Hey Steve

Post by **Steve Cole** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 4:02 pm

The large freighter is in Comm-40. The individual ships lag 3-4 months behind the Comm issue posts because we want you to read the issue.

Post by **Steve Cole** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 4:07 pm

The PDF thing is a question we have wrestled with for some time.

Many companies do it, but they are not like us. Smaller companies do most of their sales PDF because they're not in stores and don't have their own print on deman equipment and cannot afford major print runs. Bigger companies do it because they have several employees and can have one of them in charge of shutting down websites that post pirated files. (I have to do that chore here, which takes away from my designing games.) Minis companies do it because they don't care about rulebook sales, they want to sell miniatures.

We haven't done it for a number of reasons. Piracy is the biggest one, and the experiment with the GURPS stuff will tell that tale. The other is that doing it requires SVC time (to study and plan and make decisions and negotiate contracts) and I just don't have time. (I tried to get our rulebooks into Kindle and had to stop trying after the project took three days away from designing new games and still hadn't even gotten to the point where I could decide if I wanted to do it or not.)

The publication earlier this week of FCB2 with 72 black and white non-laminated ship cards has, again, spurred us to look into the matter, and I suspect we'll have those cards on the SJG download engine in a month or two.

djdood · Post by **djdood** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 4:17 pm

Steve Cole wrote:The publication earlier this week of FCB2 with 72 black and white non-laminated ship cards has, again, spurred us to look into the matter, and I suspect we'll have those cards on the SJG download engine in a month or two.

Cool.
That sounds like a nice bellwether test. I know I'm definitely going to buy the pdf so I can print/laminate the few I'm interested in in color. I doubt I'd want all 72 as anything other than "maybe someday, just in case" black and white, so this sounds like a really good fit.

I hope people behave and the experiment gives good returns.

Rick Smith · Post by **Rick Smith** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 4:27 pm

Pardon my ignorance Steve. What is FCB2?

Scoutdad · Post by **Scoutdad** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 4:33 pm

I'm not Stve, but it's Federation Commnder: Breifing #2.

Steve, If the color PDFs of the ships are made available, I'll be down for a set.

Rick Smith · Post by **Rick Smith** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 4:34 pm

Ah, cool. Thanks Scoutdad.

Mike · Post by **Mike** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 5:36 pm

Ditto what Scoutdad said about being in line for color versions of the ship cards from FCB2.

The Master · Post by **The Master** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 5:53 pm

My bad. I did not mean to cause a problem with a yes no poll. I was just wanted to see how much support for such a project.

You are right even i asked this question back in he early 80's when the apple computer came out. access to a coppier wasn't as easy as it is today. You should have see me and my friends sitting in my Commanders office ( late at night)cutting and pasting masters and making the SSD's as you see them today.

What it boils down to is, if TFG makes a disk of PDFs or a program for SFB I will buy it. If you do not I will not. I am not about to give up the game, Hell I plan to be burried with it. I just fear the guys hauling my casket might not be able to pick it up with all those books in it.

Bolo_MK_XL · Post by **Bolo_MK_XL** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 6:31 pm

What it boils down to is, if TFG makes a disk of PDFs or a program for SFB I will buy it.

I wouldn't, prefer not to have a record for receiving stolen goods ---

TFG no longer exists, everything is done by ADB (Steve himself) ---

mjwest · Post by **mjwest** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 7:20 pm

The Master wrote: My bad. I did not mean to cause a problem with a yes no poll. I was just wanted to see how much support for such a project.

You didn't do anything wrong, per se. I just wanted to make sure everything stayed (and stays) under control, and the whole "poll" thing didn't seem like a good idea.

But, you didn't know all that.

So, no worries.

Thank you for taking it well.

pinecone · Post by **pinecone** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 8:41 pm

When will FCB2 be available for purchase?

The Master · Post by **The Master** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 9:18 pm

TFG no longer exists, everything is done by ADB (Steve himself) ---

OOPs

We old timers forget at times. No offence I hope Steve

Will try to do better in future

mjwest · Post by **mjwest** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 9:26 pm

pinecone wrote:When will FCB2 be available for purchase?

It is already available.

pinecone · Post by **pinecone** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 11:54 pm

mjwest wrote:
pinecone wrote:When will FCB2 be available for purchase?
It is already available.

Thanks. I just ordered it.

Post by **Steve Cole** » Fri Apr 17, 2009 2:47 pm

Random replies....

In a legal sense, TFG still exists, because the owners never "closed" it (shut it down legally). They have pretty much ignored it, and haven't paid it's annual taxes in years. Every state has thousands of "abandoned" corporations. In a practical sense, TFG does no longer function.

As for a poll, I don't need one. I know you guys want PDFs. I'm not convinced they won't destroy the company. No amount of what you guys want is going to get me to do something I think will destroy the company and put me out of a job. I could get a very healthy majority on a poll "Should ADB give away the games for free?" As noted before, the issue is complex, I don't really have time to deal with it, but we're moving slowly in that direction to see how much damage it does.

Federation Commander

Hey Steve

PDF

Re: PDF