Command and Control

Wow. I’m amazed someone else actually knows Federation and Empire. It was a great idea built on the Star Fleet Battles universe that unfortunately never evolved or was ported to a computer version. I did use the HPS simulations product “Aide de Camp” to make a computer version so you could play without the board, but there was still no AI. That took a LOT of time.

Of course Star Fleet Battle was a great game. I still have several large boxes with all the add-ons, etc. in my attic that I just can’t bare to discard. The first few computer versions were pretty good, then when Activision bought the rights they trashed it trying to simplify it for the masses and killed the series.

I forgot about the tugs in F&E. That was a weak point and added a lot of headaches.

For a board game I liked the way the way they limited the rate at which you could expand since you had to build bases before you could move forward more. It also made the bases real important strategic points that had to be defended since if you lost a front line base it would slow your advance while you rebuilt it.

Back to the Command & Control issue, it would be real nice for fleets to get some kind of bonus for including a flagship that is able to effectively coordinate the ships in the fleet providing a bonus. It would maybe require something like a new “Flag Bridge” component that is fairly expensive that you might want to place on about 10% of your ships.

In general, I find a serious lack of variety in weapons and equipment for ships. I don´t see specialization in designs. You get the same Wave Motion Gun for a frigate or a baseship, the only difference is that Baseships just make more damage due to weapon mounts. So, in the end, several frigates do the same job than a baseship and they are cheaper, faster and can be built in less time. Why research big ships when frigates or destroyers get the same weapons and equipment, and do the work better? Why use carriers when a small freighter (!) can be filled with fighter bays and do the same with reduced upkeep?

I think that Capital ships should have some especial equipment able to give bonuses to all ships in a fleet, or giving them special roles. This way the idea of a fleet with escorts, carriers and the like is enforced.

Like Rendell says, there should be a "command center" component, only avaliable for ships of 1000+ KT, that give a bonus to attack and defence to a fleet.

Another component -this case is exclusive for Balance Mod, where max sensor range is 15- could be a superior sensor system with 21 range for capital ships, or a superior version of Tachyon sensors.

Fighter bays should be limited to 500+ KT ships, this way avoiding the use (and abuse) of light freighters as carriers.

There could be a "missile jammer" device (1000+KT ships only) able to make miss some % of all (ally and enemy) missiles shot in a battle.

And superweapons. This can be a really good reason to use capital ships and to escort them. Huge monster weapons of 200 or 300 KT a single component (double or triple if mounted!)

What about a spinal mounted "DeathStar Beam", something with 20+ range, able to vaporize a frigate with a single shot? Of course, it should have nice tradeoffs: very low firing rate and huge short range negative bonuses that make it unable to hit anything at 50- range. This way, the ship able to have it should need escorts to avoid point blank range attackers.

Or a DoomsDay missile (bombardment weapon) designed to siege planets and bases from a safe distance... No more trouble with those WP filled planets, but makes the capital ship unable to hit ships or fighters, so there is a need for escorts.

On the other side, cloaking devices should be limited to small ships, making it harder to hide a baseship...

All this should give some spice to the game.

About Fleet commands: I agree with the idea of dedicated ships, not just a "10KT" component. In my opinion, one serious problem in this game is that all components have almost the same size and cost.

If you make fighter bays a 300KT component, able to shot 10 fighter salvos each 5 seconds, then you reduce the cargo expoit. Satellite bays could be 60Kt, able to launch 2 satellites/round, same for mines... Same with cargo hulls. Make them bigger and with more capacity (lets say, minimum 50KT for 250KT of cargo).

The end result is the same, but exploits are avoided (lowered, at least). And you need dedicated ships, not "carrier-minelayer-satellitelayer-dronelauncher-trooptrasport-cargotransport" freighter.

I think in sensors in the same line. I mean, I see and AWACS, a big plane used as a movile radar... Then I think in game sensors, so cheap and small that it makes no sense not using them. Maybe their size should increase with range?

But let´s return to Fleet command, with this idea. You need a ship component to manage a fleet. Less than 4-5 ships, no command component. Bigger numbers, command center required. The bigger the fleet, the bigger the component (100+ or 200+ KT for really big fleets), so you need dedicated ships to do the job. And you´ll need to defend you command ships, since losing it could mean getting negative attck/defence bonuses for all ships in the fleet...

For single player games, I don’t worry about exploits like loading up freighters with fighter bays. I simply don’t do it. In SEIV fighters were so over powered and the computer hardly used them, so I finally made a rule for myself that I wouldn’t build them at all.

Back to command ships. If there are dedicated command ships, then there would need to be a new default order for ships to “target flagships” or “protect flagships”. I hate to keep referring back to a 20+ year old board game, but the way Federation & Empire handled that was, you could decide to use directed fire on a single ship. You only did half the damage then, but that was pretty much the only way to completely take out another players command ship or Starbase since otherwise they would always choose to apply all the damage to a bunch of cheap frigates or light cruisers which they could quickly replace or repair.

Of course when trying to destroy something like a Starbase it helped to include several really good flagships in your fleet along with a couple Maulers. Maulers were basically a big gun with engines and every time you used them there was a chance they would damage themselves.

Fleets don´t seem to do much? well, in my opinion they do. I mean, if I´m only able to do fleets of 4-5 ships (as a game enforced rule) until I get a "fleet tech", the one that gets superior fleet tech is able to build bigger fleets, outnumbering his enemies in combat.

This is the way "tech fleets" works in games like Galactic Civilization (it is called logistics there, and is very important in that game).

of course, thats an idea. You can get to options:

1.- Tech fleet allows to build bigger fleets. You are unable to build a fleet bigger than "x" without that tech.

2.- Tech fleet gives bonuses to ships in a fleet. Not having tech fleet results in maluses to ships in a fleet.

Pick your poison.

Edited: my first comment is based in the idea of number of ships in fleets limited by a "command tech". If this happens, fleets do a lot.

I think (IMO) the model such as in the Harpoon Series would better serve the game. Because in any naval battle there are always more then one capital ship in a fleet, and how would the enemy know which ship is the command ship (admirals didn't advertise which ship was a command ship). As for fleets they serve a purpose, but only for bring a larger amount of firepower to the game. Both SEV and the GalCiv series use a WWI style fleet tatics. Everyone get real close and fire. I would like to see a fleet that has the longer range weapons be able to fire at that range, not when they are in the hex with me. Personally I like to launch my fighters ahead of my fleet and use them to attack before the enemy can engage my fleet. Giving me time to withdrw if need be.

-Role reverse staking, I Like it......