Federation Commander

[KJ]

I've not posted here (nor actually played a game of FC) in several years, and am a bit behind on the state of eProduct releases.

Before purchasing a series of FC SSD downloads, I'd like to know if the Ship Card packs contain cards that have been issued in physical products (Border/Attack/Booster) or in past communiques, or are the ships found therein completely new to the FC system?

Second question: is there a place I can review current developments in system additions such as fighters/PF/other sectors?

My thanks in advance for your time.

[Steve Cole]

You can check the REFERENCE SHIP CHART. Some of the PDF packs have cards from products, some have cards from Captain's Log, some have new cards, almost all have a mix of all three.

Fighters Attack more or less exists in Communique. So go test it. When I get playtest reports I'll discuss a physical product release date. No reports have been received since I started doing fighter stuff two or three years ago. Doesn't inspire me to spend time on it.

Gunboats Attack is not ready for you to see. Mike and I still have a major issue to resolve and until then any release of anything would be worse than useless, it would make it hard to ever finish anything.

X-Ships Attack: Enough has come out in Communique to test it, so go test it. No reports have been received since we first printed X-ships in Communique over a year ago. The lack of reports does not inspire me to spend time on it.
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

[KJ]

Thanks - I'll spend some time with the fighters/X-ships once I'm back up to speed on all of the weapons/systems rules AND send you playtest reports over the next few months as I'm able.

[Itharus]

You guys have been plugging away at converting all the SFB stuff to PDFs it looks like.

I thank you for that. As someone with low vision, PDFs are what keep your products accessible. Small black print on bright white paper is visual death to me. The ability to zoom, dark-mode, color invert, magnify, screen read, etc, etc is essential to folks in my position.

Also... it's nice to be able to print anything and everything instead of having to try and photocopy things one by one.

For that matter, every single PDF out there can be scribbled on with a stylus with free software and a touch screen display these days - completely 100% removing the need to use paper to keep track of your ship cards and what not at all.

PDF is definitely the way to go. I really, truly hope that you make your entire catalog available on PDF. You could even make a little program that could be used for trackers and what not. In fact, there's already a few companies out there that do precisely that for various RPGs and Wargames if you felt like outsourcing it.

Federation Commander in particular though... not so great in the PDF department. Very nearly all the SSDs, all of the descriptions, many of the scenarios....... effectively the meat and the heart of the game.......... seem to be completely missing from PDF (unless I somehow totally missed them?). Which has me very sad because to be honest, I'm just not buying print products anymore these days and have thus basically had to stop collecting FC because critical components simply aren't available.

Which leads me to the question: why is putting all of your products into PDF taking so many years? I ask this from a purely technical curiosity perspective. Are your files not already stored digitally? Or do you use some really aged strange format that can't be converted into PDF and has to be re-done by hand? Or, god forbid, do you use physical media as the root stock of your product?

[mjwest]

You can already buy the Reference Rulebook on PDF. You also have access to 14 years of Communique in PDF. These Communiques provide all of the ships from Klingon Border and Attack and Romulan Border and Attack (except for the Bonus ships), plus many other ships from various other products. In addition, you have several Card Packs to choose from. Finally, you have Briefing #1 and #2.

Is that everything? No, But it is a lot more than you seem to be aware of. Note that all of the Communiques are free.
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Federation Commander Answer Guy

[Nerroth]

To follow up with the "other sectors" portion of things, there are playtest PDFs on Warehouse 23 and elsewhere for both the Omega Octant and the Lesser Magellanic Cloud in Federation Commander, if you'd be interested in checking out those regions of space also. Plus there is a handful of additional Omega playtest Ship Cards to be found in various issues of Communique.

In addition, Captain's Log #39 and the CL39 Supplemental File include playtest rules and Ship Cards for the Early Years in FC.

While Captain's Log #40 offers a pair of Ship Cards for the M81 (Tholian/Seltorian home galaxy) Pirates; there is an historical monograph in Captain's Log #41 which goes into more detail on how these High Pirate Bands emerged and operated.

Each of these volumes are also available to purchase in both print and PDF form.
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FC Omega Discussion (v3)
FC LMC Discussion

[Itharus]

Glad to hear the Fed and Klingons first two products are covered, but how would a player that doesn't follow the website actively even know about those ssd pdfs? And that also still leaves the overwhelming bulk of FC not available this way, including more or less all the non fed/klingon races

I appreciate the heads up, though.

And I do have the rrb (and a growing collection of the digitized sfb stuff - which is great), which is part of what makes it so frustrating that most of the catalog is missing, lol. SFB's great but FC is helluva lot easier to arrange due to the length of matches being half or less of SFB's - far more enticing to new players and people who dislike minutiae (yes, they exist... it is sad).

I'm not trying to come off as attacking, just trying to voice a desire and wondering why it's on the time scale it is, because as you pointed out - it's been 14 years. I've considered getting the paper products and just going to a print shop and having them scan and pdf everything for me but many of them seem to balk at copying copyrighted material in bulk. In theory that would be all it takes though. So it's odd to me that it hasn't been done. That's all.

It's the whole "shut up and take my money" argument, lol.

[Steve Cole]

I am not following the question. We have released more than half of FC on PDF and more comes out steadily. Every empire is available in PDFs, not necessarily all of their ships but lots of each.

Updates are why we have a website and newsletters. (Every product tells you to subscribe to the free newsletter. If you do that, you know about all updates.) Websites are pretty much how every company in every industry tells every customer about every product update. I am really not sure what other paths could exist for that or why its a question.
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

[Steve Cole]

I will note that some months ago we did announce plans to resume issuing series of PDF ship cards, expanding the future packs from six cards to ten for the same $5 price and including a new card in every pack. [We are not going to add cards to the existing packs.]

And we never did it. I forgot, got busy, wasn't in the mood, was distracted by my medical issues, or was abducted by aliens.

I'll make a note to get a pack out next week and then one every other week (at least until the COVID19 mess is over and I can have the unnecessary surgery that will end the extreme pain I have endured for six week so far).

Each pack will all be for one empire (10 Feds, 10 Klingons, etc.) so if anyone (specifically including the guy who started this conversation) was to nominate an empire (not ten or twelve empires) to get done earlier on the list, I can make it happen.

In fact, if KJ and Itharus want to each pick an empire, I'll do those first.
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

[Itharus]

I'm sorry to hear that you're having to wait on the surgery. Been there myself and it's no fun

Thanks for the response and again if I did come across as aggressive or pushy, I apologize. Bit of a flaw of mine that I sometimes do that - which is probably why I apologize so much.

I do very much appreciate the work! As for which? Whichever one is most likely to sell the most, for my $0.02. I of course have a favorite but what's more important is that you guys keep the lights on, lol. Eventually I'll get most or all of them anyway, so as long as they keep coming all is well

Regarding the half or more being out content wise... perhaps I'm missing something or just not understanding where each thing is. It's wholly possible that such is the case - my bad, if so. I think it's the disconnect between the names/content of the digital and physical products that makes knowing what is where more difficult.

For example, the digital modules for SFB have the same names for everything as the physical products; where as for FC digital there's ship card packs, and physical has booster packs. Also, while the reference rule book is available - it specifically excludes ship descriptions and scenarios, which are normally found in the individual expansion rule books; which are not available as digital products (afaik).

Do the master star ship books work for FC descriptions as well?

The website comment was pretty stupidly worded, in retrospect. I withdraw that one. I think my brain's been too infected with the various social media platforms to even immediately see a newsletter anymore.

[Steve Cole]

Yeah, I can see the confusion. The ship card ePacks dont' match up with any physical product. I really don't remember why we did things that way. I may ask Jean (not on her day off) if she would think it a good idea to scrap all of the existing ePacks and start over to do packs that match products.

We were going to do a Reference Starship Book for FedCom but that was about the time five years ago that I got too sick to work. Now that I'm back there are just too many products to pick from and my brain continually goes into reset mode.

We're going to do them all so I don't know it matters which one we do first. Name your favorite race, faction, empire, or community! I think the only empire we have done 100% is the North Polar one. Some empires we only did via PDF.

Nah, you didn't come across as pushy. You're fine. After 40 years of this I am used to people who want what they want. If you didn't want to work to win, you'd be a scifi fan rather than a scifi gamer. You're fine.

Current guess is three weeks or more for surgery. Pain doubles every day.
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

[Itharus]

That sounds, unpleasant... I hope that when you finally get it done that it's effective.

Hhhm well, since you asked a second time, I guess I'll spit it out, lol. I'm rather fond of the Lyrans, especially in FC, as I much prefer its interpretation of the ESG .

Regarding scrapping the existing line: I've got no idea if the sites would choose to allow a discontinued product to be available for download for those who purchased them or not. If not, I still think a synced up product line would be a good idea, though it might need a little note on the description about overlap to keep from confusing folks more about the two lines of cards, lol.

[Steve Cole]

The original idea was to have packs that were all one empire, because (regardless of what ship was in what product) people play the game by empire not by product. Nobody says "you have the ships from Klingon Border while I have the ships from Tholians Attack." They say "You have the Klingon Ships while I have the Seltorian Ships." I suspect we'll end up staying with the path we picked.

Only one pack of six Lyran PDF cards was ever done, but another (this time ten ships for the same $5) would be easy after I talk to Jean about the above.
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

[Itharus]

Right on, thank you.

Also, not sure about others' sentiments on the matter, but to me $5 for 10 feels like a steal. I'd happily pay $7.50 or even the the $9.95 of a booster pack (which have less than 10 cards themselves).

It's a pity that DrivethruRPG's 'pay-what-you-want' feature doesn't support a price floor on it.

[cnuzzi]

As someone who only buys pdfs, there is one glaring omission from the FC pdf product line that keeps me up at night, staring at my bedroom ceiling and asking, "Why?"

Battleships. Either Battleships Attack or Line of Battle (it's a toss up - BA has the Starbase, while LOB has the Hydran and Lyran battleships). I would gladly pay the full price of the physical media for a pdf version of either of these. Is there any chance for this?