What’s happened so far
September has been a bit more productive than I had honestly expected. September is usually a bit of “recover from Gencon (if I went)” and “gearing up for Peak time at work”, as well as whatever else tends to hit the fan at the same time. And since things are getting back to normal in the shipping world, that means I’m having more to deal with at work. Nothing new per se, but a lot of that work is usually stuff that is scheduled for the spring, not for peak freight season.
Ah, c’est la vie.
What’s happening next?
With Gencon over, it’s back to the process of working on the “standard” Sunday process tasks of working through the below goals and trying to get things done. I’ve got some time set aside in the fall to devote to Starfire work. I’m hoping that time will work out better than it has so far. Having the better part of a week off in October, and then again in November is a decent amount of time off. Looking forward to getting a few Starfire days done!
2022 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 2021 that are coming back, but a some of them are going to be brand new ones as well. As before, some of them are one-and-done, while others are big projects. There’s a couple more tasks on it this year compared to last, but a bunch of them are more housekeeping tasks; easier one-and done things that can be pounded out sometime in the year.
So enough banter. On to the list!
1) Complete turn processing for all empires up to turn 175
Made some more progress on turn processing. I think 175 is not likely to happen, but I think 160 is still possible. I’ve got some time off in October, and then in November. So we’ll see!
2) Update/Archive all the Sketch Sunday Worldbuilding
No progress on this one yet either, but I suspect that now that Sketch Sundays are slowing down, this will start to pick up the pace.
3) Finish playtesting and balancing for Scenario Book 1 – The First Contact War
I’ve reached out to the people who have volunteered to be playtesters, but I haven’t gotten any responses. There also haven’t been any playtesting reports, which is honestly a shame. I’m going to have to look at alternate options.
4) Finish the writing work for Scenario Book 1 – The First Contact War
Not started yet.
5) Introduce and post completed artwork
The two Sintillan pictures will get posted one day, I promise!
6) Go do a second pass on the artwork for Scenario Book 1, incorporating new details and design concepts over the past year
I’ve followed up with the artist; they’re currently slogging through the tail end of their semester and have exams coming up, so updates are regretfully a bit delayed still. They do excellent work for a reasonable rate, so I can’t really complain about the speed after all 🙂 I don’t have a hard ETA yet, but I’m hoping to get some updated WiPs in the next month or two. We’ll see 🙂
7) 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. Need to reach out to some of my friends/contacts, see if they know anyone.
8) Rename systems/planets that do not fit the universe setting
Not started yet. A few of the systems/etc. have been identified, and renames have been worked out for a few of them.
9) Look at the Solar Starfire Freight Handling Rules
Not started yet.
10) Set up a redundant deWulf data backup
I’ve reached out to a few colleagues for some useful information for a NAS, which was very enlightening. I’ve got a better idea as to both price point and potential equipment options. It might have to wait a little bit longer before I bite the bullet. Maybe Black Friday or Boxing Day. We’ll see…
11) Update the deWulf Story Document
The currently available deWulf story document on the website is, to be honest, really old. It was originally done as just a backup log, but with it out and on the website it does have some amount of actual attention. So the plan is to split it into three parts and then give it some short synopsizes on the website to explain (and more importantly warn) readers what’s going on in each of them. Mind you that’s not warn them of anything really questionable…. it’s more like my early writing is kinda… rough.
Which is another reason why this is so far down the to-do list.
12) Review Sketch Sunday
Well, I’ve run out of sketches. I’m still going to keep sketching, but Sketch Sunday as an ongoing thing is probably going to be dropping by the wayside. I’ve got an updated post scheduled for later this month that talks a little bit more in depth about this.
13) Designing a Space Navy series
Fourth article is more or less complete, fifth article is being pulled together.
Dollarton Proxima Shipyards 