Star Trek : TNG fleet battle games?

[Argonor]

I just browsed over Amarillo's site and gawked a bit over the many miniature ships, and the new(er) Federation Commander system.

It left me wondering: Has no-one come up with doing ships/rules for the TNG setting? I like the visual design of that setting much better (heresy to many, I know - but I also grew up with ST:TOS on German television, and STILL like the new designs better... especially the Klingons!), and would be more inclined to play an ST game with TNG ships.

Anyone knows anything about this?

[Doc Twilight]

I just browsed over Amarillo's site and gawked a bit over the many miniature ships, and the new(er) Federation Commander system.

It left me wondering: Has no-one come up with doing ships/rules for the TNG setting? I like the visual design of that setting much better (heresy to many, I know - but I also grew up with ST:TOS on German television, and STILL like the new designs better... especially the Klingons!), and would be more inclined to play an ST game with TNG ships.

Anyone knows anything about this?

Well, I have played Federation Commander for several months now; was an old time SFB player, but got tired of the reams of endless detail, and Fed Com streamlined things very nicely.Unfortunately, ADB does not have the license for the "Next Generation" stuff, and apparently blew the opportunity to get it when they had the chance in the 80s. To make matters worse, ADB does not have a particularly "Fan friendly" fan site policy, so it's sometimes hard to find information online, but it can be found, with some diligent searching.

I am also a fan of the new ships (as well as the old ones), so I was looking into possibilities for this, myself. There are a couple possible solutions.

The first is to use Federation Commander in Fleet Scale (the game can be played in either fleet or squadron scale), but it would take some conversion. How to do this?

Well, there are several SSDs (ship stat sheets used in SFB and Federation Commander) for Next Generation era ships online, which can be found with web searching. Unfortunately, these are all in SFB format, and SFB is -not- designed for use with fleet scale games. (It can be, but you'd be at it for days)

 Fortunately, if you search the FedCom forums, and some of the downloads (or just do a web search) you will eventually come across some items for converting Star Fleet Battles SSDs (those are ship stat sheets) for use with Federation Commander. As such, with some time and some work, you can convert the TNG era SSDs for use with Federation Commander, although of course you'd have to work a bit on making the weapons appropriate to the TNG era.

Another solution is to wait a bit. Wizkids has announced that it will be doing a "Click style" Star Trek game for "fleet battles."  That might work in a pinch.

You could also buy something like Starmada, which has a generic fleet design system, and have a go at designing ships for the Star Trek universe. Though it might be a challenge. Star Trek warships are definitely oddly designed compared to most "traditional" science fiction warships.

-Doc

[Argonor]

OK, thanks.... given time and money I'll maybe give FC a go at some point. In the meantime I'm actually a bit more tempted to try Firestorm, but who knows. When all this moving business is finally done in a couple of months, my focus may have shifted entirely.

One thing that really could tip the balance towards FC is the instant reckognizability of, at least, the federation ships. Never underestimate the 'Oooh, look, it's...' factor for introducing new players to a game 

The 'clix' version could be a possiblity, too, although I prefer unpainted hard 'crisp' metal or plastic models over 'soft' prepainted ones.... it's all too easy to imagine warp drives pointing in odd directions, and warped saucers, and stuff like that...

Well, let's see what happens.

[The Somnambulist]

Here is a link to the unofficial FASA Starship combat simulator rules :-
http://www.tacticalstarshipcombat.com/FASA/STSTCS%20Home%20Page.htm  I don't think it's been updated for a while and you may have to trawl through some of the fleets to find the ships you want.

[The_Beast]

The Somnabulist beat me to the punch mentioning FASA, but I've not seen that site before. I'll be trolling it soon enough, and will hold off wondering what, if any, did not make it from the two books, First Year Sourcebook and Officer's Manual. There were a few in the first not in the second, and vice versa.

I've got some FT sheets I'm going to be playing using micro machines. I know other game systems, such as the original B5, and Starmada, have been used as well.

Googling is an exercise left to the reader... ;->=

Doug

[johnl5555]

Actually, there already are fleet lists for Star Trek Starmada. I would also look at A Call to Arms. There are Trek lists for it. A Sky Full of Ships also has large fleet lists and IS a Fleet level set of rules.
Check out Starship Combat News for all your Space gaming needs.

http://www.star-ranger.com/forum/

[Argonor]

Interesting! 

[Luthaaren Von Tegale]

The SFSFW used to run some ST:TNG participation games at various shows using the Full Thrust rules from GZG. If I remember correctly FELIX Enterprises produced a whole range of data cards for the ships.
Not sure if they are still about though - check out the SFSFW web site.

vT

[The_Beast]

The SFSFW used to run some ST:TNG participation games at various shows using the Full Thrust rules from GZG. If I remember correctly FELIX Enterprises produced a whole range of data cards for the ships.
Not sure if they are still about though - check out the SFSFW web site.

vT

I never did find any; the games were mentioned on the Felix Enterprises web site, but only had special rules for character interactions, if I recall correctly.

In the final analysis, you can pretty much play whatever ruleset you are comfortable, and use TNG ships instead. If ever I wanted to get folks involved with Fed Commander, and as a store owner it's tempting, as I don't get much business out of supporting FT, Starmada, or anything else mentioned, I'd be doing demo games with those micro machines mentioned earlier.

I just like playing Full Thrust over all the others. So, that's what I'll be running now and then, using cards made from John Fu's designs. Not necessarily the best possible, but I are VERY lazy.

Doug

[fairoaks024]

i'd go with full thrust too, very flexible.

best of luck

regards

jim

[Commander Roj]

I never did find any; the games were mentioned on the Felix Enterprises web site, but only had special rules for character interactions, if I recall correctly.

In the final analysis, you can pretty much play whatever ruleset you are comfortable, and use TNG ships instead. If ever I wanted to get folks involved with Fed Commander, and as a store owner it's tempting, as I don't get much business out of supporting FT, Starmada, or anything else mentioned, I'd be doing demo games with those micro machines mentioned earlier.

I just like playing Full Thrust over all the others. So, that's what I'll be running now and then, using cards made from John Fu's designs. Not necessarily the best possible, but I are VERY lazy.

Doug

I have a word document with an explanation and the text of the Threshold cards. I could e-mail a copy to you if you want it.