The Latest and Upcoming SFB Products

Information below is broken into sections as follows:

• Past Releases
• What's the Deal?
• On the Horizon
• Distant Futures

Past Releases

• Module TR (July '01)
• Captain's Log #22 (May '01)
• Captain's Log #21 (December '00)
• Module Y1: The Early Years (August '00)
• Captain's Log #20 (July '00)
  Magellenic previews along with usual features
• Module T-2000: Tournament Book (Spring '00)
  Updated TC's, tournament rules, and tournament tactics
• Module Omega-2: Omega Reinforcements (March '00)
  A host of new races on another side of the galaxy
• Captain's Log #19 (Winter '00)
  With 11 ships from the WWW :-)
• Module R-7: Dreadnaughts at War (Winter '00)
  Battleship and Dreadnaught variants
• Module Omega-1: The Omega Sector (Fall '99)
  A host of new races on another side of the galaxy
• Captain's Log #18 (Summer '99)
  the first product of the new ADB, Inc.

What's the Deal?

For those who are unaware, no new SFB products were produced from Fall 1996 to Summer 1999. SFB had been "on hold" for 3 years in a sort of legal limbo. ADB, producers of the game, issued a press release in January 2000 which starts to explain.

For background, Steven V. Cole is the original designer of SFB and head of ADB which designed most of the SFB products. He is currently negotiating to buy the rights from Task Force Games (the distributors of SFB products) to publish new products on his own. Supposedly, the new "Deal" will allow ADB be publishing new products directly -- starting with Captain's Log #18, which is ready to print but was held up by the "Deal".

Negotiations over the "Deal" have been going on for over two years, and nothing for SFB beyond the newsletter have been published for that time. As for why the "Deal" is neccessary... Apparently, TFG had not been paying ADB in a timely way. Thus, ADB is understandably unwilling to keep publishing through them. However, TFG holds a license with Paramount Pictures allowing it to publish Star Trek-related material.

Steve Cole originally designed SFB in the mid-80's based on the Franz Joseph design specs for the Star Trek ships. He got the proper rights from Franz Joseph Designs to create the game. However, this sidestepped Paramount Pictures who soon owned all the film and TV rights to Star Trek material. To avoid a legal battle, the publishers (TFG) obtained a liscense from Paramount Pictures. Without this liscense, ADB would have to prove in court that they have the rights to Star Trek material via Franz Joseph Designs which are independent of Paramount. Obviously Paramount would fight this and ADB simply cannot afford the legal battle.

Back in the summer of 96', Steve Cole had announced that he was retiring and passing the torch to Bruce Graw at Agents of Gaming. Further, Agents of Gaming were working on the Omega Sector races which would not require the Star Trek liscense. However, this fell through and Bruce Graw went to work on a Babylon-5 game). In the meantime, Steve had taken up various other projects, however.

Now that the "Deal" is signed, ADB is releasing material directly. There are a number of products which are available by mail-order from ADB, which I review here.

On the Horizon

• MODULE E1: MAGELLENICS will add several (4-7) new historical races which were native to the Lesser Magellenic Cloud (first stop in the Andromedan invasion). They have different shielding from main-galaxy ships -- Magellanics can take the first punch better than a galactic ship can, but it's other two shields will be weaker. Meanwhile the galactic ship can reinforce more readily, and has about 10% more total shielding.
  They have phaser-analog "warp tuned lasers" with separate "banks" that hold power (up to 4 points). A CA will have 2 or 3 banks, giving some extra space in the phaser capacitor. Banks are destroyed on "best phaser" -- blow away the banks and the ship can't fire lasers. Lasers themselves have lower damage, longer ranges, damage plasmas at 3:1, and can't be downfired to save power.
  Third, Magellenics have special fleet structure rules that require smaller units (DD's and FF's) in a fleet.

• MODULE R8: CAPITALS, SHIPYARDS, AND GUARDS would include 5-6 new classes for most/all races: national guard cruisers and destroyers, frigate-sized tugs, heavy police ships, and sector bases. National guard ships are old Early-Years ships semi-refitted and used only for planetary defense. Heavy police ships are General War era ships, along the lines of the Lyran MP and the Klingon G6 (from CL19). A Sector Base is in between a BATS and a Starbase.

• STELLAR SHADOW: is a concept for line of subsidized published products. This would allow an out-of-house author to publish products for SFB as long as he pays the printing costs and splits the profits with ADB. There is a press release on the deal. It may be that Francois Angers' new galaxy races will appear in a Stellar Shadows module. See the SFB bulletin board for news of other possible entries.
  In June 2000, plans were announced on the BBS for Stellar Shadow Journal #1 (spring 2001 - just about anything from 1-12 pages) and Sargasso I (fall 2001 or spring 2002 - six new races).
• MODULE F2: THE VUDAR ENCLAVE was a planned product by ADB. However, plans for this have been discontinued in favor of a three-race module, C5.

• MODULE C5: MINOR RACES will add three new historical races in the area of the original. The Vudar, previewed in Module P6 are a Klingon subject race who successfully rebelled in Y178, specializing in ion storms and ion technology. They are armed with Ion Cannons (heavy weapons like photons, except they use 2d6 and are thus less effected by EW); and they defend themselves with Ion Pulse Generators, which can either aid EW or damage all seeking weapons within 2 hexes. Currently the nature of their fighters is under debate -- should they be Klingon-leased or some new type.

  Next are the Nicozians -- a microscopic race who live on neutron stars which were originally planned for CL#18. No rules have been published, but from hints in SFT, it looks like their warships have no shuttles and cannot be boarded by transporter -- their ships are the size of drones (size class 7)!! They are equipped with scout channels for their own use, and the phaser-like Subspace Auger weapon. Their neutronium armor (FH/RH) subtracts from every penetrating volley, and it is only destroyed by ``Excess Damage'' hits. In fact, it is their excess damage track: when a hit cannot be put onto armor, the ship explodes. They have low warp power, but have a special ``skip warp'' which lets them move two hexes at a time instead of one. They also have skip warp missles which move two hexes at a time on the speed 20 column.

  The third race is unclear. With Module F1 permanently out of print, the Jindarians may reappear in one of the C modules. Another option would be the Xorkaelian Praesidium, a race of raiders based nearer to the galactic core who harass the Lyrans, Kzinti, Federation, and Gorn. They use medium-range phasers and hyperplasmas -- a weapon similar to the Flivver hyperdrones from Module C4, but guaranteed to be resolved in a single impulse.

• MODULE J2: BATTLE GROUPS will be 96 pages including 80 SSD's, plus rules and scenarios. The SSD's include dozens of the new multi-ship ``squadron'' and ``group'' SSD sheets, including carrier groups, war cruiser squadrons, destroyer/frigate squadrons, and escort groups for heavy carriers. These are sheets of already-released ships, but packaged 3-to-a-page for easy reference. It will also feature the new SCOUT CARRIER class, with special sensors and 6 heavy fighters, plus at least two new ships (Tholian CWV and DDE). It will also include new scenarios and a special destroyer squadron campaign.

Distant Futures

• Star Fleet Squadrons is a new game designed by some players in England. It is intended to be a sort of ``SFB-lite'' such that 4-6 players can do a 10-on-10 fleet battle in just a few hours. It does this by rewriting the ships with simpler arcs (FX/RX only) and other streamlined systems. It's future with ADB is unclear, however, and they have not announced any plans for it.

• Module C3A: Andromedan Threat File is an idea for a 64-page module with lots of ``conjectural'' Andromedan technology and ship designs, reflecting the calculated projections or simple misinformation which the Galactic races had on their invaders at first. It would include conjectural new weapons, PF's and fighters, new ships, etc.
  SFT#22 previewed Andromedan PF's, and SFT#28 had Andromedan X-technology rules. You can order these through Agents of Gaming.

• Ship Construction Manual is a long-standing product idea. A sample of what it may be like can be seen in the Custom Ship Design System introduced in Star Fleet Times #1. It is being delayed because players want the complete (S7.0) ship modification rules which aren't nearly ready. Supposedly, Steve Cole is working on the S7 rules, but this project has dropped in priority due to to the extremely high workload needed to create it. (Nov 2 quote)``It got put on the schedule when we did not plan to include S7, but we listened to the players who said they wanted S7 or nothing, so...''

  Basically, the worry is that introducing this product would cause many players to design "superships" around loopholes in the rules which outperform all the regular ships of the same BPV. It seems that about half the players really want this, and the other half really don't want it to come out.

• Warlord Boardgame is another strategic game, based on the popular PBM game run by Agents of Gaming. It is in the far future of SFB as corporations vie for control of the Greater Magellenic Cloud using old ``navy surplus'' ships from the General War period.

  It seems to have slipped throught the cracks now at ADB. Supposedly the principle design work was complete, but months of work on graphics were yet to be started. This is a huge product, expensive to print, and must be market-timed carefully.

• Star Fleet Academy is the concept for a standalone product with basic rules for most races and enough advanced rules to play in a tournament -- along with all the tournament ships and rules. The future of this is unclear, since ADB is wary of any changes in the wording of the rules - which means that these rules would have to be considerably larger than the Basic Set. It seems possible to simplify the rules for only tournament situations, but that would mean the possibility of differing interpretations of SFA and normal SFB.

Three expansions of Module C4 are supposedly planned: C4R will have more ships for the Frax, Qari, Triaxians, Sharkhunters, and Barbarians; C4F will have more for the Britanians, Canadi'ens, Flivvers, and Deltans; C4X will have X-ships for all nine races. Some of these new designs were previewed in Module P6.

``Module R9: The Ships That Never Were'' would include dozens of ``rejected'' ships which were turned down initially by TFG and never built by their intended races (i.e. all conjectural).

Star Fleet Battles, SFB, Federation & Empire, Star Fleet Missions, Prime Directive, and all contents thereof are copyright (C) 1990 by Amarillo Design Bureau. Second Edition copyright (c) 1994 by Amarillo Design Bureau. These games were produced under license from Franz Joseph Designs, authors of the STAR FLEET TECHNICAL MANUAL. Elements of the Star Fleet Universe are the property of Paramount Pictures Corporation and are used with their permission.

Amarillo Design Bureau (ADB) and Task Force Games (TFG) are NOT related in anyway with these Web pages; it is an undertaking and opinions of a private citizen (hence unofficial), and is not construed to be an official position of either companies. Ideas and information from the games are presented without permission.