Editing Star Fleet Battles (section)

==Getting Started==

Well your in luck.  ADB (Amarillo Design Bureau) isn't like most other game company's in the fact they're not trying to milk their player base continuously for money (unlike some other companies..GW *cough cough*).  SFB is a passion project by two people who love the game and so want the most people possible to enjoy it. That said going all in will cost a fair bit as the game has continued to be updated for 40+ years with new ships, new races and even new non-galactic areas.

To this end there is the [https://www.starfleetstore.com/game-handbooks-c-1_5/cadet-training-handbook-reprint-edition-p-5.html Cadet Handbook] which is pretty cheap (about $10 US) that comes with a basic rule booklet that covers the necessary rules but without going very deep. You get a map, dice (2 D6's), a Federation CA (heavy cruiser) and a Klingon D7 (also a heavy cruiser) so you can test out the waters and see if SFB is for you.

Now if you like what you tasted then 1. Welcome to the Trek Nerdom 2. Get ready to shell out some serious coinage.  

You will want the Captains Set for the complete game rules. This will cover everything basic from simple movement to crazy stuff like Hit and Run raids on  your opponents bridge or using your transporter to lay mines.

The letter modules A-M to get you all races, ships, weapons and SSD's of said ships. (honestly you can skip the N,O,P modules as they contain the weird shit like a new extra galactic area full of new non-Trek races for bored veterans. Not that they're not interesting and fun to play around with but they're just extra and not central to the main game).

Grab any Captain Log's that strike your fancy for the fun scenarios they contain.
 
And do yourself a favour and pick up an extra counter set of drones, fighters, plasma torps and shuttles as once you start messing around with Heavy Carriers (CVA) and Space Control Ships (SCS) your gonna need 'em.

But that's it. ABD doesn't really change the rules very often as this game has been play-tested to hell and back over the decades and they don't introduce power creep just to sell you something new. In fact the current Captains Rule set was originally printed in 80's. So once you have the rule set and the modules of your favourite races your pretty much done buying unless you want ship miniatures (which look awesome) or fancy toys like 3D asteroids or planets to make your game prettier.

One final chunk of advice for new players. Buy the rule books unbound as you'll be best off placing them into a 3" 3-ring binder so you can slot the module rules into their respective place. The 2 Stevens (the creators) were military men so rules look like;

1.1.21.64.14
Blah blah blah see 1.1.22.23.42 to blah blah blah. Rule 1.2.3.4.5.6 also cover situations that may occur when trying to do 4.2.5.13.45. For more info on generally accepted practices see 4.2.3.56.

So you either need to integrate the modules rules with the captains rules or get used to pulling out which ever module your using anytime  you want to look something up.