Steve Long's Battle of Wolf 359 PBEM

[Fred]

I was posting in one of the Star Trek: Discovery threads at RPGnet, when I remembered that back in 98 or 99, when Last Unicorn Games released their version of a Star Trek RPG, Steve Long ran a PBEM recreation of the Battle of Wolf 359 using the Spacedock rules and the Ship Recognition Manuals. It was really fun, with each player running one of the ships (yes, a lot of players). If I remember correctly, one or two ships made it through and actually destroyed the cube. Mine, like many others, was destroyed early on.

I am curious to know if there are any "veterans" from that "battle" around (a similar thread at RPGnet haven't yielded any results so far). I thought I had saved some messages from the PBEM, but couldn't find them. I would love to read it again and chat about the game.

Tchau!

[WaveMan]

I asked about it too, but was ignored.

[Fred]

Were you part of it as well?

Tchau!

[WaveMan]

no mate, but some old timers of the forum mentioned it and I asked for a thread link but nothing happened. Apparently the whole battle lasted like two turns before the Cube was destroyed, which if you read the stats of the Cube that result should not have been unexpected. As per Space Dock unless it's a real mismatch (like a Voth city ship) a single vessel just doesn't survive an assault from 40 Federation vessels.

[Fred]

Hey, Steve replied over at the RPGnet thread.

Wow, talk about a trip down memory lane....

A friend tipped me off about this thread, and it took me awhile to dredge up the memories, but it's starting to come back to me. Though some of it may be confused with the in person playtest I ran, where I had 20-30 gamers over to my house to participate in what I think was essentially the same "beat the Borg" scenario.

Unfortunately I don't have any archives or other material from either playtest. I suspect I simply annotated a print-out of the manuscript where necessary, rather than saving a whole bunch of mails and whatnot; that's a common M.O. for me.

Nor did I ever get around to building the multi-level starship gaming table that I had an idea for. Probably just as well; I don't have any idea where I could have kept it all these years.

Tchau!

[Fred]

no mate, but some old timers of the forum mentioned it and I asked for a thread link but nothing happened.

Ouch.

Apparently the whole battle lasted like two turns before the Cube was destroyed, which if you read the stats of the Cube that result should not have been unexpected.

I agree that I was a bit surprised we were able to defeat the Borg, but those were glorious two turns.

Tchau!

[Dan Gurden]

I was in that simulation... I thought I would try my hand at a challenge and commanded the Oberth Class USS Bonestall... My thought was to take into account the under-gunned and 'sci-ency' nature of the class and work at targeting, blocking and rescuing.

Lasted 2 combat rounds or something ridiculous...

[Dan Gurden]

The sim was (I recall) run in a locked thread and has long since been deleted... Sadly...

[WaveMan]

The sim was (I recall) run in a locked thread and has long since been deleted... Sadly...

that makes sense, and now understand why I didn't get a response, thanks for the update mate.

[Dan Gurden]

... which if you read the stats of the Cube that result should not have been unexpected.

Sadly, an old RPG adage is that 'If its been stated, I can kill it'... There are players who pride themselves on finding the most un-killable thing and proceeding to do so. I once went to a LARP where the plot revolved around a God, the NPC playing the God had his stats and a briefing and whenever these guys failed to take down the God the player would later reveal that his 'stats' said; "I can do anything".

That's sort of where the Borg ship should have been...

[WaveMan]

Sadly, an old RPG adage is that 'If its been stated, I can kill it'... There are players who pride themselves on finding the most un-killable thing and proceeding to do so. I once went to a LARP where the plot revolved around a God, the NPC playing the God had his stats and a briefing and whenever these guys failed to take down the God the player would later reveal that his 'stats' said; "I can do anything".

That's sort of where the Borg ship should have been...

Yeah I know that's how many 'power players' respond (I am often a unabashed power player) to RPG'ing. The big thing I saw on the Cube in the original write up was the shields, they were just a little stronger than the Sovereign Class (1400 protection vs 1300 protection), I would have AT MINIMUM metaphasic shields (4200 protection), and should have had hull armour equivalent to monotanium ( outer hull resistance 400) hull armour.

My Fusion Tactical Cube write up is what I think a standard cube should look like

http://forum.trek-rpg.net/showthread...al-Fusion-Cube