What’s happened so far
April’s been… a month, I suppose. Some progress in a few places, some pretty bad backsliding in others. Work decided to reassert itself with some force, and that meant that Starfire progress suffered as a result. I didn’t backslide as bad as I could have (sleeping patterns are still fairly solid, which is good). There’s been a bit of cleanup on my end, squaring away some notes, as well as re-engaging with the dev work that’s happening as part of the next Starfire rules update.
Some changes I’ve disagreed with initially, but I’ve actually come to see how they’re actually beneficial. I’m a bit of a jerk sometimes when I’m asking people to explain why certain changes offer “meaningful choice”, but at the end of the day I think it’s all coming out for the better. And I won’t lie, there’s a been a few decisions where I disagreed on an almost knee-jerk level, but on second glance, they’re actually better choices overall. End of the day we’re all still talking and joking, so I think we’re doing alright.
What’s happening next?
The press to finish off 3rd Elysium continues. It’s still about half done, though a few more turns were completed over April. It’s looking like it will get done this month (finally), with the story to follow. The battle has definitely led to a few new story options and paths alright, which makes for no small amount of fun to write (honestly, it’s writing the aftermath and politicking that’s the most fun when it comes to these events).
While I haven’t been able to really finish writing the battle, I have started writing a bit of the follow up after it. I’ve got a pretty good idea of how the engagement is going to end, and so I know what else I can write and follow up on as a result. Nothing too far ahead since there’s going to be survivors, and what they do will of course impact and influence the story, but the immediate aftermath IE the few days after the strike are fair game.
2021 Goals
These goals are approximately in order of priority and in order of precedence (IE have to do #1 before you can do #2). There’s some goals from 2020 that are coming back, but a lot of them are going to be brand new ones as well. It’s also a longer list as well, but some of those entries are one-and-done tasks that shouldn’t be as hard as others to complete.
1) Finish 3rd Elysium
Tactical battle remains about half done. Some of the after-battle writing has been started, and some more snippets and after effects are also coming together as well.
2) Complete turn processing for all empires up to turn 160
No progress as yet (due to 3rd Elysium still not finished).
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
As mentioned in previous posts, some good progress on this one. The new map has been completed, printed, and posted on my corkboard. What remains is updating all of the various fleet ID tags (as some of the tags have fallen off, and quite a few are in various stages of doing the same. I’m looking at a few different ways to deal with this, but I haven’t come up with a good way to make more durable flags.
4) Write up a new Mk2 commissioning contract
No further progress on this one yet.
5) Update my internal deWulf Story Document
No new progress here.
6) Finish playtesting and balancing for Scenario Book 1 – The First Contact War
No progress here.
7) Finish the writing work for Scenario Book 1 – The First Contact War
No progress here.
8) Introduce and post completed artwork
I’ve gone through the rest of my contracts and found a bit more art that Blu3Dawn14 did for me; I’ve got it saved, but it needs a little work before it can get posted up. I think that makes two different sets of images of her work to post. A bit more than I had initially thought, but I’d rather make sure that I didn’t miss anything!
9) Go do a second pass on the artwork for Scenario Book 1, incorporating new details and design concepts over the past year
Nothing new here, but that’s to be expected as there’s artwork and other things still outstanding.
10) Start fishing in my contacts to find someone who can do proofreading for Scenario Book
This task is sitting low on the to-do list for fairly obvious reasons. Need to be done writing and my own edit pass before the work can get handed off to an editor.
Dollarton Proxima Shipyards 