"Cosmic Fleet Action--New Game and April Fools Joke in One!" Topic

People have asked Ken Burnside to tackle "fleet level" games for years. Ken's found that most fleet level games turn into "move one to three mobs of ships" and "concentrate fire on the biggest thing you can identify."

So, he made a game where those are features, not detriments.

And yes, while this is an April 1st post, this is a playable fleet combat game…

Patrons can download it from Ken's Patreon: link

Patrons can download it from Ken's Patreon:

For a small fee …

That's what "Patrons" means. :)

There's lots of other neat stuff as well, like a neat campaign system that can easily be genericized (it was designed for Squadron Strike, but is very loosely tied to it, mostly for shipyard slip sizes and production capacity).

And, before I can even see what I'm throwing my $$ down for, I have to hand it over first?

Call me crazy, but I really would be an April's fool.

For $5 USD, you get about two products worth of PDFs at present, plus a campaign system, plus this.

It's a bargain. It keeps growing. It may not fit your "Yeah, that's work a cup of Starbucks coffee a month" threshold yet, but the content keeps piling up.

The Patron idea looks OK, but having nothing to see until after cash is committed will keep me out.

I might commit after seeing the general content and quality but not until.

Patrons are charged on the first of the month, and not before. So if you try now, decide you don't like what you see, and cancel, you're not out anything.

I have a "blip" (a patron who signs up and drops out before their card is billed) about once every three months – one person has now done this twice.

The Patron idea looks OK, but having nothing to see until after cash is committed will keep me out.

I might commit after seeing the general content and quality but not until.

If you're just interested in the general quality of Ad Astra Games' product, there are a ton of downloads (you'll need to scroll down the pages):

Squadron Strike downloads

Attack Vector: Tactical downloads

If you're interested in what the Squadron Strike SSDs look like in general terms:

3D ship

same ship for the 2D version of the game.

The ship design spreadsheet generates both the 3D and 2D versions of the SSDs at this quality (you need to supply the art). The spreadsheet is free when you register your copy of Squadron Strike.

Oh, and there's an SSD based on one of Charles Oines' miniatures on the front page of the Patreon. You'll probably need to right-click it and select "View Background Image" or what have you to see the full thing.

The AV:T ships posted to the Patreon don't have their fluff pages formatted as prettily as the fully-published ships, but the SSDs are at the same quality.

And, before I can even see what I'm throwing my $$ down for, I have to hand it over first?

The idea of Patreon is a little different from the crowdfunding platforms that people are used to. A big target is artists and musicians and people who want to support them. A cartoonist might do a strip a week, or a bigger panel each month, and patrons get to see it well in advance of everyone else. No one knows if that month's strip will be great, but they like the cartoonist's work and they want to support it. Similarly, a musician might commit to releasing the songs to an upcoming album as they are recorded, or even as works in progress for a behind the scenes view. Some of those songs might get completely reworked; some might get dropped from the album because they just aren't good enough.

We put together a little summary of how Patreon could work for game designers here on TMP TMP link

Consider that if you're going to buy a set of miniatures rules, you don't usually get to see the whole thing first. If you did, there wouldn't be a product for the publisher to see.

Yes, some publishers sell miniatures, but a lot of folks here on TMP only want generic rules that they can use with their own miniatures. That's what Squadron Strike provides by itself. For folks who want new ships, there's not much way to preview the ships without giving away the whole game. When you show the stats, you show the stats …

Hopefully, this answers some of your questions. Please let us know if you have any others.

As was already pointed out, you can sign up and cancel if you decide you don't like it. It's really about the lowest risk approach one can take.

-Will