Two Phase Optional Rules


Modified SFB Rules

by ESD Game Company (Phil Hatfield and Jim Miller) GrimacePCH@aol.com

The following rules will briefly describe changes made to the 32-impulse game system in Star Fleet Battles. After making note of the changes to the game, an example of play will be given in order to more clearly understand how the system works. In all, it is much faster and relatively more simple.

 

MOVEMENT AND IMPULSES

Movement for each ship or item is broken up into 2 segments, or ``Phases.'' They are called First Phase and Second Phase. It is during these two phases that most everything moves. In this system, the maximum speed allowed for ships is 15 spaces in 1 turn, and for plasma torpedoes or fast drones, it is 16 spaces in 1 turn. To calculate speed for ships and weapons, simply divide their speed in the normal game by 2. Therefore a speed 32 drone moves only 16, and a ship that would normally move 20 spaces, only moves 10 spaces. Fighters have a set speed, the usual being 15 spaces without Warp Booster Packs. In this system, a fighter moves 7 if it could normally move 15, and can only achieve speed 15 by using Warp Booster Packs.

After determining the speed that an item or ship will move in a turn, begin First Phase by moving a number of spaces equal to half of the total speed for the turn. Move that full movement, one space at a time, until you have completed one half of the entire movement. An example would be a ship that has a maximum speed of 15, moving on the First Phase, would move either 7 or 8 spaces. On the Second Phase of the turn, all remaining movement points are used. Therefore, the ship that moves a total of 15 in a turn, and moved 7 in the First Phase, would move the remaining 8 in the Second Phase.

Movement during the turn is done in order of the fastest to the slowest. This gives the initiative to the fastest player and allows him the opportunity to fire first. In the case where two or more ships are moving at the same speed, a die roll is made to determine initiative. The highest gets to choose whether to move first or last in the initiative segment for that speed. An example of this would be two ships both moving at speed 12. The two players roll 1D6 each for initiative. Player 1 rolls a 5, while Player 2 rolls a 1. Player 1 decides that he will move first, and proceeds to move 6 spaces during First Phase. After Player 1 moves his 6 spaces, then Player 2 has the opportunity to move his ship the 6 spaces that he may move in the First Phase. When Second Phase comes around no initiative roll is needed, as Player 1 already has initiative for this turn, and would now move the remaining 6 spaces of movement, followed by Player 2.

During the course of moving a ship, each space moved is called an ``impulse.'' There is not a definite amount of impulses in each turn, as it varies depending on the speeds of the ships in the battle. If the fastest ship moves 2 in the turn, and the opponent does not move, then there will be a total of 2 impulses per phase, or 4 impulses in the turn. First Phase would have an impulse for the movement of the Speed 2 ship, and an impulse at Speed 0. Second Phase would have the same thing. Therefore, impulse delays for ships is resolved based on the number of spaces moved by ships during each phase or turn. All impulse delays are also divided in half, as the speed of ships is divided. An 8 impulse delay only lasts 4 impulses, and a 5 impulse delay lasts 3 impulses.This subject will be addressed later on.

As each ship moves, the moving player has the opportunity to announce firing at any target of his choosing. If the moving player gives up the opportunity to fire, during each space of movement, anyone has the opportunity to fire at the moving player ``in response to his movement.'' Any player who is not the ``moving player'' may only fire at the ship that is moving. The moving player may fire at any ship. Any vessel that did not move the entire turn may only fire at moving targets until the last impulse of each phase, or ``impulse zero.'' At that point, any ship that did not move during the turn, may fire at any ship of his choice. After ships that did not move have had the opportunity to fire at anyone on impulse zero, then any other ship that moved during the turn or phase, may fire on any target of their choice. Fire is resolved from highest initiative to lowest, based on the speed of their ship during the turn.

Seeking weapons launched during the turn are handled in a Drone and Plasma Movement, that takes place at the very end of each phase. So if, during the course of moving a ship, drones or plasmas are launched, they remain in their spot until after impulse zero of each phase. Then, during the Drone and Plasma Movement, they are moved one half of their total movement. Therefore, a plasma launched by a ship moving 8 during First Phase, would wait in it's spot of launching until all other ships had moved in First Phase. After all resolution of fire on impulse zero, the plasma would then moved half of its total distance during the Drone and Plasma Movement of First Phase, which would be 8 spaces. Then Second Phase would occur, and the plasma would hold in its new location until the end of Second Phase, where it would move it's remaining 8 spaces towards its target. The reasoning behind the movement of drones and plasmas after all other ships was to speed up the time taken to move ships, yet still allow seeking weapons to be used in massed quantities. An effort was made to put this segment at the beginning of each phase, however this proved to be inadequate as drones launched at ships during the turn lost the initiative to ships, and were easily outrun. They were never placed directly into the main movement of each phase, as it created confusion as to which units had initiative as more seeking weapons were launched. More rules on seeking weapons will be given later on.

After the movement of ships, and then Drones and Plasmas, in First Phase and Second Phase, the turn is ended and normal end of turn material is handled. This includes mutiny rolls, docking, and various other functions. This information is listed in the Sequence of Play. After that, the turn is over, and new Energy Allocation is filled out.

 

ELECTRONIC WARFARE

A new and simpler system was devised for EW. Using the basic EW table, we cut down the factors so that only 2 points of energy were necessary to create 1 point of ECM or ECCM. The maximum that a ship could generate on its own was 2 ECM or ECCM, for a total of 4 points of energy. This holds relatively true to the aspect that ships could only generate a maximum +2 shift on their own. The reasoning behind picking 2 rather than 3 is that the breakdown of additional ECM or ECCM provided by other sources was more easily divided by 2. Therefore, any item that generates 1 or 2 ECM/ECCM now generates 1 point, and items that generate 3 or 4 ECM/ECCM generate 2 points, and so on. This allows ships to use EW with fairly simplistic math, and keeps the ships at "realistic" power expenditure and EW levels. Some of the following examples are the levels of EW generated by items, and the expenditure in energy necessary to attain those levels: 
    X-ships       1 ECCM
    Fighters      1 ECCM
    PFs              1 ECCM  1 Swing point
    Ships            2 ECCM or 2 ECM  (cost 4 energy points)
    Special Sensors  3 ECCM (lending to others)  (cost 6 energy points)
    Special Sensors  3 ECM (others)  (cost 6 energy points)
                     2 ECM (self protection)  (cost 4 energy points)
    Wild Weasel      3 ECM
    MRS              1 ECM    1 Swing point
    Nebula           4 ECM
    Carriers         2 ECM (lending to fighter squadron)  (cost 4 energy points)
The maximum amount of EW that any ship may receive from external sources is 6 points. The maximum that a fighter may receive from external sources is 3 points. Any EW generated by unlisted items is figured at half of the listed number.

 

MOVEMENT COSTS AND TURN MODES

In order to keep the power expenditure of the ships accurate to the original, we kept the same cost of movement, we just cut the spaces moved in half. This means, in order for a ship to move its maximum speed, it must use the same amount of energy that it would take to move in the full 32 impulse game. If you are unable to copy the following charts, the best way to figure this out is decide on your speed in this game, double it, and reference the cost of energy that the desired speed would require. An example of this would be, if a ship with 1/2 movement cost decided to go 8 spaces, he would double that number to 16, and then figure out that it would require 8 energy to move. Remember that even though you have doubled the speed for this equation, you still only move only 8 spaces in this version of the game. Below is a list of the movement costs for ships using this system:

Speed 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
1/6 Move Cost: HET Cost=1 , EM Cost=1 , Nimble EM Cost=1
Energy 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 3 4 4 4 5 5 5
1/5 Move Cost: HET Cost=1 , EM Cost=2 , Nimble EM Cost=1
Energy 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 4 4 4 5 5 6 6 6
1/3 Move Cost: HET Cost=2 , EM Cost=2 , Nimble EM Cost=1
Energy 1 2 2 3 4 4 5 6 6 7 8 8 91010
1/2 Move Cost: HET Cost=3 , EM Cost=3 , Nimble EM Cost=2
Energy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 910 1112131415
2/3 Move Cost: HET Cost=4 , EM Cost=4 , Nimble EM Cost=2
Energy 2 3 4 6 7 810111214 1516181920
3/4 Move Cost: HET Cost=4 , EM Cost=5 , Nimble EM Cost=3
Energy 2 3 5 6 8 911121415 1718202123
1 Move Cost: HET Cost=5 , EM Cost=6 , Nimble EM Cost=3
Energy 2 4 6 810 1214161820 2224262830
1+1/3 Move Cost: HET Cost=7 , EM Cost=8
Energy 3 6 81114 1619222427 3032353840
1+1/2 Move Cost: HET Cost=8 , EM Cost=9
Energy 3 6 91215 1821242730 3336394245
2 Move Cost: HET Cost=10 , EM Cost=12
Energy 4 8121620 2428323640 4448525660
In order to convert Turn Modes, you simply need to cut the speeds that are listed in half, but keep the number of spaces required to turn the same. An example is Turn Mode A, which normally allows a ship moving at speed 10 to turn after moving 2 spaces. In this version, you simply cut the speed (10) in half, to equal 5. That means that a ship travelling at speed 5 requires 2 spaces of movement before it can turn. Once again, charts are given with the appropriate modifications:

Turn Mode AA Turn Mode A
1 1-4 1 1-3
2 5-8 2 4-6
3 9-12 3 7-9
4 13+ 4 10-13
    5 14+
 
Turn Mode B Turn Mode C
1 1-2 1 1-2
2 3-5 2 3-4
3 6-7 3 5-7
4 8-10 4 8-10
5 11-14 5 11-13
6 15 6 14+
 
Turn Mode E Turn Mode E
1 1-2 1 1
2 3-4 2 2-3
3 5-6 3 4-5
4 7-8 4 6-7
5 9-12 5 8-10
6 13+ 6 11-14
7 15
 
Turn Mode F Fighters/Shuttles
1 1 1 1-5
2 2 2 6-11
3 3-4 3 12+
4 5-6
5 7-8
6 9-11
7 12-14
8 15+
 

SEEKING WEAPONS

There are a number of different seeking weapons in the game, and they are handled in different ways depending upon what they are. There are drones, plasmas, suicide shuttles, scatter packs, deathrider PFs, and others. As was mentioned in the Movement section of these rules, Drones and Plasmas have their own movement section during each phase. This was put in so that large quantities of drones could still be handled and would not slow the game down by moving during the rest of the ships' movement. A couple of clarifications must be made on the launching of drones and plasmas in this version of the game. Drones and Plasmas may be fired only on two occasions in the course of a turn. They may either be fired when the ship that they are launched from is ``moving,'' or in response to someone else's movement or attack. They may not be fired at any other time. In addition to this, there are movement restrictions on drones or plasmas that are launched at particular times. During the course of a ship's movement, they may fire drones or plasmas at other ships. These weapons will remain in the spot that they were launched until the Drone and Plasma movement, and then they will move half of their total speed for the turn. However, if a ship waits to fire drones or plasmas until the last space that the ship is located in for the phase, then the drones will move ONE HALF of their normal movement for that phase. And example is a plasma that was launched during movement, but not a the last space the ship is in, would move 8 spaces during the Drone and Plasma movement. If that same plasma was launched, during the moving ship's option to fire, in the same space the ship is currently in, then it would only move 4 spaces in the Drone and Plasma movement. This rule is an extrapolation of the slower movement that affects drones launched at the last few impulses in the normal 32 impulse game. After the first phase of the drones or plasmas movement at the reduced speed, all other phases of movement are handled normally, where half of the total movement is moved during each phase.

When drones or plasmas are launched in response to someone else's movement or fire, then it does not matter where the drone was launched (ie. in the same space as the ship is currently in) as it will travel the nomal movement that it is supposed to. This should be kept in mind for ships that are travelling at a slow speed and have a large amount of drones (ie. Kzinti) on their ships. Simply launching them at the enemy during the enemy's movement enables the weapons to travel at their normal speed rather than at the reduced rate.

Drones or plasmas that are fired at a target that is in the same space as the firing ship are resolved immediately after the enemy has an opportunity to fire direct fire weapons at the drones or plasmas. In this circumstance, you do not wait until the Drone and Plasma movement to resolve the impact, and you also do not have to worry about the weapons moving at the reduced rate. Take note that according to the sequence of play, the ship that has the initiative,that fires drones at an enemy, cannot have drones fired at his drones as long as the firing ship and the target ship are in the same space.

Other seeking weapons, such as shuttles armed as seeking weapons, or Deathrider PFs are NOT moved during the Drone and Plasma movement. This is done to help mask the fact that the shuttles or PFs are, in fact, seeking weapons. Simply move any vessels that are seeking weapons during their normal Speed # just as you would if they were normal shuttles or PFs. Also, in the case of shuttles or PFs acting as seeking weapons, they do not suffer from the reduced movement for being launched in the same space as the ship is currently in. A ship that launches a suicide shuttle will still watch the shuttle move 3 spaces per phase, even though the shuttle might have been launched in the same space that the ship was in. However, normal restrictions apply to shuttles and PFs when they are launched whether they are seeking weapons or not. If the launching ship is moving slower than the speed of the shuttle being launched, for example, the shuttle may not move during the phase that it was launched, as it's movement speed has already passed. The shuttle would not be able to move until the next phase. The same applies to PFs. If the launching ship is travelling faster than the shuttle, the shuttle would move normally when it's Speed # came up.

An example of play will come after the rules, showing how all of this is handled in case there is a question.

 

IMPULSE DELAYS AND `WATERFALL EFFECT'

Throughout the game, there are various weapons and actions that require a delay of impulses before they happen. Some examples of this are: time taken from announcement and activation of cloaking before the ship is fully cloaked, time taken from announcement and activation before an ESG is raised, length of time that a free standing web from a web caster will last, delay between launching and when a fighter may fire seeking or direct fire weapons, etc. All of these delays are cut in half in this system. This is relevant to the speed that the game progresses at. Therefore, an 8 impulse delay is cut down to a 4 impulse delay. Remember that each space moved by a ship is classified as an impulse. If you have one ship moving at speed 8 and another moving at speed 6, then you will have a total of 8 impulses in the First Phase, (4 from the first ship, 3 from the second ship, and impulse zero) and 8 impulses in the Second Phase. Since the amount of impulses is directly related to the speed of the ships, we have also come up with a method known as the "Waterfall Effect" to facilitate the excess impulses that may have been lost in each phase.

The "Waterfall Effect" is simply the automatic and complete expenditure of all remaining impulses needed to activate or effect an item. Therefore, if a ship must wait 4 impulses, but is only moving a total of 2 spaces (or 1 space per phase), after the first impulse of movement and impulse zero of the First Phase, the waterfall takes effect and the remaining time needed (2 impulses) for the delay is used up. At the beginning of Second Phase, whatever it was that required the delay is now able to operate. This "Waterfall Effect" speeds up the bookkeeping process for keeping track of delays, as at the end of each phase, all delay requirements are fulfilled. This same effect, however, also works on things that only last for a certain time. An ESG that is brought up during Second Phase will only last until the very end of Second Phase (after Drone and Plasma movement). The only exception to this rule is the time of effect for a free standing web cast from a Web Caster. As the web requires a delay to activate, and only lasts for a limited time, this web may carry over from one turn to the next, in order to be on the map for 2 phases. Also note that the impulse delay between firing phasers from one turn to the next is affected by the "Waterfall Effect" so that ships may fire phasers on impulse zero of the Second Phase, and then fire them again after energy allocation on the First Phase of the next turn. Remember, however, that all fire is resolved based on initiative, which is based on speed. Therefore the ship that moves the fastest may choose to fire first, and inflict damage upon the enemy, before the enemy has a chance to return fire.

If, during the course of your conversions, you find a delay that last for 16 impulses (half a turn), then simply convert this to read that the delay lasts for 1 phase. This delay is similar to the delay that fighters have after being launched before they may fire seeking weapons. This simply means that they must wait until the next phase before they may fire seeking weapons. Another delay amount that you must watch for is one dealing with an odd number of impulses. Cloaking is an example of this. Under the 32 impulse system, a ship entering cloak requires a 5 impulse fade-in/out period, and on the sixth impulse, they are fully in or out of cloak. In this system, there is a 3 impulse fade-in/out period, and on the fourth impulse, they are fully in or out of cloak. The first impulse the range is modified by 1, on the second impulse it is modified by 2 more (totalling 3), and on the third impulse, it is modified by 2 more (totalling 5). Finally, on the fourth impulse, the ship is fully in cloak.

Ships, on the other hand, do not suffer from this same effect, as two opposing ships may have the same speed but have different initiatives. The highest would take all of his actions for the phase first, then the second player would take all of his actions. If both ships were facing the same direction, but Player A had the initiative and moved first, only to hit a mine, Player B would not have to hit the mine when it was his turn to move. That is the advantages and disadvantages of having initiative.

Targets of weapons fire are restricted depending on whether you are the moving player or the non-moving player at the time. As stated in the movement section, only the ship that is moving may fire at any target of it's choice. All non-moving ships may only fire at the moving ship, until it is their turn to move. This trims down the extra firing during the moving player's turn, and gives a bigger advantage to the ship with the initiative. This same restriction is placed on other actions as well. Transporters cannot be used against anyone but the moving person if they are originating from a currently non-moving ship. In simple terms, this means that a person cannot lay T-bombs in someone else's way while yet a different person is moving. If the situation arises that the T-bomb might affect both the moving and (conveniently) a non-moving ship, then that is allowable. This should be carefully judged, however, to make sure a person doesn't use the old "I thought he was going to go there" excuse. Normally, this situation will only arise when more than one ship is very close to the ship operating the transporters. In the Sequence of Play, it will give better detail on what actions can be done at any time and what actions can only be done when you are the moving player.

In the normal rules, no HETs or Impulse TACscan be made during the first impulse of the turn. This has carried over into these rules to be that no HETs or Impulse TACs can occur during the first space of movement during the First Phase. It does not matter what speed any ship is going, no HETs or Impulse TACs can be made in the first "impulse". As an example, even though the fastest ship is only moving 5 spaces in the entire turn, that ship, nor any others, may make an HET or Impulse TAC until that ship has moved at least one spot. After that time, HETs and Impulse TACs can take place anytime during ship movement. HETs and Impulse TACs may also not be done at any time during Drone and Plasma movement. Keep in mind that the drones and plasmas are really moving "during the turn" so the only thing that may be done during Drone and Plasma movement is firing weapons at the drones or plasmas.

In the Drone and Plasma movement section of each phase, ships may only fire weapons in response to the drones or plasmas. No ship may move via normal means, nor may they drop shields and utilize transporters during this time. Ships may activate tractor beams during this time to grab drones that they do not, or cannot, shoot. An exception to this rule is the Andromedans, who may utilize transporters to lay PA mines in the path of plasmas. This was done to facilitate the rule that PA mines go inert almost immediately after being deployed. No other ships may do this.

Ships may only fire weapons at the drones or plasmas, not at other ships during the Drone and Plasma movement. Normal firing at ships is handled during ship movement. Only one "weapon" may be used on a ship during the Drone and Plasma movement. This weapon is the Displacement Device. It may be used, by a ship, on itself in an attempt to get out of the situation that it is in. Failure at self-displacement means that the ship remains in it's original spot and suffers from Disrupted Fire Control.

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