus on the rest of the fleets. The one thing I'd like to see would be the Breen ships. I don't know why, but they are the most interesting of all the DS9 species to me.