There are just as many, if not more, that use Cyberboard for F&E.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Friday, November 04, 2011 - 11:52 pm: Edit

I can't say anything about the mechanics of playing via Vassal, but the Cyberboard version seems to be perceived as visually superior.

There have been some gorgeous screen shots of it scattered about. It uses the large scale map with very nice looking renditions of planets (named!), bases and ships. The hexes are large enough so that with careful tile placement you can distinguish between 8 different counters placed in one spot. You can autostack as well. The game has plenty of fleet counters for each race as well.

The game cannot count stacks for you, but it's easy to count them yourself and put the numbers representing the count on each stack for easy perusal. You can rotate counters in increments of 30 degrees. This is useful for tracking what's moved, and what it's eligible for (such as eligible for retrograde/strat move.

You can put notes on units as well, to keep track of things. Example: You move a stack by extended reaction on alliance turn 4, you might put a note 'used extended reaction on A4'.

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Saturday, November 05, 2011 - 12:17 am: Edit

Guys, could we please drop this line of discussion about purchasing/not purchasing until after CL#44 is released? I need the Steves focused on that product.

We do know there are honest people out there and we appreciate people like Christopher and Ted. We also know that some folks don't purchase, because they've actually explained that to SVC. That being said, please give SVC and Paul a chance to sort this out after CL#44 is released.

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Saturday, November 05, 2011 - 12:50 am: Edit

I use Cyberboard exclusively for F&E. Lawrence Bergen (among many others) did an incredible job of making the board. I tried Vassal, but it just didn't cut it for me. The ability to put "flavor text" on each counter or marker sealed the deal for me, even after looking at the amazing beauty of the full scale map.

By Gregg Dieckhaus (Gdieck) on Sunday, November 06, 2011 - 10:51 am: Edit

[What did SVC say?]

By Barry Kirk (Barrykirk) on Sunday, November 06, 2011 - 11:52 am: Edit

[What did SVC say?]

By Aaron M. Staley (Awwwdrat) on Sunday, November 06, 2011 - 01:32 pm: Edit

Ladies and gents, please just wait until CL44. Paul and ADB are working on something. Regardless I will footsoldier whatever changes need making for the library also. I don't see much issue with tourney stuff right now and I doubt much will change if at all there (that's just a guess).
But please, let's all respect the wishes of ADB to get CL44 out before we worry or speculate anymore about anything. Please enjoy your gaming experience.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, November 06, 2011 - 06:06 pm: Edit

Just for note, we have tracked a very specific drop in new SFB product sales to precisely the time downloadable SSDs went onto SFBOL. When "new products" started appearing, new product sales dropped like a rock, even when uploading was delayed. Losses include the potential sales of e23 SSD books which now are lost forever. Yes, the losses are absolutely possible and very real and have easily exceeded $100,000 and probably double that. And we have found packs of SFBOL downloads on torrent sites. So the number of people on SFBOL is almost irrelevant to the losses caused by SFBOL. One jerk who buys a three-month membership to SFBOL, downloads everything, and starts passing it around and posting it on torrents costs us thousands and thousands of dollars. (Ok, the second jerk who does the same thing doesn't cost us as much, but that doesn't mean we can afford the losses from the first jerk.)

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Monday, November 07, 2011 - 04:31 am: Edit

Wow.

That makes me REALLY angry.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, November 07, 2011 - 11:40 am: Edit

I had 3 people send me several new pirate sites they found today. Two of those sites have specifically-designated SFBOL download archives. At the very least, criminals who abuse SFBOL cost the company the hour of Joel's time it takes to get them deleted, plus the people who took the stolen files and never bought real files.

By Patrick H. Dillman (Patrick) on Monday, November 07, 2011 - 12:15 pm: Edit

*adds another loop to noose* I hates pirates!

By Francois Lemay (Princeton) on Wednesday, February 08, 2012 - 09:40 pm: Edit

Aaron,
Looking at the Peladine FFS.
The plus refit in Y170 gives it 2 extra Warp Engine boxes.
However, when you select the ship prior to Y170, it gives you the extra warp power any way.
The rest of the refit is blacked out ok.

Same thing with the Pel SC.

Cheers
Frank

By Aaron M. Staley (Awwwdrat) on Thursday, February 09, 2012 - 04:24 am: Edit

Franc: Fixed and sent to Paul.

By Francois Lemay (Princeton) on Sunday, February 12, 2012 - 10:35 am: Edit

Thanks Aaron for your speedy action !

I'm going to need these ships in an upcoming campaign !

Cheers
Frank

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Sunday, February 12, 2012 - 02:49 pm: Edit

Fixed ships posted to library.

By Francois Lemay (Princeton) on Thursday, March 08, 2012 - 11:12 pm: Edit

Flying Lyrans in an upcoming campaign.
Looking at the HDD and HFF ships.

When you select the phaser refit, the phasers in question are still blacked out.

Thanks.

Cheers
Frank

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, May 13, 2012 - 12:45 pm: Edit

So this might or might not be the place to mention this, but maybe? The Hivers, in the regular SFB section of SFBOL, don't have turn or slip counters. The turn and slip counters exist in the tournament section, but not the regular ship section. Not super important, but something worth fixing when possible. Thanks!

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Monday, May 14, 2012 - 07:51 am: Edit

Peter,
I will fix this later today.

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Tuesday, May 15, 2012 - 07:13 pm: Edit

Peter,
It is fixed now. Sorry for the delay.

By Francois Lemay (Princeton) on Thursday, May 24, 2012 - 01:14 pm: Edit

Paul,
Did you get a chance to correct the ships in my March 8 post above ?

Thanks.

Cheers
Frank

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Thursday, May 24, 2012 - 02:46 pm: Edit

Not yet.

By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Monday, July 16, 2012 - 03:25 pm: Edit

Paul, I've uploaded the Warp Gate from the CDH for your approval.

By Matthew Potter (Neonpico) on Monday, August 27, 2012 - 05:14 pm: Edit

Hey Paul! I'd like to help with the SSD upload project. But I don't know how to use the darn thing. How can I help?

By Josh Driscol (Gfb) on Monday, August 27, 2012 - 05:20 pm: Edit

Yeah count me in also as interested in helping with the conversions.

Its a massive project and the sooner its done the sooner there will be new modules added to the library.

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - 09:00 am: Edit

As mentioned on the email list...
1) Any semi-recent SFBOL clients already do not download any SSDs, so as far as I can tell, the obvious piracy problem is already fixed. I do not understand what else needs to change, why a new SSD format is required, or what is different about this new format.
2) If something does need to change, from a user perspective, what differences should I expect to notice?
3) If there is some SSD format difference (whose purpose I do not understand), then it is silly to do this manually because all the data already exists. There should be a program written to do the conversion.
4) If Paul is unwilling to write this program then I will write it if I get a description of what the old and new formats are. I doubt it would take more than a day or two. It would be easier if Paul did it because he already knows what the formats are and has code that reads and writes them, but it doesn't really matter.
5) I think I still have most of the old-format SSDs on one of my old computers, but if not, and if ADB does not trust me with the project, then I will send the program to Paul and he can run it himself. This will probably delay things a little because I won't be able to test the program on every case, but not too much; it would probably work on almost all of the ships, and then I could fix whatever the problem is or the last few ships could be done manually somehow.

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All this notwithstanding, I don't see why the OLD ships in the library have any bearing on releasing NEW ships which would presumably be in the new format to start with. If it's just to encourage people to work on the conversion project, then that's no good; there are a lot of people who want to help but can't because no one understands what needs to be done. You've got to untie the donkey first or the carrot and stick will only make him cranky.

SFBOL has been way too dependent on Aaron Staley making ships. More than once I submitted ships only to have them disappear into nothingness and then eventually Aaron would make his own versions that would go in the library right away. The de facto policy was "Only Aaron is allowed to submit ships" and while he did create almost every ship in the library, the side effect is that if he stops (and it appears he has stopped?), then no one can do anything.

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Of course, it's impossible to eliminate piracy completely, but it's definitely possible to make it so that copying SSDs out of SFBOL is not significantly easier than copying the paper versions.

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Non-graphical SSDs are useless; it's not possible to play with them, and probably no one would want to anyway. It's roughly equivalent to just shutting down non-tournament SFBOL. I have tried (because that is what you used to get when you joined a room without downloading the library, and I didn't always have the library); it is impossible to play or even understand a game using them. On a related note, watermarks are useless too, they are easy to remove and pirates might not even care about them anyway, but they sure do annoy legitimate players.

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Activation codes have been proposed, and SVC didn't like them. I'm almost certain that he misunderstood what was being proposed (probably because activation codes are not really the right term, and activation codes the way that they exist in, for example, Windows, don't work very well). I'm not prepared to make a case right now because I'm not sure it solves the problem. Essentially, yes, this CAN prevent unauthorized users from playing your game, and it would be a great way to increase the amount of revenue from SFBOL. I would happily pay money to have access to ships on SFBOL; ADB could then sell online-only access to the people who only play online, or just collect some extra money from people who want the paper books too. Since the cost of this to ADB is nothing, these sales are all profit, and may have tax advantages as well. This will not, however, prevent people from copying whatever SSDs they do have access to. It just means ADB gets a lot more money from them before it happens, and it certainly makes the "one guy with a $10 subscription copies all the SSDs" problem go away.