Federation Commander

MURPHY'S LAWS OF STAR FLEET BATTLES, part 1

2012-01-27T09:31:00.002-06:00

1. If the enemy is in overload range, so are you.

2. Seeking weapons have the right of way.

3. Don't fly the only unique ship in the squadron, it just makes you the most interesting target.

4. There is always a rule you have forgotten.

5. The open path to the enemy planet is mined.

6. Shuttles should try to look non-threatening; they might not want to waste a phaser.

7. Rated aces are predictable and dangerous; new players are unpredictable and even more dangerous.

8. The decisive point of the battle will come at one of two points: a. your weapons aren't recycled or b. you're out of power.

9. Stay with your squadron; it gives the enemy someone else to shoot at.

10. If you can't remember if he has something armed or ready, he does.

-- Garth Getgen, Steve Cole, Steve Petrick, Larry Ramey, Kirk Spencer, Jessica Orsini, Ron Sonnek, Andy Vancil, Ben Moldovan, Mark Kuyper, Howard Berkey, Timothy Steeves-Walton, David Keyser, Oliver Dewey Upshaw, Carl Magnus Carlsson, Kirk Spencer, Richard K Glover, Jeff Zellerkraut, Andy Palmer, Sean Newton, Daniel Zimmerman, Jason Goodwin, Michael Sweet, Paul Stovel, John Sierra, John Sickels, Daniel Zimmerman, Sandy Hemenway

(c) copyright by Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc.

Got Any Marketing Ideas?

2012-01-26T08:50:00.001-06:00

ADB, Inc., is always interested in great marketing ideas, ways and places to sell our products, as well as new products to sell. Our page on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Amarillo-Design-Bureau-Inc/231728653279?ref=mf) exists to put our products in front of other groups of potential customers. We also are releasing YouTube videos that show what you'll find in "the box" and our latest releases. You can catch our videos on our channel here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/starfleetgames.

We tried a lot of things that didn't work (Google Pay per Click, full-color ads in trade journals) and a lot of things that did work (banners on gamer websites, Star Fleet Alerts) and are always looking for new ideas. If you have any, send them to us at Marketing@StarFleetGames.com and we'll think them over.

Module R107: The Nicozian Concordance

2012-01-25T14:13:00.002-06:00

This is Steven Petrick posting.

We are uploading a new product to e23. This is Module R107 the Nicozians. The Nicozians were first proposed back in 1999. In a sense they are more or less a "monster" in that they are a space traveling species that build ships, but are not a true empire in that their stated purpose is to find a new "homeworld."

Their homeworld is a neutron star about to go nova. No, their homeworld does not orbit a neutral star that is about to go nova, they live on a neutron star.

Due to the intense gravity, an individual Nicozian is about the size of a grain of rice. Thus there are never any boarding actions. Further, due to their need for intense gravity, the gravity systems on their ships make it impossible for them to dock with non-Nicozian ships (or land aboard a non-Nicozian ship despite the fact that the largest Nicozian ship is the size of a drone. Yes, a drone.

The Nicozians have a unique movement system called "skipwarp," and employ their own variations on weapons. Pulse phasers are their phaser of choice, the subspace auger is their heavy weapon, and the skipwarp missile is their seeking weapon (and they have some different warheads not seen anywhere else).

Because of their need for intense gravity, they cannot operate shuttles (even they cannot build a gravity generator small enough to for a shuttle), and thus also have no fighters. However, they do have a variation of their gravity generators that they use as a mine. When triggered it pulls all other units with in three hexes towards itself as a kind of mini-black hole before finally burning out.

The Nicozians are, like the Peladine and Borak, currently a playtest module, but they should provide an interesting opponent, whether encountered in the Alpha Octant, Omega Octant, or in the Magellanic Cloud.

JOIN US ON FACEBOOK

2012-01-24T09:15:00.001-06:00

ADB, Inc.’s page on Facebook is now up and running, and we’re finding a lot of new faces who haven’t been around the BBS or Forum. We have pictures up of ADB, Inc. staff, links to many of our videos, snippets of information, and interaction with our fans. Jean Sexton is the main voice you will hear on our page on Facebook. If she doesn’t know an answer, she’ll ask one of the Steves and ferry the answer back.

All that is left is for you to "like" the page for Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc.
if you haven’t done so already. Here’s the link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Amarillo-Design-Bureau-Inc/231728653279?ref=mf.

Many people on our page on Facebook have not been on our BBS, so perhaps our new outpost on Facebook will become the place for those who want to keep up with current events without the intense atmosphere (and flood of information) found on the BBS. If you are very busy on a given day, checking our page on Facebook would tell you quickly if something important has been announced. The page also has its own art galleries, plus a place where you can post a review of our products. It also has discussions where you can link up with fellow gamers.

We hope to see you there!

This Week at ADB, Inc., 15-21 January 2012

2012-01-23T11:44:00.002-06:00

Steve Cole reports:

This was a normal week as the Steves worked on new products and the rest worked on shipments. The weather this week was cold and dry. The spam storm mostly remained at something over 200 per day.

New on e23 this week: SFB Module R3 SSD book.

Steve Cole worked on a number of things, including ACTASF errata, Project T, Project E, the Captain's Log #44 Supplemental File, copyright pirates, Communique #73, Wall of Honor updates, reviewed new ships from Mongoose, did a Star Fleet Alert, and updated the Federation SIT.

Steven Petrick worked on stuff for Captain's Log #45 (battle groups, tactical papers), the update for Module T, proofread things SVC did, stuff for Captain's Log #44 Supplemental File, and reviewed new ships from Mongoose.

Leanna kept orders and finished the year-end accounting.

Mike kept orders going out, rebuilt the inventory, and managed customer service. Mike and SVC checked the warehouse situation and decided that it could be handled without having to move.

Joel got home from Africa, did website updates, chased pirates, uploaded Communique #73 and Hailing Frequencies for January, and helped Mike.

Jean managed our page on Facebook (which is up to 1095 friends), proofread things, and did some marketing.

Playing Star Fleet Universe Games Long Distance

2012-01-22T22:42:00.000-06:00

Playing games by email or by post is an alternative to playing face-to-face. While there are a few differences (i.e., your opponent isn't sitting across the table from you), it is the same game.

When playing Star Fleet Battles or Federation Commander using the Play-by-Email (PBEM) system you and your opponent submit your orders for the turn to a moderator via email. The moderator then processes them, and sends a "SitRep" (Situation Report) to the players via email. You receive the results, write up your next set of orders, and then submit your orders once again. The process is repeated until the game is completed. Sounds simple? That's because it IS! It'll take a little getting used to (after all, what doesn't?), but once you've got the hang of it, you'll be lobbing photon torpedoes (or whatever your weapon of choice is) at opponents from all over the world.

Every FC or SFB PBEM game has at least three participants: two or more players and one moderator. The moderator's purpose is to accept orders from the players and carry them out, reporting the results of those orders to all players. While (s)he is not a player, the moderator fulfills a very important role in the game. Good moderators and good players make for a good, enjoyable game. Moderating a game is also an excellent way to learn more about the game's rules.

Prime Directive games can be played by posting on the Forum. The GM of the game gets players, approves their characters, then sets up situations for the characters to face. It takes a bit longer because the players are not sitting around the table, but it also allows people who are spread out across the world to play.

Players of all our games are expanding the frontiers of playing long distance. Some are trying chat, some are adding webcams to that, many are trying out VOIP so as to get close to a face-to-face experience.

While there are some disadvantages to playing long distance (it does take longer to finish a game), there are advantages as well. You can play against people in other parts of the world (how often do you get to Australia, anyway?), you can play multiple games at once, and you can have large multi-player games (without worrying about running out of chips and soda).

For more information about playing long distance, drop in on the Forum (http://www.federationcommander.com/phpBB2) or BBS (http://www.starfleetgames.com/discus/).

Lights! Cameras! The SFU Hits YouTube!

2012-01-21T22:24:00.000-06:00

Ever wished you could take a peek inside a shrink-wrapped box or look behind the pretty covers of a book? Then these videos are for you.

The brainchild of Mike Sparks, our YouTube videos are of three types. The first is about a specific product line and you can hear Steve Cole (yes, he is the talking hands in our videos) discuss the products that are in one of the different games. The second kind is what ADB, Inc. has released in a particular month. These are a great way to catch up quickly on the new items.

It is the third kind that let's you see what is in the box. A boxed game such as Federation & Empire is taken out of the box item by item so that you can see what's in there. From rulebook, to charts, to maps, to counters, each item is shown and discussed. It's a lot of information to pack into a short clip, but SVC and Mike manage it.

Check out our channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/starfleetgames and be sure to bring the popcorn!

Hailing Frequencies and Communique Released

2012-01-20T16:25:00.001-06:00

Steve Cole reports:

We have released this month's issue of the Hailing Frequencies newsletter and this month's Communique. Hailing Frequencies has the latest company information and covers all of our games. You'll find news on the latest releases both in print and e23, information on the company, and even serialized fiction. Hailing Frequencies also has links to the latest Star Fleet Alerts, which are press releases about new products and when they will be available for order. From Hailing Frequencies, you can link to Federation Commander specific news in the latest Communique, a free PDF newsletter which is full of good things for FC players, including new ships, a new scenario, and updated schedules and rules.

Explanation for January 18, 2012, and How to Find Opponents

2012-01-19T09:54:00.004-06:00

Yesterday was one of the very few days that ADB, Inc. did not publish a blog entry. Here is why:

We don't think SOPA or PIPA is a good idea and while we didn't take down our BBS, Forum, our page on Facebook, our website, or our web storefront, we didn't post on the Forum until after 5:00 pm or on the BBS in the afternoon until after 5:00 pm CST because our Forum and BBS would be possible targets if a fan posted something that was too close to forbidden territory. We didn't post on our page on Facebook (except to let people we were there but were not posting) as Facebook could also be a target of this legislation. We didn't post a blog on StarBlog because too many blogging sites might be closed.

While we don't condone piracy, SOPA and PIPA are too broadly written and would adversely affect all entities with websites or fan-contributed content, in our opinion. We thank you all for your patience and understanding as we help our own small protest.

Now on to the rest of the blog.

Jean

++

Steve Cole writes:

Many gamers are looking for new opponents. This is nothing new. When I was a teenager, there were maybe four war gamers in Amarillo that I knew, but there must have been more as the one store that carried Avalon Hill games (then the only wargames) would sell one or two now and then that my friends and I knew we didn't buy. Funny, it never once occurred to us to ask the store manager to give our phone numbers to the other guys. When I was in college, SPI (then the second wargame company and rapidly becoming larger and more innovative than Avalon Hill) had an opponent wanted list. I sent in my dollar to get it, and found only one person (of the 20 on the list) who was within 120 miles; the first and last person on the list were each 450 miles away (in opposite directions).

These days, the concept of contacting other gamers has had decades to mature, works much better, and there are a lot of ways to do it. For best results, you should do all of them.

If you play Federation Commander, then you can go to the Commander's Circle and enter your data (as much or as little as you are comfortable with) and perhaps find opponents near you. We are gaining new sign-in's every day, and since it's free you can try it every month or two and find out if somebody nearby has signed in. http://www.starfleetgames.com/federation/Commanders%20Circle/

Primarily for Federation Commander players, the Forum has a topic where local stores and groups post announcements and invitations. Players can let other players know they're around. How silly would you feel if you found out that the guy who you've been arguing with on the forum for years actually lives in your town. (That HAS happened.) http://www.federationcommander.com/phpBB2

You can to go to a local store and ask them to let you post a notice looking for opponents. You could also run a demo of your favorite game(s) and "grow your own" opponents. If a person already plays the game you are demoing, he'll doubtless drop by just to swap phone numbers.

Many towns have community bulletin boards on the local cable company's "home" channel. These are variously free or cost just a couple of dollars. It's hit-and-miss, but you could get lucky. (When I commanded Company C of the 1-39 MPs, I gained a dozen new recruits in a year that came from cable TV.) You could also buy a cheap want ad in the newspaper or the free advertising newspaper (American's Want Ads or whatever yours is called) found in quickie marts. There is also Craigslist, but you should use the normal caution you would for meeting a stranger.

The quickest result, probably, is Starlist. Go to http://starfleetgames.com/starlist.shtml. Enter your data in the form, and you'll get a list of local players back. (This may take a day or two as it is done by hand.) Starlist is the most effective hunt for new players because the database has some five thousand players in it, far more than all of the other sources combined. The only drawback is that Starlist works with full information (name and address) and those who are seriously concerned about identity theft often find this uncomfortable. In all reality, however, Starlist would not give an identity thief any more information than a local phone book would, and if that's enough for those criminals to operate, they would be vastly more likely to use the phone book than to request a copy of Starlist.

You can find opponents for all of our games on our BBS. Go to http://www.starfleetgames.com/discus/ and you'll see "Seeking Opponents" on the main menu. You can post a notice there (and search the previous postings). Again, you can post as much or as little information as you are comfortable with.

Friends of our page on Facebook can use the Discussions tab and find topics for the various games. Not a friend? Become one here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Amarillo-Design-Bureau-Inc/231728653279?ref=mf

With more effort, you can post opponent wanted notices in a whole lot of boardgame sites (see http://www.starfleetgames.com/links.shtml for suggestions).

If there is a game convention within driving distance, it's worth a trip to see if you might find someone who is also within driving distance. If there is a game club in your home town, or a store with a gaming area, go there and set up the game and wait for somebody to ask what it is. (Even better, take a friend who will play the game with you so you won't be bored.) If there is a star trek club in your home town, show them Federation Commander or Star Fleet Battle Force. There are people who have printed a card with the logo of one of our games and their Email address and left these in the windows of their cars who got Emails from other gamers in their home towns who were seeking opponents.

You can go always go to SFB Online (http://www.sfbonline.com/index.jsp) and play Star Fleet Battles and Federation Commander on-line with live opponents from around the world for the princely sum of $5 per month. You might even stumble into somebody local.

There are probably more ways than this to find opponents, but unless you live in a cave somewhere, you can almost certainly find a new friend within a short while by trying these methods.

Module R3 SSD Book Updated and Going to e23

2012-01-17T18:42:00.002-06:00

This is Steven Petrick Posting.

One of the things to be uploaded in the near future is an updated version of the Module R3 SSD book. This includes the appropriate updates as developed for Module R4 (and also used in the creation of the Module E3 SSD book) and follows the updating of the Basic Set SSD book to the same standard. Dates when refits are available are included on the SSDs now. The Klingon ships are delineated as to whether or not they ever had type-F drone racks.

Also included are two new Lyran SSDs. One of these is simply the Puma transport tug with two cargo pallets. This SSD was originally promised in Module C1 to be in Module R3, but when Module R3 was first complied this promise was forgotten. Also with this SSD is the never before seen SSD of the Lyran SRV (Lyran Survey ship with carrier pallet). While the rule for this SSD has always existed (with the publication of Module R3), no actual SSD had ever previously been done. When we get around to updating the Module R3 rulebook, both of these ships will need modification to their ship descriptions to note that they are included in the product, but nothing else is really needed (for example,the Lyran SRV has been part of the Annex #7G for a long time).

This SSD book has now become part of our product line on e23.

This Week at ADB, Inc., 8-14 January 2012

2012-01-16T12:55:00.002-06:00

Steve Cole reports:

This was a normal week, with orders going out and the design team working on new products. The weather this week was cold, but not miserably so, and without snow. The spam storm mostly remained at something over 200 per day.

New on e23 this week was the SFB Module E3 Borak, which comes in two parts (rules and SSDs). We found the old boxes of JagdPanther magazines from the 70s and plan to start uploading them to e23.

Steve Cole worked on a lot of different things, and spent way too much time on a new game (Project T) which has "one page of rules and toys" if you can believe that (the deck plans will also be used for PD and KRAG). He playtested Star Fleet Marines, updated the Gorn SIT, had some nice phone chats with Lou Zocchi, reviewed Mongoose's decals, and spent an entire day on ACTASF errata, and finished updating the Wall of Honor.

Steven Petrick finished Module R107 (the Nicozians) which will go on e23 next month and R3 SSD update (which goes on e23 in a few days). He set up the battle group scenario for Captain's Log #45, playtested Marines, and answered questions.

Leanna kept orders and finished the year-end accounting.

Mike kept orders going out, rebuilt the inventory, and managed customer service.

Joel finished up his month-long trip to Africa and started home.

Jean managed our page on Facebook (which is up to 1091 friends), proofread stuff, and did some marketing.

Free Stuff for Star Fleet Universe Players!

2012-01-15T11:08:00.001-06:00

Steve Cole writes:

We have a lot of free stuff on our website. Let me point you to some of the most popular things. Doing this in alphabetical order we start with Federation & Empire. They have play aids and countersheet graphics here: http://www.starfleetgames.com/sfb/sfin/index.shtml#FNE

Some people do not realize that you can download what amounts to a free copy of the Federation Commander game (well, enough of the game to play a few battles). First Missions will give you enough of the game that you can try it out. Go here to download it: http://www.starfleetgames.com/federation/Commanders%20Circle/first-missions.shtml

But that's just a start. Commander's Circle has lots of free resources such as various formats of the Master Ship Chart, Ship Cards, the current and back issues of Communique, scenarios, and playtest rules. If you register, then you can find other Federation Commander players.

Prime Directive players can find a treasure trove of play aids, including medals, insignia, maps, the timeline, and lots of other goodies to spice up a game. These can be found here: http://www.starfleetgames.com/sfb/sfin/index.shtml#PD

Star Fleet Battle Force has new cards and play aids as well. These are located here: http://www.starfleetgames.com/sfb/sfin/index.shtml#SFBF

Star Fleet Battles players have the Cadet Training Manual and Cadet Training Handbook. These were done as a way to get players into the complicated Star Fleet Battles game system. You can download them for free here: http://www.starfleetgames.com/CadetTraining.shtml Also available on the same webpage are lots of SSDs for the game.

We have wallpaper for your computer so you can show your SFU pride. Those are here: http://www.starfleetgames.com/wallpapers.shtml

Don't forget Hailing Frequencies, our free monthly newsletter. Covering all our games, you can read back issues here: http://www.federationcommander.com/Newsletter/past.html Don't forget to sign up to get the link delivered straight to your email box each month. You can "opt in" here: http://www.starfleetgames.com/newsletter.shtml

There are many historical documents which are available for download. Maps, deck plans, assorted graphics, and much, much more can be found here: http://www.starfleetgames.com/historicaldownloads.shtml

Browse our master index to find all sorts of interesting information: http://www.starfleetgames.com/masterindex.shtml

As you can see, you could spend days browsing. We hope you enjoy what you find.

RANDOM THOUGHTS #73

2012-01-14T12:25:00.002-06:00

Steve Cole muses: Just thinking to himself about the curious origins of common words.

1. Canopy, a covering, comes from the Greek word Konops, or mosquito. The Greeks covered their beds with mosquito nets called konopeion which the Romans copied and called canopeum.

2. Canter, a modest walking pace for a horse, came from Canterbury, the cathedral where Thomas Becket was buried. In the 1200s and 1300s, upper-class people took the annual pilgrimage to Canterbury, which became something of a vacation. (The roads to the cathedral had many comfortable inns, spas, and resorts.) Nobody was in any hurry on that trip, so farmers watching the annual travelers said they were going at "a Canterbury pace" which eventually shortened to a canter.

3. Canvas (a rough cotton cloth) and Canvass (to sift or survey) come from the Latin word Cannibis, or hemp. Originally, canvas was made from hemp, and the term eventually was applied to heavy cloth made from other plant fibers (such as cotton). Canvas was later used to sift flour and resulted in the second meaning.

4. Caper (to jump around), Caprice (whim), and Capricious (whimsical and erratic) all came from capra, the Latin word for goat. Young goats would jump around, and anything else that jumped around was said "to caper." Caprice then came to mean something erratic that jumped around from one idea or position to another, and capacious was someone who changed his mind without any real reason for doing so.

5. Cardigan, a knitted wool jacket, is only one of many things named for Thomas Brudenell, the 7th Earl of Cardigan and the general who led the charge of the light brigade. While the charge is controversial and he may have misunderstood the target, it was certainly heroic and when new wool jackets arrived for the soldiers to wear during the winter, they were named in the honor of his heroic ride.

6. Carnival is a combination of two Latin words, one meaning meat (carnem) and eating (levare). Every year, Lent came around (meaning 40 days with no one allowed to eat meat). The day (or week) before Lent was the time for a great party or festival or feast in which meat was served. (This has also come down to us as Mardi Gras and Shrove Tuesday.) In time, any festival involving rollicking entertainment and feasting came to be called a Carnival. Carnage (a word often associated with battlefields or sometimes crime scenes) also comes from carnem (meat).

7. Carol, now meaning a song (particularly one about Christmas), comes from the old Greek word chorus, which does not actually mean singing, but dancing. A chorus was originally a circle of people dancing to a flute. Later, they started singing along, and there you have it.

8. Carousel, another term for merry-go-round, comes from the Italian word carosello. The old jousting contests of the Middle Ages were made obsolete by gunpowder, but Italians (always in the mood for a party) invented a kind of exhibition of horsemanship which brought back the older period (just without people being taken to the hospital with spear wounds). Lancers would try to spear targets or rings (not each other). The sport migrated to France and then to England. When it reached the United States a few centuries later, the horses were of wood but (in some rides) the young knights could still try to grab the brass ring for a free second ride.

9. Carpet, a floor covering, was originally a heavy cloth used as a religious garment in the 1100s. By the 1200s, this heavy cloth was used as a tablecloth, and the term "on the carpet" came to mean "a plan being discussed at the council table." By the 1400s, some noble lady figured out that the heavy tablecloth was the perfect thing to keep her feet away from the cold stone floor of the castle, and by the 1500s the term "on the carpet" meant someone called to answer to the king (or other noble) for his actions.

10. Cartridge, which now means a brass shell containing gunpowder, primer, and a bullet (for a breach-loading firearm) originally was the term (cornucopia) used by bakers for the flexible paper funnel used to contain flour, sugar, or frosting. Soldiers armed with old muzzle-loading weapons would have two of these hanging on their belt, one containing bullets and the other gunpowder. Long before someone figured out how to combine it all into one package, the term cornucopia (as applied to the military usage) had been corrupted into cartridge.

NEW COMMANDER'S OPTIONS, part 3

2012-01-13T08:08:00.001-06:00

Weasel 0.01
Wild Weasel 0.75
Rabid Weasel 0.00
Legendary Accountant (fixes EAF errors) 10.00
Tractor 0.50
John Deere Tractor 7.00
Red Self-Destruct Button 0.01
Safety Catch for Red Button 9.99
Flashing Lights and Siren 0.10
Motion Simulator for Bridge 1.00
Appeal to Game Designer for Rules Change 25.00
Rules Lawyer to Argue for You 15.00

-- Originated by Mark Kuyper; additional suggestions by: Jeremy B. Williams,
Steven Petrick, David Crew, Maik Hennebach, Eric Stork, Andrew Harding, F.
Michael Miller, Tom Carroll, found in Captain's Log #20.

(c) copyright by Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc.

Exploring Excellent Ebooks

2012-01-12T09:07:00.000-06:00

We have continued our long-awaited move to offer more of our products as PDFs by way of the e23 and DriveThru RPG websites. So far on e23, we have released a lot of stuff for Federation Commander, including the Revision Six Reference Rulebook, the 72 ships from Federation Commander Briefing #2 (divided into six packs of 12 ships and a separate rules pack), and more than a dozen Ship Card Packs. Our ebook PDFs are in color and high resolution. PDFs of most books are searchable (older Captain’s Logs are not).

The way e23 works, once you buy a product, you can download it again for no cost if you lose it or if we upload a revised version of that edition. Thus, the people who bought Reference Rulebook Revision 5 were able to obtain Reference Rulebook Revision 6 for free (and to download it again when we discovered we had accidentally left out rule 4S).

We must note that these products are copyrighted and are not to be uploaded or passed around to your friends. Doing so is piracy, a criminal act, and may result in us deciding not to offer any more PDF products. We have already uploaded many Starmada, Star Fleet Battles, Federation & Empire, and GURPS Prime Directive products We have created a new page that allows easy access to our PDFS for sale on e23. From here you can see what we currently have posted and have links to those products.

Our Prime Directive PD20 Modern books are sold as ebooks exclusively through DriveThru RPG.

So check them out! Many people like the fact they can search our rulebooks for a keyword and find everything that pertains to that issue. Others like the fact they can carry around multiple books on one device. Some Ship Cards are available exclusively through e23. Whatever your reason for using them, we hope that you enjoy them and rate them.

Sayings

2012-01-11T17:51:00.004-06:00

This is Steven Petrick posting.

One of the things in life is people using old sayings without really understanding them, and so applying them where they do not actually belong.

"A poor craftsman blames his tools" was said to me recently. The problem here is that you can be the better craftsman, but if your tools are bronze and the other craftsman's tools are are iron, he will get the job done faster. Is it wrong for the craftsman to blame his tools for not being able to do the job as fast as the man with better tools?

"History is written by the winners." This one implies that only the winner gets to tell his side of what happened. An example is the Punic Wars where we learn the Romans were the good guys, because they won and the Carthaginians do not get to tell their side because . . . well there are no Carthaginians. Again, it is not necessarily true. We (the United States of America and our allies) defeated the Japanese Empire by the end of the Second World War, and we (and the world) all know the Japanese were the bad guys in that war. Take some time to read a Japanese history book that Japanese children study to learn about the war. You will get a very different viewpoint on the war and, oh yes, the Japanese were not the bad guys. In point of fact, with modern archeology even the Carthaginians are having their side of the story told about the Punic Wars. (Even the Philistines and the Canaanites are getting their side of the story told, which differs somewhat from the Israelite's side we are more familiar with.)

Any time some one uses and old saying to make a point, take some time to consider the saying and its ramifications. In the first instance, the reference was used to disparage the skill of a player who was having abysmal die roll luck, and yet in a game that is entirely dependent on die rolls for every action (even how far you can move), no matter how good your plan is if you cannot roll at least as well (or your opponents roll at least as badly) you are going to lose. Your tools (the die rolls) are at fault, not your skill.

Ah, but then remember Napoleon, who was known to ask when a man appeared for promotion: "Is he lucky?" But then, Napoleon was not asking if the man simply had good luck, he was asking was the man "prepared and thoughtful." Because to borrow from another saying "Fortune favor the prepared." Napoleon noted that any Commander must constantly look around himself and ask "if the enemy suddenly appeared there, what would I do?" If he does not have an answer, then he is not a good commander.

RANDOM THOUGHTS #72

2012-01-10T09:30:00.002-06:00

Steve Cole muses: Just thinking to himself.

1. I continue to enjoy (and be frustrated by) the AMC series WALKING DEAD, which is about apocalyptic zombies. The people continue to show a singular lack of curiosity about how this mess started. Nobody seems to think of finding a ham radio and just broadcasting to see if anybody else (say, a surviving military unit) is alive. They found a zombie in a well and decided to get him out before they killed him so that the water would not be polluted by his smashed brains. So why did they lower Glenn down on a rope and then try to drag the zombie out by a rope around his neck (resulting in half of the rotting corpse dropping back into the well)? Would it have not made more sense to find a ladder and let him climb out? Also, if the zombie reached the bottom of the well by some underground route, does that not mean steps have to be taken to seal off this well from further intrusions? (Not to mention establishing a twice-daily check to see if zombies found underground routes into the other four wells.)

2. I love TERRA NOVA but the plot loopholes are laughable. We have a meteor that creates an EMP burst. (I am not aware of anything saying that could happen.) Then we discover that every microchip in the colony has fried, including the one chip that is needed to make more chips. (But somehow, that chip can be fixed by a bartender.) And yet, the database computer is shielded. (Why did they bother to shield that from EMP and not shield a stockpile of reserve chips and the chip needed to run the chip maker?)

3. I like gravy, specifically, cream gravy on chicken, turkey, biscuits. Leanna won't eat gravy, so she has no idea how to cook it. When she cooks chicken or turkey, I scoop a cup of chicken stock out of the sauce pan she used and stir in flour and maybe butter. That's that. I never knew that I was doing it wrong.
Leanna has been on a kick of making biscuits, and decided one Sunday to make them from scratch. I decided to make gravy. She looked it up on internet and had me read it. You mean, you're actually supposed to COOK gravy on heat in a pan, not just stir flour into pan drippings? Who knew? She found a 29-cent pack of gravy mix in the cabinet and said "have at it" and so I put a cup of milk into a sauce pan, warmed it up, and stirred in the packet. Hmm... too thin, watery, soupy. Walked across kitchen, got flour canister, returned, opened canister, got scoop of flour, sprinkled in some, tried to stir, noticed that the heat had thickened the gravy to the point of perfection and I had just dumped flour on top of perfect gravy. Yetch! Tried to stir in the flour, but it just went all lumpy. Who knew you actually COOK gravy? And, from my experience on Thanksgiving, you can apparently overcook gravy as mine turned (with about a minute too much heat) from a nice creamy texture to a thick pudding that would not flow out of the gravy boat.

4. My psychiatrist gave me a book on how to deal with women who want to Gibbs me. He suggested that I hold it over the back of my head whenever I decide to do something stupid.

5. There are many causes for failure. In one recent episode of RESTAURANT IMPOSSIBLE, we noted that the place had lost business over the last few years for several reasons. First, increased competition meant that their old way of doing things (cook in the morning and then scoop it onto plates all day) could no longer compete. Second, the general manager had left five years earlier and had never been replaced, leaving no one in charge. Third, the decor had not been updated in two decades.

6. I continue to love the show GOLD RUSH and refer to it in conversation by a disparaging name. I saw on TV that the guys on the show were unhappy with being portrayed as idiots and just wanted to say that they obviously have good hearts, but are also obviously still learning how to do that stuff and really needed to hire someone who knew what they were doing. If I win the lottery, I will drive to their mine site and cook lunch and supper for them just to show that I really am a fan of the show (even if just to watch them make mistakes). Hey, if we cannot laugh at our own mistakes, we can at least laugh at theirs? Right?

7. I look at BONES and see two people in love, but she is unable to admit it. I look at CASTLE and see two people who are in love but both are afraid that the other one is not there yet and don't want to scare them away. Reminds me of when I met Leanna. I fell in love very fast, and really wanted to get married TODAY about three weeks after I met her. I was terrified that she could not possibly be falling in love as fast as I was and I didn't want to scare her away. (She felt the same way, and fortunately we both decided to just take a deep breath and get our feelings out in the open. After that, engagement followed on our 31st day of knowing each other.) I guess maybe that wouldn't make as great a television show as this tension thing does, but the tension thing on both shows (and several others) has really gotten way beyond the point of being annoying.

This Week at ADB, Inc., 1-7 January 2012

2012-01-09T19:15:00.002-06:00

Steve Cole reports:

This week started in a flurry (as Jean was working 16-hour days on Sunday and Monday to finish PD20M Romulans and the Intro to SFU booklet, then left on Tuesday). After that, it sort of became a normal week. The weather this week was cold overnight and decent in the afternoon. The spam storm mostly remained at something over 200 per day.

New on e23 this week was the ISC WAR rulebook for F&E.

Steve Cole was supposed to take some days off this week, but Leanna was too busy with year-end accounting and orders going out, and what's the fun of a day off alone? So, SVC puttered and worked on minor projects. He updated most of the multi-player pages on the Wall of Honor, but Joel won't be back to upload them until the 16th. He wrote the Captain's Log #19 description so it can go on e23 when Joel gets back to add the art. SVC and the F&E staff wrote a plan to get the SITs updated. He finalized the list of ships for FC Reinforcements Attack and boosters 34-35-36. He wrote the web rule for ACTASF2 and wrote one draft of the ESG rule for that game. He dug through boxes and found a copy of every Star Fleet Times. He wrote a three-page story for a future Captain's Log. He wrote three blogs for Jean to use as needed.

Steven Petrick answered rules questions, and worked on Captain's Log #45 (monster article), E3, the R3 SSD book, and the Nicozians.

Leanna kept orders and accounting up to date.

Mike kept orders going out, rebuilt the inventory, and managed customer service.

Joel was still in Africa visiting his family.

Jean helped us organize the e23 plans, which include one new upload per week for at least the start of the year. Mostly, she traveled home and recovered from the trip and updated Facebook.

Star Fleet Universe Wallpapers

2012-01-08T10:50:00.000-06:00

Joel Shutts writes:

Many do not know that we have a page where you can download wallpaper with Star Fleet Universe art.

Check out what we have on http://www.starfleetgames.com/wallpapers.shtml

Big monitors, small monitors, we have something for nearly everyone. 800 x 600, 1024 x 768, 1680 x 1050, even 2560 x1600. If you need a different size, we'll see what we can do to fill that desire.

If there are any other sizes or any other images that you would like to see turned into wallpaper, please feel free to contact us at graphics@StarFleetGames.com and we'll work your request in.

RANDOM THOUGHTS #70

2012-01-07T10:51:00.001-06:00

Steve Cole muses: Just thinking to himself things he blogged before but thinks bear repeating. (This also increases the chance of someone finding them on a Google search.)

1. Every restaurant table needs a trash can. Give me a little bucket six or eight inches across and I will cheerfully fill it with empty condiment packs, soiled napkins, straw wrappers, chicken bones, and no end of other debris and detritus that I don't want cluttering up my table. The waitress, instead of picking that stuff up one item at a time, can just wait until I leave and empty the little bucket then.

2. My cats love canned cat food but only lick the gravy; they never eat the meaty chunks. So can cat food companies just sell me cans of cat food gravy?

3. If China can block everyone in China from reaching websites with anti-Chinese stuff (and, just recently, from reaching porn sites), why can't the US block anyone in US from reaching those foreign websites with pirated files or viruses, or from reaching file-sharing databases that contain copyrighted materials? For that matter, if the Great Firewall of China can keep Chinese from reaching such sites, why can't the US build a Great Firewall of its own to stop SPAM?

4. If Assange and Wikileaks were serious, they'd release the UFO alien technology files dating back to Roswell. I mean, really, given the amount and kind of stuff that's leaking, is there any doubt that (if those files exist) Assange has them already?

5. Note to PROJECT RUNWAY: Gray is not a color. Black and white are only barely colors. Show us color.

6. We wargamers (and I include RPG players in that honored group even if they reject the name) are a unique bunch, and a tiny tiny tiny fraction of the human genome. We're people who get our fun by making our own decisions, and taking responsibility for those decisions. We're risk takers, but not gamblers. Most humans want to sit on the sofa, watch a TV show or read a novel or comic book, and be scared out of their minds that the hero is going to be killed (or sent to prison, or kicked off the police force, or reassigned to Toledo). But there is always the secret and secure knowledge that at the end of the adventure, everything will be right back where it was, with the hero in the same job he was in when the season or series started. Wargamers are perfectly willing to risk the starship captain's life and career, and accept that we'll be starting over as an ensign in the next game if we got it wrong. This has many implications, the worst of which is that the wargame industry is very small with very few customers. If a higher percentage of the human race were instinctive wargamers, the wargame industry would be as big as the comic book industry, and even small game companies like ADB would have 20 or 30 employees and annual sales in the tens of millions of dollars.

7. I get really tired of (when watching TV) hearing "after the break". Guys, I am watching the show, I don't plan on changing the channel, and I resent the fact that two or three minutes of actual content was left out of the show to make room for this needless repetition. When I heard "after the break" I click the fast forward button, so I'm not hearing it anyway and it's just more commercial time as far as I'm concerned. And I am not watching the commercials either, not unless they have cute animals or cool sci-fi effects.

8. If you want your girlfriend to wear sexy clothes, consider that nothing is sexier than a wedding gown.

9. The American Civil War is misnamed, because a civil war is two groups trying to take over a single country. Robert E. Lee had no more interest in taking over Chicago and New York than George Washington had in conquering London. It could properly be called the War for Southern Independence or the War Between the States. For that matter, the American Revolution was not a revolution as the Americans were not trying to overthrow the British government.

10. Pet Peeve: Cop shows where the cop fires two shots out of his pistol, the slide locks back on an empty magazine, and the clueless actor continues to point the now empty pistol at the bad guy. Argh. The propmaster read the script which said "hero fires two shots" and put exactly two blanks in the pistol, so the weapon was empty and the slide locked back, making the hero look like a moron to anyone who has actually fired an automatic pistol. If there is some insurance or safety issue about putting a third round in the magazine for this scene, why not use a dummy round (available in any gun store) which will cycle like a normal round (and leave the slide forward) but won't fire?

NEW COMMANDER'S OPTIONS, part 2

2012-01-06T08:45:00.001-06:00

Romulan Ale (per bottle) 0.10
Romulan Ale (per case) 1.00
Orion Slave Girl 5.00
Orion Slave Boy 0.05
Twin Klingon Female Warriors 0.02
Legendary Blonde Female Yeoman 9.00
Presents for LBFY 11.00
Go-Go Boots for Female Crewmembers 1.00
Custom-written theme song for your ship 4.00
Stereo system to play theme song 1.00
Automatic Taunting Module for drones 1.00
Legendary Cook (recaptures boarded ship) 14.00

-- Originated by Mark Kuyper; additional suggestions by: Jeremy B. Williams,
Steven Petrick, David Crew, Maik Hennebach, Eric Stork, Andrew Harding, F.
Michael Miller, Tom Carroll, found in Captain's Log #20.

(c) copyright by Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc.

HOW NOT TO GET INTO THE GAME BUSINESS

2012-01-05T08:42:00.000-06:00

Steve Cole writes:

I constantly see things on industry mailing lists and in my Email where people want advice on entering the game business. The best advice I have is my free book which you can find at www.StarFleetGames.com/book as a nice multi-chapter PDF.

In one recent case, an individual wrote to say: "I just lost my job and have decided to be a game designer for a living. I need a stable income of $4,000 a month. How long would it take me to get there? Three months? Six?"

I laughed and cried at the same time. For one thing, I don't make $4,000 a month now and I've been in the industry over 30 years. (A few years I have made that much, barely, but not in the current market.) The sad fact is that except for the lucky three or four, game designers won't ever make that much. Worse, you probably cannot make a living as an independent game designer at all, since game publishing companies were (99% of the time) created to publish the owner's games because no other company would publish them.

In another case from some time ago (I'm going to blur some facts here so that nobody can tell who I'm talking about), a young game enthusiast decided to quit his day job and focus his full time efforts on game design and publishing. His wife said that she would allow this only if he "brought home" a paycheck of a defined amount each month. He had some money from an inheritance which was separate property and his wife allowed that he could use this. Well, he went through the nest egg, borrowed money from savings without telling his wife, maxed out the credit card he got for the business, and then got two more cards (those offers in the mail) without telling his wife and maxed them out. All the time (his company lasted 18 months and did a dozen products) he was "bringing home" the required paycheck. His company was making a profit beyond expenses, but not enough to cover the paycheck, but the paycheck continued because (a) his wife insisted and (b) he was sure he would start making more sales any time. One of the credit cards was a $5,000 cash advance spent on advertising (which produced few if any new sales). Every month, he wrote that paycheck but came up short elsewhere. He had established credit with the printers and with the companies that sold him advertising pages so he ended up deeply in debt to the printer and to advertising publishers. Worse, his first product (which sold well enough) ran out of print, but it was going to cost $20K to reprint it and the dwindling rate of sales (nowhere near as good as it had been 18 months earlier) would not support the debt load, but he "had" to reprint it to avoid looking like a company on the way out. Finally, with no more places to borrow money and creditors threatening legal action, he took the case to his wife for a home equity loan. She, of course, had no clue that his company was $40K in debt (for which he was personally liable) or that most of the family savings account was gone. It's a wonder she didn't kill him or leave him, but she did force him out of the game business immediately. He sold out for what he could get and applied that money to the debts. Moral of the story, if you are married, make your wife a part of every business decision and do not keep secrets from her about family money.

In another case (actually, there are four or five of these I have seen, all about the same), an enthusiastic game designer who knew nothing about the industry but was sure his game was the next big thing got a home equity loan, printed thousands of copies of his game, and THEN (and only then) asked other game companies how to contact stores and wholesalers to sell his game. He had no clue what size the market was (few games sell over a couple of thousand copies) or who the wholesalers were or what it would take to get them to buy (some now demand that you pay them $500 for advertising before they will carry your game) or even what the discount structure was (which meant that his cost per game was fairly close to the 40% of the retail price he had printed on the games). Moral of the story, learn as much as you can about the industry before you spend a dime getting into it. GO READ MY BOOK FIRST.

I see lots of gamers who think that running a retail store, and on-line discount store, or a game publishing company involves low work and high reward. It does not. If it did, a lot more people would be in this business.

This Week at ADB, Inc., 25-31 December 2011

2012-01-04T08:35:00.003-06:00

Steve Cole reports:

This was Jean Week, when we have her delightful company and hard work all week. Christmas was a time for family, but we did spend a few hours in the office just getting Jean organized for the next week and clearing spam out of the email files. The weather this week was cold at first (starting with a white Christmas) but warmed by the end of the week. The spam storm mostly remained at just well 200 per day.

There was nothing new on e23 this week because SJG was closed for the holidays.

Steve Cole spent the week thinking about and organizing for the future. The company needs to change, and to limit the time spent on fun but secondary things that relatively few people want. (Why do FC eCard packs that few buy when work needs done on Marines, Fed Admiral, and PD Tholians?) He did some actual work, including a one-page Captain's Log #45 story about Ketrick's cat, another one-page story, 10 pages of Project E, the annual report, the look-ahead blog, a new Andro ship card for Communique #73, reviewed the first draft of ACTASF2 Battleships, read the Traveller rulebook, and resolved a problem when a freight shipment included nine boxes of another company's dice.

Steven Petrick worked on Captain's Log #45, doing the SSDs, campaign update, and starting on the monster article. He also finished the reports on the R3 SSD book update so that can go to e23 next week.

Leanna kept orders and accounting up to date.

Mike kept orders going out, rebuilt the inventory, and managed customer service.

Joel is with his family in Africa, but Charles Diaz came in two afternoons to handle critical functions.

Jean worked almost entirely on PD20M Romulans, but she also tested new games, did marketing and customer support,

Steve Cole, Steven Petrick, Jean Sexton, and (for the first time ever) Leanna Cole appeared on TalkShoe on Thursday night. The program lasted over two hours.

PLAY ON-LINE

2012-01-03T08:24:00.000-06:00

Many people do not know that you can play either STAR FLEET BATTLES or FEDERATION COMMANDER on-line in real time against live opponents.

Eight years ago, www.SFBonline.com was created to provide players of STAR FLEET BATTLES with an on-line gaming experience. It was a smash hit as hundreds of gamers joined the battles. Tournaments and other competitions, plus general opening gaming, have gone on around the clock since then. It since expanded to include FEDERATION COMMANDER!

Now you can play with real live human (not to mention Klingon, Romulan, Kzinti, Gorn, Tholian, Orion, and other) opponents all over the world in real time 24 hours a day! The computer automates many functions and acts as a friendly assistant for mundane chores.

For the modest subscription fee of less than $6 a month per game system, you have access to most of the ships in the STAR FLEET BATTLES/FEDERATION COMMANDER game systems as well as new ships still in playtest and development. The Java Runtime system is compatible with Windows and Macintosh systems.

Never worry about a lack of opponents. Never worry about opponents who don't show up for games day because of silly reasons like family reunions or their own weddings. Don't be cut off from your regular gaming group while on vacations or business trips.

Even better, you can join in on-line tournaments and campaigns, and your victories will add up to a higher and higher average score!

The system also allows you to chat with friends, taunt your enemies, and watch other players fight their own savage battles. (Why learn from your own mistakes when you can learn from someone else's?) This "observer" system allows players of either game to learn the ins and outs of the other game before deciding to invest time and money in it.

We continue to develop FEDERATION & EMPIRE for an on-line environment and have playtesters working out the kinks. We'll let you know as soon as it is ready to release.

So come to www.SFBonline.com right away. Players can even fly the FC Federation CA, FC Klingon D7, and the SFB Federation and Klingon tournament cruisers as a free trial, or watch any game in play. Legendary SFB aces and new FEDERATION COMMANDER aces strut their stuff in combat arenas all the time, and you can learn from the best.

Zombie Apocalypse

2012-01-02T16:30:00.003-06:00

This is Steven Petrick posting.

While Jean was here we played a couple of rounds of a game by another company about "zombies" (Jean has a collection of Zombie games from that company).

SVC likes the game, but I find the system simply too reliant on luck. You have to roll to see how far you will move in addition to whether or not you can beat a Zombie that has moved into your square (or into whose square you have moved) in combat.

Dice are not supposed to like people, but if you make a lot of bad rolls in a row you can wind up so far behind that you cannot catch up. Thus, even if you have a good plan (well, you may think your plan is good, I thought mine was after all), you lose because others roll better than you on movement (and in combat with the Zombies) and pick up all the goodies before you can reach them.

Simply put, you need bullets to adjust die rolls to survive combat with Zombies, so you tend to move towards buildings where bullets can be found, but if the other players keep getting there before you, you wind up using up your bullets in fights with Zombies that you cannot evade and, well you die (which, for some reason, makes it very hard to "win").

I can understand that the game is amusing to a lot of people (I frankly find it tedious, but then I tend to roll bad dice a lot and have to make up for it by better tactical/operational play in most games I play). In all seriousness, if the dice I rolled in this game (both times we played it) were photon torpedo die rolls I would be able to conquer the Klingon empire. In this game, a die roll of "one" is bad rather than good, and I rolled a lot of "ones." There was a period in the first game (for example) where I rolled a "one" for movement five consecutive times.

And as fate would have it, the only time in that entire game I got to move six squares occurred only because I had a card that doubled my movement and rolled a "three," only to have SVC play a card that allowed him to control my movement and use that to run me six squares further away from where I needed to be. By the end of the game (three turns later) I STILL had not gotten back to the square I had been on before SVC moved me in the opposite direction.

SVC, Leanna, and Jean racked up lots of dead zombies (not enough to win the game on "body count"), but I only managed to kill six for the whole game.

Placing all the of the zombies on the game board is more tedium to me.

SVC and Jean may like the game (Leanna did not want to play it the second time), but to me it is pretty much "read the cards one time and then forget about it."

ADB LOOKS AHEAD TO 2012

2012-01-01T11:09:00.003-06:00

Steve Cole reports:

Next year looks to be fun, with a lot of great products. I wish I could make Jean (and all of you) happy with a specific month-by-month list of the entire year's products (and then release each and every one of them exactly on time), but in many cases I simply don't know yet exactly what will happen. The best I can do is sort of a rough outline (through a scanner darkly as the saying goes) with a few comments. I am going to go through next year, one product line at a time. Where I have specifics, you'll read them.

A Few General Notes

We want to get out as many products as possible before the world ends on 21 December 2012. After all, the guy who dies with the most games wins, right?

If we only had one product line, it would get multiple products, but with several of them, each will get one or two. There just aren't days on the calendar or money in the bank to print four new products for each of eight or more product lines.

Without an Origins trip on the schedule, we can look forward to a less chaotic and more steady flow of new products. At least I am finally going to get to do some serious work on my lawn during the spring when it actually would do some good. (That would make Leanna happy.)

More products by outside partners means more total products. That includes not just the two partners we already have, but one or perhaps two more who will come on board during the year. We're talking to several potential partners.

Some new technology is coming available that could make short print runs of card decks and die-cut counters possible. If that works out, it will be a game changer, literally.

We're hoping that the increased sales from the joint-venture lines allow us to bring someone else into the office who can take over some of my (Steve Cole's) non-design workload. There are a ton of design projects that I want to do, but it's literally a matter that every hour of work I do on (say) Federation Commander Reinforcements Attack is an hour of work that was not done on Prime Directive Gorns.

If the company is going to be any kind of a success, I have got to do a better job of marketing, specifically getting accurate information (and cover art) to the wholesalers in a far more timely manner. And while I love the social media marketing that Jean does, I wish she'd limit the hours she spends doing it so more hours went into proofreading my products and doing her own. Until she moves permanently to Texas (June 2013) that's not going to improve.

Leanna was so impressed by the fact that most game companies don't work during the week between Christmas and New Year's that she had declared that I will take off at least three days right after Jean goes home. My health could use the break. The doctor has all of my blood numbers in a good place but I'm totally exhausted all of the time.

Star Fleet Marines

First and most of all, I want to get Star Fleet Marines: Assault finished and in the stores in February. This game looks to be very popular, given how many people who have never even seen it are trying to submit scenarios, tactics, new units, new rules, and even fiction to go along with it. Playtesting is in the final phases, and you can actually watch me playing a small scenario on YouTube.

Many have asked about a series of miniatures for use with the game. I'd love to do them, and we might. (They could also be used for other things such as Prime Directive and KRAG and games I'm not going to talk about yet.) I've got a few ideas how to make that happen and we'll just have to see how it goes.

Starmada

This was our first joint venture with another company (Majestic Twelve Games). They report that they're doing another edition of Starmada, which will result in new editions of our various Star Fleet Universe books during the first quarter of the year. We also expect to release Battleships Armada during the first half of the year. There are also some existing Starmada books which we have never done print-on-demand and distribution deals for, and we really ought to make at least one of those happen.

Mongoose

The guys at the Mongoose casting shop are trying to get the un-sent pre-orders out, and expect to clear that all up in January (as new equipment triples production) and re-launch the line to the stores in February with the fleet boxes. The spring and summer will see a steady series of releases for Starline 2500.

August will see ACTASF2 (tentatively titled Battleships). The plan is to complete the Tholian and Orion fleets (i.e., Tholian Attack, Orion Attack), add the battleships (i.e., Battleships Attack), and add a new ship or two for every empire. Once that's done, we'll see how many pages are left in which we can add other things. Perhaps this would be the Lyrans, or perhaps the heavy and/or light dreadnoughts (or maybe both). This book will of course come along with a whole range of squadron boxes, fleet boxes, etc.

The Hydrans will all but certainly wait for 2013 (perhaps titled ACTASF3 Fighters), more new empires will appear in 2014 (perhaps titled ACTASF4 Gunboats), while the Andromedans will wait for 2015 (perhaps titled ACTASF5 X-ships). Ok, we all know that predictions three years out are worth exactly as much as the ion cloud they're written on, but at least we have a plan ... well, an outline ... well, a vague concept.

Star Fleet Battles

The girl who brought us to the dance will always get her turn on the dance floor. The question is just what. Obviously, it would be a new module (maybe two) and there are plenty of ideas for Steven Petrick to pick from. I'd really love to see Module X2 get published, but I seriously wonder if I'd have the time to support the design of so many new rules and ships. Other options include Module R13 (More Ships That Never Were), Module J3 (more fighters and carriers), Module Omega Six, Module C5A (Return to the Magellanic Cloud), Module X1B (more X-ships), Module Y4 (more Early Years), C3B (more ships for the five smallest simulator empires), and other ideas.

One thing that will definitely happen next year is for us to update more and more of the SSD books and post them to e23 for you to download and print whatever you want.

SFBOL will continue to grow, and will move into a new graphic format for ship descriptions that will work better for the players and do less damage to product sales.

Federation & Empire

F&E may or may not get a new product in 2012. (If not, expect Civil Wars in 2013. Just a note, Civil Wars may turn into two products by the time I figure out what's in it.) That is going to depend to some extent on when we sell out of some of the countersheets and have to reprint them. (Reprinting F&E counters is very expensive and to justify the cost we pair that with a new product. I think we're only going to be short of one sheet and if rumored new technology makes shorter print runs practicable, we may do a short run of the one sheet.)

What F&E will get this year is a set of updated Ship Information Tables and (perhaps) a new edition of one of the existing expansion rulebooks.

Federation Commander

You will get Reinforcements Attack (along with its boosters) in 2012. You may also get a book of some kind, perhaps the Reference Starship Book, or the Reference Scenario Book, or the Federation Commander Tactics Book.

I am also determined to see Federation Admiral printed next year, although I cannot promise when. What I can promise is that Jay Waschak and I will pound our way through a few pages every week and see how fast we can reach a point of critical mass.

It is all but certain that Borders of Madness will be the next "attack product" for this line (with its own boosters), but I don't want to give anything approaching a promise that it could appear in 2012.

Captain's Log

I can predict with a great deal of confidence that we will get Captain's Log #45 out in May and Captain's Log #46 out in November. What I cannot predict is their format. We are tossing around the idea of going to more pages (140?) and a $24.95 price point. That will probably involve reducing the Supplemental File to just the designer's notes and the rejected tactical notes (and using the better material in the main issue itself).

Prime Directive

We should have PD20M Romulans out in the first few months of 2012, completing the transition of the existing books from d20v3.5 to the d20 Modern system.

The big move then will be into the Mongoose Traveller game system. Jean Sexton (line editor) is working with Traveller author Mike West to bring these products to the market. I don't know a precise release date but I'm going to get very cranky with Jean and Mike W if we don't have a book or two out in time for GenCon.

We'll certainly do some kind of 16-page adventure (probably on the planet Texmex) for Free RPG Day.

Beyond that, I'd love to finish Prime Directive Tholians (done by Loren Knight) or maybe Prime Directive Gorns (which I have taken a fancy to doing myself) and get such a book out for at least one of the RPG systems. (The way we do these, the other systems would follow fairly quickly.) The problem is that there are only so many hours in the day, and these RPG books consume a mountain of Steve Cole Time and Jean Sexton Time, and there are a lot of demands for those very limited quantities. When Jean moves to Amarillo (June 2013) she'll have a bunch more time and we should see RPG books pouring out of the print engines in 2014.

And Other Things

If the new card printing technology pans out, we will see the long-awaited expansion for Star Fleet Battle Force.

I really want to print the second fiction anthology (Day of the Eagle). It would seem that this would be the easiest of products (go get the already published stories and put them into the page layout software) but the project gets complicated if we're expected to revise them to standardize things like titles and date/time notations and capitalization and other terms. Then again, getting them printed is only part of the battle. We need to get them into distribution, which is another battle. The game wholesalers might not do much with them, and the book wholesalers don't even know ADB exists (and frankly, they don't care). A better solution there might be to make them into Kindle books, something I want to look into.

I want to get a third joint venture deal done. There are two companies we are talking with, another two we want to talk with (who are waiting to see how the Mongoose thing works out), and I have an idea for another joint venture deal that would be so easy to manage that it wouldn't block us doing a fourth joint venture. The problem with joint ventures is that they take Steve Cole Time to manage, and every hour I have to spend teaching a joint venture partner what they can and cannot and must and should not do is an hour I am not working on some actual product.

Jean wants me to create a small free booklet introducing the Star Fleet Universe that she can give away to new customers on e23 and DriveThru. Worse, she claims that I actually agreed to create it (and to do so in the very new future). I wonder what she thinks is in it?

If the technology for short production runs of die-cut counters work out (and I can convince Leanna that I can sell a couple of hundred sheets by mail order) I already have one F&E sheet and one SFB sheet done, and Steven Petrick wants me to do short-run sheets for C3A, E3, and E4.

There is one very creative (and very useful to you customers) book I really want to spend time on, but I'm going to have to pace myself and do just a couple of hours a week on it. When it reaches "critical mass" maybe I can convince Leanna to put it on the schedule.

I don't play train games (not unless I can blow up the train as it crosses the river on a bridge) but Jay Waschak's Merchants of the Federation has attracted the attention of at least one potential partner for a joint venture.

I definitely want to see more iPhone apps done (and to expand those into Android apps) but so far, sales aren't even paying for the annual cost to have a store. Sounds like we need to do some better marketing there.

Starline 2400 ships will continue to be available by mail order (and some stores will carry them). We're looking into what new ships might be added to that range, but honestly, there aren't a lot that haven't already been done and would sell well enough to bother doing.

The Year 2011 at ADB, Inc.

2011-12-31T10:17:00.003-06:00

Steve Cole reports:

This was an unusual year for several reasons.

First, most of the new products tended to come out in two huge bursts, one at Origins and the other at the end of the year. That's not the normal way things work.

The deal with Mongoose got signed just before Origins and the unanticipated workload for the joint venture products pretty much destroyed the schedule for the second half of the year. (But for that, we would have seen Star Fleet Marines and possibly Federation Admiral released.)

And that's the second reason why this year was so different. Managing the joint venture deal (we had been trying to get one of these signed for years) completely changed the way we worked, and to some extent it changed the way we looked at the world.

The third reason why the year was so different was that the company underwent a major evolution. Mike Sparks and Joel Shutts proved capable of doing far more than we had ever thought to ask of them, and even Leanna started taking over tasks that had once been the province of her husband. (This resulted from the two spending every Wednesday morning taking classes at business school.) Steven Petrick hardly sets foot in the warehouse any more, and Stephen Cole had not been back there for years (but did spend a day there in December due to the massive sales).

Sales of PDFs on e23 became a major part of the operation. Over the year, we uploaded the GURPS books, a series of ship card packs for Federation Commander, the main rulebooks for each of our games, the first 18 issues of Captain's Log and the first SFB SSD books. We became the second-biggest seller on e23, behind only the store owners (our good friends at Steve Jackson Games).

Our page on Facebook continued to grow, passing 700 in March, 800 in May, 900 in August, and 1000 in October. Companies 10 times our size have only 50% more friends and actually have fewer posts, likes, and comments.

We got word that Federation Commander had won the Gaming Genius fan award for best space game.

More new things happened. The first apps were sold on the Apple iPhone store. Spam (which had always been a problem, with over a thousand such emails per day) suddenly dropped like a rock (to under 100 per day) in mid-February because the hosting company installed better filters. We tried to get out our first Kindle book, but ended up firing the company doing it because they made numerous changes (some of which would have gotten us sued by Paramount) without asking us or even telling us. These changes were discovered by accident at the last second, narrowly avoiding the suicide of the company. Internet piracy became a major problem, costing the company thousands of dollars a month in lost sales and requiring Joel to spend 5-10 hours per week filing the paperwork to have pirate upload sites shut down. Steven Petrick accepted a plane ticket to fly to Council of Five Nations, but spent a miserable day in Houston on the way home when bad weather shut down the national air transport system.

Some things stayed the same, such as Jean Sexton's winter visits (that start and end each years), the Company Picnic in May, and the annual visit to the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary. We actually closed for Labor Day for the first time ever.

The First Half of the Year

The first half of the year was a mess because the three major projects were all delayed. (Federation Admiral and Star Fleet Marines were found to need some major re-design work, while SFB Module E3 Borak Star League was delayed because the outside designer had real-world interruptions.)

One bright note was that Steve Cole completed the Revision 6 versions of all of the Federation Commander products. Another bright note was that the GURPS version of Prime Directive Federation was completed and released. Steven Petrick completed the well-liked Module C3A Andromedan Threat File. The spring finished with the release of Captain's Log #43, including a special fiction story that fits neatly into an existing Trek episode.

Origins: Tour de Force

We released five major products at Origins, including the long-awaited ISC War, Starmada Distant Armada, SFB Module E4, Starship Aldo, and Transports Attacked. Of course, Captain's Log #43 was fairly new.

The show was abuzz (and not in a good way) with GAMA's plan (which they refused to change) to move Origins 2012 three weeks earlier. Over half of our customers said they could not go and many of the rest said that if others were not coming they saw no point. Eventually, ADB was forced to accept that GAMA had destroyed Origins 2012 for us and thousands of others, and we cancelled any plans to be there. Months of considering other conventions produced none worth the time and cost of attending.

The Deal with Mongoose

The first vague hints about this deal appeared in early March. ADB has long complained that 90% of the retail stores don't even notice we exist. They stock their shelves with the top five or 10 companies, and the other 50 companies that do hard-copy products get into less than 10% of stores. Steve Cole spent the last five years trying to get one of the top five companies to do a joint venture deal with us. Not only would that give us an instant best-selling new product line, it would get our company logos into stores (and information about our other games would be included in the books). Finally, Mongoose agreed to give the joint venture idea a try.

The Fall Rocks, or Was Rocky

Nobody had accurately predicted the amount of "Steve Cole time" it would take to do the approvals for the Starline 2500 ships. (Mongoose had also failed to accurately predict the time it would take to do the CGI work and started too late.) This requirement all but destroyed the fall schedule, forcing us to delay Star Fleet Marines and Federation Admiral to next year. In the end, we hope it was worth it.

Despite all of that, the ever-dependable Steven Petrick finished the revision to the Omega Master Rulebook and then moved on with Module E3, the Borak.

One bright spot this fall was Charles Diaz, a high school student who spent seven Thursday afternoons with us, learning about graphic design and general business.

The Final Act

During the second week of December, we shipped a bunch of new products (Captain's Log #44, Booster #31, #32, and #33, Module E3 Borak, and of course the first of the Mongoose stuff). We don't really know yet just how much the initial sales of the Mongoose joint venture stuff will be, or how many new markets the ad pages in that back of the ACTASF book will open. We're seriously questioning the decision we made to allow Mongoose to go ahead with a November release (which slid well into December). Would it have been better to delay the releases to February? Arguably so, but the decisions were made based on what we knew at the time, not what we knew by mid-December. Given a crystal ball, delaying to February would probably have worked out better in some regards.

A Final Analysis

We need to start this part acknowledging our greatest failure: that being that we just did not do a good enough job talking to wholesalers. Between products that got delayed (for one reason or another) and massive work, Stephen Cole (who is responsible for such things) only rarely got that job done. (He clearly has too many jobs.) It's not just telling wholesalers what new products are coming out and when, but they want cover art and complete descriptions 90 days in advance, which is rarely possible. We need to work on this because sales suffer seriously (and we lose shelf space in stores) when we don't do it.

Stephen Cole's time management plan was mostly honored in the breach (i.e., we felt bad about not doing it). Marketing Monday got blown off most of the time (see above), Customer Request Wednesday happened about half of the time, and Business Friday was consumed mostly by Mongoose. (We really didn't want to launch any more joint venture deals until this one proves the value of such things.) Now that we know, we are (cautiously) looking into more of them.

NEW COMMANDER'S OPTIONS, part 1

2011-12-30T23:42:00.002-06:00

Spiffy Captain's Uniform 0.25
Spiffy Admiral's Uniform 0.50
Used (but mendable) Red Security Shirt 0.05
Expendable Red Shirt Body Guard 1.00
Slightly Used Agonizer Booth 0.10
New Agonizer Booth 0.25
Tribbles 0.01
Silver Platter (for enemy captain's head) 1.00
Gold Platter (for enemy captain's head) 5.00
Replace Drone Warhead with Tribbles 0.25

-Originated by Mark Kuyper; additional suggestions by: Jeremy B Williams,
Steve Petrick, David Crew, Maik Hennebach, Eric Stork, Andrew Harding, F
Michael Miller, Tom Carroll, found in Captain's Log #20.

(c) copyright by Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc.

In Praise of Our Volunteers

2011-12-29T10:40:00.002-06:00

The adventure game (wargame+roleplaying game) industry is a small one, and there isn't the kind of money inside of it that other industries have. The industry consists of creative game designers willing to work 60 hours a week for half the pay they could command outside the game industry, all because they get to BE game designers.

Even at that, the only way the game industry survives is by the hard labor of unpaid volunteers who (for honor, glory, and rarely some free games) provide no end of valuable services to game publishers.

Mike West answers rules questions on Federation Commander. Mike Curtis does the same thing for Federation & Empire, Jonathan Thompson and Jean Sexton for Prime Directive PD20 and PD20M, Gary Plana for GURPS Prime Directive, Richard Sherman for Star Fleet Battle Force, and Andy Vancil for Star Fleet Battles.

Frank Brooks runs the Play-by-Email system as a volunteer. Paul Franz charges barely enough for the On-Line game system (for SFB and FC) to pay the server costs. Tenneshington Decals does made-to-order decals for our Starline miniatures and is run by two of our fans: Will McCammon and Tony Thomas.

Federation & Empire would not exist without Chuck Strong (a real-world colonel from Space Command) in charge of the overall game system. He keeps his staff (Mike Curtis, Ryan Opel, Scott Tenhoff, Thomas Mathews, and Stew Frazier) busy moving projects forward.

Very little would get done on any of our games except for the Playtest Battle Labs run by Scott Moellmer in Colorado and by Mike Curtis and Tony Thomas in Tennessee. And all of the other playtesters are invaluable to us.

We have other staffers who do specific things (and sometimes a wide variety of things) for us including Jean Sexton (Vice President of Proofreading and Product Professionalization); John Berg and Mike Incavo (Galactic Conquest Campaign); Daniel Kast (Klingon Armada); and John Sickels, Tony Thomas, James Goodrich, and Loren Knight (Prime Directive). Some vital part of the product line would grind to a halt without each one of them.

Added to this list are hundreds of others who, during any given month, by Email or BBS or Forum, contribute in some way to the company and its product line. They may report a glitch in an existing product, playtest a product in development, suggest a new product, point out something another company is doing what we may want to take a look at emulating, look up a rules reference for another player, report on somebody who using our property improperly, comment on a posted draft of a new rule, or simply ask a question nobody else ever dared to ask.

Many years ago, we began awarding medals, ribbons, and other "decorations" to staffers and others who contributed to each product, and some other projects. These awards not only recognize those who contributed to the various projects, but encouraged others to begin making their contributions to future projects. We have created the Wall of Honor at http://starfleetgames.com/ArtGallery/Wall%20of%20Honor.shtml. This is a tribute to over 30 years of volunteer work. We hope you visit it to say thanks to all the volunteers and their efforts.

Is 2012 the End?

2011-12-28T16:07:00.003-06:00

This is Steven Petrick posting.

The year is nearly over, and in a few days time we will see the start of 2012. And once again we shall have doomsayers out saying that the world will end.

The current happy date is about 21 December when the Mayan calendar supposedly runs out. Why this is not seen as simply a larger version of 31 December (i.e., our 12 month calendar runs out every year) and the beginning of new long count is something of a mystery to me.

History is, however, replete with end of the world dates.

It is hard to believe but back in 999-1000 A.D. (C.E. if you choose) people literally ran into the hills in the belief that the world would end.

Truthfully, today we have more of an understanding that the world might suddenly end (at least in terms of the extinction of human civilization and perhaps of the human species).

We know about all those big rocks floating past planet Earth, and there is always a chance that one of them may have its orbit perturbed enough (or its long range trajectory was always heading for us anyway) and seek to become one with us. (Coincidentally, if I recall correctly one of those big rocks is due for a close approach sometime this year, but after it we are good to go until 2028 or so I have been told.)

We also know about volcanoes. By this I mean the "mega volcanoes" such as Yellowstone National Park. Modern science believes that about 50,000 or so years ago one of these let loose and almost drove us to extinction. And we were a lot tougher back then (we did not need indoor toilets or air conditioning and most of us could prepare food without the need of someone else to process the materials beforehand).

There is also, of course, all the global warming going on (which has been predicted to have various catastrophic effects "soon") as well as the continuing population explosion (just because we have always found a way to raise enough food so far it does not mean we will be able to do so in the future). This does not even mention the general concept of a Pandemic to make the Spanish Flu seem like a mild head cold.

We at least seem, for the time being, to be secure from nuclear annihilation on a grand scale (although nuclear terrorism seems more and more an inevitability).

Despite all of these dire warnings, I pretty much expect to go about my life pretty much as I have. There is nothing I can do about mega volcanoes or big rocks falling from the sky, and mother nature has been mixing and matching diseases for longer than we have been on this planet, and despite all the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments I have yet to see definitive proof that we as a species are causing global warming (the planet has had ice ages and periods of great warmth before we showed up as recognizable individuals in the fossil record).

And, in all honest, if the world were about to end, I would go about my own life as best I could. Going to the office and doing my job.

Got Any Marketing Ideas?

2011-12-27T10:25:00.000-06:00

This Week at ADB, Inc., 19-24 December 2011

2011-12-26T12:41:00.003-06:00

Steve Cole reports:

This week was very busy for Leanna and Michael as we shipped orders (although that was slowed down by deliveries from Mongoose). The weather this week was cold, with snow on Monday and a few flakes on Friday. The spam storm mostly remained at well over 200 per day.

Nothing new went on e23 this week because Steve Jackson Games is closed for the holidays.

Steve Cole worked mostly catching up with things not done earlier and finishing the FLAP list for the recent products. He spent a lot of time updating the Wall of Honor. He also did the company Christmas alert and posted some new Starline 2500 ships for player review.

Steven Petrick finished updating the R3 SSD book, and worked on some things for Captain's Log #45.

Leanna kept orders and accounting up to date.

Mike kept orders going out, rebuilt the inventory, and managed customer service.

Joel is visiting his family in Lesotho (Africa) but did bust some pirates over the internet.

Jean managed our page on Facebook (which is up to 1071 friends), proofread a few things, traveled to Amarillo, and did some marketing.

Our Wishes for You

2011-12-25T14:48:00.002-06:00

On this snowy Christmas day, we wish you and yours a Merry Christmas (or a happy other winter holiday of your choice). May you spend the day with friends and family, doing what you like best -- and if that includes blowing up a starship, may you find joy and happiness.

JOIN US ON FACEBOOK

2011-12-24T14:29:00.000-06:00

Phasers Fire!

2011-12-23T08:56:00.001-06:00

Phasers Fire!
By Jean Sexton (to the tune of Jingle Bells)

Warping space we go
In a trader that we bought
Our cash we hope to grow
Selling what we bought
Routes bring profits nigh
Making spirits bright
What fun it is to sell and fly
A trader shiny bright

Oh, phaser-1s, phaser-3s
Fire them all THAT way!
Oh what fun it is to fight
A pirate ship they say
Phaser-1s, phaser-3s
Fire them all THAT way!
Oh what fun it is to fight
A pirate ship they say

A day or two ago
We thought we’d make a run
To Texmex we would go
And have some jolly fun.
Our ship was laden high
Bad fortune was our lot
We went around some nebulae
By pirates we were caught.

Oh, phaser-1s, phaser-3s
Fire them all THAT way!
Oh what fun it is to fight
A pirate ship they say
Phaser-1s, phaser-3s
Fire them all THAT way!
Oh what fun it is to fight
A pirate ship they say

Our shields were falling fast
We thought we saw our doom
When a sudden blast
Lit up the entire room
A POL it had come by
And seen our sorry lot
It fired its weapons –- my, oh my
The pirates were upsot.

Oh, phaser-1s, phaser-3s
Fire them all THAT way!
Oh what fun it was to fight
A pirate ship this day
Phaser-1s, phaser-3s
Fire them all THAT way!
Oh what fun it was to fight
A pirate ship this day.

(c) copyright 2011 by Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc.

Death of a Thousand Notes

2011-12-22T18:22:00.002-06:00

This is Steven Petrick posting.

Lots of people have ideas for things to add to SSDs to make them "more user friendly." It basically comes down to trying to stuff everything in the rulebook and annexes in some form or another onto the SSD.

This is relatively benign when the SSD in question is a small ship, but on larger ships it quickly becomes a nightmare, as those ships already use a lot of the available space and trying to find room to add just a little bit more text results in SSDs that have to be shrunk to the smallest allowed size and bloated with text.

Some people want to have (on almost every Lyran SSD) a note reminding players that ESGs are destroyed on "drone" damage points. A similar note on Hydran ships for hellbores, plus one that fusions are destroyed on "torpedo" damage points, and oh yes that note is also needed on the Lyran SSDs to remind players that disruptors are destroyed on "torpedo" damage points.

While I was working on the update to the Basic Set SSDs it was requested that every Klingon SSDs include a note that "Security is destroyed on "flag" damage points, and if all security is destroyed see (G6.0) for mutiny" as a "useful reminder. And by the way, add a note that "Anti-drones are destroyed on "drone" damage points, and be sure to include a reference to the rule about the best weapon being destroyed on every third hit.

The list of requested "useful notes to add to SSDs" keeps growing (include a list of the number of points of energy needed to fire a standard and overloaded version of the weapon, and make sure to mark warp power for those weapons that need warp power).

I realize that Star Fleet Battles is a large game with many options, but there comes a point where all the notes that are requested for the SSDs makes them just blobs of black where you cannot tell an box on the ship from written text nearby.

At some point you need to have a basic understanding of the rules for the given systems on a ship, and be able to access the annexes if you have a particular question.

Adding more and more notes just makes the SSDs so busy they will become unplayable in their own right.

Playing Star Fleet Universe Games Long Distance

2011-12-21T11:52:00.001-06:00

Lights! Cameras! The SFU Hits YouTube!

2011-12-20T10:17:00.000-06:00

This Week at ADB, Inc., 11-17 December 2011

2011-12-19T09:58:00.003-06:00

Steve Cole reports:

This was a quiet week for the two Steves, and a very busy week for Leanna and Michael. The weather this week was cold but not particularly miserable. The spam storm mostly remained at well over 200 per day. We got the first shipment of 2500-series miniatures, but still don't have any rulebooks and got word that fleet boxes won't happen until next year. (We have had to cancel dozens of orders for them as the credit card company will not hold orders that long.)

New on e23 this week were Captain's Log #17 and Captain's Log #18.

Steve Cole mostly took the week to rest and recharge, trying to burn off the stress of the last two months. The intense pressure of that time took a lot out of him, and he needs to take better care of his health. But he didn't goof off the whole week! He did a bunch of Wall of Honor updates (which won't be posted until Joel returns on 18 Jan), successfully worked out a deal so Tony Thomas and Will McCammon can do decals for the 2500s, wrote the annual report, answered weeks of unanswered emails, wrote marketing copy for e23, did the large print edition of Captain's Log #44, wrote a blog about the fiction story he wrote for Captain's Log #44, did several pages of Captain's Log #45, and cleaned up his desk (not that you can tell by looking at it).

Steven Petrick worked on the update for the R3 SSD book, finishing the Klingons and Hydrans.

Leanna kept orders and accounting up to date.

Mike kept orders going out, rebuilt the inventory, and managed customer service.

Joel did website updates, chased pirates, and helped Mike.

Jean managed our page on Facebook (which is up to 1065 friends), did some marketing, and mourned the loss of her faithful dog K'Ehleyr.

How to Find Opponents

2011-12-18T23:27:00.000-06:00

Steve Cole writes:

Many gamers are looking for new opponents. This is nothing new. When I was a teenager, there were maybe four war gamers in Amarillo that I knew, but there must have been more as the one store that carried Avalon Hill games (then the only wargames) would sell one or two now and then that my friends and I knew we didn't buy. Funny, it never once occurred to us to ask the store manager to give our phone numbers to the other guys. When I was in college, SPI (then the second wargame company and rapidly becoming larger and more innovative than Avalon Hill) had an opponent wanted list. I sent in my dollar to get it, and found only one person (of the 20 on the list) who was within 120 miles; the first and last person on the list were each 450 miles away (in opposite directions).

These days, the concept of contacting other gamers has had decades to mature, works much better, and there are a lot of ways to do it. For best results, you should do all of them.

If you play Federation Commander, then you can go to the Commander's Circle and enter your data (as much or as little as you are comfortable with) and perhaps find opponents near you. We are gaining new sign-in's every day, and since it's free you can try it every month or two and find out if somebody nearby has signed in. http://www.starfleetgames.com/federation/Commanders%20Circle/

Primarily for Federation Commander players, the Forum has a topic where local stores and groups post announcements and invitations. Players can let other players know they're around. How silly would you feel if you found out that the guy who you've been arguing with on the forum for years actually lives in your town. (That HAS happened.) http://www.federationcommander.com/phpBB2

You can to go to a local store and ask them to let you post a notice looking for opponents. You could also run a demo of your favorite game(s) and "grow your own" opponents. If a person already plays the game you are demoing, he'll doubtless drop by just to swap phone numbers.

Many towns have community bulletin boards on the local cable company's "home" channel. These are variously free or cost just a couple of dollars. It's hit-and-miss, but you could get lucky. (When I commanded Company C of the 1-39 MPs, I gained a dozen new recruits in a year that came from cable TV.) You could also buy a cheap want ad in the newspaper or the free advertising newspaper (American's Want Ads or whatever yours is called) found in quickie marts. There is also Craigslist, but you should use the normal caution you would for meeting a stranger.

The quickest result, probably, is Starlist. Go to http://starfleetgames.com/starlist.shtml. Enter your data in the form, and you'll get a list of local players back. (This may take a day or two as it is done by hand.) Starlist is the most effective hunt for new players because the database has some five thousand players in it, far more than all of the other sources combined. The only drawback is that Starlist works with full information (name and address) and those who are seriously concerned about identity theft often find this uncomfortable. In all reality, however, Starlist would not give an identity thief any more information than a local phone book would, and if that's enough for those criminals to operate, they would be vastly more likely to use the phone book than to request a copy of Starlist.

You can find opponents for all of our games on our BBS. Go to http://www.starfleetgames.com/discus/ and you'll see "Seeking Opponents" on the main menu. You can post a notice there (and search the previous postings). Again, you can post as much or as little information as you are comfortable with.

Friends of our page on Facebook can use the Discussions tab and find topics for the various games. Not a friend? Become one here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Amarillo-Design-Bureau-Inc/231728653279?ref=mf

With more effort, you can post opponent wanted notices in a whole lot of boardgame sites (see http://www.starfleetgames.com/links.shtml for suggestions).

If there is a game convention within driving distance, it's worth a trip to see if you might find someone who is also within driving distance. If there is a game club in your home town, or a store with a gaming area, go there and set up the game and wait for somebody to ask what it is. (Even better, take a friend who will play the game with you so you won't be bored.) If there is a star trek club in your home town, show them Federation Commander or Star Fleet Battle Force. There are people who have printed a card with the logo of one of our games and their Email address and left these in the windows of their cars who got Emails from other gamers in their home towns who were seeking opponents.

You can go always go to SFB Online (http://www.sfbonline.com/index.jsp) and play Star Fleet Battles and Federation Commander on-line with live opponents from around the world for the princely sum of $5 per month. You might even stumble into somebody local.

There are probably more ways than this to find opponents, but unless you live in a cave somewhere, you can almost certainly find a new friend within a short while by trying these methods.

RANDOM THOUGHTS #69: WORDS MEAN THINGS

2011-12-17T22:16:00.002-06:00

Steve Cole muses: Just thinking to himself about the curious origins of common words.

1. Caliph is the Arabic word for successor. Back when Islam was one big empire, those who held the primary leadership position after Mohammad died were designated as his successor, or caliphs. The empire was known as the Caliphate. After a few of those, the empire fragmented into separate nations (some of which survive to this day, others of which underwent various changes, divisions, and amalgamations to produce other Arab countries we see today.

2. Calliope, a kind of steam organ used by circuses to attract a crowd and set the pace for the performers, was the name of the ninth Greek Muse, the goddess Calliope. Her name was a combination of the two Greek words for beautiful and voice, and she was in charge of poetry.

3. Calumet, the name for a ceremonial Native American pipe used originally to establish fur-trading deals with French explorers in the Saint Lawrence valley, is the French word for "reed flute" which was the closest thing the French could compare it to. At the time, nobody from Europe knew what tobacco or smoking was.

4. Camera, the device that takes pictures, is the old Latin word for chamber. In 1802, Thomas Wedgewood invented photography, and went to the store where he bought a camera which was made by a company that had been making very fine cameras for over 200 years. The concept goes back to ancient Greece, where it was known that if you stood in a dark room which had a tiny hole open to the outside sunlight, an upside down image of the outside world could be seen on the opposite wall. (This was the camera obscura, or dark chamber.) This quaint phenomenon was mentioned in scientific literature at various times over the next two thousand years. (Some think that Leonardo da Vinci used this method to produce a "photograph" now known as the Shroud of Turin.) Over the two thousand years, people discovered that various lenses and mirrors could sharpen the image and even turn it right side up. By 1600, someone had figured out that you did not need to darken an entire room, just a small box, which was known as a camera. The open back of the box would be covered with oil paper or a glass plate. An artist could set up a camera pointed at his subject and lines on the glass plate or paper would give him the proportions of his subject. Lines drawn on the blank canvas created a framework for the painting. What Thomas Wedgewood invented was a means for using silver nitrate on a glass plate to form a permanent image. Tin quickly replaced glass (producing "tin types") and eventually paper replaced tin.

5. Camouflage, a pattern of paint or colors intended to avoid the enemy detecting the ship, tank, or soldier, is an old Persian word meaning "smoke blown in the eyes". This was often done as a joke but some Persian entertainers would use a smoky room to make sure that the audience did not learn all of the secrets of their performance. The French adopted this as camouflet which was a smoke bomb used when you detected the enemy trying to tunnel under the walls of your castle or your battle position. You would dig down to meet their tunnel, and drop a camouflet smoke bomb into it, then block up the hole. The enemy tunnel crew would then abandon the tunnel in a panic, and your own troops could move in somewhat later and block up the tunnel, preventing it from being used to plant explosives. The British then adopted the word into the current form as a term for painting battleships in World War I in patterns of light and dark to make them harder to see. In World War II, camouflage was applied to tanks and even some infantry uniforms.

6. Canard, a false or unfounded story, is the French word for duck. It goes back to an old French expression, which was "to half-sell a duck" meaning to convince someone that you could deliver a wild duck seen flying overhead, that is, to make a fool of them with a silly claim or story.

7. Canary, a small songbird originating on the Canary Islands, is derived from the Latin word Canis, or dog. The first explorers to reach the Canary Islands noted that one of them was populated by wild dogs, and hence the islands became the "Isles Canis" or "Islands of the dogs". By the time the islands were actually inhabited and the local songbirds were domesticated and exported, the dogs were long exinct.

8. Cancel, to retract or withdraw, comes from the Latin world for lattice. Monks and scholars copying scrolls would notice mistakes. As no one had invented erasers, one would simply mark out the mistake with criss-cross lines (looking somewhat like a lattice) and write the correction next to this.

9. Candidate, someone who is running for election to office, comes from the old Latin word for shining pure white. Someone declaring his candidacy, or apply for a job, or ask the a girl's father for permission to court her, wanted to look his best. To accomplish this, he would have his toga laundered and then rubbed with certain types of white chalk to achieve the sparkling appearance of newly fallen snow, thereby declaring that his character and intentions were as pure as the fallen snow. The word Candor comes from the same source.

10. Cannibal, one who eats the flesh of others of his own species, comes from the voyages of Columbus. Wanted to write his reports, Columbus asked the locals what they called themselves. They responded with "caribe" from which we get the Caribbean Sea. However, Columbus thought that he was in Asia, and that the natives were trying to tell him that they were the subjects of the Great Khan, so he reported the name as Canibes, from which the word cannibal derives as it moves from Spanish to French to English. Later it was found that some of the people of the West Indies ate human flesh, and some Europeans thought they all of the Cannibals did, and so the incorrect name was incorrectly applied. Later, explorers of Africa and South America found other flesh-eating cultures, and applied the term to them as an adjective, not a noun. Later, scientists applied this to various animals species that were found to consume their own kind.

The Twelve Days of Christmas, Kzinti Style

2011-12-16T09:11:00.002-06:00

Written by the BBS Gang

On the first day of Christmas that Kzinti gave to meeee
An antimatter armed probe!

On the second day of Christmas that Kzinti gave to meeee
Two suicide shuttles!
And an antimatter armed probe!

On the third day of Christmas that Kzinti gave to meeee
Three scatter-packs!
Two suicide shuttles!
And an antimatter armed probe!

On the fourth day of Christmas that Kzinti gave to meeee
Four overloads!
Three scatter-packs!
Two suicide shuttles!
And an antimatter armed probe!

On the fifth day of Christmas that Kzinti gave to meeee
Five hit-and-run raids!
Four overloads!
Three scatter-packs!
Two suicide shuttles!
And an antimatter armed probe!

On the sixth day of Christmas that Kzinti gave to meeee
Six points in tractors!
Five hit-and-run raids!
Four overloads!
Three scatter-packs!
Two suicide shuttles!
And an antimatter armed probe!

On the seventh day of Christmas that Kzinti gave to meeee
Seven T-bombs laying!
Six points in tractors!
Five hit-and-run raids!
Four overloads!
Three scatter-packs!
Two suicide shuttles!
And an antimatter armed probe!

On the eighth day of Christmas that Kzinti gave to meeee
Eight sensors jamming!
Seven T-bombs laying!
Six points in tractors!
Five hit-and-run raids!
Four overloads!
Three scatter-packs!
Two suicide shuttles!
And an antimatter armed probe!

On the ninth day of Christmas that Kzinti gave to meeee
Nine Needle gunboats!
Eight sensors jamming!
Seven T-bombs laying!
Six points in tractors!
Five hit-and-run raids!
Four overloads!
Three scatter-packs!
Two suicide shuttles!
And an antimatter armed probe!

On the tenth day of Christmas that Kzinti gave to meeee
Ten phasers firing!
Nine Needle gunboats!
Eight sensors jamming!
Seven T-bombs laying!
Six points in tractors!
Five hit-and-run raids!
Four overloads!
Three scatter-packs!
Two suicide shuttles!
And an antimatter armed probe!

On the eleventh day of Christmas that Kzinti gave to meeee
Eleven fighters fighting!
Ten phasers firing!
Nine Needle gunboats!
Eight sensors jamming!
Seven T-bombs laying!
Six points in tractors!
Five hit-and-run raids!
Four overloads!
Three scatter-packs!
Two suicide shuttles!
And an antimatter armed probe!

On the twelfth day of Christmas that Kzinti gave to meeee
Twelve drones a-launching!
Eleven fighters fighting!
Ten phasers firing!
Nine Needle gunboats!
Eight sensors jamming!
Seven T-bombs laying!
Six points in tractors!
Five hit-and-run raids!
Four overloads!
Three scatter-packs!
Two suicide shuttles!
And an antimatter armed probe!

(c) Copyright 2011 by Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc.

Free Stuff for Star Fleet Universe Players!

2011-12-15T08:42:00.001-06:00

Finding the Exploitable Flaws

2011-12-14T17:00:00.003-06:00

This is Steven Petrick posting.

Games can provide insights into a lot of things, and computer games have come a long way from the clunky early days.

One of the early computer games was "Sun Tzu's Ancient Art of War." Laughable now, but it was pretty high tech for its time.

There were a variety of "enemy commanders" you could choose from, each representing a difference in programming. Most of them I quickly found ways to beat, but one commander would give me fits all the way to the point where the game was no longer playable on the available computers.

Crazy Ivan.

No matter what you were doing, Crazy Ivan would just attack and keep on attacking. Since the computer could put all of its forces in motion at once, and you had to select each of yours and give it orders, Ivan would always "have a march" on you.

I gradually found the way to beat Ivan was to retreat if possible. Get my forces moving away from his so that I could mass them and try to beat Crazy Ivan piecemeal. The problem was Ivan would often intercept my scattered forces before I could gather them, and sometimes you just could not retreat from someplace because it would generate troops, and the last thing you wanted was for Ivan to generate more troops.

Things were complicated further by the computer apparently having a "random failure" feature.

My favorite organization was to create armies of just archers, and deploy them in lines as far from the other side as I could, and as close to my retreat route as I could. Even if the enemy was all barbarians (the supposed non archer counter to archers) I would kill some of them when they charged, then retreat, and just repeat until I killed all of the barbarians and any knights . . . the supposed counter to barbarians . . . and archers . . . the supposed counter to knights) that showed up.

But every once in a while I would find my troops deployed incorrectly, the formation order had been changed (apparently something the computer did randomly every once in a while), and my archers would be overrun and wiped out.

This was, however, where one of the other flaws in the game appeared.

The game could only handle a set number of "armies" at one time. Thus, every time I lost an army, I would immediately select one of my other armies and divide it into a whole army and an army composed of one "soldier." This kept the enemy from using the blank "army" slot from my destroyed army to create a new one of his own. And, of course, if I destroyed on of his armies, I would do the same thing. Thus, eventually, the computer could not create any new armies for itself, and over half the armies on the map would be one-man armies created to keep the computer from generating new armies.

Play a game enough, and you find an exploitable flaw.

Captain's Log #44: "A Call to Arms"

2011-12-13T22:54:00.003-06:00

Steve Cole writes:

A Call to Arms: It seemed so easy when I agreed to it, such an obvious and simple project. To support the new ACTASF product line, all I had to do was write the history of Day One, the day that the Klingons invaded the Federation. Players have been waiting for this story to be written for a long time. It proved a difficult challenge (just tracking down which ships were known to be, or could have been, with the Third Fleet on Day One took entire days of digging).

My plan was to write not just one big story about one ship and what they did on that one big day, but (to honor the title) I wanted to show readers everything about what happens to a very large military force and an entire nation when a whole lot of things happen in a very short period. I decided to tell the story through the eyes of "one of every kind of person" who would experience it. That lofty goal proved impossible (there was not time or space to include some "kinds of people" such as a diplomat, a high government official, the real wonks at Star Fleet Intelligence, a freighter captain, a small mining station) but in the end I surprised myself as to how many different "kinds of people" were included. By showing how multiple ship captains each met the situation in their own unique way, I could show that not every professional officer is an interchangeable part. I have always been fascinated with the concept that people on the first day of a war do not know what the readers (long after the war) already know (and subconsciously assume everyone who was actually there already realized).

I started doing research: what stories had already been written during and around the Day One events? There were several of these, and I almost wanted to include notes to tell the reader "now go get this story and read it before you go on." Conscience requires me to note that "my" story sometimes includes a few lines of dialogue from these other authors. I consulted with an expert on the subject of "authorship" who said it would be ok to do that without listing them as co-authors of the greater story (their contributions amounted to about 1% of the total), but I insisted on acknowledging them in these notes.

"Ghostlight: Day One" by Ed McKeown from Captain's Log #9 was always a favorite story, covering the destruction of Battle Station K7. I decided that one part of my very large project would be to tell the story of the same battle, but from another point of view. That made it easy for me, as I did not have to invent the tactics, which is always the tough part. It bothered me a great deal to kill off Commodore Thomas.

"A Friend in Need" by Allen Gies from Captain's Log #18 happened a few days after Day One, but included some key information about the battle. My scenes for the Oaxaca take place before and after that story. Having two sub-stories about battle stations allowed me to have one of them surrender and another be destroyed, because war happens that way.

"Return of the Hood" by Dale McKee in Captain's Log #25 took place years after Day One, but included a flashback to that day. I added two scenes to that story, and borrowed several lines and elements of the Hood's final battle, more than I was really comfortable with, but to include that final scene at all required that much re-use of another writer's work.

"For the Honor of the Flag" by Mark Tippet in Captain's Log #26 takes place a month after Day One, but the first scene includes a key review of things that happened, and all of that information was worked into my story. (A passing reference to the deceased captain of Agincourt tore at my heart, and I had to bring him alive if only to kill him off.) I wrote some of the same scenes from the point of view of the guy on the other end of the intercom, copying a bit of dialogue into a different setting.

"Snap Count," one of my own stories published in Captain's Log #33, took place a year or two before Day One, but I brought in some of the characters, including the irascible Commander Crawford (the namesake of both Tos Crawford and John Crawford, two great friends).

"The Librarian," a snapshot I wrote in Captain's Log #39, was brought in, at least one scene from it.

When Mongoose did the cover for ACTASF they asked me for a ship name to use. One of those available was Valiant, and they picked it. Writing the scenes for that ship was kind of fun, as I could use a character I had created (but never published) some time earlier. Captain Rankin was a man who had the highest medal Star Fleet could give him but was filled with self-doubt about his own abilities. I asked Steven Petrick to review my battle plan and he said "you have to first feint at this ship to get him to drop his speed before you can run off to bag that ship" and that is just what Captain Rankin did in "my" story.

I must confess that the "town council" scene on Delta Pavonis III was inspired by a real-world meeting I took part in as a military police unit commander assigned to support local authorities. No person or words from the real-world event were copied into my fiction, but seeing so many talented people trying to simultaneously contribute their talents and protect their own turf was as fascinating as it was terrifying. Well, ok, the local sheriff did want to be absolutely positive that my troops were not going to be carrying firearms in his town. I couldn't blame him for that, and that wasn't what we were there for. (We just managed the traffic flow that time, but I did see a different real world sheriff send troops including myself to deal with drug gangs who were "not afraid cops but were terrified of soldiers.")

As I wrote the different scenes, I took time to bring in the individual flourishes and character traits that sometimes get lost in writing a big story about one small group. Jean remarked that I had done more to "make her love the characters" than anything I had written before, which was surprising to me since each character got so few words in the overall story.

I also took time to bring in some themes that had bothered me for years. Commander Crawford was good enough at his job to be kept in it, but I felt I had to say that nobody really wanted an officer who had been held captive (and brainwashed) by an "evil alien enemy about whom far too little is known."

Being a guardsman myself, I had often had the feeling that "the regular military" did not give us enough respect. (Being a State Guardsman I often felt that the National Guardsmen regarded us a people they'd rather not have around. I also, many times, had to accept that the "real cops" were not excited to have the help of half-trained "military policemen" who were sent to help them during major events and emergencies.) I could actually see Star Fleet taking guardsmen who were serving on starships and using them to fill up remote stations so they could use their own (less qualified) Star Fleet people on newly activated ships. I have, from personal experience, seen business and military organizations shuffle their own less-capable people off to third-rate jobs but still prefer their own people to better-qualified strangers from another organization.

I wanted to show people that fighters in SFU must be integrated with ships and used in mass formations if they are to be used to their best advantage.

Most of all, I wanted to show that you don't always know what's really going on. For a student of military history, those nice pretty maps of what everybody was doing on the first day of World War II or during Operation Desert Storm all seem so complete, so organized, and such a perfect picture of what happened. For the guy actually at headquarters trying to figure it out from radio reports, it's not that pretty and not nearly that clear or obvious. Having been (on a much smaller scale) the military commander trying to keep track of a dozen moving elements by way of unreliable radios, I can tell you that it's quite a challenge.

In re-reading the story I wrote, I found myself wanting to tell more of the story, and wanting others to tell other parts. I am already writing the story of Mister Oregon, the fascinating story of that Dunkar linguist on the Klingon police ship that gathered up those outpost crews, and the story of Commander Crawford. I really want to read stories other people write about the Hornet and the Agincourt in the days between Day One and "For the Honor of the Flag."

This Week at ADB, Inc., 4-10 December 2011

2011-12-12T09:15:00.002-06:00

Steve Cole reports:

This was the week that Captain's Log #44 was finished and the workload shifted from the Steves to everyone else in the office. The printer doing the cards for the boosters lost the work order when our contact there went out of town, and delivered them three days late, delaying wholesaler shipments of the new products until Thursday.

The weather this week was cold, dropping below freezing every night and staying below freezing most of each day. We had a snowstorm that started at 1am Monday and lasted until Tuesday noon. The spam storm mostly remained at well over 200 per day.

We did not get anything new put on e23 this week.

Steve Cole finished Captain's Log #44 on Monday, then started working on the FLAP list (finish like a pro). Steve finished Communique #72 in time for Joel to send in on Friday, a day early. He also set up the Captain's Log #45 files, and rumor has it that three or four pages are already finished. SVC also spend Thursday teaching Charles how to use graphics to convey information and make it easier to find. Steve Cole actually spent most of Saturday working on the assembly line due to the high volume of orders.

Steven Petrick worked on record keeping for Captain's Log #44 and started work on Captain's Log #45.

Leanna kept accounting up to date, started the wholesaler shipments for Captain's Log #44, Boosters 31-32-33, and Module E3. She started on the massive mail orders.

Mike kept orders going out, managed customer service, and (mostly) got the new products printed.

Joel did website updates, chased pirates, and most of all helped Mike. The Wall of Honor was updated for those who won Gold Star, Silver Star, and Bronze Star medals, but everyone else will have to wait until Joel returns on 18 Jan. Charles came in on Thursday and Saturday to complete his high school intern training program.

Jean managed our page on Facebook (which is up to 1057 friends), proofread the last pages of Captain's Log #44, proofread Communique #72 and the December Hailing Frequencies, and did a bunch of marketing for ADB and Mongoose.

We had the first half of the annual Christmas party on Wednesday because Joel is leaving for six weeks with his parents in Africa.

Exploring Excellent Ebooks

2011-12-11T16:31:00.001-06:00

HAILING FREQUENCIES AND COMMUNIQUE RELEASED

2011-12-10T08:50:00.001-06:00

The Twelve Hours of Day One

2011-12-09T08:19:00.003-06:00

The Twelve Hours of Day One
By Jean Sexton

On the first hour of Day One the Klingons took from me
The saucer of the good ship Hood.

On the second hour of Day One the Klingons took from me
Two asteroids
And the saucer of the good ship Hood.

On the third hour of Day One the Klingons took from me
Three trade routes,
Two asteroids,
And the saucer of the good ship Hood.

On the fourth hour of Day One the Klingons took from me
Four ground bases,
Three trade routes,
Two asteroids,
And the saucer of the good ship Hood.

On the fifth hour of Day One the Klingons took from me
Five colonies,
Four ground bases,
Three trade routes,
Two asteroids,
And the saucer of the good ship Hood.

On the sixth hour of Day One the Klingons took from me
Six battle stations,
Five colonies,
Four ground bases,
Three trade routes,
Two asteroids,
And the saucer of the good ship Hood.

On the seventh hour of Day One the Klingons took from me
Seven cruisers cruising,
Six battle stations,
Five colonies,
Four ground bases,
Three trade routes,
Two asteroids,
And the saucer of the good ship Hood.

On the eighth hour of Day One the Klingons took from me
Eight frigates fighting,
Seven cruisers cruising,
Six battle stations,
Five colonies,
Four ground bases,
Three trade routes,
Two asteroids,
And the saucer of the good ship Hood.

On the ninth hour of Day One the Klingons took from me
Nine Marine squadrons,
Eight frigates fighting,
Seven cruisers cruising,
Six battle stations,
Five colonies,
Four ground bases,
Three trade routes,
Two asteroids,
And the saucer of the good ship Hood.

On the tenth hour of Day One the Klingons took from me
Ten remote bases,
Nine Marine squadrons,
Eight frigates fighting,
Seven cruisers cruising,
Six battle stations,
Five colonies,
Four ground bases,
Three trade routes,
Two asteroids,
And the saucer of the good ship Hood.

On the eleventh hour of Day One the Klingons took from me
Eleven warning stations,
Ten remote bases,
Nine Marine squadrons,
Eight frigates fighting,
Seven cruisers cruising,
Six battle stations,
Five colonies,
Four ground bases,
Three trade routes,
Two asteroids,
And the saucer of the good ship Hood.

On the twelfth hour of Day One the Klingons took from me
Twelve POLs policing,
Eleven warning stations,
Ten remote bases,
Nine Marine squadrons,
Eight frigates fighting,
Seven cruisers cruising,
Six battle stations,
Five colonies,
Four ground bases,
Three trade routes,
Two asteroids,
And the saucer of the good ship Hood.

Please note this is NOT historically accurate. To find the true toll of Day One, read "A Call to Arms" in Captain’s Log #44.

© copyright 2011 by Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc.

HOW NOT TO GET INTO THE GAME BUSINESS

2011-12-08T08:39:00.001-06:00

Defining Victory Then, and Now

2011-12-07T11:33:00.002-06:00

This is Steven Petrick posting.

Today, as most of you are aware, is the 70th anniversary of the incident which brought the United States of America fully into World War II.

It is not the day that the first Americans died in that war, or the first day that Americans returned fire against our then enemies.

I can use word here, names in fact, that will have no meaning to most of you.

The USS Panay in the Pacific theater.

The USS Reuben James in the Atlantic theater.

Americans were dying in the war even before Pearl Harbor.

It was not any different leading up to 9/11/01.

Al Qaida was killing Americans long before they commandeered four jet liners to kill more Americans in a single day than died at Pearl Harbor.

We actually defeated our enemies in World War II, albeit with a lot of help (the truth is that the German ground forces were ultimately ground up and destroyed in the Soviet Union, at a terrible cost in lives to the people of the then Russian empire). Even if, even then, we settled for less than our stated goal of total victory (Hirohito got to remain on the throne and was not tried for his actual involvement in getting the ball rolling).

In this modern time we are "declaring victory" and pulling out of the war zones. As might be expected, the numbers of attacks by our real enemies picked up in those war zones so that they can also "declare victory."

The meme in the muslim world will not be that the United States, or the West in General, defeated Al Qaida or the Taliban, but that the Holy Warriors proved unconquerable and the United States blinked in the face of their dauntless courage and fled.

That it took more than a decade for victory to be awarded to Al Qaida and the Taliban will be seen as irrelevant.

That it may take them another decade before they can launch attacks in the West and against the United States is irrelevant.

God is on their side (just ask them), and the infidels are already in retreat.

Star Fleet Universe Wallpapers

2011-12-06T11:27:00.000-06:00

This Week at ADB, Inc., 27 November - 3 December 2011

2011-12-05T14:10:00.002-06:00

Steve Cole reports:

This was theoretically the final week of working on Captain's Log #44, although as Saturday evening drew to a close we lacked a page coming from an outside author, half a page of unresolved F&E Q&A, term paper ranks, and some graphics. The weather this week was cold, often freezing at night. The spam storm mostly remained at well over 200 per day.

New on e23 this week was Module E3 Triangulum Galaxy.

Steve Cole worked mostly on Captain's Log #44, working to midnight most nights. He found time for some other projects, including a meeting to help the Kyocera dealer with social media marketing, creating a Star Fleet Alert, a three-hour visit with his dentist, and sending Boosters 31-32-33 to press.

Steven Petrick worked on mostly on Captain's Log #44, although he finished creating his pages early in the week and focused on proofreading pages others had created. He actually did a substantial amount of work on Captain's Log #45.

Leanna kept orders and accounting up to date, working with Mongoose to coordinate the wholesaler billing for the joint venture releases.

Mike kept orders going out, rebuilt the inventory, sent out the alert, and managed customer service.

Joel did website updates, chased pirates, and helped Mike.

Jean managed our page on Facebook (which is up to 1,054 friends), proofread Boosters 31-32-33 and Captain's Log #44 (and wrote a bit of what is in it), and did some marketing.

RANDOM THOUGHTS #68

2011-12-04T22:35:00.002-06:00

Steve Cole muses: Just thinking to himself.

1. Being a success is a matter of defining goals. If your only goal is to show up at the office with a pulse, you can still be a genius when you achieve your goal.

2. I finally got to see the first episode of GRIMM and found it very entertaining. It's basically a rehash of Buffy with some more realistic combat and a couple of ideas borrowed from Charmed. (Some would say it's darker.)

3. The Gold Mining Morons are back in Alaska for another season of trying to find, well, gold. I know that my health could not stand the trip, but gosh, I wish I were with them! Being an engineer, and a successful business owner and military unit leader, I suspect I could set them right and point out some logical flaws in their plans. Leanna would never have let them miss a lease payment.

4. In a recent conversation, a friend who is a skilled tradesman remarked that times were tight and he wished that Company A would pay him for the work he had done. I asked him when was the last time he had asked them for payment, and he said he had never talked to them. This sent up a curious eyebrow, and he said that the original work order had come from Company B, which had paid half of the bill up front, but told him that Company A would pay the other half on completion. Repeated contacts with Company B had yet to produce any reason why Company A had not mailed a check.

I pointed out that he should never have undertaken the work without talking to Company A, seeing as how they were going to pay for half of it. (Just a friendly "nice to be working for you great guys" note would have been sufficient to trigger a response that would have signaled go-ahead or ask more questions.) He said that this wasn't necessary as both companies were highly respected local businesses that had a reputation for always paying their bills. I pointed out that, obviously, something was wrong, and pushed him to contact company A. He whipped out his smart phone, looked up their number, and contacted them.

Turns out, Company A had been trying to contact him, but not to find out where to send the check. It seems that the work was part of a deal that Company A and Company B were negotiating, but the negotiations were never finished and the deal is currently more or less dead (meaning that the work my friend did will never be used). Company A pointed out that as it had never signed the contract, had never authorized the work, and the work was not satisfactory, it was not actually obligated to pay him at all. Company A suggested that since Company B had told him to do the work, he should look to Company B for the other half of his payment. (Even if the work was not needed, Company B, alone, had entered into the verbal contract for it to be done. Company B had no authority to bind Company A to a contract.)

A few more increasingly upsetting phone calls, and more information came out. Company B had not told Company A that my friend had been hired until the work was complete. Company A said that if they had been asked before the work had been started, they would have pointed out some unusual special requirements (which my friend was never told about). Even if the contract were to be signed now, the work has been wasted and would have to be done over. (As Company B did not communicate the special requirements, Company A says Company B should pay. Company B says that Company A never told them there were any special requirements. Company A says it would have brought these up if Company B had done what the unsigned draft contract required and consult them before any outside contractors were hired.)

This sent up another red flag for me. Where there other outside contractors that Company B had (in their enthusiasm for the project) hired before the deal was signed? It wasn't my job to get involved in this, but I suggested a few lines of inquiry and it developed that there were three more people, hired, by Company B with the understanding that Company A would pay some percentage of the bill (in one case, all of it). All three of these people had done some things (ordering materials that might or might not be usable elsewhere). I'd say that Company B can expect to spend some time in small claims court after a judge tells the contractors (including my friend, who still won't believe it) that Company A never had a contract with them.

PLAY ON-LINE

2011-12-03T22:31:00.001-06:00

"Here Come Andro Ships"

2011-12-02T07:49:00.000-06:00

Here come Andro ships!
Here come Andro ships!
Using their RTNs!
Mambas and Pythons and their motherships
Are filling panels again.
Ships are shooting, Marines boarding;
Displacements left and right.
Prep your photons and fire your phasers
‘Cause Andros fight tonight.

Here come Andro ships!
Here come Andro ships!
Using their RTNs!
They’ve got motherships filled with other ships
With their panels empty again.
Feel your ship go somewhere diff’rent –-
What a dreadful sight!
H-E-T, don’t fail me now
‘Cause Andros fight tonight.

-- filked by Jean Sexton

Copyright (c) 2011 by Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc.

RANDOM THOUGHTS #67

2011-12-01T15:47:00.002-06:00

Steve Cole muses: Just thinking to himself about the verbal RPGs which he and Steven Petrick play to amuse themselves during exercise walks or sometimes during dinner.

1. The best one is the RPG Die In Place. These are always campaigns, and take two weeks to six months to play out. SPP plays the leader character, while SVC is the GM and handles the extensive cast of up to 30 NPCs. The overall situation can being inspired by a movie or TV show or be made up out of whole cloth.

Over time, Steve Petrick has played:

A. A tank colonel in Vietnam. This was first one, nearly 20 years ago, and went on for a year. In a climactic final battle, Colonel Petrick had to lead a bayonet charge to break through the final NVA trap and save his trapped command during the Tet Offensive. One NPC, the young Lieutenant Castle, won the Medal of Honor and later came to visit Petrick in the old soldier's home.

B. The second-in-command of a survivor group during a Zombie Apocalypse. This campaign was repeated later when a different Petrick was told to take his battalion of paratroops and go secure a remote island as a final bastion of humanity.

C. The commander of an Army battalion in Iraq when the US homeland was suddenly wrecked by terrorists using over 40 nuclear weapons. He had to fight his way out through the desert, trying to reach an intact US base in Kuwait.

D. A poor infantry captain stuck commanding an engineer company (with lieutenants and sergeants played by members of the Star Fleet Staff and various SFB players). Lieutenant Ken Burnside kept breaking the rock-crushing machine by trying to do too much during his shift, leaving Lieutenant Andy Palmer to clean up the mess during the next shift.

E. An advisor to a Mayapultpec rebel group trying to win independence from Mexico.

F. On a trip to EuroGencon, a lightning bolt struck the airliner. When the lights flickered, Steven Petrick found himself on a planeload of Army Reserve officers being sent to a war in Europe in an alternate timeline. The US Army was desperately patching together units to stop the onslaught of the Nazi Germans (who had survived the stalemated end of WW2 and were trying to invade France again). In this episode, Gilbert Gottfried was Petricik's executive officer!

And many other roles including peacekeeping in Africa, defending a lonely Iraqi hill from an Iranian invasion, a campaign in purgatory where he was (literally) fighting demons of various colors, and more.

In one very elaborate campaign, the roles were reversed, with Steve Cole playing a reserve engineer captain called up for Korean War II (under the command of Major Hillary Clinton) while Steven Petrick was the sadistic Gamemaster.

2. Time travel: These are usually one-time dinner discussions and are not so much RPGs as they are practical problem-solving discussions. One Steve will travel back in time with a limited number of modern weapons (and sometimes but not always soldiers trained to use them) and be told to win a battle someone lost.

A. One such battle involved Steven Petrick, alone but with a sniper rifle, at the Battle of Bladensburg, the last chance to stop the redcoats from burning Washington.

B. A recent discussion gave either Steve the mission to arrive on June 1st, 1863, and win the Civil War for the south. The choice was one M1A2 tank, one F16C fighter, or one AH64D helicopter (with perfect maintenance, a maintenance crew, unlimited stockpiles of ammunition, and a vehicle crew). Steven Petick wanted the AH64D, since it could cover wide areas, hover, support troops, and so forth. With it, he planned to sink Farragut's fleet (saving Vicksburg), knock out key bridges feeding all of the Union armies, and wreck Washington DC. (I thought he was going to have a hard time sinking warships or wrecking buildings with anti-tank missiles, but he thought he could make it work. I also thought that, sooner or later, someone was going to hit the hovering AH64D with a lucky cannon ball.) Steve Cole (me) picked the F16C, noting that by carefully picking a central location, he could sink Farragut's fleet with laser-guided bombs, wreck the bridges feeding Rosecran's drive from Nashville to Atlanta, keep Meade from bothering Lee all that much, AND pound Washington DC into submission.

Several trips have gone to the Alamo (or Rorke's Drift, or Custer's Last Stand), with various small quantities of modern weapons. The Custer episode in which Petrick's cavalry troop rode into battle on Harley motorcycles was especially fun.

3. One of the briefest games is to nominate two military leaders for an appearance on Deadliest Warrior. They must be historical, fairly well known, and a technological match. (Patton would have no problem defeating Attilla the Hun, giving the disparity between a Sherman tank and a few horses and swords.)

In Praise of Our Volunteers

2011-11-30T08:22:00.000-06:00

The adventure game (wargame+roleplaying game) industry is a small one, and there isn't the kind of money inside of it that other industries have. The industry consists of creative game designers willing to work 60 hours a week for half the pay they could command outside the game industry, all because they get to BE game designers.

Even at that, the only way the game industry survives is by the hard labor of unpaid volunteers who (for honor, glory, and rarely some free games) provide no end of valuable services to game publishers.

Mike West answers rules questions on Federation Commander. Mike Curtis does the same thing for Federation & Empire, Jonathan Thompson and Jean Sexton for Prime Directive PD20 and PD20M, Gary Plana for GURPS Prime Directive, Richard Sherman for Star Fleet Battle Force, and Andy Vancil for Star Fleet Battles.

Frank Brooks runs the Play-by-Email system as a volunteer. Paul Franz charges barely enough for the On-Line game system (for SFB and FC) to pay the server costs. Bob Pomroy does made-to-order decals for our Starline miniatures at a cost that barely covers his costs.

Federation & Empire would not exist without Chuck Strong (a real-world colonel from Space Command) in charge of the overall game system. He keeps his staff (Mike Curtis, Ryan Opel, Scott Tenhoff, Thomas Mathews, and Stew Frazier) busy moving projects forward.

Very little would get done on any of our games except for the Playtest Battle Labs run by Scott Moellmer in Colorado and by Mike Curtis and Tony Thomas in Tennessee. And all of the other playtesters are invaluable to us.

We have other staffers who do specific things (and sometimes a wide variety of things) for us including Jean Sexton (Vice President of Proofreading and Product Professionalization); John Berg and Mike Incavo (Galactic Conquest Campaign); Daniel Kast (Klingon Armada); and John Sickels, Matthew Francois, Jonathan Thompson, and Loren Knight (Prime Directive). Some vital part of the product line would grind to a halt without each one of them.

Added to this list are hundreds of others who, during any given month, by Email or BBS or Forum, contribute in some way to the company and its product line. They may report a glitch in an existing product, playtest a product in development, suggest a new product, point out something another company is doing what we may want to take a look at emulating, look up a rules reference for another player, report on somebody who using our property improperly, comment on a posted draft of a new rule, or simply ask a question nobody else ever dared to ask.

Many years ago, we began awarding medals, ribbons, and other "decorations" to staffers and others who contributed to each product, and some other projects. These awards not only recognize those who contributed to the various projects, but encouraged others to begin making their contributions to future projects. We have created the Wall of Honor at http://starfleetgames.com/ArtGallery/Wall%20of%20Honor.shtml. This is a tribute to over 30 years of volunteer work. We hope you visit it to say thanks to all the volunteers and their efforts.

Opportunities to Show Your Skill

2011-11-29T21:50:00.005-06:00

This is Steven Petrick Posting.

We have lots of opportunities to be published in Captain's Log, but many people are not aware of them.

For example, Daniel Kast's Starmada system has pages in Captain's Log, usually for new ships. But that does not mean someone who is familiar with his system could not assemble a primer on how to play it, or submit tactical articles on how to conduct combat. Same concept as term papers and command notes. Of course these would have to be about his system in our universe.

With A Call to Arms Star Fleet there are more opportunities to write tactics articles and primers on how to play.

Seriously, there are probably papers waiting to be written on SFB Online and FC Online, not to mention Warlord.

The opportunities are there to teach not just your opponents, but players all across the world your own tactical insights, and in so doing raise the skill levels of your opponents.

This Week at ADB, Inc., 20-26 November 2011

2011-11-28T08:17:00.002-06:00

Steve Cole reports:

This was a week for giving thanks (what with Thanksgiving on Thursday and all) and the first of the last two weeks of Captain's Log #44. This meant that normal days (long hours and working half of Sunday and several hours on Thanksgiving) resumed. The weather this week was cool, sometimes cold, but never quite freezing. The spam storm mostly remained at just over 200 per day. Leanna cooked a full turkey dinner for both Steves and Joel.

Nothing new went on e23 this week but let us get past Captain's Log #44 and we'll resume a normal measured pace.

We did, at least, get the new Mongoose products, Captain's Log #44, SFB Module E3, and Boosters 31-32-33 on the shopping cart.

We got word that Federation Commander had won the Gaming Genius fan award for best space game.

Two customers (David, Eric) stopped in for a visit on Wednesday. They weren't together, each was going to visit family in different directions. Funny that we get maybe five or six drop in visitors per year and had two on the same day!

Steve Cole worked mostly on Captain's Log #44 this week. At the end of the week, it was exactly 70% finished. Steve found time to do a Tholian DDS scout for someone's campaign; it will be in Communique #72.

Steven Petrick worked on the last of his pages of Captain's Log #44, and began the long process of proofreading what everyone else did (and what SVC did to what SPP did).

Leanna kept orders and accounting up to date.

Mike kept orders going out, rebuilt the inventory, and managed customer service.

Joel did website updates, chased pirates, and helped Mike.

Jean managed our page on Facebook (which is up to 1043 friends), proofread Captain's Log #44, and did some marketing.

Got Any Marketing Ideas?

2011-11-27T16:11:00.000-06:00

JOIN US ON FACEBOOK

2011-11-26T10:52:00.001-06:00

WHAT TO DO ON A DATE

2011-11-25T08:48:00.002-06:00

Here is what you can expect on a date with a suitable member of any of the SFB species.

Federation: Make First Contact.
Klingon: Go dancing. Saber dancing.
Romulan: Attend the submarine races.
Kzintis: Heavy petting.
Gorn: First attend the ballet, then just hold you close.
Tholian: Attend a Rock Concert.
Orions: They will steal your heart.
Hydrans: Just want to hold you close.
Lyrans: Heavy petting.
WYNs: Stay home and watch the house. Burglars, you know.
ISC: Attend an anti-war rally.
Seltorian: Attend a Beatles concert.

Thanks to Mark Kuyper, Timothy Steeves-Walton, Andy Palmer, Sandy Hemenway. This originally appeared in Captain's Log #20. (c) copyright by Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc.

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-11-24T06:24:00.002-06:00

Jean Sexton writes:

We at Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc. would like to wish you and yours a happy Thanksgiving today. Our thoughts today are perhaps best expressed by John F. Kennedy in his 1962 proclamation.

Over three centuries ago in Plymouth, on Massachusetts Bay, the Pilgrims established the custom of gathering together each year to express their gratitude to God for the preservation of their community and for the harvests their labors brought forth in the new land. Joining with their neighbors, they shared together and worshipped together in a common giving of thanks. Thanksgiving Day has ever since been part of the fabric which has united Americans with their past, with each and with the future of all mankind. It is fitting that we observe this year our own day of thanksgiving. It is fitting that we give our thanks for the safety of our land, for the fertility of our harvests, for the strength of our liberties, for the health of our people. We do so in no spirit of self-righteousness. We recognize that we are the beneficiaries of the toil and devotion of our fathers and that we can pass their legacy on to our children only by equal toil and equal devotion. We recognize too that we live in a world of peril and change -- and in so uncertain a time we are all the more grateful for the indestructible gifts of hope and love, which sustain us in adversity and inspire us to labor unceasingly for a more perfect community within this nation and around the earth.

++

In this world, may you find the gifts of hope and love.

Captain's Log #44 and Thanks

2011-11-23T17:15:00.002-06:00

This is Steven Petrick posting.

Work continues apace on Captain's Log #44. SVC is often overloaded with work, a lot of what I do is proofreading and checking things he is doing, which takes away time from my own projects. Fortunately for me, a lot of my projects are things that can be done over time. Thus, for example, the battle groups were all collected, read, formatted, corrected, and laid out in advance. Term papers, tactical notes and command notes were culled from their topics before they were needed (although I got lazy this time around and did not send them to the graders as early as I normally do). Much work had already been done on the Monster article, and really the draft SSDs had been done almost before Origins (if memory serves). And I had time to work on the scenario file for this Captain's Log. We are going to try to run a few Galactic Conquest term papers this time around, and those went out for grading very late, and I am grateful the graders, many first timers in this case, responded so quickly.

I still have things to fix (mostly corrections to SSDs), and a brand new scenario to write, as well as ship descriptions for the selected SSDs.

On top of all that, I need to start working on the next Captain's Log now, so that as much of what I can do is done beforehand. That includes creating a new instruction sheet for the "battle groups" article, and working on Monster Article #17, which will be a little difficult as SVC and I will have to literally choose the next monster [the last sequential Monster Scenario was (SM18.0) in this Captain's Log], so I do not know if it will be "the Intruder" (SG31.0), or "The Juggernaut" (SL1.0) [which would have to include data on the subsequent incarnations from at least three other scenarios where a Juggernaut, or Juggernauts in the case of "Fire in the Deep" (SL288.0)]appeared, or Mulakee (SL154.0), The Base (SL145.0), The Orb (SL192.0), or the Space Manta from a recent Captain's Log. We also have two "playtest monsters" to consider [Sharks (SP367.0), and the Crab (SP283.0)]. Whatever we choose, there is a lot of effort on my part included in it, and the months between now and Captain's Log #45 will give me time to do it, and then revisit it several times to try to make sure I covered everything appropriately.

I can at least hand over large blocks of pages to SVC when the time comes which makes the stress of getting Captain's Log done a little easier on him.

But most of it cannot be done without input from you guys. Scenarios, term papers (whether Star Fleet Battles or Galactic Conquest ones), tactical notes, command notes, even fiction, background articles, tactical primers, and lots more is all stuff we need from you, our players. That you have supported us in this so far is just one of the many things we will have to give thanks for on the morrow.

Playing Star Fleet Universe Games Long Distance

2011-11-22T08:06:00.001-06:00

This Week at ADB, Inc., 13-19 November 2011

2011-11-21T06:53:00.002-06:00

Steve Cole reports:

This was the first week dedicated to Captain's Log #44; it will take three to finish it. The weather this week was cool, sometimes cold. The spam storm mostly remained at just under 300 per day. A plague went through the office, taking out SVC on Monday, Mike on Tuesday, Leanna on Friday, and SPP on Saturday.

Nothing new went on e23 this week.

Steve Cole worked mostly on Captain's Log #44, but he also set up the file for Communique #72, updated the S3.3 download file, and finished the Captain's Log countersheet,

Steven Petrick worked mostly on Captain's Log #44 and updated the first of the R3 SSDs.

Leanna kept orders and accounting up to date.

Mike kept orders going out, rebuilt the inventory, and managed customer service.

Joel did website updates, chased a lot of pirates (there has been a massive outbreak this week), and helped Mike.

Jean managed our page on Facebook (which is up to 1037 friends), proofread Captain's Log #44 pages, and did some marketing and customer service.

We had the staff meeting on Thursday so Tascosa High School intern Charles Diaz could attend. We decided to raise the flat fee shipping to $10 as of 1 Jan 12 as we're already losing over $2 per box and UPS is going up again. The meeting put Joel in charge of riding herd on our outside artists.

Lights! Cameras! The SFU Hits YouTube!

2011-11-20T20:40:00.000-06:00

RANDOM THOUGHTS #66

2011-11-19T07:53:00.000-06:00

Steve Cole muses: Just thinking to himself about the curious origins of common words:

1. Butcher, the guy who cuts up meat in the grocery story, originated as bochier, a man who slaughtered goats and sold the meat. The first part (boc) was the word for he-goat (the females were kept for milk and breeding) and later became the English word "buck" for a male deer.

2. Cab, short for taxicab, is itself short for the French word cabriolet, which means a prancing young goat. This word was applied to a two-wheeled horse-drawn carriage, which (because of the heavy springs from a cargo wagon) bounced around a lot. The carriage arrived in England in 1800 and had been contracted to cab by 1825. By 1832, a man named Hansom had designed a better version for the carriage, which was known as the Hansom cab. Later (but still before internal combustion engines were invented) such carriages were offered for hire in Paris and a device called a taximeter would be used to "tax" the number of "meters" which the carriage traveled. The result was the taximeter cabriolet (the French still used the long form) and this was quickly adopted in London as the taximeter cab (charging by fractions of a mile). This was shorted to taxicab by the time internal combustion engines replaced horses.

3. Cabal, or a secret group involved in a conspiracy, actually comes from Cabala, the occult Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament. The word would never have reached English ears except that someone noticed that the five principle cabinet ministers of the English King Charles II were Clifford, Ashley, Buckingham, Arlington, and Lauderdale, and some editorialist combined that into "cabal" because they secretly signed a treaty with France without permission of Parliament in 1672.

4. Cabbage, a leafy vegetable, came from the French caboche (and the Latin caput, both of which mean the head of a human or another animal). It gets better. In the 1600s, rich people would buy a bolt of expensive cloth and hire a tailor to make them a garment. The scraps of expensive cloth (rightfully the property of the rich client) would be kept by the tailor, who used them as accents or details of cheaper garments. The pile of such scraps resembled a pile of cabbage leaves, and the word "to cabbage" became a form of "to steal" but also was frequently misspelled as garbage and that's where THAT word comes from.

5. Cad, a disreputable scoundrel, goes back to the French word cadet, which meant the younger son (or brother) of a nobleman. Thus the "cadet branch of the family" was the relatively poor cousins who did not inherit the land, title, or money. As the younger sons often went into the military (the only profession where they did not lose social status), a general might be surrounded by the (barely old enough to shave) sons of various rich noble bigshots. Being educated, these sons were somewhat useful around headquarters as clerks, messengers, or doing odd jobs. Other officers referred to them as "the cadets" which meant "the surplus children of big shots" who had no commissions and got no pay, and subsisted on money from home and tips from officers for whom they did small services. They learned the art of war and were (after a few years) commissioned and sent to command companies of troops. (In America, which had no nobility, the term was applied to officer trainees selected to attend the prestigious military academy at West Point. From there, that meaning of the term returned to Britain and France. The Germans continue to use the term aspirant instead of cadet.) The British mispronounced the term as caddie, which then came to mean an unemployed young man who could dress and speak well and was always looking for a job (while waiting for a career opportunity), such as carrying a gentleman's golf clubs. The young students who hung around Oxford looking for such jobs were then called cads, and in time, the term spread to any young man on the lookout for any opportunity, and was applied to individuals of lower social standings. (The term might well be applied to young men today who join street gangs.)

6. Cadre, a small group of officers and senior sergeants around which a entire new unit might be built, comes from the French cadre, which meant a picture frame or some other framework. It goes back to quadrum, a Latin word for any four-sided object such as a square or rectangle.

7. Cajole, to harass, coax, or encourage someone, came from the French Cajoler, which means to babble. It had an earlier meaning of to wheedle, which is more or less the same as cajole.

8. Cake, something from a bakery, is an old Scottish word intended to be distinguished from a loaf. A loaf was rectangular, fluffy, and rose in a pan, while a cake was flat, round, hard, and was turned over during cooking (e.g., pancake). In general use, a loaf didn't travel as well and was eaten at home, while a cake was harder and could be carried on a journey. English travelers discovered the things and told their home bakers, who decided to experiment, adding spices, sugar, and (eventually) the same yeast or soda they used in bread.

9. Calculate, to determine an answer by mathematics, is the Latin word for pebble. The ancient Greeks had a counting system based on small beads on a counting board called the abax. The Romans copied this as their abacus, but their counting board and a series of small troughs that held pebbles.

10. Calico, a cotton cloth with a printed pattern (or the pattern itself) comes from Calicut, the Indian city which produced cotton cloth for British markets. (This is a different city from Calcutta, by the way.)

AN ENEMY IS AN ENEMY

2011-11-18T07:48:00.001-06:00

The Captain of the Federation Survey Cruiser Lewis & Clark reported back to Starbase 26 after a five-year mission in the off-map region.

"Admiral, we have won great glory in our war with our enemies in the galactic core. We have bombarded their planets, destroyed their freighters, harassed their bases, and mined their supply routes."

"But Captain," the Admiral pointed out, "the Federation doesn't have any enemies in the galactic core region."

"We do now!"

Thanks to Robert Herneson. This originally appeared in Captain's Log #20. (c) copyright by Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc.

How to Find Opponents

2011-11-17T09:15:00.001-06:00

The Account is Always Settled in Blood

2011-11-16T18:47:00.004-06:00

This is Steven Petrick posting.

There were a lot of things I learned while growing up and serving in the military. Some of them still haunt me from time to time. One of these is the "nightmare of combat command." When you are not in command, and you make a mistake, well you tend to pay for your mistake right then and there. You get killed, maybe you have the heartbreak of having a few comrades lose their lives with you, or sometimes a few of your friends pay for your mistake and you get to walk away.

When you are in a combat command it often becomes very different and much worse. When you are in a combat command, you often have the "luxury" of trying to redeem your error. The problem is that often the only way you can redeem the error is by spending blood, the blood of the men entrusted to your command. If you failed to occupy a hill (such as Cemetery Hill at Gettysburg), then to redeem the battle you may be sending troops to attack that hill again and again. This can happen in a battle (as did happen at Gettysburg), but sometimes it is just a matter that you, as the Commander, did not think a piece of ground important, until the enemy occupied it and suddenly you discover that it enfilades your line. Sometimes you think a piece of ground is perhaps more important than it is, and your decision to occupy it puts your men out of position, such as happened to the Union 3rd Corps under Dan Sickles the second day of Gettysburg. Sickles's men paid a heavy price.

Sometimes your mistakes are forced by an enemy. A series of "fixing attacks" launched by an enemy at your strong defensive position may hold your attention while he maneuvers to hit a flank you have failed to realize is exposed because the enemy is attacking where you thought he would. Maybe you know the flank is exposed and due to the repeated attacks you fail to issue the orders to cover the position. Or maybe you just get so wound up in your own genius attacking an enemy position that you discount the reports of your subordinates that another enemy force is advancing on your flank, as happened to General Pope at Second Manassas.

Any time you make a mistake when you are a combat commander, at some point the bill is going to come due in the form of the blood of the men entrusted to your command. Whether the mistake was due to your own neglect, or due to an enemy who managed to show you what you wanted to see until it was too late, or due to an enemy who pulled the magician's trick of waving his right hand in your face while his left plunged the dagger into your back.

It is very easy to see what we want to see, to interpret data as what we expect. At Chancellorsville Hooker was told of the Confederate troops moving towards his right, but interpreted the movement as a retreat, and did not even issue warnings to his right flank which he thought anchored on impenetrable terrain. At Shiloh Courthouse the Union soldiers were aware that Confederate troops were maneuvering to their front, but were still taken completely by surprise by the sudden assault. Their commander's had misinterpreted the movements and failed to entrench their men and set up security. Disaster was only narrowly averted and among the losses was General Prentiss's entire Union division, forced to surrender in the "Hornet's Nest."

Cardboard does not bleed, and however real the graphics may seem in your computer game, it is not real blood and guts splattering about. Keep in mind that in the real world there are real commanders doing all they can to limit the bill their men will pay, to take the lessons of history and of the commander's who have gone before them to keep the bills that must be paid as low as possible. General Lee was known as "The King of Spades" because he made his men dig in when they defended a position, because sweat is much cheaper than blood. As a Commander, you have to learn to press the men hard so that when the enemy comes they are ready, and you have not made mistakes by being lax, not occupying the hill because you wanted to give the men a rest and letting the enemy get there first.

Because, when the time comes in the real world and real combat, all accounts are settled in blood.

Free Stuff for Star Fleet Universe Players!

2011-11-15T08:25:00.001-06:00

This Week at ADB, Inc., 6-12 November 2011

2011-11-14T08:25:00.001-06:00

Steve Cole reports:

This was a calm week as work on Captain's Log #44 proceeded while the final approvals for ACTASF/2500 production were completed. The weather this week was cool, 40F-50F. The spam storm mostly remained at just over 200 per day. We all breathed a sigh of relief on Tuesday when that asteroid missed Earth.

New on e23 this week were the R4 SSD book and Captain's Log #16.

Steve Cole worked mostly on Captain's Log #44 stuff, posting his provisional Third Fleet order of battle and getting some help hunting down the final ships. He found time for some other projects, including the completion of Hailing Frequencies and Communique, wrote reserve blogs, worked on that Captain's Log countersheet, did a minor proofread of the ancient S3.3 rules and posted them, and helped Leanna do a major clean-out of junk boxes that had accumulated in the conference room over two years (mostly, he just kept Leanna from throwing it all away without sorting it first).

Steven Petrick worked on Captain's Log #44 items (term papers, scenarios, LDR class history), updated the S3.3 rules (for next week), did some order of battle research for SVC, and wrote a blog.

Leanna kept orders and accounting up to date. She is closing out the Zocchi plastic bookkeeping and put 144 clear plastic Fed DNs on sale, selling 50 of them in 3 days.

Mike kept orders going out, rebuilt the inventory, and managed customer service.

Joel did website updates, chased pirates, helped Mike, and supervised Charles Diaz, our internet from Tascosa High School. SVC took Joel, Mike, and Charles on a tour of Whitney Russell printers (which does much of our color printing).

Jean managed our page on Facebook (which is up to 1020 friends), proofread things, wrote a blog entry, and did some marketing.

RANDOM THOUGHTS #65

2011-11-13T22:57:00.002-06:00

Steve Cole muses: Just thinking to himself.

1. One case study in business school was about a partner who put a quarter million dollars into a business she knew nothing about, got 49% ownership, and worked full time for $2000 a month. Her partner invested no money, owned 51%, and worked full time for $8,000 a month. He was supposed to "run" the business but actually only looked after his own customers and did not supervise the employees, who had gotten lazy and unprofessional and did poor quality service. This lost customers so the overall business was losing money. No wonder this business was dysfunctional.

2. According to Bucky Katt, Batman is the evolutionary link between bats and humans.

3. I was watching one of the survival TV shows the other day, the one with the Green Beret and his British wife. Their usual plan is to get out of immediate danger, spend a day getting water and food, then get rescued. This time (on the volcano-devastated island of Montserrat) they decided to build a spark transmitter and hope somebody heard SOS. As they had already seen a helicopter go by (perhaps tourists) I don't know why they did not do the obvious (gather up junk and spell out HELP on an open grass field). For that matter, if the scenario (tourist boat sinks and tourists swim to shore in the devastated zone) happens now and then, I would think that the local government would do something. (Perhaps put signs up telling anyone stranded to stay put by the sign and get spotted in a day or two by a routine patrol. They could stock water, food, and first aid supplies by each sign.)

4. New TV show: Le Sabot Nikita. It's the height of the Cold War, but nobody knows that Nikita Khrushchev (played by Drew Carey) is in fact a CIA spy. Watch as Nikita conducts secret missions inside the Kremlin to get President Jack Kennedy (played by Nathan Fillion) the information he needs to prevent a global disaster. Nikita is constantly being thwarted by Brezhnev and Kosygin (played by Penn and Teller).

5. I was so disgusted with the end of Warehouse 13 that I may never watch it again. Why do the moronic writers think that they have to "shock" the audience by destroying everything (and the loveable H. G. Wells)? So I guess next season will be called Warehouse 14?

6. I feel like I am getting the hang of this marketing thing. Jean asked Mongoose to do a video of ACTASF playtesting, and he said he wouldn't have time. It instantly occurred to me to ask Tony Thomas (the one SFB-FC team testing ACTASF) if he could throw together a quick video, and he said he would.

7. Australia decided that it would use submarines, not frigates, as its primary warship type. The problem with that plan is that submarines cost a lot more to operate than frigates, and sailors just do NOT like serving aboard submarines. (Subs are cramped and the crews are overworked. Then there is that being cooped up for weeks thing.)

8. I had a ton of fun at the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary fundraising party on 22 October. As Chef Steve, I prepare the buffet, giving each wolf a pumpkin filled with a pound of beef heart, a pound of beef liver, two pounds of beef kidney, and a pound of hamburger (mixed with vitamin supplements and other things good for wolves). I got to do a presentation about wolves, diets, hunting strategies, and pack organization which was well received.

Exploring Excellent Ebooks

2011-11-12T07:57:00.000-06:00

On Veterans Day 2011

2011-11-11T07:45:00.002-06:00

Jean Sexton writes:

Veterans Day has been on my mind for a bit. I read a newspaper article about an archaeological dig at Gallipoli. It seemed odd to think about that sort of activity on a site that was relatively recent compared to archaeological sites one usually reads about. However, it reminded me of the World War I roots of Veterans Day.

It disturbs me that this day seems to be skipped over in the rush to get to Thanksgiving and Christmas. There is a cartoon circulating on the social networks that reminds us that if it were not for our veterans, we might have more difficulty celebrating these holidays. That is true in so many ways.

I am fortunate to work for a company that honors and respects the men and women who have given of their time and lives to serve this country and to keep her safe. I also count myself fortunate to have become friends with so many of those people who have such a high level of integrity and honor. They challenge me to live my life each day in such a way as to be worthy of their protection of us all.

Today I wish to pause and thank the veterans on behalf of Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc. and me. We appreciate you for what you have done and what you were willing to do. Thank you. In addition, we thank your families who have also given so much.

We challenge all of our readers to take the time to thank the people who kept and keep you and yours safe.

HAILING FREQUENCIES AND COMMUNIQUE RELEASED

2011-11-10T16:21:00.000-06:00

Star Fleet Universe Wallpapers

2011-11-09T08:11:00.001-06:00

Some Comments on Scenario Submissions

2011-11-08T18:22:00.003-06:00

This is Steven Petrick Posting.

Today I started work on processing scenario submissions for Captain's Log.

One of the frequent problems is authors who feel that their submission is "the key event on which the entire fate of the General War" or at least "the fate of the Federal Republic of Aurora" or "The reason the Magellanics failed to stop the Andromedans."

Not every scenario needs to be the critical pivotal event.

All a scenario needs to be is interesting.

They do not need to be introductions for a special ship (or a specially modified ship that is the submitter's own personal ship, such as an Orion ship that has two extra weapons above and beyond every other ship of its class) that does not yet exist in the game. They should stand on their own within the existing background.

Scenarios can be based on existing backgrounds and use existing ship names from that background. Anyone reading about the Federal Republic of Aurora knows how the Klingons got there, but an author in creating a scenario does not need to decide that he will determine the fate of the ships. In so doing, he has (however unintentionally) closed the door on a potential campaign. The Klingon ships might have had a number of adventures and resulting in several battles before the survivors returned to Aurora. Doing one scenario as the whole story of their anabasis in the Omega Octant is something of a waste. It deserves more thought, and yes, an outline of the campaign should be sent before it is written.

Many years ago I created an Orion pirate campaign. I have asked others to create a new one with little success (some have tried, but have never reached the point of trying to submit it). My campaign was a simpler one, if only because "the times were simpler." There were no ducktails or skids, and the possible encounters were limited to freighters, armed freighters, Q-Ships, Free Traders, Armed Priority Transports, Federation Expresses, and large ore carriers (it was the 1980s). Things have changed. An Orion campaign should start with a small ship (in my opinion) and a set number of scenarios, some of which will be boring by their nature, but with a constant chance that the freighter being jumped is a Q-ship, and a variable time for when "the police" will arrive (and perhaps some variable on what the police ship is, other than "empire specific"). Maybe a small convoy (only need to loot one ship of course, but cutting it out of the convoy could be difficult). And of course participation in some published scenarios involving Orion ships. (Perhaps the subject of an enforcer visit, or perhaps serving as the enforcer, among others . . . there are lots of Orion scenarios). A set number of completed objectives earns promotion to a bigger ship (in the old days, LR to CR to BR to CA) and then perhaps the best Campaign player becomes the new Cartel Lord. That constant chance of tangling with a Q-ship is what keeps the Orion player "honest." In short, he should learn not to rush up on a small freighter, blown down a shield, and then just try (after lowering his own shield) to beam over boarders because the freighter might put a photon torpedo or a bolted plasma-F through it accompanied by a few phaser-1s. He should learn the correct methods of stalking and securing his prey, and doing it fast before the cops come.

This Week at ADB, Inc., 30 October - 5 November 2011

2011-11-07T07:27:00.001-06:00

Steve Cole reports:

This was a back-to-normal week. Without much to do for Mongoose, the Steves worked on our own releases. The weather this week was cold and damp. The spam storm mostly remained at just over 200 per day.

New on e23 this week is the updated SSD Book for Basic Set.

Steve Cole worked mostly on the story for Captain's Log #44. (This is something of a research project, finding everything ever mentioned about Day One and rolling it into an expanded narrative with new material. He loves writing the new stuff, but hunting down the old stuff is tedious.) He found time for some other projects, including the first Ranger Recognitions (we have a lot of backlog there), reviewing E3, reviewing the Basic Set SSD Book 2011, and writing a blog about the schedule.

Steven Petrick worked on E3, the Basic Set SSD revision, Captain's Log #44 stuff, and other projects.

Leanna kept orders and accounting up to date.

Mike kept orders going out, rebuilt the inventory, and managed customer service.

Joel did website updates, chased pirates, and helped Mike.

Jean managed our page on Facebook (which is up to 1006 friends), proofread some things, and did some marketing.

A Board of Directors meeting took a look at the 2012 schedule but no decisions have been made.

HOW NOT TO GET INTO THE GAME BUSINESS

2011-11-06T22:28:00.002-06:00

About A Call to Arms: Star Fleet

2011-11-05T22:31:00.002-05:00

Tony L. Thomas reports:

ADB, Inc.'s joint venture with Mongoose includes an entirely new game system using the A CALL TO ARMS system which Mongoose originally created for Babylon Five and has used since then for other projects including NOBLE ARMADA. This is a system designed for massed fleets and allows huge battles to be played in a single evening. A Call to Arms: Star Fleet's release is expected in November of 2011. This is a miniatures-based game (no hexes, no counters).

A Call to Arms: Star Fleet is a hexless, miniatures based game of fleet combat in the Star Fleet Universe. From small skirmishes involving single ships or small squadrons to massive fleets between rival empires, the ACTA system allows even the largest fleet battles to be fought in a single evening and the smaller skirmishes can be completed in about an hour.

ACTA: SF accomplishes this by streamlining the game system. There is no energy allocation and no "pay-as-you-go" energy tracking. Your starships move, shoot, and repeat.

Movement and fire occur once per game turn (rather than the 32 impulses in Star Fleet Battles or the 8 impulses of Federation Commander).

Seeking weapons are not placed on the board as markers and moved; they are instead treated as "quasi-direct fire weapons." Once a seeking weapon is launched, the targeted ship may fire any unfired weapons in the proper arc in defensive fire. Each successful hit will destroy and incoming drone or reduce the strength of an incoming plasma torpedo. In addition, certain Special Actions (more about those later) may enable other starships to assist in the defensive fire.

The weapons available in ACTA: SF mirror those seen in the other game of the Star Fleet Universe. Inside the rulebook, you'll find the phaser (in four flavors), photon torpedoes, disruptors, drones, and even plasma torpedoes (in five different types). Each weapon has one or more traits. Weapon traits include Accurate, Devastating, Reload, Precise, etc. Each of these traits gives a weapon a bit of an advantage or disadvantage depending on various factors such as range, terrain type, etc. These traits are what keeps the photon torpedo from behaving exactly like a disruptor and makes a phaser-1 different from a phaser-3.

Over 50 different starships are detailed in the core rulebook, covering seven starfaring empires, with a few civilian targets, err... units thrown in for good measure. The starships have their own traits (16 different ones) to differentiate them. These traits include such things as: Agile, Armored, Fast, or Scout. They also include systems such as Cloak, Labs, Stealth, and Transporter Beams.

Each turn consists of an Initiative Phase, a Movement Phase, an Attack Phase, and an End of Turn Phase.

Initiative is determined during the Initiative Phase each turn for each player.

During the Movement Phase, the player losing the initiative moves one of his starships first, then the winner moves a starship. This alternate movement is repeated until all starships have moved.

At this point, each starship may choose to undertake a Special Action. These actions include movement enhancers, such as High Energy Turn or Maximum Power to Warp, or combat enhancements (like Overload Weapons or Intensify Defensive Fire), or even allow the use of advanced technological devices such as the Cloaking Device. There are a total of 14 Special Actions from which a starship may select.

During the Attack Phase, the player who was the winner of the Initiative Phase selects one of his starships. This unit nominates a target for each of his weapons, fires those weapons, and resolves their damage. Then the player losing the Initiative Phase selects one of his starships and performs the same steps. This continues until all starships have been selected, fired, and resolved their damage.

The End of Turn Phase allows ships a chance to repair critical damage, check to see if critical damage escalates, and complete compulsory movement.

The Core Rulebook contains:

Fleet lists for the United Federation of Planets, the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Star Empire, the Kzinti Hegemony, the Confederation of the Gorn, The Tholian Holdfast, The Pirates of Orion, and several civilian shipping units.

General Scenarios that can be used for endless hours of game play.

Tactical Challenges, special missions designed to test the limits of your command abilities.

A complete campaign system.

Easy to learn, basic rules which will have you playing ACTA minutes after you open the rulebook.

Advanced rules covering all of your favorite "toys", shuttlecraft, cloaking devices, alternate firing modes for plasma torpedoes, etc.

Stay tuned for more information regarding this exciting game!

[Tony L. Thomas has recently been named the department head for ACTA:SF. He will work closely with both Mongoose and ADB to promote the game, answer questions, and help create the ACTA:SF information for Captain's Log.]

DISCLAIMERS OF THE STAR FLEET UNIVERSE, part the last

2011-11-04T08:33:00.002-05:00

On Andromedan Displacement Device:

Warning: This device may act haphazardly if used improperly; do not try this at home.

On Andromedan Tractor Beams:

Warning: Use only as directed. May cause irritability and tension when used against Federation, Klingon, Romulan, Kzinti, Hydran, Lyran, Orion, Tholian, ISC, Gorn, and just about any intra-galactic forces. For repair or replacement of damaged parts, send the defective part (postage pre-paid) back to Androma Technical Works Field Repair Shop, Starbase Desecrator-5, Andromedan Galaxy (allow 401 years for delivery, repair, and return of the damaged goods).

Thanks to Hyun Yu. This originally appeared in Captain's Log #18. (c) copyright by Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc.

PLAY ON-LINE

2011-11-03T09:18:00.001-05:00

SFB Basic Set SSD Book Update

2011-11-02T18:24:00.004-05:00

This is Steven Petrick posting.

Well, the update of the Basic Set SSD book is done. It is all assembled, SVC has paged through it and referred a matter to Jean Sexton, and the matter has been resolved and the corrections made. It will probably go to Leanna tomorrow, and show up on e23 soon after that.

What does the update entail?

Well, every ship and base has its appropriate Crawford table.

All the refits where applicable and possible to do are noted on each SSD with the year they are available. So for the most part you can look at your SSD and determine if the year you have chosen to play the scenario in allows a given SSD. There are some exceptions here, i.e., Partial X Refits (impossible to do as there are too many variations any given ship can use) and mech-link refits are not listed. The Gorns are all have the Carronade data, and there is a mention of its availability on the Orion SSD. All plasma ships have Sabot data (there is some data indicating that sublight warbirds might still have been around in Y180

All the shuttle tracks are updated (there are still three ships in Basic Set that do not get advanced shuttles, so they do not have them on their SSD page).

The Romulan Warbird Cruiser has been updated as best I can to account for the new information that was published in the Early Years Modules. It is obviously one of the ships that does not get advanced shuttles, and also does not get the Sabot refit (would any of them still have been around as Warbirds in Y180?).

The small and large freighter SSDs include space to insert any skids or ducktails from Module R8 and R11.

And, of course, all references to "aft hull" or "A hull" have been changed to "rear hull" or "R hull."

LOOKING AHEAD

2011-11-01T08:04:00.002-05:00

Steve Cole writes:

Jean asked me to provide an update blog on the products we will be doing. It occurs to me that I've been remiss in communicating this with you all, partly because I have been buried in reviewing the ships and rules Mongoose sent me. (They wanted the cover art approved and still had that problem with weapons fire coming from strange places on a Klingon D7. I just sent them another reminder of what to fix.) The rulebook is doing to figuring out the final nits and gripes, and is scheduled to go to the printer by Friday the 14th. (I am already working on Captain's Log #44 but fortunately the ACTASF1 rulebook does not take a lot of checking at this point.)

=

The first of the joint-venture products are scheduled to appear sometime around the end of November or the start of December. The exact date just depends on the production facilities, and of course, some of you will (by the vagaries of the distribution system) see them weeks before others do.

=

The first round of releases will include the CALL TO ARMS STAR FLEET rulebook, a set of ship reference cards, and several packs of miniatures. The first batch will include the 2500 version of squadron boxes 1, 2, and 9 (and a box of cloaked Romulans, 9A). These squadron boxes have the same ship types as the existing 2400 squadron boxes. What I mean is that the 2400 version of Squadron Box One had a metal 1-3788 Fed DNG, BC, CA, CL, and FF. The 2500 version will have a resin 1-3200 Fed DNG, BC, CA, CL, and FF.

=

They will also release Fed, Klingon, and Romulan Fleet Box sets (16 ships for $99.99). Those boxes don't match anything in the 2400 range. There will be a 2500 version of the Border Boxes, but that will be mail order only, 24 ships for $129.95 with the same ship types as the 2400 Border Boxes.

=

Squadron Boxes 3-8 and 10-12 will appear over the subsequent few weeks, as fast as production allows. The content of those is the same ship types as the 2400 series squadron boxes.

=

All of the Mongoose ships will be available in blister packs as individual ships (or in some cases more than one copy of a given ship). However, this is mostly a backup and special order system; I doubt that many stores will stock the individual blisters. (They should all be able to get them for you, and all of the boxes and blisters will be on both shopping carts.)

=

I am asked fairly often if people should pre-order the stuff on the Mongoose site or wait until we put it on our cart. That's up to you. We get exactly the same amount of money both ways. You might get the first few ships a day or two faster from them, but after that, they should ship on the same day from both warehouses. One might suppose that it depends on what else you want. If you want Captain's Log #44, which won't be on the Mongoose cart, you might save a few dollars in shipping by ordering a combined order of ships, ACTASF1 rulebook, and CL#44 from us. It may depend more on where you live than anything else. The contract provides for simultaneous release of the products by both companies, but because of the short intense schedule, we've agreed that as soon as they land on the loading dock, they're going back out.

=

Beyond the joint-venture products, we will have a number of our own releases, probably about the same point in time.

=

Captain's Log #44 will of course be the main release. I'm personally writing a special story of Day One (the Klingon invasion of the Federation) and the issue will have the same cover art as ACTASF1. This issue will have all of the usual features, plus a new section on the joint-venture products done with Mongoose.

=

I expect that we will also have Boosters #31, #32, and #33 available. The cards are ready to print but we are waiting for cover art.

=

Steven Petrick has completed Module E3: Borak Star League and we will release that at the same time.

=

As always, next year is a little murky, but it's starting to come into focus. As we are not going to Origins next year, we don't have to design the entire year around those releases but can space things out in a more rational pattern.

We will have Captain's Logs #45 and #46. These may (or may not) be bigger. (We've been discussing the idea of a larger format for some time now. If we go ahead with that, the cost will go up by whatever it takes to cover the extra pages.)

Star Fleet Battles will get a new product or two, but we've yet to decide what they will be.

Starmada will get a new edition, plus Battleships Armada and perhaps another new book.

Star Fleet Marines and Federation Admiral will be done as fast as possible.

The next Federation & Empire product will be Civil Wars, but I'm not sure if it will come out in 2012 or 2013.

We have two Federation Commander products cooking, and one (or maybe both) will come out next year. One is a reinforcements pack with a few ships for every empire. The other is the first Borders of Madness product, with the first scouts, maulers, carriers, and escorts. Both will get done within the next 18 months, and maybe within 12 months. We will just have to see.

The Prime Directive line will expand into Mongoose Traveller, and we may take a shot at getting another empire book done.

The Mongoose joint-venture series will doubtless include one if not two major new releases, each comprising a book and a range of miniatures packs. Each ACTASF book will match some combination of Federation Commander products so we can do the corresponding Squadron Boxes.

I have a secret plan in the works to get an expansion out for our card game, Star Fleet Battle Force.

There are some other products that will appear that I am not prepared to reveal at this time.

This Week at ADB, Inc., 23-29 October 2011

2011-10-31T08:12:00.002-05:00

Steve Cole reports:

This was a strange week, as we had no more Mongoose ships to check, so that let us catch up on things and move on to Captain's Log #44 and other projects. The weather this week was colder; it even snowed on Thursday. The spam storm mostly remained at just over 200 per day. Another game company used our artist gallery to contact Mark Evans about art they need.

New on e23 this week was, well, nothing. We were busy and are waiting to see if sales for SSD books justify posting any more of them. (So far, no. Steven Petrick is updating the Basic Set one, but we're doubtful that the massive amount of work this is taking will be justified by any improvement in sales. If you guys really are serious about us posting SSD books, you should buy them when we do make them available.)

Steve Cole read the Mongoose ACTA:SF rulebook and sent them a report, and got another draft on Friday. He also finished the Orion background article, creating much new information. Other than that, he did some work on Captain's Log #44, wrote some blogs, appeared on TalkShoe, created a Federation CB ship card for Communique, and spent an afternoon working on the 4th-Generation counters for all of the ships in previous Captain's Logs.

Steven Petrick finished up the Borak (including a new history that Steve Cole approved), worked on Captain's Log #44, continued updating Basic Set SSDs, and read the ACTA:SF rulebook.

Leanna kept orders and accounting up to date.

Mike kept orders going out, rebuilt the inventory, and managed customer service. Mike and Joel continued to reorganize the stock room, installing new shelving.

Joel did website updates, chased pirates, spun up the first draft of the Hailing Frequencies for November, and helped Mike. Joel also spent Thursday teaching our new high school intern, Charles Diaz.

Jean managed our page on Facebook (which is up to over 1000 friends), proofread the Orions, and did some marketing.

In Praise of Our Volunteers

2011-10-30T19:50:00.001-05:00

The adventure game (wargame+roleplaying game) industry is a small one, and there isn't the kind of money inside of it that other industries have. The industry consists of creative game designers willing to work 60 hours a week for half the pay they could command outside the game industry, all because they get to BE game designers.

Even at that, the only way the game industry survives is by the hard labor of unpaid volunteers who (for honor, glory, and rarely some free games) provide no end of valuable services to game publishers.

Mike West answers rules questions on Federation Commander. Mike Curtis does the same thing for Federation & Empire, Jonathan Thompson and Jean Sexton for Prime Directive PD20 and PD20M, Gary Plana for GURPS Prime Directive, Richard Sherman for Star Fleet Battle Force, and Mike Filsinger for Star Fleet Battles.

Frank Brooks runs the Play-by-Email system as a volunteer. Paul Franz charges barely enough for the On-Line game system (for SFB and FC) to pay the server costs. Bob Pomroy does made-to-order decals for our Starline miniatures at a cost that barely covers his costs.

Federation & Empire would not exist without Chuck Strong (a real-world colonel from Space Command) in charge of the overall game system. He keeps his staff (Mike Curtis, Ryan Opel, Scott Tenhoff, Thomas Mathews, and Stew Frazier) busy moving projects forward.

Very little would get done on any of our games except for the Playtest Battle Labs run by Scott Moellmer in Colorado and by Mike Curtis and Tony Thomas in Tennessee. And all of the other playtesters are invaluable to us.

We have other staffers who do specific things (and sometimes a wide variety of things) for us including Jean Sexton (Vice President of Proofreading and Product Professionalization); John Berg and Mike Incavo (Galactic Conquest Campaign); Daniel Kast (Klingon Armada); and John Sickels, Matthew Francois, Jonathan Thompson, and Loren Knight (Prime Directive). Some vital part of the product line would grind to a halt without each one of them.

Added to this list are hundreds of others who, during any given month, by Email or BBS or Forum, contribute in some way to the company and its product line. They may report a glitch in an existing product, playtest a product in development, suggest a new product, point out something another company is doing what we may want to take a look at emulating, look up a rules reference for another player, report on somebody who using our property improperly, comment on a posted draft of a new rule, or simply ask a question nobody else ever dared to ask.

Many years ago, we began awarding medals, ribbons, and other "decorations" to staffers and others who contributed to each product, and some other projects. These awards not only recognize those who contributed to the various projects, but encouraged others to begin making their contributions to future projects. We have created the Wall of Honor at http://starfleetgames.com/ArtGallery/Wall%20of%20Honor.shtml. This is a tribute to over 30 years of volunteer work. We hope you visit it to say thanks to all the volunteers and their efforts.

RANDOM THOUGHTS #64

2011-10-29T07:43:00.002-05:00

Steve Cole was thinking the other day about the things most people do not know about the Battle of Gettysburg.

1. Nobody at the time thought it was a decisive battle that changed the Civil War. It kept Lee from attacking some large northern cities, but that was really about all. It wasn't so much a matter that Lee lost; the point was that he did not win the desired victory on Northern soil. (Lee, in fact, lost the only two battles he fought on Northern soil.)

2. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was actually strung out in a column walking east toward Philadelphia when the Union Army of the Potomac (marching north) ran into the middle of it. Some of the Confederate troops east of the battle had actually marched through the town of Gettysburg earlier in the week.

3. Everyone knows that with Stuart and the Confederate cavalry off on a joyride, Lee was blind, but few understand just what that meant. Lee had no idea that the Union Army of the Potomac was moving toward him until a spy told him just before the Union troops ran into his. Even after the battle started, Lee had to leave some desperately needed infantry troops outside of the battle area to watch his flanks because he had no cavalry to watch those directions for any approaching enemy. (Few civilians understand that the general fighting the battle does not have those pretty maps that were published after the battle showing where everybody was.)

4. Lee's biggest problem was that he was running out of generals. Without Stonewall Jackson (who was killed a few weeks earlier) Lee had to divide the Army of Northern Virginia into three parts because the available three-star generals were not good enough at their jobs to handle as many troops as Stonewall usually commanded. Those two replacement three-star generals were simply not up to their jobs. Ewell had lost a leg in an earlier battle, was arguably tired of getting shot at, and threw away Lee's first chance to win by not taking Cemetery Hill on the first day. A P Hill was sick and just not up to the job. (There simply wasn't anyone else to promote.) Of the nine two-star division commanders, one (Harry Heth) was the best of the one-star generals who were NOT good enough to be two-star generals, and another (Anderson) failed to do his job on the second day (throwing away Lee's second chance to win the battle). Isaac Trimble (a very good two-star general who had just returned from medical leave) was with the Army but was not given a job until the third day.

5. Invading Pennsylvania was only one of the Confederacy's choices after the smashing victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville two months earlier. One option was to stay where they were and let the Union attack him, but northern Virginia was out of food and Lee's Army would have starved if it stayed in place. Another option was to send half of Lee's army to prevent Grant from taking Vicksburg, but only Lee (or Jackson) could have won that battle -- and Lee refused to leave Virginia. It's unclear if even Lee could have defeated an attacking Army of the Potomac with half of his troops gone.

6. Contrary to the movie, the Battle of Gettysburg was not won when the 20th Maine kept the rebels from getting around the Union left flank at Little Round Top. That was only the first part of Lee's attack on the second day of battle. Lee's plan had all of his units attacking in sequence from south to north. The battle continued to move to the north (Union right, Confederate left), with Confederate units defeating one Union division after another. (Meade was robbing his right-north flank to reinforce his left-south flank, and had run out of troops he could move.) Lee might well have won the battle but (at the critical point) the next scheduled brigade to attack (Posey) was out of ammunition due to a bungled prior skirmish. The next brigade commander (Mahone) simply refused to attack, and the next commander in line (Pender) was hit by a cannonball before he could give the order to attack. Meade was in the process of giving orders to retreat when he noticed that the Confederate attack had stopped coming.

7. Contrary to the axiom that you have to attack at 3-to-1 to achieve success, the troops of Longstreet's two divisions (Hood and McLaws) crushed the left wing of the Army of the Potomac on the second day and they were actually out-numbered when they did it. (True, they didn't destroy that wing, just defeated it, kicked it back a mile, and left those units too shaken to fight for another month.)

8. Pickett's Charge is the famous part of the battle, taking place on the third day. Few know that Pickett only commanded a third of the troops that took part. (After the war, Pickett wrote a number of thrilling magazine articles about the event and made sure that his name was the most prominent one mentioned.) The charge might have worked except that Lee (who ordered it) went back to his headquarters, leaving it in the hands of Longsteet (who openly said he didn't want to do it). Longstreet never sent the second wave of the attack, which in all certainty would have broken the Union line. This threw away Lee's third chance to win the battle.

9. Union commander Meade never wanted to fight the battle where it was fought. When the battle started, Meade was surveying battle positions at Pipe Creek (where he expected Lee to attack, but Lee was never headed for Pipe Creek) and he decided to hurry the back part of his army north and join the battle rather than call his advanced troops back to Pipe Creek.

10. In the end, even a victory by Lee would have made no real difference. England was not going to openly help the Confederacy as long as slavery remained in place and a victorious Lee (with an exhausted and shot-up army that was out of artillery ammunition) would still have had his path to key Union cities blocked by the survivors of the Army of the Potomac (which would have been at least half or more of the troops). Washington (surrounded by forts and heavy guns) was not really vulnerable, although Philadelphia was. Before Lee could get moving again (more artillery ammunition was on the way to him) the Union would have called in other troops to bring Meade back up to strength, and it was unlikely that Confederate President Davis would have sent Lee the five brigades he took away from Lee's army just before the campaign began. Such a campaign would have put Lee deep in enemy territory with extremely long supply lines vulnerable to Union flank attacks. He was, perhaps, more likely to have had his army wiped out in the never-fought Battle of Philadelphia than at any other point of the Civil War.

DISCLAIMERS OF THE STAR FLEET UNIVERSE, part 4

2011-10-28T08:31:00.002-05:00

On ISC Plasmatic Pulsar Devices:

Warning: Not tested in actual combat; results may be radically different than simulator; DO NOT use this device against an Andromedan ship; may require multiple attempts for a successful target lock-on. Not responsible for lost or misdirected pulses.

On Gorn Navigation and Warp Engine Modules:

Warning: This product is guaranteed to survive one (1) High Energy Turn only; do not attempt any radical maneuvers; warranty null and void after the first HET, or above speed of warp 2.289428485107.

Thanks to Hyun Yu. This originally appeared in Captain's Log #18. (c) copyright by Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc.

Got Any Marketing Ideas?

2011-10-27T08:24:00.001-05:00

The Coming of the Borak Star League

2011-10-26T17:21:00.003-05:00

This is Steven Petrick posting.

I have invested considerable time in the Borak Star League (Module E3). The books are essentially done (currently a 56 page rulebook and a 76 page SSD book).

The biggest remaining problem to be worked out is the graphics. Jeremy Gray had a number of ship graphics in his draft rulebook, which look fine on the screen as part of the .doc file he sent, but do not print worth a darn. So I am going to need to get those ship graphics and insert them into the book, or delete them. I would prefer the former of course.

I need to get that resolved, but I am also involved in the Mongoose project and that took up most of my last two days (as well as good parts of a lot of other days resulting in SVC being a trifle miffed that I did not finish the project earlier).

All of the Borak SSDs and ship descriptions are done to the "new standard," that is to say each ship description lists refits available to the ship, and each SSD has the year for a refit included, among other upgrades. In addition, the Master Ship Chart reflects all major refits (it cannot reflect the partial X-refit because there is no set standard for these, e.g., a given ship might have X-phasers but not X-batteries or X-APRs, while another ship might have X-batteries but not X-APRs or X-phasers, and another might have all three). It also does not reflect the mech-link refit because that particular refit was never universal (not even for the Lyrans even though all of their SSDs show it). Every other refit applicable to a unit is shown. There are of course other things that are part of the "new standard" for ship descriptions that were included, but most of you already know what the basic new standard is from Modules R12 and X1R.

The above does mean that, for example, there is a listing for a Borak SBe, meaning "starbase early weapons," to be consistent with (R1.R2) in Module R1. This does not put a Borak starbase in the "early years," but simply deals with the case that when Borak starbases first enter service not all of the Borak weapons are in fact available, and are added at a later date.

The Borak reflect the vision of their designer, which means there are some things that are oddities, at least to me. I am curious to see if others see these oddities and comment on them.

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2011-10-25T07:55:00.000-05:00

This Week at ADB, Inc., 16-22 October 2011

2011-10-24T13:30:00.002-05:00

Steve Cole reports:

This was the last week of getting the Mongoose 2500 starships finished, and was very intense for the Steves, but all of them got done. The weather this week was nice, with cool mornings and warm afternoons. The spam storm mostly remained at about 200 per day. Our new high school intern was unable to start due to illness.

New on e23 this week: Well, nothing, but we did get the newest versions of the Sequence of Play for SFB and F&E uploaded to our own website as free downloads.

Steve Cole worked mostly on Mongoose stuff, checking ships and rules. He found time for only a few other projects, including new background material for the Kzintis, Gorns, and Orions (which goes into the ACTASF1 rulebook and later into our own products); helped a retailer get access to products that the wholesalers did not stock; and wrote the THIS WEEK blog.

Steven Petrick worked on the Borak and Captain's Log #44, updated more SSDs for the Basic Set SSD book, and of course helped with the approvals of the Mongoose ships.

Leanna kept orders and accounting up to date, finishing all of the royalty statements.

Stephen and Leanna left Friday for the annual trip to the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary fundraiser, where Chef Steve provided hundreds of pounds of beef heart, liver, and kidneys to 53 wolves, one fox, and five New Guinea Singing Dogs.

Mike kept orders going out, rebuilt the inventory, and managed customer service.

Mike and Joel reorganized the stock room, using new shelving to replace old plywood decking and get a lot of stuff sorted out, stored, thrown away, or put in better locations.

Joel did website updates (all those new ships on the 2500 page), chased pirates, and helped Mike.

Jean managed our page on Facebook (which is up to 983 friends), proofread the new background pages, and did some marketing.

RANDOM THOUGHTS #63

2011-10-23T08:35:00.002-05:00

Steve Cole is a big fan of Dave Ramsey, the get out of debt guru, although he takes pains to point out that he paid off his last debt before Dave Ramsey got out of bankruptcy. While Steve only rarely hears Dave say anything he doesn't already know, he always enjoys listening. (Leanna listens to the website all the time, and downloads episodes which they listen to when driving on trips.) Recently, Dave Ramsey did a one-day event of his small business class, and this was simulcast to a lot of places (one of them in Amarillo). Leanna and Stephen took the day off to go see his live performance (on screen) and jotted down a few notes. By the way, the EntreLeadership thing is a combination of Entrepreneur and Leadership.

1. The biggest killer of a small business is debt. Making debt payments can be a huge hurdle for monthly revenue to overcome. Many people who start a business just assume that they have to borrow a few hundred thousand dollars to do so, and that's not only not true, it's very risky to do.

2. Something over 2/3 of new small businesses are started with less than $5000 and no borrowed money. To be sure, these are not the kind of business that is going to employ a dozen people on the first day, but if you plan well and pay attention you can make a living for yourself and grow a small business steadily.

3. It may be annoying to pay $450 every time you need to rent a backhoe for one day, but that's better than making debt payments on a $50,000 backhoe, pulled on a $10,000 trailer by a $30,000 truck and covered by an insurance policy. Borrowed money increases risk and magnifies mistakes.

4. The definition of entrepreneur is risk-taker, but that must be tempered by research and knowledge. Taking stupid risks or doing anything that bets the whole business on one deal is a bad plan.

5. None of your employees are going to be motivated to work as hard as you work if you don't do anything to motivate them. To them, it's just a job. You have to make them feel like a family and reward them with performance bonuses.

6. If you have idiot employees, it's your own fault. You hired them without enough of an interview process, and you did not fire them when you figured out they were idiots.

7. A dream is just a wish. If you can define it, it's a vision. If you have a plan to accomplish it, it's a goal.

8. If you don't balance your business and family time and take care of your health and social life and spirit, you'll fail.

9. Delegate things that are urgent but not important and ignore things that are neither urgent nor important.

10. You need to have your accounting up to date. You need to know things like how much business you do a month, what the average turnover in your inventory is, what profit you are or are not making on any given job or product.

11. You really need to have a written budget and update it every month, if not every two weeks.

Playing Star Fleet Universe Games Long Distance

2011-10-22T21:51:00.001-05:00

DISCLAIMERS OF THE STAR FLEET UNIVERSE, part 3

2011-10-21T09:27:00.002-05:00

On Seltorian Particle Cannons and Web Breakers:

Warning: Results unpredictable outside the originating galaxy; do not attempt to engage Milky Way galaxy ships, as this will usually tick them off without doing any significant damage. Use only as directed, against Tholians.

On Federation Photon Torpedoes:

Warning: May cause damage to your shields if used improperly; not responsible for irate Klingons, Romulans, or Andromedans; may cause power shortage on certain classes of ships; do not use overload setting on destroyer-class or smaller ships. If shield damage persists after five (5) consecutive uses, contact your field technical support immediately.

Thanks to Hyun Yu. This originally appeared in Captain's Log #18. (c) copyright by Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc.

Lights! Cameras! The SFU Hits YouTube!

2011-10-20T08:29:00.000-05:00

Comments on Terra Nova

2011-10-19T16:47:00.002-05:00

This is Steven Petrick Posting.

I have been watching Terra Nova, and the logistics is still really out of sync.

I cannot imagine setting up this colony and including so many people that people are sitting around unemployed. The teenagers seem to neither have to get educations, or do any work, but are apparently being supported by the colony as they otherwise entertain themselves. There is clearly work that needs to be done (while our Hero was put to work clearing a stretch of wall of vegetation, we have since seen other stretches of wall in need of similar attention). Not to mention construction, farming and simply other maintenance work.

I also cannot figure out the troop commitment to this operation. Every time something happens when there is not an actual alert (like Commander Taylor infiltrating into the colony while affected by the virus) there seem to be troops everywhere. (The towers were manned, and there were roving, if single man, patrols such that Taylor had to take out one of the guards to complete his infiltration.) I look at the size of the perimeter and the manpower to maintain that kind of a security density is . . . impressive. Just how many security troops are there that this kind of presence is being maintained on the perimeter apparently 24/7?

There are lots of predators out there (in addition to "the sixers"), but apparently it is not unusual to send out individuals to check instruments and otherwise do things "beyond the fence."

Yes, I know, the carnivores only attack and the sixers only kidnap people "at the needs of the plot."

There is also the oddity that the sixers included children in their number, and took them into the woods when they fled Terra Nova.