Kickstarter

Alvin has sent me the final proof copy of the rules. Here is what Alfred (the game's inventor) has to say:

Hi Rick,I have read through all of Alvin's e-mails and the Draft in detail, Big Job. It is very impressive. He has pieced together all the various rule collections for AOA, from 1980 to 99. I would use his suggestions for what to include and what not. At this point, I dare say, he is the authority on AOA rules. Very nice,
Alfred 
--Rick & Alfred --

With my sincere apologies for how long this has taken, here is a proof-ready draft of the rules. I have not finished inserting all of the illustrations (although there are placeholder boxes everywhere one needs to be), and there are some bits (especially on the last few pages) that need to be changed and cleaned up.

However, all of the text is there -- so it is (finally!) ready for the two of you to rake over the coals.

As requested, I tried to include as much of original rules from 1980 as possible -- but obviously, it couldn't all fit in our page count. So I aimed for that maximum count (272 total, with 32 pages for the rules) this is what I've come up with:

• The first 18 pages are essentially identical to the 1999 edition's Basic and Intermediate rules.
• Of the remaining 14 pages, pages 19-29 contain a combination of the 'lost' parts of 1980 Intermediate and parts of 1980 Advanced (though not quite all -- I omitted the DAC, for example, as it seemed far too complex for today's audience). I've called this section the 'Advanced' rules, and it includes several pages from the 99 edition (namely the Critical Hit charts) which had been mislabeled 'Expanded Rules.'

I tried to use the original text wherever possible in these Advanced rules, or at least stay close to it, but a lot of rewording was necessary just to fit it all into the available space (the 1980 edition had more than twice as many pages, because of a higher page count and because the rules were split across two books). I think I have succeeded in keeping the essence of the rules, despite the severe editing -- but you guys will be better judges than I am.One particular change to note, because I am not sure whether you will approve (but which can be changed back easily, though):

• I changed the 1999 Damage Location Chart, which was 1d6, to a 2d6 chart so that the results could be weighted toward the center of the plane's profile (statistically speaking). I did this to simulate the 1980 DAC and Advanced Gunfire rules, which I omitted because of their sheer complexity. The result is just as easy to use as 1999, but gives results a bit more like 1980's Advanced combat.

I'll leave it to your proofreading now, and I shall move on to outputting all those View pages as PDFs.For whatever it's worth now (long after my foolishly-shortsighted original estimate, for which I again apologize), this thing is finally and truly nearing completion!-- Alvin

When I get the final artwork for the game pages (not just the rules) I will send another update. When I get a time estimate from the printer I will send an additional update.

Rick

This coming weekend I will be at Conquest Sacramento. If you will be there, stop by my table and say "hi".

I haven't gotten any updates from the artist in over two weeks. I have "pinged" him again. I'll post another update when I have any more news.

Rick

Alvin is still hard at work, but he's not quite done yet. He has sent me a pdf of the rules pages, and I've posted them on my website

Take a look.

Rick

I will be at the Dundracon game convention in San Ramon, California this weekend. If you will be there,  please stop by my table and say hi. I complained to my artist that I won't have Ace of Aces to sell at the convention, and that I have two more conventions in March. He says I will have them in time for the March conventions.

As I suspected, the layout work is a lot more tedious and time consuming than he imagined when he agreed to do this project for me and he is working on it mostly on weekends. When I do my next AoA kickstarter for the Powerhouse series, I will get the artwork done first.

Meanwhile there have been some comments on the portraits of the German aces that I posted recently. My artist sent me this:

The first one is the scan of the original book. The second is how it looks after my artist cleaned it up a bit. The third is the actual photo the original artist used. The fourth is what my artist created as a "combination" of two and three. I really don't see any reason to do that. I figure we should either use #2 or #3. Why not just use the actual photos? (after checking the copyright details). Thoughts? Do you want us to stick with the line drawings, or go with the photographs?

Rick