Federation vs. Klingon Playtest

Gareth_Perkins · Post by **Gareth_Perkins** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 1:55 pm

It sounds like there will be a lot of good material which can be back-fitted into non-ST VBAM games?

mwaschak · Post by **mwaschak** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 2:45 pm

Gareth_Perkins wrote:It sounds like there will be a lot of good material which can be back-fitted into non-ST VBAM games?

I believe there will. At the core of any of our designs exists the same modular philosophy. Which means a person playing FA could integrate modules from the Menagerie, or a VBAM player could use the Local campaign system from FA.

-Jay

Charles Lewis · Post by **Charles Lewis** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 3:04 pm

And, this is laying a lot of groundwork for a cleaner, nicer, easier to work with CSCR 2.0 (and probably VBAM 2.0 thereafter).

andstrauss · Post by **andstrauss** » Sat Sep 27, 2008 3:30 pm

Any chance VBAM 2.0 will have a online component to assist players and CMs?

Cheers,

terryoc · Post by **terryoc** » Sat Sep 27, 2008 6:25 pm

I like the idea of starting a war causing both players to lose!

I can see it now...

Federation: "Dammit, Commodore, we have Romulans raiding our borders already, and then you have to go and start a war with the Klingons! Are you incompetent, or actually a traitor? Well, I suppose that's for the Court-Martial to decide!"

Klingon: "Commodore, we already have constant raids from the Kzintis, and you have to go and start a war with the Federation! Are you incompetent, or actually a traitor? Well, I suppose that's for the Empire Security Service and their mind-sifters to discover!"

A D6, two F5Ws and two F5s is a small force! Most of the missions will probably involve only one ship, at least to start with, I would think.

Charles Lewis · Post by **Charles Lewis** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 12:42 am

andstrauss wrote:Any chance VBAM 2.0 will have a online component to assist players and CMs?

Cheers,

Dunno. There is work being done on a such a critter, but no timeline at this point.

mwaschak · Post by **mwaschak** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 12:20 pm

Charles Lewis wrote:And, this is laying a lot of groundwork for a cleaner, nicer, easier to work with CSCR 2.0 (and probably VBAM 2.0 thereafter).

This has been a nice opportunity to go back to my 1999 and 2000 notes and scrub them to see what worked, what is used, and what can be done better.

-Jay

mwaschak · Post by **mwaschak** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 12:22 pm

Charles Lewis wrote: Dunno. There is work being done on a such a critter, but no timeline at this point.

If I can can talk Mike Riddle in to expanding his online CSCR model to the new edition

. He already has the workings of just such a thing.

-Jay

mwaschak · Post by **mwaschak** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 12:32 pm

terryoc wrote:I like the idea of starting a war causing both players to lose! I can see it now...

Thank you. That is the premise exactly! The present rules allow for a tally of points, with a penalty for the player who went and sparked such a conflict.

terryoc wrote: Federation: "Dammit, Commodore, we have Romulans raiding our borders already, and then you have to go and start a war with the Klingons! Are you incompetent, or actually a traitor? Well, I suppose that's for the Court-Martial to decide!"

Klingon: "Commodore, we already have constant raids from the Kzintis, and you have to go and start a war with the Federation! Are you incompetent, or actually a traitor? Well, I suppose that's for the Empire Security Service and their mind-sifters to discover!"

LOL. That is spot on though. A commodore/admiral/warlord/etceteras... at this level of a game is not privy to the big picture. He or she simply has their operating orders and are expected to get them done!

terryoc wrote: A D6, two F5Ws and two F5s is a small force! Most of the missions will probably involve only one ship, at least to start with, I would think.

There is a lot of space to cover for the player, and based on all my test games it is likely the encounters will be small too. So I expect to see a F5 running in to a Fed police cutter, and based on operating objectices, we will see how they each react.

Let's take a test game of mine for discussion purposes. The Federation learned an operative was aboard a Klingon ship, and finally tracked down that Klingon ship. Well, the Klingon player was under orders to "Keep the Peace", and kept its distance lest he find himself a new friend in the Empire Security Service. At this point the Klingon player had no idea a Federation operative was aboard one of his little frigates on the border.

Well, this ship ran in to a Federation old style frigate who would not let the F5 escape. The Kingon player could not figure out why the Fed was playing with it, shooting to disable shields and doing hit and run attacks. After the Kingon F5 with the operative aboard was disabled, the Fed beamed out the operative and ran. Unfortunately leaving the F5 in deep space with no supplies and quite immobile.

-Jay

terryoc · Post by **terryoc** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 8:43 pm

That sounds incredibly fun to me... Too bad for the F5 captain!! If I were in his position, once it became clear the Federation Frigate captain wanted to fight, I'd use the "directed targetting" rule to take out the Fed's weapons without destroying his ship... It's still a tough one for the F5, the Federation FF is simply a superior ship in Federation Commander.

jygro · Post by **jygro** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 6:02 am

This has been a very fun read. Keep us updated on your adventures!

-Bren

Rainer · Post by **Rainer** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 6:38 am

Don't worry, once I got my first turn back, I'll post an update. Don't expect too much though, as my Klingons can barely afford third-rate blood wine and at the current timescale it takes a long time until something is finished.

mwaschak · Post by **mwaschak** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 12:25 pm

Rainer wrote:Don't worry, once I got my first turn back, I'll post an update. Don't expect too much though, as my Klingons can barely afford third-rate blood wine and at the current timescale it takes a long time until something is finished.

We are pending Dan's turn 1, which was waiting on some better ground units from me. I will probably need to revisit those and come up with better stats and names after I test them more.

-Jay

mwaschak · Post by **mwaschak** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 12:41 pm

terryoc wrote:That sounds incredibly fun to me... Too bad for the F5 captain!! If I were in his position, once it became clear the Federation Frigate captain wanted to fight, I'd use the "directed targetting" rule to take out the Fed's weapons without destroying his ship... It's still a tough one for the F5, the Federation FF is simply a superior ship in Federation Commander.

Thank you. It has been a lot of development, writing, and testing, but I am having a blast!

I was surprised how well the FF did. The Klingon F5 should have cut and run right away IMHO, but I think was more curious about what the FF was trying to do. The engagement was in neutral space so would be a bad place to get stranded.

I can't wait to get some more players involved to see how they react under orders and restrictions. For example, needing to bring in supplies to a world the Klingon player is ordered to blockade.

-Jay

MarkG88 · Post by **MarkG88** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 10:14 pm

Rainer wrote:Don't worry, once I got my first turn back, I'll post an update. Don't expect too much though, as my Klingons can barely afford third-rate blood wine and at the current timescale it takes a long time until something is finished.

So go across the border and "borrow when no one is looking" (since they left in terror) some Federation EPs hehe.

-Mark