Federation Commander

In the timeline, did X-ships appear at the end of the General War, or much later?
Does the timeline overlap with War & Peace? (which I don't own yet)
Is there an X-ship expansion planned? (I'm finding them much more fun than I thought I would.)

End of the General War. I think the first ones appeared in Y180.

The ISC War and Andromedan War both happen after the General War, so X-ships are available for both. Note that X-ships remained a small fraction of each empires fleet throughout those wars. So, even though X-ships are present, most battles involved non-X-ships.

Yes, I am sure an X-ship expansion is planned for. However, there is no time associated with that, and it is still in competition with Fighters and Gunboats for which comes first.

Are fighters and gunboats going to be in one expansion, or two separate expansions?

On a semi-related note, one thing I find interesting about the Star Fleet Universe is how seemingly equivalent technologies can develop in parallel in different regions of known space, but still manifest in quite divergent ways.

For example, while attack shuttles capable of fighting at tactical warp speeds began in the Alpha Octant with the Hydrans and only later spread to other empires in the region, warp-capable fighters began much earlier over in the Omega Octant - but did so either as "frigates" (which the bee-like Hivers, who build their ship classes two sizes smaller than most other "metal-hull" empires, consider their Barb fighters to be), or as "parasites" (both the Alunda and Branthodons modified "wild" space creatures to create their Remora and Wyvern fighters respectively). Only gradually did the concept spread to other (non-Hiver) "metal-hull" empires, yet the likes of the Maesrons and Trobrin - or even the Federal Republic of Aurora - were using fighters earlier than the Federation or Klingons were.

On the other hand, both gunboats and first-generation X-ships appeared in Omega after they did in Alpha - and in very different circumstances. In Alpha, "hot warp" gunboats and X1-ships emerged in the latter part of the General War, and were thus designed to fight one another; only later were they re-purposed to fight the Andromedan invaders. In the case of Omega, however, "volatile warp" gunboats and "metal-hull" X1-ships appeared in the midst of the Andromedan and Souldra invasions themselves; while samples of "volatile warp" and X1-tech were smuggled by the Maesrons to their former rivals in a last-ditch bid for mutual survival, each recipient had to design their gunboats and X1-ships in isolation, aimed primarily to fight the common invaders. Only later, after the Andromedans and Souldra were defeated, did the surviving empires turn these new technologies against one another. (And in the case of the Alunda, they had to go in an entirely different direction, by using refugee Sigvirion virii to "infect" the organic control systems of their Host ships; the resulting "Sig-Tech" ships proved functionally equivalent to a "metal-hull" empire's X1-ships.)

In Federation Commander terms, it would be relatively simple to adapt most Omega fighter concepts over from SFB, once the Alpha Octant template is formalized in "Fighters Attack". (Well, Barbs might require a bit of consideration, in the event that the Hivers were to be brought over to FC.) "Volatile warp" gunboats might take more thought, depending on how "hot warp" gunboats from the Alpha Octant were to appear in "Gunboats Attack". And while it remains to be seen what Omega X1-ships (to include "Sig-Tech" Alunda Host ships) would work like in SFB, there would be opportunities to test such units alongside, or against, the likes of the advanced galactic survey cruiser NCC-1821 USS Sakharov, should they appear in SSD and/or in Ship Card form one day.

Ahem.

Actually answering the question -
I'd consider it fairly likely that fighters and gunboats will be in their own expansions. Even though neither would add a lot of rules, they both would need a significant amount of ship cards to implement across the various empires.

We are looking into some things, including the option to go entirely electronic on future products.

Would there still be physical products for those of us who wanted them, with the option for others to go all digital?

Thanks for the answers all!

Fighters and Gunboats would be separate expansions.

Unless the all digital switch is hit, in which case all bets are off.

EDIT:
Let me be more clear. Prior discussion was alway two separate Attack modules, plus boosters; one each for Fighters and Gunboats. However, if things are done differently, things will be done differently.

If we decide to go all digital, that means no hard copies. It just depends on sales figures and the cost of doing the laminated cards. Reinforcements
Attacks sales were very marginal on hard copy.

Would it be possible to do a pre-order or Kickstarter to fund the physical copy ahead of time?
I'm sure you've gone over all this already, I just really like you're physical products!

I have no problem with the idea of electronic product, and am happy to print / laminate my own ship cards. Won't be as pretty as ADB's stuff, but it will be OK.

One thing I wouldn't be all that happy with is counters. I prefer professionally made counters to my own home-brew efforts, but I understand from previous posts that counter sheets are the really tricky bit for ADB as they tie up a lot of money.

Look forward to seeing what happens!

is there such a thing as a little plastic thingie with a clear top that you could pop open, insert a printed counter into, then snap closed, and ouila! have a nice re-usable counter with some physical weight to it that won't blow away at the slightest breeze?

If not, there should be!

Kinda like an ID badge holder, except the size of a counter?

Just slide one in and its ready to use.

Keeping up with a bunch of counters on thin cardstock might become a bit tedious though...

I am not aware of a counter-sized badge holder.

I don't think there are enough people who are potential buyers of a hard copy to make a pre-order system workable. If we barely broke even on Reinforcements Attack, I don't see Gunboats/Fighters Attack working and it would seem just a waste of time to even try to take pre-orders.

mjwest wrote:End of the General War. I think the first ones appeared in Y180.

The ISC War and Andromedan War both happen after the General War, so X-ships are available for both. Note that X-ships remained a small fraction of each empires fleet throughout those wars. So, even though X-ships are present, most battles involved non-X-ships.

Yes, I am sure an X-ship expansion is planned for. However, there is no time associated with that, and it is still in competition with Fighters and Gunboats for which comes first.

Is it true?