[MidnightLich]

Welcome to today's First Edition Friday Question, where you get a chance to answer questions that will help shape the future of First Edition. Today is a question about logistics, but if you'd like to catch up on previous entries, here's a list of all of my previous Friday Questions:

25 OCT 2019: What do you want to see in a Halloween set?
18 OCT 2019: What is your favorite expansion?
11 OCT 2019: Which TNG main character needs a new card?
4 OCT 2019: Which Star Trek story needs more cards?
27 SEP 2019: How many points should [SPOILER] be worth?
20 SEP 2019: Which rules always confuse you?
13 SEP 2019: What do you think of [SPOILER]?
6 SEP 2019: Which card needs an alternate image (AI)?
30 AUG 2019: Which characteristic needs love?

I assume you clicked on the topic and most of you thought, "what the heck is the 'full page' policy"? Well, as I said above, it has to do with logistics. Our policy is to, as much as we can, produce expansions that use full pages. In most cases, this is why we make expansions in multiples of nine (9) - since nine cards fit on a page, that will allow you to print even pages.

What is your opinion on the "full page" policy?

We've only bent this policy a few times in our history, and most of those were in the earliest days of making new 1E cards. Even when we've made very small expansions, like Warp Pack: Emissary, we've made it so the whole page is relevant (if not actual cards). Recently this policy has come up internally in the context of determining how strictly we need to stick to it. Is this a rule that can't be broken without the highest scrutiny? Or is it a policy that has more ability to be bent?

We can't really answer that questions without knowing what you, as the end users of the products, think about it. So that's why today we're asking your opinion on the "full page" policy? Do you care about wasted paper when printing? Or is it no longer relevant more than a decade into making printable cards?

In the mean time, this weekend is First Weekend, First Edition. If you play 1E, build a 1E deck, or just get together and talk about 1E, tell us about it! Snap a pic or two, post them on our site, on Twitter, or on Facebook and use the hashtag #showusyourspacelines. If you do, you might just win a brand new full-art, borderless promo foil!

-crp

[JeBuS]

I've never once felt the urge to print a single copy of every card from a virtual set, so this policy is useless to me. I know there are at least a few folks who get new sets printed up in full (for whatever odd reason), so they probably appreciate it. But the vast majority of virtual cards are printed in decks, not sets.

To me, making every card a useful card is more important than making every set have 9*n cards.

[Professor Scott]

Well when I print cards, it is not uncommon for me to waste an entire page to print just one card, so their being a "policy" that CC is held to doesn't matter to me. I say there is no need for it, in my opinion.

[AllenGould]

Am I the only person who still prints full sets and adds them to the binders?

[Armus]

Am I the only person who still prints full sets and adds them to the binders?

Can't speak for anyone else but I've personally never done that with a virtual set.

[LORE]

In practice, I do not think an expansion needs to be X number of cards divisible by 9 as I do not really care as a player. When I print cards, it is often from the deck builder directly and usually comes out to be some goofy number anyways (e.g. 4 one time and then 11 the next.)

Optically though, I think it looks cleaner and more complete when we release expansions that are 9, 18, 27, 36, or 45 cards. If we need help getting there, might I suggest a "bullpen" of sorts? Cards that are fairly plain vanilla (e.g. a new Mission Specialist, universal ship, etc.) that can hang out in Utopia Planetia until we have a spot to fill in an upcoming expansion? These are cards that should require minimal if any testing since they are far from game breaking, but they would add some nice off-theme benefits for folks not interested in the given expansions' core mechanic. That's my thought. Thanks for reading.

[Mogor]

In practice, I do not think an expansion needs to be X number of cards divisible by 9 as I do not really care as a player. When I print cards, it is often from the deck builder directly and usually comes out to be some goofy number anyways (e.g. 4 one time and then 11 the next.)

Optically though, I think it looks cleaner and more complete when we release expansions that are 9, 18, 27, 36, or 45 cards. If we need help getting there, might I suggest a "bullpen" of sorts? Cards that are fairly plain vanilla (e.g. a new Mission Specialist, universal ship, etc.) that can hang out in Utopia Planetia until we have a spot to fill in an upcoming expansion? These are cards that should require minimal if any testing since they are far from game breaking, but they would add some nice off-theme benefits for folks not interested in the given expansions' core mechanic. That's my thought. Thanks for reading.

I like this idea and now my two cents.

Honestly I have no issue going away from the 9 card rule. If you feel tightly enough on it, I would see if we could change the printing of a set option into toggling how many quantity of each card you want, and allow the player/printer to determine if they do the 9x rule or not

[Slayer07]

Meh.

I print the cards I want, regardless of rather it's eight or twenty two. So sometimes there is odd pages.

So no big to me one way or another.

[Tim]

Cards should always come in products of 18 print sheets. It doesn't really matter, but just works.

[AllenGould]

Cards should always come in products of 18 print sheets. It doesn't really matter, but just works.

As a follow up question: does anyone (besides me, apparently) even print those sheets off? Do we even *need* a "set PDF"?

[Orbin]

Cards should always come in products of 18 print sheets. It doesn't really matter, but just works.

As a follow up question: does anyone (besides me, apparently) even print those sheets off? Do we even *need* a "set PDF"?

I don't print them, but I do download them up on release and enjoy scrolling through the set all at once instead of card by card, so I would prefer we keep the set files.

- James M

[Klauser]

So that's why today we're asking your opinion on the "full page" policy? Do you care about wasted paper when printing? Or is it no longer relevant more than a decade into making printable cards?

"Full Page" is not an issue for me.

As a follow up question: does anyone (besides me, apparently) even print those sheets off? Do we even *need* a "set PDF"?

Heavens yes - I want the set PDF!!!!

Assuming TCC did away with that, all we would have is the lower-res "preview" of the full card in each expansion list. Most of their cards are gorgeous, and I would hate to settle on a lower-res preview version of the card.

[Armus]

I'll quote myself from the staff board:

I'm fine with that as a general rule, but what happens when you have, say, 38 really good cards that will all work well together and be good for the game? Do you arbitrarily cut 2 cards knowing that the set as a whole will be worse off? Do you add another 7 random cards just for filler? Or do you accept that in that instance, 38 is the optimal number of cards for that set and roll with it even if it leaves some white space?

I know what I would do...

9x is a good GUIDELINE, but it's just that: a guideline. There needs to be some decisionmaking as part of the equation and I don't think we should unnecessarily tie people's hands.

[Tim]

Cards should always come in products of 18 print sheets. It doesn't really matter, but just works.

As a follow up question: does anyone (besides me, apparently) even print those sheets off? Do we even *need* a "set PDF"?

I used to ... I guess 7 years ago (I printed off all the sets up to TNG). That's a long time ago.

Set PDF sheets make sense to me aesthetically but yeah, there's no practical benefit to me.

[BCSWowbagger]

Am I the only person who still prints full sets and adds them to the binders?

I still do. Usually, though, the CC gets a new set out before I get the last set in.

I think I'm almost caught up through Live Long and Prosper right now.