Topic: SFU Fighters

Will the Hydrans be the only race in either Distant Armada or Battleships Armada with fighters? I ask because I know that all battleships in SFB had a complement of fighters (I never had the battleships expansion for FC so I do not know if this was carried over to that game). I'm just curious if there will be any opportunities for fighter vs. fighter action.

Re: SFU Fighters

Most likely I'd say. There were never any non-Hydran fighters in the Admiralty and Nova editions. And the SFU had a bad habit of adding fighters in non-Starmada multiples of 6, which makes things tricky.

Also, I hated the idea of fighters in Star Fleet Battles. smile

Re: SFU Fighters

We've generally been tracking the FedCom products, and in this case, the Hydrans are the only ones with fighters (Stingers).

However, once we get past Rumors of War, which will introduce the Andros, ISC, and Vudar, my understanding is that the next product will involve carriers for the various races.

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

Re: SFU Fighters

I too hated the idea of fighters in SFB, both for the fact that they were non-canonical in the universe, and for the burdensome level of complexity they added to the game. Particularly onerous were fighters that launched drones: each fighter had its own counter and mini-ssd, and then each of those fighters spawned some number of drones, each also adding a counter to the map. All of those counters needed to go through the laborious 32-impulse movement procedure, so gameplay slowed to a crawl. Even in FC, I stayed away from fighters, since they had the same problems. It is only since I've been playing Starmada SFU that I am interested in playing them, since the way Starmada handles fighters is greatly streamlined. Also, I've softened my stance on the canon issue, since many other things have been introduced into the SFU that are non-canonical as well.

A side note: FC has recently introduced 6-fighter "flights" and drone "swarms" which can be represented by a single counter. I wonder where they got those ideas from? smile

Re: SFU Fighters

The mention of the Admiral/Nova Editions reminds me of a question I wanted to ask: looking at the old ship cards from Captain's Log (I bought the collection from W23), it appears to me that plasma could only be bolted in Admiral Edition. Is that true? And what about drones? Were they represented by counters on the map in the earlier editions, or were they direct fire? Just curious.

Re: SFU Fighters

Plasma could be bolted or fired as a seeker. Earlier rules couldn't handle the concept, so bolted stats were given with the rest of the DF weapons, and the seeker modes had their own stats included in the rules. Drones were always seekers.

As for "canon", ADB has a licence that goes back before TNG, and quite possibly the motion picture. Technically anything they create is canon, at least in their licensed universe. That's a whole different topic I might explain elsewhere.

Re: SFU Fighters

Yes, ADB's license predates ST-TMP. It is derived from the TOS Franz Joseph Technical Manual and includes only TOS and the animated series (that is where the Kzintis came from). This is why all their Fed ships have cylindrical nacelles. Since they negotiated their license before Star Wars was released, they got it in perpetuity for very little money, as Star Trek was, as Paramount saw it at that time, an old TV show that had been cancelled and no one but a handful of crazy fans were interested in anymore. Then Star Wars exploded upon the world, and the sci-fi boom began, and Paramount realized that the old show they had given little thought to for so long was actually worth something. You know the rest.

By "canon" I simply meant that fighters were not used in Star Trek. That was one of the distinguishing features between Trek and Star Wars. Fighters were a Star Wars thing, while Trek was all about combat between larger vessels, like naval combat before the carrier era.