Topic: SFB (sorta) new product announcement

[GDA-S'Cipio]

I haven't played Star Fleet Battle's version of GURPS, or any other version of GURPS.  But this I gotta have!

You gotta love SFB.  They still use real Romulans. 




-S'Cipio

[Kzinbane]

I DO plaly GURPS.  They (Steve Jackson games, owner of GURPS) just went to 4th edition and re-released their Preme Directive stuff 4th including their Gurps Klingon and now the Romulan.  No bumpy headed Klink's there - strictly ST TOS stuff where the Klingons are more akin to the USSR not the Samurai they sort of turned into in TNG.
If you want ST TOS "history" of the Klingong and Rommies you'll enjoy the GURPS books.  If you're expeting anything TNG forget it.  The Star fleet command universe "evolved" differently (X ships, Andromedan invasion, ISC pacification, etc).
I ran a GURPS Star Trek some years back before the official book - the players were Pirates - had a blast.  Currently I'm in a travelor campaign, but hope to get another ST one going someday.

Kzinbane

[Chris Johnson]

I never liked the USSR-ish Klingons as much.  Maybe it's just my fondness of Japanese culture from my three years-worth of exposure to it fifteen years ago.

Anyways, as I've never played SFB before (yet having some interest), I've got a question: Starting out, what should I get first and where can I get it?

[FPF-DieHard]

How modable is "Neverwinter night?"

Why do I ask?   ADB is developing a D20 Prime directive 

[Villa64]

I sold all my SFB stuff 6 months after a first bought SFCI, and realized that I had played many times more games of SFC than SFB, even though I had owned SFB since the 70's.

I think the level of detail is what attracts SFB fans, but I also realized that taking the time to look up all the rules nuances is what slowed the games down and unattracted me in the first place.

It might be neat to go back and play Captains Log scenarios, set up on SFC, because many of them were just fleet battle setups with some VP variations, but, oh well, too late now.

BTW, if anyone is interested in test driving SFB, I think the cadet rules are included on your SFC CD.

Villa

[Farfarer]

I DO plaly GURPS.  They (Steve Jackson games, owner of GURPS) just went to 4th edition and re-released their Preme Directive stuff 4th including their Gurps Klingon and now the Romulan.  No bumpy headed Klink's there - strictly ST TOS stuff where the Klingons are more akin to the USSR not the Samurai they sort of turned into in TNG.
If you want ST TOS "history" of the Klingong and Rommies you'll enjoy the GURPS books.  If you're expeting anything TNG forget it.  The Star fleet command universe "evolved" differently (X ships, Andromedan invasion, ISC pacification, etc).
I ran a GURPS Star Trek some years back before the official book - the players were Pirates - had a blast.  Currently I'm in a travelor campaign, but hope to get another ST one going someday.

Kzinbane

OMG. I didn't think anyone played Travellor anymore.  Isn't that the one with "Vacc Suit" and "Ablat" and all that? Trying to build a decent ship? Trying to trade without going bankrupt? There was a cool board game as well (if I recall) set on the fringes  where one side tried to surprise attack the other - memories!

[Father Ted]

Are these GURP books anything like the old Battletech sourcebooks for the 5 Houses? Some pretty good stuff went into those books, especially Kurita...

[GDA-S'Cipio]

I DO plaly GURPS.  They (Steve Jackson games, owner of GURPS) just went to 4th edition and re-released their Preme Directive stuff 4th including their Gurps Klingon and now the Romulan. 

I just caught a post on the SFB forums that says ADB is selling the third generation Klingon GURPS book dirt cheap, and will continue to do so for a little while.  Seems like a good buy for people who might want the detailed Klingon background but who don't actually play GURPS.


-S'Cipio

[Mace]

How modable is "Neverwinter night?"

Why do I ask?   ADB is developing a D20 Prime directive 

A 'Knights of the Old Republic' style Star Trek game would be a fantastic addition to anyones game collection.

[Kzinbane]

GURPS traveler (trevelor?) is a GURPS take on the game system.  I am not familiar with the original traveler game so I'm not in a position to compare the two versions.  Yes, keeping spending money isn't easy, yes we have armor on the ships and jump drives and such.
As or the SFB races - I think originally you'd have found the Romulans to be more like feudal Japan than the Klingons - wtih suicide to avoid capture and their general unwillingness to take prisoners.  For whatever reason as Klingon culter evolved with TNG they took on more of the Japanese Samurai sort of traits and the Rommies were mostly forgotten or at least not dealt with much.

GURPS source books in general are really good even if you never play GURPS!  Space for example is excellent with content on stellar evolution, planetery development and lots of other stuff.  GURPS WW2, Romans, Russia, etc, etc have a lot of content that is historical and factual which can be used even if you don't really care how many hit points a war horse has.

Kzinbane

[Marikar]

Hmm,  I still have the original #Traveller books.  (Boxed set, plus most of the extra's).  Neverwinter nights could be made into a 'Treck game' but would involve a lot (and I mean major) of modeling and scripting.

You would need to create a number of tile sets
character models
clothing
weapon tilesets and effects
equipment tilesets and effects
scripts, scripts, and more scripts.  etc....

[TheJudge]

Now I don't want to burst anyone's bubble...but I did find SFCIII, SFCII Empires at War, and SFCII: Orion Pirates in a Fry's Electronics store located in beautiful Sacramento about two weeks ago (the boyfriend and I were shopping for some movies).

[KHH Jakle]

It might be neat to go back and play Captains Log scenarios, set up on SFC, because many of them were just fleet battle setups with some VP variations, but, oh well, too late now.

See some related threads in the PBR Forum:

http://www.dynaverse.net/forum/index.php/topic,163349541.0.html

This thread was sort of a theoretical piece on the possibility to use a tool Centauri Vaughn made available that gave a detailed break out of the damage scored to each ship in a game.  This then made it theoretically possible to have matches where there was more to winning than being the last ship standing (ie, allowed for disengagement)

Piggy Backing on this was two SFB based scenarios converted to SFC:

http://www.dynaverse.net/forum/index.php/topic,163350477.0.html

http://www.dynaverse.net/forum/index.php/topic,163350594.0.html

The bottom line is that no one every seems to want to bother with this sort of thing - but it would take the game to a different plane.

[FPF-SCM_TraceyG_XC]

Hi Jackle, I just read your past posts on this subject. Very informative.

It may interest you to note that the SFB S2.0 Victory Conditions were originally used by missions, particularly the Stock Taldren Patrol mission that was released with the game. In these missions, if you were drafted by , say, a DN with 200 BPV in your FF with 70 BPV, you would 'score' points equivalent to the difference in BPV. In fact, all the Frigate had to do at that point was leave the map, and they would win the scenario since the DN player did not score enough for making the Frigate disengage to win the mission. As a result, the DV shift for the mission would go in favour of the Frigate player. While not a bug as such, this became known as the Patrol bug since it didnt work for D2 play.

Since then, the philosophy for determining who wins a mission has been based on 'the last man standing' principle. This works very well for D2, but since GSA has no map or DV shifts to contend with, missions for GSA are not restricted to this.

Additionally, the API only uses 5 levels of victory conditions from S2.0 which cant be changed without the client code, but certainly a mission script can calculate and report in the debriefing what a player would get under the complete set of S2.0 Victory Conditions.

It may interest you to note that in the missions I've written for D2, I have used the S2.0 Victory Conditions for calculating bonus prestige rather than the DV shift. In the above scenario then, if the the daring Frigate player was to somehow fly in, score some internal damage on the DN and then fly off the map, they would earn 10% of the BPV of the DN in bonus prestige modified by the relative strengths of the opposing teams. In other words, the DN may have pushed the FF out of the hex, but they are still rewarded for flying against the odds. Thats about the best we can do in a D2 environment without reintroducing the Patrol bug.

There is no reason why the S2.0 Victory Conditions cant be used strictly on GSA however, if that is what players want (assuming someone writes multiplayer missions that make it so).

[KHH Jakle]

So, from a 'where I am coming from perspective': I am talking soley about GSA/IP pick up games. 

So, what I infer from what you are saying is that a standard GSA/IP game will use the S2.0 victory conditions to calculate victory - and use 5 different victory ratings as well?

[FPF-SCM_TraceyG_XC]

I would have to look at the source code for the mission scripts in question to see precisely how victory is calculated, but yes about the 5 Victory levels, which are as I'm sure you're aware... Astounding Victory, Victory, Draw, Defeat and Devestating Defeat.

[FPF-SCM_TraceyG_XC]

Actually, that's not entirely correct. It is possible to set up your own list of Victory levels within a script by adding in an overloaded constructor for the tVictoryCondition class and corresponding members for each new victory level. This would mean modifying the version of the API being used to create scripts though, and such scripts would not compile on anyone else's computer without also making the same changes.

Regardless, just reporting back the S2.0 VC level through the debriefing is probably the simplest way to do it and requires no changes to the API.

[GDA-S'Cipio]

I haven't played Star Fleet Battle's version of GURPS, or any other version of GURPS.  But this I gotta have!

You gotta love SFB.  They still use real Romulans. 




-S'Cipio

Got mine yesterday.     

The store also had the Klingon sourcebook as well.  I may have to go back and get that one when I'm done reading the Romulans.

(Now, those silly GURPS people should get off their lazy backsides and publish the Gorn book!)

-S'Cipio

[J. Carney]

How modable is "Neverwinter night?"

Why do I ask?   ADB is developing a D20 Prime directive 

Die Hard...

I'm gonna ask this one time... and I'm going to do it as calmly as a D20 player can....

WTF!!!! ADB IS MAKING A D20 PRIME DIRECTIVE!?!?!?!

[Kzinbane]

I haven't played Star Fleet Battle's version of GURPS, or any other version of GURPS.  But this I gotta have!

You gotta love SFB.  They still use real Romulans. 




-S'Cipio

Got mine yesterday.     

The store also had the Klingon sourcebook as well.  I may have to go back and get that one when I'm done reading the Romulans.

(Now, those silly GURPS people should get off their lazy backsides and publish the Gorn book!)

-S'Cipio

The CATS are coming before the lizards according to the boys over at SFB.