Star Fleet Battles

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Star Fleet Battles (SFB) is a tactical strategy board war game set in an offshoot of Star Trek called the Star Fleet Universe. Originally created in 1979 by Stephen V. Cole; it has had four major editions. The current edition is published by Amarillo Design Bureau Inc. as Star Fleet Battles, Captain's Edition.

It is a ship-to-ship warfare simulation game, which uses cardboard counters to represent the ships, shuttles, seeking weapons, terrain, and information on a hexagonal map. It is not simply a game, but rather a detailed game system for two or more players (there are some solitare scenarios). Typically, a player will have one ship in a game, though he can control an entire fleet, if he can keep track of the paperwork and options involved; multiple players can play as teams, with each team spitting up the work of running a squadron or fleet, or a 'free-for-all' fight can be run. Ships represented in the game are typically starships from such classic Star Trek powers as the Federation, Romulan Star Empire, Klingon Empire, or purely Star Fleet Universe creations such as the Hydran Kingdom or Interstellar Concordium.

The game system uses an impulse-based turn system, which is a departure from the traditional I-Go You-Go alternating system used by most wargames. A ship's speed determines how often and when it can move based on a 32 impulse movement chart. Generally, a unit only moves one hex at a time, making 32 the maximum 'speed' in the game. Similar systems are used in games such as Steve Jackson's Car Wars (which uses a 5 phase system) and is designed to more realistically simulate unit movement in an environment where the units can move a great distance in the time needed for non-movement functions (like weapons fire) to occur.

Contents

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Overview

Star Fleet Battles was based on the Star Trek universe as of 1979 and includes elements of Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Animated Series. Federation elements were heavily based on concepts from The Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual. Unlike the mainstream Star Trek universe, Star Fleet Battles seems to consider some, but not all of The Animated Series, as being a canon material source, thus leading to the inclusion of aliens such as the Kzinti.

Since the first publication of the game, Star Fleet Battles and the Star Trek universe have diverged considerably as the authors of the game and those of the films and television series have basically ignored each other. The resulting divergent world of Star Fleet Battles is known as the "Star Fleet Universe". Other games set in this universe include the computer game series Star Fleet Command (which combines parts of SFU with parts of canon Star Trek), the role-playing games Prime Directive, GURPS Prime Directive, and D20 Prime Directive, the card game Star Fleet Battle Force, and the strategy game Federation and Empire, as well as the recently-released Federation Commander.

Another note is that the 'icense Star Fleet Battles operates under does not allow for direct reference to the characters and detailed events of the Original Series. As such, official material does not include references to Kirk, Spock or use the USS Enterprise directly, though the latter is included in ship listings. This has not prevented oblique references, such as a comment about the first Gorn-Federation meeting as involving “two young captains who fired first, and faced embarrassing questions later.”

The divergences have included races in each that are not in the other, and also the general tone of the universes. The writers of the films and television series wanted to stay close to Gene Roddenberry's optimistic view of the future in which differences between groups could ultimately be resolved peacefully. Conversely, peace is not useful in a military wargame so the universe of Star Fleet Battles is one of constant conflict and warfare and is thus much more pessimistic.

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History

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Pocket Edition

Star Fleet Battles was originally published as a small or 'pocket-game' in a ziplock bag as "Task Force Game #4" by Task Force Games in 1979. Steve Cole later recalled:

The design of Star Fleet Battles began during 1975... Jim Brown... and I were playing a lot of Jutland.... One afternoon I was studying the Jutland battle that was in progress on my floor (left from the previous evening) when the [Star Trek] re-run of the day came on. I began to consider the possibility of doing a space game on the Jutland system. JagdPanther was in operation at the time, and I had vague thoughts that I could somehow get a license for the game.

<p> By the time Jim came by to collect me for dinner, I had a Federation CA and a Klingon D7 fighting it out. In the brief space of an hour long re-run, I had two SSD's, the proportional movement system, and the charts for phasers and disruptor bolts. All were to change drastically within a week and were to continue evolving for five years, but the start was made.Template:Ref num</blockquote> The company JagdPanther closed down before SFB was finished, but the game was not forgotten, and when Steve Cole and Allen Eldridge decided to start a new company (Task Force Games) Star Fleet Battles was one of several half-finished designs proposed to be published by them. While the initial format was small, and the number of ships limited, the game was still not simple. This was dictated in part by a desire to do the "definitive Star Fleet game". This meant that it included as much detail as possible from all the source material available. In the mid-70s, this meant the original two series and a number of fan publications. Except for The Original Series itself, none of these materials are considered canon today, but at the time, they were all considered fairly authoritative, especially the Star Fleet Technical Manual by Franz Joseph, which had originally been blessed by Gene Roddenberry, and from which Steve Cole got the license to do a Star Trek game. Elements of these almost forgotten fan productions shaped many aspects of the game. The Technical Manual itself decided the main functions of the Federation Heavy Cruiser, and what other Federation ships looked like. A set of blueprints showed the Klingon D7 as having more phasers than the Heavy Cruiser, and disruptors mounted on the engines. The latter became a common feature of Klingon shipbuilding, and the former led to the idea of less powerful phasers for the Klingons. The same blueprints also stated that an older, slightly inferior version of the D7, the D6, was what was sold to the Romulans, and the D7/D6 dicotomy has been at the heart of the Klingon fleet in the game ever since. Two of the novels gave mention of a phaser being mounted on shuttlecraft. This was included, as much to give a reason to use shuttles as anything else. This proved to be the wedge that allowed the introduction of fighters to the game; a feature popular with many players, but also led many to belive that Star Fleet Battles was no longer Star Trek.

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Designer's Edition

Later in 1979, Star Fleet Battles was re-released in a boxed set known as the Designer's Edition. The original plan had been to produce "three interlocking games, all to be published in the 'pocket' format. When 'completed' this trilogy would cover the entire system."Template:Ref num

However, the real reason for this plan was that it had been imposible to aquire boxes at an affordable price. When a source of boxes was found, it was decided to do a revised, expanded version instead. The box contained about twice as many ships and scenarios as the original Pocket Edition, and was expanded upon itself by three expansions in the same zip-lock format as the original (named, imaginatively enough, Expansion #1, Expansion #2, and Expansion #3).

These expansions rapidly added many new ships and concepts to the system which are parts of it to this day: The Hydrans, Andromedans and Lyrans were introduced as new races. 'War cruisers', cheap ships almost, but not quite, as powerful as the heavy cruisers the game was based on. 'Pseudo-fighters' (later renamed 'fast patrol' ships; but retaining the 'PF' designation) were designed to be about as small as a ship could be and still fit in the system. 'X-ships' or 'up-rated cruisers', which were based on the new versions of the Enterprise and Klingon ships seen in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. However, many things were being re-written, and each expansion included new elements that impacted how previous rules worked, making the entire system something of a jumble. "It was clear that issuing yet another 'expansion kit' that devoted half of its space to correcting previous products was not the answer."Template:Ref num

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Commander's Edition

Commander's Edition was, effectively, a ground-up rewrite of the rules. The old rule-number system was discarded in favor of a completely new alpha-numeric system. The three Expansions were scrapped and re-packaged. However, other than the new (bigger) reorganized rulebook, the initial 1983 release of the boxed set was mostly unchanged from the Designer's Edition, including the box (later printings labled it Star Fleet Battles: Volume I).

Most of the material (including the new races) from the Expansions was reorganized and released as Volume II. The bulk of the fighter rules were in Suppliment #1, X-ships (now redone not to be based on ST:TMP) were in Suppliment #2, and PFs (now renamed as Fast Patrol ships) were in Suppliment #3.

From there, Commander's Edition came out with new products for the next half-decade or so. Two Reinforcements packs allowed the purchase of extra counters. Volume III added the Interstellar Concordium and the Neo-Tholians, as well as new ships and new concepts (such as heavy fighters). Nexus magazine was launched as a house organ for Task Force Games, and featured a regular SFB section.

Of lasting importance was the launch of Captain's Log, a continuing semi-periodical journal dedicated to Star Fleet Battles that is still running today. Also, the 'Commander's SSD' was introduced. SSDs had just been a half-sheet diagram of the ship's systems. The new style (which did not appear in Volume I or II), took a full sheet and included extra record-keeping information, such as tracks for drone ammo and shuttles, and firing charts for all the weapons on the ship. A line of nine Commander's SSD Books were produced, the first few of which were mostly involved presenting new-style SSDs for the older ships, the last several of which had all new material.

Durring this entire period, there had been a constant stream of Errata, and later Addenda (which amounted to the same thing). For a long time, the vast majority of the mail received was from the top, few, fanatical, SFB players, who constantly campaigned for new rules, rules fixes, and rules changes. This became a source of discontent for most of the rest of the players, who did not appreciate a game that changed every few months, and needed a sheaf of notes along with the volumnous rules. However, it was generally believed nearly impossible to repair the damage by properly re-writing and re-integrating such a large and complex system into a new edition before doomsday, especially without bringing the product line to a halt while only new versions of old products were released.

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Doomsday

For a long time the 'Doomsday Edition' was a private joke amongst the staff that worked on SFB. Then it became a public one. Finally, it became an actual project in 1987, and the 'Doomsday Edition' was released as Star Fleet Battles, Captain's Edition in 1990.

The long gestation, however, did give us time to plan an all-new edition. The publisher insisted that we should reorganize the game system into entirely new products. This was necessary to present the material to an entirely new generation of gamers in a more logical format (and to make dealers notice that it was a new edition).Template:Ref num

The changes were sweeping. There were two boxed sets (in a smaller format than former boxes), the first of which, Basic Set, was roughly the same as Volume I. The second, Advanced Missions was different in that it only introduced new rules and ship types (more ships than any other single product in fact), but stayed with the same selection of basic races as the first box. Nearly everything else is labled Module x, where x is a letter (and number, in a series), along with a name, and comes as a booklet of rules and a booklet of SSDs, with a sheet of counters and a color wrapper as the cover. The new races of Volume II and III were presented in Module C1 and C2.

Captain's Log #8 spent a decent amount of room explaining exactly what the new edition meant, and how the new products would work. The release of 'Doomsday' was split into five phases:Template:Ref num

Phase I was the Basic Set itself, which had been released before Captain's Log #8.
Phase II included Advanced Missions, C1, and C2. It also included several limited-run products that were meant purely to ease the transition for older players. The main one had the rulebooks from all the Phase I and Phase II products, so vetran players could get all the new rules without having to re-purchase the other parts. These were released in late 1990 and early 1991.
Phase III was Module J and K, effectively updates of Supplement #1 and #3. Both of these were released in 1991.
Phase IV updated the Commander's SSD Books into Modules R1-4. The twelve races of the previous edition were divided into three groups of four, and their remaining ships were put into R2-4; R1 had generic units and play aids. These were released in 1992. R1, was actually the last one released, and came after the first of the new Captain's Edition products.
Phase V was a promise to continue developing new products once the transition to Captain's Edition was complete.

And the biggest change was: "We'll explain everythiing, but we won't change anything!"Template:Ref num Doomsday promised an end to addenda. Loopholes might be closed, new things might still be added, but no previous rule would change as a result.

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External links

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Notes

1 Template:Note Retrospect: Star Fleet Battles, by Steve Cole, The Space Gamer, Number 42 (Futura Press, 1981).

2 Template:Note (Z1.1) Notes on the Commander's Edition, Star Fleet Battles Basic Set, (ADB, 1999)

3 Template:Note (Z1.2) Notes on the Captain's Edition, Star Fleet Battles Basic Set, (ADB, 1999)

4 Template:Note Command the Future!: DOOMSDAY IS HERE!, Captain's Log #8 (Task Force Games, 1990)

5 Template:Note 10 Questions About Doomsday, Captain's Log #8 (Task Force Games, 1990)it:Star Fleet Battles

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