Titan Robotics PDF preview sent to Backers PLUS Rifts Sourcebook 2: The Mechanoids remastered
about 1 year ago – Thu, Mar 30, 2023 at 09:02:36 PM

Howdy Backers!

Let's just dive right in...

Server Meltdown!

The last few weeks at the office have been crazy with tons of behind-the-scenes challenges. A-super-long-story-much-shorter, the server running our emails, forum, and website was 90% down for the last two weeks. What was supposed to be an “upgrade” went very poorly on our server provider’s end. Wayne has spent the last three weeks applying fixes and communicating with them daily (which took him away from the Cyberworks Collection remasters, which I am completing). Last Thursday, after I updated yall about the release of the remastered Sourcebook One Revised, we found out that two weeks' worth of emails, weekly updates, and forum posts had all been gobbled up by the void! Including the forum post that we created for Titan Robotics feedback... of course.

Last Friday we took action which seems to have fixed things and restored most of the lost data. However, in the meantime, we didn’t receive a number of Kickstarter and BackerKit emails over the past 2+ weeks, and of the ones we did receive our email responses may not have gone through. Wayne spent Monday thru Wednesday triaging the issues and responding to everyone we’ve received messages from. If you are reading this now and haven’t had a response to a recent message, please message us again through BackerKit and we will get back to you as soon as we can. We appreciate your patience as we work through these obstacles, we are pedaling as fast as possible!

Titan Robotics Challenges

I wasn't initially going to share this, but after discussing it with Kevin I think it's important to let you in on a factor that delayed the final edit of Titan Robotics, and give you some insider information that few people would normally know about. Those of you who have the Titan Robotics RAW edition will notice vast changes in virtually all of the new robots and power armor in the book - this isn't because Matt's write-ups were bad, there is another reason.  An artist did over a dozen (nearly twenty) sketches for the robots and power armor designed by Matthew Clements, but the final versions were never turned in. Fortunately, we contracted Steven Cummings to do supplemental art for the book, and he and Kevin got so excited that Steven did a bunch of extra illustrations. While I was able to substitute Steven's wonderful illustrations into the book, I had to do a ton of rewrites and re-imagine many of Matt's write-ups to match the totally new and different depictions. So that was a challenge but it means something cool...

A Titanium Bonus!

I wrote a power armor or robot for every single illustration that Steven Cummings did for us, plus many others, and added tons of new material like campaign prompts, the Titan Courier teams, the Titan Dispatcher class, the Talos Program, Syntharoids, Gunny's Depots, characters like Diana Eve and Clay Steele, new information like the Bois Blanc Island facility, Argent Goodson's friendship with Colonel Larsen, Prometheus Arms weapons, the Chimera Weapon Mount System, a comprehensive list of munitions for use in the Minion War... a lot. And suddenly, I realized that what we Kickstarted as a 160 page book is now 192 pages! You loyal backers are getting the bonus 32 pages completely FREE, as the rewards were calculated for a 160 page book. When Titan Robotics goes to retail the price will definitely go up to match the new page count. So, apologies that all the crazy server stuff and war machine rewrites caused a small delay, but I hope an extra 20% boost of solid content will help you be content ;)

The PDFs are flowing...

With all of the bizarre server issues and delays, it's great that everything is still coming together quite nicely, with PDFs being released to you via DriveThruRPG. For all of y’all who already owned Rifts® Sourcebook One Revised or Rifts® Sourcebook 2: The Mechanoids on DriveThruRPG, your PDFs have been remastered for FREE thanks to the support of the Titan Robotics Kickstarter backers who made the Cyberworks Collection happen. I'm already cranking away on the Rifts® Sourcebook: Shemarrian Nation remaster, so keep your eyes peeled for that one very soon.

• Rifts® Sourcebook Titan Robotics preview: As I guessed in my last update, we sent this out to Backers last Friday. An updated version of this PDF, including feedback and corrections from you, has just been sent out. It also includes the Backer list, In Memoriam, and Character Tributes. Thanks to everyone who posted issues they saw to our forums or just noted them as comments here on KS - with our server issues that was great to have.
• Rifts® Sourcebook 2 - The Mechanoids™ remaster: I just finished this remaster and sent it out. Like the other titles, it includes an improved Table of Contents, PDF Bookmarks, and an Index. Since this book was never entered into a computer before - it was pasted up from hand-typed paper and printed art - we contracted an archival agency to help us scan the book's text and convert it into a usable format. They did an OK job but Alex Marciniszyn and I found some errors that crept in. We will try another company next time we are remastering a book that old. Anyhow, I think we found all of the text conversion errors but if you notice anything that needs correcting please post in the Palladium Forums and we will get it fixed. Overall I think this book looks really sharp and is a faithful recreation of the classic original.
• Rifts® Sourcebook One Revised remaster: This was sent out last Thursday. Unlike SB2 Mechanoids, this title was revised in 2007 and had great digital text files to work from. Thanks for all of the great feedback, I'm glad yall are enjoying the fresh new Table of Contents, PDF Bookmarks, Index, and text links.

Titan Robotics BackerKit Survey - DO IT NOW!

Backers, please, for the love of all that is holy, make sure you have done your BackerKit survey (about 6% of you haven't yet) - PLEASE go to https://titanrobotics.backerkit.com/ and enter your Kickstarter email to get started. You will be prompted with questions from that web page - that IS the survey. If you can’t remember whether you’ve done the survey, try again it won’t hurt anything. FYI, if you backed at a level with a physical product, you will be asked to enter payment information for BackerKit to have it on file for when we charge shipping (we are waiting until the product is about to ship to get you the most accurate shipping costs possible).

Upgrade Your Pledge - Now Automated

In another update regarding BackerKit, you asked and we listened, we have made it possible for you to upgrade your pledge manually, no need to message us. There was a slight delay in getting the option set up because BackerKit had a bug in that functionality, but they reported to us that the issue is resolved. It looks to be working properly now :)

PDF Delivery Troubleshooting

I'd like to urge all of you to make sure that you have received your files through DriveThruRPG; instructions for getting your PDFs were sent to your Kickstarter email.

If you haven't received your Titan Robotics preview PDF, the first step is to make sure you have done your BackerKit survey. If you aren’t sure you did it, DO IT AGAIN!

If you have done your BackerKit survey, and still don’t have your Titan Robotics preview, then please message us via BackerKit so that we can help you get your digital rewards through DriveThruRPG. This all has to be done manually, so please be patient.

If you didn’t get Sourcebook 1 remastered, first off make sure that you backed at a level that contains it as a reward; we’ve gotten multiple messages from fans confused on this point. If you are excited to get the Cyberworks Collection PDFs (Sourcebook 1 Revised, Sourcebook 2 The Mechanoids, and Shemarrian Nation - all remastered) at a great price, this is nearly your last opportunity to upgrade your pledge through BackerKit - so please do so now if you want this resource.

Picking an Email Address

Oh, and one last housekeeping note, please make sure that your Kickstarter email is one that you check — and better yet, the one linked to your DriveThruRPG account — we've had a couple of people use Apple ID's email obfuscating option when setting up their Kickstarter account via the iPhone app, and FYI if you use an option like that you will never receive our emails because it just enters a dummy email address that doesn't forward to your real email!

What's Next for Titan Robotics?

Even with the slight delay to PDF book releases, we remain on track to ship Rifts® Titan Robotics and the Cyberworks Collection to physical backers in June, and will be sending both books to the printer shortly. Updates on the rewards in progress:

• Rifts® Sourcebook: Shemarrian Nation remaster: The PDF is in process, and probably coming to you in the next few business days.
• The Savage Rifts Conversion Documents: These are in progress. The Cyberworks Collection bonus material is virtually all complete, and the Titan Robotics material is kicking off in earnest now that the book is final. Once all of that is done being converted (quite a bit of material), it will go into layout. 
• The Courier Team Introductory Adventure: Is being done by a great adventure writer and coming along very well, I really liked the the manuscript so next up is polish, quick stats, pregens, etc. 

I say it often, but it comes from real gratitude - we truly appreciate your support. I hope you enjoy reading Titan Robotics as much as Matt and I enjoyed writing it.

Cheers,

Sean Owen Roberson

Sourcebook 1 Remastered is out!
about 1 year ago – Thu, Mar 23, 2023 at 11:12:54 AM

Sourcebook 1 Remastered is OUT!

Woohoo! With all of the behind the scenes challenges, updating of processes, and constantly changing digital requirements, it feels good to get product finished and released to you via DriveThruRPG.  We haven't had many issues reported to us, so it seems the digital release went smoothly.

PDF Delivery troubleshooting

That said, before I talk about how cool the Sourcebook 1 remaster is and what it means for the future, I'd like to urge all of you to make sure that you have received the file and that it works!  Click around and have fun with it.

If you haven't received Sourcebook 1 remastered, the first step is to make sure you have done your BackerKit survey (about 10% of you haven't yet) - PLEASE go to https://titanrobotics.backerkit.com/ and enter your Kickstarter email to get started. 

If you have done your BackerKit survey, then please message us via BackerKit so that we can help you get your digital rewards through DriveThruRPG, or anything else you might need :)

Oh, and one last housekeeping note, please make sure that your Kickstarter email is one that you actually check. For instance, we've had a couple of people use Apple ID's email obfuscating option when setting up their Kickstarter account via the iPhone app, and FYI if you use an option like that you will never receive our emails because it just enters a dummy email address that doesn't forward to your real email!

The Importance of Sourcebook 1 Remastered

There are some of the new features to keep an eye out for in Sourcebook 1 Remastered, which is cool in and of itself. However, the big deal for long time fans will be the updated standard it represents for Palladium Books. It might seem simple from the outside, but making this happen has required some big changes in Palladium's production pipeline and software suite. It's been challenging to work out a lot of the kinks, but these improved workflow and layout techniques are already paying off. I'm kind of a geek when it comes to this stuff, so I want to publicly thank Kevin, Wayne, and Alex for being so very flexible throughout this transition and their willingness to adopt new software and methods. They've all embraced the possibilities and helped push the standard forward with their own great ideas!

So here are some things you will notice with Palladium products going forward, whether they are new releases or remastered versions of older products.

• Table of Contents: These will generally be more detailed and accurate.
• Index: You have spoken and we are listening! Instead of a Quick Find in the ToC, we are going for full-fledged Indexes at the end of our books (assuming yall like the new Indexes). As we do Remasters, we will try to get you the best of both worlds by including helpful Quick Find items in the Index. 
• PDF Bookmarks: We are using a new process to build these, which should have satisfyingly detailed results.

We are also taking steps at multiple levels to make sure less misspellings slip into printed products, and to fix as many as we can when we do remastered editions. 

The entire Palladium family is working hard to up our game and get you the best products possible. If you have any feedback please let us know through the helpdesk on our website, we want to know what you think!

What's Next?

Since the release of Sourcebook 1 Remastered seems to have gone without a hitch, we will be releasing Rifts® Sourcebook Titan Robotics in the next few business days (probably Friday or Monday), with the other Remastered PDFs soon to follow. So you will be hearing from me again very soon when that goes out. 

Thank You!

Even with the slight delay to PDF book releases (we are a few weeks behind where I wanted to be right now, but I think the delays are worth the quality improvements), we remain on track to be shipping physical product in June. I know I say it all the time, but we truly appreciate your support. I hope you can feel our gratitude reflected in the hard work and various updates we are making to our processes to ensure you are getting the best products possible.

Cheers,

Sean Owen Roberson

PS: Please see today's Palladium Books Weekly Update (it should be posted soon) for a cool opportunity to participate in an auction by the prestigious Heritage Auctions which includes some of the earliest Dungeons & Dragons original art, which is all very rare, done by Kevin Siembieda himself waaay back in the day when he was an RPG industry artist before he started his writing career. I know a lot of you are big fans so I wanted to mention this unique opportunity to own a piece of history.

BackerKit is live, and so is the pre-order store!
about 1 year ago – Wed, Feb 22, 2023 at 03:54:35 PM

Howdy Rifters,

All backers should have received or should be receiving their BackerKit surveys now or very shortly. AND, for the fans who missed the Kickstarter and want to get in on the fun, you can use the BackerKit page to preorder Titan Robotics and other products including Rifts® and Mechanoids® swag.

BackerKit is LIVE!

Thanks for your patience. We have been working hard to get things set up properly, and I didn't want to send out this update until we knew the surveys were functioning correctly. Our test surveys appear to have performed flawlessly so here I am with fingers crossed!

Honestly, I shouldn't have worried. Wayne has put a ton of effort into our pledge manager and the wonderful folks at BackerKit have been nothing but pleasant and super helpful to work with. If you hit any snags please let us know through a direct message and we will make good things happen.

Progress Report

Titan Robotics Kickstarter rewards are coming along nicely and digital rewards will begin flowing soon. It's been a ton of extra effort to get it set up the way it is, but I am very excited about the BackerKit pledge and preorder manager.

But Sean, why is that so exciting? Well, besides the fact that this is an important part of smoothly rolling out the rewards to you, it’s also really neat on another level –- shipping.

But Sean, shipping is annoying and expensive, not cool and fun. Aha! That’s where we are making some progress. Many of you asked us to figure out a way to reduce shipping prices, and we listened! Shipping has vastly changed over the past few years, so we’ve been hard at work finding the best solutions possible in this brave new world of post-pandemic logistics.

Shipping

The result? Steeply discounted shipping rates for customers outside the USA, through the magic of bulk shipping negotiated through our partners at Spiral Galaxy Games (for the UK and EU)and Quartermaster Logistics (for the rest of the world). We anticipate the shipping rates for items fulfilled through the Titan Robotics campaign to come in well below the standard commercial shipping rates you would normally incur ordering directly via Palladium’s online store, especially from outside the USA. USA backers should also see savings, though smaller. 

In addition to the Titan Robotics items, many of Palladium’s other titles are available through the BackerKit pledge and preorder manager and you can get those mailed to you at this steep discount.

You will be able to update your shipping address and pay shipping-related fees through the BackerKit pledge manager, which will be open until the printed books are ready to mail out (estimated June 2023). We won't be charging shipping until then to make sure you get the most accurate prices possible.

For this crowdfunder, we have added the Rifts line of books and a selection of other core titles to BackerKit. We plan on expanding what other titles are available through BackerKit in future crowdfunding campaigns but that might be quite a few months down the road, so please take advantage of this unique opportunity while you can. For those who didn’t back the Kickstarter, you can order products a la carte through BackerKit and get in on the low overseas shipping too; you don’t even have to buy Titan Robotics. Note that none of the items will ship until the final product does, so if you want something now, please order through the Palladium Books webstore.

Upgrading Your Pledge

We've already had multiple people reach out to ask about upgrading their pledge level. If you were a backer on the Kickstarter please message us directly and we will help you out on a case-by-case basis.

What is Next? 

Books! Files! Cool rules for machines and androids! In the next few weeks we will be releasing files for your review via PDF fulfillment on DriveThruRPG. These initial digital-only files won't be final, but they will be close with near-final layout, art, etc. that have gone through multiple proofreading and editing passes. Inevitably, there are always things we can do better, so we want to give you a chance to take a look at the materials for a couple of weeks and give us feedback prior to them going to print. I've done this with all of the books I wrote for Savage Rifts®, and it was a great way to get your input and make sure we sent the best product possible to print. We will set up a forum online to coordinate that, so stay tuned for details coming very soon. In the meantime, please verify/update your shipping and personal info through your BackerKit survey, or check out the preorder store. Thanks!

Cheers,

Sean Owen Roberson

Art Preview, Card Samples, and more!
over 1 year ago – Sun, Jan 22, 2023 at 04:48:37 PM

Everything is progressing!

Howdy Rifters, 

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. Here at Palladium we just finished up the Christmas Surprise Package offer and wow I am still blown away by how many of you order those. Kevin enjoys choosing the goodies, I enjoy signing them, and we hope you love them! 

They do take time, though, so it is nice to move into a more "normal" work schedule where entire mornings aren't spent signing books and coordinating orders.

We just received some updated poker card samples, as well as some of the original physical art by Steven Cummings, so I thought it would be nice to give yall a sneak peak. 

Poker Card Samples

As I mentioned in the video, the new Cyberworks Poker Deck looks really great. I'm excited to share that, due to your support of this crowdfunding campaign, we can order a large-scale print run of the cards. This is huge because now it becomes feasible for us to print through premier poker card providers, which require larger orders to be economical. What does that mean? Well, in this case we still need to get a print proof, but it looks like we will be able to print on higher quality card stock using higher quality printers at virtually the same price as the boutique service we were using before. This was only possible through the magic of Kickstarter and all of you!

Art Preview

Please enjoy the art depicted in the video. We can show a ton of preview images, but nothing compares to seeing the original art at full size. A big part of my work on Titan Robotics has been to integrate the details of the awesome art into the writeups of the new power armor suits and robot vehicles, and it has been a blast to do — the art is stellar and really sparks my imagination. I can't wait for you to read the full results soon.

Now that I've shared the cool art stuff, let's move on to more nuts and bolts updates.

Shipping

The global logistics issues and various changes to EU and UK tax and import laws have really changed the global shipping landscape over the last two years. Fortunately, we are working with Quartermaster Logistics for USA and global fulfillment. In addition, they put us in touch with Spiral Galaxy, who are helping us get the (constantly evolving) details correct for EU and UK fulfillment so we can get your rewards to you as quickly and efficiently as possibly. Thanks again for everyone's patience on this front, we are doing our best to keep shipping costs down and I think you will be pleased with the final results.

BackerKit

The wonderful folks at BackerKit are helping us get the pledge manager set up, and I can only say they have been wonderful to work with. We are finalizing your backer surveys, making sure we can get shipping set up properly within their pledge manager, and listing tons of non-Titan Robotics products as add-ons. 

Why list other books as add-ons? Well, we hope that this is a way for our fans to get as much product shipped at once to take advantage of the bulk shipping rates we have arranged — I think this is an especially great opportunity for fans in Canada, the UK, EU, Australia, and other overseas locations where shipping rates from the US are normally quite high.

We hope to have the BackerKit pledge manager ready for business in the coming week or so.

But Wait, there's MORE!

Yall unlocked quite a few Milestones during the course of the campaign, and those extra goodies are in progress. The Savage Rifts conversion of the Titan Robotics and Cyberworks Collection material is rocketing along, as is the template for the Titan Courier Team bonus adventure and pregenerated characters.

As for the books themselves, we are almost finished getting all of the text and art files remastered so Wayne and I can get the Cyberworks Collection into (re)layout. This is a ton of work, but I think it will be well worth it.

In summary, every aspect of the Titan Robotics campaign is progressing quite well. I am very confident that we are on track with our fulfillment timeline as presented on the main campaign page and in previous updates.

Cheers,

Sean Owen Roberson

PS: Many of you have reached Kevin and I regarding the current state of the OGL. Please check out the most recent Weekly Update for what our thoughts are on the matter, written by me. In fact, this is the first Weekly Update that I've written a significant portion of — there will be many more in the future :)

A Quick Update Regarding Rifts for Savage Worlds
over 1 year ago – Sat, Jan 07, 2023 at 01:42:17 AM

Join in the fun as we count down to the end!

A quick note. We are closing in on the final hour of the crowdfunding campaign from Pinnacle Entertainment which includes a massive new pawn set (deluxe die-cut paper minis), the first-ever Rifts campaign boxed set Terror on the Dark Frontier (New West), The Land of a Thousand Islands worldbook (South America), and other cool items like a new beautiful map of the South American continent in all its glory. 

It's been a crazy holiday season and new year, we hope you enjoy the show with Sean Owen Roberson and the rest of the team behind these new goodies on the Palladium YouTube channel, starting in just a few minutes (or see it under the live events tab later).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4fbZfzpV7o