Federation Commander

Steve Cole · Site Admin Joined: 11 Oct 2006 Posts: 3821

A while ago, we got to the point of replacing the original combat system (which was badly broken). I assigned two people to write a new one so I could pick between them and neither did what they promised. That threw it back on my desk and my schedule was already full. So when I get past a couple of projects I'll go see if I can strip the clutter out of the F&E system and use that.

It won't be this month, but it will be.
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

Jean · Site Admin Joined: 18 Sep 2008 Posts: 1732

It is indeed still a thing. Steve has a lot of irons in the fire right now and this one isn't the current priority.
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Business Manager/RPG Line Editor
Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc.

asguard101 · Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2018 3:05 pm Post subject:

I did not see any mention of Federation Admiral on the list for 2018. Has this been pushed that far back that it won

asguard101 · Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2018 3:07 pm Post subject:

I did not see any mention of Federation Admiral on the list for 2018. Has this been pushed that far back that it won

Dal Downing · Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2018 9:33 pm Post subject:

Federation Admiral was #4 on the things to do in 2018 list SVC posted on the the Discuss Boards. That does not mean it is the forth thing he will get done, just it is on the list.
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-Dal

"Which one of you is the Biggest, Baddest, Bootlicker of the bunch?"
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Steve Cole · Site Admin Joined: 11 Oct 2006 Posts: 3821

Things have been crazy around here, what with my (SVC's) surgery in Oct and more surgery (and near death from blood poisoning) in Nov. The October surgery ended a nightmare that has kept me from doing any significant work since July. So I basically lost six months or we would already have ACTASF2 and CL53 on the shelves with FedAdmiral halfway done.

The combat system in the original draft is not workable (might as well just toss a coin to decide the winner before you play the campaign) modifying the F&E system will take at best a day and replace about a page of text. The key guts of the campaign are intact as Jay wrote them (brilliantly) far too long ago.

Right now my health is better. A doctor visit last Monday changed a few things and I have had three good nights of sleep in a row for the first time in a decade. Building strength every day and I am now able to work six hours a day (compared to 12 two years ago and maybe two last August).

Problem of the moment is computers. My primary machine up and died just before Christmas. (The hard disks are fine, no data lost, but impossible to actually work on CL53 or ACTASF2 or FA right this moment). There aren't very many places to get the specialized hardware we need and they were all closed from 15 Dec to 10 Jan. I am scheduled right now to drive four hours on Monday, meet with the technology team on Tuesday, and come home Wednesday night with four new machines to replace what I and Steve Petrick have used for 19 years (two are backups since these are still 19 year old machines that do things today's machines won't do). That's the theory. I may find out Monday that the trip will be delayed a day or two. But let's say that a week from Monday (10 days from now) I'll be back at full speed. Which isn't normal emergency overdrive speed, but I don't know if that will ever happen again at my age.
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

Steve Cole · Site Admin Joined: 11 Oct 2006 Posts: 3821

Point of information, When you see this....

Has this been pushed that far back that it won

What happened was you tried to input a curly quote for won't and the forum cannot deal with those so it just deletes everything from that point on.

I took a guess and answered this guesstimated question:

Has this been pushed that far back that it won't come out this year.

In plainer english, it hasn't been pushed back at all (although if the staff assigned to create a new combat system had done what they promised it would have been finished a year ago.)
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

asguard101 · Posted: Tue Oct 22, 2019 1:11 pm Post subject:

Any chance this will be released in time for Christmas?

Steve Cole · Site Admin Joined: 11 Oct 2006 Posts: 3821

Not this year. I have a full plate for the rest of this year with the revisions/hardcopies of ACTASF2 and Merchants and the new production FC Boosters 37 and 38 and SFB Module J3.

I would note that two big problems remain. One of them is the combat system (the original didn't work, but replacing the command point system with one that is consistent with SFU and the combat table with one that produces less explosive results should fix that) and the other is the massive amount of "take Jay's reports and revise the massive document."
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

lansdulac · Ensign Joined: 17 Mar 2016 Posts: 5 Location: Herndon, VA

Haven't seen any posts on this since the big bug, but has Federation Admiral been postponed indefinitely or has it just been pushed back due to other projects?

Steve Cole · Site Admin Joined: 11 Oct 2006 Posts: 3821

It's where it was (waiting for Jay to answer something). I have been busy for a while. I lost most of fall 2021 to my knee going bad and having to be replaced, then Steve Petrick had a stroke and I spent months dealing with getting him better and back to work. I just finished a second post-medicalcrisisTM product (AO22) and am looking at several options for the next products.
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

Steve Cole · Site Admin Joined: 11 Oct 2006 Posts: 3821

Something I do have to say is that Jay's original design had zero playtesting, and while I modified it extensively to make it compatible with our Paramount contract (so we could legally publish it, which we could not have done with the original design) but nobody has really shown any interest in testing it. A few want to buy it, but they assume somebody else tested it so it actually works. Assuming the schedule ever allows me to work on this again we may well be publishing a PDF format for a year of consumer testing before trying to do print copies. The only option I have left to test this thing is sell it to people and fix whatever they complain about.
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

Savedfromwhat · Commander Joined: 23 Aug 2007 Posts: 657

SVC I have been wanting to buy this game since I was in my twenties, I turn 41 next week. If you release it as a play test beta with no guarantee of ever producing a revised version I will still buy it. I will buy it with a huge smile on my face. I will buy two copies just to boost sales.

I truly appreciate your commitment to getting this product into something even close to workable as the premise is so awesome. My 10 year old is starting to get into D and D and I think it

Savedfromwhat · Commander Joined: 23 Aug 2007 Posts: 657

lansdulac · Ensign Joined: 17 Mar 2016 Posts: 5 Location: Herndon, VA