"Best Star Trek Fleet battle Game" Topic

The title says it.

I and my group are complete newbies when it comes to Start Trek fleet battle games. No idea what is the most popular, the most played, etc.

Also, what is the most popular ship scale?

I am looking for a game with the following in mind:

1.) Ease to learn and play. Don't have time to read and memorize huge tomes for each ship

2.) Something where you don't need a multifunction calculator to play. Something that isn't so simple its no fun or challenge, but not so complicated only MIT grads can play.

3.) Covers all the factions. Not just Starfleet and Klingons for example.

4.) Supported with lots of models for all the factions or allows you to use whatever models you find.

I know its a lot. Thank you for reading

Are you looking for a Captain's duel (each player controls one or two ships)? (This would be the typical encounter in the ST:TOS and ST:TNG series.)
A Commodore's small squadron game (each player has 4-8 ships)?
A low-level small fleet game (each player has about a dozen ships)?
An Admiral's fleet game (each player has about two dozen ships)?
A Grand Tactical Admiral of the Galaxy game (each player has multiple dozens of ships or more)? (Like the space battles in ST:DS9.)

The level affects the granularity, and will influence responses.

A Sky Full of Ships on Wargame Vault is a fleet battle set. Easy to learn, fun and fast play. The I.O group I created for ASFOS has ship lists for Trek, Babylon 5, Star Wars and much more on the group in the files. I really like them. They are a Fleet set.

Thanks

John

A bit off the beaten TMP track here…

The best Star Trek game that uses miniatures is Star Trek: Fleet Captains from WizKids. Captures the exploration aspect, along with combat. It's a tile-laying board game. Out of your realm of interest, I assume. I played it and taught it at so many cons that I burned out on it, selling it to a buddy for cheap.
link

WizKids Star Trek Attack Wing is pretty good as well, a take on Fantasy Flight Games X-Wing system.

I am too old to return to Star Fleet Battles in any form, which is why I sold off my SFB collection several years ago.

Thanks Parzival. I think we are looking for fleets. So, a dozen or more.

Full Thrust scratches my space itch. Wait, that didn't sound right.
Can handle the number of ships you want, after a little practice.
Has been around quite a while (lots of resources online).
Free (this version has stats for various shows/universes):
link

Lite version of the rules (14 pages) to see if you like it:
PDF link

Starmada is another good set

I will only play

Star Fleet Battle Manual link

or *maybe*

Original Star Fleet Battles link

For the record, I created Generic Outlandishly Big Spacefleets (GOBS) to fill the final category. It's not very granular in terms of how each ship is controlled— it's basically move into range and shoot— but the ships have different classes and capabilities selected by the player, and there is some very limited damage tracking. Basically it's whittled down to what an Admiral would know about his forces and would command— you go here and attack that and don't get blown up…drat it, she got blown up.

Free: thegobspage.com

Hi!
I'm traveling down this path a little before you, but both of us are about 25 years late to the party. So I'll chime in with my experiences so far and try to be helpful.

First off, you didn't say if you were doing TOS (kirk) or TNG/DS9 (picard). This will influence which ship scale you're gonna chase like a space crack addict. I'm doing TNG era. I have an amusing blog post about starting ST gaming here if interested:
link

Neither era is wrong, but TNG is more right. If you're going the TOS route than ADB can be your one stop shopping for miniatures. Just pick the scale you like. They also have the SFB and Fed commander rule sets. But be warned: rules for the TOS era seemed to be have been produced after the show ended but before the movies and are set in a world that to me is more ‘star trek adjacent.' Ships will be firing rockets and shuttles at each other…

If going the more proper TNG route, there is NO dedicated miniatures range so you have to cobble together your own from a variety of sources / shapeways store. I looked at a LOT of scales for ships (and the sizes are hugely varied) but ultimately settled on 1/7000; mainly because I was inspired by this gentleman's gallery:
link

and ended up just copying what he did (imitation being the sincerest form of flattery). and to plug myself again; here is another humorous blog post I wrote about scales in Star trek:
link

Which means buying a lot of the models off of Shapeways.

As for rules, besides some of the oldies but goodies mentioned in replies above, there really isn't a rule set specifically for ST. So the best bet is to find a generic rule set that lets you design your own ships and create them yourself. I like a small fleet game (10 ish ships per player) and I would recommend:

Full thrust Cross Dimensions: can be found free here
link
There are several different version of FT; this is the one I like. Design the ships as you want and go shoot things. I thought this would be my go to rule set but then I stumbled upon Starmada Unity (on Wargame vault).

There are several early editions to Starmada with all sorts of names, Starmada Unity is the latest. It has a little more crunch to it than FT and therefore provides a few more options / dials you can set and variety but is not overwhelming. I've played a few games of Klingon Armada Unity (which is the Starmada in the TOS era trying to play like SFB or fed commander) and can say the core rules are lots of fun.
Some caveats though: the standard momentum / engine requirement rules are stupid and hard; but there are many better options for it included in the optional rules that make it elegant.
Ship design in Starmada Unity is super easy ONCE YOU FIGURE OUT HOW TO USE THE DAMN SPREADSHEET. You can get the drydock ship builder off the website. Without the spreadsheet ship design is impossible.

Last comments;
The Fleet captains board game is indeed, excellent. Best game of ST hands down.
Parizal's GOBS book is just fun to read.

Hope any of that was helpful. I just actually finished painting up some ST ships myself.

-Stew

With a little extra work, you can convert Starmada Trek to Starmada Fleet Ops.
link

Another manufacturer of miniatures to look at is Studio Berdstrom. Compatible with ADB TOS ship, and has ships based on FASA Trek, the aborted Axanar movie, and some original designs.
link

Thank you everyone. A lot of fantastic food for thought.

Star Fleet Battles ,designer edition.One rule book,3 expansion booklets.Big enough to offer fantastic possibilities,small enough to be teachable and playable.