ManticoranPrince wrote:Thanks for the welcome - I'm new but feel like this game really combines everything I enjoy (Starfleet game, Honor Harrington etc...).
Even better, the original Starfire game in 1976 was written by Steve Cole of Task Force Games and the third edition (what we call "Classic Starfire") was written by David Weber. That's why you are seeing so many similarities!
Yeah on A that's fine re adding to acknowledgments
I wanted to also add a bit about making it as clean as possible for future alien races to translate and play our game, but a few of our members felt that it would detract from the message...
On B the more I go through the rules, the more I feel like a 2 part 'fluff doc' is missing:
- Part 1 would be a walkthrough of some specific scenarios like a close call surviving of an attack on a home planet by an invader, then some research and bare-bones empire building, then research and upgrading, then attacking the oppressor with planetary landing and disabling of forces. Like a step-by-step illustration of some of the rules (stupid example this could clarify: missed the pulse movement in the quick start rules originally lol).
Actually -- Lomn, one of our forum members, built a tutorial for Solar Starfire! It is linked in our links section of the forum. Meet Ernie the Earthling!
http://starfire.rochelle.name/tutorialsOne of the downsides to have a forum with ten years of history is that it's hard to find some of these tidbits hiding in here. Never hesitate to ask questions, someone has an answer!
We are nearing the current iteration of the Solar Starfire rules for the next release, but the examples section and the advice section are going to get revamps in the version after that. We are looking at providing more robust examples and I've added your suggestions to our list for that update.
- Part 2 would be bringing back some background civilisations, in fact I see a Stars At War converted to the Ultra Rules, I guess it's compatible with Solar but it feels like the game is in a state where there is 30 years of content on the one hand, and some of the coolest and detailed 'ASL in Space' rules on the other, so this could be a 'bridge' of sorts.
We completely agree.
But it's a little bit harder because we cannot continue to use the Classic Starfire history, it belongs to David Weber. If you look back in the forum we've mentioned some tidbits about writing a new history unique to Solar Starfire, but we've been trying to get the re-writes needed to the rules for that done first.
In the meantime, we have some players that have put fiction into our Fiction Forum that is outstanding. I recommend you take a look at:
The deWulf Universe by our very own playtester Xveers:
viewforum.php?f=19The Nemesis campaign by Procyon:
viewforum.php?f=56We have an open policy for adding sub-sections in the fiction section for players who wants to write about their games. There are several dozen other sub-sections in there from players over the last ten years.
I do like the overall idea of keeping the core rules lean, I'm actually keen to see a print run to get a physical copy, too much screentime in this day-an-age!
The biggest hindrance that we have is that we are a really small company and the core Starfire Design Studio group are people with "day jobs" to pay the bills. We've kept Starfire going for more than 10 years, and we are slowly working our way towards getting into a better position to break out. Thus the miniatures (thank you Todd aka Otterman!), the re-release of the older products for our older players who wanted to keep playing them, working with some fans who are experimenting with building fan software (Lomn's spreadsheets are a good example of where that has succeeded so far)... and a few newer projects like the background history that we are working towards.
