itch.io

I was hoping to pay for someone to do a POD version for Drive Thru RPG for the next update, but I’ve basically run out of time to do so. So maybe the update after?

For a full print version, I really would prefer locking down the rules a bit more and getting interior art for the chapters. That would require a crowd funding campaign that I don’t have time to run at this stage of my life.

I am considering a “all rules in a series of 3-ring binders” release. The shipping costs for this would be obscene, so I’d have to rely on you to print it.

I was hoping to have it out at the start of March but it’s taking a little bit longer than expected. As a result I won’t be increasing the price of A-Base D-Landing until the new update is released. The update is mostly focused on adding to these rules to include colonists and speeding up base building so it makes sense to do so.

I understand that’s an option but I also want people to be able to pay for it if they want to.

I am using the language that the current UI interface for itch uses for game releases. The fact that itch calls a freely downloadable file that can be part of a project “a demo” is not my decision and I don’t believe that your wall of text response does anything to add to the conversation.

I among other people have a big psychological barrier to paying $0 for a $0 or donate game, despite the developer of said game being more than happy to make the game available for free. See e.g. https://spacey.space/@60sRefugee/113557156799767171 for an example of this thinking.

I would like to be explicitly make the game available for free by having the This file is a demo and can be downloaded for free option available for this type of game.

For anyone else reading this thread, the rule is 

"If the space politics is Anti-nuke, you cannot use the boost operation on reactors or components which have an on-board reactor and your starting spacecraft will not have these components."

There has been some simplification that I missed from the release notes. Species capabilities are out (for the moment) - I’m not sure if I’ll put them back in. Expanding parts felt like the right way to go here. The careers tables also didn’t feel quite right  and replacing them with encounter cards made more sense; as I’ve not done promoted encounter cards yet, some of the later era careers may appear back in that format.

Anti-nuke rules should have been included in the boost operation section and that appears to be an oversight. I’ll include it back in in the next update.

The base building rules came together incredibly quickly and I still have no good explanation of why it integrates so many disparate systems together so cleanly and intuitively.

And I've just uploaded a new version with some very minor text updates to fix some references.

In case you've missed it, both update 3 and (A)-Base (D)-Landing are out now.

I've just updated the Crewed Rules with some very minor text updates in the Actions chapter to fix some grammar and clarify a couple of rules.

Along with a major update (update 3) to all rules.

Please note that I've moved a number of rules from other supplements to (A)-Base (D)-Landing. As a result, I'm making it available for the next 3 months on a pay want you want model (minimum $1), to allow everyone to have a chance to get these rules if they've purchased the game previously before it becomes a full price supplement.

You can access it at https://half-apress.itch.io/a-base-d-landing along with a contents page.

I should clarify the trading game is more like a delivery and immigration and import licenses game; rather than a full blown fill your cargo with agricultural goods and head to the industrial site game.

As for a "solitaire game". I think the best thing I can do at this stage to support solitaire play is make the game better overall. Update 3 includes so much more material to help support play: encounter cards which allow you to instantly make NPCs by combining a disposition and intent card; more handouts; significantly streamlined, clarified and consistent rules in too many areas to count; a new game mode in the core (now called Crewed) rules that focuses on trade; more detailed rules to allow you to repair abandoned structures as you explore them; and so on.

I keep putting solitaire off - but my hope is that solitaire naturally flows out of the way the game is designed; for those people who choose to play that way; rather than trying to support two separate rules systems.

Update 3 will be out shortly -- hopefully this month -- and (A)-Base-(D)-Landing will be released along side this. This book will have a number of rules moved from elsewhere and as a result, I'm going to make it pay what you want initially to give everyone a chance to buy it to ensure that they get the rules that were initially published in another supplement.

Absent Without will be a full supplement that covers the Directions era starting in 2100. What happens in the directions era is going to be determined by which futures get completed: will your Directions era be an Exodus era, a Breakthrough era, a Singularity era, a Terraforming era or an Earthside era -- or a mix of many of them. It's going to be a little ways away, as I may end up making it an "expandalone" (but will probably require you buy A Facility with Words as well)-- it'll cover exploring big dumb objects, terraformed planets, Dyson swarm elements and generally feel more like a traditional TTRPG. I think it's going to take a while for me to write it.

"The year is 2100 and you have lost control."

I'm also starting to think about a couple of other supplements Colony: Subtitle, which will cover building large colonies and undersea exploration -- it'll also have an alternative future where humanity never goes to space and instead explores the seas; and All Terras are My Own, which will cover terraforming in more detail. 

This looks to be a victim of a decision I made to make Zone wars occur in the Exoglobalization era, rather than a later era where this could also be a social trend.

Please replace the first sentence of the Social Impacts section under Zone War with the following: "When a dash-underlined social trend is rolled while the Zone War mission control trend is in effect, this indicates the start of a hot zone war -- replace the social trend rolled with the Zone War social trend."

Thanks for picking this up.

No problem. It probably needs a little tidy up - it’s been a number of years since I touched much in that chapter.

Start with the quality: the quality is determined by either the Mission Control or the interception. however if the space politics is Anti-nuke that overrides the spacecraft quality until enough off-world factories are built. Once you get one factory you get an ET produced spacecraft instead; 2 gives you an advanced spacecraft.

Medium quality spacecraft will either be generated the same as high quality spacecraft with some specific components down-graded, or as specific medium quality types — inner or outer system. Low quality spacecraft are even worse. Because of this, a step by step guide would end up having as many different paths as each possible combination of spacecraft qualities effectively doubling the length of the rules.

I’ve held off providing examples until I’ve got all the rules locked down. As the game is still in development that means there may not be examples for some time.

These certificates are free to download and print for use with the Sixty Years in Space game. Slightly more compressed versions will be available in a couple of days.

A big thinks to everyone who has created and updated the RPG geek entry for 60 Years in Space at https://rpggeek.com/rpg/79011/60-years-in-space

A Facility with Words has also been updated with some formatting issues. It also has some changes to alert levels, civil functions and opportunities which were work in progress for the next release.

This Space Intentionally has been updated to address some table formatting issues. Thanks to Pen Zhaoqi for reporting the first of these.

For a full description of what has changed, please see the devlog post.

Quick addendum: After reading through your write up, I'm going to amend the contact generation process so that contact names should be determined through the Nominative Determinism rule and not require rolling a call sign for to be rolled for each contact. I've incorporated your edits into the rules for the next release.

Firstly, thanks for the great feedback. This is a game I've written for people to obsess over, and it's always wonderful to hear when people do.

I'd generally recommend emailing me edits rather than posting them here, simply because they are "time sensitive" and I'll usually incorporate them in a future minor or major update.

As for your suggestion to move the Mission and Launch Pad chapters to the core rules -- if I did I'd need to add roughly half of all This Space Intentionally to the core rules (Spacecraft designer, operations, infrastructure etc).

Instead I'm already planning on adding an equivalent "Landing" chapter, for travelling around sites; with more game play examples. I've shied away from providing too many examples to date, simply because the rules have been (somewhat) in flux -- specifically, I'm still not happy with the damage over time rules and I've only just solved load to my satisfaction (which will be included in the next update -- the rules change is relatively minor).

Finally, I'm planning a lot more support for solitaire for major update 2. I've not a fan of playing this game solitaire, but since the majority of players play that way, it makes sense to steer into what people are doing. A lot of solitaire will be rules for "just-in-time" creation. Instead of creating crew ahead of time you'll start the game and eg create crew capable of achieving FINAO when you need to perform an operation.

I've put up a quick survey on Twitter for the next 7 days, which I hope you'll be able to fill in in 2 minutes or less, to help me figure out the direction for update 2.

Feel free to reply either there or here with further comments:

https://twitter.com/andrewdoull/status/1766638559275168025?s=20

The Half-A Press catalogue is now up on DriveThru RPG as well at https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/24358/HalfA-Press-Pty-Ltd

I'm exploring the option of print on demand once the game leaves "early access".

Thanks! Really appreciate the feedback.

I've updated the freely downloadable files to the latest versions of the rules. As a bonus, the Sixty Years In free excerpt now includes the first 120 pages, instead of the first 100.

As mentioned in a previous update, the Infrastructure chapter which was previously included in the core rules and has been moved to the This Space Intentionally supplement, is also now freely downloadable.

This is mostly to fix an issue with a table header being duplicated in the Demographics chapter but includes a number of other small updates.

Simplified and expanded the rules for disabled crew by removing incorporated penalties and replacing them with safe penalties.

Added commentary on time keeping for actions, and the various turn lengths in the Skill chapter.

Fixed some references not working in the text.

Renamed skins as armour, cleaned up text and abilities and added fashionable PANFs.

Removed the spacecraft section from the assets chapter as it didn’t add anything useful.

Reorganised the Demographics and Assets chapter to improve legibility and keep related topics together.

Simplified the ship's locker so that only fabric items are limited.

Added descriptions for missile and raygun platforms to the Mission Control chapter.

Known issues: 

It looks like index page numbers are affected by the issue described at https://latex.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33078 where indexed entries can be 4 or 5 pages before the page number listed in the index, mostly towards the back of the book.

I’m on Twitter mostly. The community isn’t large so feel free to start building it here.

I've made minor updates to all the rule books. Fixes include spell checking, adding Afghanistan to the demographics chapter in the core rules, adding missing hull capabilities to the gas giant atmospheric depths table and extending the flight altitudes table for depths below gas giant aerostats in A Facility with Words, and adding O & B stars to the system map designer appendix in A Lot of Zeroes.

I've also moved the infrastructure chapter from the core rules to the This Space Intentionally supplement. I will be including this chapter as an excerpt from this supplement at a later date.

I've pushed this up now because of the inclusion of the game in an upcoming bundle and some marketing initiatives that should be happening in early February.

It's actually easier for me to update the live release, as I found some terminology that hadn't been updated to the latest version while adding it back in. Crew Replacement rules are in the events section of the Missions chapter and described in the Politics chapter. You should be able to download the updated rules as of now. I've also done some minor formatting updates on the main rules which is why they've been updated.

To answer your first question as I said in the announcement post at  https://itch.io/blog/661872/update-1-is-out, I'll be providing a complete list of changes in a development blog post later. To answer your implied question, I've still not decided what to do with the crew replacement rules. They're relatively easy to add back in, should I decide to do so. I can easily give you a modified copy of This Space Intentionally if you want to try them out.

Update 1 is now out.

Email andrewdoull@gmail.com if you’re able and willing to do a read through and comment on the rule revisions, with the subject line “Update 1 feedback”

Firstly, apologies for this and the delay in my response. Here's a link to a Dropbox containing the full component list including those components: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/kcfufqs4znsel8r90ly5v/high_frontier_3rd_edition_c.... I'll rectify in the next update to the rules which isn't too far away.

Other changes such as proofing edits, player aids, and the starting scenario I’m working on at the moment will be free to download once the game goes from Early access to full release for people who have already purchased this. The way I have sold the game may involve me having to issue out discount coupons in order to achieve this, as there will be a price increase.

My thinking at this stage is that the HF4All versions will be a separate edition because of the volume of terminology changes needed; and I might have to do a kickstarter in order to fund making these changes. So at this stage I can’t promise that the documents you purchase will include this.

However, I am thinking of releasing a (slightly more expensive) Infinite edition which will effectively buy electronic copies of both editions in advance - if and when they are produced. Would that work for you?

These are colonist abilities in the board game, so you might get them from there if you want to use colonist cards. I believe there may be an aero brake capability in the capabilities chapter as well (Edit: it’s right next to the Laser broom capability so I’m assuming you just neglected to mention it - however the capabilities in the core rules are supposed to mostly  match the capabilities from that chapter, so I’ll need to add laser broom as an option in the core rules as well).

And the refinery/mobile factory modifier applies for both rolls.