Second Edition is Coming in the Year 3000

[OneMadOgre]

I have some time to work this weekend!

[OneMadOgre]

How's it coming?

[Tyrel Lohr]

Just wandering in to give a development update!

May ended up being a mess for my day job, and I've had to work weeks and weekends for at least half of it (including over the entire three day Memorial Day holiday). That has set my schedule back a bit, but not that much. Probably 2 weeks, tops.

What I've been doing in the past month and a half is getting the final elements of the rules addressed, including finalizing updates to the unit design and research systems. Those two elements still hadn't gelled with the rest of the rules, which required more iterations and playtesting to see what would give us the result we wanted without having a serious impact on the rest of the rules as written. The changes to tech have been almost completely integrated into the current working draft of the rules.

Last week I was able to break out time to get the cover and interior layouts finalized. I still wasn't happy with some of the versions I had produced earlier in the product life cycle. I'll be posting examples of those later this weekend, but I'm happy to report that those are both done. The Campaign Guide cover is just waiting for me to fill in text on the back and drop in a bar code and pricing data, and the interior is finished and looking good (it has at least passed muster internally!).

I'm currently finishing up an editing pass through the document updating the last outstanding rules that have changed during the April/May playtest and review period. Most of these changes concern knock-on effects from the unit design updates, such as reconciling the transport capacity of ships that are capable of moving other units such as ground forces and flights with them and making sure that the construction rules still make sense. I expect to be done with those updates this weekend.

That's brings us to the plan that will lead us to release. The game won't be ready for release on June 1, because I still need time to do a final spit polish and we need to playtest the rules a few more times with the updated rules to make sure that we haven't missed anything. I'll be posting some playtest campaign notes over the next week that will detail some of the aspects of the game and get a feel for where things have ended up in the rules. Realistically, I think we're looking at June 16 for release at this point. That gives me three full weekends to run the game through its paces and make sure that all of the content is in there that needs to be and that (more importantly) everything works as intended.

After the game is released we will start preparing for the launch of the companion products for Second Edition. Depending on how things shape up, you should be able to expect to start seeing smaller "DLC" style releases before the other major expansions, as I know I have enough content put together right now to fill out one or two such releases.

We're going to hold off doing a print release of the Campaign Guide until at least a month after the digital release so that we can have time to integrate as much errata as possible into the print version before its release. We're realists: we know that there are likely to be something we miss this early in a new edition, and I know I'd rather wait a little while and make sure that those changes are fixed before customers start buying the more expensive and permanent "dead tree" copies. As in the past we'll offer a discount for customers that already purchased the digital version, but we still have to finalize the particulars and won't know for sure until after we know how much everything is going to cost for a short or POD run of the book.

[PaulB]

Cool. Don't forget to let the people on Star Ranger or TMP know about the impending 2e.

[Tyrel Lohr]

Once I have the PDF in hand and ready to start getting the ball rolling we'll definitely send out the bat signal and let people know it's inbound.

[Haukea]

Okay, I'll ask what everyone is afraid to.

Any news on an updated release date for Second Edition?

[Tyrel Lohr]

I've been working full time + overtime on a contract job since mid-May that has stolen nearly all of my available free time. I even got to work full time over the Memorial Day Weekend holiday (oh joy).

What time I have had to work on the rules has been spent looking at playtester feedback from the last round of reviews and working out some order of operations issues with the rules and rebalancing some elements of unit design to accommodate those changes (specifically regarding flights).

The work contract is finishing up this week (project launch was today), and then I'll be able to jump back in and finalize the rules. The book is in InDesign, most of the art is finished, and it's now down to finalizing a few things before it's ready to go. I am working through the book implementing additions and corrections, and the big hold up for more progress has been internal discussions about how best to present basic concepts and the rules for starting a game. I think we've finally talked through those difficulties, which required a reshuffling of the content in the second chapter.

The June 2 deadline regrettably got left in the dust because of my day job, but I am now in a position to get the remainder of the changes made to the rules. The Fourth of July weekend should give me enough time to finish things off. It's a month later than I wanted, but we are very close.

[zyffyr]

The June 2 deadline regrettably got left in the dust because of my day job, but I am now in a position to get the remainder of the changes made to the rules. The Fourth of July weekend should give me enough time to finish things off. It's a month later than I wanted, but we are very close.

Oh well... stuff happens. Of course, you are no longer permitted to have a RealLife(tm) until you finish the book.

[TalosX]

I wouldn't worry to much Tyrel. After the long wait for VBAM 2E, another month isn't gonna kill us.

[mwaschak]

I wouldn't worry to much Tyrel. After the long wait for VBAM 2E, another month isn't gonna kill us.

It is going well on our side too. Charlie and I are working on the final six "generic" empires for the book, which Tyrel should easily be able to drop in when ready. It is fun to follow these empires though their tech level progressions so you can see a "Carrier Empire" develop from low tech pocket carriers to real fleet carriers.

On a side note I am working on the Objective Rule system for 2e and a source book for a tactical system that is coming along nicely.

-Jay

[PaulB]

I've been working full time + overtime on a contract job since mid-May that has stolen nearly all of my available free time. I even got to work full time over the Memorial Day Weekend holiday (oh joy).

Contract work? Overtime? Working on holidays? Have you joined me in the exciting field of animation?

In any case I think most people appreciate the fact that most/all of the developers have full time work in addition to working on vbam so delays like this can and do happen. Thank you for keeping us informed.

[Emiricol]

It's July

[mwaschak]

It's July

No worries. We are close. I know we keep saying that, but we are.

-Jay

[Emiricol]

I've already worked up a campaign guide, minus the mechanics parts Pretty excited about 2E!

[PaulB]

Is there anything that members of the community can help with?