I would rather have the rules even if they are optional and as a group pick and choose which ones to use for our campaign rather than have no rules. Personally if I have to write all the rules myself for the campaign why would I buy the book at all. I mean every situation might not be covered by the rules but a majority of them should be.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, July 01, 2016 - 11:45 am: Edit

One man's majority is another man's minority, that's the problem.

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Friday, July 01, 2016 - 02:15 pm: Edit

If I recall correctly this was possibly as close to a "Module V" as we would ever going to get. Include enough rules to accomplish what you envisioned for a "Module V."

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, July 01, 2016 - 02:48 pm: Edit

The conversation yesterday decided that this and Module V had to be two separate products. This one is going to end up with about half of what it would take to make Module V and that would comprise about 1/3 of the total content of this product. But it does define a path to the creation of a totally separate and unrelated Module V.

My concern about the "rules the CM has to make up" issue is that it could take months to identify and provide such things, exceeding the practical amount of work sales potential can justify. The whole book is based on a basic structure that the CM (like a roleplaying DM/GM) works from. We may have to just go to press (well, PDF) with what Jay gave us (as modified to match SFU and with any new material that came to mind) and then let anyone who buys the thing report what is missing and let Jay and I decide if we're going to write new pages or tell the CMs to do the job intended.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, July 01, 2016 - 06:21 pm: Edit

Today was spent evaluating the datatables Jay did years ago and trying to figure them out. The objective is for those tables to include every ship in FC (too many ships in SFB to include those; anything in Starmada or ACTA is in FC or easily added to the FedAdm charts). Every six or twelves or eighteen months we can do an updated chart adding more ships. If we end up basing this off of F&E data then the existing F&E SITs would give you 80% or more of what you'd have to have for any new ship you wanted to add on your own, and the other data would be easily guessable.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Friday, July 01, 2016 - 07:31 pm: Edit

Just the thought, blindly not knowing what's in the documents you're working on, but if one took the F&E combat values and multiplied by 2.5 or 5 or whatever, it would open the chart up to add granularity that F&E can't show. For example, you have the Fed CA, CA+, CAR, and CAR+. In F&E, they're all an "8" ship. In this, they could be CA=36 to CAR+ = 44 (number from thin air).


Garth L. Getgen

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, July 01, 2016 - 09:18 pm: Edit

Lot of work, but might be a supplement.

By Eddie Crutchfield (Librarian101) on Friday, July 01, 2016 - 10:33 pm: Edit

One might take a look at the values from Star Fleet Warlord for combat and defense values.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, July 02, 2016 - 11:28 am: Edit

I think the ones from F&E are better for our purpose.

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Saturday, July 02, 2016 - 02:39 pm: Edit

Is the Campaign Designer's Handbook being used as a reference point for this project? Is enough material being generated for Fed Admiral/Module V that could be reused for a CDH supplement adding material published since the CDH came out?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, July 02, 2016 - 03:28 pm: Edit

CDH is not related to this project, and I don't see anything in FedAdm that could be lifted whole and put into a CDH supplement. In theory a CDH supplement could be done but I'd want to find someone outside ADB to write it.

Also remember that FedAdm was briefly considered as possibly covering the ground that Module V was to cover, but lately it was determined that this plan is not workable. We'd have to add 20-40 pages of material and you'd have 50 or so pages that would not be of any use. Module V is no longer part of this discussion.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, July 07, 2016 - 05:19 pm: Edit

Garbage in, garbage out. Paul may have discovered how the bad data was created (or maybe not) but the last thing we need is more bad data. Calculating factors the way he did it produces nothing of any validity.

The value of a ship is more than the sum of one or two parts, or even all of the parts. Defense depends on power, maneuverability, shields, internal boxes, redunancy in SFB sensor/scanner ratings, defensive weapons, firing arcs, speed, and other factors (e.g, batteries, repair ratings). Attack depends on damage production at range and the ability to achieve that range at a reasonable firing arc.

Sorry, Paul, but your calculations and results = FAIL.

Thank you for playing but we have people here who understand the ships. They do not just count boxes.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, July 07, 2016 - 05:31 pm: Edit

In a few years when Paul has gained some experience playing SFB and FC he might become really useful (I genuinely look forward to that). For now, I have people available who actually know what they're talking about and do not cherry pick convenient numbers.

As for your question, Paul, I already answered it (there is more to it than you are accounting for), and I need to spend my time on useful reports. Based on your reports today I won't be able to spend more time dealing with you. It's just not a productive use of my time. Further flawed analysis will (regretably) have to be edited out of the topic to avoid cluttering the conversation.

I feel obliged to remind Paul that complaining in public (on any forum) about us "mistreating" him will be grounds for a second suspension. If you want to complain about how the BBS is run you email Jean; you do not post it in public anywhere.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, July 07, 2016 - 05:56 pm: Edit

Haven't really thought about it, and there are a lot of factors involved there. (BTW, thanks for an excellent question!)

First, I haven't got a clue what either a full price or a playtest price would be. Depends on page count. Price setting is a step very late in the process based on many factors and I'm not the one who does that. (Jean and Leanna do it with some input from Mike. Steve P and I mostly just watch it happen.)

Second, I would note that we have often posted draft things at full price (e.g., Minor Empires) and they sold very well as we have a reputation for creating a final document in short order. We have done more products this way than as incomplete playtest packs.

Third, posting it as a low-price playtest pack causes problems later (almost blocks later publication) as people who bought it at half price want the final version for no extra cost.

Fourth, I would note that the two playtest things you noted are NOT complete products but "just enough ships to test the rules". There really isn't any way to only publish "just enough" of Fed Admiral for you to test it. It's very much like Minor Empires or Fighter Operations and not anything like those two playtest packs.

Fifth, your fixation on "tested" isn't really relevant. The original unchanged document was never tested to any real extent, the changes involved include a lot of things that don't really change the "testing" anyway, the PDF posting actually IS the test (and far more valid than anything else and is just exactly the same way we have done several previous products, most recently Minor Empires, which was posted as a complete PDF at full price and within a month was finalized with playtesting), and most of the product isn't really anything you can "test for balance" as opposed to "test for completeness".

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, July 07, 2016 - 06:12 pm: Edit

I think I may have stumbled onto a fundamental disconnect in the conversation. Testing is more than one thing.

"Testing for balance" is the last phase of the process and really takes years. Balance constantly shifts as players get smarter and more familiar and try new tactics and strategies. I can tell you that the original text was barely tested for balance and that subsequent tests have proven that the balance was wrong, which is why we changed it. Simply put, the wrong ships were winning the wrong battles. In this case, the changes IMPROVED the product; they cannot in any way be said to have "broken a tested product." That's just NOT what happened.

"Testing for completeness" is another thing entirely, and one that is more of the work. Is it possible for players to do something and find themselves in a situation that the rules do not cover? It is possible than for whatever reason two rules contradict each other? This is a far more important thing, and we can tell you that the original document failed in its testing as it was full of "what happens now?" problems. Again, all of the changes we have made IMPROVED the product, made it MORE COMPLETE, and removed most of the subsequent player questions. Whatever questions are asked after publication now will be 10% or less of what would have been asked without ADB doing what it did. So again, saying that "the changes broke a tested game that worked" is simply wrong. It's just a false statement based on ignorance and fear.

I'll also note that over half of the changes had no effect on the game at all, but were capitalization, italics, bold, organization, punctuation, and other formatting things. These had zero effect on balance either way.

If "prior testing" is a key point then the document ADB eventually posts is far better tested than the one we started with.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, July 07, 2016 - 06:23 pm: Edit

Paul, WE are deeply invested in the quality of products, and the quality of what we have published proves that you're wrong about everything you said. Frankly, you are just throwing bombs in the punch bowl for fun.

By all means, YOU should not buy the product until we post the "final" version, nor has anyone asked you to do so. Based on everything you have said, you are not qualified to test it anyway and your input would be of no value.

What you seem to want is a perfectly tested product available on 31 July. That's not going to happen, and nobody could give you one. At least you seem to have realized that the original document of which you are so enamored would also not satisfy your just requirement for a fully tested document.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, July 07, 2016 - 06:32 pm: Edit

It is an interesting point of philosophy as to how we might proceed to further test this product.

1. We could just send it to a small select group of people and let them test it for 6-12 months and then revise the product from their input. Nice theory, but the reality is that such small groups do not produce adequate testing. This, by the way, is how just about every non-ADB game has tested since Avalon Hill STALINGRAD. Which is sort of a problem for complex documents. Even Stalingrad gained a body of "semi-official house rules to fix balance issues."

2. We could release it as a playtest pack for a lower price. Then when the final product is ready, we'd lock down (stop sales) of the playtest version and post the final version. This would be tricky in a lot of ways but might be of some use. The reality is that most people would buy the "discount version" and never do any testing and still want the "final" version for no extra money (e.g., replace the test version with the final version which they then download for free). This seems impractical. Another also impractical edition would be to lock the playtest document, upload the final version as a separate full price document, and issue half-price coupons ONLY to those who actually sent in useful tests. This seems unnecessary given the consistent success of option 3.

3. Get it the best we can with small groups and in-house. Upload it at the eventual final price, read the reports, and issue multiple updated books over a period of time. The only people who would pay full price for the Revision-0 book are those who really want to be part of testing and finalizing the document. Every time we post an update, we'd sell more copies to a wider group of people. We have done this before and it has worked very well for everyone. We get lots and lots of testing, and people who buy in early are totally confident in getting the final book when it is final and are totally satisfied with the process. (Not one single complaint from people who paid for early copies of Minor Empires. Not one.) This, by the way, is how Steve Jackson Games does it. They get the draft as good as their small groups can (so do we) and post it at the full PDF price. (Neither they nor we charge the hard copy price for the PDFs on most products.) They collect reports for a few weeks or months, upload a revised draft, and that is the one that becomes the hard copy. It works just fine for them. Lots of early buy in people want to be part of the process. Lots of people who just want a perfect product wait for the hard copy and then buy the PDF.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, July 07, 2016 - 07:06 pm: Edit

And so do we, Paul, and so do we (#0, #1, and then either #2 or #3 depending on the product), just exactly as much as they do. Remember, Paul, most of what you think you know about FA is you taking counsel of your fears, not things that actually did or did not happen. You dont know what you don't know, but sadly, you won't admit you don't know it.

I have been to SJG's small group test sessions. I tested Evil Ted and Castellan and loved both, but Evil Ted awaits publication. I also tested some other games and warned them that they won't sell. They printed one of them anyway and it didn't sell, but that's a third kind of testing (marketing).

As for what Catalyst does, we went the other direction. You'd do just as well to tell them they need to change to our way of doing things. Both work.