I would not appreciate it. That could literally put ADB out of business, and that would be far worse than getting $50.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, April 28, 2025 - 11:58 am: Edit

I was not being serious.

It was a joke.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 05, 2025 - 03:33 pm: Edit

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, June 18, 2025 - 09:21 pm: Edit

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, June 19, 2025 - 04:48 pm: Edit

Sigh, I spent an hour updating the TO DO list then accidentally deleted it. Sigh.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, June 19, 2025 - 05:04 pm: Edit

THE LIST OF THINGS SVC NEEDS TO DO (19 JUNE)

ORION MSSB (I am done with it. Jean said she had an unresolved matter to discuss with me next week.)

F&E CIVIL WARS (I have done the Lyran Civil War scenario. I got a corrections document from Ted Fay but had to ask Chuck what Ted started with and how he did it and what I am supposed to do. It might be that this was done wrong and would have to be done over by Ted.)

ISC MSSC (I have done my part and resolved the last SPP issue by phone moments ago. It is ready for Jean to work on when Orions are finished.)

INSTRUCTION MANUAL FOR UPDATING SFB: (when SPP gets back to the office the first thing is to get him to create an instruction sheet on "how to update an SFB module" so I can get other people to update some of the last 12 books.)

A CALL TO ARMS 3 (Albert will start on this next week now that his plumbing crisis is resolved.)

INSURANCE CLAIM ON WIND DAMAGE TO MY HOUSE (Lit a fire under the agent two days ago. Scheduled to meet adjuster Saturday.)

PETRICK INSURANCE (there is a paperwork issue I need to resolve)

HIRE A NEW TOURNAMENT JUDGE (Reviewed applications, selected two finalists, contacted them, will pick one next week)

COUNTERSHEET ART UPDATED ON CART (redball list; first five sent to Jean 19 June)

STARMADA RUMORS OF WARS (Contacted Daniel Kast and put Albert in charge of getting regular status reports.)

PRODUCTION DEAL ON 3D MINIS: Saw new samples today. This deal is taking forever to negotiate. Two other companies contact me in the last 48 hours wanting to discuss doing it for us.)

NEW JOINT VENTURE: Negotiations are very close to finalized. This will be big news.

NEWSLETTER (Discussed with Albert today. Newsletter will be revamped to restore monthly release without free ships or recycled questions from Captain's Log.)

LEARN TO PLAY TANKS IN BATTLETECH (Albert thinks I should learn Mechs first)

SOMEBODY ASKED ME FOR FED CARRIERS, FIGHTERS, ESCORTS FOR FEDCOM: Albert and I decided to do this as a PDF pack for sale since it is not an efficient use of my time to give it to one person. I will assign Mike West to write the MRS/SWAC rules.

SOMEBODY ASKED ME FOR MISSING SHIPS FROM A PRODUCT: (I need SPP to tell me how to get them.)

SOMEBODY ASKED ME FOR COUNTERSHEET FOR "MISSING" TOURNAMENT SHIPS (Set up a topic to compile what is needed.)

STRATEGIC NEW PRODUCTS LIST
Captain's Log 55
Simulator Expansion for FC
Fighters for FC
X-ships for FC
Star Fleet Marines 3: Armored Cavalry
Prime Directive Gorns

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Thursday, June 19, 2025 - 06:12 pm: Edit

@SVC: Regarding Civil Wars, I have the original if you need it, along with a change version. I can print the change version as a PDF if you don't have Word.

Contact me if you have more specific instructions. When you get to it.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, June 19, 2025 - 09:22 pm: Edit

Ted: if you get a page layout document, the ONLY thing I can use is a line item list of changes. That is what I need for Lyran Civil War.

That said, from this moment forward, I do not want any files from the F&E staff. They need to send everything to you and I need you to send me a text file with all your fixes made.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Thursday, June 19, 2025 - 11:21 pm: Edit

OK.

I'll follow up with an email. If I did not understand correctly and I don't send you what you need, let me know. A quick phone call could then clear up any more confusion on my part.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Friday, June 20, 2025 - 12:23 pm: Edit

I'm glad to see BattleTech listed as a thing for SVC to learn more about!

To clarify, is there a particular scale of BT play you have in mind?

While there is Total Warfare scale - with SSD-esque Record Sheets for each unit - another option is to consider Alpha Strike, which uses more streamlined Unit Cards.

Of course, many BT fans jump back and forth between TW and AS scales of play on a regular basis!

-----

Also, it's good to see more Federation Commander products lined up on the schedule!

Although, while I don't oppose fans of the simulator empires getting more support for their preferred factions, I might hope that the "lost empire" Paravians and Carnivons, and/or the Omega and LMC empires previewed in playtest for FC, might be up for consideration at a later point in time.

-----

And, while it goes without saying, I might as well say it:

I'm very interested to find out what this latest joint venture shall offer!

By Joe Carlson (Jrc) on Wednesday, June 25, 2025 - 05:23 pm: Edit

SVC,

I asked for this. Thank you for remembering and assigning this to be done.

"SOMEBODY ASKED ME FOR FED CARRIERS, FIGHTERS, ESCORTS FOR FEDCOM: Albert and I decided to do this as a PDF pack for sale since it is not an efficient use of my time to give it to one person. I will assign Mike West to write the MRS/SWAC rules."

Joe Carlson

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, July 04, 2025 - 05:22 pm: Edit

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY EVERYONE

By Stephen G. Parry (Mutant) on Saturday, July 05, 2025 - 05:27 pm: Edit

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, July 05, 2025 - 10:19 pm: Edit

SGP: I deleted your post before identity thieves used the info the steal from you.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Sunday, July 06, 2025 - 07:41 am: Edit

Good call.

By Stephen G. Parry (Mutant) on Sunday, July 06, 2025 - 02:41 pm: Edit

Yes, sadly that does makes sense. I get a bit fed up of having to be "eternally vigilant" to the point of paranoid exhaustion though.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, July 07, 2025 - 04:52 am: Edit

I completely agree.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Monday, July 07, 2025 - 08:13 am: Edit

Likewise. Among other things, it's downright frustrating to have a credit rating in the 800s but be unable to make any use of it, because to do so one has to remove credit bureau freezes, which immediately opens the door to thieves.

The last time I did so (on a refinance of my mortgage to a much-lower interest rate), I received notification from my tracking service within two hour of the freeze-removal that two credit cards had been opened in my name. Said thief also filed a change-of-address with USPS, so that the cards would be delivered to them (this I discovered almost immediately because I happened to be tracking a package at the time). It took weeks working with the USPS Inspectors Office and the police departments (both my own and one halfway across the country) to get everything squared away.

What should happen, in my opinion, is for credit bureaus to provide a one-time key on request from the individual, which one can then provide to whatever financial institution they are working with to procure a loan. In theory, this exists for at least one of the bureaus; in practice, they make it all but impossible to actually use.

By Stephen G. Parry (Mutant) on Wednesday, July 09, 2025 - 08:23 am: Edit

In the UK and EU we have better data protection laws than the US, which helps, but it is still not bullet proof. I think the US suffers from state by state legislation on these issues, which, in this interconnected age, means effectively no legislation at all. Which suits the credit bureaus, because good data protection costs money and manpower.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, August 09, 2025 - 12:02 am: Edit

HELLO PLANETBASE: I play a lot of the computer game Planetbase and am active on the discussion boards. Some guy over there says "you are not actually a game designer-publisher" and, well, shucks, turns out I am. I told him to come here and see that the boss (Steve Cole) actually confirms he's the same guy who is posting on the Planetbase board.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Saturday, August 09, 2025 - 05:31 pm: Edit

He probably means you're not a computer-game designer / programmer.


Garth L. Getgen

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, August 09, 2025 - 07:39 pm: Edit

Maybe, but it didn’t come across that way.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Sunday, August 10, 2025 - 03:39 am: Edit

It is easy to misread someone on-line. People have opinions but little humility and rarely any deeper knowledge. He probably thought your firm opinions had no base in real life experience.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, August 10, 2025 - 03:45 am: Edit

Having seen other posts he seems to be just a pathetic hater who never accomplished anything in life and wants to make himself feel better. He's not the first one of those I have encountered. He just keeps making up stuff and when disproven he ignores his previous post and makes up something new.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Sunday, August 10, 2025 - 09:31 am: Edit

Over the years, we have seen a lot of those kinds of posters here.

They never seem to learn, and worse, they alienate people who do not appreciate that sort of thing.

Pity.