Advanced Missions
This is a central expansion of SFB. It introduces many new ships for the original races, some new "core" rules, and a lot of optional rules which can be used for more complicated options in play. If you are only interested in playing one-on-one duels, you can probably do without it. You might want to try new races first (Modules C1, C2, or C3) or new ships (the R-series modules) and still be fine. However, if you play with fleets then there are many concepts from here which will regularly come up.
There are three new "core" rules which are introduced in Advanced Missions: mid-turn speed changes, passive fire control, and scatter-packs. All three are used in SFB tournaments and are generally assumed to be in use in published scenarios.
- Mid-Turn Speed Changes allow a player to specify up to four different speeds during a single turn. This significantly complicates planning. It is not neccessary for balance, but it is used in almost all tournament games.
- Passive fire control is a minor option which allows you to fire weapons with penalties even if you did not power fire control.
- The scatter pack rule allows use of a standard admin shuttle as a platform for launching 6 spaces of drones at once. This is a very important addition to most drone-using races, which can change the balance. Scatter packs are used in the SFB tournament by the Klingon and Kzinti ships.
Other new rules are not used in the tournament and are more optional. The largest addition is the rules for advanced drones and drone construction. A series of new rules allow you to construct drones from a variety of parts. Different frames can be fitted with different warheads. Warheads include the standard explosive, but also multi-warhead (which splits into smaller drones), swordfish (which fires a phaser), spearfish (which penetrates shields), and probe. There is also armor available for drones. All of this comes at a price in victory points (i.e. BPV). The alternate warheads keep your opponent guessing but are not generally more effective. The most powerful new drone is the ECM drone, which provides a defensive bonus for the ship which launched it. All the new drone options have an extra point cost and most are limited availability. The most difficult part of drone construction (and the most poorly explained) is how to figure out what drones you can take and how much they cost.
Other new rules usually apply to only special circumstances or fleet battles. There are rules for "nimble ships" -- small ships which have special bonuses representing their maneuverability. There are also rules for docking, repair, and minefields. Optional Rules include: Tactical Intelligence, Catastrophic Damage, Surprise, Erratic Maneuvers, Crew Quality, Legendary Officers, and Energy Balance Due to Damage.
Also included are four new systems used on "support" ships:
- Mauler: a massive weapon used by several races which takes over the whole ship. It can cause huge damage at close range, but has an extremely narrow arc directly in front of the ship. Thus, a mauler ship usually relies on other vessels to set up firing opportunities.
- Plasma-D: a miniature plasma-torpedo-in-a-can used by plasma-armed fighters and escort ships. It is mainly used for defense against other fighters and drones.
- Stasis Field Generator: a unique Klingon invention which freezes opposing ships in time, but only at close range and only if the stasis-armed ship is at speed zero. Thus, like the mauler, stasis ships generally need other vessels to set up firing opportunities.
- Scout Channels: electronic warfare aids used by all races. Scout ships and EW are almost always assumed in published fleet battles. They can use their "channels" to boost EW ratings for selected ships within 15 hexes.
Advanced Missions includes 192 pages of advanced rules, a 144-page SSD book of new ships, and two new counter-sheets.
($29.95)
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John H. Kim <jhkim@fnal.gov> Last modified: Tue Aug 3 16:06:46 CDT 1999
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