I agree with others: I'd like to see an entirely new game developed around the IP, but Armada is much closer than X-wing. Star Trek battles should have the feel of naval engagements, rather than the WWII dogfights X-wing more-or-less mimics.

Honestly, I don't think the ST setting is good enough to warrant interest, so regardless of rules quality it's not a game I would ever buy into.

Then, quite seriously, why did you bother to reply?

Well, you made the catastrophic mistake of using question marks in your OP.

He wasn't the OP, I was.

However, the question wasn't "Would you buy a Star Trek game?", it was "Do you think Star Trek would work better as X-Wing style, or Armada style?".

Still I welcome your opinion, even if it doesn't align with mine. And I do think Star Trek woudl sell well if done well under FFG. Especially if it was made to somehow be compatible with Armada - even loosely. Gosh that would be just awesome.

A new system would be rough to do, because Armada does so much right. I suppose a New system would need to include a few extra things. Like Boarding Parties, or Away Teams. I mean that is very Star Trek-ish, and could take the place of Squadrons in Armada. But would that Clutter up the game too much? Would it work better as a side-game? An optional "Game within a game"? Like suppose tournaments are strictly Fleet vs Fleet - but in each expansion there are a card or two for away teams, and those can be used in a side game - and maybe some missions involve a planet, where you'll have away teams on the planet and a ship or two in orbit. I feel like that could work, I just can't explain exactly how it should be done.

Also I think it would need a way to have more than 2 players. Heck, allow it to support a bunch of players. Make the ship bases small enough so you don't need a 6' x 3' board for a battle.

I think boarding actions with away teams could work, but you'd have to take down the enemy ship's shields first. Battlefleet Gothic used to cope with boarding actions, but the rules were rudimentary to say the least.

As for more than 2 players... hell yeah. The more the merrier I say.

If you keep the ship models smallish, so you can play on a small table, that would make sense as then the average gamer can use their dining table for a game. Restricting a game to a defined area has never sat well with me. I'm not a big fan of X-wing's 3'x3' play area and don't step a millimetre outside it or you die. If the game mechanics can cope with it, use a larger table if you want to. I play World War II Naval using ships that are 1/4,800 scale. That means a battleship or aircraft carrier model is only 2" long. But I play on an 8'x4' table and the battleship's guns use that whole table. However, I can still have a smaller game on the dining table without a problem. Cruisers and destroyers have much shorter ranged guns.

As long as the weapon ranges used aren't ridiculously short you can use a good size table, and then be able to include multiple ships and multiple players. I think FFG have sort of limited themselves to a degree by restricting the size of the play area in order to keep to a tournament format. But gaming isn't always about a tournament. There shouldn't be a mandatory (small) size for the play area. If you've got a larger table, then why not to use it?

And something that FFG have really missed the boat on, is a campaign system. Not the few scenarios that come with some ships, but a proper escalating campaign like The Klingon Four Years War, or the Dominion Wars. Create a star map and let the players fortify and fight over the various systems.

I think boarding actions with away teams could work, but you'd have to take down the enemy ship's shields first. Battlefleet Gothic used to cope with boarding actions, but the rules were rudimentary to say the least.

As I remember it, and it's been about a decade since I last looked at my SFB books. In that game you had to knock down a shield facing, because it's well established in ST canon that you can't transport though shields. But if you did, you could beam a boarding party to the target ship, then you rolled a few dice. Maybe both sides did and if the attacker won they could do damage to a subsystem.

Of course my wish for any sort of ST based game would be somewhat less complex than Star Fleet Battles, a system for which had a rule book only slightly more interesting to read than some of the Army TM's I had to endure (Which I believe should of been outlawed by the Geneva Convention).

One thing I really like about Armada is the shield facing system. I like the fact that I only have to reduce one side to zero, and have the option of turning a shielded side to the enemy.

Star Trek is good as long as you remember one simple rule.

"**** the prime directive."

Then take your big scary warship with a human name, and carve out a humanocentric imperium.

Mine would have clone armies of Ronda Rousey... Jedi would lose hard in close combat.... Let alone the relatively weaker ST races/troops.

Yeaah i'd probably only ever play mirror universe ST.

Else I'd be Section 31.

The unsung heroes of Star Trek.

I don't think a miniatures game is what I would want. A really good RPG that emphasized exploration, problem solving and adventure would be very welcome. The bridge crew is an obvious analogue for an adventuring party. The FASA RPG was just... Ugh. Way to crunchy and no fun, it just didn't seem very inviting or imaginative. Star Trek is just not about regular starship combat, it was pretty rare until the Dominion War which I didn't care for.

I would love to see a good treatment of the era set during the Enterprise series (founding of the Federation, Romulon war with espionage and paranoia (that would probably be a great focus for minis if that's your thing), constantly meeting 'new' races that may be more familiar to later eras. Even an RPG based on the new JJ-verse would be pretty action packed with maybe the occasional starship battle for the climax of a session or campaign, not nearly enough to justify a minis game tho.

Do you think if FFG made a Star Trek space battle game, that it would be better as X-Wing style, or as Armada Style? Or something new altogether?

Would you want the two games to be compatible? I would love the idea of being able to take the Enterprise vs a Star Destroyer in a game. And yes, I'd put aside all of the arguments about Lasers vs Phasers, beaming torpedoes onto someone's bridge, etc. Just slug it out in a virtual world of suspended disbelief.

Best part is we'd get FFG's amazing sculpts for Star Trek ships! And a proper sliding scale to boot!

Sure I guess I wouldnt mind FFG making a Trek game. The mechanics they use now for the current Trek game are fine, I would just add rules to make most the ships not manuver as commohly as they do. I would rather FFG make a HALO flight game first.

I dont mind them having compatable rules, lije they do now pretty much. People shouldnt have problems with X-Wings or Interceptors taking out ST cap ships since they can andd o take out more sangerous cap ships in their own universe.

If your worried about people bringing up Lasers vs phasers justr emember one thing, humans are not as good at making Laser weapons as the Borg. The borgs main weapon is a Laser, so you can throuh any arguments out that Fed shipsa re immune to Lasers. Also I would be ok with adding a game mechanic that allows ships to beam bombs on to ships. They will have to wait for that ships shields to go down, AND if the SW ship has active ECM, they will in a fight, it will have to wait for those to turn off.

Armada style would be preferable -- I want Star Fleet Battles with pre-painted miniatures.

A decent Star Trek RPG would be welcome, too. There's a whole "exploration" theme in Star Trek that I think is underrepresented in its games.

The orignal had the expolration theme, everything else was weird.

And I would totally allow a borg cube - but it would play incredibly differently. For starters, it wouldn't be player controlled. It would be an objective, which follows AI and attacks ALL players. You can play co-op to kill it, or PVP to see who does MORE damage to it, whoever does the most damage to it wins. You might be also allow a player to control it for multiplayer games, but this would simply be a "fun" variant and not tournament legal. I would however throw in some upgrade cards in the borg cube package so you still want to buy it - and maybe a small ship also - perhaps a battle damaged Nebula class or something.

I would use your rules but with these modifications.

I think they should be playaable, I also think they should have access to all their ships. Borg ships should have two movement, actions, shooting and so on. Each player gets to use it once per phaze, however in the shooting phase it can only attack the closest ship no matter what. Point wise I think any kills made with borg ship shouldnt give players any points. The person who is currently using the borg ship if its destroyed, or flees, should take victory poiints out of their VP pool. Also no one should get points for destroying gorg craft.

I have never played Armada but if there rules for full fledged subspace jamming, large SW ships have it along with some smaller craft, this can be used as a major super attack on any borg ship. Also Borg ships cant go into areasw ith nnajor subspacce interuptions, like some gas clouds. If they come up against t hese things they are 1 hit KO.

Oh - and considering the Federation has by FAR the most recognizable ships - why not make a starter box that is ONLY Federation ships? Galaxy, Constitution, Miranda, and Oberth. Base set will be mirror matches, designed to represent "Training Simulators" - Klingon and Romulan ships could be in the form of expansions that would launch alongside the base set.

This would allow for a new player to dive right into the game and be able to combine all of his/her ships to have a full (Or near full) federation build.

Dont forget the Enterprise class. Thats what the A was.

The Defiant is a state of the art battleship while e.g. the Galaxy 4x larger is more outdated, and not a combat craft.

Since when was a Light Cruiser a Battleship? Up till ST 8 how is the Feds most celebrated advanced ship outtdated? By ttheir standards its their most advanced ship, and it does do well agianst the rest of the junk the other factions use.

There were federation fighters but they sucked hard, it was more a case of it's cheaper and faster to make fighters than it is to make a whole starship.

You see them in the best of both worlds where picard becomes locutus, and in later episodes of DS9.

But yeah wouldn't have a major part in the game, but you could include runabouts and ferengi ships.

If FFG did own the rights to make ST games maybe they should have it all based on the SF command universe. They had carrieers with some fare fighters. Besides the factions in that series re the best. If you want a ST that feels like a Galactic Empire fleet you should pick Gorn. The only dpecies I ever liked. Everyone else after classic is werid.

Cloaked ships could get interesting and I think handling of that should be completely different to the way X-wing does it. You can still shoot at a TIE Phantom that's cloaked, but you shouldn't be able see a Trek ship when it's cloaked, let alone shoot it.

Why would you say that? There was maybe one ship in ST that could have had a perfect cloak. Every other ship that cloaks can be seen barely . TIE Phantoms were perfectly invisible till they were about to shoot.

I don't think a miniatures game is what I would want. A really good RPG that emphasized exploration, problem solving and adventure would be very welcome. The bridge crew is an obvious analogue for an adventuring party. The FASA RPG was just... Ugh. Way to crunchy and no fun, it just didn't seem very inviting or imaginative. Star Trek is just not about regular starship combat, it was pretty rare until the Dominion War which I didn't care for.

I would love to see a good treatment of the era set during the Enterprise series (founding of the Federation, Romulon war with espionage and paranoia (that would probably be a great focus for minis if that's your thing), constantly meeting 'new' races that may be more familiar to later eras. Even an RPG based on the new JJ-verse would be pretty action packed with maybe the occasional starship battle for the climax of a session or campaign, not nearly enough to justify a minis game tho.

Ship combat wasnt rare in Classic. Remember there waas a Human Space VIking war.

Ahh the war in question lasted one episode. And while there were a number of border wars mentioned in TNG and DS9 the only major war we ever saw on screen was the Dominion War Unless you count the mostly cold war between the Federation and Klingons in DS9 or the Federation and Cardassians verus the Maquis.

That being said there were a number of space battles on screen in TOS they just usually were part of a cold war rather then a hot one or the problems between the two sides were resolved by episode's end.

Ahh the war in question lasted one episode. And while there were a number of border wars mentioned in TNG and DS9 the only major war we ever saw on screen was the Dominion War Unless you count the mostly cold war between the Federation and Klingons in DS9 or the Federation and Cardassians verus the Maquis.

That being said there were a number of space battles on screen in TOS they just usually were part of a cold war rather then a hot one or the problems between the two sides were resolved by episode's end.

That cant be right, Picard said the war lasted 50-70 years... Canon sucks for ST. The people in charge cant even agree what is canon. Its one of the few series I think it ok to pick and chose what you like to be canon. The reason I mention this is because the creator of ST made sound like the orignal series was at best secondary canon type A, at worst non-canon.

Do you know which episode were you talking about? The only thing I can think of is that he was referring to either a cold war or one of the border wars which are often mentioned but never seen onscreen. And from my understanding of those it seems like the reason many of those lasted so long is that the Federation government tended to avoid committing the resources for a knockout blow. (See the Cardassian border war which was apparently still raging when TNG started yet we never heard about it until the after the ceasefire which eventually led to the Treaty of Federation Leaders Who Love Hugging the Idiot Ball. A ceasefire the Federation never called off despite several cases of it being violated by the Cardassians, and a treaty which led to the Maquis and their Cardassian counterparts who were forgotten after DS9 Season 2 unless they were the True Way movement.)

something new altogether - I actually have most of a game finished - it's just about ready for playtesting (needs nice prototype pieces put together) that would be just about perfect for star trek.

I think Star Trek is the perfect kind of thing for a "Space Exploration" kind of game - an adventuring quest. As neat as battling it out with different ships is - that's not the core of what Trek is for me. (not to say skip combat altogether)

The Defiant is a state of the art battleship while e.g. the Galaxy 4x larger is more outdated, and not a combat craft.

Since when was a Light Cruiser a Battleship? Up till ST 8 how is the Feds most celebrated advanced ship outtdated? By ttheir standards its their most advanced ship, and it does do well agianst the rest of the junk the other factions use.

Actually, by the point of DS9 and Voyager, the Galaxy becomes somewhat outdated, but the Defiant was never designed as a Light Cruiser, it is designed as a Battleship. The Galaxy on the other hand is designed as an exploration vessel. The Defiant itself actually is significantly more advanced then the Galaxy with Pulse Phasers, Ablative Armor, Quantum Torpedoes, as are most of the ships coming from that time period: Defiant, Intrepid, Prometheus, Sovereign.

Now I'm not saying it's obsolete by the time of the DS9/FC era, because it isn't, (I mean, Mirandas and Excelsiors are still in use) I'm simply saying it's technology is somewhat outdated, and it was never made for combat in the first place (as opposed to ships like the Defiant, Intrepid, and Prometheus)

I think the Defiant is probably the closest Star Trek has to an early Ironclad monitor in space small and probably not as many guns as a larger ship but they guns it does have are far heavier then on other craft her size.

Most Federation ships are equipped for combat but after the Borg appeared newer designs started favoring combat ability over other capabilities and Defiant was the first Federation ship designed strictly for combat.

I don't know what's going on here WRT Star Trek canon, but the only real serious issues they have had has been that history hasn't gone as planned by Gene Roddenbury in the 1960s.

In any case, I would say that if FFG acquired a Star Trek license that it would be a strange, unforeseen consequence of utilizing the LHC at CERN and clear cut proof that their work has placed us firmly into an alternate universe created from the collapse of our native universe.

I think the Defiant is probably the closest Star Trek has to an early Ironclad monitor in space small and probably not as many guns as a larger ship but they guns it does have are far heavier then on other craft her size.

Most Federation ships are equipped for combat but after the Borg appeared newer designs started favoring combat ability over other capabilities and Defiant was the first Federation ship designed strictly for combat.

Exactly, the Galaxy class is an Indiaman, where's the Defiant is an Ironclad.