AN SFB TRAINING PROGRAM
By Ken Burnside

A demo is enough to get someone interested, but if you want an opponent, you need to follow this up with a training program. While there are several ways to do this (following the Cadet Training Handbook being the most obvious), here is the one I use.

I schedule three sessions, and it's me and an assistant. My assistant is there to do two things; Answer rules questions when I'm busy, and to be a "catcher" -- if someone shows up and says "Oh, yeah, I played 6 years ago...I barely remember how.", it's not fair to the newbies to put them against the "experienced guy". Plus, I've also had "experienced guys" pull really strange rules out of their hats (Oh, yeah, you put power into phasers and they can fire every impulse...). If someone says they've played before, have your assistant play him a standard tourney duel.

Whenever a rules question is asked, make a show out of looking the answer up in the rulebook and showing the answer to the questioner, rather than answering off the top of your head. The SFB rulebook is big and intimidating, yes...but the sooner you show someone that it's very easy to navigate, it stops being a terrifying tome, and your questioners will start looking things up for themselves, looking for that nasty trick to win with.

Session 1:

• Take a Klingon TC and a Federation TC. 
• Explain how to allocate power for movement, explain how to allocate power to phasers.
• Explain how to power housekeeping.
• Explain shield and firing arcs. 
• Explain damage allocation. 
• Do NOT explain shield reinforcement.
• Have both players fly at each other and fire phasers until they've scored internals on the other guy.

Sometime after this has occurred, say "Surprise! Your engineer has figured out how to arm heavy weapons!" Explain arming and holding photons and explain overloads and UIM. Balance the scenario by varying the Fed's starting overload energy. Let them blow each other up reaaaal goooood.

Both sides should have fun with this -- it's pretty simple and straightforward. The Fed will likely have the edge in this, due to better phasers and photon shock. Hence, set the Fed's overload energy to balance.

Session 2:

• Explain drones (Type I, Type IV), tractors, labs, and shuttles (admin, suicide, wild weasel, not SP). All drones are speed 32; other than that, tourney standards.
• Teach how to downfire phasers at this point. Also explain HETs at this point, and TACs, including the HET max of 26 and the admin shuttle launch restrictions after an HET.
• Explain reserve power for overloading weapons and tractors and refilling phasers.
• Have the players play the match again. The Fed should have a slight edge -- put your better player in the Klingon for this matchup.

This is a good point to let players repeat the game a few times -- if they're getting it, they'll want to play a few
more times to try different things out. This is a good thing.

Session 3:

• Explain mid turn speed changes, reserve warp, scatter packs, and shield reinforcement.
• Explain any system on the ship not covered to date.

After session 3, your players should be able to handle learning any new TC in one or two training runs.

I find that the natural outcome of playing with Cadet Training Manual, which teaches shield reinforcement before overloads, is that players learn a game that isn't SFB -- they learn how to fly at speed 8 or speed 10 with 16-20 points of general reinforcement to avoid standard load disruptor plinking.

I teach MTSC and shield reinforcement at the same time. By the time someone understands overloads and mid-turn speed changes, the appeal of playing turtle is minimized.