Book Errata for Star Fleet

[IraShaine1972]

I am wondering when and if we might expect an updated printing of the Rulebook with the corrections made. Is this going to be done anytime soon?

 

[Da Boss]

I didn't know there were any plans to reprint?

 

[MongooseMatt]

There aren't

 

[IraShaine1972]

Well that was kinda what I was wondering.

 

[hermitbob]

There aren't

Okay, so you release a flawed product, make several changes to said product, state that all the changes will be incorporated into the next printing. However, we learn now that there is no plan to make another printing with the incorporated changes...

"This document contains official updates to A Call to Arms: Star Fleet and will be repeated in all reprints of the rulebook. Revised 18/1/12"

FIRST F*@#$&( SENTENCE of the Errata! That's call misrepresentation Matt, I do not approve.

 

[Cyporiean]

There aren't

Okay, so you release a flawed product, make several changes to said product, state that all the changes will be incorporated into the next printing. However, we learn now that there is no plan to make another printing with the incorporated changes...

"This document contains official updates to A Call to Arms: Star Fleet and will be repeated in all reprints of the rulebook. Revised 18/1/12"

FIRST F*@#$&( SENTENCE of the Errata! That's call misrepresentation Matt, I do not approve.

The next printing of our rulebook, Brushfire, will contain all of the errata fixes.

We have no plans to make another printing... because we still have plenty of copies of the previous printing.

It would not surprise me if the same was true for ACTA:SF.

 

[Jean]

Emily, I believe you are correct. Unlike ADB which has POD (and which only prints in black/grey-scale art), Mongoose's printing is outsourced. Color printing is very expensive, so print runs tend to be large.

Please note that these are educated guesses from what I know of the printing business. It may or may not apply in this specific case.

 

[IraShaine1972]

I would rather have a correct book than a colorful one.

 

[Iron Domokun]

Ditto. Maybe Mongoose need a librarian of their own :mrgreen:

 

[davyj0427]

Will the pdf contain the changes when it comes out.

 

[Nazgull2k1]

Supposedly yes. The PDF will contain the correct rules.. the problem is.. they refuse to release the PDF till mid-summer/fall according to what Ive read on here. "Because the retailers asked us not too"

.. which *still* makes zero sense to me to keep pushing out a flawed product on someone else's say-so. But I dont have a business degree, so I cant really say one way or another if this is a good idea.

 

[gord314]

Dear Mongoose, thank you for publishing errata in a timely manner. It gives me great confidence to know that you are willing to admit errors and fix them.

 

[Da Boss]

It may well be that the pdf has the errata - although as I understand it it may only be version one of the errata (or at least thats the view on the ADD forum)

It may be that the errata is confirmed in the first supplement.

re the pdfs not being available Matt said on another thread that he had been requested to delay this by the retailiers, I assume so they could have a chance to sell books before its all available on download.

 

[McKinstry]

.. which *still* makes zero sense to me to keep pushing out a flawed product on someone else's say-so. But I dont have a business degree, so I cant really say one way or another if this is a good idea.

It makes zero sense for Mongoose or their retailers to have the pdf released until they sell a good sized chunk of their first print run. If I print 2,000 hard covers at $15 cost to me and then ship 1,500 out to retailers at say $20 per, why would either of us want a cheaper version competing with my high cost inventory?

As to errata, I am unaware of any of the glossy, high cost rules sets released in the past years that 1) did not have errata in large quantity (has there ever been a errata less rules set?) or 2) cut their margin by releasing a pdf until at least (and mostly never on the higher cost stuff), a second or third print run. Black Powder, Hail Caesar, LaSalle, Grande Armee, the entire Blitzkreig Commander and Rapid Fire series, Flames of War and certainly the GW stuff all end up with pages of errata and corrections and as far as I know, have never issued a pdf except for some GW specialist stuff once the game is out of circulation such as BFG. If errata makes a flawed product then the entire industry is flawed and Mongoose is at worst, at industry standard in terms of the competitiveness of their product.

I've seen enough game companies go bust with half completed lines or abandon unprofitable or marginally profitable game systems before they were complete. I hope Mongoose sells every single hard copy and ideally catchs up errata in a second and third printing while making a very nice, very large profit the whole time.

 

[IraShaine1972]

There are over 30 corrections to stat lines for the ships, some pretty major. I don't consider that a "hiccup" I consider that a big lack of proofreading and quality control. If you are picking this game up off the shelf and are all new to it then you are getting a flawed product. I have all manner of game manuals that have SOME errata and clarifications but those rulesets tend to be MANY times larger and more complicated and still contain less fixes.

Oh well MGP cant run out and reprint that I understand. The fact the MGP doesnt give much effort over to insuring the product is correct, that to has been made pretty obvious after my last few book purchases (SotA anybody???). The fact also that for some reason beyond all understanding this game was "released" (in quotes because the term is relative given that no actual product was ready to ship nor was production up to speed) is also baffling.

For my part I would have been all over this like I was back in the fall if this game had been handled better. As it is I dropped my orders and don't even know if I will get the book and really get into it full steam at this point.

 

[adm]

I know that Steve Jackson Games has taken to releasing on .pdf first to catch errata, BUT their presence on store shelves is microscopic anymore, and they are down to roughly one hardback release a year.

 

[adm]

Ship stats; I know the few pages that were posted on the SFB boards had a number of typos that were pointed out. This was before the specifics of how ACTA:SF worked, and was mostly limited to firing arcs.