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Author Topic: Traveller Prime Directive: Is it any good?  (Read 15068 times)

RandyB

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Re: Traveller Prime Directive: Is it any good?
« Reply #30 on: October 16, 2021, 11:53:03 AM »
The marriage of Star Fleet Battles and Traveller was something I didn't know I needed until this point. My nerd boner right now can break steel. I used to love Star Fleet Battles as a kid. Loved the lore especially, it was much better than what we ended up getting in TNG onwards.

The Star Fleet Universe - the publisher's name for it - is my all-time second favorite iteration of Trek. My favorite remains pre-TNG FASATrek.

Shawn Driscoll

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Re: Traveller Prime Directive: Is it any good?
« Reply #31 on: October 16, 2021, 03:28:27 PM »
The marriage of Star Fleet Battles and Traveller was something I didn't know I needed until this point. My nerd boner right now can break steel. I used to love Star Fleet Battles as a kid. Loved the lore especially, it was much better than what we ended up getting in TNG onwards.
I been a fan of that Star Trek universe since buying the Star Fleet Technical Manual in the '70s.

Baron

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Re: Traveller Prime Directive: Is it any good?
« Reply #32 on: October 16, 2021, 03:31:53 PM »
I loved TOS, the SFB universe, and FASA Trek pre-movie era products. Been a trekkie since first broadcast, did the cons in NYC back in the 70s and spent way too much on memorabilia like the Technical Manual. I still think those ships are the best!

palaeomerus

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Re: Traveller Prime Directive: Is it any good?
« Reply #33 on: October 17, 2021, 07:08:52 PM »
This is probably off topic but it is meant to be helpful.

Noble Knight Game (online game store with some vintage stuff) has some of the 4" Gamescience Lou Zocci plastic Federation ships based on the Jeffries diagrams.(Scout, Destroyer, Cargo Pod Freightet, Heavy Cruiser, and Dreadnought* ) They also have the lumpy D7 and Romulan Bird of Prey in metal.
Just search for "Star Fleet Battle Manual."



*Lt. Kivrin not included, thankfully. 

Emery

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Re: Traveller Prime Directive: Is it any good?
« Reply #34 on: October 17, 2021, 07:12:48 PM »
The minature line is actually pretty large these days. Go to ADB's boards and you can see the ever-expanding line.  I've personally never bothered with them though, because I find the counters superior for actual play (and I use forces from so many different fleets--but partial to Seltorians, Orions, Romulans, and Vudar--that it would take way too many minis to have everything that I need)

palaeomerus

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Re: Traveller Prime Directive: Is it any good?
« Reply #35 on: October 17, 2021, 07:33:59 PM »
Zocci's are big plastic multipart models. They've been around on and off for a long time. They make decal sets for them too.

ADB makes metal ships in two scales the larger one of which I'm not sure is supported anymore because it was for Mongoose's A Call To Arms: Star Fleet which was sort of a simpler truncated version SFB with bigger models that was supposed to be more casual and beer and pretzels.

Mongoose used to sell big fleet boxes of them with something like 3 frigates a couple of destroyers, a couple of cruisers and a big capital ship. They also had smaller squadron boxes with maybe five ships.



They had Klingons, Romulans, Federation, Gorn, & Kzinti I think.  I never saw any Lyrans or Hydrans or Orion/Wyn boxes at the store. 

A Call To Arms was originally a Babylon 5 warship game with some similarity to SFB though I don't think it had the phased movement it did use SSD's and power allocation rules so ship could be put on an evasive, buttoned up to resist fire, or ready to fire everything posture..

Apparently the SF:ACTA got an expansion and 2nd edition but it seems to be PDF only so I am not clear on how alive this game is.

The SFB minis are bit smaller. You would swap them out easily enough but the smaller model line is more complete being older than the Mongoose crossover ones.
Emery

Eirikrautha

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Re: Traveller Prime Directive: Is it any good?
« Reply #36 on: October 17, 2021, 07:53:26 PM »
The SFB minis are bit smaller. You would swap them out easily enough but the smaller model line is more complete being older than the Mongoose crossover ones.

It's amazing how those metal miniatures from back then had minor flaws and defects, but were still considered great quality.  And today, I can make a higher-quality model on my 3D printer tonight for almost nothing.  The progress is incredible.

Banjo Destructo

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Re: Traveller Prime Directive: Is it any good?
« Reply #37 on: October 18, 2021, 05:13:43 PM »
ACTA: Star Fleet got a revised edition for "Book 1" which contains some ships for federation, klingon, romulan, gorn, kzinti, and a few of the orion, tholian, and things like freighters.

ACTA: Star Fleet has a "Book 2" added more federation, klingon, romulan, kzinti, and gorn ships, then kinda revamped the tholian fleet, and orion fleet, and added the seltorian fleet.  There's also more civilian ships and some space monsters.

"Book 3" is being worked on, it should have Lyrans, and Hydrans as new fleets, and some new ships of existing fleets.

ADB has some ships available in the 3D printing store "Shapeways",  in the 3788 Scale (same size as 2400 series),  3125 scale (2500 series released from mongoose), and 7000 scale (about the size of the tokens/markers)

They almost have 2800 items available in their 3d printing store on shapeways.

jhkim

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Re: Traveller Prime Directive: Is it any good?
« Reply #38 on: October 18, 2021, 07:10:04 PM »
The marriage of Star Fleet Battles and Traveller was something I didn't know I needed until this point. My nerd boner right now can break steel. I used to love Star Fleet Battles as a kid. Loved the lore especially, it was much better than what we ended up getting in TNG onwards.

I loved Star Fleet Battles in the past too, though I gave up on it a while ago.

Even when I was really into SFB, though, I didn't like the design for the original Prime Directive. For one thing, the rules sucked. In addition, though, it had a wonky take on the background. Rather than playing bridge officers like in Star Trek, the PCs were members of "Prime Teams" who were modeled on modern-day special ops - down to having camo outfits and piles of hardware. It seemed very opposed to the Star Trek roots, and didn't make much sense either. They had to jump through hoops so that transporters couldn't be used and to downgrade the power of phasers.

I once used a version of Greg Porters "CORPS" system for Star Trek role-playing while using SFB for the ship battles. Today I'm not sure what I would use. I'd want cinematic hand-to-hand combat, but I wouldn't want a lot of complexity in other systems.

Banjo Destructo

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Re: Traveller Prime Directive: Is it any good?
« Reply #39 on: October 18, 2023, 05:27:03 PM »
Bureau 13 d20 took ages to come out.

And what about that GMS Kickstarter. Far West?

http://intothefarwest.com/2021/02/22/the-long-trail-home/

This is the last update, GMS claims it's finally going to come out this year!



Sigh, still not out.

BadApple

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Re: Traveller Prime Directive: Is it any good?
« Reply #40 on: October 18, 2023, 07:37:40 PM »
Bureau 13 d20 took ages to come out.

And what about that GMS Kickstarter. Far West?

http://intothefarwest.com/2021/02/22/the-long-trail-home/

This is the last update, GMS claims it's finally going to come out this year!



Sigh, still not out.

You mean this?  https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/452473/Far-West?cPath=22132

It's out and I did a review of it here.  https://www.therpgsite.com/reviews/far-west-a-first-look/
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King Tyranno

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Re: Traveller Prime Directive: Is it any good?
« Reply #41 on: October 19, 2023, 09:02:31 AM »
As this thread has been necroed. I'm going to talk about SFB again. I recently had a game of Empire & Federation. It can get very crazy. I was playing the Romulans and the Federation player made a deal with me to help fight the Klingons if I just gave him my cloaking tech. Which I did because this bloke is a good friend of mine who would never betray me.

Having to deal with Federation dreadnoughts just appearing above your home planet from cloak really puts friendships into perspective.

It was great fun though. However I really wish ADB would step into the 21st century and do a cleaning up of the rules for the modern day. Similar to Battletech. What I dread happening though is them doing one of those overbloated board game kickstarters where they sell a new version of the game for £200 or more before shipping. Which is becoming a distressingly common occurrence for Board Games and a main factor for why I don't play many board games anymore.
« Last Edit: October 19, 2023, 09:10:02 AM by King Tyranno »

Banjo Destructo

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Re: Traveller Prime Directive: Is it any good?
« Reply #42 on: October 19, 2023, 09:02:56 AM »
Bureau 13 d20 took ages to come out.

And what about that GMS Kickstarter. Far West?

http://intothefarwest.com/2021/02/22/the-long-trail-home/

This is the last update, GMS claims it's finally going to come out this year!



Sigh, still not out.

You mean this?  https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/452473/Far-West?cPath=22132

It's out and I did a review of it here.  https://www.therpgsite.com/reviews/far-west-a-first-look/

I misread the post,  I meant that Traveller: Prime Directive is still not out, many years later.

Banjo Destructo

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Re: Traveller Prime Directive: Is it any good?
« Reply #43 on: October 19, 2023, 09:06:38 AM »
As this thread has been necroed. I'm going to talk about SFB again. I recently had a game of Empire & Federation. It can get very crazy. I was playing the Romulans and the Federation player made a deal with me to help fight the Klingons if I just gave him my cloaking tech. Which I did because this bloke is a good friend of mine who would never betray me.

Having to deal with Federation dreadnoughts just appearing above your home planet from cloak really puts friendships into perspective.

It was great fun though. However I really wish ADB would step into the 21st century and do a cleaning up of the rules for the modern day. Similar to Battletech. What I dread happening though is them doing one of those overbloated board game kickstarters where they sell a new version of the game for £200 or more before shipping. Which is becoming a distressingly common occurrence for Board Games and a main factor for why I don't play many board games anymore.

Starfleet Battles/Starfleet Universe is probably one of my favorite settings for games, but ADB is probably one of my least favorite companies for actually getting products done.
All of their games have a great set of rules and systems, they can be clunky for playing in person but they are doable,  but they'd be amazing systems for computer games allowing the game engine to handle all of the crunch so that people can spend more time doing decisions.

King Tyranno

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Re: Traveller Prime Directive: Is it any good?
« Reply #44 on: October 19, 2023, 09:10:42 AM »
As this thread has been necroed. I'm going to talk about SFB again. I recently had a game of Empire & Federation. It can get very crazy. I was playing the Romulans and the Federation player made a deal with me to help fight the Klingons if I just gave him my cloaking tech. Which I did because this bloke is a good friend of mine who would never betray me.

Having to deal with Federation dreadnoughts just appearing above your home planet from cloak really puts friendships into perspective.

It was great fun though. However I really wish ADB would step into the 21st century and do a cleaning up of the rules for the modern day. Similar to Battletech. What I dread happening though is them doing one of those overbloated board game kickstarters where they sell a new version of the game for £200 or more before shipping. Which is becoming a distressingly common occurrence for Board Games and a main factor for why I don't play many board games anymore.

Starfleet Battles/Starfleet Universe is probably one of my favorite settings for games, but ADB is probably one of my least favorite companies for actually getting products done.
All of their games have a great set of rules and systems, they can be clunky for playing in person but they are doable,  but they'd be amazing systems for computer games allowing the game engine to handle all of the crunch so that people can spend more time doing decisions.

What I may end up doing for my home games is replacing most of the counters with resin 3D prints. There are tons of SFB models for free on Thingiverse and Cults. Alongside a homebrew cleanup and streamlining of the rules. I'll make my own bloated kickstarter boardgame for a fraction of the price (for free and for personal use). I'll release this hyperthetical cleaned up rule book too when it's been playtested a bit.
« Last Edit: October 19, 2023, 09:34:40 AM by King Tyranno »