New Ideas for SFB

This is a collection of ideas for stuff for SFB -- what people think would be cool or neat. ADB regularly publishes "rejected" ideas in issues of Captain's Log, for example. I have broken it up into general categories.

New Ships

Orion Mutiny Raider: an LR designed to dock to the rear hull of Klingon ships after boom separation.
Neo-Tholian Tug
Race-specific bases:
a Kzinti drone factory base with unlimited special drone supply
a Lyran power supply base protected by large asteroids with ESG's
etc.
More ''Old'' Federation ships like the CL: blocky and with armor. Perhaps an Old Heavy Cruiser (armored with 4 photons) and an Old Tug/LTT
Klingon/Romulan/Lyran (?) mauler-armed base, whose arcs sweep with rotation similar to directed turn modes (C3.8)
Gorn heavy fighter carriers (for native-built heavy fighters piloted by Gorns rather than Fed mercernaries)
Tholian military web maintenance ships (i.e. non-auxiliary): power-enhanced like the Fast Cruiser with batteries or a capacitor for web-power
Civilian ships such as local privateers, system defense boats, etc.
Ultra-large colonization vessels: effectively mobile bases that actually move
The ISS Enterprise from the episode ``Mirror, Mirror''.
Take the basic Fed CA design and add 2 Ph-1s with a FH firing arc. Change the other Ph-1s to Ph-2s with the same firing arcs. Remove 4 F hull boxes and 2 lab boxes. Add to the rear hull 4 360 Ph-2s and 4 APRs. Warp engines are increased by 1 point each. This ship also has a cloaking device installed (converted from captured Romulan designs when the Roms were subjugated in their universe). The cost to activate the cloaking device is 16 points of power. Also the power of the photon torp is increased. Each point of power in a photon yields 2.5 damage points instead of 2 points. So a standard torp does 10 points of damage and a fully overloaded torp does 20 points of damage. Total power is 40. It has 4 ph-1s and 8 ph-2s plus the increased photon torps. This would be the standard ISS Cruiser around Y160 in their Universe.
(suggested by Kraig Kuhk19@aol.com)
Paladin-K ``Hydran Killer'' Klingonized Dreadnaught (Y179): Hellbores and Fusions A and B are replaced with 6 Disruptors. Fusions C and D are Drone racks. The EMER boxes are replace with a Security box. The fighters are replace with 10 Z-Vs and 2 Z-Ds. All refits included of course. PhGs on PAL become two Ph3s (on each side) on PAL-K.
(suggested by Brian Webber <djdixon@dimensional.com>)
Seltorian ``Emancipator'' BB: A single-boomed battleship with 60 warp, 6 Impulse, 12 APR, and 12 Battery. Sheilds are 64/48/48/46. 2 Bridge, 2 Aux, Emer, and Flag boxes. 5 tractors, 12 Transporters. 10 admins and 2 GASs. 1 Probe, 10 Lab points.
SENSORS: 6666543210
SCANNERS:0000123459
DAM CON: 886644442220
Excess Damage of 16 points. 80 crew units, 36 BPS. Weapons are; 10 PCs, 4 WBs, 16 Ph1s, and 4 Ph3s.
(suggested by Brian Webber <djdixon@dimensional.com>)
Klingon B-9 Light Battleship
Klingon D5AV / D5AP: Carrier and PF-tender variants with SFG's. They lose heavy weapons but have attrition units to cover for them as they try to establish an SFG lock.
suggested by Min Chen <mchen@newfocus.com>

New Fighters

Fighters are popular especially because they require infinitely less book-keeping than ships. While carriers are a complication in fleet battles, fighters on their own can be easier for beginners.

Some sort of fighter design systems which lets you assign a BPV based on speed, damage, weapons, and DFR.
Tholian snare-armed fighters
Cloaked fighters (perhaps cloaked Stingers)
3-space fighter-bombers (like those in Star Fleet Times #14 by John Hall) which can launch 4 drones per turn, and have 2 points of ``discretionary power'' (i.e. automatic reserve power: 1 point can block 1 damage, add/alter 1 point of EW, or negate 1pt of tractor).
4-space bombers (also in SFT#14) which can launch 6 drones per turn and have 4 points of discretionary power
Half-space decoy fighters which look like fighters and which will follow either the ship or another fighter

Half-space ``Comp-Fighters'': these are computer controlled. They can't be crippled and take 4 points to destroy. Each one costs 1/4 of a point of BPV.

Federation	1xPhot-FA
Klingon/Lyran/WYN	Weap: 2xDisr-FA
Romulan/Gorn	1xPl-F-FA
Kzinti	6xType-III drones
Tholian	2xPh-3-FA or 1xDis-FA or 1xPhot-FA
Hydran	1xFus-FA or 1xHB-FA or 1xPh-G-FA
ISC	2xPl-D-FA
Jindarian	1xLRG FA
Vudar	1xIon FA
Frax	ADD-6 or Ph-G-360
Britanian	1xDisr-LS / 1xDisr-RS
Canadien	2xDisr-FA or 3xPl-D-FA
Deltan	1xPhot-FA
Hispaniolan	1xProton-FA
Triaxian	1xPl-F-FA
Sharkhunter	1xPh-3-360, 1xFlashbomb
Qari	2xPh-3-FA
Flivver	2xHyperdrones

(suggested by Brian Webber <djdixon@dimensional.com>)

I had an idea for ''Auto-Interceptors'' which would have simple SSD's and shields but do not require energy allocation or DAC rolls. Once it starts taking internals, the player simply marks off weapons and speed for each internal at her own discretion.

New Systems

Communication/Command rules, to explain the requirement for big command ships
Expanded emergency procedures: pushing the ship (at a definite cost) for extra power, a tighter turn, extra T-bomb loads, etc.
Regenerative shields
Long-range base-only tractor beams to hold enemies at a distance
Long-range phasers (''pulse phasers'' perhaps?)
Phaser stun setting against exposed targets (i.e. planetside)
Disruptor capacitor boxes
Shotgun fusions which effect everything in a hex or arc
Delay drones which only activate some time after you drop them: like in a scatter-pack. (Perhaps a two-space frame which acts as a SP for a single one-space frame.)
An enveloping warhead (''anemone drones'' perhaps?)
Heavy ECM drones (2-space module) that effects everything within radius 1
PPT reload rules
Web pulses: a wave of energy damaging anything caught in a given web
Discretionary power boxes: these are essentially self-recharging batteries (i.e. for each box you always have 1 point of reserve power). Simplify bookkeeping especially for small units like PF's.
Tholian Snare-armed captor mines

Finally, many players have requested a way to defend bases without traditional mines, which are a nightmare of bookkeeping and slow the assault down enormously. Base assaults usually become a dull slugfest as the assaulting ships park and TAC for the reinforcement -- occaisionally a minesweeper will crawl ahead to work its way through the minefield.

Ideally, this should make base assaults more quick, punchy, and fun. It should encourage the attacker to speed up and sweep around to make its attack -- and defending ships to do the same.

Other Ideas

Of course, there are lots more things that can be done. There are various possibilities for connected games like a tactical level game (somewhere between F&E and SFB), a marine assault game (like the preview of Star Fleet Assaultwhich appeared in Module P6), or various sorts of card games are possible.

Lots of people are interested in new races. I appreciate that, and there are many new races available on the web. I would point out that at this point, there are 15 main galaxy races plus 9 simulator races. In the queue for official races, there are 3-4 new main galaxy races (Vudar, Paravians, Nicozians, Xorkaelians), 12-20 Omega sector races (by Bruce Graw), plus the Lesser Magellenic Cloud races (by Ken Burnside), 17 races of the Mitrax Galaxy (by Francois Angers), 9 races of the Pinwheel Galaxy (by Ron Mulder and Timothy Janota). All of these have been in playtest for some time... Now if we could just see them published!!

In addition, there are still a lot of ideas going on for the Early Years.

Back to John's SFB Page

John H. Kim <jhkim@fnal.gov>

Last modified: Thu Jun 22 12:44:42 2000

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