Jeff--

I ws home with my family over Veterans' Day weekend, and my brother and I were chatting about science-fiction--he was selling me on Cowboy Bebop; we discussed Firefly; and lamented the loss of Farscape.

Then he complained that there was no good SF RPG to run those types of stories. I figured that with all the creative minds on the Forge, there had to be something. I checked around and found...Orbit.

I've seen your site. It looks exactly like what we want. When will it be ready?

My brother is finishing a cross-country road trip around Christmas time and is moving to the East Coast, only a few hours away, and we want to play. It'd make a great Christmas present (a copy for him and a copy for me) if you had it done in time.

That's two sales. How's that for incentive?

Rob

Hi Robert,
Thanks for checking out the site. Orbit will be ready by early first quarter of 2003. I am finishing up the final bits of color artwork and preparing the text for layout.

I am trying to do my very best as far as both writing and art are concerned, but regarding the artwork I have scrapped some finished pieces because they just didn't make the grade. Hence the slight delay in printing while I re-draw those pics. Though if I can somehow gain the [inspired] artistic momentum I may be able to go to press *in* December. But that's an uncanny best case scenario.

I'll be posting more updates on the site soon, along with the cover art which I finished two weeks ago.

Great incentive for me too, -I can't wait to hold and play using an actual finished book!

Jeff

So, how goes the Orbit production? There are those of us out here still eager for it.

Orbit is [surprisingly] on schedule and is right now being laid out in InDesign. My part while this is going on is to produce a few more pieces of art to coincide with things getting finished up.

Meanwhile again, I'll be shopping for a printer and raising the funds for the first print run (of 500 books) in any way that I can. With any luck I can go to press in March as planned.

I can hardly wait, but I guess I'll have to anyway!

Hey! Great news.

One thing i have seen done if late is to accept pre-orders to help cover printing costs. Arc Dream (the new GODLIKE publisher) is using this tactic for their TOG Intelligence Bulletin #2.

-Ben

Hey thanks for the help! I can cover the first half of the cost (the usual arrangement for printing) and pre-orders could [with luck] cover the second installment.

Thanks again.

Point me to some pricing information and how to do it, and I'm up to pre-order (I did start this thread many moons ago, after all).

I've been watching old Farscapes and the late-Firefly and I'm read for some rock'n'roll space action.

Rob

Absolutely Robert, I will start the pre-order thing once I have received my blue-lines back from the printer.

That way everything is well on its way to completion and the wait won't be too long between reserving a copy and actually receiving it. One thing I don't want to do is have delays and pushing back a release date.

Can we assume an April release?

Right now, I'm running a Sorcerer game. One of my players likes the game, but it's mounting personal horror and dark-side fixation (my fault, perhaps, as much as the game itself---I'm playing a straight "demon-dealing" Sorcerer game) is causing him to not like his character and detatch himself from his character---which is detracting from the fun of the game.

Anyway, I bring this up because he's a sci-fi nut and he likes the setting for octaNe, just not the system. I think Orbit would be a blast for him, and it sounds like all of us would enjoy it immensely, so I wanted to know when this would be out.

Hey Spooky,
It's official. I go to press in June. Assuming the usual 3-week turnaround time, I should have books by mid-July.

And you can take that to the Alpha-Centauri Bank!