It seems that many of you are looking around for great ideas
to use for spaceship battles and warfare.

Well sorry I did not post this sooner.

Star Fleet Battles was and still is the game that comes
to mind as the BEST ever created spaceship battle system.

If you are like I am, in that you love a true tactical game, then
look no further then this wonderful game. I shelved it a long
time ago and I recently found it again, in a box in my basement.

WOW does it bring back some great memories.

This game has it all! Set in the Star Trek Universe the game has all
the major space races from original Star Trek Universe and a few
beautiful extra's.

The game uses the typical Hex Map for space and counters or miniatures.
Then you have SSD's that are the various layouts of all the ships etc.

You and the others playing then decide how you are playing,
Klingon’s against Feds. Orion pirates against everyone etc etc..
You can even play the game solo. There even space monsters to fight,
like the Planet Killer, aka The Doomsday Machine episode #35 OT.

The game allows a lot of flexibility for play and you can pick and chose
rules, tech level, year of the game ships, monsters, fighters, drone type,

number of rounds in a turn etc etc..

Ships from Dreadnoughts to frigates, even the USS Enterprise, Fighters,
Drones, Plasma Torps you name it, this game has it.

Weapons have firing arcs and ships have facings so different shields
get hit. Energy allocation is a must before the next turn and how you
allocate the energy has a huge impact on the game. Batteries allow you
to carry over some energy or allow you that extra energy store for
emergencies!

HETs, High Energy Turns are an optional game rule that even allow a
ship to do a 180 in space! Oh wait, I forgot to mention there is a risk
that can cripple your ship or even destroy it if you make a HET and do
it wrong.

This is one of, if not the original, SSD space game. SFB's was created
in the late 1970's by Task Force Games. later it was bought out by

Amarillo Design Bureau Inc.

The game has lived the test of time and it is a tried
and true Tactical Simulation Game in the very best
since of the name.

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My brother and I use to play this game for hours upon
hours. We have tried almost every possible combination
of battle that one could think of. We eventually made it a
Universe Game, with turns an economy, race shipyards,
race planets, fleets, government negotiations etc etc..

We created our own ships from scratch with the points
system that is included in the original game, with only a
few slight mods of our own.

“I once created an Orion Pirate Ship that had a great
front attack shield and light to almost no rear shields.
This is a design that I borrowed from the Klingon’s

.

I tossed out a lot of the luxury that a ship has for more
weapon mounts and basically "welded" an extra warp
engine onto a Frigate size hull. When done with the magic
that the Orion Pirates do so well. I could had the power of
a Heavy Cruiser in the little ship and I could fly at fast speed
and still overload all the weapons for a one, maybe two
time HUGE punch that I could devastate the front shields of
a Dreadnought or even take out a Heavy Command Cruiser.
I loved its cloaking device too, < evil grin >.

So, if anyone is looking for a truly great game, one that
you can enjoy over and over, again and again.
This is the game for you!

---------------

A few recommendations. Photo Copy your SSD's so that
you have tons of them so that you can have even bigger
and better Fleet battles. Find and use those plastic sleeves,
the heavier plastic ones so that you can use a grease pencil
on the plastic ( plastic is the clear plastic ) and then you can
simply wipe away the marks and never mess up your SSD's.

Put the Impulse Chart in a sleeve with the Damage Allocation Chart

on the back facing the other way for fast reference as needed.

When you put your ship in a sleeve put the
Energy Allocation Form for that ship behind it, facing
the other way, so that you can simply flip the plastic sleeve
over to see the chart on one side and the ship SSD
on the other.

Use various plastic sleeves for each ship you are using
with the Energy Allocation Chart on the back of each
as mentioned above.

You can do the same for Star Bases, Base Stations, Monsters
etc. This way you can wipe the marks away with a paper towel
and you can reuse everything again the next time.

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Here are links to the basics:

Website:

http://www.starfleetgames.com/starfleetbattles.shtml

Rules,

http://starfleetgames.com/sfb/sfin/CadetHandbook.pdf

Training manual and a few SSD's to get you going.

http://starfleetgames.com/sfb/sfin/CadetSSDs.pdf

Ship, Drone Shuttles, Fighter etc Counters.

http://starfleetgames.com/sfb/sfin/CadetCounters.pdf

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Last notes.

Federation: Don't let a Klingon get behind you if you are
a Federation Ship, you will never lose them, they can out
turn and out HET you and they can shoot disrupters, ouch!

Klingon: The reason you have weak read shields is You are
NOT a cowardly Federation ship, you don't run, you attack
and attack well. Should you fail to attack well.. well then
you self destruct on the Federations weakest shield and
take him out with you. Remember,
“It is always a good day to die!”

Romulan: The plasma torp can be split up as weaker
torps unless it is the weaker torp to begin with or is one
in a Stasis device launcher. Firing many smaller torps like
this at fighter and fast attack ships can make it easier for
you to make it a one on one match against the other guys
main ship and not have to worry about all the little guys in

the way. Do remember the torps lose strength the more
distance they travel.

Everyone else, RUN from torps or shoot them down
with energy weapons like phasers. This weakens them so
you can stay alive.

In a last ditch effort over load your space probes and
use them as weapons, and remember you can use those
shuttles as suicide shuttles they are not just cute little
things out in space. They also are great to launch to help
bring down drones, fighters or plasma torps.

If anyone has any questions just let me know.
( I don't work for them, I simply love the game like how I love SF's )