Subtopic	Posts		Updated
	Archive through December 02, 2008	26		11/16 01:25am

Questions from August 2004
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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By Steve Cole on Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Note to Dynaverse: Yes, it was me who dropped by this morning.
(I had to post that so the guys there would know it wasn’t somebody faking my identity.)
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Q: Has there been any consideration/SSD or such of a Lyran ship consisting of a CL with a two engine center section, ala the NCA and BB? Or is the NDN something that has not been submitted yet?
A: I wouldn’t know without digging through the files. I don’t have time now. Just go create a proposal topic for it.
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, December 02, 2008 - 12:30 pm: Edit

Questions from September 2004
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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Q: Can you update the SFB tournament ships download files?
A: I’ll mention this to Petrick.
Posted a message in website requests about needing the current tournament ships updated in the download section. Don't know if Joe needs the files from you or Petrick or not.
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By Steve Cole on Saturday, September 18, 2004
Checking in from the public library in Red River, NM. Leanna and I have spent the mornings on the hiking trails and she spends the afternoons shopping the tourist stores while I read a book and take a nap. Nice relaxing vacation so far, celebrating my promotion from the commander of C1-39 MP Combat Security Company to Brigade Operations Chief.
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Q: What is wrong with the discussion boards? Everytime that put my username and password in, nothing comes up on the results area of the board.
A: That means you haven’t checked the board in three or four days and the processor cannot handle the search and timed out.
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Q: If I order several hundred dollars worth of stuff, can I negotiate a discount?
JEH: Sorry, We never give discounts for big orders because the wholesalers and stores would go ballistic if we did.
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Q: Are The Star Fleet Times part of your website going to be completed so that we can all get copies? There are a number of issues that I would like to get but I can't find anybody that has them.
A: We don’t have electronic versions of the missing issues.
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, December 02, 2008 - 12:33 pm: Edit

Archive from March 2003
Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, March 13, 2003
Would it be possible to build a Dreadnought variant without the command facilities? with just the basic command rating of a heavy cruiser, say?
SVC: Sure, but why? DNs are hard to build, it wouldn’t make it much cheaper, you’d have to give up a regular DN to get it. What’s the point?
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Various notes on GAMA Trade Show 2003. Due to a toy released by wizkids, the show had double the normal attendance, which created no end of problems and opportunities. Trip back was a nightmare as we arrived in Phoenix at 11pm and finally ended up finding a hotel 100 miles away at 4am.
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Frank: My mother has opened a stained glass business. If I was to give her some pictures/designs, would there be any problems if she was to make some of the SFU ships? I was thinking maybe for sale if there was any interest. But, I don't know if there would be any copyright issues.
SVC: There would be a lot of copyright issues, and we cannot license other people to use Paramount property. We'd have to do a deal with her like we did with Cory McDaniel where we do the selling and she drop ships them.
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Joseph Tipton Friday, March 28, 2003
Has ADB considered doing a real world military game? With your and Petrick's knowledge im sure the game would be very compelling and interesting. Youd have to be able to work in naval,land,and air,but I think its doable.
SVC: I have done many in the past (Jacksonville: The Beaches of Doom, Gunship, and others) and a lot of WWII games (Poland 1939, Prochorovka). Any more, I just don't have time to do as many SFU products as we want to do.
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By michael john campbell on Monday, March 31, 2003
Hey Steve: Would you mind popping into the X2 Plsama Topic and give us your feeling as to the solution to a small problem that has been inhibiting the X2 discussion for months.
SVC: I was glad to help.
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, December 02, 2008 - 12:37 pm: Edit

Questions from October 2004
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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Sometime in October 2004, I started posting the F&E SITs on the BBS. Joe Butler moved them to the main site, and I told him to not do that, since they needed to be updated periodically and I sometimes had to wait weeks or months from him to upload stuff I sent him, while I could upload them to the BBS myself. Given the "processor load" we might well start moving the SITs onto the main site, since I have an in-house guy who can upload them whenever I tell him to.
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Q: When will the Federation & Orion painting guides be put up in the miniatures section of your website?.
A: We don't have those? I sent them to Joe.
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, December 02, 2008 - 12:46 pm: Edit

Questions from November 2004
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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Q: I just wanted to let you know that I have found (in the course of going to different parts of this here discussion board) alot of broken links to ship ssd's and other places. If you want a detailed list I could e-mail them to you for space doesn't allow me to do it here.
A: Always notify me or the graphics director of broken links ASAP!
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Q: Just how many games of SFB would you say that you have actually played since the creation of the game? Do you still play often or no time?
A: I don't have much time but I have played at least once a year. Back in the old days I played once a week, or more.
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Q: is there any kind of index of rules showing WHEN they were added?
A: No. Perhaps there should have been. You can get a pretty good feel for that with the Z section in the Master Rule Book. It's quite extensive. Otherwise I'd think you would need to find copies of the commanders rules and maybe the Designers edition rules. That will tell you the most exact course things took.
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Q: Is it possible to print charts on the inside of product cover stocks before sending them out to have the outside cover printed?
A: Well..... no. At least, what you asked is a no. Covers are printed on bigger sheets (usually four covers on one sheet) and then cut down to size. So the Kyocera couldn't print on the inside before the outside was color printed. Since the printer usually throws away about 20% of the printing, I wouldn't want to pay Kyocera to print 1200 copies only to get 1000 of them back.
Now, in theory, the trimmed color covers from the printer could then be printed on the inside, although this might "scuff" the color parts and probably isn't a good idea.
The printer that does the color part could print B&W inside the cover, but this has a cost element in that they lose some of each run and thus have to print even more to end up with the same number, hence, it's more expensive and you have to pay for the entire print run to have charts inside the covers at the same time.
If we really need some extra charts, we could just make the book one sheet of paper bigger.
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Q: Does your in-office print engine have the ability to print front+back on the same sheet at the same time while it runs through the printer? (ie two-sided printing of large sheets)
A: It can duplex, but it's a black and white printer.
We're probably going to buy a color printer someday (this was 2004, and in 2008 it’s still "someday") which would have that capability, but it's copies are much more expensive. If we run out of Module Q covers and are selling 11 copies of Module Q a month, it's bad business to tie up $1,000 in a full print run of Q covers, and we'd use the new color printer to print 11 a month. For GPD, we could realistically expect a thousand to be sold on the first day and they'd cost way too much to print tht way.
As I said, it's more expensive to print on the inside covers than to add a page. Previously, with 16-page signatures, suddenly needing/wanting to add two pages was a disaster. Now, it's a couple of pennies.
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Q: Do you know of anyone anywhere where I could get some SSD's of MAINSTREAM TIMELINE CARNIVON SSD's?. I would like to include them in my campaign that I am starting to run. If you know of any could you e-mail me or post a link here?.
A: We haven’t done any, and I don’t have an index of every website every gamer created.
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Q: You wouldn't happen to have a color version of the various race symbols in an electronic format would you?
A: This has been put on the website.
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Q: I placed an online order yesterday after mailing in 5 Starfleet bucks. Unlike the last time I ordered online, the system wouldn't let me subtract the 5 bucks from my total, so I paid full price for the order. Is there any way to just give me a $5.00 credit for my next order?
MG
A: Special Instructions to Leanna should make that work when you ordered. You might e-mail Leanna about this. If you paid via Credit Card she can wait until the Starfleet bucks arive and then charge the card for $5 less.
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, December 02, 2008 - 12:49 pm: Edit

Questions from December 2004
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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Q: When will Captain’s Log ship to mail orders?
A: Seven days after the official release date, which is the ship to wholesalers date.
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Q: Have you ever thought of getting a faster server for the discussion board?
A: There isn’t one.
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, December 03, 2008 - 05:39 pm: Edit

Questions from January 2005
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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Q: Is anyone from ADB monitoring the SFB Q&A thread lately?
A: You would want to talk to Petrick about that. I’m not passing the buck, but he doesn’t read this topic and he is the only one who can help you. I’d pass the word for you but it’s better to teach you how to fish than give you a fish.
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Q: Why would a 1991 rule be right and a 2000 rule be wrong???
A: It could happen for a number of reasons, at least in theory.
1. We might have lost or forgotten some 1995 errata that should have been in the 2000 version of the 1991 rule.
2. There might have been a "global concept change" which changed many rules and didn't get changed in that particular case.
3. We might have just blown it, made a change by accident or without realizing the consequences.
4. The 2001 version might in fact be the 1990 version which was fixed in 1991 but we lost the file in which we fixed it.
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Q: Would you say Captains Log runs about a 1000+ copies per new release. (Combined mail order and store orders.)
A: easily double that, over the period of time it sells.
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Q; is ADB really run by only 3 people currently?
A: in 2005, Just three. We were (then) getting ready to hire two college intern, and Mike Sparks works in the warehouse.
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Q, if I have sent you an idea for a submission, to see if you say Ok or no, how should I do to get replies for any of my follow-up e-mails to you? I need feedback and answers to questions before I can send you a more fully developed submission, but if I get no answer to those I get stuck.
Should the subject line contain something specifik?
A: I'm always busy and don't always answer Emails promptly. With more things than time, I have to prioritize, and that doesn't always let me help individual designers with their problems. I'd rather get G2 finished than help five people do something that will end up being one page of a product next year. Just ask again every 3 days and remind me that you asked before and I didn't answer.
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First it is a good idea to head your subject line with the acronymn of the game system your e-mail applies to. Such as: SFB, SFBF, PD, FC, or F&E. These will help your message not get deleted by the spam filters.
Next is the issue of priority. If your idea is not something that is going into a product soon to go to print then it will have to wait until there is the odd spare moment. To ask a creative mind to jump off track for a moment to look at another track is almost as hard as asking a train engineer to do the same. And like that, probably will result in a not so desirable outcome. Taking me out of my train of thought for a few minutes may cost me an entire hour of work as I try to get back to where I was. I do try to answer emails within three days, or at least to tell you I am busy and give you a guess when I can answer.
I'm aware that sometime one or two quick questions can set the direction for a lot of work, but sometimes you have to wait. Remember, you are not the only person who needs "a quick answer" on any given day, and that quick answer may take up to an hour of research, and I may not have an hour.
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Q: I have been looking all over for the Star Fleet Times issues and can't find them anywhere. Can you help?
A: Not much. Some are on the website, but we don’t have electronic copies of all of them and Bruce Graw lost the originals in a hard disk crash. We have hard copies (somewhere, mixed in a dozen boxes of assorted papers) and sometime will recycle them all into a special issue of Captain’s Log.
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Q: Does posting something on the BBS count as "publishing it online"? (That is, supposedly, bad for the chances of publication.)
A: No, it doesn't count as publishing it on line.
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Q: I plan on putting alot of the rules in several binders. I wanted to use the covers from various modules on the binders. Is it possible to order just the cover from a product?
A: Sure, Email Leanna and she’ll help you.
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Q: Can I get a copy of the Ohio Starlist e-mailed to me please?
A: Go fill out the starlist form. Include a note (or send a separate Email) that you want the entire state and explain the good and noble purpose to which you will put the information. We don’t hand out the list without some controls or other game companies would use it to send advertising to our customers, who don’t want to be annoyed with spam.
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Q: Way back in Star Fleet Time #18, there were 5 SSDs and 16 ship descriptions for the Josers. Are the rest of the SSDs available anywhere?
A: I don’t think so. Bruce lost everything he had in a hard disk crash. If somebody can send us their copy, we can do them over from scratch.
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, December 03, 2008 - 05:55 pm: Edit

Questions from February 2005
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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Q: Do you know where all these "new" SFB players are coming from. New customers for any business are "gold" and it would be beneficial to find out how they're coming into SFB.
A: There is no real way to find out.
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Q: Add a thingy on the shopping cart order page. How did you hear or learn about SFB.
A: Good idea. I sent a memo to Leanna.
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C: Not sure where to put this message but I wanted to make sure you saw it. I got my LSM yesterday and I just wanted to comment that I think it is great! I know it was more a labor of love than a money making project but I loved it and really appreciate all of the time and effort that went into it.
A: Glad you liked it. Chuck Strong did it and talked us into offering it.
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C: As you probably know Star Trek has been canceled and I've heard that the franchise will not be revisited for quite some time. This will leave the SFU alone in the world for the first time since it's earliest beginnings. I expect this will mark a change in sales for ADB as you will be providing the only new Trekish stuff out there.
A: I don’t think so. Trekkers don’t buy games. Games who have Trek as one of their many interests buy games.
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Q: Is the LSM going to be available long term or do I have to get one while they last?
A: At this moment (Dec 08) we don’t have any, or a source for them, but we are in the process of developing a new source for one-at-a-time printing.
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Q: You have seen that Charles and Camilla are to be married - Yes ?
A: I have not heard this. It is wonderful news.
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C: I wanted to compliment you for the fine job that you did with Module A.
A: Thanks for the warm thoughts.
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Q: I recieved my copy of CL #30 about a week ago but haven't been able to write to you until now. The first 2 pages (pages 25-26 I think?) of the copy I got are missing, what should I do about it. Can I get a replacement without having to pay for shipping and handling?. Outside of that the issue was great.
A: Email Leanna and she will take care of it. She's at sales@starfleetgames.com. Obviously, you don’t have to pay shipping to replace a defective product.
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C: You might want to consider picking up a webcam. Point it at the kyocera so you can go home and watch it on the web so you can see when it goes down.
A: A number of issues here. One is that I rarely look at the home computer so we wouldn’t know the Kyoceras stopped. The others is if it does go down, is it worth the 20 minute drive back to the office? Instead, we just plan the print runs better. The machines will only print for about six hours per day anyway.
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Q: Any progress on hiring the PT staff to run that thing for you? You could run 24/7 with more bodies - its a perfect job for a college student "I don't care if you're studying while the printer is running fine, but when its not, you need to be refilling paper, etc. whatever it takes, per these instructions, to get the print run continued."
A: Nice theory, but the print engines will only run six hours per day, not 24, so there is no real point, and we need the college interns doing other things.
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C: thanks for keeping the weblog up to date. It gives us some idea of the issues that yall have to deal with every day to keep us satisfied and also, where things are headed.
A: we try.
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Q:, do you have DSL at home or dialup?
A: At the time this was asked, we had a dial up at home. Sometime since then, we got a cable modem.
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C: I placed an order last Friday (25 Feb) and received it this morning (28 Feb). I know getting the MRB out to stores & distributors has been the big priority for ADB so thanks for super-quick service on my small order. I really didn't expect to see it so soon.
A: I will pass your kind words to Leanna.
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, December 03, 2008 - 06:09 pm: Edit

Questions from March 2005
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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C: I know they are expensive but after reading the weblog it sounds like a second Kyocera would eliminate a great deal of downtime while doubling (theoretically) the print rate.
A: We bought a second Kyocera in 2005 and a third in 2006 and a fourth in 2007. The Xerox sales people say: "You have bought four $7,000 Kyoceras to keep up with your requirements which proves we were right and you should have bought one $99,000 Docutech from us in the first place." (Hmm... $28,000 vs $99,000 and we have double the capacity with quadruple redundancy.)
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C; ADB is being run by the Lyrans, so they've probably got some sort of Expanding Pain Sphere Generator.
A: Isis is a Lyran, but Ramses is a Kzinti.
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Q: What problem are you having with OSX Steve?
A: That it doesn't work. That it's not a Mac system at all. That none of my software works with it, and the software made FOR it works only at random intervals. Other than that, none at all.
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Steve Cole’s father passed away in February 2005, and Steve Cole’s mother had a nervous breakdown and spent the rest of her life (she passed in Sept 2007) in an institution where her Alzheimer’s could be managed.
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C: Thought I would pass on a little praise for you, Leanna, and SPP. I submitted an order Sunday night and not wanting to do things the easy way, I had a special request. I emailed Leanna about it and she responded right away Monday morning. Package was shipped and arrived today with everything in order. Just wanted to say how impressive your operation is with so few people and all the stuff you guys are going through (both personally and professionally).
Thanks for all your hard work and please pass it on to Leanna and SPP.
A: Thanks, I will pass that to Leanna.
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C: Saw your name mentioned in this month's issue of Knights of the Dinner Table (KODT), a gamer's comic book/magazine. They did a very favorable review of a game you designed under TFG, called Asteroid Zero-Four, in their "Lost Game Safari" section. I've never seen the game, but after the review, I'll see if I can pick it up on eBay. Loved the Bellflower cover, too...
A: Thanks for pointing that out.
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Q: Just so I know before I order one, can you remember what the hole-punching was like on the MRB's that you shipped to the UK? If it's the American-style three-holes, I need to track down a suitable folder (UK folders use either two- or four-holes).
A: Its US 3 hole punched, but you can order it unpunched if you prefer and have a local shop put as many holes in it as you like.
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, December 03, 2008 - 06:39 pm: Edit

Questions from April 2005
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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C: You may receive an e-mail from someone at Iron Crown Enterprises in the near future to enquire about doing an edition of Prime Directive for one of their roleplaying systems. I started a thread on their forum boards and one of their staff expressed interest in how to contact you so I gave him your e-mail address.
A: We never got an Email from them. We are always willing to talk to people about mutually-profitable deals, but most of the deals we get offered are not profitable for us (usually because they require so much "Steve time" that we would lose other products. I may comment on this in the PD area.
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By Steve Cole on Tuesday, April 12, 2005
I am getting better. Not over it, but better. Yesterday I was running 102F and was barely coherent. Today I'm at about 100F and almost fully functional.
Leanna and I have a meeting with the city at noon (to receive a $50,000 grant for being one of the most innovative small businesses in Amarillo) and then I have to go spend the whole afternoon at the courthouse waiting for my five minutes on the witness stand. ("Yes, Mr DA, this is the document that the defendant handed to me. Are we done now?") {I was actually on the stand for two hours, and every question was, basically, that one. Lawyers. Sheesh.}
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C: Would there be a way (for someone to step up out of SFB staff) to become a scenario proofer to free up SPP's time nitpicking scenarios that are too complicated? (And I have never been disatisfied by his nitpicking, I just imagine that there is many tasks for him and scenarios should be low on the totempole). Example, I submitted a scenario to SPP that was more complicated than needed to be, because I was trying to be cute would be the simplest way to explain it.
A: I know of no human being who can do what Steve Petrick does.
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Q: I've sent a Fed CLF design to your email account and have just realised that if one were to replace the drone racks with special sensors one would create a really nifty Survey Vessel. Would you mind making a note about that when you deal with the SSDs.
A: Already dealt with, and should not have been posted in this topic but sent by email.
Your proposals, again, did not include your name and you're not the only one with those initials. It's the height of arrogance and ego to make me guess who sent in the ships. Your design won't work as you can't mount engines there and your history is goofy as you seem to think that the NCA center engine is something hard to get (it's a frigate engine for cripes sake, did you do any research at all?). The CF has 36 warp. Given a 3/4 movement ship you need 27 and the CL has 24, so you only need 3, not the 12 you gave it. You could put a frigate engine under the center or you could replace the existing engines with CA engines and have 30 warp, more than enough. I've made such a note and if used the ship could be printed as "based on a very different proposal by MJC". Did inspire me to consider the idea of just tacking a modified NCA module+engine on the bottom of a CL and converting it into a CA.
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Q: Any chance you can update the submissions list?
A: The submissions list was (then) and is (now) current.
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Q: In the Miniatures section, you closed the general miniature discussion because it wasn't archiving correctly, and said you were going to open a new one.
A: The new one is in the same place but called "Miniature Updates". That's where general mini stuff goes.
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Q: I lost my old copy of Prime Directive. Has G.32 been republished in any other product or do I need to track down an OOP copy of PD on e-bay?
A: G.32 PRIME TEAMS is in the MRB. G32 was also published in Module S2 (if you don't have the MRB).
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, December 03, 2008 - 06:41 pm: Edit

Questions from May 2005
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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SVC Posted in May 2005 (and still true in Dec 2008): As for OSX, my experience with it is hardly unique and is uniformly negative. It's a bad design (awkward and needless changes from OS9), a bad system (no better than OS9 and frankly much worse), barely works (when it works at all), crashes constantly (assuming you can get it to actually run in the first place), and corrupts every file it opens (try playing master of orion when the number of ships for everybody but you doubles every turn). The only reason we have it on the home computer at all is that was the only way to get three TIVO units to run in a network without hardwiring, and had I known that the airport transfer rates were 1/4 of the hardwire rates I wouldn't have gone with airport in the first place. If my mother wasn't in the hospital I'd have taken a sunday off to string hardwires by now, and as soon as I can string wires, that OSX crap is going to be removed from the home computer (which would actually allow me to use it, since now I can't). [The wires were strung, and OSX was removed from the home computer.] For now, there is simply no reason for ADB to upgrade its four MACs from OSX to OS9. The OS9 systems and software work just exactly like they did in 1999 and there is nothing we want to do that they won't do (except run the movies on a couple of websites). Having to pay a couple of thousand dollars to replace all the software we use just isn't a justifiable expense, not when there is NOTHING to be gained but a chance to see that new offbroadway star trek episode. And it gets worse. Right now, when we want to reprint an old product and have to extract old word-4/5 files (as we did for master rulebook, G2, and F1; and any future reprint of say CL10-16) we have to do entire days of work to bring the old files up to OS9 standards. Fortunately, we don't do that very often, but a switch to OSX would mean having to do it for everything, every time. So, switching to OSX has one benefit (a bootleg star trek episode) but costs us thousands of dollars and weeks of extra work. [Nothing has changed. We have no reason to go to OSX except to access a few websites which we don’t really need to go to anyway.]
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Q, Do you still number recieved proposals?
A: No, we stopped doing that in early 2005. We were spending more time keeping track of them than we were spending analyzing them, and one guy was sending in a new Fed ship with F111 fighters on it every day.
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Q; I note in your last company log entry that you hired Ken Burnside as your "CSR." I guess this means Ken has moved to Texas? Last I heard, he lived in Madison, WI. When did he move? Or is he in the process of moving?
A: Ken has been in Austin for several months. He had a temporary assignment with Steve Jackson Games straightening out their print buying. Having solved that problem, he was ready to come to ADB. Note that we aren't buying Ad Astra but that we can do some supporting things to help it grow. (Ken worked for us until May 2006.)
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, December 03, 2008 - 07:18 pm: Edit

Questions from June-July 2005
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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C: You mentioned you've never played a railroad game. If I may suggest, a really cool little railroad game is called "Trans-America", by Rio Grande Games. It's fun, it takes only 1/2 hour or so. You are dealt a hand of 5 American cities. There is a big pile of generic wooden tracks (unlike some games where everybody has their own track), and you can connect to other peoples' rail lines. You can play 2 tracks per turn (1 over mountain or river). First person to connect their 5 cities wins the round. A nice little beer and pretzels railroad game that could possibly be adapted for an SFU version.
A: If I can't blow up the train, I don't want to play a train game.
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Q: What's the Origins departure schedule from the ADB Crew and the board will die down from your input?
A: We usually leave at 5pm on Monday and plan to do so this time.
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Q: What's the best format to submit SSDs to you for approval? GIF, PDF, something else? Since you'd have to eventually modify them (Crawford Box, touchup, etc).
A: Anything we can read. To publish them, we’d have to do them over anyway in software we could modify.
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Q: I believe you posted a comment that ADB was looking for other conventions in which to have a presence. The World Boardgame Championship (formerly Avaloncon) is being held August 2-7, 2005 in Lancaster Pa. Here is the contact information.
A: We sent Ken Burnside there. Intereting experience.
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Q: What was the Big Origins Product for 2005.
A: Module F2 Vudar Enclave
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C: E-mail about that thing was sent today.
A: I got it. There is really no point in posting a note here about an email sent unless you didn't get an answer in 3-4 days. Unless it’s a time-critical emergency like an article you are writing for a product going to press today.
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Q: In light of the recent death of James Doohan (today), could you PLEASE put up some sort of tribute to him on your opening page of this GREAT webite?.
A: We have all given tribute to him on the BBS. We just don't do it on the web page itself. We'd be criticized for whoever we didn't do it for.
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SVC posted: Going to conventions: Big problems are time and expense. We're going (or planning to go) to about as many as we can take time for. Expense is also an issue. Basically, there are two plans.
1. Buy me a plane ticket and hotel room and I'll do whatever you want (except judge) SFUwise.
2. Convince me that the convention is close enough to drive to and has enough customers at it that sales will pay the expenses. THEN convince me that some non-cash return (talking with a significant number of fans, or a really good strip club next to the convention) is worth the time.
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, December 03, 2008 - 07:29 pm: Edit

Questions from August-September 2005
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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Q: I am going to be registaring to run some SFB events at PentaCon in Ft. Wayne IN Nov. 4-6, 2005. Events I plan on running are SFB Tournament, SFBF Demo Game and hopefully a demo of Fed Commander. How many players could be easily included in a Fed Commander Demo? Are there any additional requirements to running these events as sanctioned other than following the published rules and requesting your approval?
A: Carry on. You have all you need (except a copy of FC, and I'm working on that). For a demo of FC, you can do it with a few people sitting around a table watching you (and perhaps a friend) playing, or one-on-one. Functionally, such a demo would be comparable to running a bare-bones SFB game with cadet ships.
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There was a discussion of banner advertising, which we started doing about this time and are still doing in December 2008.
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By Steve Cole on Friday, August 19, 2005
Leanna and I are here at Gencon. It's VERY different from Origins in a lot of strange and subtle ways. Just a different crowd of people. The SFB group is strong and Jeff Laikind's SFB events have been packed. Jeff has been heard to say "everyone is welcome, we'll just add four more ships to the battle" more than once.
Ken is doing very well with his new game.
The food is awful and awfully expensive. Worse than Origins.
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Q: Can I get a copy of thew back side of Fighter Op....The one I had got mess up in our move to Tn...The one with the Counters ...
A: The cover? Check with Leanna and she can sell it to you as a spare part.
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Q: I was wondering before I do post it what are your policies on someone putting an anouncement of their own website on this board.
A: I don't mind you posting it (once a month) as long as the site is done within the web policy available on the front page of the site.
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Q: Since my "Cast Web Breakdown Chart" was published in CL#30, Pg. 76, is it OK for me to distribute the electronic form I have of it (in Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet form) to those who were interested? (I do have the ADB Copyright Info on it, using the 1990 date from my hardcopy form.) Thanks.
A: Thanks for asking. In this case, go ahead.
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Q: Have you had any word on Lou Zocchi? I seem to recall he had his Gamescience business in Biloxi, Mississippi and pray he and his family are okay.
A: Colonel Zocchi is fine and is commanding a red cross shelter in Alabama. No news on whether his warehouse and inventory survived. [It did.]
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Q: I'm going to be doing a term paper on futuristic weapons and weapons' systems for my class at SF State. For this assignment I need to interview someone who's "in the know" about things of this nature, and I was wondering if I could pick yours or SPP's mind about what you all think about things like Electromagnetic Guns, LASERS, Particle Projection Canons, and the like.
A: I got out of the military intel business when I started ADB Inc. as a publisher (so did Petrick) and we're so far out of the loop at this point we'd do more harm than good as an interview source.
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Q: I've noticed a serious gap of time since the last review of all the submissions (in your submissions status topic). In 2003 you said you'd review again NET (no earlier than) mid-December. How's it going?
A: I haven't had time to even look at them. Since we review submissions based on the product that they might go into, and none of the submissions in the file would go into any product in the next 90 days, no big deal. It would be inefficient, for example, for us to review ships that might or might not fit some product we might or might not do at some future time, we simply put the submissions into a file for a product or type of product and review them only when that product moves into the active window. If I reviewed, say, one of the ships you submitted today, all I could answer would be either (1) rejected or (2) might be used in R13 but I'm not working on R13 so no promises it will be in R13, at which time I will have to review it all over again. It’s more efficient to wait until I actually work on R13.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, December 03, 2008 - 07:38 pm: Edit

Questions from October 2005
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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C: Somebody is posting spam on the BBS.
A: Thanks. I deleted it.
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Q: I have posted a possible F&E scenario for CL32 in the F&E Scenario Proposal section. Do you want me to post it under the CL32 topic, e-mail it to you, e-mail it to SPP or is it fine where it is?
A: Email Chuck Strong. He’s in charge of F&E Scenarios. He will tell you whether to send it to him, or set up a topic for it.
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Q: Did the F&E Large Counter files ever get posted??
A: Yes.
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A comment by SVC: We are doing 1" counters for FC and Megahex. We won't do 1" fleet counters for F&E simply because the only customers for them are those who bought the LSM and there were about 150 of those, so the market (each would need only one set) is 10% of the minimum print run.
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Q: Have you made any decisions about doing further deck plan packs?
A: We continue to evaluate the idas.
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Q: Sent you an email on Monday about convention support (if it has changed as I thought was once mentioned). Just wanting to verify if you received it.
A: Please do not post a "did you get my Email" message here until 7 days after you sent it, and during those seven days, send two further Emails three days apart asking if I got it.
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C: SFU calendar questions in the PD20 section that could use your input.
A: I don't really know or care if there is a Y0 or just a moment-zero. I have heard history professors on TV debating if Christ was born in the last few days of 1BC, during Y0, or at the end of 1AD. I suppose there is some establishment view but it's all an approximation so I don't know that I care.
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Q: I have a question about the yet-to-be-worked-on-but-probably-on-the-list-somewhere (or so I would guess) Master Scenario Book. Which topic would I post this question in?
A: Frank: I created a topic for that product. Ask there.
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Q: I just saw yet another request for old Captains Logs in the Buy Sell Swap thread and I had this idea. Why not reprint them, or do a best of?
A: We want to reprint them, and are working on it. So far (Dec 08) we only got one done and it wasn’t what we wanted, and we’re working on doing more by another means.
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SVC said: We have file copies of everything but it's good to know we have friends to back us up.
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Q: Since I doubt you want this in the FC:BOM topic I thought I'd ask you here. Is there a topic where we can post our request for the CVG group SSDs product?
A: Email Petrick.
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October 21st: ADB is proud to announce publication of the first in a new series of thriller-mysteries about Ramses the feline detective. In MURDER AT ORIGINS our intrepid feline sleuth tries to figure out who killed Tos Crawford while checking out the hot dog stand. "The real mystery here," said authoress Leanna Cole, "is how Ramses takes so long to figure out what everybody in SFBdom knows without any investigation at all, that Petrick did it."
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, December 03, 2008 - 07:44 pm: Edit

Questions from November-December 2005
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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Q: I was reading Module C4 (Fleet Training Centers) today and I noticed it said there were plans to develop some of the minor races in a future product (C4F). Was that ever done? If not, is there still an intention to do so in the future?
A: It remains one of many ideas we have for future products.
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Q: The products update webpage and update.
A: At the time (Nov 05) this was a major failing, not least because it was a major problem. By December 2005, we had updated the website on a systematic basis.
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Q: SVC, i posted a question regarding the PGV on the questions on ships thread. As this question could, possibly, involve an SSD change, i wanted to bring it to your attention. thanks.
A: You need to talk to Petrick about that. If he wants to ask me about it, he will, but if it's SFB he has to work through it first.
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Q: After much reading and three intense days of playing FC, I think you should insert the entire SFB rule book in the boxed FC game. I'm only suggesting this due to my vast experience. I think this sounds good. Do you?
A: Send this man to the agonizer booth!
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Q: Would redoing the SSD's for the Tournament Ships in the color-coded FC format be doable? Everyone who's seen our FC games has commented on the colored SSD's. With redone, color-coded TCC's - we might be able to attract a few new people into the tournaments.
A: It's a possibility and after a few products we would already be close. (Pity, this is one of several ideas that was not followed up on and should have been.
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December 14th: Don't expect a lot out of me the rest of the day. I woke up pretty sick, just got back from the dentist (where they pumped so much gas into me it could be days before i can drive), and it's time for my usual Christmas Depression (worst this year due to the loss of my father and my mother's "permanent hospitalization"). If questions go unanswered, just wait for tomorrow and I'll be better. I don't want to have to concentrate as hard as I'm having to right now just to focus enough to type this.
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, December 04, 2008 - 11:47 am: Edit

Questions from January-February-March 2006
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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By Steve Cole on Sunday, January 01, 2006
I will be out of the office from Noon Monday for a few days. I'll probably be back Thursday midnight but in theory could be back as early as wednesday midnight or as late as Friday afternoon. Ken, Mike, Petrick, and I will be driving down to Dallas. Our task is to disassemble a 24x24x18 foot structure, load it onto a track, and drive the truck back to Amarillo where we will unload the stuff and reassemble it into a second story for our warehouse and some new office space. These modular in plant structures snap together like tinker toys. No problemo.
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By Steve Cole on Friday, January 06, 2006
We are back. Nobody hurt and the building is in the truck to be unloaded tomorrow (by a hired crew). The people at Pella were astounded that we disassembled their building in only three days (sixteen hour days but heck).
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Q: in the Exreme Missions thread, back on July 2004, you listed some "teaser" ideas (for example seeker photon torpedos, plus some others.) I haven't been able to locate any threads that (atleast in my mind) come close to the discription. Are there open/ongoing discussions for those subjects? If not do they need to be opened? Just curious. Thanks.
A: Nah, they're just ideas I had. I'll handle them myself.
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Q: I was reading through the "Hey" and other ADB threads and I wanted to take a moment to thank you guys for an open and transparent business. I don't know how common or uncommon it is for a gaming business to put it "out there" for the consumer to see but I think it's very respectful to your customers. I was also thinking back to a comment that a (probably new) FC player made: he asked a question about the game on the board and you answered it in fairly swift fashion and he seemed taken aback at the level of access he had to the game designer. Good show!
A: We try. I am a people person and like talking with people. I don't always have the time to respond, but when I do, I can, and when I can't, I make a note to do it later (and, here's the bad part, lose the note half the time).
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Q: I noticed that there is a discussion topic for a new product, but it is closed to (peanut gallery) input. Is this a topic that we're not ready to discuss? Do suggestions for it go elsewhere?
A: Yes, we are not ready to discuss it. No, suggestions don’t go anywhere until we are ready to discuss it.
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Q: I can't seem to find any words on policy regarding art submission. Am I missing it?
A: We have separate art guidelines on the web site in the input section.
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By Steve Cole on Friday, March 31, 2006 - 03:17 pm: Edit
The wildfire inside Amarillo city limits yesterday burned about a square mile (although it wasn't a square). Fourteen homes (all trailer houses, some of them not occupied) were destroyed. These were all in one area which was hit quickly by the fire and the houses were already burning furiously when the fire department got there in record time. Winds over 50mph were blasting the fire through mostly empty areas. Basically, it started on the very edge of the occupied city (the city limit includes a lot of empty ground for future expansions and because of bizarre texas laws about cities gobbling up whatever land they want without consulting the owners so they can charge city taxes) but well inside the city limit and well inside the "beltway" (known here as "the loop") and headed away from town. The Red Cross (gotta love those guys) is already sheltering the handful of families that lost everything and helping them get new clothes and things. The fire fighting crews were in the thick of it (and crews from four small towns within two hours of Amarillo rolled in to help) and the morning newspaper had pictures of one pumper truck crew trying to put out their own truck that caught fire.
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, December 04, 2008 - 11:58 am: Edit

Questions from April-May-June 2006
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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Q: So I was just watching some TV and this show in particular was Food Networks "The Secret Life of Steak". One segment was about Amarillos Texas Big Steak resturant and their 72oz. eat it all and its free deal. For just a second I thought I saw someone that looked like you. Could it be?
A: No, I haven't been there since my brother's birthday in 1972. I am a huge fan of beef. I'm just not a huge fan of country music, which plays endlessly at Big Texan. Also, of every place in the city limits that you can get a steak, that place is just but the farthest from the house or the office. I prefer Western Sizzler or Stockyards Cafe. Better steaks, better prices, no country music.
The 72oz steak free if eaten in one hour is just an advertising gimmick. Lots of people try it, few succeed. We had a wrestler come by one time and eat two of them in a row. And some guy transporting tiger to a zoo came by and Big Texan called the news crews and newspaper and fed the tiger 72 ounce steaks one after another. Good advertising. Trick about the steak is that it also comes with a salad, shrimp cocktail, and baked potato. You only get 45 minutes for the steak, during which there is a constantly annoying countdown.
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Q: I will have my website up and running on Monday and I would like to know if I could put a direct link with your website on it? If at all possible I think it would look really cool if I could get an "official banner" to put on my site since www.starfleetgames.com is "the official site for everything SFB". If you could send me an e-mail on this subject please do.
A: We have a page where you can download banners. Anybody can post a link to us. If you want us to post a link to you, send me the link and I’ll see if you qualify for our links page.
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Q: Is there a format to follow for writing up F&E scenarios for submission? I could swear I saw one once on the board, but cannot find it.
A: we really need to do one.
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Q, if someone comes up with a F&E scenario (and I have), would you prefer it just be sent to you directly for consideration or posted to the F&E topic for comment and consideration by the F&E community at large. I already plan on e-mailing it to a couple people for their input, but was curious as to what way works best for you.
A: Email Chuck Strong and ask him what to do with it.
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During this period, SVC’s prized 60 inch TV died, and he was disgusted to find out that new 60 inch "widescreen" TV’s have a SMALLER picture.
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I would like to run Federation Commander at a local gaming convention in the fall (September sometime) but I have one small problem, the convention organizers don't put out a brochure or anything and I know you require such a thing before you will officially sanction any running of events at a convention. Is there a way that I can get around this qualification ? If there is could you e-mail me and let me know ?, I would greatlly appeciate it. I have asked the convention organizers if they would and they told me quote unquote "that word of mouth is enough and that since FlatCon (the name of the convention) is a local event and not a regional or national one that they don't have the budget for such things". I would love to run FC at the con but I would love to have it sanctioned and also have your blessings on it before I do.
A: Not a problem. Email me for a copy of the tournament policy thing which explains it all.
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I've been reading your book, and I gotta say it is quite entertaining and kinda fascinating. Thanks for putting it up there.
www.StarFleetGames.com/book
A: Glad you like it.
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Q: I am trying to get something to you so you can read it on the drive. Are you guys leaving for Origins Wednesday or Tuesday?
A: We always leave on Monday at 5pm.
R: Yikes!
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, December 04, 2008 - 12:20 pm: Edit

Questions from July-August-September 2006
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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This topic exists to alert me to questions to answer in other topics, not to discuss questions I am not involved in discussing. I recognize the value of giving me an "executive summary" and praise the guy who compiled one for doing a spiffy job of just that. However, put the summary in the proper topic and use THIS topic to alert me to go read the summary in the other topic. Otherwise you're just moving the conversation over here.]
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Q: Have you considered creating a MySpace account for ADB/SFU?
A: We did one shortly after this post. It’s not clear how much good it’s doing. Anybody with suggestions on how it could help find new customers, please Email me.
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Q; could you post a quick note on your current activity? That is, what products you are currently working on?
A: At the time (summer 06) this was haphazard, but during 2008 I began posting daily activity blogs.
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Q: Okay, so how did you talk Leanna into letting you hire two gorgeous college-age girls to work there???? And has anyone warned them about you????
A: Leanna hired them so she could have "girl talk". I could probably get sued for saying that the two new hires are both drop dead gorgeous so I'll just mention that they're nice to chat with.
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Somebody posted: Scientific studies have proven that women make up approximately 50% of the human race, but there is a serious lack of role models for a woman interested in gaming as an independent operator (as opposed to an affiliate/subordinate position, the so-called "my boyfriend got me into this" situation.) By hiring women, ADB is just trying to grab wargaming by the nose and drag it, kicking and screaming and wetting itself, into the blinding light of the new millenium.
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C: I'm glad to here things with Federation Commander are doing well and that sales are up.
A: So are we.
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SVC: I have said before that I'll handle the creation of new rules and ships. I didn't ask for input on Fed Commander other than scenarios. It's my new baby and I'm the only one who gets to feed it and take it for a walk.
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C: We are fast approaching 200,000 messages on this BBS and should eclipse this number before noon tomorrow. Was this number ever reset after some great purge?
A: There have been far more than 200,000 posts. At several points, many old posts have gotten deleted or lost during BBS maintenance.
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, December 04, 2008 - 12:20 pm: Edit

Questions from October 2006
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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Steve Cole’s Report from Germany, at the Essen Game Show.
German keyboards are funny, the y and z are reversed, and some other kezs are unusual. I may post this in several parts just so I do not lose it.
We are, obviously, alive and (if anyone is wondering) we are well.
The show is getting a very slow start, because unlike the last few shows, this does not happen to fall on the week that children are out of school. Very small crowds, but we have had a few sales, all to existing customers who knew we were coming. This is, we are told, the "pattern" in that Thursdaz is existing customers, Fridaz is dead, but Saturday and Sundaz are huge. {They weren’t.}
Vanessa, please spell check this before it goes in the blog.
The flight over was uneventful, but it was nice. I got to see two movies and two old episodes of CSI. We had an empty seat between us, and could set the little TV on that to the flight map feature so we always knew where we were, while watching separate channels.
I got no sleep on the plane and am jetlagged very bad. I hate the long hikes to the show, an have been passing out cold in the booth, but it is getting better, and todaz wasnot critical in any case.
The hotel has a free breakfast but what Germans eat for breakfast is very strange. cold cuts, rolls, half-cooked eggs. Lunch has been convention food, although very strange food. Dinner is huge hunks of meat. The chefs here take great pride in their work, and show up with a translator to verify exactly what I am allergic to. They consider it a challenge and honor to prepare special meals, and the food is not just plentiful but most excellent.
Germany is very strange. No wash cloths in the bathrooms, very tiny bathrooms and elevators, strange light switches, and no ice in the cokes. I did find a doctor pepper and drank it, do not tell Leanna!
The hotel is more like an army barracks, I feel right at home. Leanna does not. Next year, holiday inn for sure.
Funny story. today I was so jetlagged that I went outside to get fresh air and saw a row of people laying on the bricks taking naps. I went to the end of the row and laid down. A guy came by with a notebook and asked me what time I wanted to be woken up. After the hour nap, I was fine.
C: We are fast approaching 200,000 messages on this BBS and should eclipse this number before noon tomorrow. Was this number ever reset after some great purge?
A: There have been far more than 200,000 posts. At several points, many old posts have gotten deleted or lost during BBS maintenance.
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Steve Cole checking in from London on 25 Oct 06. Somebody let Petrick know.
Sunday: The Essen Show definitely picked up. Lots of people who said 'I will come back' actually did. A retailer bought a thousand dollars worth of stuff and Ulysses Spiel came by and signed up as our new German distributor and took everything we had left.
Monday, nice drive back to Frankfurt with Rick Loomis. Nice flight to London. John Crawford met us at the airport and escorted us through the London underground system to our hotel. Nice chat, we gave him a pile of new miniatures for his courtesy, and we got a good night's sleep. The Holiday Inn here is very nice (it should be considering what they charge). Real beds (not army cots), bathroom big enough to turn around in (I'm not kidding when I say the German one is not), toilet inside the room, refrigerator, and so forth. Decent currency exchange rates in the hotel. Of course, the cokes are half-price in the mini-store across the street and internet is 1/7 the price in the internet cafe across the street. Hamburger for supper is $21 but even I could not eat it all.
Tuesday: Super 'english breakfast' at the holiday inn. For $30 per person it had darn well better be. John Crawford took us on a subway ride, and then a walking tour of London/Westminster. We saw parliament, number ten, the statue of Boudica, Buckingham Palace (the queen was there as the flag was flying). Then a boat trip up the thames to see all kinds of stuff like HMS Belfast and Cleopatra's needle. Then off the boat to walk around the Tower of London. Leanna always thought it was just a tower and I thought it was just a castle but it's a huge fortress complex. We saw a lot of other stuff I won't list. General tourist stuff.
Wednesday (today, I think). Spent the whole day at THE BRITISH MUSEUM mostly seeing old egyptian and messopotanian stuff. Geez, these brits have preserved the history of the world since most of this stuff (including an entire temple) would have been carted away for landfill by the locals by this point. Saw lots and lots of stuff, mostly more than two thousand years old. You could spend a week in this place just reading all of the little name cards. I hope the Brits are never forced to give this stuff back; they've done a perfect job of keeping it safe for the world. On the walk back we had a pizza. British pizza is strange. Everybody gets there own 15" pizza but there isn't much to it compared to getting half of an American pizza which is much thicker. Even so, it's just about perfect for one person. The Brits eat their pizzas with a knife and fork, one bite at a time, each bite neatly folded in half with the tips of the knife and fork. Americans of course just slice the pizza into six pieces and eat it by hand. Go figure.
Good reports from Petrick on what the crew is doing back home. He says CL34 will be finished when I get home except for my few pages. Leanna and I are really enjoying a true vacation with good friends for companions. Tomorrow is Stonehenge day, picked as the predicted best weather of the week.
Looking forward to Saturday in Finchley with our British fans.
Rick Loomis called today to say he was safely in England and viewing Hadrian's wall.
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SVC checking in on 28 Oct. Good day Friday at the Natural History Museum and Imperial War Museum. Good day today at Leisure Games meeting local british gamers, some of whom had driven 2-3 hours to get there. John Crawford, our new VP of European Operations, has been a splendid host. Tomorrow will be an adventure, up at 5am to take a taxi to the subway, a subway to the train station, and a train to the airport. Getting 25 miles inside London takes 2.5 hours. How they keep this country running is beyond me, but it works.
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Report on 29 Oct: Leanna and I are home safely, but I don't plan to be functional before Tuesday. As I said before I left, the next 4 weeks are going to be very intense finishing StratOps and CL34 so don't think that I'm going to pay much attention to your favorite project until 1 Dec.
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, December 04, 2008 - 12:28 pm: Edit

Questions from November-December 2006
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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SVC note to Jeff: I found your article fun, and it inspired me to resolve some items I had long intended to resolve. I rearranged some paragraphs, deleted your explanations of how you came to the numbers (after checking and approving them) and added some elements to clarify what you were trying to do. When Petrick gives it back to me and I resolve any issues he has, I'll send you a copy.
SVC note to Loren: Got your story, and I will read it, but nobody promised you it would go into CL34 even if it is publishable. Remember that stories are submitted as "stories to use when/where best" not as "stories for a specific issue".
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Q: Should we start a Federation Commander Online thread in the FC Forums on the http://www.federationcommander.com website.
A: Yes. Talk to Vanessa (who is the webmaster for that forum) about where to put it.
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Q: Hey Steve. Did you or Petrick ever think about doing podcasts? It would be great to hear while driving, working or what not.
A: I do not really know what a podcast is, and generally regard "live interviews" as an opportunity for me to forget to mention something important.
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Q: Just wondering when the Master Ship Book will be coming out? I can't remember if you gave a date for it or not.
A: I didn't give a date. I said we would try to find time to work on it and in a few months would see if we had made enough progress to set a date.
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Everybody have safe New Years. If you really do plan to get plastered, do it at home or at some place you can spend the night, or designate a driver who does not drink ANY alcohol.
Petrick will be happy to volunteer to be the designated driver for any drunken party involving lots and lots of cute college coeds.
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, December 05, 2008 - 11:55 am: Edit

Questions from January-February-March 2007
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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Q: Is there a way of posting pictures of completed miniatures and/or other pictures to this board.
A: email them to me and I will post them for you. Or you can get a free account at photobucket.com or similar places.
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During January 0f 2007, some Russian Spammers startingusing one of my Email addresses as a phony return address. They were sending millions of Spams per day, and any of them that bounced (about 3,600 per day) came to me as I was "the sender". Eventually, they just went away and started using somebody else’s address.
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There was also another rendition of "why SVC won’t switch to Mac OSX".
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We uploaded the first version of the Chain of Command Chart.
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During this period we got the sad news of the untimely death of Joe Butler. He is still missed today as there are parts of the BBS and Site we cannot get into as he took the keycodes with him.
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By Steve Cole on Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Inspired by the death of Joe Butler, I went to the doctor, who ordered a bunch of tests. Two weeks later, I was told I had extremely high blood pressure and was diabetic, which was a shock because tests six months earlier said I as neither. The doctor suggested that I had put too much stress on my body for too long and "it finally broke". Medication has the problems under control, but I have struggled to bring down my weight.
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Q: Hey SVC, how about a Company Weblog update? I love reading that thread...
A: I do it every day on the other site. No real point in doing it twice.
Go to www.FederationCommander.com and look in the lower right for the blog box.
Update: Sometime during 2007, I turned over the blog to Petrick, who may someday get a grip on what blogging is about. Later, I started posting my "day file" on the Discus BBS.
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By Steve Cole on Friday, February 23, 2007
I'm all stressed out, so I must have passed.
Seriously, my stress test (Treadmill+EKG) says I have no arterial blockages in my heart. So, heart attack isn't happening, stroke is still a risk until they get my BP down.
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Wikipedia: anyone posting our images on Wikipedia, please note that they remain under ADB copyright and cannot be "used by anyone for any purpose as long as they credit ADB".
Instead, mark them that: "These images are posted with ADB's permission. They remain ADB's sole property and ADB's permission is required for any further use."
Let me be clear. I have NEVER given permission for those images to be posted under some kind of deal that allows anyone to do anything as long as they credit ADB. No one who has posted those pics has ever asked for anything beyond permission to post them. Period.
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There really is no need to post here that you sent me an Email until 3-4 days later assuming you did not get an answer.
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, December 05, 2008 - 01:38 pm: Edit

Questions from April-May-June-July-August 2007
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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C: Love the new look for the WEB site. Very sharp.
A: Vanessa and Leanna thought that the old look was ugly. Don't blame that on Joe; he did what I told him to do. The old SVC just didn't understand the importance of looking sharp.
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In late June, Leanna and I made a drive to Dallas to inspect our die cut counters. We drove through one of the worst rainstorms and floods in Texas history, but made it home ok.
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Q: my local game store tried ordering C5 from you guys, but keep turning up with nothing. Are you no longer stocking C5?
A: 1. We still have C5 in stock.
2. Your store did not try to order if from "us guys". We very rarely get orders directly from stores, and we'd remember.
3. I'm guessing that your store tried to order it from a wholesaler that was out of it. Find out which wholesaler and get me the name of the store and I'll make a call.
4. More than a few stores just don't remember to order stuff, either because they don't want to be bothered and figure if you come back in you will buy something else, or because they're busy and forget. If you get your store to anser the questions in #3, your store is probably not one of these.
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Q: Is there an official color sceme for WYN ships.
A: do you mean miniatures? (white hull with trim details of whatever color suits your pleasure.) Or counters? (red on yellow)
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Q: It wasn't just the BBS - the entire site was down.
A: Took us a few phone calls to figure it out. Here is what happened. We send out a thing called STAR FLEET ALERT once or twice a week. It's a PDF press release about new products. It goes out from Vanessa's computer (wildcat), marked "from Marketing@StarFleetGames.com".
Because Vanessa wasn't here, Matt diverted here Email to me. This was a problem because if I wanted to send something out from her computer, I would email it to marketing@ and it would come straight to me, which was pointless. So Matt set up a phony email address wildcat@ so I could transfer files to her computer.
I sent down the hall on 24 Aug and sent the Star Fleet Alert from her computer. I didn't realize that it was going "from wildcat@" until it had been sent.
ONE person (who had ASKED to get star fleet alerts) got an Email from "Wildcat@" and went freekazoid and instead of complaining to us, complained to the host. The host emailed us, but sent it to the old email account that isn't working because the Russian's use it as a spoof return address. So, we never got the emails.
All is now fixed. Emails from Vanessa's computer are now marked "marketing@" not "wildcat@" (this was actually fixed back when it happend that one time), the one idiot who filed the complaint apologized for his panic attack, the host said "oooo Russians", and I said "get back to work".
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Q: So, your host shut down your whole site because of one complaint that contained no evidence of actual malicious activity, and without bothering to actually call you?
A: They did Email us (twice) but the Email was caught in the Russian spam trap. I have asked them, in future, to TELEPHONE us before shutting the site down, but they say it's not their policy. I really don't have a problem with them. The culprit here is SPAM, not people who overreact to spam or don't notice that the "spam" they got is something they asked for (just from another address).
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"The total amount of time that computers have saved the human race is equal to the amount of time the human race has spent deleting spam and waiting for web pages to load."--Dilbert
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, December 05, 2008 - 02:02 pm: Edit

Questions from September 2007
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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On September 14th, Leanna and I went on a trip out west, taking Sara, the new HPDV9417CL laptop. We saw the wolves at Wild Spirit on the 15th and reached Flagstaff by midnight. Leanna got sick (bad cold), and so did I. On the 16th, we got to Vegas, and I got a phone call from my mother’s nursing home that she had been sent to the hospital after another choking incident and that they would not allow her to return as she choked every time she ate. I told them they could just deal with it (Texas law says they cannot refuse to take her back and I know it) until I got home, scheduled for the 24th. My aunts were more than capable of checking on mother since I was out of town. Luxor charged us $200 a night for the hot tub suite and then had the nerve to charge $13 a day for internet, and put the only internet connection 30 feet from the only desk. On the 17th, Leanna and I (still sick) got married in the full Tuxedo & Wedding Gown on our 30th anniversary. We were expecting OJ to show up but he did not. We started home on the 18th, and had been told mother was "near death, so hurry home". Two hours later, she was up, eating jello, and talking, so we went (as planned) to the Tiger sanctuary in Arizona. We spent the day there on the 19th (hourly phone calls from aunts who said mother was fine), mostly because we were too sick to drive but not too sick to ride a bus around the sanctuary. On the 20th, we left Arizona but after spending hours on mountain roads, reached Gallup and decided to stay the night. The plan was to go see the wolves on the 21st, the museums on the 22nd, and get home on the 23rd. It was not to be. The morning of the 21st, we got a call that mother was not going to survive without a feeding tube, which her own written instructions prohibited. She was transferred to hospice for her final days. Leanna and I skipped the wolves and the museums and went straight to hospice to see mother. She lingered for over a week, while I spent most of the time with her and what little time I was in the office, I got nothing done. Mother finally passed away on the 30th of September. I was sad to see her go, relieved at the end of her 30 months of suffering, and felt guilty about the fact that I no longer had to be "bothered" with taking care of her. I got through the worst of it thanks to Leanna and all of the warm wishes from you guys.
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, December 05, 2008 - 02:13 pm: Edit

Questions from October-November-December 2007
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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SVC on 5 Oct: Let's take a moment to recognize that Steve Petrick has grown from the guy who helped me to a guy capable of doing this without me.
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Leanna and I went to a star trek convention in tulsa in October, once again proving the maxim that trekkers do not buy games.
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Mayfair games shook up the industry by setting a "floor" on the price of their games, refusing to sell to wholesales who sold to on-line discounters. A new Supreme Court ruling said that manufacturers could enforce no-discount rules.
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Leanna and I went to the Halloween party at the wolf sanctuary, feeding beef heart to alpha wolf Genghis Khan. On the way home from the trip, Leanna and I stopped at the Ancient Shadows Dinosaur Sanctuary, where the last dinosaurs in North America are allowed to live out their lives in peace. In a posted photo, Leanna poses with Spike, a pentaceratops. She had just given Spike an entire head of cabbage to eat.
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Industry mailing list is going ga-ga over some bunch of Europeans who spent $15,000 doing a 110-minute film based on warhammer 40k without noticing that they didn’t have the legal rights to do it. Apparently the problem is that Germany (where the film was made) has some screwy copyright laws. GW initially agreed to allow the film to be made. But then it was discovered that the film creators apparently could not "transfer" the film rights back to GW, which would cause problems for GW. Basically, allowing the film to be shown would apparently cause GW to lose their 40K IP. So GW backed out of the agreement. But the group making the film incorrectly assumed that they'd eventually be able to come to some sort of agreement with GW, and continued filming even after GW had revoked its consent.
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Petrick and I went to Board Game Geek Con and found out that they don’t play our kind of "boardgame" which they consider to be a hated and detested "hex and counter wargame". The convention organizers said "We couldn’t figure out why YOU were coming HERE" and gave us our booth fee back, but we still lost three days work and several hundred dollars in truck rental and hotel expenses. I didn't get "snubbed" by anyone. I just got politely ignored. Nobody was rude to me; only a few current customers (count them on one hand) had any interest in anything I had to show them (and they already had it all).
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Somebody (other than me) can keep wiki active if they want to. I'm not going to waste a lot of effort on the wiki-wags and their theories of what is and isn't notable.
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There was a discussion that spammers use clever subject lines like "here is the file" and "this is what we talked about" and that gamers who use those terms usually have their Emails deleted by the spam filter. It was recommended that people use a specific subject line related to the Email such as "SFB" or "Communique-31" or whatever.
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Q: have you ever concedered doing a pod cast?
A: Not really. I'm not entirely sure what one is, but I am guessing sort of a radio interview except it downloads to an Ipod like a song album? One or two people have asked me to do them and I've said "sure, tell me what to do" and heard nothing back from them. Basically, I regard live interviews that are recorded and on the internet forever as a gigantic opportunity to screw up and leave out something important. I just don’t see the point. People can read the blog.
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, December 06, 2008 - 11:48 am: Edit

Archive from January 2008
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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Q: I'm wondering if it is possible for me to give you guys my credit card number and just simply bill my account for any new product you release.
A: You can always phone us to give your credit card number, but the new banking rules mean we cannot keep credit card numbers on file. Indeed, the way the cart works now, we never see your number. If you phone in an order, we are required by the bank to destroy the only copy we have of your number the day your package ships.
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C: This is your OFFICIAL quarterly request to look at my fiction submittal "lyran" story.
A: I did and selected it for CL38.
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Q: To save on the amount of "electronic storage space" on this board have you ever considered putting all of the topics that haven't had discussion on them for a while in a "back up archives" somewhere ? It would save on the space you have to work with and be more economical as well.
A: It would be more work, would not save any money, and would make the topics harder to access. Some of the "dormant" topics are there to gather up ideas for future products and need to remain accessible.
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Q: I am sending you some SSD's of some gorn ships I did. They are so "way out" that they will NEVER EVER be published but I am sending them to you nonetheless so that I can put them up on my photobucket account again. I took them down because I didn't send them to you first.
A: you don’t have to send them to me first. Just send me a link to them.
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A: I know about 4e, and don't care. What sells is content, not system, and those who want to play trek can use pd20e3. We are not the only company that thinks our content means 3e will still sell. Not something I'm worried about.
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By Steve Cole on Thursday, January 24, 2008
BAD LUNCH WARNING: Expect me to be insanely pissed off about nearly everything for the rest of the day. Bookbinding problems again. Repairman called but cannot come until tomorrow. About half of the mail orders (and none of the staff) have been done. We expect to have Daniel (that's the name of the bookbinder) running again by mid-day tomorrow and get the remaining UPS orders out, post office orders by Saturday. Film at 11. I bought these happy pills from a nice guy on a street corner and no longer care about the bookbinder being broken.
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"...Steve Jackson decided not to license OGRE and GEV to ADB"
C: I love it when you slip little zingers like that into your "My Day" posts. Being a massive fan of those games (like many, my first hex-map "wargames") I was intrigued.
A: Those games came up in conversation a month or two ago. Somebody noticed on the SJG website that OGRE and GEV were out of print. I sent Steve (an old personal friend; I have known him longer than Petrick or Leanna) a note (which was mentioned here) saying that since I was printing counters early this year I'd either do them for him or buy a license to print the game. He said he'd think about it (well, he said "no, but...") and yesterday we had a chat about many things and that came up and he said he had decided not to.
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Q: How do you manage to do all that SIT stuff without getting a headache?
A: Nobody said it didn't give me a headache.
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, December 06, 2008 - 12:05 pm: Edit

Archive from February-March 2008
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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Q: I read that BOTH of you had read my story and made changes. May I have a copy of the "marked up" version?
A: No. It will be a surprise. Seriously, the only marked up copy is a hard copy and if I send it to you, I won't be able to publish it.
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Q: Are you the same Stephen Cole who wrote Doctor Who books?
A: No, not me.
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Q: According to the Traveller boards Gary Gygax passed away. 'Thought you'd want to know.
C: Guys, since it is mentioned in the company weblog, I think SVC knows.
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SVC: Leanna and I decided to take the entire weekend off to do things around the house that haven't gotten done since last september. I work about 50 saturdays and 40 sundays a year, have for 20 years, and that's gonna have to cut back.
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Q: why don't you just use a email client that has a bayesian spam filter?
A: I do, and those 600 spams per day are what comes through it, after it stops over a thousand and sometimes over two thousand. I am a much higher profile spam target than you (or anyone you know) due to my very public address on press releases. Frankly, I know more about spam filters than you do (or anyone else here, and a heck of a lot more than I WANT to know) and that is what comes through them. Seriously, it is an annoyance but not really a problem. It takes about a minute or so to delete them. Most come in on one of my multiple accounts, and all of them divert to a special folder and I just pick the five or six I want out of that folder and then "delete all". That kills about 500 of them. And seriously, if you even have to LOOK in your spam folder to see if something shouldn't be there, you're filter isn't working right (nor is there much point to using filter at all if you have to check the filter; you can delete spam about as fast as you can visualy confirm that it IS spam).
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Q: Just was reading yesterdays weblog and noticed the die-cutter raising his prices. How difficult would it be to add such a capability in-house?
A: About half a million dollars. Now, before anybody Googles "die cutting". There are some fairly reasonable machines (a few thousand) that will die cut cardstock. It takes something the size and price of a sherman tank to die cut 216 half inch squares into a piece of 50-point chipboard.
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March 18th, 2007: Steve Cole died. Not me, someone else in Amarillo with that name, and he happened to be a friend of the local radio talk show host, who is rambling on about "Steve Cole died" without giving enough details for someone who knows ME to say "could that be the guy who I know?". I am already getting phone calls from people asking if I'm dead. It's going to be fun morning. I sent an Email to all my relatives and the people in town I do business with that I am not the one who died. Petrick walked in to the office genuinely suprised that I am here. The guy who died was STEVEN RAY COLE. I have talked to him on the phone a couple of times when we got each other's mail. People looking for him often called me as his number was unlisted. He was almost the same age as me and was in the construction business, and since my father Richard was in that business many people assumed he was me (i.e., the son of Richard Cole) who had followed in the family business. His brother died 20+ years ago and I got sympathy cards from all of my local friends.
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R: surge of FCKB and FCRB sales that made us run out of open space maps sooner than we thought.
Q: Sounds like a nice problem to have.
A: Not when it costs $10,000 per print run of maps.
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SVC: I have used every system there is (including the one recommended), but the problem is that if more shows up than you can deal with, you never catch up, no matter what system you se. It's that simple. The solution is multi-complex. Being more efficient is one aspect, but can only take you so far. Ultimately, it comes down to pawning off some of it (delegating) to other people, and getting savagely ruthless with things that just aren't worth the time they take.
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, December 07, 2008 - 09:59 am: Edit

Archive from April-May-June 2008
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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C: I visited the Star Trek Gamers site and read the blurbs about ADB and all I can say is, "Wow!" They did a *great* job of writing about ADB. You should feel proud.
A: Grateful, actually. If somebody would send me that link, I’ll send an ambassador over.
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Q: since we are just 6 weeks or so from CL 37, is there a teaser available?
A: You really haven't been keeping up with the memos, have you? Art was posted on 25 Feb.
http://starfleetgames.com/documents/Alert_80225_CL37.pdf
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Q: what's the production plan for Mod X1R+CL37. Obviously you want them done before Origins.
A: We're getting in the car to go to Origins at 5pm on 23 June. We need to have about 50 X1Rs and about 75 CL37s in the car. That's the minimum situation; we could in theory ship the wholesalers when we get back. What we want to do is start printing CL37 on the 17th and X1R on the 20th, and ship all the orders on Monday 23rd and the mail orders on Monday 30th. But to answer your question, we've been in one heck of a rush for three weeks and it won't be over until we leave on the 23rd, and I may have to drive to Dallas next week for 2-3 days. To watch the die cutter who screwed up the maps do them over again.
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Q: Can I request to upgrade my copy of Cap Log 37 to the Bound 10pt text version? I am putting in an order for delivery at Origins and will gladly pay the $2 upgrade cost.
A: Sure, just tell Leanna. I am almost finished PDFing the LPI now.
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, December 08, 2008 - 01:50 pm: Edit

Archive from July-October 2008
Updated and revised Dec 2008
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July 1: I have a badly bruised knee (so swollen I cannot flex it), two swollen and slightly sprained ankles, and a bloody welt on my arm, all from landing on the deck of the dropship. And I feel better than I have felt in years. If that particular thrill ride had been available Sunday, I would have gone again even if it meant blowing off the seminar or letting Petrick leave Columbus without me. http://terrorwerks.com/
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Various people reported sites illegally using SFU images, which we had removed.
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Q: how about an SFU game based on trade routes ... Freighters Attack!
A: go design it and let me see it.
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Q: There seems to be demand for a space trading game, good old Merchant of Venus is in high demand.
A: I have never seen merchant of venus, but a game in which players run around the Federation in Free Traders buying low and selling high in an ever-changing market would no doubt sell. but I don't need somebody to rip off Merchant of Venus and just retype it and change the names and sell it to me and get me sued! For a game, perhaps, FEDERATION FREE TRADER, I would have a map that isn't hexes and isn't a circuit, but has the planets of the F&E thing (with maybe a few more added). Planets would be one of two things: resouces or production. You would buy resources (various types, perhaps, fissionables, metals, food) and take it to a manufacturing planet and trade it for finished goods that the colony resource worlds would want. But somebody with a more economic bent than me would have to actually do the math.
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Joe Gallagher had an idea for a shipyard construction game, but this was the wrong topic to present it, and he has no Email address in his profile so I cannot discuss it with him.
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By Steve Cole on Tuesday, August 26, 2008
New Sudoku record for me. Two minutes 47 seconds. Sheesh, was I on the ball or what? Of course, it's that stupid "trial and error" sudoku rather than puzzling it out, but that time has to be close to a world record even for that. It was the highest level they have. They call it super-expert and don't have anything higher.
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Leanna and I thank you all for the warm thoughts on our 31st Anniversary (17 Sept).
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Q: I had a little extra time on my hands and was reading through the list of Federation Ship names (which had really grown since my last look) and I must admit that I was unpleasantly surprised at a few of the names. They were; 0713 Robert Mugabe, 0755 Saddam (I believe this one was destroyed in a CL story) 0804 Khieu Samphan, 0824 Slobodan Milosevic.
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Q: One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. We try to be fair to all points of view. Paramount named one for Attilla the Hun so other than Hitler I'm pretty much open to playing fair. We NEVER change a ship name (except in rare cases where we duplicated something) so I'm not changing the ones you don't like to something else. If we're going to do that, there are a bunch of Paramount-supplied names I want to change. Paramount did the original ship list. We added to it. "Good taste and decorum" is not really a factor. Genghis Khan has a ship named after him but was a total bastard (if arguably the greatest military leader in history, a position disputed only be Alexander the Great, who also has a ship named after him by Paramount and was also no prize when it came to good taste or decorum). Paramount set the standard. Star Fleet names ships after great leaders, without judging them, and so do we. (As noted, I decided not to name a real ship after Hitler, but that's more a matter of political flak from real world groups). But the answer to your question is: We do not delete names from the list.
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Q: Does/will ADB sell unmounted counter sheets for F&E?
A: We never have, but that's not say we never would. Well, of course, we don't "have" any unmounted sheets, but we have the graphics files and can have them printed easily enough. Trick is that doing print runs in low quantities like that on the IGEN printer costs nearly what counters cost. Of course, if we are talking about printing low runs, they could include totally new custom sheets.
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By Steve Cole on Friday, October 24, 2008
I am leaving on vacation in two hours. I will be back sometime Sunday afternoon. Short vacation, but it will be a fun one, taking 150 pounds of raw meat to my wolf, Genghis, and his pack of 70 wolves. Petrick is in charge. Do NOT make his life difficult.
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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, January 31, 2009 - 10:34 pm: Edit

I use jigsawduku because it's in pretty colors.

http://www.jigsawdoku.com/

I hate the thing because the only way to get in the top 5% is to use brute force (guess and let the computer tell you that it was wrong). Figure 20 minutes to do a puzzle right, and under 4 minutes to do in the brute force way.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, January 24, 2010 - 07:36 pm: Edit

I played cards with Sulu once, who seemed impressed with the guys playing SFB in the next room. It was part of some charity deal, or I probably wouldn't have had a chance to meet him.

I have never met Shatner or Nimoy. I was at a convention once and was offered front row seats to see three trek actors do a thing about their careers and experiences; I stayed in the game room playing Ogre.

I met Janeway once, but it was just "hello" when some con official who was walking me somewhere passed her and told her I had designed the biggest trek game.

Leanna has met a lot of the actors, but I'm more interested in characters than actors. I spent several minutes with one actor (non-trek) once and we talked about everything BUT his show or my games. Like I said, meeting actors is just not something I care about. I probably wouldn't walk across the room to meet any of them (except, maybe, Dianna Rigg), not because I'm arrogant, but because actors just aren't my interest. The actor is not the character. If I could meet the character, I would, but the actor is just not of much interest. I have walked all the way across a convention to meet and talk with authors before (Tom Clancy for one), and had dinner with a dinosaur scientist.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, February 11, 2010 - 01:06 pm: Edit

Leanna's flowers for this year's V-day.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, May 01, 2010 - 07:13 pm: Edit

We would actually make more money if we stopped doing games and started selling farm machinery (tractors, combines, cultivators), but that's not the business I want to be in.

That said, the paperbacks might get us into some more stores, but bookstores have contracts on book distribution that would destroy any game company the size of ADB that tried them. Other game companies (that I won't name) have tried and have gone bankrupt. (Basically, you never know how many books you sold until months after you pay the printing bills, and if they don't sell them, they don't pay for them, and they don't return them either.)