After we converted the original pocket game into a boxed game in the fall of 1979, the wholesalers asked us about doing expansions in order to fully develop the market. This pocket-game-format expansion included about 40 pages of new rules, new ships, new scenarios, new empires, and updates to the previous rules. These included some old-style SSDs, the first X-ships, two new empires (Hydrans and Andromedans), fighters and carriers, and a lot more. Looking back, it's amazing how much new stuff we crammed into this tiny package.
Rules updates allowed plasma torpedoes to fire on any impulse, added proximity fuzes for photons, allowed Tholians to move asteroids around for use as web anchors, allowed ships to shoot at asteroids, created collateral damage for wild weasels, added saucer separations, and defined a lot of things that should have been obvious but apparently were not.
New weapons included displacement devices, TR beams, power absorbers, type-F plasma torpedoes, Gatling phasers, maulers, fusion beams, transporter bombs, and fighters.
New ships included X-ships (Federation CX, Klingon DX, Gorn CX, Kzinti CSX, Hydran X-Ranger, Orion CRX, Romulan KRX, Tholian CX); the Federation Police Cutter; the Fleet Repair Dock (and the entire concept of repair facilities working during a scenario); Klingon CVT and T6; Kzinti CVL and CVE; Romulan Condor, WarHawk, Pelican, and Falcon; Gorn Tug; Tholian Dreadnought, Cruiser, and Black Widow; Orion Heavy Cruiser and Salvage Cruiser; Hydran Ranger and Lancer; and Andromedan Intruder, Cobra, and Courier. There were eight new scenarios and two new mini-campaigns.
Also included was the Gorn sublight battleship, part of the sublight game which has yet to be brought into any new edition.
Written by Stephen Cole
