Not having anything to write about, and since I have the game out, I'll write about a couple of games of Star Fleet Battles that I've played in. SFB is a complicated game, one that rewards players who use all of the ship systems at their disposal. It does have a good feel for captaining a starship in combat.

One of the scenarios I played in high school pitted a Federation Light Cruiser against a Klingon D6 Cruiser. As the Fed, my mission was to rescue some scientists on a planetoid. The Klingons wanted to stop me, without killing the scientists. Actually, they had staged a mishap to lure a Federation starship and destroy it, but that was all part of the scenario background.

A Federation CL is significantly weaker than a D6. It only has two photon torpedoes compared to the D6's four disruptors. It's a bit smaller, with less internals, less shields, less power. Mitigating the fewer internals are the 6 armor boxes in the CL, which will absorb the first few points of damage that get through a shield. My main advantages are better phasers and my greater skill.

I screamed in, overloading my photon torpedoes. I also set up one suicide shuttle; this is a shuttle with an anti-matter bomb, which does 18 damage if it hits. Fire declaration is simultaneous on any particular impulse, neither player is supposed to know what the other player is firing when they make their decision. So I closed in and fired just outside my optimal range, to try to get in the first shot. That worked and I crushed one of his shields. He then fired and did a lot of damage, then I launched shuttles.

Next turn we stood still and slugged it out. Good players maintain speed, we weren't very good -- most of our battles involved moving up and blasting away. Anyway, we both turned to bring fresh shields up and fired away. I only had my phasers as the photon torpedo launcher that had survived was recycling. He had some phasers and his three disruptors.

The danger for the Federation player is the two-turn arming cycle of the photon torpedo. A photon torpedo does 16 damage at full overload, a disruptor on full overload does 10 at close range but can fire every turn. So on a two turn cycle a disruptor will do more damage, but a photon torpedo has a better one turn crunch power. Federation ships should try to flit in, fire, flit out to recharge. Unfortunately they don't have enough warp power to move fast and reload the photon torpedoes.

Anyway, we both hit each other hard, he used a couple of phasers to blow up the first shuttle, so at least I didn't take the damage. The second shuttle came out and a few impulses later impacted. This helped even the damage. At this point we were both quite messed up but willing to fight. We spent the rest of the turn turning fresh shields.

Turn 3 (or 4). My photon torpedo is armed so I fire again and add the phasers. He fires back with his disruptor and phasers. We hit and mess up each other some more. I use the transporters to send in a boarding party and knock out his last disruptor, leaving me with the advantage. At this point he gives up. A close victory, rather phyrric since both the ships are crippled.

Well, I'm out of space so I won't bore you with the second battle.