Preorders up for Birds of Prey Countersheets
For small products that require external printing and die cutting, like countersheets, we run a pre-order. Each of the five countersheets listed below will go to press when there are 15 orders for that specific countersheet; if that threshold is met, the pre-orders will be die cut and run with the Squadron Strike: Traveller counters around early February.
Update: The counters are now up for sale! Look .
For small products that require external printing and die cutting, like countersheets, we run a pre-order. Each of the five countersheets listed below will go to press when there are 15 orders for that specific countersheet; if that threshold is met, the pre-orders will be die cut and run with the Squadron Strike: Traveller counters around early February.
They'll be mailed to backers as soon as they're in - there's typically a three week turnaround from placing the print job order to the counters arriving.
Shortly after the threshold is met, the counters will be moved over to the regular product page for the line they support.
Have a look here to see the new countersheets.
Squadron Strike 2nd Edition Coming Now
Squadron Strike 2nd edition is coming in mere days! With all-new ships and the new Empire/Directorate War setting, this is more than just a rules update. Read on for details on the new aids for learning Squadron Strike from scratch and everything else.
Sometime in the next three to five days, Squadron Strike will have a 2nd edition put up on the Ad Astra website.
Several changes have been made, to fighter combat, dealing with torpedoes and missiles, and some wording has been clarified in weapon traits. The campaign system that nobody ever used has been removed, as has the ground combat engine, which will be revamped into a new product. There are more examples in the rulebook, and some choices were made to make larger games more interesting.
The included setting and SSD book are the Empire/Directorate War. One of the projects for next year is rebuilding the Diaspora setting to something that's more fun to read and revamping the ships to make them more fun to play. The setting book will be in two volumes; the first is a 52 page "fly through" tutorial, with fictional lead ins to the scenario. Each scenario adds a few new rules at a time until you've got the entire game under your belt. The second is an expanded section of historical scenarios that build off of the tutorial and make it into a fully fledged campaign game.
If you're a fan of the Starfire setting materials, where there are scenarios with interludes, this should scratch the same fictional itch.
The SSD book includes a fortress, and 2D and 3D versions of every SSD.
Below are some of the art pieces we did for the book -- hat tip to Charles Oines, of course.
Leaving Farside
Looking for a Fight in Alpha Mensae ...
And They've Found One ...
Close Action!
If you're waiting for a back-order, it will be fulfilled as a 2nd edition game.
If you've bought the PDF rulebooks, there will be a discount code emailed to you to buy new versions of the PDFs for the new edition.
And, of course, if you already own the game, we'll be selling upgrade kits that replace all the items in the box that changed.
Squadron Strike Ship Book 2 Back in "Print" as a PDF
Ship Book 2 "The Three Face War" is back in print! (well, in electrons)
It's now available from the Ad Astra Games web site in PDF form. We've had a lot of requests for it, and it's finally there!
The Generic Space Weapon Imposing Namifier!
A Spiffy Spreadsheet To Help You Avoid Generic-Sounding Spaceship Weapon Names In Your Space Operatic Ideals
So, you've come up with your Not-Mongol Space Horde Armada, you've picked out a range of ships from any one of several vendors, painted them up, and you've got your weapons all statted out in your game of choice....
and AAAAARGH! Now, you've got the bane of every would-be Mustachio Twirling Space Tyrant! Writer's Block!
You have your Long Range Thingie. Your Big Bad Blue Beam of, er, Blowing Bits Off!
And you know that when you take your fleet to the table your friends will heckle you - and your imaginary crew will hide their heads in shame in their Oversized Pauldrons of Compensation - because, well, nobody wants to call out shots for the Long Range Thingie.
Friend, I have your back! Er. Assuming your physiology has a back. But you get my drift.
Announcing the The Generic Space Weapon Imposing Namifier:
Generate names for your new uber-weapons by matching a Sciency Sounding Adjective and a Noun of Menacing (tm), all by entering random characters in the orange box.
But wait, there's more! We've also added the Intensifiers of Awesomeness, plus given you ways to exclude some of the sillier results!
Click the link below to make planet smashing weapons for your cruisers of the void!
Squadron Strike Spreadsheet Update
There's a new spreadsheet in town...and it's a doozy!
Yes, it's been 9 months since the last one. This was a serious re-tinkering of the sheet. The list of new features on this sheet are immense, but boil down to implementing eight new data displays on the ship design and fortress design tabs, letting you see how much defense (and average damage) you have per AVID window, better dynamic display of weapon data, and re-arranging the Campaign Tab to better reflect integration with Stars at War.
See the change log file in the zip file! This has also gone up on the services.adastragames.com subdomain.
As a change in policy - all Patreon Backers at the $1.00 and up level can get access to the same spreadsheet file through Patreon, even if they've not registered a game. Enjoy!
A Handy Tool...
A handy spreadsheet for determining the viability of relativistic (or simple kinetic) weapons for your science fiction novel or game...
While involved in a discussion on relativistic weapons, I had reason to build this spreadsheet. It seems of potential interest to our audience here.
Relativity Go Boom
Squadron Strike: Axanar In Development
Ad Astra Games and Axanar Productions will bring the space battles of the Four Years War to tabletop gaming with Squadron Strike: Axanar! Using the critically acclaimed Squadron Strike game engine, Squadron Strike: Axanar will show the arms race between the Klingon Empire and the United Federation of Planets in unprecedented detail. The product will be available in both PDF and print formats, and will include the canonical class histories for all the ships in the film. Additional products include a line of fleet scale miniatures.
Ad Astra Games makes engaging 3D tabletop miniatures games, and has multiple licenses using its Squadron Strike game system. Ad Astra has recently completed a Kickstarter for electronic game aids for Squadron Strike.
Squadron Strike: Axanar supports 2D and 3D play, and is in closed playtesting now. If you already own Squadron Strike and want to get in on the second phase playtesting, please contact Ken Burnside (design@adastragames.com) for details. Squadron Strike can be purchased directly from Ad Astra Games website.
Squadron Strike: Axanar will be available on the Axanar website as a perk for donating to the production. To find out more about Axanar Productions, watch Prelude to Axanar on Youtube, and visit their website at www.axanarproductions.com
We expect public playtesting to begin around June 15th, possibly sooner. Playtesting will require signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement.
May The Fourth Be With You!
With the widespread availability of gorgeous miniatures from a galaxy Far Far Away, it seems only appropriate to take them into new dimensions that have heretofore been unexplored...
These are excellent ships to use for basic introductory games - they're fast, they're nimble, and the A7 Twin Engine Fighter tends to die quickly.
We recommend a scenario where each of the new players gets a Cross Wing fighter and the instructor flies waves of A7s to be shot down by our heroic newbies.
Also included are a set of optional rules for Squadron Strike that allow you to more properly capture the feel of cinematic starfighters.
https://www.patreon.com/StarShipsRUs for more details - the content is Patrons Only.
Kickstarter After Action Report: Setting Goals
This isn't a formal After Action Report with assessments, but my first Kickstarter is done. It exceeded every possible expectation I, and my team, had. I'd figured that I had a shot, with a late Kickstarter surge, of hitting my $5000 funding goal. If I got 110 backers, I figured I'd be safe.
Final tally? $15,942. 350 backers. 33 days. Lots of work by myself, Ethan McKinney and Jon Barson. Jerome Mrozak's yeoman work getting the first version of the AVID Assistant done is what allowed this to be as successful as it was - and Charles Oines' trailer got us a LOT of eyeballs.
I'd ran out stretch goals in three phases.
Phase I: Pay for the work that had already been done. This was the initial funding goal.
Phase Ia and Ib: Add features I'd wanted in Phase I, but hadn't been able to fund out of pocket.
Phase Ic: Make the browser based app into native apps for Android and iOS.
Phase II was adding plotting support for Squadron Strike.
Phase IIa was making the platform apps less expensive ($0.99). Phase IIb is making it free. I figure that I made more off of those two stretch goals than I'd've made off of Google Play / iTunes sales for several years of having them up.
Phase III will be be game automation for Attack Vector: Tactical, and it will slide back to a future Kickstarter. Attack Vector: Tactical has some difficult-to-implement tricks, which is why, when we hit $15,000 with 5ish hours to go, I didn't uncork those stretch goals. Besides, I suspect we'll have a better idea scoping out what's needed for AV:T after we finish Phase II.
This is far from my only software development project. You'll hear more about others down the road.
And thank you to everyone who contributed, pledged, shared links around and talked up the project. Right now, however, I'm going to sequester myself for the better part of a day and unwind.
Traveller Tuesday: Teasing the Kinunir Over At Citizens of the Imperium
Intelligence agents from the McKinney Sector have managed to get the most detailed specifications sheet yet on the Kinunir Imperial Patrol Cruiser.
Intelligence agents from the McKinney Sector have managed to get the most detailed specifications sheet yet on the Kinunir Imperial Patrol Cruiser. Check the report out here, before counter-intel has it taken down!
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=34213