I didn't even know @kenwhite.bsky.social liked baseball...

They got bought by Stripe (the credit card processor they used) and then shut down with _extreme_ prejudice. I am assuming because of liability issues.

We used Celery in 2018 and 2019, and they were gone by late 2019.

There was a platform called Celery that did exactly this. You specified how many preorders you needed, and the price, people would enter their credit card information, and cards were charged a small commitment price (about 10%).

When preorders hit ~15% over your quantity, the cards were charged.

Made the Harbinger fighter for Reprisal of the Hegemon. As a thing to distract myself from the news.

Donate to Ad Astra Games Help support Ad Astra Games by donating or sharing with your friends.

Ad Astra Games is a one-human-supervised-by-one cat game company. Theoden Cat, shown below, has lost about a pound in the last three months, and his asthma has been acting up.

We're going to the vet tomorrow, and...don't know how much it will be.

Any amount helps.

We're hoping it's simple to fix/maintain, and not horrifically expensive. Most medication schedules assume regular, predictable monthly income...which isn't *quite* something one gets with self-publishing niche wargame/minis game hybrids.

We will find out the results of the blood tests in a few days. However, he is home, has had lunch, the human has emptied the litter box, and he's conducting solar energy spill monitoring.

Honestly, given current events?

Completely sympathetic, little orange buddy. Completely sympathetic.

Unlike you, our elected officials seem unwilling to express their dislike of current events in a suitably forceful way.

Theoden is back from the bet; the bill was $330. All but about $80 was covered by donations through this link! Thank you all, so much!

Theoden was a model patient with the vet, came back to the exam room, howled like a lost soul and pissed to express his displeasure with how the world is being run.

As adorable as Theoden is, delaying freelancers feeding their own kids, thumb-bearing and otherwise, is not something we're going to do.

There's space on the emergency credit card; donations here will be used to pay it down as quickly as possible.

Any amount helps.

The product that was supposed to release in February is coming out this month—Ken's medical issues delayed it. Another project that was supposed to be done in March is probably coming in the last half of the month.

To finish those, we have freelancers and promotion costs to pay.

Donate to Ad Astra Games Help support Ad Astra Games by donating or sharing with your friends.

Ad Astra Games is a one-human-supervised-by-one cat game company. Theoden Cat, shown below, has lost about a pound in the last three months, and his asthma has been acting up.

We're going to the vet tomorrow, and...don't know how much it will be.

Any amount helps.

Putting the last few pieces of art into the Setting Book for Attack Vector: Tactical Ship Book 2!

And filled the last page.

Announcement coming soon for when it'll be available for PDF purchase.

Just got the last bit of new example writing needed for a Big Announcement....now for proofreading.

I talked to PayPal and my bank, and found two transactions that were made at 2 AM local time for me, which were from an IP address.

Changed password. PayPal has removed account restrictions, my bank reversed the charges. I'm keeping the outbound lock on the account for another day, just to be sure.

The Feorag Dunnin, having taken enough damage to mess with her capabilities in ways that make her much iffier to fly. The Kirklin-class DD has a damage/degradation state of "I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm great, that's all coming back fast..." WHEEEEEEEZE "Oh god, that hurt, that's not good, that's..." And the Dunnin just hit that second state. A lot of the things that make it "nifty" are still there, but there's no internal "stuffing". The *next* set of internal hits is going to be bad.

Ships, planet, and relative positions and vectors at the end of turn 4...

End of turn 4! 6 of 14 stranded crew have been picked up, and the League player made a 30 degree course non-change that meant they got hurt much worse than they wanted on the Feorag Dunnin.

Game resumes next Wednesday!

An image of an earthlike planet over a hex map on a blue starfield. There are box minis for 9 ships in this image, all at different orientations with end of turn tents sticking out of their fronts.

Tonight's playtest.

We have been assured, many times, that 3D makes no difference in space combat...

Can you find all 9 ships in this image?

I've handed the pair of nine digit Trace numbers to PayPal so they can investigate.

Eventually she gave me the following PayPal investigation number:

Investigation ID: 108018483

My bank has put a stop payment in place. They say they'll refund me if the transactions go through in spite of that. Agent at my bank is "Jesse".

We eventually had her look through my transaction history, shown that I *do* know how bank transfers work, have had an account for 26 years, had a transaction this morning paying royalties, and did not initiate any bank transfers today.

This took several tries. Angel put me on hold.

Memorandizing:

I called my bank at 5:30 Eastern time. They gave me PayPal trace numbers.

I called 1 888 221-1161, am talking to a woman with a Spanish accent named "Angel."

I have had to explain things to her twice, she keeps trying to get on her "explain how bank transfers work" script.

PayPal transactions showing.

PayPal balance showing no fund transfer entries, let alone two in the amounts that are on the bank account.

And sometime today, there's PayPal fuckery going on.

Our company bank account has two pending transfers to PayPal; my PayPal account does not show these transfers.

They came in at 5:13 Eastern Time.

The bank is trying to figure out if they can stop payment or get a refund process going.

Ah, royalty payment time. Always nice to pay the people who did creative work for us!

So long as we're all blowing up spaceships, everybody wins!

Amusingly, as part of the SqSt > Starmada conversion, there will be a Starmada > VBAM conversion, so designing ships in Squadron Strike will:

* Get you Squadron Strike ships
* Get you Starmada ships
* Get you VBAM stat-lines for ships.

And may get you Starmada: Fleet Ops ships.

Victory by Any Means (3E) - Victory by Any Means Games | Victory by Any Means | Victory by Any Means | DriveThruRPG A NEW AGE DAWNS IN THE GALAXY Two hundred years ago, a coalition of alien civilizations known as the OLD EMPIRE banded together to fight back against a relentless machine intelligence known only as th...

Shameless cross promotion for @tyrellohr.bsky.social :

Victory by Any Means is the Deal of the Day at DriveThruRPG, on sale for 60% off: www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/5...

VBAM is effectively a hybrid of 4X gaming and a lighter weight combat engine similar to Federation & Empire.

Today's teaching game was fun! @swankmotron.com has *appalling* dice luck; it didn't help that @kenburnside.bsky.social's dice for the first passes were pure murder. Bryan's wingman, Talon, helped drive them off, though the game was getting to silliness around turn 12 when nobody could hit nothin'.

A 1K wallpaper advertising the Romance of the Seven Realms setting for Squadron Strike, with a space fighter with a white paint job and red highlights at the front and leading edges of the wings, with forward canards being shot at by a bat-winged space fighter behind it, with another fighter of the same type in the middle distance and another of the bat-winged aggressors behind its wingmate. There's a planet in the background and hints of two *more* bat-winged aggressors moving into the fight, with the Ad Astra Games logo at lower left, and the Squadron Strike logo at the lower right.

Running a teaching game of Squadron Strike tomorrow at noon eastern US time, and have an open seat!

If you've played X-Wing and wished maneuver decisions mattered more, boy is this the game for you!

Because it's 3D with momentum, you don't need to sprinkle terrain on the map to make it fun!

If you're interested, check the profile of this account and join our Discord server!

All rules will be taught, the only thing you need to know before we begin is how to use a mouse and how to get Discord audio and screen sharing to work!

A 1K wallpaper advertising the Romance of the Seven Realms setting for Squadron Strike, with a space fighter with a white paint job and red highlights at the front and leading edges of the wings, with forward canards being shot at by a bat-winged space fighter behind it, with another fighter of the same type in the middle distance and another of the bat-winged aggressors behind its wingmate. There's a planet in the background and hints of two *more* bat-winged aggressors moving into the fight, with the Ad Astra Games logo at lower left, and the Squadron Strike logo at the lower right.

Running a teaching game of Squadron Strike tomorrow at noon eastern US time, and have an open seat!

If you've played X-Wing and wished maneuver decisions mattered more, boy is this the game for you!

Because it's 3D with momentum, you don't need to sprinkle terrain on the map to make it fun!