July 2019 Sitrep

And back on schedule.

July’s been a bit of a busy month by pretty much every definition you could choose to set, sadly a lot of that has been outside of Starfire and Dollarton-Proxima. That’s the way things go sometimes. But it hasn’t been a total drought either.

Earlier this week I posted my Mk2 Plotting table, which is both an impressive leap over the Mk1 and an actually usable tool. This wasn’t exactly the project I set out to be, but it’s rather nicely morphed into what it is, and the Mk2 includes a few additional bits that make it a more broadly useful tool (the turn tracking checklist is the biggest single improvement).

And on the subject of turns, at the beginning of July I was able to actually sit down and process out a bunch of turns for one of the other polities that is in-universe, and got them totally caught up. Mind you that was a bit easy since they’re fairly insular AND rather small, but it’s still a positive step in the right direction. I’m aiming to complete the push in August and have everything up and done. There’s a few more races that need some SERIOUS grind, but I’ve also got a few stat holidays and I’m going to see about setting one of them aside to accommodate.

For art, I’ve finished and completed one of my current art contracts, which is excellent. I now have a proper watermark image, as well as an updated “product setting” logo, and an updated image for the front splash of this website. I’ll be making use of the latter one this weekend, though I’d be surprised if anyone really noticed the changes. On the other hand, I’ve also been pointed at a few more artists. One or two have an art style that I think works and is complimentary/not too jarringly different, so I’m looking at pursuing that later into August. With a bit of luck one of them will work out and I’ll have some additional species art for the Krak, the Ibizans, and the Elysians.

What has taken a hit is playtesting. I’ve not set up any new sessions yet, but that’s also making its way onto the August to-do list. I’ll put a bit more time into setting up some additional scenario modifications to help speed it along. I’ve also done a bit of chatting and I might have an RPG group to inflict some of the more personal writing that I’ve done, but that’s for things that are a little further down the road.

I’m also hoping to get back to writing properly this month, and finish the final content passes for Scenario Book 1; at that point I’m going to start looking for a proofreader or two to go through and make sure what I’ve written actually makes some kind of sense. Once THAT’s done, then I can seriously lean into doing a second pass on the internal art; at that point, we’re looking at the final sprint to the finish line.