Two Star Hero/Terran Empire questions

[Jhaierr]

1) Does the HD character pack for Star Hero include all of the starships and vehicles given in the text, or only the characters?

2) Do you think that the Terran Empire will be available in PDF format anytime soon? :)

[Nolgroth]

1) Yes. In fact, I think the HD Pack is teh Awesome because not only does it include all the packages, vehicles, starships, and NPCs, it also had packages for individual ship systems like propulsion, weapons, etc so you can easily make your own. One of the coolest HD packs out there.

2) Have no idea. I second the question.

[Jhaierr]

1) Yes. In fact, I think the HD Pack is teh Awesome because not only does it include all the packages, vehicles, starships, and NPCs, it also had packages for individual ship systems like propulsion, weapons, etc so you can easily make your own. One of the coolest HD packs out there.

Thank you!!

[Darren Watts]

Terran is definitely on our list of "things to make PDFs of," but "soon" probably isn't a good description to use for it. dw

[Steve Long]

As a follow-up to what Darren said, keep in mind that we're straddling Art Directors here. Due to various computer-related reasons, we don't necessarily have ready access to all of the art from some of our earlier books due to Andy's untimely death. We have to have the art to make a viable PDF; if we don't have it (or more accurately, it's a lot of trouble to get), turning that book into a PDF falls even lower down the list of things to do.

[Lord Liaden]

Wow, that particular complication from Andy's untimely passing never occurred to me. :( It's particularly unfortunate in that TE includes some of the best illustrations -- in several cases, the only illustrations to date -- of the Hero Universe's alien races. They'd probably have come in handy for Champions Beyond.

[Jhaierr]

Thanks, guys! I had assumed that the PDF creation was just a "Save As..." (plus a few other adjustments) away. Didn't know it was pretty complex! :) And that's no problem.

[Steve Long]

Keep in mind I'm not saying we've lost everything from any given book, or what have you. In this particular case, AFAIK we have all the art from TE -- it certainly seems to be in my files. But (and this explanation may seem simplistic because I'm not a layout guy and don't understand all this stuff), you can't just export any given InDesign file and instantly get a publishable PDF. For one thing, the art in an InDesign file isn't necessarily at full resolution, it's there as a placeholder. Before we finalize a book and send it off to print, then the final full-rez art is linked in and it's converted into a PDF.

But even then we don't necessarily have a PDF we're willing to sell. Ideally we then have to go back and put in a table of contents that's full of links so you can jump around in the book, and other features that are not included in a PDF sent to a printer. And as time goes on I expect that you, the consumer, are going to start expecting more and more and more features in PDFs, meaning it will take more and more and more of our time and ingenuity. (I've been pondering this a good bit recently, actually.)

In short -- if it were as easy as "Save As" we'd've done it a loooong time ago. ;)

[Jhaierr]

Thanks, Steve! :D