Ship Control Cards

pdf would be great. The reader is free, and you can still read pdf file with
Illustrator. The files are relatively small, and,
better still, cross-platform.

Paul

> Keith Watt wrote:

At the con a few people asked me for the files I used to create the ship
control cards I was using for my ships (collectable-card format ship
status displays). I did them in Adobe Illustrator and will upload to the Solar
Thrust site some templates along with the ships I made for Solar
Thrust, but I realize not everyone can read AI-format files.  Is there a
preference for a second file format? Illustrator can export to a large number
of formats. The obvious candidates (to me) seem to be eps, pdf, or
jpg/gif.  Any ideas?

Thanks..

> Keith Watt wrote:

FWIW, I vote jpg or gif.  Very easy to play with, even for us non-geeks
(as I mentioned to Andy when he started talking about equations, "I graduated
high school.")

> On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, Paul Lesack wrote:

> pdf would be great. The reader is free, and you can still read

pdf = Adobe Acrobat files...took me a minute to figure that one... (for
those who don't know: http://www.adobe.com/acrobat/ will net you a free
Acrobat Reader. Some useful stuff exists in pdf format...US Army FMs and NATO
docs, for one...)

Either pdf or gif/jpg for the cards would be ok.

Brian (burger00@camosun.bc.ca)                  -DS2/SG2/FR!/HOTT-
      - http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Nebula/9774/games.html -
-SciFi & Fantasy Wargaming House Rules, Photos, GWAutobasher, & more-

> Paul

> pdf would be great. The reader is free, and you can still read

Well...the reader is free, and the reader & format are cross-platform.
I have to disagree with the "small" characterization.
When I exported my AI SSD files they grew by a factor of 5-10.
For my money, that *ain't* small. The word is "pig".

- Sam

I vote for 1 set in vector format (AI is good) and one in raster GIF is good
if these are bitonal or greyscale. or small colour palette. PDF is readonly
(without a publishing tool), I might want to change things.

> At the con a few people asked me for the files I used to create the

My vote for jpg/gif - you can read these easily with a variety of
software, and they are more easily manipulated (by people without Illustrator
for example) than pdf.

> At 12:27 AM -0800 3/5/99, Tim Jones wrote:

and editing a PDF (in Illustrator anyway) balloons the file size. No wait,
keep this on topic, accurate, and in genre: mushroom clouds the file size

URL Please.
---
Brian Bell bkb@beol.net

> Keith Watt wrote:

> At the con a few people asked me for the files I used to create the

Hi all -

   Okay, I've just put the collectable-card format SSD's up on the Solar
Thrust website (http://www.erols.com/kwatt/SolarThrust).  The files are
in Adobe Illustrator and JPG format, zipped into different archives. The files
available are (there are links on the main page):

ToolKitAI.zip and ToolKitJPG.zip: blank cards (6 different colors), fuel
cards, card backs (image of the FT rulebook), and system symbols.

STCardsAI.zip and STCardsJPG.zip:  collectable-card format SSD's for the
"Desperate Measures" scenario (you'll also need fuel cards from the toolkit)

FRMCardsAI.zip and FRMCardsJPG.zip: A sample fleet (Federal Republic of
Mars) in collectable-card format.  This uses most of the systems from
the Fleet Book.

Note that blank cards don't have ship names and point values (see the sample
fleet for where these go), but do have hull boxes. I decided that the hull
boxes could be deleted by the user fairly easily, but they're a bit hard to
align. If people would rather I delete the boxes as well, please let me know.

Incidentally, I have cards for all the FB ships (which, for obvious
reasons, I won't put up on the web) in AI and PDF format - the PDF's
turned out to be about a third the size of the AI format, but the quality (at
least in the reader) was terrible. I think I'll try it again using Distiller
instead of PDFwriter. If the quality improves, I'll add the above three zips
in PDF format as well.

Please let me know if anyone has any problems getting these.

TTYL..

> Keith Watt wrote:

These are quite professonal looking! I *like* them!

The JPG format files were a bit fuzzy. I used Adobe Photoshop to import the
Illustrator files (since I do not own Illustrator).

When I imported them, I set the dimensions from Pixels to Inches, and set the
Pixels Per Inch to the appropriate setting for my printer (which turns out to
be 266, instead of the defaut
75).
My Epson Stylus 600 ink jet printed the cards quite handsomely. (well, when I
used normal quality printing on average paper the little atom symbols filled
up, but what did you expect?)

For the Solar Thrust cards, I'm planning on glueing Fuel cards to the back of
the Ship cards, and laminating them somehow. This will allow me to check off
damage and fuel with a
        china writer or a dry-erase whiteboard felt-tip marker.

I'm going to try and play the Solar Thrust scenario solo, right hand vs left,
since I don't know any players
        in my area.  It is a multi-player scenario, but there are
not a lot of ships, and this is the miraculous Full Thrust "play a game in an
hour" we are talking about.

I'm busily picking out various starship miniatures from my ramshackle
collection to use in the scenario. How about an Earth Force Hyperion, with a
few Valiant Stardate 2300 ships, some Entolian crusiers, and that weird ship
from some unknown collection.

> On Sun, 7 Mar 1999, Nyrath the nearly wise wrote:

> I'm going to try and play the Solar Thrust scenario

You're in Baltimore, right? I'm in Annapolis (Cape St.Claire, actually) if you
want to get together down here some time...

> For the Solar Thrust cards, I'm planning on glueing Fuel cards

You can get them laminated at many copy shops, but for those who prefer to
do such things themselves (or want to cut stuff out of the lamination -
which tends to peel off if you cut the sealed edges) you can get "peel and
stick" type lamination material at many art supply stores. This is a clear
plastic sheet with glue on one side - but the adhesive is similar to
Scotch "magic tape" and becomes almost completely transparent when the plastic
is applied. Works really well for this kind of thing, though you have to be
careful when you are applying the plastic that you don't trap air and get
unsightly "bubbles" in the lamination.

:-)

> On Mon, 8 Mar 1999, Adrian Johnson wrote:

> You can get them laminated at many copy shops, but for those who

A hot laminator works much better - no "glue-ie edges" or bubble in the
laminate. They're not that expensive to buy either, provided you don't mind
the 'small' version that only handles pouches up to 4.5" wide.:)

I printed up my K'rathri SSD's on laser business card blanks, the
hot-laminated them with standard pouches.  Works like a charm.

AI version is missing a FTCover.jpg file for the card backs

Nice SSD design splitting the damage tracks from the systems is a better
design than the originals IMO.

Thanks Tim, you're right. I've uploaded a new zip which includes the missing
file.

Any other problems, please let me know..