Subtopic	Posts		Updated
	Archive through December 02, 2024	25		12/04 03:57pm
	Archive through December 21, 2024	25		12/21 03:01pm
	SUPPLEMENTARY TOURNAMENT COUNTERS	1		06/19 04:22pm

SGP: I have the files safely saved on my hard disk. I am not sure when that project will come up, but in a way you made it less likely in that we already have plenty of the original tournament counters on hand and don't really need to replace them.

As for self-print counters, the last time that I remember a staff meeting discussing that was a long time ago and the decision was "no" at least for F&E counters if not all.

However, I may have an idea I need to look into. I will have to discuss it with several people and it's hard to figure out which one to talk with first. Each of those in the decision cycle will want to know what everyone else thinks before committing to an answer.

In the meantime I have something else to keep you busy. See below.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, December 21, 2024 - 02:01 pm: Edit

I worked up the plan for the current reprint batches and told Jean that if she was willing to live with "X" that she could get a couple of hundred copies of another sheet. Mike Sparks (the warehouse manager who supervises packing orders) instantly said that there were lots of requests for the long out of date A+ sheets, and Jean immediately said that we should reprint A+ as people want to buy this long-out-of-stock item. After some discussion, I ended up in the office on a Saturday doing this sheet (which combines the three sheets randomly packed in the original printing). If anyone has any suggestions for improvement let me know ASAP. It's not a perfect system and it's impossible to provide everything I want to provide for every empire that wants special counters provided. For everyone who argues "get rid of A and give me B" there is someone to say "do not get rid of A, I need those!" I should note that we can include turn/slip markers for anybody but a fleet of ten ships is going to run out of them very quickly and be using leftover counters from an empire not in that battle. It might be better to just do solid blocks (10 Hydran, not 5 Hydran and 5 Andro) but most battles are smaller and the shorter sets will work.

By Stephen G. Parry (Mutant) on Saturday, December 21, 2024 - 02:39 pm: Edit

I like the A+ idea. Am I OK to try printing these? If so, then one thing that would really help is an SVG or EPS export from whatever draughting / drawing package you use. The SVG and EPS are scalable which makes them much more flexible.
I am not entirely convinced of the lack of need for new Tournament counters. The current ones are only partial coverage of the 2012 ships, and the quality of the batch is highly variable. I ordered five sheets for our group: one was a write-off because some of the ink had come off the Klingon and Kzinti counters. Another was borderline due to poor cutter alignment. Two were slightly 'dirty', possibly from the lost black ink. I would request replacements, but the counters cost as much to ship as to buy.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, December 21, 2024 - 02:49 pm: Edit

The definition of "need for new tournament counters" is not if we would like to include new ships but whether we ran out of the existing stock. The copies in the warehouse are far too expensive to throw away.

As I noted before, you're not okay to print your own. Actually I messed with the settings to make that very difficult. Give me a few days to see if I can solve that issue a better way that "waiting for the next short run".

By Stephen G. Parry (Mutant) on Saturday, December 21, 2024 - 03:01 pm: Edit

That's fine, understood on both counts.
Again, yes I like the A+ idea.
Thanks for all your efforts.

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Saturday, December 21, 2024 - 06:01 pm: Edit

Suggestion for the A+ sheet: Convert 2 of the blue on white generic point of turn/slip counters into green on white (LDR).

Convert two of the Klingon ones two Vudar? A few Kzinti Gorn to Seltorian?

By Stephen G. Parry (Mutant) on Saturday, December 21, 2024 - 08:48 pm: Edit

I agree with NS suggestion, but you would need to include the Jindarians too.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, December 21, 2024 - 10:14 pm: Edit

It isn't "necessary" to include anything and since you cannot include 10 pairs of Jindarians (or 20) you can add them or not; it won't make any difference. The Jindos use a gray background and I do not want to split color blocks.

By Stephen G. Parry (Mutant) on Sunday, December 22, 2024 - 09:51 am: Edit

Sorry, I had not factored in the color blocks. I presume cutter alignment is the issue with changes in background color. I can see how LDR and Vudar would cause less problems in that regard.
The cutters seem to be much more accurate horizontally than vertically, is that correct?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, December 22, 2024 - 01:40 pm: Edit

Accuracy is the same both directions. Usually it's pretty good and internal quality control eliminates the small number that slip by. The current cutting companies do a much better job. Counters we printed in 2000-2010 had about 20% wastage due to miscut counts.

By Stephen G. Parry (Mutant) on Thursday, December 26, 2024 - 09:41 pm: Edit

What gave me the impression that horizontal might be more accurate was that I have seen examples of sheets where the sheet designer has split the row left and right into two blocks of differing background color. I don't remember ever seeing a row pair with differing background upper and lower.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, December 27, 2024 - 12:04 am: Edit

Just how it works out. I think we split a block horizontally once or twice, but don't have a convenient way to look it up and it doesn't matter anyway.

By Nick Blank (Nickgb) on Friday, December 27, 2024 - 10:30 am: Edit

If you split left and right you mess up 4 counters if it is inaccurate, and you can put counters there that won't matter much unless it is really bad. If you split top to bottom, you mess up both entire rows if it is inaccurate.

That is probably why the left right split is more common.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, June 19, 2025 - 04:19 pm: Edit

I will set up a special topic for "supplementary tournament counters" where you guys can tell me what would need to be on such a sheet. I do not see doing T itself over again for years but we might (next year or later) do a short run of counters we would add to T if we were doing T over again.