July 2020 Sitrep

So it’s halfway into August and I’m finally getting the July Sitrep out. Still, better than last month! Progress! And then we’ll see where we get in September as well. The situation, such as it is, is continuing to improve, albeit slowly. One new challenge that has come up is WordPress rolling out a new post editor. It looks like it will be more effective and powerful, but as always that also means having to get used to a brand new “better” user interface and figuring out where all the buttons have gone. Yay. One thing that seems to have been removed, inexplicably, is indenting. How something so basic was removed in what is ostensibly a word processor particularly boggles my mind.

What’s happened so far

Unfortunately my vacation week didn’t get as much Starfire done as I wanted to. It more or less became a recovery week to decompress from all of the fun-time that the day job has become over the last few months. Seems like every year I swear that summer won’t be as bad as last, and somehow the universe conspires to say “hold my beer”.

But! It was not entirely a wash. I got to see one of my artists get a little bit of work done on the next bit of concept art for the Ibizans. Hopefully they’ll get the second part of their art done sometime in August.

I also got to attend Gencon, after a sort. While the convention itself was cancelled, the majority of their panels were run virtually, which was awesome. A good chunk of why I go to Gencon are the panels, and being able to catch a lot of them digitally was awesome. Like every year, some were great, most were middling, and a few were… well let’s just say I was glad I didn’t have to pay for admission. Still, I got a few good gems out of it.

What’s happening next

And while I didn’t get everything done I planned, all things considered I’m happier with what I got done than I really ought to be. One additional thing that I got done that doesn’t really fit in with everything below is I scanned and prepped a LOT more images for my Sketch Sunday feature. I think I have something like 60 or so images scanned, and I can probably get half that again when I dig through stuff that’s NOT in my sketchbook.

1. Push the turn processing up to get everyone lined up and done 140

Done, actually. Next goal is to push a few empires up to turn 142, but that’s mainly to support the next bullet point…

2. Set up and run the 3rd Battle of Elysium to a conclusion

Pretty much all of the groundwork for 3rd Elysium has been completed!

The turns have all been processed up to where they need to be. The OOBs have been built and compiled, and I have also set up the firing plan for the initial drone bombardment (talk about overkill!) Unfortunately my hopes to get this battle run over my Gencon vacation were foiled when my combat partner had to self-isolate due to a potential COVID-19 infection risk (someone at a store near his work was infected). Fortunately he’s perfectly fine! Unfortunately, our planned game was scrubbed as a result. Still a tradeoff worth taking.

So what I’m planning on doing instead is running it by myself via Tabletop Simulator. I’ll probably stream it through Discord. Not sure if I want to record it and push it out onto Youtube as well, but it’s a tempting idea. At present I know it’s going to have to be a multi-day op, as there are at least four separate phases:

1. Initial run in-system, including flank reconnaissance to see if the strike force gets within launch range of Elysium
2. Drone staging at the launch point. This will take approximately 20 hours, so I expect it to involve multiple gunboat strikes, and a rather spirited defense.
3. The actual drone wave impact
4. Follow-up operations. This may involve pulling back to rearm for a second drone strike (surprise! bet you didn’t see that coming…)

This one’s gonna be a mess…

3. Do a full overhaul and update of my map (as seen on Fleet Management Mk2) so it’s all on one well-organized map WITH space to expand

I still haven’t installed my mapping software, but I think I’ll make that this weekend’s big Starfire task. That’s a lot of stuff to install and download, but it’ll be worth it to get all set back up and operational again. Might even do a little bit of a post or two on the various programs I use. I’ve built up a nice little library of software over the years.

4. Finish the writing work for Scenario Book 1 – The First Contact War

5. Go do a second pass on the artwork for Scenario Book 1, incorporating new details and design concepts over the past year

There was a little bit of progress here, which is always nice. I have Blender reinstalled, and I spent some more time poking away at it to get back into the habit. Slow going, but I’ll be taking a bit more of a tilt into it in the future. I want to build out some new 3d models to give an idea of what various ships look like when they’re next to one another, and also to play with various art ideas for deWulf capital ships so I can find something that looks good and I’m happy with.

6. Start fishing in my contacts to find someone who can do proofreading for Scenario Book

Need to really finish #4 first before I look at doing this one.