FLEET BOOK (REVIEWED)

Here is my review of the Fleet Book, all comments are meant to be
constructive, this is a great piece of work JT!

This is a must have for any FT player. A very nice simple design system
Some much needed changes to the core rules. For 8 quid this is
incredible
value for money.

Contents
========

Real Thrust movement system

Mega weapons phased out

60 degree fire arcs

Rolling manoeuvres

Changes to the damage track

Penetrating damage system

Critical system hits

New fighter rules - greater range and endurance and fighters as PDS

Beam weapons now have numeric size designation

Pulse torpedoes - upgraded

Needle beams - upgraded

PDAF -> Point Defence System (PDS) - upgraded

ADAF changed to a special fire control

Hull Armour

No level 3 screens

Fire control has to be paid for in design system

Crew factors and Damage Control linked to damage track

New turn sequence (like MT)

Salvo Missile System (SLM) - new very powerful offensive system

Super new mass based design system
   No class breakpoints
   Hull strength system using percentage of mass
   Some beam classes get free arcs
   Screens get expensive
   Multi arc pulse torpedoes
   Percentage mass system for main hull components

Fleet Designs
=============

This is a brief design synopsis of the 4 fleets in the book

NAC - Fast speed, beams, pulse torpedoes, few SLM's, heavy screens,
medium armour, and PDS/ADS

NSL - Medium speed, beams, few SLM's & pulse torpedoes, no screens,
heavy armour, PDS

FSE - Fast speed, SLM's, beams, few sub-munitions, no armour,
medium screens and PDS

ESU - Fast/Medium speed, beams, few SLM's, strong hulls, heavy screens
and PDS

How these play? I'll trust the playtesters. Everyone has lots of PDS as
the
SLM's are dangerous. The 4 fleets are different as if they are using
various
doctrines.

Lack of anything but standard sensors?

No ECM or MT missiles.

The crew levels on the ships are incredibly low, compared to say the
contemporary wet navy. I think 
this reflects the high level of automation
in the future perhaps?

Aliens to be in Volume II

Graphical Design
=================
Overall I preferred the look of MT but I suppose
the changes are to emphasise the differences...

Goodbye digital title font, modern chunky sans replacement

Small sans main text font (8pt?) so lots of information packed in
the 48 pages. I found it small and would have preferred something
a bit bigger ( the font size has got progressively smaller from FT, MT
to FB )

Nice clean look cover - black/silver/red

Each of the main fleets has a 1/3 page intro

New look SSD, systems aligned on a grid. No ship outline diagram, as its
replaced by the 3d ship view. New system icons for firing arc's, SLM's,
critical systems, armour, 
crew factors

Nice isometric drawings in pen of fleet ships, direct replicas of the
miniatures, grouped with SSD 
and blurb boxes about 2 per page giving about 28 pages of ship designs
for the 4 main fleets and 
merchants ( 1 pp).

Good background blurb boxes for each ship, service
details, technical specification and design history

Few bitonal counters for new systems, not too inspiring but
adequate

Usability
==========
Generally really very good, the new rules are introduced then the design
system and then the 
 designs. So it takes you through the required steps. I only had a
couple of minor issues:

SML's salvo specifics are mentioned in the point defence rules on pp 7
before the SML rules are 
actually introduced on pp 9

The section on how to interpret the SSD's (pp 41) comes after the actual
SSD's
I managed to not find it for the first 2 hours as I expected it to
precede them
This explains what TMF and NPV are on the SSD's.

pp 9 Salvo Missile Systems
Doesn't explain the range of enhanced range (ER)
salvos (this - 36 mu - is found buried in a summary later on pp 12 )

Addenda
=======
I noticed a few funnies:

pp 3 Thruster Pushes
2nd para - '6 manoeuvre points' should be 3

pp 7
Area-Defence Fire Control
(Fighters, SMB's etc) whats an SMB? (SML maybe?)

pp 19
Ark Royal class fleet Supercarrier
Crew factor star next to PDS system

There are quite a few discrepancies between the SSD and the
technical specifications. In these cases which is correct the
SSD or the technical specification, its important to know to stop
disputes in a canonical source.

pp 17
Majestic class Battlecruiser
SSD has no area defence fire control but in technical
specification

pp 25
Szent Istvan class Battledreadnought
SSD has 4 PDS but 3 in technical specification

pp 33
Jeanne D'Arc class Fleet Carrier
SSD has 7 fighter bays but 3 in technical specification

pp36
Volga class Super Destroyer
SSD has 2 PDS but 1 in technical specification

Tibet class Light Cruiser
SSD has 2 fire controls but 1 in the technical specification

tim jones
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