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 Phyrekzhogos wrote:


Mwaha! You answered my earlier spoiler question!

Reading between the lines here, are there some ships flying around with incredibly powerful engines that daring commanders have used to chart the cybel tunnels prior to gates having been created in systems? Will we see pirating groups who use dangerous lesser known or more unstable routes for their own ends? Is there a possibility of rogue elements of societies setting up secret gate stations in places like asteroid or ice mining belts, possibly deep cover military groups or black project science initiatives who have reason to use secretive often dangerous tunnels in the cybel network that normally would never even be charted on a map?

Hey,

The Karist Enclave pretty much does this. Their home-world is really out of the way and no one knows about it except them.

Do aliens also use these gates or is it just a human continuum sort of thing?

Yes, aliens can use it, the knowledge of cybel travel has been around a long time. Though it is a primarily human discovery.

Can access be restricted on the gate by the organization who controls it if there is need, for instance criminals escaping, a military coup or even political pressure on trade routes?

There's an iris on the gate which can restrict travel, if it isn't open, you can't get through.

Would there ever be a case where someone in a system attempted to destroy their own gates, possibly a sovereign system first style movement, secessionists, or an act of war, maybe by one of the alien groups?

Gates get destroyed sometimes, in fear of the Maelstrom spreading to their system, or destroying gates behind the last people to leave a system to prevent it's spreading behind them. The Maelstrom can spread very quickly along cybel tunnels, and can erupt out of open gates.

Do the Comm guild retain any military might or defensive capabilities to keep gates safe?

It's generally the responsibility of whoever owns the system. The Comm Guild is neutral and tries not to get involved in politics (at least openly), but does run a sort of customs and tracking on who enters the system. Their main power is knowing where and when to travel, and distributing news.

How big a hole are we talking here, like big enough for multiple ships at once? A Fleet?

It's not really about the size of the gate - you can make them as large as you want. The problem is, the larger the gate, the more power you need to run it, and the largest gates can only be set up at the largest, most stable cybel tunnels. Ships tend to enter single file.

Sorry for all the questions. You gave me too much info at one time and my head is exploding.

No worries, glad to see you getting into the background!

EdIt: Ninja'd by dark! My answers are different enough though so i'll leave them there!

MMMMkay just finished the 2 novellas. Really well written background GG.

Is it bad though that the whole na cybel communion thing reminds me of the warpstone addicted skaven?... except less drug addict and more religious.

Will all the models be at Salute or just the ones previewed so far?

 warboss wrote:
Will all the models be at Salute or just the ones previewed so far?

There will probably be a few surprises floating around...

 keltikhoa wrote:
MMMMkay just finished the 2 novellas. Really well written background GG.

Is it bad though that the whole na cybel communion thing reminds me of the warpstone addicted skaven?... except less drug addict and more religious.

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed them.

One thing I tried to bring across in the novels is the ambiguity of the Karist belief. You can choose, as a reader just as in a citizen of the Maelstrom's Edge, to believe ascension at the hands of the Maelstrom is true, and that the rapturous feelings and visions you receive when you touch na-cybel energy is a glimpse at that higher plane of being. Another perfectly valid interpretation is that the Karists are deluded addicts of na-cybel energy exposure. I love writing that uncertainty, it makes them much more interesting, and allows us to explore the meaning of faith in the face of annihilation. I hope that we've made the Karist Enclave background interesting and ambiguous enough that people will be debating this point for some time and enjoying the complexity of that dichotomy.

Question about the pledges, will they all be all be available at retail? i mean no kickstarter exclusives?
I hope you not go overboard like the raging heroes, loved the designs but i am still waiting for stuff 3 years after the kickstarter ended.

There will not be any kickstarter exclusives, the big benefits of backing us will be a much better value as thanks for the early support, being the first to get your hands on all the great models, helping us lower our risk and therefore improve the contents of the set for everyone, and knowing that you got in on this on day one.
--

Here's today's nice new things... the tokens in the boxed set. As you may have heard from rules discussion, either here or on the recent D6 generation interview about Maelstrom's Edge with yakface (starting at around 01h:24: http://traffic.libsyn.com/thed6generation/D6GEp165.mp3 ) we have a lot of suppression in our game, and that naturally means we need some nice suppression tokens:



We've also gone with stylish, retro, cardboard templates. Enough people are making plastic templates and have plastic templates in their collection that it seemed counter intuitive to invest in a tool just for them. Instead, we thought we'd tug at your nostalgia strings with some freshly designed high-resolution templates. They are double sided with different blast patterns (standard/Epirian on this side and energy/Karist blasts on the other side), and the flame template has Flames on one side and a green chemical spray effect on the other.

The tokens are all double sided with different graphics, reducing the chances that you'll run out of the ones you need at any moment in time. You'll note some cardboard objective markers and victory point trackers as well to reduce the need for scrawling scores on paper throughout the game.

Here's a close up of the suppression tokens:


Please excuse the slight visible texture on the print - these are early die-cut samples and the printing is done on a low grade inkjet printed to test the die cut. The final product will be printed with a high detail CMYK process so will be a sharper print with better colour.

There are four sizes of suppression token, representing 1, 3, 5 and 10 suppression (if I remember correctly - yakface can jump in to correct if I'm wrong!). This allows you to pile it on around a squad, but only have to move a maximum of three tokens when the squad moves all the way up to 16 suppression. Moving three models and 10 suppression tokens was obviously something we were eager to avoid!

We've gone with a thicker cardboard than other games with suppression style tokens have used in the past. This gives them more overall resilience and stability, but does have two 'costs' associated with it. The first is that die cutting technology is simply not precise enough to get the 0.5mm slot that we need for the two halves to slot together. As such, the slot is narrower than that, and so you can either not worry and just push them together and suffer slight shearing (they wont be at a perfect 90 degree angle from each other), or do what we've done in the pictures and cut a simple, straight slice next to the die cut assembly line to widen the gap and make assembly easier. It takes about 15 minutes to do the whole lot and is very straightforward - we'll do a proper tutorial before release.

The second design cost is that because these are thicker than the usual, they are printed on multi-layer card which is sandwiched together. This sandwiching does mean that there is a risk of dog-ears appearing on sharp points and large templates (the low end of the flame template is a particular risk). The dog earing occurs when one of the outer layers separates from the structural cardboard. Fortunately, these are very easy to repair with a dab of PVA/white glue, and after lots of prototypes we decide that this was the least worst option compared to going with thinner card which when damaged would be irreparable. We are also still working with our cardboard supplier to minimise any risk on this front and improve the bonding so this might not even exist as a point of note by the time everything is sent out.

While there are cardboard cutting technologies out there that would meet every potential scenario (thicker card with a laser cutter for instance), the price per sheet is so high that going with such options would either force us to drop models from the box set, ditch the 3D effect on the suppression tokens, or dramatically increase the price of the set as a whole. We've performed a lot of testing and determined that these are as good as we can make them given all of the requirements, and they fulfil their role admirably, adding a great amount of cinematic effect to every battle.

The development process for these has been very in depth, and we've tried countless revisions and options, from stackable discs (dont look as good, harder to move in great number), to plastic stands (loses the 3D effect and cheapens the appearance), to scores of iterations of different heights, spike lengths, thicknesses, cardboard types, colours, etc. Compared to the cheap and simple option of just having a bunch of square tokens, we are really proud of the quality of these and the effect they bring to the game, suppression being a centrepiece of the ruleset.

The tokens look great on the table and add a lot to the feel of the game, giving you an immediate, strong visual representation of which units are in serious trouble. Nothing beats lining up four spider drones and piling a tonne of suppression on to a unit in cover, then running in and flanking them with the firefly drones!

I really like the 3d tokens, neat idea.

I really like the suppression tokens. I remember playing with similar ones in Epic and they were a great feature. Having different art on each side is clever, too.

One concern - have you been able to easily tell the suppression markers apart in playtesting? They look awfully similar with the four different grades, and it seems like it would be easy to mistake one of the 3-tokens for a 1-token, for example.

Yes, it's not too clear from the photos, but the sizes are quite distinct and the colours are different between each one. Some people might want to mark the edges of the tokens (the exposed plain cardboard) with a different colour to increase legibility as well, but so far we've not had too much difficulty telling them apart as you learn which is which in relation to the heights of the models very quickly.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
8 drones is not enough. There need to be more.


More.


MORE!

I do agree. Drones, Mechs, Robot Suits! All of it needs Moar!

Wonderwolf wrote:
Don't waste Stretchgoals on Drones....

Here's a preview.

Stretchgoal 1: More Dakka
Stretchgoal 2: More Dakka!
Stretchgoal 3: More Dakka!!
Stretchgoal 4: More Dakka!!!
Stretchgoal 5: Enough Dakka?

"You can never have enough dakka for it is like the speed of light. You can come close but you can never attain it." - Adam L




Those Tokens look damn good!

But is that the mars rover?

Those suppression markers look...

*sunglasses*

... Epic.

The tokens are nice looking.

If they are at all similar to the way BattleSystems do their cardboard terrain then you can prevent the dog earing by coating the edges with (brush on) super glue. They makes them tough as nails.

 legoburner wrote:
Yes, it's not too clear from the photos, but the sizes are quite distinct and the colours are different between each one. Some people might want to mark the edges of the tokens (the exposed plain cardboard) with a different colour to increase legibility as well, but so far we've not had too much difficulty telling them apart as you learn which is which in relation to the heights of the models very quickly.

Thanks, that sounds good - the miniatures providing a good scale for them is a great point. I am very much looking forwards to kicking your project. I haven't ever kicked anything before, so it's going to be an exciting experience!

Good thinking Snrub, that would work very well and I'd not even thought of it being an option. Our card is not quite as great as Battlesystems stuff, card being the backbone of their business, but it would be poor form for me not to shout out to them as they were really helpful and upfront with advice when we were looking for card suppliers. We have a lot of love for them, their great attitude and their amazing card terrain.

Are there any plans for card terrain in the box or as a stretch? With the focus on cover and suppression, something like the terrain in Operation Icestom would be a great addition!

We spent a lot of time investigating card terrain but it was just not financially viable without cutting models or boosting the price of the set. While we love the look of card terrain (Necromunda more than anything), it does deteriorate fairly fast if not properly built, and it does not have as much flexibility of assembly and strength as we'd like unless you go all in like some of the other excellent companies out there.

To do cardboard terrain properly would have been a time and effort investment that does not match up with the rest of our project's skills and contacts, so it is best left to companies that focus on that sort of thing.

Plastic terrain however, you'll have to wait until tomorrow

 legoburner wrote:
We spent a lot of time investigating card terrain but it was just not financially viable without cutting models or boosting the price of the set. While we love the look of card terrain (Necromunda more than anything), it does deteriorate fairly fast if not properly built, and it does not have as much flexibility of assembly and strength as we'd like unless you go all in like some of the other excellent companies out there.

To do cardboard terrain properly would have been a time and effort investment that does not match up with the rest of our project's skills and contacts, so it is best left to companies that focus on that sort of thing.

Fair enough! The stuff is out there if people want it, after all!

Plastic terrain however, you'll have to wait until tomorrow

Ah, now I'm interested...
Even more so than I already was...

 legoburner wrote:
Good thinking Snrub, that would work very well and I'd not even thought of it being an option. Our card is not quite as great as Battlesystems stuff, card being the backbone of their business, but it would be poor form for me not to shout out to them as they were really helpful and upfront with advice when we were looking for card suppliers. We have a lot of love for them, their great attitude and their amazing card terrain.

Yeah. Fantastic guys. Their terrain is brilliant. Really glad I got in on their Sci-fi terrain KS.

On that note. An MEdge battlefield, what sort of terrain density are we looking it? And to a lesser extent would the aforementioned BattleSystems style terrain work for MEdge or is the wrong style of terrain?

 legoburner wrote:
Plastic terrain however, you'll have to wait until tomorrow

As if this game couldn't get any better.

Hey guys, while I'm sure you'll get a chance to look in here over the course of the next day or so, I know you'll be very busy packing things up/getting things ready for the event on Saturday, so I wanted to post now and make sure you didn't miss it:

GOOD LUCK DAKKA!!!!

Also, if they have any pie at Salute, please save me some. Thanks.

I'll most definitely be backing this!

 darrkespur wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:

Isn't that what higher dimensional theoretical topology is for? The whole making a right angle to all known angles thing that facilitates a 0D "fold" to 1D, 1D "fold" to 2D, 2D "fold" to 3D transition, and therefore a 3D "fold" through the fourth dimension to instantly be anywhere else in 3D space?

SNIP A LOT OF STUFF

Dude, that sounds pretty cool, actually. I'm liking the background more and more.

Wait, it's tomorrow already. Or did you mean England tomorrow?

LEGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

 legoburner wrote:

The tokens look great on the table and add a lot to the feel of the game, giving you an immediate, strong visual representation of which units are in serious trouble. Nothing beats lining up four spider drones and piling a tonne of suppression on to a unit in cover, then running in and flanking them with the firefly drones!

Are there plans to partner with GF9 or Litko or another company to produce laser cut/laser etched tokens? Personally, I prefer partially translucent tokens that can be easily seen but also aren't as obvious as opaque tokens littering a battlefield.

 judgedoug wrote:

 legoburner wrote:

The tokens look great on the table and add a lot to the feel of the game, giving you an immediate, strong visual representation of which units are in serious trouble. Nothing beats lining up four spider drones and piling a tonne of suppression on to a unit in cover, then running in and flanking them with the firefly drones!

Are there plans to partner with GF9 or Litko or another company to produce laser cut/laser etched tokens? Personally, I prefer partially translucent tokens that can be easily seen but also aren't as obvious as opaque tokens littering a battlefield.

I think we'd like to have those kind of tokens eventually but it depends how well the Kickstarter goes.

This looks very interesting.

 legoburner wrote:
Plastic terrain however, you'll have to wait until tomorrow

Just going to leave that there and drop the mic, eh?

 judgedoug wrote:

 darrkespur wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:

Isn't that what higher dimensional theoretical topology is for? The whole making a right angle to all known angles thing that facilitates a 0D "fold" to 1D, 1D "fold" to 2D, 2D "fold" to 3D transition, and therefore a 3D "fold" through the fourth dimension to instantly be anywhere else in 3D space?

SNIP A LOT OF STUFF

Dude, that sounds pretty cool, actually. I'm liking the background more and more.

Thank you. I know that last week I did promise a few people some more info on the worldbuilding around the Maelstrom itself, but I was waiting for an appropriate place in the conversation to include it, so this seems like a good moment.

The Maelstrom is ultimately the core of what Maelstrom's Edge is all about, a monumental catastrophe causing previously stable galactic civilisations to tear each other, and themselves, apart. The Maelstrom's implacable advance on the worlds of the Spiral Arm is what feeds the conflict of our universe, sets friend and foe against each other and forces everyone in its path to fight for resources and survival.

When the Maelstrom erupted from humanity’s Capital Worlds a millennium ago, it destroyed hundreds of parsecs in the blink of an eye. A colossal energy storm spanning light years, the Maelstrom expanded ever onward, traversing dozens of light years in mere hours. It ripped apart the centre of humanity, destroying worlds in instants and leaving no time for escape. After this initial frenzy, the expansion of the Maelstrom slowed to a fraction of its initial speed as it left the matter dense Capital World systems, its coruscating red and purple blight on the sky becoming a harbinger of utter destruction to nearby worlds. What remains of mankind is trapped between the Maelstrom’s Edge and the rim-ward tip of the Spiral Arm. With mankind restricted to travelling between stars, the gulf between galactic arms is untraversable. The only direction to go is rim-wards, away from certain death into an uncertain future.

The Maelstrom travels slowly as it expands through empty space without anything to react with, but moves increasingly more rapidly as it reaches the star system and begins to react with the mass contained within. As the Maelstrom expands, it disrupts the flow of the cybel tunnels nearby, making them impassable to ships - cutting down the routes that people can escape from a system threatened by the Maelstrom and increasing the chances of armed conflict as factions fight for access to the choke point. Worlds close to the Maelstrom are attractive targets for resources, but being in the system is a huge risk, as the closer the Maelstrom gets, the more supply lines are destroyed as the dark energy ruptures out of the cybel tunnels, leaving only a handful of routes back out, usually near to the planet or other gravitational large object furthest from the Maelstrom's presence. The Maelstrom can also disrupt the energy of stars, causing supernovae for those unlucky enough to still be there when it happens...

As the cybel network is destroyed by the Maelstrom, the cybel tunnels shift and re-align, making even stable routes far away from the Edge unpredictable. Some tunnels break, dumping ships into deep space. Some are twisted, forming spirals which are virtually impossible to navigate. Other routes become erratic in size, requiring more energy and blind luck to get through them. Some tunnels are made unstable from the proximity of the Maelstrom, causing violent storms of cybel energy to arc along the tunnel, destroying ships unlucky enough to be caught in them. Travel between worlds which would normally take days or weeks can now take months or years, navigating through multiple smaller tunnels instead of one large tunnel.

Travellers near the Maelstrom's Edge can no longer simply journey hundreds of light years in one jump like they once did. Ships wait at each node, studying the latest Guild map to satisfy themselves that the next step isn't going to get them killed. Some get stranded, their ship unsuited to making the next jump, leaving them stuck in a star system they never hoped to visit, or having to take another more tortuous route now their original option is no longer possible. These delays and inefficiencies make keeping ahead of the Edge difficult at best.

One of the balancing acts we had to make when designing the universe was to make the Maelstrom a credible threat, one that would force the people and factions at the Edge to make difficult decisions. However, the galaxy is a big place - around 100,000 light years across. Something travelling at slower-than light speeds will take far too long to become a threat to the next star. It's the interaction the Maelstrom has with the cybel tunnels that makes it so dangerous and unpredictable.

When the Maelstrom bursts open a cybel tunnel into real space, it's extremely dangerous to anything nearby, but its progress through open space is slow (compared to FTL travel through the cybel tunnels) and predictable. Planets can see the purple stain spreading across the sky and know roughly how long they have until it reaches them.

However, if the Maelstrom infects a new cybel tunnel leading off to another star, all bets are off. The Maelstrom converts the normal cybel energy into a much more aggressive form that races down the tunnel to the mass at the other end, traversing lightyears of realspace in weeks or months. If a cybel gate on the far side is open, an explosive reaction occurs. If there's no open gate, the Maelstrom beats on the closed tunnel, weakening the tunnel until finally it break through, wreaking destruction and spreading the Maelstrom further.

I hope that you've enjoyed exploring our worldbuilding a bit more - we've done a lot of work creating the universe of Maelstrom's Edge and we look forward to showing you more in the coming weeks and months - we'll be adding background text and designer comments to the website over the course of the Kickstarter.

 darrkespur wrote:


Thank you! Glad you enjoyed them.

One thing I tried to bring across in the novels is the ambiguity of the Karist belief. You can choose, as reader just as in a citizen of the Maelstrom's Edge, to believe ascension at the hands of the Maelstrom is true, and that the rapturous feelings and visions you receive when you touch na-cybel energy is a glimpse at that higher plane of being. Another perfectly valid interpretation is that the Karists are deluded addicts of na-cybel energy exposure. I love writing that uncertainty, it makes them much more interesting, and allows us to explore the meaning of faith in the face of annihilation. I hope that we've made the Karist Enclave background interesting and ambiguous enough that people will be debating this point for some time and enjoying the complexity of that dichotomy.

You achieved your goal with me. Can you explain more on Angels? How is a name that is normally tied to warriors of heaven now used by a religious group to name a creature they seem to forcibly frenzy and send into battle.
Is there some relation between an ascended soul and an angel? IE angel is a physical representation of a successful ascension
If so why are they used as attack dogs?
Am I drawing connections that are not relevant?
Is my own communion giving me visions again?

 keltikhoa wrote:

 darrkespur wrote:


Thank you! Glad you enjoyed them.

One thing I tried to bring across in the novels is the ambiguity of the Karist belief. You can choose, as reader just as in a citizen of the Maelstrom's Edge, to believe ascension at the hands of the Maelstrom is true, and that the rapturous feelings and visions you receive when you touch na-cybel energy is a glimpse at that higher plane of being. Another perfectly valid interpretation is that the Karists are deluded addicts of na-cybel energy exposure. I love writing that uncertainty, it makes them much more interesting, and allows us to explore the meaning of faith in the face of annihilation. I hope that we've made the Karist Enclave background interesting and ambiguous enough that people will be debating this point for some time and enjoying the complexity of that dichotomy.

You achieved your goal with me. Can you explain more on Angels? How is a name that is normally tied to warriors of heaven now used by a religious group to name a creature they seem to forcibly frenzy and send into battle.
Is there some relation between an ascended soul and an angel? IE angel is a physical representation of a successful ascension
If so why are they used as attack dogs?
Am I drawing connections that are not relevant?
Is my own communion giving me visions again?

Oh, that's an interesting reaction! Angels are aliens that live out in space, feeding off the cybel energy that bleeds through from the tunnels into realspace. The name Angel came about (both from a design perspective and in the universe) because they used to visit passing ships out of nowhere, making their appearance seem miraculous. When cybel storms and the Maelstrom appear, the Angels are driven closer to worlds and even down to the surface of planets, as the energy that they usually feed off has been transformed into a much more destructive form that drives them crazy. The Karists rescue and recruit them by feeding them more benign cybel energy that they can digest more easily (and they excrete na-cybel energy, which is used in communion, so there's a certain symbiosis between them and the Karists).

The relationship between ascended and Angels is an interesting interpretation, but I'm very keen not to confirm or deny that kind of thing - it's much more interesting to have people interpret it as they see fit. Thanks for the thoughts though, it's very cool to see what people think after reading the books!