Star Fleet Battles is a ship-to-ship warfare simulation game, which uses cardboard counters to represent the ships, shuttles, seeking weapons, terrain, and information on a hexagonal map.

[5][6][7] These expansions rapidly added many new ships and concepts to the system which are parts of it to this day: The Hydrans, Andromedans and Lyrans were introduced as new empires that fielded novel technologies peculiar to themselves.

All the races were issued a full complement of ship classes, particularly dreadnoughts, fleet tugs and scouts, which in the Designer Edition only the Federation and Klingons deployed.

'X-ships' or 'up-rated cruisers' featured altogether new technologies (like fast-loading torpedoes, overloaded phasers, oversize warp engines and high-capacity battery reserve power) based on the new versions of the Enterprise and Klingon battlecruisers seen in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Each race also received auxiliary units that used generic SSDs, such as police ships, freighters, Q-ships, Fleet Repair Docks and minelayers, for which comprehensive mine warfare rules were introduced.

Many things were re-written, and each expansion included new elements that impacted how previous rules interacted, demanding a great deal of errata and making the entire system something of a jumble.

Nexus magazine was launched as a house organ for Task Force Games, and featured a regular SFB section which presented new material like scenarios, rules errata, and input and feedback from players.

The new Commander's style SSDs (which did not appear in Volume I or II) took a full sheet and included extra record-keeping information, such as tracks for drone ammo and shuttles, and firing charts for all the weapons on the ship.

The decline of TFG was gradual, and SFB suffered long before the company actually folded: Ultimately, however, the publisher was battered by market forces, a few bad decisions, and perhaps a lack of focus.

The 'SFU' now diverges sharply from canon Star Trek, as the producers ignored anything from fan productions, and SFB's own license does not allow them to use any new material from more recent TV or film series.

The vast majority of products published for Star Fleet Battles is set in the 'Alpha-Octant' (sometimes called 'Alpha-Sector', but that is actually just a part of the area covered), which includes all the races known from The Original Series.

Over two dozen empires have operated in this region; some remain a factor in the Octant throughout the modern era, others rise at an early time only to be crushed or sidelined, while still others only enter the scene at a later point in history.

[18] Module C5 for SFB presented five of the Magellanic empires: the Baduvai Imperium, the Eneen Protectorates, the Maghadim Hives, the Uthiki Harmony and the Jumokian Resistance.

In the decades prior to the Andromedan arrival, several wars were waged between the three Magellanic Powers (Baduvai, Eneen and Maghadim), most notably for control of the strategically vital Neutral Worlds.

Unfortunately for these empires, the Andromedans eventually sought to conquer the Cloud outright, in order to claim it as an advanced base of operations for their full-scale invasion of the Milky Way Galaxy.

Once Operation Unity succeeded in subduing the Andromedans, the surviving Magellanic forces (which had held out in exile among the Fringe worlds) took to re-building their fallen empires, though it would take a long time for any of them to approach their former glory.

Adjacent to the Omega Octant of the Milky Way Galaxy, the Iridani Cluster is home to one rather adventurous space-faring race presented in the SFB Omega-series modules...

The empires of the Triangulum Galaxy come in two distinct flavors, with a handful of older realms dealing with the consequences of several newly emergent species making their mark on M33.

[21] Three of these powers (the Helgardian Protectorate, the Arachnid Worlds of Unions and the Mallaran Empire) were presented in playtest form in SFB Module E2, while the Imperium was previewed in Captain's Log #23.

Many other empires are noted as being present in this setting, including the Human Republic (founded by a Terran colony caravan which was displaced from the Milky Way in -Y12).

Fourth, it differs from many wargames in that each unit is not simply a set of offensive and defensive numerical ratings; rather, each ship has a variety of individual weapons and resources, each employing their own tactics and counter-tactics.

Thus players are able to utilize, e.g., boarding parties, shuttles, tractor beams, electronic countermeasures, etc., permitting many more tactics than in the average wargame (and requiring much more documentation).

Every ship/unit must maintain a definite "facing" (heading on the game map's hexagonal grid) which can only be changed sixty degrees or less at a time under strict rules (turn modes and the "sideslip" move).

Each hexside around the ship towards its rear usually has fewer boxes for absorbing damage before incoming weapons fire begins scoring "internal hits" on the starship proper.

Each ship maneuvers to present the strongest shields to its most dangerous adversaries, while at the same time seeking to generate firing opportunities for its most powerful armaments against the most vulnerable or threatening opponents.

Finally, multi-starship scenarios (and also those involving starbases, battle stations, or civilian convoys) can complexify the gaming experience to suit the tastes of the most sophisticated wargamer.

This problem is addressed in two ways; first, the Cadet's Game offers a stripped down introductory combat scenario that uses only the most basic of rules (for example, no overloaded weapons, no electronic warfare, etc.

In the pick-up game each player or team is allotted a certain number of BPV (casually referred to as "points") to "buy" the starships and nonship units they will play.

There are also optional items of equipment available that can also be purchased and added to the player's order of battle (including ship "refits" and sundries such as improved drones or fire control, mines, extra boarding parties, multirole shuttles or fighters, etc.).

A more structured way to organize a campaign is to use the system offered by Star Fleet Battle's companion game at the galactic-strategic level, Federation and Empire.