Loren, it is what killed the backlist for most publishers. The Supreme Court's 1979 ruling in Thor Power Tool Company v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue made it so that you cannot "devalue" back stock when you pay inventory taxes. You either pulp it or pay full value.

Sooooooo, if you guess wrong that the 1000 copies of SFBF2 will sell like hotcakes and sell out in two years, and you sell 150 the first year and 50 the second year, then you are paying the inventory tax on 800 of the things. In seven or eight years, you could maybe turn a profit, but your profit margin steadily drops as you pay taxes on it.

Suddenly, keeping a lot of stock around and figuring that one day it would be profitable became unprofitable. So when you read about "We still have thousands of those in the warehouse," you can realize why ADB went to POD.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, April 16, 2010 - 11:34 am: Edit

Oh yeah, I fully understood that back when they went POD. What boggles my mind is how the government gets away with it. Other than a source of income from business, how does this benefit the health of business in our country? Was there a problem with too many companies storing too much stuff? Or is it that big companies can compete unfairly because they could make stuff too cheap by ordering huge quantities that a small company could never do?

I guess this isn't the forum to discuss Inventory Extortion... tax. All I wanted to comment on was that it's nuts.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, April 16, 2010 - 11:54 am: Edit

Shawn: both of those places print LOTS of cards, and I have other places that do better jobs printing LOTS of cards and places that print a few cards.

Yes, Texas inventory tax is a bitch. It's one of many reasons we went to print on demand, and why we're pushing to find ways to ship color laminated ship cards on demand. Still, it's better than paying state income tax.

I will look into the Kling thing. But guys, here's the deal. This is a project. It takes time (my personal man hours) and worse, it takes "keeping track of" so I don't end up dropping the project without realizing I dropped it (i.e., "dropping the ball"). Between now and Origins, no more projects. Ask me after Origins and I will look into this. Until then, you're just making me cry that I have no time to conquer that world.

By John Swift (Sirbroadsword) on Thursday, January 20, 2011 - 05:14 am: Edit

Well, it's official, I'm going into civil engineering at university this year... Here's hoping I can get at least a few people there into SFBF. I've already taught a friend of mine to play it (doubt he'll buy himself a copy, though), and ideally I'd like at least one person at the university to buy themselves a copy after I introduce it to them... I'm not sure I like my chances, though.

Anyway, just thought I'd drop by and ask how the SFBF expansion was coming along, seeing as how you, from what I can see, never stopped work on it entirely, what with several new SFBF cards appearing in almost every new Captain's Log since SFBF came out a decade ago...

So yeah, how's it going? Things proceeding the way you'd like them to?

By Dale McKee (Brigman) on Thursday, January 20, 2011 - 11:25 am: Edit

It's been ten years. I wouldn't hold my breath.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Thursday, January 20, 2011 - 02:16 pm: Edit

I think the key thing an expansion would need - based largely on other games with very large numbers of expansions (I'm looking at you, Fantasy Flight Games), is that it needs to add a new resource/rule to manage...NOT just a pile of new cards.

Over in the 'new rules' section, I'd proposed a new deck type that could be introduced in an expansion of "legendary officers", so the game would have 'action cards', 'ship cards', and 'legendary officer' cards as resources the players have to manage. Obviously, any such expansion would include new ships and actions, too, but I think it's important to add another resource to manage...that suggestion being just one possibility. Crew cards, in general, might be an option. Or, heck, maybe expand the game a bit into something more Trek/exploration like. A deck of planet cards! Something, though...some other resource...

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Thursday, January 20, 2011 - 03:30 pm: Edit

Xander, IDK, Munchkin has about a million expansions and they seem to pretty much just add new cards.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Thursday, January 20, 2011 - 03:49 pm: Edit

Bah, Arkham Horror is a better game than Munchkin.

That said, you could always go something like the direction Zombies!!! went in, in that many of the games are actually perfectly playable standalone...but the decks and sets can be combined to play 'larger' games.

(That said, I definitely prefer the idea of expansions that materially add new play styles to a base game...although there is generally room for both. I'd take whatever ADB manages to come up with, though!)

By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Thursday, January 20, 2011 - 06:09 pm: Edit

John,

Many of the captain's logs had additional ships. Go to the dollar store and buy a deck of cards to put them on.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Thursday, January 20, 2011 - 06:19 pm: Edit

One of our SFBF group instead suggested using those card protectors that Magic (and other card games) use. If you sleeve ALL the cards - original as well as new cards - then they appear indistinguishable in the deck.

By John Swift (Sirbroadsword) on Friday, January 21, 2011 - 05:11 am: Edit

---- "It's been ten years. I wouldn't hold my breath."

Well the only reason I asked is that they keep publishing cards in Captain's Log. Without that I would have simply assumed that the project was dead.

---- "Xander, IDK, Munchkin has about a million expansions and they seem to pretty much just add new cards."

Muchkin is actually a hybrid of the "every individual release is playable by itself" method, and the "expansionitis" method, as Muchkin consists of a number of different independantly playable games that can be shuffled together, almost all of which also have a number of expansions that require the original game to play.

---- "That said, you could always go something like the direction Zombies!!! went in, in that many of the games are actually perfectly playable standalone...but the decks and sets can be combined to play 'larger' games."

It says in the SFBF manual that this was, in fact, the plan for SFBF all along ("We do plan to publish one or two more games with an identical system but different cards; the games can be combined into one very large game if players so desire" - The "Designer's Notes" section).

That said, Xander, I'm not sure I agree with you regarding the "SFBF needs another resource" thing. SFBF has a very elegant and well put together system and I get the feeling that adding "another resource" would probably only serve to bog things down.

---- "Many of the captain's logs had additional ships. Go to the dollar store and buy a deck of cards to put them on."

---- "One of our SFBF group instead suggested using those card protectors that Magic (and other card games) use. If you sleeve ALL the cards - original as well as new cards - then they appear indistinguishable in the deck."

I saw that someone on YouTube had done that with his shuffled-together Munchkin decks not so long ago (that is, put the card protectors on them). I'll definitely consider adding a few of the test cards to my game, if only to get the BCHs for the existing races into the game...

By the way, on that note, does anyone know where I can find the Federation and Klingon BCH test cards? They don't seem to be in Player Resources...

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Friday, January 21, 2011 - 06:40 am: Edit

http://www.justanswer.com/finance/0wsr4-inventory-tax-rates-us-state.html

States with Inventory Tax. Scroll to the bottom. There are links for each State that charges Inventory Tax. Apparently only 12 states do this anymore or so the expert says.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, January 21, 2011 - 11:43 am: Edit

The project isn't dead, just expensive, and new technology is lowering the cost every year. Sooner or later, money in the bank will equal cost and it will get done.

The new cards in captains log include many new features (not just new ships) and I think they include more than enough. I have seen a lot of ideas for new rules, but don't like most of them, and don't think we need many (or any) more legendary officers than have already been done in the original game and in captain's log.

What I WANT to do is a deck of 132 cards which I then divide into four 33-card expansions.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Friday, January 21, 2011 - 01:50 pm: Edit

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Quote:

What I WANT to do is a deck of 132 cards which I then divide into four 33-card expansions.

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By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Friday, January 21, 2011 - 01:56 pm: Edit

Xander I think SVC was thinking we would buy TWO 33 card expansions to get the Hydrans and Lyrans. Either way I would be excited to get ANY new full color cards for this game.

I would like to see a few more of the existing suspects peppered in to round out the ships we've got already. Of course with the CLog trial cards there is plenty to choose from.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, January 21, 2011 - 02:17 pm: Edit

33 cards seems like a healthy expansion to the current game, to me.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Friday, January 21, 2011 - 03:20 pm: Edit

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Quote:

Xander I think SVC was thinking we would buy TWO 33 card expansions to get the Hydrans and Lyrans.

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Quote:

Either way I would be excited to get ANY new full color cards for this game.

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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, January 22, 2011 - 10:35 am: Edit

The problem is production. You can buy cards in lots of 110, 121, or 132 (and 132 costs very little more than 110). You cannot really buy 66 unless you print half as many 132 which drives the cost WAY up.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Saturday, January 22, 2011 - 06:50 pm: Edit

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Quote:

You cannot really buy 66 unless you print half as many 132 which drives the cost WAY up.

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• A price bump to $24.95 price for the existing 132-card game...
• A new $19.95 price for a 2-player (say, Lyran/Hydran) standalone/addon 66-card game
• Two $9.95 33-card general expansion (ships/rules/action cards) packs

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I still wish for a few more Ph1/Ph2 cards.

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By Dal Downing Rambler (3deez) on Saturday, January 22, 2011 - 11:20 pm: Edit

Just to puit a counter point out there. I do not want a new "stand alone" game deck. Nor do i want a Major new Gimick with each Expansion. i like the BBase Game just fine. We already have 4 Empires that need Fleets (6 if you count the LDR and Seltorian which do not yet have a Captian's Log Preview) Plus we have to Short Empires (Tholians and Orions which could use a few more ships. Yes a "Terran Card or 2 per XPac and a Monster or 2 is not unwieldly. Nor would adding a Ledgendary Officer and a couple of Phasers be out of the question. But we still have the BCHs, Scouts, Escorts, and Troop Ships which means with only 132 Cards something is going to get left out

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Sunday, January 23, 2011 - 12:16 am: Edit

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Quote:

I do not want a new "stand alone" game deck.

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• Each race has 6 ships, so there is 12 cards (only) for the ships (-24 cards)
• Compared to the base game, you WON'T need action cards at all for: photon torpedoes (-6 cards), plasma torpedoes (none of them - including enveloper cards: -12 cards), drone cards (again, none of them - including scatter-packs), wild weasels (no seeking weapons!), Klingon mutiny (no Klingons!), etc
• Given the idea of it being a cheaper/standalone game, you'd probably WANT to exclude the more advanced cards. Legendary officers, tractor beams, planet-based fighters, etc

By Dal Downing Rambler (3deez) on Sunday, January 23, 2011 - 08:15 pm: Edit

Xander don't forget Hellbores use Photon and ESG use Drone Cards.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Sunday, January 23, 2011 - 10:19 pm: Edit

...I think the assumption would be that, in a standalone game, these would actually get their own cards. Although I think I'd just use a set of stickers to apply them to existing cards. But there are a lot of ways around that.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, January 24, 2011 - 12:18 pm: Edit

The reason for "Hellbores use Photon and ESG use Drone Cards" is that if they get their own cards the statisical probability of matching a weapon with a ship drops to the point that the game is not workable.

And no stickers! do not mention them again.

By Dal Downing Rambler (3deez) on Sunday, January 30, 2011 - 02:16 am: Edit

I was just looking at the SJG Muchkin's Rigged Deck PDF Demo of Said Game. Is there any point disccussing such a thing for SFBF say a 20 or so Card PDF file that would feature a battle between a Fed DD and a Klink F5C or D6?