I got off Jury Duty, but I really didn't want to.

I always get kicked out of criminal juries because of the military law cases I adjudicated when a company commander.

But this was a civil trial, so I was in the mix. No free pass.

The case was about (wait for it) ENGINEERING. About the neighbor uphill doing things on his property that (the plaintiff claimed) damaged the downhill property. I was practically screaming PUT ME IN THE GAME, COACH!

Then, they asked if anybody knew the two consulting engineers who would testify as expert witnesses. Uh oh. Turns out one of them (I never knew which side he was on) was an old friend of my family, an assistant scoutmaster of my old boy scout troop who taught me drainage engineering when I was 12 years old, an engineer who had consulted for my father back in the day, a man whom I have known and respected and admired and practically worshipped for almost 50 years.

The judge asked if I would give that consultant more credibility than the one I didn't know, and I could not answer her question. I don't know which attorney kicked me out, but one of them did (or maybe the judge did).

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, June 12, 2012 - 11:49 am: Edit

For no particular reason, this is a photo of my back yard.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, June 12, 2012 - 11:54 am: Edit

This is the next picture moving to the right

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, June 12, 2012 - 11:56 am: Edit

This is a reverse view, standing in the tiny gap between the two above pictures, looking back toward the house.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, June 12, 2012 - 11:58 am: Edit

This one is standing in the back door looking to the left (to the point I was standing in the first two pictures). It shows the patio and flower bed. Actually, the patio is like 12x85 feet, with the middle part concrete and both sides brick.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Friday, September 21, 2012 - 07:02 pm: Edit

Question from the Talkshoe podcast (listening to that, now)...

I notice a lot of things are queuing up in the "needs to be on Kickstarter because production values are X" and many are problematically high cost to produce on their own.

Specifically:
- Star Fleet Battle Force expansion
- 'Train Game' (Merchants of the Federation)
- Tribbles vs Klingons
- KRAG
- Battlestations: Star Fleet

...wondering...if, for any one of these things, you can't get enough volume to engage the interest of the card printers at a reasonable rate...would the combination of all four be large enough an order that the printers pay attention to you? (As far as I know, for example, all of the above make significant use of cards, so...if all of them had all their cards printed at once, that seems like it would be a pretty massive order?)

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, September 21, 2012 - 07:32 pm: Edit

Let's see...

I was talking about the SFBF expansion cards. I didn't really discuss other card decks.

I don't think Battlestations or KRAG use cards.

Tribbles is in line ahead of the train game.

KRAG was never mentioned as a Kickstarter project anyway, at least not last night.

The printers don't care how many different decks you print as long as every single deck meets their minimum run. Five decks that do not meet the minimum run are not going to interest these card printers.

Five different decks of any size are not going to get a price break for volume. Only five times as many of one deck would get a discount.

Printing five different card decks at one time would be more cash than ADB has.

Promising to print five decks over a period of two or three years is of zero interest to a printer unless you're goign to pay in advance for all five before the first deck is printed. Each deck is a separate contract.

The probability is that Battlestations, the Train Game, and Tribbles will be done in China as a turnkey project by a printer that has their own card printing equipment.

Are we learning how the printing industry works?

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Friday, September 21, 2012 - 07:42 pm: Edit

A bummer! Well, it was a thought, anyway.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, September 21, 2012 - 07:58 pm: Edit

Hey, it was a good question, allowed me to educate everyone. And who knows, maybe you had stumbled into an idea that would have worked and had not been thought of.

If you assume "Steve probably has a reason for not doing that" enough times, one of those will be "Steve never thought of that."

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Friday, September 21, 2012 - 08:32 pm: Edit

Just a thought, but could you tell the it is one big deck, and sort them out after you get them? You would have to use some sort of generic card back, say a Connie, a D7 and the ADB star.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, September 22, 2012 - 12:52 am: Edit

ADM: We could, and have in fact looked into that, but no matter how big the deck is, no matter what's in it, if we're not printing 5,000 copies the major card printers don't even want to talk to us.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Saturday, September 22, 2012 - 02:33 pm: Edit

Also RE: that podcast and E3/E4 showing up as Battle Force fleets...

...if I may suggest another candidate, for perhaps the next issue's Battle Force, of products that could use a boost in interest?

Set a Battle Force article in the Early Years! I'm good for the Romulan fleet...just as long as it's not a race/timed mission of some kind, anyway. Heh.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, September 22, 2012 - 02:43 pm: Edit

That's one for you to talk to Petrick about.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Saturday, September 22, 2012 - 02:53 pm: Edit

I have generally not gone to the Early Years because the options are so limited. There are no carriers or PFs, so you wind up with pretty much pure battle squadrons slugging it out. And the choices of the ships to fill out those battle squadrons are also very limited. Most empires have a frigate, a destroyer, a cruiser, and a dreadnought, with few real "combat" variants beyond that. It is not like you can make a choice between a Destroyer, War Destroyer, or Battle Frigate in the destroyer slot.

Basically I have looked at it as an idea on several occasions, and that is what I kept running into.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Saturday, September 22, 2012 - 03:02 pm: Edit

It would definitely look a lot more like Federation Commander "Battle Group" articles, indeed. And while there is not a lot of variation at any given BPV point, the BPVs tend to be low, so given a "Battleforce 550" article, you end up with (as with FedCom's 'Battle Groups') making choices less along the lines of 'do I want a destroyer, war destroyer, or battle frigate in this one slot' and more 'do I want 5 frigates or 4 destroyers or 3 light cruisers alongside my capital ships.'

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, September 22, 2012 - 03:57 pm: Edit

SPP: At thought about EY BF. In the past BF was run different that it is now. While the squadrons may not be as unique theywill be unique for at least one article and what will make the article more interesting is they way write ups are being done now. Rather than a force presentation and a few notes, you are having players write full tactics articles about how they plan to use the battle force.

This difference is what would make an EY BF article interesting for me to read.

The same would go for an all X1 BF article.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Saturday, September 22, 2012 - 05:14 pm: Edit

Xander Fulton:

I just did not (and do not) see having extra ships (because their individual BPV is lower allowing more to be bought), with no electronic warfare support (scouts) or carriers, or fast patrol ships, no overloads, or etc. as all that interesting as a basis for a tactics article. I have visited the idea several times (as part of looking for ideas for battle groups) and I keep running into it is a stack of straight combat ships with little variation.

I could be wrong, afterall, I would like to play early years battles myself (but I have always liked small ships in any case), but the limited selection of ships leads me to believe that if five players selected a Gorn Battle Group (for example), all five would select the same ships because of the lack of variation in types and lack of support ships to do different tactical variation.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Saturday, September 22, 2012 - 05:21 pm: Edit

One option could be to adjust the BPV total, depending on the era in which the battle was set; one total for W-era hulls, another for Y-units, and a third amount (higher than 550) for first-generation X-ships.

(In the case of X-ships, the higher BPV might allow an Andromedan force to either take a larger force of historical units; or, perhaps, they could instead be allowed to take the conjectural X-ships from Module C3A.)

In any event, the goal would be to scale the size of force to keep it in broad proportion to the kind of squadrons which are currently available in the "standard" Battle Force setup.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Saturday, September 22, 2012 - 06:06 pm: Edit

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Quote:

I keep running into it is a stack of straight combat ships with little variation

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Quote:

if five players selected a Gorn Battle Group

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Quote:

2xUnited Federation of Planets,
1xKlingon Empire,
2xRomulan Star Empire,
1xKzinti Hegemony,
1xTholian Holdfast,
1xOrion Pirates (Capital/Dragon Cartel),
2xHydran Star Kingdom,
2xAndromedan Invaders,
1xLyran Star Empire,
1xWYN Star Cluster,
1xInter-Stellar Concordium,
1xLyran Democratic Republic,
1xJindarian Caravans,
1xVudar Enclave,
1xVulpa Insurgents,
1xHivers,
1xSouldra, and
1xMaghadim Hives

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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, November 01, 2012 - 02:26 pm: Edit

Various photos from Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, November 01, 2012 - 02:29 pm: Edit

The girl in black is Rae, the assistant dietician. The guy with long blonde hair is Leyton, who is the head guy there.

WSWS is home to 60 wolves, 5 New Guinea singing dogs, and one red fox (Romeo).

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, November 15, 2012 - 02:34 pm: Edit

My favorite dinner