reinforcements
2010
Wednesday 30 December 2009 Filed in: News
I’ve just been preparing the websites for 2010, and thought that I’d mention a few things here.
You may have noticed on the main BITS website blog that I attended Dragonmeet for the first time in three years, and whilst there we had some discussions on Power Projection and future releases. Anyway, we’ve had a few ideas, which we’ve been kicking around as ways to get Power Projection: Reinforcements and some other books out. At the moment, we’re considering a drip feed release of fleets from Reinforcements as PDFs on advance of the main book being prepared. This will focus primarily on GZG vessels, rather than the excellent Ad Astra vessels. As I’ve recently raised my InDesign DTP skills from nothing to a complete book laid out (an RPG called Wordplay), this is actually looking feasible as a deliverable, as it means I can prepare it while Andy Lilly focuses on the RPG material. The final book would have further content - some extra chapters of material we’ve been looking for a home for such as classic Traveller ship designs not included in Power Projection: Fleet. BITS also have plans for up to three further books to support Traveller, all for the RPG. All this subject to the usual ‘real life may intervene’ tag.
I finally got to see the Ad Astra Games Traveller Miniatures at Dragonmeet, and they’re really nice. If you’re in the UK and can catch BITS at a con, they’re well worth getting hold off (as exchange rate was better when we got our stock). Otherwise, Ad Astra Games sell direct.
Finally, TravCon UK is upon us soon, and there are very few places left. Check out the main BITS site for more information!
Thank you for your patience with us, and have a Happy New Year.
Dom
You may have noticed on the main BITS website blog that I attended Dragonmeet for the first time in three years, and whilst there we had some discussions on Power Projection and future releases. Anyway, we’ve had a few ideas, which we’ve been kicking around as ways to get Power Projection: Reinforcements and some other books out. At the moment, we’re considering a drip feed release of fleets from Reinforcements as PDFs on advance of the main book being prepared. This will focus primarily on GZG vessels, rather than the excellent Ad Astra vessels. As I’ve recently raised my InDesign DTP skills from nothing to a complete book laid out (an RPG called Wordplay), this is actually looking feasible as a deliverable, as it means I can prepare it while Andy Lilly focuses on the RPG material. The final book would have further content - some extra chapters of material we’ve been looking for a home for such as classic Traveller ship designs not included in Power Projection: Fleet. BITS also have plans for up to three further books to support Traveller, all for the RPG. All this subject to the usual ‘real life may intervene’ tag.
I finally got to see the Ad Astra Games Traveller Miniatures at Dragonmeet, and they’re really nice. If you’re in the UK and can catch BITS at a con, they’re well worth getting hold off (as exchange rate was better when we got our stock). Otherwise, Ad Astra Games sell direct.
Finally, TravCon UK is upon us soon, and there are very few places left. Check out the main BITS site for more information!
Thank you for your patience with us, and have a Happy New Year.
Dom
The Sword Worlds fleet...
Thursday 23 August 2007 Filed in: Products
OK, the picture is very, very small, but here is a first sneak picture of the GZG models we are planning to use for the Sword Worlds fleet. Nick Bradbeer has started to assemble some of them here. There are a couple of ships missing (a battle cruiser and two smaller jump tenders) but this is the line up we are looking at. Not sure how many will make it to Power Projection: Reinforcements, but hopefully quite a few. The ships are all NSL or UNSC.
BITS Newsletter Power Projection Goodies
Sunday 05 August 2007 Filed in: News
Just a quick note to say that the latest issue of the BITS newsletter is now available for members and includes a page of material on Power Projection by Nick Bradbeer. This includes some of the optional rules like low power batteries and ship fragility that we propose to include in Power Projection: Reinforcements.
New Traveller-esque ship from GZG
Saturday 09 June 2007 Filed in: News
Longer term fans of Power Projection will know that we have a close working relationship with Ground Zero Games, the publishers of Full Thrust and manufacturers of many fine miniatures. They have been starting to revise their main Full Thrust lines of starships, starting with their ESU and NSL miniatures. The most recent addition is the first of the FSE ships, a Super-dreadnought, and it looks gorgeous and very Imperial in lines. There's a picture above, with a link back to their website.
Of course, these revisions have us very tempted to change the ships we are using for the forthcoming book, Power Projection: Reinforcements. Our current thoughts are to use the NSL for the Sword Worlds fleet. ESU and Islamic Federation Ships will also make it into the book.
A Short, Glorious, Death?
Wednesday 11 April 2007 Filed in: Products
We're in some very early alpha tests of the designs that were submitted for Power Projection: Reinforcements, and have come across some 'interesting' aspects of the TL12 Vargr and Sword Worlds designs. The challenge was aptly described by Nick Bradbeer, who is acting as head design munchkin on Reinforcements. I'll paraphrase one of Nick's comments in email here:
The TL-12 to TL-15 gap is *really* severe. The extra RCP (computer power), combined with having the power to get Agility -1 means the TL-15 Imperials are shooting from three rows higher than the (TL-12) Vargr or Swordies when using secondary weapons. Crucially, if the Imps aren't tied down by the need to protect something slow, they can retrograde and just blow the hell out of the other guys with long range spinal and missile fire.
Now, the canonista in me knows that this is an accurate representation of what happens when a High Guard derived TL-15 force engages a TL-12 fleet. However, the game designer in me sees this as a bad thing because it would really suck to play the Sword Worlds forces.
We thought the quick and dirty way to address this would be to move to use the Trillion Credit Squadron credit exchange rates (PP:F Table 26 on page 48), but these only give a 15% advantage to the TL-12 forces, while initial numerical calculations suggest that the TL-15 advantage may be 50 to 100% in cost terms.
Anyway, we're going to be asking for some volunteers to play with some of the designs (we'll provide a scenario and SSDs), probably under a non-disclosure agreement to see what you feel about the new ships. I'll post details here and on the Yahoo! Group when we're ready to move forward.
Dom
The TL-12 to TL-15 gap is *really* severe. The extra RCP (computer power), combined with having the power to get Agility -1 means the TL-15 Imperials are shooting from three rows higher than the (TL-12) Vargr or Swordies when using secondary weapons. Crucially, if the Imps aren't tied down by the need to protect something slow, they can retrograde and just blow the hell out of the other guys with long range spinal and missile fire.
Now, the canonista in me knows that this is an accurate representation of what happens when a High Guard derived TL-15 force engages a TL-12 fleet. However, the game designer in me sees this as a bad thing because it would really suck to play the Sword Worlds forces.
We thought the quick and dirty way to address this would be to move to use the Trillion Credit Squadron credit exchange rates (PP:F Table 26 on page 48), but these only give a 15% advantage to the TL-12 forces, while initial numerical calculations suggest that the TL-15 advantage may be 50 to 100% in cost terms.
Anyway, we're going to be asking for some volunteers to play with some of the designs (we'll provide a scenario and SSDs), probably under a non-disclosure agreement to see what you feel about the new ships. I'll post details here and on the Yahoo! Group when we're ready to move forward.
Dom