Star Fleet Battle Manual

[finarvyn]

A thin book from Lou Zocchi which looked like this:


It was a 1972 miniatures system where you used string and a 360-degree protractor-like thing to determine distance and direction. It had an energy allocation system similar to Star Fleet Battles (actually in many ways similar to SFB but less complex). They didn't have the rights to use terms from Star Trek, but the ships are pretty much straight out of the Franz Joseph Star Fleet Technical Manual. (Except for the bad guys' ships, which were called "Type K" or "Type R" for legal reasons.)

There was a sequel volume called Alien Space which I've never seen, so it might or might not contain any Trek info.

Here's a link to Board Game Geek.

[putraack]

I'm pretty sure this is the game that Steve Cole bought to develop into Star Fleet Battles. I know ADB says their license from Paramount came originally from Zocchi.

[finarvyn]

That's interesting. I always thought that SFB seemed a lot like this game, but don't remember hearing that it evolved into SFB. I guess I never really asked how SFB came about from a develpmental standpoint.

[rsaintjohn]

Here's the scoop on SFBM and SFB based on my copies and Steve Cole's own article in The Space Gamer #41 Aug 1981. I'll say upfront that what I put here may conflict with what's written in some other places, because I think the names and timing have been mixed up over time and repeated incorrectly in places.

Lou Zocchi designed the Star Trek Battle Manual in 1972, without license. You can see it here at Tome of Treasures. At some point, Paramount caught up with him, tried to get him to license for some exorbitant fee, and Lou balked. He filed off the serial numbers and re-released the game as Alien Space (ToT) in 1973.

Lou became friends with Franz Joseph (Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual) who had his own complex license thing going on for Trek with Paramount. Joseph (as Franz Joseph Designs) did a sub-license directly with Lou based on his own SFTM property (SFBM does not directly reference the FJD license, and doesn't reference Paramount at all). Joseph wasn't at all keen on a wargame, but he did like the starship replicas GameScience wanted to produce. A revised game -- Star Fleet Battle Manual -- co-written with Michael Scott Kurtick (Starguard!, Space Patrol, STAGFF, Star Patrol) was released in 1977, along with the replicas. Alien Space remained in print, and both were updated and re-published in 1993 (pictured above).

During the same period, Steve Cole was designing Star Fleet Battles. That started in 1975, and was based on a conversion of the naval wargame Jutland. Cole worked on SFB over the next year and was about to get it published, but the publisher went under. In 1978, Cole and Allen Eldridge started work on forming what would be Task Force Games. Cole got Zocchi to put him in touch with Franz Joseph to try to arrange the same kind of license. Apparently it took a lot of convincing, but the fact that both Joseph and Cole were professional engineers eventually got the deal done, and Star Fleet Battles was released in 1979. SFB started as a pocket game, and it sold well. They were about to do a second volume when they found a source for affordable boxes, resulting in the game being revised and expanded.

All indications are that SFBM and SFB have existed fine side-by-side over the years, with Cole and Zocchi occasionally brainstorming on aspects of the respective games. I believe that Cole (as ADB) also secured a license directly with Paramount in the 80s as the Star Fleet Universe started to expand. I suspect he had no choice as FJD would not have had the right to grant license to elements such as Klingons and Romulans (which is why the '93 version of SFBM refers to the enemies as "K", "R" and "T").

[aramis]

Jan 19, 2010 15:17:17 GMT -5 putraack said:

I'm pretty sure this is the game that Steve Cole bought to develop into Star Fleet Battles. I know ADB says their license from Paramount came originally from Zocchi.

SVC didn't buy it. he licensed Zocchi to use the Battle Tug which was an ADB custom design. So says my ca. 1982 copy.

SVC wrote SFB for a simulations class, or so he said on GEnie back in the 1990's.

And SVC/ADB's license from Paramount came from a Judge's order. Paramount sued, and lost, and was ordered to grant a perpetual license to ADB directly.

SFBM is the smoothest of the games.

And if one makes a few tiny conversions, SFBM works with SFB SSD's...

And, BTW, later copies include a hex-grid conversion.

[Falconer]

Interesting. Do you still play SFBM on the floor, or on tabletop?

[allensh]

we loved that game I still remember crawling around my friend's basement lining up shots. I remember getting blown up every single by time by Plasma Torpedoes Loved SFB too.

Allen

[aramis]

Feb 3, 2010 23:18:00 GMT -5 Falconer said:

Interesting. Do you still play SFBM on the floor, or on tabletop?

I've never played it on the floor.

On a pair of convention tables, but never actually on the floor.

I've usually played it using megahex counters from SFB, and the "floor" movement rules but the map-based to hit.

[allensh]

How does movement work in SFBM again? I played "Starflight" (the starship combat part of Starfleet Voyages tonight) and am interested in comparing.

Allen

[aramis]

You have a speed, measured in mm/turn. You lose 10% of current velocity at the start of each round. You pay for acceleration in mm/turn. Total these for "Kinetic Energy" (KE). KE can be spent on 1 or 2 rotations.

If you applied power to movement (acceleration or decelleration), your total turns (measured in grads) can not exceed your KE, and the two allowed turns are limited to 100 grads each, one before movement, and one after movement. Both have to be plotted before movement. Each grad turned this way costs 1mm of movement.

If you did not apply movement power, you can, after movement, turn up to 100 grads for free.

If you moved faster than safe (WF^3)mm, roll for dilithium crystal burn-out.

Note: it's possible to get a CA up to about WF 11... but odds are you'll be out of crystals before long. 1600-160=1440mm=WF 11.2924. The DN can hit 2400-240=2160=WF12.9266. The DD/SC can hit WF10.2598

[allensh]

Feb 8, 2010 0:31:45 GMT -5 aramis said:

You have a speed, measured in mm/turn. You lose 10% of current velocity at the start of each round. You pay for acceleration in mm/turn. Total these for "Kinetic Energy" (KE). KE can be spent on 1 or 2 rotations.

If you applied power to movement (acceleration or decelleration), your total turns (measured in grads) can not exceed your KE, and the two allowed turns are limited to 100 grads each, one before movement, and one after movement. Both have to be plotted before movement. Each grad turned this way costs 1mm of movement.

If you did not apply movement power, you can, after movement, turn up to 100 grads for free.

If you moved faster than safe (WF^3)mm, roll for dilithium crystal burn-out.

Note: it's possible to get a CA up to about WF 11... but odds are you'll be out of crystals before long. 1600-160=1440mm=WF 11.2924. The DN can hit 2400-240=2160=WF12.9266. The DD/SC can hit WF10.2598

Interesting...that's pretty much the same as Starflight then, although Starflight simplifies the process..in that game, 1 mm = Warp 1 and you move a number of millimeters equal to your multiple of the speed of light (using the original series warp formula of WF^3).

I did find an "Academy Edition" of the game done by Bob Portnell on the net last night; still looking to get an actual copy (Noble Knight doesn't have any right now).

Allen

[aramis]

Portnell's is pretty much the same rules as later printings, but more cogently laid out.

I've got it, and in fact referred to it in prepping, since I've previously checked it against the dead tree.

I've also grabbed and collated the stat blocks for various ships ported from SFB. Since the oringinal host is down (it was geocities)...

Oh, and Finarvyn, it wasn't 360°, it was 400 grads.

[finarvyn]

Feb 8, 2010 11:48:21 GMT -5 aramis said:

Oh, and Finarvyn, it wasn't 360°, it was 400 grads.

I stand, er, sit corrected.

Now that you mention it, I do remember the little red squares were broken up into gradians. (At the time I had no idea what they were, but they seemed cool.)

That's what I get for trusting my memorey.

[allensh]

Feb 8, 2010 11:48:21 GMT -5 aramis said:

Portnell's is pretty much the same rules as later printings, but more cogently laid out.

I've got it, and in fact referred to it in prepping, since I've previously checked it against the dead tree.

I've also grabbed and collated the stat blocks for various ships ported from SFB. Since the oringinal host is down (it was geocities)...

Oh, and Finarvyn, it wasn't 360°, it was 400 grads.

Unfortunatley, Bob Portnell chose to omit the hex movement rules...those would be useful to me

Allen

[aramis]

10mm = 1 hex. Round, but keep the difference and apply it before rounding the next turn.

Roll greater than range in hexes to hit. IIRC, it's on 1d20-10.