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September 2012
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Star Fleet Universe News THE BIG NEWS this month is the scheduled release of Reinforcements Attack next October. Also to be released then will be Boosters 34, 35, 36, as well as the Nova Edition of Distant Armada and Alien Armada, along with both Nova and Admiral editions of Battleships Armada. In other news this month, The second annual Platinum Hat International Online SFB tournament is moving past the second round. More information is below in the tournament section, but you can always find the most up-to-date information on the BBS: http://www.starfleetgames.com/discus/. WEBSITE: Our website, www.StarFleetGames.com, continues to grow and improve. You are welcome to send us your requests, comments, and suggestions. Joel Shutts, our graphics director, continues to update the website, do covers for the new products, shut down pirate websites, help out around the company, and learn more about the game business. One of our newest pages is for Starline 2500 where we display photos and 3d renders of the new starships. FACEBOOK: Jean continues to improve our page on Facebook, adding many new photos and other features. VIDEOS: StarFleetGames has taken its act to YouTube and we now have a YouTube channel. Our goal is to create a video for the new product releases during each month. We have "In the Box" videos to show you what you will see when you unpack your new game. We have also done "Spotlights" on a single product or product line. So pull up a chair and join us at the movies! Our newest uploads are: Star Fleet Marines Part 1 STARBLOG: Our StarBlog has moved to a new URL
and all links on StarFleetGames.com websites have been changed to match. The new
site is JAGDPANTHER
DO NOT OVERLOOK THIS The Historical Miniatures Gaming Society is a big outfit, and has been around for a long time. They're always running events and conventions all over the US and elsewhere. Check their website (http://www.hmgs.org/) for information on this group and their upcoming events to find one near you. They allow non-historical miniatures gaming to have space at their events (although you should probably contact them before you just show up and start lining up starships on their tables). This may give you another opportunity to get together with SFU friends from around your region (as long as you are using Starline 2400 or Starline 2500 miniatures; they don't seem to understand cardboard counters). You can show them SFB, FC, Starmada, or A Call to Arms, and take a look at all of the other kinds of miniatures games out there. If you accidentally win one of their prizes (say, a box of Napoleonic miniatures) you can probably trade them to someone at your home game store or on a gaming forum for something more to your liking. Custom Decals for Starline ships Tenneshington Decals recently added a new decal set product, designed to work with the Starline 2500 Squadron Box #7 (Federation Reinforcements). This is in addition to their existing products, associated to the Squadron Box #1 and Federation Fleet Box.
ONLINE TOURNAMENTS Rated Ace Tournament 38 has just one of the fourth-round games to be
completed. There's the possibility of a Kzinti civil war in Round 5! Ken Lin in
his Klingon ship is waiting for his opponent in Round 6. Judge Peter Bakija
certainly is keeping this one moving along. Good luck everyone! NetKill Patrol is over for the second quarter of 2012. Brendan Lally defeated
Josh Driscol and earned the title of Cyber_Squire. Richard Sherman maintains
the statistics that makes this possible.
DEMOS AND CONS WITH SFU GAMES Please send information to Jean via the email in her BBS profile, PM on the Mongoose or Federation Commander forums, or Message on Facebook. If you want convention support, please contact Mike Sparks at support@StarFleetGames.com. Your convention must meet a few simple requirements (one of which is being held in the United States due to shipping costs) which are here: http://www.starfleetgames.com/sfb/tournament/tourn_main.shtml Council of Five Nations is the annual adventure gaming convention held every year on Columbus Day Weekend in October. Council is host to the largest face-to-face Star Fleet Battles tournament in the world. Council 35 will be held on October 8-10 this year, at the Proctor's Conference Center in Schenectady, NY. Once again, the Council SFB tournament is a Sanctioned Rated Ace event. We expect to offer an Ace Card to the winner, and two Ace Cards is a reasonable goal if we get 32+ attendees -- and right now we have 32 people committed to attend! Thank you, and we hope to see you at Council of Five Nations this year. The Annual Ithaca Cup Team Tournament was held Saturday, July 14th, The tiebreaker has been played with John Rigley defeating Andrew Sackett. The winning team is Team SWA consisting of Dave Cheng, John Rigley, Andy Koch, Doug Riggi, and Mike Rogozinsk. Congratulations! GameCon Memphis VI will be held September 28-30 in Memphis, Tennessee. ACTASF
has four two-hour sessions scheduled. This con will be in the former Holiday Inn
Select - Memphis Airport located at 2240 Democrat Road (next to the Memphis
International Airport). Added bonus: Lou Zocchi will be one of the Guests of
Honor. For more information see: http://www.gameconmemphis.com/ Games and demos are being run in Spokane, Washington. They meet every Thursday (may move to Friday) at 2:00 pm and play till 9:00 pm, games open to start every time. You can find them at The Gamers Haven, 2114 N. Pines St, Suites 1 & 2, Spokane Valley, WA 99206, (509) 443-5992 Download Transmissions HAILING FREQUENCIES: This is our newsletter and will let you know all the news for all our games. You can subscribe here. Have you missed an earlier newsletter? Click here to get caught up! COMMUNIQUE: The latest Communique brings you more Ship Cards, scenarios, and more news from the Star Fleet Universe! It can be downloaded from the Commander's Circle. FC Forum Recent Posts
We are very pleased to see the medals, honor bars, and ribbons awarded to players being incorporated into their signatures. It is exciting to see lots of interesting conversations about a wide variety of subjects. Get in on the activity! While for new players the Federation Commander Forum is a little easier to manage, the original (Discus-based) BBS is where most product development takes place. If you have a proposal you'd like to see worked on, don't forget to make sure it is mentioned here. It also has active F&E and SFB forums where players run campaigns, Rated Ace tournaments and other SFB tournaments are organized (most FC tournaments are organized on the Forum), SVC's "My Day" appears, along with current news and strategies dealing with Prime Directive, and each issue of Captain's Log is created. While less colorful (no avatars or sigs), it is a vital part of ADB, Inc.'s communications. F&E Strategy of the Month Demotivationals Throughout the month our graphics director places on the website various cards called Demotivationals. These are like postcards with an image and a phrase that is often used for humor. To see our previous Demotivationals click here. Mini of the Month Starline 2500 Mobile Base
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New Releases Communique #81 has been posted to the Commander's Circle. Recently Released
Captain's Log #45, Stock #5745, $24.95, 144 pages!
Klingon Armada Nova Edition, Stock #6101, $16.95
Romulan Armada Nova Edition, Stock #6102, $16.95
Star Fleet Marines Assault, Stock #2101, $34.95
Starmada Nova Edition rulebook, Stock #6120, $16.95
Starline 2500 Romulan Fleet Box, Stock #30008, $149.99 (JV-Mongoose)
Starline 2500 Squadron Box 6 Kzintis, Stock #30010, $29.99 (JV-Mongoose) To be released during Fall 2012 A Call to Arms: Star Fleet Reference Cards, Stock #30001, $14.99
Alien Armada Nova Edition, Stock #6103, $16.95
Distant Armada Nova Edition, Stock #6104, $16.95 . Federation Commander: Reinforcements Attack, Stock # 4110, $29.95 Starmada: Battleship Armada, Stock #6105, $16.95 To be released during November 2012 Traveller Prime Directive Core Rulebook, TBA
Federation Commander Booster Pack 34 Escorts, Stock #4234, $9.95 Federation Commander Booster Pack 35 Cops & Raiders, Stock #4235, $9.95 Federation Commander Booster Pack 36 Heavies, Stock #4236, $9.95 To be released late 2012 or early 2013 Tribbles vs Klingons.
Captain's Log #46, Stock #5746, $TBA (November) To be released during 2013 A Call to Arms Star Fleet #2, BattleFleets, TBA (JV-Mongoose) Federation Admiral, Stock #4080, $TBA PDF SALES: ADB, Inc. continues its relationship with Steve Jackson Games and their e23 Warehouse. We chose e23 because they have a philosophy that agrees with ours -- our customers are honest and honorable and wouldn't aid people who want to steal our products. Furthermore, we know from experience how devastating a computer crash can be and want our customers to know that they don't have to worry about the loss of their e-products bought through e23. What do we have there? We have created a new page that allows easy access to our PDFs for sale on e23. From here you can see what we currently have posted and have links to those products. RECENTLY RELEASED ON e23 RECENTLY RELEASED ON DRIVE THRU RPG Star Fleet Fiction Zira was excited. It was not often that the head of the Intelligence Department aboard the DNS was excited about his work. Usually his work meant weeks of examining captured shipping documents, of poring over reports from a multitude of foreign agents that often included members of Klingon subject races, or searching through battle reports seeking to project enemy supply needs. Anything that he could decipher or collate might help him discover a pattern that would allow Commodore Arrax to gain the upper hand in the next battle. Every battle had some bearing upon the survival of the Holdfast itself.
Now he thought he had something that might be useful. An Orion agent had overheard some "bar talk" from a pair of Hilidarians. He had passed on the information that the lone Seltorian FCR had left the resupply depot, and that in addition to its normal restocking of several different Seltorian carriers, it was also going to restock a fighter rally point hidden in an asteroid field. The agent passed on the name of the rally point, but he had no idea where the rally point was. But Zira did. Some time ago, another Orion agent had sold them the location of this particular rally point. The rally point existed primarily as a fallback point for fighter sweeps that had run afoul of pirates, been separated from their convoy, or had been left behind when their carrier could not wait to pick them up, as when fleeing the occasional Tholian deep raid. Until now, they had never had a use for the information, just as they never had a use for ninety-nine percent of the information their intelligence network ferreted away from their enemies. But it was all filed away, cross-indexed, and collated, just for the day when one tiny fact in the vast database would suddenly be needed. He sped down the corridor, leaning forward to gain speed. Other Tholians, seeing his obvious hurry, moved out of his way as he neared them. He approached the half-pipe that connected Deck B to Deck A. He knew the Commodore would be on the bridge. As he half-slid, half-floated into the half-pipe, he began to feel a shift in orientation. His magnetic sense and his gravamagnetic organ were functioning to smoothly alter his perception of what was up and what was down. He came out of the half-pipe oriented upside down from where he had been, but right side up for where he was. This innate ability of all Tholians was a minor blessing he knew. It was another factor that enemy boarding parties had to deal with. It must be a nightmare for a Klingon to try to navigate from deck to deck in their bulky environmental suits, all the while taking fire. Of course the obverse is true also. He had read several reports of boarding actions on Klingon and Seltorian ships, and the bulky environmental suits the Tholian raiders were forced to wear put them at a strong disadvantage. He leaned more vertically as he neared the bridge. As he entered, he was moving at normal speed. Through the dark, heat-distorted atmosphere, he saw Commodore Arrax conferring with his prime officer. He paused and waited deferentially until they finished their conversation, trying hard to control the flaring of his eyes and the orange streaks of light that occasionally flashed through his semi-translucent body. (Continue reading here) Ask Admiral Growler TRACTORS Francois Lemay asks: Ship A tractored friendly ship B that was sitting on top of an enemy T-bomb during Impulse #32 of Turn #3. It is now Turn #4, Impulse #1, and ship A rotates ship B one hex closer to itself. Does this movement set off the T-bomb immediately ?
ANSWER: (M2.415) says being rotated by tractor (G7.7) into detection range does not trigger a mine immediately, but the rotated unit is treated as having entered that hex at its current effective speed on Impulse #1. (If rotation breaks the tractor, the ship will be moving at its own speed when next it moves.) Shuttles being rotated by (J1.62) are treated as entering the hex at the current effective speed of the rotating ship. If you are on top of the mine, being rotated off of the mine will trigger it based on the rotated ship's current effective speed. Follow-up question: Here is what happened. My Snipe-A is next to a T-bomb that just went active on Impulse #32 of Turn #2. My Snipe-P is on top of the T-bomb above. The Snipe-A tractored the Snipe-P on Impulse #32 of Turn #2. I then plotted Speed 10 for both ships (Pseudo-Speed 5 for both) and the Snipe-A used the tractor rotation on Impulse #1 of Turn #2 to pull the Snipe-P off of the mine hex thinking it would not trigger the mine but I was wrong (we did play it as the T-bomb detonating). However, the Snipe-A is facing C Pseudo-Speed 5 and the Snipe-P is facing E Pseudo-Speed 5. What is the effective speed of the Snipe-P? Is it 10 or five or some other speed? ANSWER: Under (C2.45), the effective speed would be 10: ". . . their effective speed is equal to the sum of their pseudo-speeds, plus terrain-induced movement." There is no "specific" rule covering movement by rotation under (G7.7), but given what effective speed is (the rate at which the unit is moving), the rotation of the ship by one hex would add one to the speed of the ship on Impulse #1. You cannot safely rotate a ship off of or next to a mine by (G7.7); there would still be a 1/6th chance the rotation movement would trigger the mine. In your case, both ships intend to move Speed 10, so you could have combined the tractor rotation with a mid-turn speed change. You plot an initial speed of zero and then during the Initial Activity Stage (5), you rotate the ship away from the mine with a 1/6th chance that it explodes on Impulse #1. If no explosion, then on Impulse #3 you announce a change to Speed 10 for both ships, and if the movement of the ships takes them out of the mine's detection radius on Impulse #4, you simply fly away. Another option would be to use Speed Zero and sweep the mine with phasers (requires a tractor) before accelerating away on Impulse #4. At Speed Zero you detect it automatically (M7.34). You would have six chances to get a lock-on to the mine (one try by each ship per impulse) with a 67% chance of success for each. Any ship that succeeds applies its tractor beam to the mine (M8.11) and fires phasers. [The mine has six points of ECM that you cannot counter with ECCM (M8.12). So assuming no OEW there is a shift of two, meaning a die roll of six on a phaser-1 will score three points of damage, and a die roll of six on a phaser-3 will score one point of damage for a total of four which will destroy a small mine (M8.41).] For a large mine you will need two phaser-1s (M8.41), and both must be fired on the same impulse (M8.42). Again, only the ship with the tractor link to the mine can fire at it. And again on Impulse #4 you accelerate to Speed 10. (End of Ask Growler ) F&E Q&A PRODUCTION Q: The Kzinti annex (705.2) says: "No more than one drone ship can be produced by substitution each year (432.44)." Does this mean that they can produce any number through conversion? A: In F&E2010 (705.3), (703.4), and (702.4) you will see that the Klingons and the Federation are specifically limited on conversion/substitutions of drone ships. The Kzintis are only limited to one substitution (note, with Advanced Operations and other advanced modules this changes to just two per turn by any means) with no limits on conversions, so they can convert as many as their desire and economy can support. Note, however, that most drone bombardment ships also have scout functions and are also under the scout production limits. Q: Rule (709.3) allows one Hydran DWF per turn as a substitution for an FF prior to Fall Y176, with a maximum of four prototype DW hulls during the seven turns from Spring Y173 to Spring Y176 (inclusive), and allows no additional conversions. Rule (450.1) allows the Hydrans to begin production of two DW shipyards when DW-class ships become available. Rule (450.16) restricts minor shipyards to ships that are already on the production schedule. Can the Hydrans begin building a DW minor shipyard starting in Spring Y173 when DWs first become available as a substitution on their schedule? This would allow DW production at these minor shipyards as early as Fall Y174 as the ship is effectively on the schedule as a substitution. Or are they required to wait to Fall Y176 to build a DW minor shipyard when the DW becomes a standard part of their production schedule? Would this change if the Hydrans still hold their shipyard in Spring Y173, which allows the Hydrans to begin their Y176 production schedule early? In addition, would the four prototype DW hull limit include production of DWs from minor shipyards? A: Rule (450.16) states that a minor shipyard cannot begin building a class until the class is on the production schedule. Until the DW is on the production schedule a minor shipyard for that class cannot be built. This means you cannot use the allowed substitution to count as being on the schedule. If the Hydrans still hold their shipyard in Spring Y173 and get their Spring Y176 production schedule moved up, then they can start the DW minor shipyard on Spring Y173, but not before. (F&E Q&A continues here.) ASK AUNT JEAN Q: What's all this talk about deck plans? A: We really would like to have deck plans in the Traveller: Prime Directive book, so we are hard at work recruiting folks to create them. The good side is they'll be part of Final Frontiers for the folks who have other "flavors" of RPGs so those people won't miss out on them. If you want more information, check out this page: http://www.starfleetgames.com/deckplanresources.shtml Send questions to Jean at design@StarFleetGames.com and SVC will decide which one Jean will answer next. Cool Stuff on the Website In this section we will provide links to various web pages and items that we think you will find "cool". We have also uploaded new Xander wallpapers to our Wallpapers section on the website. We have new images of our next game Star Fleet Marines posted on our BBS topic page. STAR FLEET ALERTS These are the press releases we send to the wholesalers, retailers, and media. You can get on the mailing list for them by asking Marketing@StarFleetGames.com to add you to the list. (Obviously, they are free.) They are uploaded to the Star Fleet Alert page When protecting a ship with your aegis-equipped escort, you can use accelerations and decelerations to use almost all of the aegis ship's phasers on a single drone wave, no matter what arcs the phasers have. (This assumes that the escort and the target are flying at the same baseline speed.) As the drone wave approaches, get a few hexes closer to the drones than the target ship, and directly between the drones and the target. Time this so the drones will be in the same hex or at least near the aegis ship during the Offensive Fire Phase of an impulse. Engage the drones with any facing weapons. Then, during the Movement Phase of the next impulse, allow the drones to fly past and impact the target ship, but keep the target ship in the arc of the unfired weapons on the aegis ship. If possible move the two ships closer to each other (Range Zero is ideal). During the Defensive Fire Phase, the aegis ship will be able to shoot the impacted drones once again with the phasers that were out of arc the first time. Ever wish for Speed-64 torpedoes? Well, with perfect timing, you can effectively have them, for a few impulses. A sabot torpedo launched on Impulse #30 moves four times, in the next three impulses, where even ships going Speed 31 only move two hexes in the same time. Using this unique window can guarantee a hit on a ship two hexes away and running for its life, can get your enveloping torpedo well out in front of you (four hexes, if you are going under Speed 16, and slip on Impulse #32), or just get your Speed-40 torpedo a little closer than your opponent wanted, in a short time.
NEW MINIATURES! Starline 2500 Heavy Freighter
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