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 Alpharius wrote:
Yeah, I think you're right there - PB is trying to 'hide' the extra Wave 1 stock that they bought (because someone convinced them it would be stupid to not take advantage of the cheap, cheap cost to get more 'now') inside of that silly pie chart they have put out there...

Nothing wrong with piggybacking retail on Wave 1 - provided the retail stock is paid out of non-KS funds...

 Karaoke Ninja wrote:
Hey Forar, this one is for you. I hope it takes off
https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/816uu9/robotech_kickstarterpalladium_make_a_difference/

Just an FYI, the Fan-Friends are on Reddit as well.

Specifically NMI.

I will haunt him online for the rest of his life btw.

 TalonZahn wrote:

The thing missing from that "pie chart" is the amount of money they took in Post-KS in the Backerkit/Pledge Manager.

Sure... the reason why I didn't bother to put that in is that they don't need the additional help to look incompetent. It looks bad enough as it is.

So far people has generally agreed the licensing cost looks reasonable, the shipping isn't unexpected, the KS and Pledge manager costs are known ahead of time... which means the things that contributed most are manufacturing and design, both of which are well within their control.

... huh. I just realised he gave a breakdown of costs in the first update.I need to comb through that.

 Alpharius wrote:

Morgan Vening wrote:


So, the numbers, as claimed, simply don't add up. I'd want to see a much more detailed accounting regarding expenditures, before believing that POS piechart, from an inveterate liar.

Yeah, I think you're right there - PB is trying to 'hide' the extra Wave 1 stock that they bought (because someone convinced them it would be stupid to not take advantage of the cheap, cheap cost to get more 'now') inside of that silly pie chart they have put out there...

That's what I suspect. There's an easy way for PB to prove they didn't commit fraud on a massive level as suspected.

From KSU 186.
"If there were ever any type of investigation, Palladium has accurate records, receipts, correspondences and documentation for every expense and transaction we’ve made regarding Robotech® RPG Tactics™."

He has the receipts. Let people see exactly when, and on what, the money was spent. And the when is almost as important as the what. Because backers deserve to know not just how PB failed dismally, but at what point they did so, while denying people refunds.

Because on a side note, my initial claim in early 2014 was when they still appear to have had money. That was denied, but the following statement was technically true.
"As such, we cannot offer you a refund at this time. If the time should ever come that Palladium Books cannot fulfill the terms of our Kickstarter project, we will of course offer refunds, as we would be required to do by Kickstarter."

But according to Kevin, all money was spent on Wave 1. So, by the start of 2015, they were doing the equivalent of operating while insolvent (yes, yes, I know it's not the same legally, but ethically it is), yet still promising refunds if people were patient, and the Kickstarter failed to deliver.

Even with my initial claim, they knew they had a financial obligation to me (and several other backers that wanted to opt out before Wave 1 saw manufacture), and went ahead and claim to have spent every penny in the coffers, knowing that they were putting themselves in a position that not only wiped out all cash reserves, but that they would need an additional 500-600K to get out of the hole they dug.

No refunds until we can no longer fulfill the terms of the Kickstarter. Ooops, we spent all that money, NOW we can no longer fulfill the terms of the Kickstarter.

As I said earlier here (I think), it's bloody convenient that the amount spent happens to have been pretty much the amount raised, and we find out about that fact just as the license expires, the literal instance that they're unable to complete the project.

According to PB, this is their timeline related to funding, from the start of the campaign, to now.



Yeah.... That doesn't look kosher to me. But that's what PB are claiming happened.

I'm estimating at a good 50% more the money they took from the post KS and pledge manager.

so with those figures from the pie chart and the claims for Kevin, they actually had the money to produce Wave 2 just with post KS funds....

 John Prins wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:
What email are you sending the Paypal invoice to?

The same one in the updates: paypal@palladiumbooks.com.

The one he wants you to send money to for shipping.

Thank ya. Sent an invoice with the following note:

"Reward Exchange:

I would like my remaining unfulfilled pledge to be refunded.

I calculate this to be:
Blitzkrieg Wave Two components: $23.78
VEF-1/VF-1D Valkyrie Pack: $30.00
SDF-1: $20.00

I expect the refund to be processed post-haste and to receive $73.78 to my account by paying this invoice in full.

I request the refund per the Kickstarter TOU:
"Project Creators are required to fulfill all rewards of their successful fundraising campaigns or refund any Backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill."

As an established company with a variety of successful product lines I expect this refund of the remaining pledge as per the terms your company agreed to when launching and using the Kickstarter platform.

Thank you,

Douglas Craig"

 jul wrote:
I'm estimating at a good 50% more the money they took from the post KS and pledge manager.

so with those figures from the pie chart and the claims for Kevin, they actually had the money to produce Wave 2 just with post KS funds....

If they hadn't gambled it all on non-KS retail stock, sure!

 Lynx7725 wrote:

 TalonZahn wrote:

The thing missing from that "pie chart" is the amount of money they took in Post-KS in the Backerkit/Pledge Manager.

Sure... the reason why I didn't bother to put that in is that they don't need the additional help to look incompetent. It looks bad enough as it is.

So far people has generally agreed the licensing cost looks reasonable, the shipping isn't unexpected, the KS and Pledge manager costs are known ahead of time... which means the things that contributed most are manufacturing and design, both of which are well within their control.

... huh. I just realised he gave a breakdown of costs in the first update.I need to comb through that.

I believe the claims were that the additional funds from the Pledge Manager were about equivalent to the amount of money taken by Kickstarter, so about $110K, give or take. Forar was paying attention to that at some point. Mebee he'll chime in.

It definitely wasn't mentioned as being fractionally significant. I think they'd have crowed about it if it'd put them over $2M total. I know I personally added a marginal amount, as I'd done the math before hand, and had factored in all the addons. I know some people waited, but we have no idea how many.

 judgedoug wrote:

 John Prins wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:
What email are you sending the Paypal invoice to?

The same one in the updates: paypal@palladiumbooks.com.

The one he wants you to send money to for shipping.

Thank ya. Sent an invoice with the following note:

"Reward Exchange:

I would like my remaining unfulfilled pledge to be refunded.

I calculate this to be:
Blitzkrieg Wave Two components: $23.78
VEF-1/VF-1D Valkyrie Pack: $30.00
SDF-1: $20.00

I expect the refund to be processed post-haste and to receive $73.78 to my account by paying this invoice in full.

I request the refund per the Kickstarter TOU:
"Project Creators are required to fulfill all rewards of their successful fundraising campaigns or refund any Backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill."

As an established company with a variety of successful product lines I expect this refund of the remaining pledge as per the terms your company agreed to when launching and using the Kickstarter platform.

Thank you,

Douglas Craig"

That's good, but you also need to:
* state that you are requesting a refund because PB has stated they will not fulfill the outstanding obligation owed to you, per the binding contract that was formed when you paid money to accept their offer on Kickstarter;
* state your deadline (5 Business Days = March 8th, 2018), and
* state consequences ("any and all remedies available at law").

It would be nice if the legal team could draft a demand letter

Thanks updated the invoice.

A guy in the Facebook group said he got in touch with Customer Service at his CC company and they gave him back the funds spent, temporarily, while they investigate.

I don't think what people, like Kevin, don't realize is...giant companies like Discover, Visa, MC, Paypal, etc...

The don't give a gak about him or his company. They want to keep customers happy. They will GLADLY give you back your money and then charge Palladium.

I posted this somewhere before, but I disputed a purchase through Paypal once because the items sent were broken. Turned out the guy closed his bank account and Paypal STILL back charged the guy's bank and then the bank went after him in collections.

Visa (or others) don't give a gak about what Kevin says or tried to tell them. They got chunks of guys like him in their stool.

I am talking to Discover right now.

It seems that the products purchased via Backerkit may be eligible for chargebacks. I will update as I get more information.

Eh, I tried about a year ago and they told me they had a couple year limit. Basically, could have been chased if we'd gone after them as soon as it was clear everything was going to gak, but not four years on.

I just submitted a disput with my bank for the money I spent on add-ons...

 Lynx7725 wrote:

Morgan Vening wrote:

For the second question, while design issue is about right, it's the Manufacturing you're interpreting wrong (IMO). And boy howdy, do the numbers look bad for PB. It's not per model that you should be dividing by. It's the number of Kickstarter related boxes. I did the numbers elsewhere (PB Forums, I think), but I figured the section of Import Fees counteracts any money spent on the Battlefoam, for simplicity's sake in the numbers. Also, most estimates had 6-7K boxes needed for Kickstarter fulfillment.

So PB are claiming that they spent ~$600K to produce ~6000 Kickstarter boxes. Or, $100 per box. That's what they're claiming each BattleCry cost to manufacture and import. They also are claiming, as you point out, $360K in development. Across 6000 Battlecries, that's another $60 per box. So PB are claiming all up, to develop and manufacture what they did, for Kickstarter backers, cost them $160 each (~$140 per box if there were 7,000 boxes needed). Fssshhhhyeaaahh. If that's not utter bs, I don't know what is.

Hmm that's a perspective I didn't see. What I was thinking of is that:

1. They had to design the 3D models etc (which even if ND did most of the work, they still had to pay for them).
2. They had to cut steel for the molds.

Those are the up front costs. After that, how many sprues they want to blow through those molds are negligible; similarly packing into boxes is also a matter of labour cost. The number of boxes they produced isn't quite part of the equation I was thinking of...

Did Palladium have to pay for the 3D models twice? Wasn't there a post here a few months ago that showed the owner of Ninja Division being upset about what was happening with RTT because they (ND) had everything set up and good-to-go before PB kicked them to the curb for some reason?

 TalonZahn wrote:
As I also posted in the KS Comments.....

The thing missing from that "pie chart" is the amount of money they took in Post-KS in the Backerkit/Pledge Manager.

They note that it cost them 2% to PAY Backerkit, but not how much on top of the 1.5m they got from it.

Personally, my Backerkit Add-ons where 50% of my total $1000 spent.

They could EASILY be missing/not showing another 250k-500k at LEAST in post-KS Add-ons.

Funny thing, because Palladium almost never uses their account to comment, finding this applicable quote is always really easy;

The statement made by a backer:

“This endeavor already made them $1.44 Million Dollars; plus up to another 100% in backerkit bonuses. So with potentially anywhere from $2 Million to $3 Million already in their pockets - they don't necessarily have to rush to give a product that's already been paid for.”

Palladium's response:

I just caught this last night, and feel the need to respond and clear something up. We are NOT sitting on a giant pile of money. After Amazon/Kickstarter fees (8-10%) and the usual 1-2% of backers whose payments didn't go through, the total wasn't much more than $1.3 mil. Then HG and ND get their cuts, and what's left over has to pay not only for manufacturing, but the cost of shipping the goods to all of you fine people (a LOT of whom are overseas). The BackerKit added to that, for sure, but a successful pledge manager is generally expected to add about 10% on top of the Kickstarter total. We did pretty close to that (slightly over). Nowhere near 100% (I wish)! The bottom line is, we're not going to make much, if any, profit from this project until the game is selling in retail. And most of THAT is going to be put back into development and manufacture of future expansions. --Wayne

So, that 1.45m dropped to about 1.3, but then the PM added about 10% back on top, meaning they basically broke even there.

Boy, I have a busy day and weekend ahead of me, but I bet there's some more tidbits to pick up over the years in comments, updates, murmurs, etc. They rarely give hard info, but we know things like the molds cost twice as much as they expected (from the June 2015 Big History Of Everything updates), bits like that. I wonder how all those puzzle pieces go together, because I suspect some cracks would appear fairly easily/quickly.

Edit: Note: they could be lying. I'm not speaking to the veracity of the claim, simply noting it as a starting point. When asked how much the PM brought in, they said about 10%. Whether that's 10% more of the original 1.45m, or 10% of the 1.3m that was left over seems small enough to ignore, it was another 100k+ either way, and thus substantial enough to be accounted for transparently. Especially if they're claiming to have spent all funds allocated for shipping, design and manufacturing of wave 2, etc on just wave one. Triply so since as of 2 months ago we were still going through that 'look at this sdf-1 base render!' bullgak. They *KNEW* they were fethed at that time, and kept lying anyways.

Speaking of Credit Cards and Pledge Manager, if anyone CC'd their PM payment, I'd strongly suggest to call the CC company and push for a chargeback.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Merijeek wrote:
Eh, I tried about a year ago and they told me they had a couple year limit. Basically, could have been chased if we'd gone after them as soon as it was clear everything was going to gak, but not four years on.

Try again.

Reference PB's statement that they will not deliver.

Merijeek wrote:
Eh, I tried about a year ago and they told me they had a couple year limit. Basically, could have been chased if we'd gone after them as soon as it was clear everything was going to gak, but not four years on.

And that's why the "We're telling you now, what we claim to have known 3 years ago, while pushing the narrative that everything is fine, how dare you question us?" narrative by Kevin shows him to be a complete amoral shitbag.

Regardless of the legal complexities, Kevin's proven beyond a shadow of a doubt he's just as bad as his prior reputation suggested. Sadly, there'll still be some people that'll support him regardless.

 Desmodus wrote:

 Lynx7725 wrote:

Morgan Vening wrote:

For the second question, while design issue is about right, it's the Manufacturing you're interpreting wrong (IMO). And boy howdy, do the numbers look bad for PB. It's not per model that you should be dividing by. It's the number of Kickstarter related boxes. I did the numbers elsewhere (PB Forums, I think), but I figured the section of Import Fees counteracts any money spent on the Battlefoam, for simplicity's sake in the numbers. Also, most estimates had 6-7K boxes needed for Kickstarter fulfillment.

So PB are claiming that they spent ~$600K to produce ~6000 Kickstarter boxes. Or, $100 per box. That's what they're claiming each BattleCry cost to manufacture and import. They also are claiming, as you point out, $360K in development. Across 6000 Battlecries, that's another $60 per box. So PB are claiming all up, to develop and manufacture what they did, for Kickstarter backers, cost them $160 each (~$140 per box if there were 7,000 boxes needed). Fssshhhhyeaaahh. If that's not utter bs, I don't know what is.

Hmm that's a perspective I didn't see. What I was thinking of is that:

1. They had to design the 3D models etc (which even if ND did most of the work, they still had to pay for them).
2. They had to cut steel for the molds.

Those are the up front costs. After that, how many sprues they want to blow through those molds are negligible; similarly packing into boxes is also a matter of labour cost. The number of boxes they produced isn't quite part of the equation I was thinking of...

Did Palladium have to pay for the 3D models twice? Wasn't there a post here a few months ago that showed the owner of Ninja Division being upset about what was happening with RTT because they (ND) had everything set up and good-to-go before PB kicked them to the curb for some reason?

We'll find out the truth when the class action rolls into play. Almost certain that HG, ND, KS and PB will have certain things subpoena'd during discovery, unless it's viewed as very cut and dry that the buck stops with PB as the project creator (and the party we have our contract with).

I am on with Discover right now and they will dispute the charges and attempt chargebacks.

They need evidence, does anyone have a screenshot or know where it was that Palladium said they would give Refunds if they could not fulfill Wave 2?

UPDATE: Discover has reversed the charges, credited my account, and are going after Palladium, Backerkit, and Kickstarter, based on what I told them. I am to provide documentation and screenshots in sufficient quantities and information to prove that Palladium initially complied with the TOU had offered refunds and then reversed their position in violation of the KS TOU.
Additionally, the Backerkit charge for add-ons is the easiest one to determine, as the charge is for products that were never received.
The initial Kickstarter/Palladium charge would require them to determine that Palladium/Siembieda had stated that refunds would be offered in support of the KS TOU, and then stated the reversal of position in violation of KS TOU.

I am asking if Discover wants all Discover card users who were affected, to contact them. I have been escalated to some sort of really high up fraud dept. I'll post again when I find out





by the way, there is precedent for this: https://www.polygon.com/2015/9/11/9310945/kickstarter-court-victory-attorney-general-washington-asylum-playing-cards

 judgedoug wrote:
I am on with Discover right now and they will dispute the charges and attempt chargebacks.

They need evidence, does anyone have a screenshot or know where it was that Palladium said they would give Refunds if they could not fulfill Wave 2?

Email responses for refunds prior to wave 1 and KS tos, 99% certain backer kit uses KS tos as there's as well.

Ok, you guys sitting down? Because I'm about to go into a "How do you f**k that up?!?" post.

First, let's put that chart up again.



Broken down:

Manufacturing $601,711.39
Design $364,193.74
Shipping $221,683.14
Licensing $158,345.10
KS Fees $110,841.57
PM Fees $47,503.53
Ads $47,503.53
Plege Mgr Fees $31,669.02

Let's go with shipping first, since that's actually in PB's favour. In his first update, he cited the following:

Dimensional Weight dramatically increased the anticipated shipping cost to backers. $131,843.74 for just Wave One. Another $9,016.80 for the boxes alone to ship your rewards in. And $76,401.20 to import Wave One from China into the USA.

That adds up to $217,261.74; 4k short but I'm not going to quibble over that, because seriously, there are more things ahead.

Like, how do you exactly spend $76K on shipping from China to US? Currently, a full 40" container from Shanghai to LA would cost $2K or so, more with insurance, and you still need to pay trucking to and from the port,and probably some additional fees, but just how many containers were PB shipping over to the US??!? How do you f**k that up?

Also, $132K for shipping for 5.5k backers work out to be $24 per head. I don't find that unreasonable for a starter box of that size.

Next, Design. $364,193.74 by chart, for Artwork, 3D sculpts, 3D prints, ND participation. In the update:

The 3D sculpts we had all worked so hard on, and that Palladium had paid $35,000 for, and looked gorgeous, had to be completely recreated – from scratch – by the manufacturer.
....
And that was in addition to the nearly $21,000 for the 3D file corrections and prototypes by the manufacturer.

For the maths dis-inclined, that adds up to $76K of design work in the update. Leaving $288,193.74 unaccounted for.

I don't think the artwork for what is there adds up to $288k. And FFS 3D prints are supposed to be cheap, that's why you use them for prototyping. I'll come back to this later.

Incidentally, $76K for about 10 models work out to be $7600 per model. To my unexperienced eye, doesn't look too unreasonable for a total redo. Of course, why that manufacturer was selected without confirming the ability for it to use the existing material is the pertinent question. So... How do you f**k that up?

Manufacturing, which is 3D corrections, Prototypes, Molds, Manufacturing, BF bags. $601,711.39

The high cost of tooling/molds – $75,000 for what would become just the Wave One rewards – was unexpected.

That's high for 10 models? Seriously?

BF bags were offered at $100, on the site appears to be $150. So let's call the cost to procure $50. Assume 1K bags, that's $50K.

.. look, no matter how I try to maths things, we are still short half a million here. How do you f**k that up?!?

All told I'm not seeing $700K of money over the span of about 3 years. Even if we say PB hideously overordered for retail and dipped into KS funds, that's not going to account for that much. The only two things I can think of that can soak that much money, is T&M by the manufacturer -- possible, but very likely to be someone taking advantage of PB -- or T&M by PB or ND, possibly HG.

Lastly, Kevin wrote:

The cost to produce Wave Two, estimated at $300,000-$400,000 for tooling and manufacturing, plus $65,000 to import to the USA, plus $120,000-$160,000 to ship rewards to the backers, was more than any potential investor was willing to risk.

Wave 2 has about 12 models, so more than Wave 1, yet he is estimating lower than Wave 1 cost. I seriously cannot line the numbers up. Also, $65K to import. How many containers was he thinking again?

Argh.

I actually think he has kept receipts and the specificity that he broke things down by looked accurate. The problem is, I can't help but feel there is some dodgy dipping into funds, and exploitation by suppliers. It just look like a complete screwup.

ND's Wave 2 design was paid for as part of Wave 1

Also, he wouldn't be producing massive amounts of retail stock with KS funds...

Good grief.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rrpgt/robotech-rpg-tacticstm/posts/990714

They shipped at least SIX containers over as part of Wave 1. Do you guys know how much stuff you can jam into even a single 20" container? That is WAY overkill for KS.

EDIT:

Nope. NINE containers: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rrpgt/robotech-rpg-tacticstm/posts/1039465

Also from the first post:

container #1 didn’t have every component of Wave One in it. Some items aren't coming until container #2. Once #2 gets here, a bunch of backers’ rewards can be shipped, and even more when #3 gets here. After that, we’ll have received some of everything, and all of most things. Container #4 should have the last of the Battle Cry extras in it (most will be in #2 and #3), along with a bunch more main boxed games, and containers #5 and up will just have more copies of the main boxed game.

That means that once container #3 gets here, there won’t be any single backer’s Wave One rewards that we can’t ship. We’ll just be limited by how much stock we have, but containers #4 and up should restock us just about as fast as we can ship out backer rewards. When container #5 or #6 comes in, we’ll have enough to ship out the last of the backers’ Wave One rewards. That should be just past the middle of October.

They had at least 2 containers of nothing but starter boxes. Eh. Just go and measure a starter box, and then start filling an imaginary 20"x8"x8" box with them. That's if they didn't ship by 40" containers.

EDIT EDIT: Now that I know they shipped 9 f**king container loads, the $76k import makes more sense, as that breaks down to 7.5k per box, which is within reasonable limits especially if you paid insurance and still had to do overland shipping. It's the 9 containers part that is stupid.

And to add insult to injury, the fact that they quoted $65K import cost for Wave 2 means they were still thinking of bringing in 6-7 containers. Which means they were thinking of buying way more than to fulfill KS -- and that they are not learning from mistakes. Think epic, fail epic.

reposting in case this gets missed



UPDATE: Discover has reversed the charges, credited my account, and are going after Palladium, Backerkit, and Kickstarter, based on what I told them. I am to provide documentation and screenshots in sufficient quantities and information to prove that Palladium initially complied with the TOU had offered refunds and then reversed their position in violation of the KS TOU.
Additionally, the Backerkit charge for add-ons is the easiest one to determine, as the charge is for products that were never received.
The initial Kickstarter/Palladium charge would require them to determine that Palladium/Siembieda had stated that refunds would be offered in support of the KS TOU, and then stated the reversal of position in violation of KS TOU.

The Discover agent has said to let any other Discover users know to also file a claim and they will use all the collected evidence to go after Palladium.

Make sure you post some of that on the Facebook Group.

I know more than on of them has copies of the Emails about failure to fulfill and refunds.

 Lynx7725 wrote:
Wave 2 has about 12 models, so more than Wave 1, yet he is estimating lower than Wave 1 cost.

Items found in Wave 2:

Rick Hunter VT: 1 figure. It says 3 on the campaign, but I think they hinted at or we assumed later that they'd try to skimp with just 1 and sending us a standard Guardian and Fighter sprue along with it.
Roy Fokker: 1 Figure. Same as above.
Armored Valkyries: 1 figure.
"Experimental Battloids": 1 figure
Lancers: 1 figure
Ghosts: 1 figure
YF-4: 3 figures
VEF-1/1D Valkyrie Pack: This ended up being a mess. 3 figures? 6? Let's call it 3 with extra bits, even if that's insanity.
Super VT: 3 figures
Monster: 1 figure, but presumably more than one sprue based on size.

Khyron's Officer's Pod: 1 figure
Miriya FPA: 1 figure
Gnerl: 1 figure
MPA: 1 figure
Zentraedi Infantry: 1 kit that of 12 that can be made into 6 heavy and 6 light infantry? There was work shown of this as well, as I recall, rough as it was. Let's assume 1 sprue and they'd just duplicate it as needed?
FPA: 1 figure
Glaug Eldare: 1 figure, maybe big enough for more than a single sprue? Or just an oversized one? I don't know. Let's call it one.

The point of this breakdown is to give evidence that wave 2 wasn't simply another dozen figures; that count above is around 21 sprues, and that (highly arguably) assumes everything could be done on one sprue per 'type' (like, presumably the YF-4 and Super VT would be 3 different sprues to cover multiples of each mode, just like the normal VT was broken down). If multiple sprues were needed for the Monster or Glaug Eldare, that could easily get up around 2 dozen sprues that were needed to cover the 21(? based on the gakshow that was the VEF-1/1D fiasco) different figures that made up wave 2.

And that's before touching on the various resin bits, which made up roughly another dozen elements in the campaign, from bases to objective markers to the SDF-1 that was prototyped and then forgotten about.

 Lynx7725 wrote:
Also, $65K to import. How many containers was he thinking again?

Another thing to keep in mind is that, by raw numbers, wave 1 contained the lions share of the stuff we were getting in large quantities. A Battle Cry originally had 96 figures in it, as I recall, 97 when they realized that 2 Battloids per sprue but 5 VT's per core box was a 'hotdog buns/hotdogs' situation. I believe wave 1 delivered 70 of those. Now, some of them like the FPA, MPA, and Super VT were going to be a bit larger, and the Eldare/MAC-II were going to be substantially larger, but whereas backers were getting up to dozens of things like VT's and Battlepods, they'd be getting like 2 dozen plus add ons for the rest of their stuff.

Basically, it might not balance out perfectly, but they shouldn't (at a glance at least) have needed to ship nearly as much product for wave two. It had a ton more variety, but a lot less in bulk going for it. Which might have hurt with economy of scale to a degree, but that's not our problem.

 judgedoug wrote:
UPDATE: Discover has reversed the charges, credited my account, and are going after Palladium, Backerkit, and Kickstarter, based on what I told them. I am to provide documentation and screenshots in sufficient quantities and information to prove that Palladium initially complied with the TOU had offered refunds and then reversed their position in violation of the KS TOU.
Additionally, the Backerkit charge for add-ons is the easiest one to determine, as the charge is for products that were never received.
The initial Kickstarter/Palladium charge would require them to determine that Palladium/Siembieda had stated that refunds would be offered in support of the KS TOU, and then stated the reversal of position in violation of KS TOU.

The Discover agent has said to let any other Discover users know to also file a claim and they will use all the collected evidence to go after Palladium.

Glad to see that Discover is working for you!

It is right there in the Kickstarter Accountability section:

https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/accountability-on-kickstarter

Is a creator legally obligated to fulfill the promises of their project?

Yes. Kickstarter's Terms of Use require creators to fulfill all rewards of their project or refund any backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill. (This is what creators see before they launch.) We crafted these terms to create a legal requirement for creators to follow through on their projects, and to give backers a recourse if they don't. We hope that backers will consider using this provision only in cases where they feel that a creator has not made a good faith effort to complete the project and fulfill.

PB themselves saying it is, I think, in many people's PMs from them, when they were asking them for a refund years ago.

 Forar wrote:

 Lynx7725 wrote:
Wave 2 has about 12 models, so more than Wave 1, yet he is estimating lower than Wave 1 cost.

Items found in Wave 2:
[snip]
The point of this breakdown is to give evidence that wave 2 wasn't simply another dozen figures; that count above is around 21 sprues, and that (highly arguably) assumes everything could be done on one sprue per 'type' (like, presumably the YF-4 and Super VT would be 3 different sprues to cover multiples of each mode, just like the normal VT was broken down). If multiple sprues were needed for the Monster or Glaug Eldare, that could easily get up around 2 dozen sprues that were needed to cover the 21(? based on the gakshow that was the VEF-1/1D fiasco) different figures that made up wave 2.

Heh, ok. Most of the hero stuff are likely going to be decal/ repaint/ resin drop-in or some such, so I just lumped them together (FPA, Khyron Glaug. The hero VT in particular are likely to reuse the existing VFs. I wasn't too sure if some of the experimental fighters would be resin or plastic, so I just went with resin; I did forget to triple the Supers though.

Still, if we went with your count, they still lowered their production quotes. That's just strange.

 Forar wrote:

And that's before touching on the various resin bits, which made up roughly another dozen elements in the campaign, from bases to objective markers to the SDF-1 that was prototyped and then forgotten about.

I'd expect resin to be done in the States, not in China. Resin production in States is fairly well developed, and would be cheaper to procure that way.

EDIT: We were both updating our posts so I missed some things. Thing is, there's nothing wrong with getting more stock to support the game, but the funding is the issue. From the way PB is talking, I don't think they are differentiating KS funds from retail stock funds, i.e., they are dipping whole forearms into the KS funds to buy retail stock for Wave 1. That just accelerated them into pits, but is also something observable over the years from PB -- their accounting practices just sucks.