Space Operas

There are several books in this series including "Insurrection". These novels
are set within the "Starfire" Gamesystem Universe. This game is a revised
golden Oldie from Task Force Games. Starfire
was until the advent of FT\MT the premiere generic ruleset for space
combat (IMO) the rules covered a wide variety of weapons and hull types as
well as having a detailed ruleset for strategic combat.

I just finished what could be described as a first rate space opera. The book
is Crusade by David Weber and Steve White. The Russians, Americans, and
Chinese have all been drawn together into the Terran Federation and peace
abounds. Our old enemy the Orions (ala Star Trek Lyrans) are of course now our
friends. When suddenly out of deep space, from a vector we thought impossible
comes the Thebans, and they are out to liberate Holy
Mother Terra for Saint-Jus.

With the exception of transiting between stars the backround would fit
perfectly with FT/MT.  The bad guys are theocratical fanatics.  While
the book neatly keeps all but two Orions out of the picture, they are given
enough of a backround that they too could play a part.

I recomend this for the quick fun read if nothing else, but also as a good
backround source book too. The pertenient ifo is below.

Crusade by David Weber and steve White

> On Thu, 23 Jan 1997, Robert Kerrigan wrote:

> I just finished what could be described as a first rate space opera.
The
> book is Crusade by David Weber and Steve White. The Russians,

I haven't read Crusade just yet. All I know about if is that's its set in the
Starfire game backgroud. (Weber wrote the current version of the rules.) But
given the way he wrote the Honor Harrington books, I can imagine that it's a
good read.

> With the exception of transiting between stars the backround would fit

        I don't think it should be too hard.  Ships would be non-FTL and

someone would have to figure out the warp point rules. Wasn't Jerry Han

working on some Starfire conversion rules for FT?

> I recomend this for the quick fun read if nothing else, but also as a

Currently, I'm engrossed in the Weber's second Honor Harrington book ("Honor
of the Queen") and I'll probably immediatly start the third after I'm done
with it. I'll see if I can squeeze it in. (I'm begining to get into Starfire,
so it would be good if I can get some background. It's a good

game--I just think the rule book illustrations are are very cheesey.)

Later,

> "mww" == Mike Wikan <mww@n-space.com> writes:

mww> There are several books in this series including "Insurrection". mww>
These novels are set within the "Starfire" Gamesystem Universe. mww> This game
is a revised golden Oldie from Task Force
mww> Games. Starfire was until the advent of FT\MT the premiere
mww> generic ruleset for space combat (IMO) the rules covered a wide mww>
variety of weapons and hull types as well as having a detailed mww> ruleset
for strategic combat.

AFAIK There are only 2 books currently.

The Starfire Universe was originally developed by David Weber though, of Honor
Harrignton fame. In some ways I actually perfer starfire to
FT/MT (ducks under a table to avoid flames), but overall I find
the physics of the game a little strange to actually play. Now a Realistic
Movement varient of Starfire, that would be interesting.

> At 01:37 PM 1/23/97 -0500, you wrote:
The
> book is Crusade by David Weber and Steve White. The Russians,

The book you discribe is based on a Task Force Games Starfire Game of the same
name. I have both. Has lots of scenarios.

> At 11:20 AM -0800 1/23/97, " wrote:

> I haven't read Crusade just yet. All I know about if is that's

> Later,

I read "Insurrection" recently. It was definitely NOT up to speed compared to
the Honor Harronton books, nor to "Path of the Fury" (which I highly
recommend). The dialogue and political intrigue came accross a little fuzzy.
The combat scenes were even a little less interesting. I've played Starfire
since 1979, and I did not get as good a look into that universe as I wanted
from my first Starfire novel. I reread all of the Honor Harrington series,
once was enough for "Insurrection."

> At 02:20 PM 1/23/97 +0000, you wrote:
It was the premiere generic ruleset? I bought the first version that came out
as three little booklets. Then I bought the second version, The one that came
in the nice box. At that point I grew tired of their "WW2 Navies in Space"
attitude. If you examine Task Force Games produces, you will find that most of
them have strong flavors of WW2, with just the names changed. By then I was
bummed out. I once tried to strip all of the "ocean navy" things from the
game. What I had was so odd, that it actually felt good. But my friend and I
were fed up with starfire, and stopped doing anything with it.

> At 01:10 PM 1/23/97 -0700, you wrote:
   -=-
> -=- Gamer, Re-Enactor, hecka stressed We're here to make your life

How about striping all of the ww2 navies in space from the rules? The ships
turn like they are on an ocean...the map included with the original game was a
light blue color!

I have the first and second editions...I called it quits at the current
third edition--too expencive.

try this: Allow shields inside the hull, Armor takes no space but has mass,
all ships start with a turnmode of 1 (number of facings changed per turn), and
may buy more at the same price as 1 speed engine. Shields regenerate every
turn. no limits on how fast a ship can go....only civilan ships are limited to
speed 4.

My friend and I think this fixes some of the problems. The tech level chart is
all messed up. Fighters and shuttles should be allowed at TL1 (though at much
slower speeds, ect.)

> You wrote:

I just finished what could be described as a first rate space opera. The book
is Crusade by David Weber and Steve White. The Russians, Americans, and
Chinese have all been drawn together into the Terran Federation and peace
abounds. Our old enemy the Orions (ala Star Trek Lyrans) are of course now our
friends. When suddenly out of deep space, from a vector we thought impossible
comes the Thebans, and they are out to liberate Holy
Mother Terra for Saint-Jus.

In a message dated 97-01-23 20:36:36 EST, you write:

> The Starfire Universe was originally developed by David Weber though,

Starfire has a lot of neat ideas, many of which could be glommed into FT. I
especially like the expanding time/distance scales as fleets of ships
moved closer together, which allowed you to conduct real fighter operations,
etc. However, once you got the ships onto the map, the game was a snoozer. The
missile systems were the only thing worth having and the only maneuver was
holding the optimum missile ranges. At least that's the way it seemed to me.

Later

Brian

> Starfire has a lot of neat ideas, many of which could be glommed into
 The
> missile systems were the only thing worth having and the only maneuver

I have to agree. Strange but I was just reading the campaign book for Crusade
before I read these messages. It makes it all sound very exciting with huge
fleet battles ranging across an entire system at times. Sadly though any
attempt to play these battles usually ends up falling by the wayside. Once you
get above 5 ships a side it loses its appeal. Just like SFB you have to keep
track of turn modes dependent on speed, something I have never liked very much
if you want to have a decent sized battle in a reasonable amount of time.
Usually what happens in larger battles is most of the ships get
stacked into one hex (20-30) and essentially work as one supership.
Once you get in range of each other it becomes a number crunching excercise.
Movement usually takes up all the time and since you could only move a maximum
of 6 hexes a turn with no turns it just becomes irritating. The campaigns if
they could be adapted to FT would be excellent I suspect. There is a very
useful piece of software on Matt Seidls FTP site called Starfire Assistant
that could be of use to anyone running a space combat campaign game. The
campaign rules for Starfire aren't all that bad if you cut out a lot of the
pointless number crunching. If I might suggest, who else would be interested
in trying to convert it for use by FT?

NG.

> Niall Gilsenan wrote:
<snip> If I might suggest, who else would be interested in trying to convert
it for use by FT?