The Crystaline Entity # 2 All mail should be sent to Pdmd8 or will not be reviewed Table of Contents Special Note! Poll results Deck Feature Article:Total War/ Outposts Neutral Zone (2 neutral cards are Reviewed) Bynars Weapon Enhancements (Event Cards are reviewed) SPECIAL!: Contest Classifieds Disclaimer. Special Note: I have included a Star Fleet battles SSD for use in Star Fleet Battles. If you play, and you like this one, please E-mail me for a Vor'cha class SSD! Poll Results: Not enough poll results have been received! More results are necessary to post the outcome! If you have anything important to say to the author or about Star Trek, e-mail Pdmd8. Deck: Romulan Outpost Science Vessel D'derex x 3 Takket x 3 Tallus x 3 Palteth Gathon x 2 Thei x 3 Jaron Tebok Federation Outpost U.S.S Excelsior x 2 Galaxy Nebula Mendon x 2 Taurik Calloway Darrian Wallace Christopher Hobson x 2 McKnight x 2 Engineering Kit Medical Kit Romulan Padd Romulan Disruptor Starfleet Type II Phaser Medical Tricorder x 2 Espionage: Federation on Klingon Static warp Bubble Plasma Fire Spacedock Where no man has gone before Treaty: Federation/ Romulan Tachyon detection Grid Female's love interest Archer Microvirus Anaphasic Organism 6 UNKNOWN missions Feature Article: Total War and Outpost Destruction The editor has seen many variants of Star Trek that play as "total war" variants. Unfortunately I was not satisfied with the attempts of the many people who have produced a variant. Is the game just not designed for this type of play, or is it the designers themselves? Many games have focused on a 2D board, ( A complicated variant) Some have focused on dice rolling. This is a good move as a Mercenary ship will never defeat a Vor'cha unless a event card is played (event cards are not drawn in most variants). Without Dice Rolls, letting the small occasionally defeat the big, the game concentrates on masses of ships. This is ludicrous and makes massive amounts of computation required. Red Alert is a valued card in almost all of the variants that allow cards to be drawn. These things, added up, make for a terribly long and boring game. Some varients include a rule that dilemmas are triggered by ships that attack. How terribly unrealistic. There are a number of solutions to these problems. One is to design a number of Battle-Interrupts that alter your or your opponent's weapons and shields. This would be similar to Wing Commander card game that has "maneuvers" which are played from someone's hand and either alter your or your opponent's weapons, missiles, maneuver, or shields. This would require the cumbersome task of MAKING the cards which would take a very long time. A possibility is to use Wing Commander cards as a supplement. Another is to expand each battle site and design a tactical game such as Star Fleet Battles. This would allow clever tacticians to overcome the massive power of another ship. Unfortunately this would make games long and cumbersome. A solution to a great battle game would be not just to stop at ST cards. One could use Wing Commander and Star Wars as well! The wing commander cards conversions would be : Weapons = Weapons. Shields = shields, Maneuver = Range. Bombs + Missiles = Outpost Attack strength The Star Wars conversions would be: Power = weapons Maneuver/Armor = Shields & hyperspeed = Range. This makes for a realistic game with powerful fighters and many starships. The problems to this variations include the fact that all of thesae cards have different back (for a total of 5). People can shuffle to get certain games on the top. Oh well. Now I have to mention the game that I used to play with great success. Before I wanted to commit money to startrek, I bought a bunch of common ships at $.01 a piece. I got 25 common ships to play with in a battle game. So did one of my friends. Originally we played a imaginary 'tactical' game with the floor as our game board. The movement was done based on the 'warp speed' of each. Then we played regular star trek, except no personnel. Each ship required a sent # of turns to build. The amount = the number of staff icons + 2 times the number of command Icons. This represented the hardships of building the ship at the dock. The object was to destroy all enemy ships. Both variants worked beautifully! I challenge anyone to make a really good battle game using some of the suggestions above or new ones of their own. If anyone wants to try and win a "prize" (see below), they must give me the file as a Word 6.0 or 7.0 document or a txt document. Another topic is could anyone make a deck that could destroy someone's outpost very quickly? If so, e-mail me the deck. The Neutral Zone: Mercenary Ship S,S Long-Range-Scan-Shielding RANGE 7 WEAPONS 7 SHIELDS 7 This Ship is a little less powerful than a Combat Vessel, with better shields and a special equipment. The card is the only common that captain's log applies to. The captain is Baran. If the captain is aboard this ship, It makes it 7 10 10, a formidable craft, even capible of taking on a Future Enterprise AND WINNING without taking damage. Lack of range makes It a little weaker than it's couterpart, the Mercenary ship. It has a low Crew requirement and a high damage potential with its captain aboard. Rating 6/10 Baran C Greed, Archeology, Exobiology, Computer Skill Integrity 3 Cunning 8 Strength 6 He is a well rounded person with a lack of integrity. He has 4 important skills, especially if you play Klingon. Archeology is all but non-existant, and Exobiology is equally rare. Computer skill is extreemly rare and Greed is al butt unheard-of except in the Duras Family. While he is on the Mercenary ship, He makes it 7 10 10 with captain's log, a formidible ship. The command skil is useful. If he had a bit more integrity, he would be a very good card. Rating 7.5/10 Bynars: Weapon Enhancement There are many good Event cards in existance. Captain's Log Almost every rare or uncommon ship has a captain. This is a valuable uncommon card that enhances both shields and weapons on a ship. It is only useful If you have 2 or more captains in your deck. I have four: Gowron - Bortas Torak- Qu'vat Baran- Mercenary Ship Dathon- Tama This makes the cards formidible and much more useful in attack situations. Rating 7/10 Metaphasic Shields For every science aboard, ship is shields + 2 This is an awesome card if you fight the borg ship, or are playing against Klingons. If you are the Klingons and are playing someone with a Bynar's weapon Enhancement, you make yourself totaly immune to that. If played along with Engineering Pad, Tricorder and Nutational shields, your opponant is in for a nasty surprise when he finds out that you have shields of 30! Rating 8/10 Contest! Try to make a really great common-uncommon Deck! You will be judged against other subscribers' decks! The only rules are that: It must have at only one Kevin Uxbridge, no Amandas, and no Q2's. what about a neutral deck. This is a deck with all neutral cards! (It would be O.K. to include 2 people of each affiliation). Whoever's deck is the best will receive a prize in the form of shareware ST files! Try the contest! Classifieds: Pdmd8: I would like a "Spock " card. How could I get a hold of one? Disclaimer: Anyone who reads or sends anything in to this magazine cannot sue me or charge me with anything. I used Decipher things but this Magazine is a non-profit thing to enjoy. If you send anyone this file without the Disclaimer, you have taken into responsibility all they have done with the magazine. You may distribute Freely! Anything you send me becomes property of PDMD8. If you do not feel you want to comply with these instructions, please remove this off of your computer and DO NOT DISTRIBUTE.