We have a preliminary (not yet signed, but they okay-ed the draft) deal with Victory By Any Means to release a set of campaign rules for the Star Fleet Universe primarily based on Fed Commander. I don't have a lot of details of what they're doing and have no real knowledge of their campaign system. The product will be designed by them and produced by us.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, March 04, 2008 - 11:05 am: Edit

BBG link. A search on BBG produced several descriptions of VBAM products but this one looks like that core system.

VBAM


SVC: Will this company be reviewing material by SPP PDU developement and the PD source books for consistancy?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, March 04, 2008 - 11:19 am: Edit

Loren: We have Jean for that.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, March 04, 2008 - 11:54 am: Edit

I guess what I'm asking is the VBAM company making their system fit the SFU or the other way around?

I'm wondering if the proceedures will end up the official way the SFU works or if it is going to be one of multiple choices to play your OWN campaign.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, March 04, 2008 - 12:36 pm: Edit

It will be one of multiple choices, of course.

By Jay Waschak (Mwaschak) on Friday, March 14, 2008 - 12:03 pm: Edit

Our thought is that product will be modeled very much like Federation Commander in releases. It will be designed to scale from a small border skirmish games to a larger General War game.

We also plan to include the ability to start campaigns from scratch on a new, random map and explore the galaxy, as well as play in the established SFU. In keeping with the theme of our campaign system it will be modular in construction so the game can be simplified and complicated by simply adding, removing, or exchanging components. This will be make it easy to support as ADB continues to grow their product line.

Thank you,
Jay Waschak
VBAM Games, Inc.

By Sean O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Friday, March 14, 2008 - 12:45 pm: Edit

Thanks for that, Jay.

A while back I started trying to adapt VBAM for Federation Commander but gave up. Looks like I won't have to do the work after all. I'm really looking forward to this one.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, March 14, 2008 - 02:23 pm: Edit

Test message. Yes, the topic works. I had been Emailed a note that it had been closed for some reason by someone, but not that I know of.

By Jay Waschak (Mwaschak) on Friday, March 14, 2008 - 02:32 pm: Edit

You're welcome!

We are all pretty excited to get started. A few of us, me included, learned gaming in the Starfleet Universe. It is easily one of the most converted settings there is in the VBAM Fanbase. I will post more as we progress along with the project.

If you guys have any questions or comments always feel free to drop us a line!

-Jay

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Friday, March 14, 2008 - 02:52 pm: Edit

How about a link your forum JayW?

By Jay Waschak (Mwaschak) on Friday, March 14, 2008 - 04:38 pm: Edit

Certainly.

The main forum is here: http://forums.vbamgames.com/

The list is here:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/VBAM/

-Jay

By Jay Waschak (Mwaschak) on Friday, August 08, 2008 - 01:02 pm: Edit

The campaign book is coming along very nicely thus far. At present I am testing a few ways to scale a campaign to cover everything from the General War to a small border skirmish. All in all we are progressing as planned for Federation Admiral, but please let me know if you have any specific requests or questions about the project.

One of designers had an excellent method of handling technological expansion that allows any new vessels released for Federation Commander to be integrated in a campaign setting. I am currently testing, revising, and writing that up.

Thanks!
-Jay

By Jay Waschak (Mwaschak) on Wednesday, October 01, 2008 - 12:12 pm: Edit

More information:

http://forums.vbamgames.com/viewforum.php?f=17

-Jay

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, October 01, 2008 - 01:28 pm: Edit

I have sent them some format/edit/style notes, such as using the term "empire" all the way through instead of switching between "power" and "empire" and other terms.

By Jay Waschak (Mwaschak) on Thursday, November 06, 2008 - 07:58 am: Edit

Hello everyone,

The main stages of development are complete, and the campaign book is nearing the point of heavy editing. But I never feel quite right until I get a chance for more and more playtesting, even at this point in development. So, if you or your group wanted a chance to playtest Federation Admiral, this is it!

We will be taking a very limited number of playtesting groups, and only those with a serious intention to read and play the material. Charlie and I intend to maintain our ambitious schedule, which means timely reports will be important to us.

Email me at mwaschak -at- gmail -dot- com

Or see our playtesting page for more detail: http://vbamgames.com/playtesting/

Thank you all!
-Jay

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, April 02, 2009 - 02:27 pm: Edit

PLAYTESTERS WANTED: The guys at VBAM doing the Federation Admiral campaign book say they have more or less finished the draft. I read it (didn't understand much of it) and gave them some formatting advice, which they have taken. What I do NOT want to do is publish this thing (which is a huge thing, way over 150 pages) and have people tell me "It's missing the ..." (where the missing item is the combat system, the link to Fed Commander, the entire operating system, or whatever). So what I need are two or three groups of people who are....

1. Familiar with SFB and/or FC.

2. Understand the general operations of the SFU.

3. Are "into" campaigns at various levels (from F&E level down to "border sector" level).

4. Are willing to spend twenty-plus hours over the next four-six weeks reviewing the document and telling me (and VBAM) what is missing, what is broken, and what could be done better.

5. Are preferably NOT familiar with other VBAM campaign books (so you don't just "assume" or "remember" something is there without checking).

Email me if you're interested. Put VBAM CAMPAIGN BOOK in the subject line. I assume you all know my Email address but it is Design@StarFleetGames.com if you have to look it up.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Thursday, April 02, 2009 - 03:29 pm: Edit

Can I post this note on the FC Forum?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, April 03, 2009 - 10:57 am: Edit

sure

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, April 05, 2009 - 02:09 pm: Edit

Let me make this clear.

I need PLAYTESTERS who have local opponents and will set up the game and PLAY IT and try to BREAK IT.

I have plenty of "read and comment" guys and more applicants for that kind of duty than i can use.

I need PLAYTESTERS not READERS.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, April 05, 2009 - 05:12 pm: Edit

At this point, I have at least three groups who understand that PLAYTESTING means two or more guys trying to win the war by pushing the rulebook, thereby finding the problems in the rulebook. I have five total slots, so at least three will be given to what I asked for ("playtesters" and "groups of people").

Guys, JUST EXACTLY WHAT in my post of 2 April 2:27pm said: "I want a few loners with no live local opponents to read the book and tell me what they think without actually playing it"?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 03:34 pm: Edit

MEMO TO FEDERATION ADMIRAL

It’s been a while since I had a serious chat with you guys.

As you know, a press release on 13 October delayed FEDERATION ADMIRAL and BRIEFING #3 to next year. This happened because I did not get enough work done on either product prior to the 10 October "decision point" and there was, simply put, no way that the product could have been done (well or badly) before the 16 November release date. Guys, it’s better to do it right and late than wrong and on time.

As you also know, the injury I suffered in the fall delayed work on PD20M-Klingons, which made the week of 11-18 October a rather busy one, leaving me no time to send you a memo about why the above decision was made. This was not a good thing; you deserved an explanation, not just a "by the way, I changed the schedule". I just did not have time to write a memo. PD20M-Klingons had already been rescheduled once, and to reschedule it a second time would push it to next year (and no, that still would not have meant getting Federation Admiral out this November).

Three things have delayed this project:

1. Other projects.

2. Federation Admiral won’t really work unless Briefing #3 is available at more or less the same time (or earlier). The massive amount of work that Briefing #2 required has made me nervous and scared about even trying to work on Briefing #3. This project has been reorganized to make it manageable. You eat an elephant one bite at a time, and I will do Briefing #3 one ship card at a time. I actually did one of them yesterday (October 21st) and one of them today (October 22nd). I also just got the needed memos from the FC staff to define what the ship cards are. That does not mean that the cards will be finished 72 days from now. That’s just doing the cards. Checking them takes at least that long, and usually twice as long.

3. The massive amount of work required to format an book that is several times as big as I thought it would be when the idea was first accepted and scheduled. (I suspect if someone had shown me the final manuscript before I wrote the contract that I would have just forgotten the whole idea.) I spent entire days formatting the second draft to the point I could actually print it out and read it, and I made so many marks and corrections on that draft that I’m just too terrified to even look at the more recent drafts. I’ll gather my courage in the near future.

Here is the plan to get this project done. First, I have to finish Captain’s Log, which is regarded as the highest priority product line (due to its sales, mission, and status). Second, I have to finish F&E 2010 (which was also delayed) because we have too much money invested in countersheets to not do it as soon as possible. All during that process, expected to drag into January, I will continue to make progress on Briefing #3. Once F&E 2010 has gone on the printers, I will ask for the most recent draft of Federation Admiral. I will start through the draft with less distraction and more enthusiasm. If I run into things that require major systemic changes, I will send them back to be done. Knowing the author’s enthusiasm for the project, I have no doubt they will be done quickly.

I cannot promise that Federation Admiral and Briefing #3 will be the second and third products shipped during 2010. (F&E 2010 will almost certainly be first.) There are some small and simple projects (such as Boosters #92-#95, which are needed for Federation Admiral to work) which will proceed at their own pace and happen in their own time. They won’t delay Federation Admiral. Once I get beyond F&E 2010, only Federation Admiral can delay Federation Admiral.

By Robert Gamble (Rgamble) on Tuesday, March 09, 2010 - 10:55 am: Edit

Still hoping to see this one soon... My SFB partner and I are looking to start some kind of campaign, and this is still my first choice as to the kind of campaign system we'd use!

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, March 15, 2011 - 12:06 pm: Edit

Having decided that I've been wrong to find excuses not to work on this project, I started serious work yesterday.

The problems are multiple...

1. It's not a fun project for me. It's about like a trip to the dentist for a root canal. That's why I avoid it.

2. It's a LOT of pages with a lot of work per page. Just doing the page layout, with all of the usual file translation issues, formatting, charts, tables, illustrations, and so forth is bad enough, but the book is full of typos, bad grammar, bad punctuation, verb-subject disagreement, randomized capitalization, and other issues. There were over 170 "things" in the first six pages. Half of those were format things that were just the normal things that happen when people send in files that my computer hates. Half of them were "English issues" and "Jean things." This makes the book tedious, a lot of hard work, and not just zero fun, but serious pain to do.

3. The "game design" is good, even brilliant. Nothing wrong with that. The worst design issue is that in a list of 100 defined terms, Jay forgot to define three terms. I've done worse.

The way we are proceeding is for me to take a few pages, do what needs done (with Jean's help), then send them to Jay. He then uses the "Lessons Learned" to do a few more pages that he sends to me. In theory, since every time I spot a problem he fixes that problem for the entire remainder of the document, we'll gain speed as we go along, but it's VERY early in the process and trying to do a mathematical prediction at this point is pretty useless. (Remember that in my 10+ hour day, I get at most 3-4 hours of "design time". It took all of three hours to do the first six pages. Assuming 240 pages, that means 39 more days, which will obviously exceed the "Cinderella point" where I have to "punt" Fed Admiral to "after Origins" and move on to work on other products. Hopefully, we'll get some acceleration, because at this point and given this math, the only way that FA will happen before Origins is for SFM:A to be delayed to after Origins. Let's see. My favorite project in five years versus the project I compared to a root canal.)

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, March 17, 2011 - 01:43 pm: Edit

I am determined to finish Fed Admiral, now if I can, this fall if I have to. (We're up to page 20 and I'm waiting on Jay to send the file for 3.5 and 3.6). There are a lot of Jean issues and English issues, but those are mostly a matter of fixing them on the run in the current file and telling Jay to be sure they're fixed in all future files. (In theory, he sends me 4 new pages per day, learning the lessons of previous days as to what needs to be fixed or reformatted). The capitalization issue is one of hammering it through, but is mostly a matter of deciding if this or that gets capped and running a search/replace. There are cases where two interchangeable terms are used when one should be standard (e.g. Maintenance Cost vs Maintenance Expense) but gosh, that never happens in SFB, now does it? There are some format things (we want a standard way of doing cross references, not multiple formats). Again, those are things we discover as we hit them and Jay fixes them in all future files. The tech block thing is all wrong (under it, if you have an FF and a DD, you have to research an FFS and DDS separately), but the fix replaces 3 or 4 paragraphs (the math-EP-d100 system is fine, but what you do and do not have to research is quirky). Biggest issue is semantic, making sure that both "rigid historical" and "make up whatever you want" scenarios are covered in each instance. I don't like the intel rule but the only thing that has to be added is a sentence at the first saying it's ok to just ignore it if you don't like it. (It's a cute mathematical thing but has nothing to do with how real world intel works, and I spent 17 years of my life doing real world intel, so it just irks me that it's so so so "wrong". As a gamer, I think it's just a lot of work for no real point, but if you want an intel system, this one will do.)

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, March 18, 2011 - 02:09 pm: Edit

I got onto page 27 yesterday (out of maybe 250). That's through rule 3.6, leaving some "work to be done" in earlier sections. Jay sent me 3.7 but I haven't had time to work on it yet today, but I do plan to. Jay is learning very rapidly how to fix things. Not perfect yet, but getting there, and there are still glitches where his rules don't match SFU (requiring a line or two or a paragraph or two of fixes). No idea of a publication date. This thing is much farther from publication than I thought it was, and I fear I'll run out of time. Already getting a LOT of pressure from the partners to set this aside or at least slow it down to 2-3 pages a day and move on to other projects. Given the math, doing this between now and Origins is going to cost us at least SFMA and very likely a second product from the published "Now thorugh origins" schedule.