Holy moly, it's been quite a while, huh?

Here are some questions you might be wondering:

Many things! It's been an extremely busy few months for yours truly: too many projects, myriad gigs and contracts, a spot of summer teaching, traveling for conventions, traveling to see family, and more.

As for my lack of updates, I am sorry about that. I am afflicted with a particular neuroticism, one that whispers in my ear, always saying "You should just wait until it's done! Why bother updating until you have something real to say? Just finish the damn thing and update them all then!"—and I admit I am often too confident in my own abilities, meaning I listen to that voice, feeling that surely this time the finish line is just around the corner. Obviously, as many of you have reminded me, I owe you more updates. I am sorry again about the silence.

It's also just been a very hard summer in my own personal life. The season opened with a breakup, then a dear friend moving away, then the sudden death of another. All those make it difficult to stay productive. 

But still, I should have updated you all sooner. I am very sorry, and you all have my gratitude for your continual support. Thank you! 

It's close to done! Matt K., my sterling editor, is chewing through line & copy edits, I am polishing off the last of the revisions to the back half (with excellent assistance from the highly knowledgeable Archon), the gorgeous planet illustrations from Loch are all complete, and layout is in progress. While I'm hesitant to make hard promises, I expect—hope—you'll have the PDFs in your digital hands within the next few weeks. Thank you all again for your patience. 

To whet your appetite, here are a couple of sample spreads, the 1d100 table of Market Events. You roll these events when you pull into a new starport (or conduct market research to learn the event ahead of time), which primarily affect the sale price of various categories of freight but also sometimes other variables. Naturally, upscale S- and A-Class Ports are more likely to get the fun rich-people-party events, and X-Class ports more likely to get the spooky ominous derelict events. Take a gander:

The result is that in addition to ports' baseline traits, new things happen each time you dock. Market Events are one of the primary engines of cyclical sandbox play, pushing your ship and crew in new directions as you chase wealth and success across the Setebos System (or others, if you're feelin' adventurous). "Okay, our research came back: Helicanus Base is in the middle of a huge fad, so with their baseline scarcity factored in, their Consumer Goods are up to plus eight! That means with even like an average roll, these containers of furniture we picked up on Fluellen can sell for like, 900kcr a pop!"

Most likely, once the project is done! Possible I'll release another update with more previews before then—especially if there are any further unforeseen delays—but my hope this time is satisfy the little laziness-ambition demon in my ear and, as I said, just finish the damn thing.

If you want to make sure that I, Sam, am still alive, you can follow me on Bluesky, listen to Dead Letters, or check out my blog.

Thank you again for your patience and support. Talk to you all soon!