Right now, on a scale of 1-10, my interest in the other areas would be a 1. :-\ That is, if I got a hold of a copy of the material, I would skim through it and see what is there. Maybe that would build up some interest, but I don't expect that to happen. Once you move away from the core empires, it just starts this repetitive course of making up new empires. Each new empire (A, B, C...) needs new tech (T, U, V...) to distinguish it from every other empire. Piles of SSDs for each new empire so they have all of the ship types. (For the record, I am not complaining about too many SSDs. I have at least 2 copies printed of every SSD through R10.) New firing charts for every new weapon. How many ways of converting ship energy to weapon damage do we need? And let's not forget the new rules. NM1.2.13 The effects of a marklar interacting with a marklar. Multiply that rule for every new marklar they make, and...sigh. I simply don't have an interest in this form of development. But this course keeps the company alive, so I hope they do well.
I can understand the issue of rules creep, but in some cases the empires in non-Alpha parts of the universe are intended to either offer less clutter (in terms of atttrition units or seeking weapons) or to allow for tactical options (and restrictions) which are not available in the Alpha Octant proper.
For example,
SFB Module C5 introduces five factions from the Lesser Magellanic Cloud, the island galaxy which the Andromedans conquered as part of their grand campaign against the Milky Way (and which served as the target destination for Operation Unity). There's a setting page for the LMC on ADB's website, but I'm not sure if it would be okay for me to post a link to it. (After certain events, I'm somewhat reluctant to risk getting in more trouble, even though that page is not a "storefront" page.)
Of the five fleets in that module, two of them (the Uthiki and Jumokians) are minor powers with only a few ship types each. (The squid-like Uthiki get singled out for extermination for the Andromedans, though no-one is quite sure why. The reptilian Jumokians use miniature pod mounts on their pirate warships, which helps them get around their limited hull numbers to a certain degree.) Only the three "Magellanic Powers" (the Baduvai, Eneen, and Maghadim) have more fleshed-out fleets (with line and support ships, bases, etc), but even they share a certain set of common technologies that make them distinctly "LMC" powers rather than galactic ones.
All five fleets use a common set of shielding (which is multi-layered, with 60-degree outer shields over a pair of less useful inner shields) and primary weapons (warp-tuned lasers, which cannot be down-fired and are less effective against plasma than standard phasers). But on the other hand, all but one of the known LMC heavy weapons are direct-fire, so there's no need to worry about stacks of drones or whatnot; the closest thing to a drone is a mass driver missile, which is fired like a direct-fire weapon you get to try and shoot down before it impacts. (The Eneen have a weak plasma type they use as a "keep away" weapon.) And attrition units only appear very late in the timeline (during the Andromedan occupation), and are few in number. The lemur-like Eneen have one or two "casual fighters" they sometimes took, but didn't bother with a "true" carrier; the insectoid Maghadim were able to field carriers, but with certain limitations; while the giant quadruped Baduvai were physically incapable of operating a fighter, so went instead with a weak (from an Alpha perspective) PF.
And then there's the map on which these empires are set up on (until the Andros ruin the party). The LMC map is smaller than those of the Alpha or Omega Octants, so the economies for each power are more limited. This obliges the local fleets to use destroyers and frigates as their line ships in place of cruisers. (The multi-layer shield rules help counteract this to a certain extent.) Geographically, it has a central core region with higher-than-average stellar densities per hex, walled off from the rest of the Cloud by a WYN-like radiation shell. Around the Core is a ring of provinces with "normal" stellar densities, that also includes the three-hex Yrol Nebula (whose locals are fairly isolationist and have yet to be published for
SFB). Around those is a set of "Fringe" hexes, where the stellar densities are much lower, and resources much harder to come by. (Beyond the Fringe is the Chomak cluster, whose inhabitants haven't been published for
SFB either.)
The politics and conflicts of the Cloud were shaped by these divisions. The Maghadim, feeling trapped behind the Core radiation walls, were desperate to break out into the "open" space beyond it (when their rival Hives are trying to kill each other). Most of the ring of "normal" hexes was held by the Baduvai and Eneen, with a pair of "neutral" provinces acting as a buffer to the "north-west". The Baduvai and Eneen alternated between tussling with each other for dominance over the "outside" ring of space, and co-operating in order to keep the Maghadim from securing a limb-ing in the Neutral Worlds (which were the primary beach-head the Maghadim used to try and escape the confines of the Core region). And the Jumokians, forced into exile by the Eneen conquest of their home world, use the Fringe region as their primary staging area to launch pirate raids and suchlike against the Eneen (and later the Baduvai). The Uthiki had their own province on the Baduvai side of the Cloud, but were mostly an LDR-esque minor power until hit by the Andromedans.
And there are even a handful of Jindarian caravans (from
Module F1) out in the LMC, mostly keeping to themselves, but who ended up offering the key to the Magellanics' survival. When the Jumokians were driven into exile, the Jindarians showed them how to build asteroid shipyards, a capability the Jumokians themselves would offer to the Magellanic Powers once they in turn were forced into exile by the Andromedan conquest. These asteroid yards helped keep the exiles alive long enough to try and start re-claiming their occupied planets after the Andromedans were defeated in Operation Unity.
I guess the above ended up being a tad longer than I was hoping for, but I guess the point I was trying to get at is that the non-Alpha settings are not there just to be "more of the same" (in terms of being an excuse to add this weapon or that support system). They are meant to allow for a new set of options on the tabletop, but also a different kind of arena to to campaigning or role-playing in.
(I could go into similar introductions to Omega and Triangulum, in case anyone was interested.)
Lately, I have been working on plans for a merchant/privateer campaign set during the general war era. I used macromedia fireworks to draw all of the different freighter sections available (bridges, pods, ducktails, engines). It seems I need to get R11 for new stuff. Once the players design their ships, I can put together the custom SSDs. I might use some 4-pocket sheet protectors with 3x5 cards so they can easily shift pods between scenarios. The galactic map will be closer to ST:RPG's map with the Tholians moved north of the Gorn. That way I can have the Triangle area, and we don't have to deal with Tholians.
R11 and
R12 have their uses. Of the two,
R11 is more useful in terms of helping to organise campaigns, since it has a lot of support units included there.
I own most of the stuff for Omega, does that count?
Which Omega modules do you have so far?
I think I need more background to be attached to any particular factions. Since the grand-sum of fluff most of the non-Alpha Sector factions have recieved was less than a full page, it's hard to get particularly excited about them.
I guess part of the problem is one of visibility, both in terms of background and in presentation.
People may have a general sense of what to expect with the "TV empires", or perhaps with the likes of the Lyrans and Hydrans (courtesy of
SFC). But without an introduction as to what exactly it is that these other settings actually do, it might be harder to be aware of it (or want to consider it).
When I was working on the ruleset for the
FC Omega Playtest Rulebook, I tried to be careful in terms of how much information to present to the reader. Since a number of people reading that file would be looking at Omega for the first time, I tried to focus on a smaller sub-set of factions, and ones which are on the more "normal" scale in terms of how they build and operate their ships.
For Omega in particular, I tried to make a point of using the Federal Republic of Aurora as a "bridge" faction. The Republic got its start when a Federation colony was transplanted to the Omega Octant in Y130. Once there, they found themselves able to build ships based on the "Terran" hulls (CL and POL) they had on hand. (Later arrivals from Klingon, Lyran, and ISC space helped add to the mix.) So you have what starts as a Fed-like faction (where the Terran hulls became the norm rather than the "saucer-and-nacelle" ships in Star Fleet) and which gradually evolves into its own thing as it matures in its new and often-hostile environment.
In time, I'm hoping that more new developments for the non-Alpha settings (such as more Omega modules for
SFB, or a new phase of advancement for the Omega project in
FC) might help make these settings more readily accessible to newcomers, and perhaps show off some of the reasons why I find them so appealing.
Of course, some new fiction set in those regions might help, too.
