Fasa product questions

[Tanya-J]

I came across a reference to Enemy Contact: Bridge Alert. Can anyone tell me if this was ever released?

Also, does the 1st Edition Klingons focus on the original series Klingons or the movie era ones? I have the 2nd edition, which is movie era.

Finally, what is the difference between the basic box set and the Deluxe one?

Thanks in advance!

Tanya-J

[Shoshuro]

In order, if I'm wrong chime in.

1: I have never seen or even heard of it until now, and I owned everything they came out with.

2: The first edition book mainly looks at Klingons during the series. They use the background and information largely provided by John M. Ford's "Final Refelection" (THE Klingong Novel as far as I'm concerened). The book may cover some movie-era info but remember, either II or III was out when it was published so it's really bare.

3: IIRC the Deluxe set had the Starship combat game, a map and counters. The basic set only had the 3 main rulebooks.

If some of this seems a lil off sorry, I'm watching Last Samurai for the first time and needless to dsay, I'm a little distracted.

[Tanya-J]

Bridge Alert is discussed on page 41 of the Game Operations Manual of the 2nd Edition Basic boxed set, but I haven't seen any other reference to it. I suspect that it never made it to print.

[AslanC]

http://www.roliste.com/detail.jsp?id=6220

This is a French page that makes mention of it. maybe C5 or one of the other French (or French Canadian) members can translate it for us all?

[Tar-Palantir]

First Contact - Bridge Alert is part of the Deluxe Boxed set of the FASA game. It was part of the starship combat system, outlining how to give each character (player) a role in starship combat using their Starship Combat Simulator. The simulator was basically a tactical combat board game. Bridge Alert took that to the next level, making it not just a fight between your ship and mine, but trying to involve all the players. It was about 6-8 pages long.

Tanja - you would see the reference to it in the Basic Set, but the booklet would not have been included in your game, it is in the Deluxe Set, which I have.

Additionally, the Deluxe Set included an intro to starship combat booklet, a basic starship combat rules booklet, Advanced starship combat booklet, a ship stats booklet, a combat chart booklet, several templates (damage tracks, shield track, engine power tracks, etc) for a number of TOS era ships as well as a generic one for your designs, about 100 starship counters, planets, asteroid belts, a large blank hex grid for play, and combat table (to hit charts, damage charts, etc).

[Tanya-J]

Thanks for the info!

[TFVanguard]

2: The first edition book mainly looks at Klingons during the series. They use the background and information largely provided by John M. Ford's "Final Refelection" (THE Klingong Novel as far as I'm concerened). The book may cover some movie-era info but remember, either II or III was out when it was published so it's really bare.

I'm going off of fussy memory here, but I think a later (post TMP) version of the game included 'Imperial Klingons' and 'Fusion Klingons' with the latter being genetically altered to work with more neutral planets.. ya know, 'cause the Klingons really have that whole touch-feely aspect to them.

I never had the Klingon sourcebook, though, so I don't know how much more into detail they went into that.

[Imagus]

Originally posted by TFVanguard
I'm going off of fussy memory here, but I think a later (post TMP) version of the game included 'Imperial Klingons' and 'Fusion Klingons' with the latter being genetically altered to work with more neutral planets.. ya know, 'cause the Klingons really have that whole touch-feely aspect to them.

I never had the Klingon sourcebook, though, so I don't know how much more into detail they went into that.

Imperial and Fusion Klingons were both in the first edition (and the first ed of the game). They were both published after ST TMP, and they went all out to explain the difference between the series and movie Klingons (or the five minutes we'd seen of them at that point!). The second edition introduced the Romulan Fusions, who were not present in the original.

Fusions basically existed to interact with humans, whom the Imperials didn't really understand. This was one of my favourite concepts from the FASA game

[TFVanguard]

I still think it's a silly retcon.

Wasn't there a TOS-only version of the game that predated TMP, though? I could have sworn that one printing of the game was like that...

[Imagus]

Originally posted by TFVanguard
I still think it's a silly retcon.

IMO it was a daft idea to change them in the first place!

Out of all of them, it's the best I've seen. Although I'm experimenting with the idea of an allied race at present.

Originally posted by TFVanguard
Wasn't there a TOS-only version of the game that predated TMP, though? I could have sworn that one printing of the game was like that...

Actually, on examining my copy of the 1st ed delux - sort of! It's dated 1983, but only covers TOS. The Klingons set then came along in 1984 and introduced the movie Klingons.

Sorry about that!

[Owen E Oulton]

The first edition core rule book was TOS, but one of the very first supplements was the Klingon book, which introduced the Fusion concept, which I never really liked.

The idea that the Klingon book was based on John Ford's The Final Reflection isn't quite accurate. The novel and the game supplement were developed at the same time and cross-pollinated. Ford and one of the game's authors were roommates at the time, and found themselves working on parallel projacts, so they decided to combine their efforts. Concepts created for the novel found their way into the supplement, and vice versa (sort of like the novel and movie 2001), with Ford contributing colour commentary (in the voice of the novel's main character) for the supplement.

The FASA game was published in 1983, well after STTMP. There was, however, an earlier Star Trek RPG released by Heritage Games, based on Zou Zocchi's Space Patrol/Star Patrol rules. It was, by all accounts, an unplayable abortion. I have a copy of Star Patrol, and it's primitive in the extreme.

I'm currently putting together a complete pictorial history of Star Trek RPG's, an extension of the LUG one on Memory: ICON, and the FASA one on my Star Trek: Universe site.

[TFVanguard]

Thanks for clearing that up. I could just remember as a slightly-more wee one my uncle a TOS-only RPG, and it was clearly FASA (I distinctly remember the new ship classes presented), but it didn't have the movie information in it yet.

The first Trek RPG that I bought was FASA, but it came at about Star Trek III, and the focus had decidedly shifted over to the movie era, with more 'nods' to TOS more than a focus.

I hadn't even HEARD of the Heritage Games version of the RPG until this month. Though, judging from the reviews and scans that I had seen, there's a reason I hadn't...

[Garet]

Noble Knights last week got a ton of fasa trek in for those interested

http://www.nobleknight.com