Work in Progress

Going Paperless

From late spring 2010 it is our firm intention to "go paperless" for reasons described below.

By way of background, as we are getting increasingly decrepit, heaving boxes of rules around has become a nightmare, and is less than cost effective. As small operation we cannot afford the luxury of large print runs, and thus our overheads are fixed by the printing costs. We have always managed to keep the cost of production at a low level, though this has sometimes been at the cost of page count. One complaint we have had in the past is that we removed the "Quick Play" sheets from our rules. This was entirely down to page count. For similar reasons we have often been forced to compact the data to fit the page count, which then inevitably led to the need for a supplement to carry additional date.

Increased costs of postage and the recent restructure by Royal Mail of their pricing system have not helped, especially with large orders.

As you know a few years ago we supported the Mongoose initiative with their Wargaming Online download system which made our products generally available round the world, rather than just in the UK. It also allowed customers to buy our products without having to deal with the very high international carriage charges. Wargaming Online was discontinued when Wargamevault was introduced by OneBookShelf, and our products transferred to the new download site. The use of the download system has in fact almost completely replaced our retail mail order sales as a source of income, even for UK based customers.

In the underlying system of production of our rules, we have been making use of the MS Publisher programme for the initial layout, and from this we have transferred the "copy" electronically as a PDF to our favoured printer (Kall Kwik Tunbridge Wells, who have always provided us with an excellent and friendly service). These PDFs also form the basis for the originals that end up on the download site.

As you know some titles have ceased to be available in print for a while, as these may have been less popular. Having assessed the success of the download system, we have now decided that we shall not reprint any titles at all when stocks run out. Our plan is that all titles will only be available in digital format. This can be as a download from Wargamevault, or if you wish you will be able to obtain a digital copy of any of our rules on a CD.

There will be benefits for the customer:
Our intention is that as a first step when you buy a title from us you will be provided with the rules, and all updates that have been created and apply to the edition in question will go on the CD as well (at no additional charge - they are of course free on the website as well).

Where appropriate we will provide more "game aids" and create Game Reference sheets.

We will be "spring cleaning" all the titles which means that corrections and updates will be incorporated in a new edition. In most cases we will separate the rules from the data sets, create game record sheets that you can print selectively for your use in a game, and also provide the game data in a consolidated form (as they appear at the moment or if possible improved). In cases where the data may have spread into a supplement, the supplement will become part of the product at no additional cost.

We do not intend there to be any increase in price for any of our products, if possible we would like to reduce the price slightly. In some cases where several titles can be combined into a single item, there is an obvious reduction in price. We do appreciate that the customer will be having to print his own copy at home, however he will be getting an expanded product as described above. Should your CD fail we will be happy to exchange it for a new one as long as it was purchased from us initially.

Air

Air Combat Operations in the 20th Century, is reaching the end of its development work at long last. The system allows for large scale air actions, involving bomber attacks on targets, big dogfights, etc. The rules were initially developed with 1/600 scale in mind but for practical purposes they can equally be played using counters if you do not have the models available.

The aircraft data has been developed so that all the whole period is covered using one set of calculations. We looked at possible ways of preventing Camels from Fighting MIGs, but in the end decided that the pragmatic approach was better, and if you wish to die in droves (Camels not MIGs) you can.

Aircraft are handled in the game by using "stands", with a number of aircraft per stand. Larger stands will get more chance of getting to their target, but are less cost effective in terms of combat results. Formations are made up of multiple stands under a commander. Targets have a defensive value, a toughness and (in the modern era) a Tech Level.

There will be a simple differentiation of relative heights. Combat is only possible between aircraft at the same height. Certain attacks against ground targets must be carried out from specific heights.

The rules will be ready in late spring 2010, and will be the first title released in Paperless Format (see below)

SF

Some of you may recall many years ago two products which we published: Into the Laserzone, and Shooting Stars. We have decided to dust these off and publish an updated version of each. Our plan at present is that they will only be available as electronic downloads. More on these will follow as they develop.