It seems the "Master Ship Manual" will be the indispensable master rules reference for ships and "Leanna's Fighting Starships" will be the cool illustrated background version of the Master Ship Chart. Does that sound about right?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, June 21, 2004 - 01:07 am: Edit

That is right. LFS will be more of actual use to GPD players but will be a great collectors item for SFB'ers.

By Mike Ptak (Norsehound) on Tuesday, June 29, 2004 - 01:19 am: Edit

For a while I toyed with the idea of converting the UIs from Starfleet command into 'book cover' formats, where they would have been the covers for full-sized books with color SSDs and everything. Obviously since none of the SFC material can be used, my idea's junked, but I still have a few ideas.

Each 'Book' can cover a race with that race's Heavy Cruiser (or the equivelant) on the cover, with a small index of what ships the book contains on the front. Each 'profile' has a large graphic of the base hull and the normal views and profiles of this ship, plus complete statistics and background data (names, historical notes on specific vessels, etc). Following pages could be devoted to variants with a side profile to show how they visually differ from the base class (I.e. a CAD side-profile would show the missile ports on the hull, while a CAR would show additional phaser ports, etc). A small blurb of text could explain the difference and history of these variants, or you could go all out and add condensed specifications of that ship (But not as extensive as the base hull.)

On the deck plans issue, PD seems to be doing deckplans already, plus there are deckplans in existance for the D7, Warbird, and Constitution. They might be outdated, but they exist (I happen to own the F-CA ones...) Besides, if the SFU is based more or less on the origional series most of the plans will probably be similar to the TOS deck plans presented in the Starfleet Technical Manual.

Even if I didn't play SFB I'd like to have this book just to have material to use for fiction. Although I'm dissapointed to hear that SVC will use paperback- when I envisioned my above book it was a hardcover with color pages. If other RPGs can do it, why can't ADB?

By Patrick H. Dillman (Patrick) on Tuesday, August 03, 2004 - 10:58 pm: Edit

Mike Ptak wrote:

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Quote:

Even if I didn't play SFB I'd like to have this book just to have material to use for fiction. Although I'm dissapointed to hear that SVC will use paperback- when I envisioned my above book it was a hardcover with color pages. If other RPGs can do it, why can't ADB?

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By Les LeBlanc (Lessss) on Tuesday, August 03, 2004 - 11:27 pm: Edit

Yes Cost but by doing it B/W will immediatly narrow the list of who will buy it down to SFB players + a few more. It's not just COST but the level of RISK and Investment ADB is willing to go to and the amount of time to recoup investment.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, August 04, 2004 - 12:49 am: Edit

I agree. LFS has potential to sell to new markets if it were hardbound and color. I wonder if it would be possible to have another publisher take on printing and distribution with ADB writting it.

Sort of iffy but perhaps worth looking into.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica) on Wednesday, August 04, 2004 - 09:00 am: Edit

I disagree. Jane's Fighting Ships of WWII has always sold well, and is (with the exception of the cover art) purely black-and-white.

By Donovan A Willett (Ravenhull) on Wednesday, August 04, 2004 - 09:02 am: Edit

But, that is WWII ships. Lets face it, most non SFB Star Trek fans will want glossy color.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, August 04, 2004 - 10:45 am: Edit

A mix would do. And I think Steve mentioned that might be possible.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Wednesday, August 04, 2004 - 10:55 am: Edit

I have the latest edition of Jane's Guide to Tanks and Armored Vehicles, and the pictures are all in black and white. I'd prefer that, myself; makes it feel more like a Jane's book, and should keep the cost down a bit. A color cover would suffice for me.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Wednesday, August 04, 2004 - 11:40 am: Edit

The old ships of the fleet were just line drawings. Not even a greyscale. And I value them immensely as a fun and informative book.

By Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside) on Wednesday, August 04, 2004 - 01:39 pm: Edit

Let's discuss costs.

1) To get a hardbound book at a merely outrageous printing price, you need to order 5000 of them.

2) Each one costs you around $5 to print and bind. Color interiors add another $2. You also need to pay the artists and writers something, probably around $0.25 per book.

3) Our total cost for the book is running around $7.25.

4) Let's say that people will pay $35 for it (the going rate for most hardbound game books).

5) Of that $35 cover price, when ADB sells it to a distributor, they get $14 of it, or a profit of $6.75 per book....which is really a profit of about $2.50 per book after factoring in warehousing, shipping, labor, advertising and other expenses.

6) They might be able to sell them into the regular book trade, however, the trick is getting the regular book trade to handle them in ways that don't cost ADB more per book than it's worth it...and that just isn't easy.

For them to make back their 36K investment in getting the book made, they have to get be able to sell 2600 through distribution.

And that's where the fly hits the ointment.

Most RPG products (and this is, effectively, an RPG-style product) from companys of ADBs size sell about 800 copies through distribution. It's a bad market to publish in right now; there's almost one RPG publisher for every RPG store in the country right now, all fighting for a market that, after subtracting WoTCs sales spikes for DnD 3/E and 3.5/E has been SHRINKING in total units sold by about 1%/year for 4 years (total dollar sales haven't dropped as precipitously because the prices are generally going up on printed materials.)

By David Lang (Dlang) on Wednesday, August 04, 2004 - 02:14 pm: Edit

Ken, Print on demand changes the cost situation drasticly.

the difference in cost between a book with a paper perfectbound cover and a book with a hardcover and dustjacket is <$10/book

you can get a 700 page book in hardcover for a cost of ~$40/book in quantities <100

this is still B&W printing for the book itself

now a book like this needs to sell for close to $100 if it's going to make money from it, but for something like a fighting starships book as opposed to a normal game book there may be a market for it

and at the very least the total risk is much lower as they don't have to tie up $36K in printing costs (and in texas inventory tax liability)

this still doesn't mean that it's a win for ADB, but it's a different world then it used to be for printing.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Wednesday, August 04, 2004 - 02:38 pm: Edit

Who says it has to be hard back? The Janes books I have are all paperback, and work just fine. Thats one way to keep it down; another is page size. The Janes books have pretty small pages...about 7.5 x 5 inches, I think. You can get a bunch of pages on one sig with pages that small using a 20-inch two color press.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, August 04, 2004 - 03:05 pm: Edit

I would be happy with the perfect bound like CL18 and a few color pages inside.

Of all the images I've ever wanted to see in the SFU I have to say an inside shot of the Fed CVA shuttle bay from the shuttle bay control room would the clearly at the top.

By Mike Ptak (Norsehound) on Wednesday, August 04, 2004 - 08:07 pm: Edit

One thing you have to remember is that the target market for LFS does not have to be just SFB players, but also general Star Trek fans.

I'd think that there would be many a ST fan out there looking to get the latest and greatest in starships and schematics for them. Take a look at what STU's put out for their 'ship recognition books.' SFB would only add to that pool of available ships to ogle over. it might even get some interest in Starfleet Battles because of the 'nifty colored starships' seen in the recognition guide- ones that can be flown in the game.

By Patrick H. Dillman (Patrick) on Wednesday, August 04, 2004 - 08:17 pm: Edit

Umm, Though I like the SFU style ships, most other trekkers that I talk to seem to preffer the TNG style ships. But than again, I could be wrong.

I know that I will be ordering at least one LFS book and I would love to have it as a hard bound coffee style book to go with my Dragons and Zepplins books. But I'll take what I can get.

By Les LeBlanc (Lessss) on Saturday, September 04, 2004 - 08:58 pm: Edit

I mentioned star control screens for info quite some time ago here is an example

http://www.classicgaming.com/starcontrol/sc1/sc1scr/practice2.jpg

By John Pepper (Akula) on Monday, September 06, 2004 - 05:39 pm: Edit

Just a couple of thoughts about this book, maybe it could follow the Jackill's or Ships of Starfleet format??? Whats the chance of this getting on the product schedule for next year?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, September 06, 2004 - 07:49 pm: Edit

I don't really care much for either of those publications although many people do. But to follow the JANE'S "look and feel" is what the idea was all about.

By Marcin Radzikowski (Warchild) on Saturday, December 04, 2004 - 04:01 pm: Edit

Not much action here lately so I'll put up a link to a site that has something like what we want for this product. Ex Astris Scienta is a Start Trek site with plenty of ship resources (mind you, mostly TNG stuff). But, their ship wall charts are spectacular. Have a look here.

By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Monday, February 28, 2005 - 02:43 am: Edit

I'm hoping it looks something like this (someday).
http://www.djdood.com/media/FedFF.pdf

This is the Fed FF in a format somewhat similar to the Classic FJS Tech Manual.

I'd love feedback and comments, but bear in mind this was banged together in a couple of hours, not checked, yada yada...

By Troy J. Latta (Saaur) on Monday, February 28, 2005 - 08:53 am: Edit

I was hoping for more background, history, capabilities, as well as pictures. OR am I misunderstanding the purpose of the book?
At least standard crew compliment, length, width, height, length of nacelles, maximum strategic and tactical speeds (holding weapons), etc.

By John Pepper (Akula) on Monday, February 28, 2005 - 10:25 am: Edit

I like that drawing but I wish it had the round nacelles:-) Troy I was hoping for more backround as well but also lots of drawings.

By Michael Powers (Mtpowers) on Monday, February 28, 2005 - 10:32 am: Edit

Since SFB is based on Original Trek, all the ships should have round nacelles.