Wing Commander RPG
- Thread starter Wolfman
- Start date
Whistler
Vice Admiral
That's a most definite affirmative! Would be awesome to have an official spin on her stats instead of guessing them myself.
I toyed with the idea of submitting it to RSI but I can't take credit for a ship I didn't design, despite my stewardship. All I have is the image he made off the 3d source model some over 15 years or so ago. Lu was a whiz on Rhino and other engines.
That being said, if they like her design, I (and I'm sure Hellbringer himself wouldn't mind) would be happy to submit it as a possible hull design. Her guts would need a remodel anyway to comply with Star Citizen technology.
But back on topic...if you need to standardize her guns a bit, I only ask they be kept their particular type...i.e. Tachyon vs Laser vs AMG. Strengths can be altered if need be, she was a product of the 90s and fanfiction. Again, thank you for your time invested in this.
capi3101
Admiral
Good Monday, Wingnuts and Citizens! Time for this week's WCRPG Update.
Week three of the proofreading was long but fairly productive. The week began in Chapter 10.2.6 (which, as I mentioned, was where I was at when the time came to put out the last update). I didn't get a lot of time to work on it on Monday owing to some other events that day, and so work on that Chapter went on into Tuesday. I decided once 10.2.6 was complete to knock out the smaller sections of Chapter 10, starting with the introductory Chapter. That turned out to be not a big time saver at all; I had originally written those chapters for an RPG I wrote ten years ago and as I was proofreading I decided they were in serious need of an update. So update I did, followed by an immediate proofread. I knocked out 10.0, 10.1, 10.3 and 10.4 this week this way, and I got a good start in on Chapter 10.5 on Friday. Owing to some events going on in RL, I was unable to continue work into the weekend.
I can finally report some progress this week on my attempts to increase the amount of time I have to work on proofreading. Monday I discovered the lab where I had been working was closed to the public, and so I made a fresh attempt at getting the Firefox browser to do the work (with an extension called Fox Vox) over on the public terminals. I believe it might've worked had the extension not been dependent upon Visual Basic scripts (which, naturally, Systems had locked out). I then examined some new Mac terminals that Systems had installed in the public terminals; here I hit paydirt and found Chrome installed. So I worked with those terminals for a few days, until I went up to the current periodicals room (just one floor directly above my office; the public terminals are two floors up) and discovered their PC terminals also all had Chrome installed. Long and the short of it is that I no longer have to spend five minutes traipsing from one end of the building to another to find a terminal on which I can use Chrome Speak. Of course, the holy grail (not having to leave my desk at all) still eludes me, but I think I'm close to a final answer at this point. Once again, I'll keep y'all updated.
This last week I also helped GenVagabond/Whistler bring the Agamemnon-class carrier into Chapter 7.4 as a way of saying thanks for the help he gave me in selecting cover images for each chapter. I'm pretty impressed with the final stats if I do say so myself, and of course I'm absolutely thrilled to have a second fan-built craft in the game (got me considering if I want to re-open submissions for the non-canon sections of the game). Some attribution work took place in Chapter 7.4 as well and three sections of the game were successfully converted to MS Word format (on Monday - I had to do something useful with the extra time I had).
The plan for proofreading remains the same: finish Chapter ten, then go to Eleven, then to Two and then go on from there. I'm confident of getting the rest of the smaller parts of Chapter Ten finished up this week before heading into Chapter 10.2.7, which probably will take a week or two to complete by itself.
Proofeading of the final draft is 13.64% complete (15/110 pages complete) as of this morning.
Week three of the proofreading was long but fairly productive. The week began in Chapter 10.2.6 (which, as I mentioned, was where I was at when the time came to put out the last update). I didn't get a lot of time to work on it on Monday owing to some other events that day, and so work on that Chapter went on into Tuesday. I decided once 10.2.6 was complete to knock out the smaller sections of Chapter 10, starting with the introductory Chapter. That turned out to be not a big time saver at all; I had originally written those chapters for an RPG I wrote ten years ago and as I was proofreading I decided they were in serious need of an update. So update I did, followed by an immediate proofread. I knocked out 10.0, 10.1, 10.3 and 10.4 this week this way, and I got a good start in on Chapter 10.5 on Friday. Owing to some events going on in RL, I was unable to continue work into the weekend.
I can finally report some progress this week on my attempts to increase the amount of time I have to work on proofreading. Monday I discovered the lab where I had been working was closed to the public, and so I made a fresh attempt at getting the Firefox browser to do the work (with an extension called Fox Vox) over on the public terminals. I believe it might've worked had the extension not been dependent upon Visual Basic scripts (which, naturally, Systems had locked out). I then examined some new Mac terminals that Systems had installed in the public terminals; here I hit paydirt and found Chrome installed. So I worked with those terminals for a few days, until I went up to the current periodicals room (just one floor directly above my office; the public terminals are two floors up) and discovered their PC terminals also all had Chrome installed. Long and the short of it is that I no longer have to spend five minutes traipsing from one end of the building to another to find a terminal on which I can use Chrome Speak. Of course, the holy grail (not having to leave my desk at all) still eludes me, but I think I'm close to a final answer at this point. Once again, I'll keep y'all updated.
This last week I also helped GenVagabond/Whistler bring the Agamemnon-class carrier into Chapter 7.4 as a way of saying thanks for the help he gave me in selecting cover images for each chapter. I'm pretty impressed with the final stats if I do say so myself, and of course I'm absolutely thrilled to have a second fan-built craft in the game (got me considering if I want to re-open submissions for the non-canon sections of the game). Some attribution work took place in Chapter 7.4 as well and three sections of the game were successfully converted to MS Word format (on Monday - I had to do something useful with the extra time I had).
The plan for proofreading remains the same: finish Chapter ten, then go to Eleven, then to Two and then go on from there. I'm confident of getting the rest of the smaller parts of Chapter Ten finished up this week before heading into Chapter 10.2.7, which probably will take a week or two to complete by itself.
Proofeading of the final draft is 13.64% complete (15/110 pages complete) as of this morning.
capi3101
Admiral
Good Monday, Wingnuts and Citizens! Time for this week's WCRPG Update. I'll start with a quick shout out to my oldest son, who turned four on Friday. Happy birthday, kiddo.
Week four was another long but productive week. Early on, I thought I had found the holy grail of solutions to my time management woes; for Christmas, I received a new Android mini-tablet and I had installed a text reader app on it that could handle websites. Monday I decided to try it out on the wiki; lo and behold it worked on the page I was reading (Chapter 10.5). Alas, my joy was not to last for very long - I soon discovered that it could only handle short pages and it didn't work with tables or bulleted lists, and it was occasionally a pain to work with. Nevertheless, I did use it all week, and so I was able to do proofreading work without having to leave my workstation. I picked up an extra twenty minutes or so per day on average, and trust me it makes a difference. It's also bought me time to make a renewed effort to get Chrome installed on my workstation, so that when the time comes I can switch over for the longer, more complex chapters.
So this week I was able to finish up a large number of the relatively short sections of the game, continuing as closely as I could to my original plan. I started in on Chapter 10.6 after finishing up 10.5 on Monday, and I was able to move into Chapter Eleven on Tuesday, finishing up 11.0, 11.1.1 and 11.1.2. All of Chapter Eleven except for 11.1 and 11.1.3 was finished up by Thursday afternoon, and on Friday I moved into Chapter Three (since none of the sections of Chapter Two were short enough to work with), finishing up the Attribute Skill sections (3.1 through 3.6). In some free time I had on Saturday, I moved back to Chapter Eleven, finishing up 11.1.3 in Chrome and beginning work on 11.1. In total, eighteen chapters were proofread this last week alone, more than doubling what had been done up to that point. That's not as impressive of a feat as it sounds given the shortness of the Chapters involved, but it is significant nonetheless. Further work this week included the conversion of Chapter 10.0, 10.1 and 10.2.4 to MS Word format and additional formatting to the Table of Contents/header material and Chapter 2.0. I also have a note to re-examine the functioning of the Dodge Skill in Chapter 3.2; I'll keep y'all posted on anything that happens there.
I also made some progress on the design of the Vespus mini-campaign this week, mainly with the design of the system and the disposition of forces. I'm not sure I'm set on the name of the player's carrier (TCS Bhopal, a Tallahassee-class), which like most things I let the dice decide. I've got ideas for three of the planned five missions so far. I'll be sure to keep y'all updated on how that progresses as well.
The plan's kinda up in the air at this point given the fact I had to deviate. There are two sections of Chapter Ten and half a section of Chapter Eleven that have not been proofread as yet; I'll get back to them as soon as I can. I've also skipped over Chapter Two in favor of Chapter Three, where I am now. I think I'll stick with Chapter Three for the time being and move onto Chapter Four when it's finished. I'll have to go back and pick up what I've skipped over at that point regardless of what's happened with my workstation, so hopefully Systems will get off their butts soon.
Proofeading of the final draft is 30.00% complete (33/110 pages complete) as of this morning.
Week four was another long but productive week. Early on, I thought I had found the holy grail of solutions to my time management woes; for Christmas, I received a new Android mini-tablet and I had installed a text reader app on it that could handle websites. Monday I decided to try it out on the wiki; lo and behold it worked on the page I was reading (Chapter 10.5). Alas, my joy was not to last for very long - I soon discovered that it could only handle short pages and it didn't work with tables or bulleted lists, and it was occasionally a pain to work with. Nevertheless, I did use it all week, and so I was able to do proofreading work without having to leave my workstation. I picked up an extra twenty minutes or so per day on average, and trust me it makes a difference. It's also bought me time to make a renewed effort to get Chrome installed on my workstation, so that when the time comes I can switch over for the longer, more complex chapters.
So this week I was able to finish up a large number of the relatively short sections of the game, continuing as closely as I could to my original plan. I started in on Chapter 10.6 after finishing up 10.5 on Monday, and I was able to move into Chapter Eleven on Tuesday, finishing up 11.0, 11.1.1 and 11.1.2. All of Chapter Eleven except for 11.1 and 11.1.3 was finished up by Thursday afternoon, and on Friday I moved into Chapter Three (since none of the sections of Chapter Two were short enough to work with), finishing up the Attribute Skill sections (3.1 through 3.6). In some free time I had on Saturday, I moved back to Chapter Eleven, finishing up 11.1.3 in Chrome and beginning work on 11.1. In total, eighteen chapters were proofread this last week alone, more than doubling what had been done up to that point. That's not as impressive of a feat as it sounds given the shortness of the Chapters involved, but it is significant nonetheless. Further work this week included the conversion of Chapter 10.0, 10.1 and 10.2.4 to MS Word format and additional formatting to the Table of Contents/header material and Chapter 2.0. I also have a note to re-examine the functioning of the Dodge Skill in Chapter 3.2; I'll keep y'all posted on anything that happens there.
I also made some progress on the design of the Vespus mini-campaign this week, mainly with the design of the system and the disposition of forces. I'm not sure I'm set on the name of the player's carrier (TCS Bhopal, a Tallahassee-class), which like most things I let the dice decide. I've got ideas for three of the planned five missions so far. I'll be sure to keep y'all updated on how that progresses as well.
The plan's kinda up in the air at this point given the fact I had to deviate. There are two sections of Chapter Ten and half a section of Chapter Eleven that have not been proofread as yet; I'll get back to them as soon as I can. I've also skipped over Chapter Two in favor of Chapter Three, where I am now. I think I'll stick with Chapter Three for the time being and move onto Chapter Four when it's finished. I'll have to go back and pick up what I've skipped over at that point regardless of what's happened with my workstation, so hopefully Systems will get off their butts soon.
Proofeading of the final draft is 30.00% complete (33/110 pages complete) as of this morning.
CMDBob
Ensign
I'd just like to mention that the weapons loadout for the Hellcat-V you have is wrong. (It's also wrong on the WCPedia, but I fixed it there.) The WC3 variant is supposed to have Neutron Guns instead of Laser Cannons, and the WC4 variant has Particle Cannons instead of the erroneous lasers. Everything else is fine though.
capi3101
Admiral
Alright, thanks for the heads-up.
I do recall the day that worked on the Hellcat (Saturday, May 5, 2012 according to my log) having some issues with its weapons; it's one of those where the "correct" loadout depends on what source you're using. The Kilrathi Saga Manual has the gun loadout I used - two ions, two lasers (which I used because both the CIC Ships Database and WCPedia matched it at the time), the Warbirds insert lists two ions and mass drivers, and the Official Wc3 cluebook lists two ions and one neutron gun. And the WC4 Cluebook says two particle cannons, two ions. Noteably, all of them indicate six missile hardpoints with ImRecs as the default except for the Kilrathi Saga Manual, which lists four Heat Seekers and four ImRecs.
In any case, fixing it should be simple enough - I can simply go the variant route like I did with the Prophecy fighters. It's not a Chapter I've proofread yet, so I'll probably be able to get it taken care of later today.
I do recall the day that worked on the Hellcat (Saturday, May 5, 2012 according to my log) having some issues with its weapons; it's one of those where the "correct" loadout depends on what source you're using. The Kilrathi Saga Manual has the gun loadout I used - two ions, two lasers (which I used because both the CIC Ships Database and WCPedia matched it at the time), the Warbirds insert lists two ions and mass drivers, and the Official Wc3 cluebook lists two ions and one neutron gun. And the WC4 Cluebook says two particle cannons, two ions. Noteably, all of them indicate six missile hardpoints with ImRecs as the default except for the Kilrathi Saga Manual, which lists four Heat Seekers and four ImRecs.
In any case, fixing it should be simple enough - I can simply go the variant route like I did with the Prophecy fighters. It's not a Chapter I've proofread yet, so I'll probably be able to get it taken care of later today.
capi3101
Admiral
Good Monday, Wingnuts and Citizens! Time for this week's WCRPG Update.
Week five was short; in celebration of my son's birthday, I took the day off on Monday (posted last week's update and that was it). It was nevertheless a very productive week. Probably the biggest thing that happened was a software update at work on Wednesday wherein, thanks to some difficulties we had with one of our department's notebook computers, I was finally able to wrangle someone from Systems to come in and put Chrome on my workstation. Chrome Speak was the first extension I added to it, and yes, I now have access to its full capabilities at my desk. The only way I could get more time to work on proofreading now would be to figure out how to get some time at home; I'm doubtful that will happen. On a somewhat related note, I also discovered on Friday that the policy keeping me from installing font files on my workstation was simply a departmental denial of access policy to files in the Fonts directory; I could still install font files by right-clicking them and telling Win7 to install. Long and the short of that is I'm now capable of doing all the post-proofreading work I'll need to do for WCRPG at my workstation. This is a Good Thing, if y'all will take my word for it; it means I can do the post-proofreading processing immediately after completing the proofreading of a page, which in turns means it'll take less time before a finished product is ready.
This week's proofreading started in 11.1, where I finished up last Saturday. After finishing it up on Wednesday (bringing the proofreading of Chapter Eleven to a close) and with access to Chrome, I re-initiated my original plan and went back to get the last two sections of Chapter Ten. I had 10.2.1 finished by Thursday afternoon and started in on 10.2.7 (Creature Creation), which is by far the largest page I've tackled to date and is where I'm at as of this morning. This week also saw a good bit of post-proofreading work done (the conversion of the wiki pages to the final printed version of the game). A final spell-check was completed on Chapter 10.2.4 on Tuesday. Chapters 10.3, 11.0 and 11.1 were converted to word and spell-checked on Wednesday, with 10.2.1, 10.2.5, 10.4, 10.5, 10.6 and 11.1.2 following suit on Thursday, with Chapters 3.1-3.6 seeing final formatting work that same day. All remaining proofread chapters were converted to Word format and had final formatting work completed on Friday. At this point I'm caught up on my pending post-proofreading work; I'll have to collate the pages into final chapters, probably do some work with images and tables and add headers/pagination to them. Since I had all the pages of Chapter Eleven proofread and their post-proofreading work was done, I went ahead and performed the final collation on them on Saturday. Even added pagination, though the pagination info is wrong at the moment (it did let me know that Chapter Eleven is 22 pages long in its entirety). I don't have information to assign the correct pagination yet but that'll happen as the rest of the proofreading work progresses. Meanwhile, I have another completely finished Chapter of the game; two down and twelve to go.
I had two other pieces of work crop up in relation to the game this past week. Last week I'd made a note to check the wording of the Dodge Skill in Chapter 3.2 versus its final game function. I did find a discrepancy, so I corrected the text; this happened just before that Chapter's final proofread. I also got a message from CMDBob on Friday letting me know that the gun stats I had on the Hellcat-V in Chapter 6.3 weren't entirely correct; I went ahead and added some "variant" notes to its entry because A) the gun stats for Hellcats change based on what source material is used and B) it kept me from having to go find every instance of Hellcats in the game and fixing errors.
I can't report much additional work on Vespus this week, though I did come up with an idea for the first mission and I think I've come up with a good way of figuring out the mission tree. I'm kinda surprised no one has yet commented on the first mission idea, to be honest...
I've pretty well returned to my earlier proofreading plan at this point: finish Chapter ten, then to Two and on from there. Given that I was able to finish up about half of Chapter Three while I was using my tablet, that'll be the next Chapter in the pipe followed by Chapter Four. Going that route will also help with my pagination efforts. 10.2.7 is my principle concern right now; 2.3 and 2.4 are liable to also be doosies given their overall lengths.
Proofeading of the final draft is 31.82% complete (35/110 pages complete) as of this morning.
Week five was short; in celebration of my son's birthday, I took the day off on Monday (posted last week's update and that was it). It was nevertheless a very productive week. Probably the biggest thing that happened was a software update at work on Wednesday wherein, thanks to some difficulties we had with one of our department's notebook computers, I was finally able to wrangle someone from Systems to come in and put Chrome on my workstation. Chrome Speak was the first extension I added to it, and yes, I now have access to its full capabilities at my desk. The only way I could get more time to work on proofreading now would be to figure out how to get some time at home; I'm doubtful that will happen. On a somewhat related note, I also discovered on Friday that the policy keeping me from installing font files on my workstation was simply a departmental denial of access policy to files in the Fonts directory; I could still install font files by right-clicking them and telling Win7 to install. Long and the short of that is I'm now capable of doing all the post-proofreading work I'll need to do for WCRPG at my workstation. This is a Good Thing, if y'all will take my word for it; it means I can do the post-proofreading processing immediately after completing the proofreading of a page, which in turns means it'll take less time before a finished product is ready.
This week's proofreading started in 11.1, where I finished up last Saturday. After finishing it up on Wednesday (bringing the proofreading of Chapter Eleven to a close) and with access to Chrome, I re-initiated my original plan and went back to get the last two sections of Chapter Ten. I had 10.2.1 finished by Thursday afternoon and started in on 10.2.7 (Creature Creation), which is by far the largest page I've tackled to date and is where I'm at as of this morning. This week also saw a good bit of post-proofreading work done (the conversion of the wiki pages to the final printed version of the game). A final spell-check was completed on Chapter 10.2.4 on Tuesday. Chapters 10.3, 11.0 and 11.1 were converted to word and spell-checked on Wednesday, with 10.2.1, 10.2.5, 10.4, 10.5, 10.6 and 11.1.2 following suit on Thursday, with Chapters 3.1-3.6 seeing final formatting work that same day. All remaining proofread chapters were converted to Word format and had final formatting work completed on Friday. At this point I'm caught up on my pending post-proofreading work; I'll have to collate the pages into final chapters, probably do some work with images and tables and add headers/pagination to them. Since I had all the pages of Chapter Eleven proofread and their post-proofreading work was done, I went ahead and performed the final collation on them on Saturday. Even added pagination, though the pagination info is wrong at the moment (it did let me know that Chapter Eleven is 22 pages long in its entirety). I don't have information to assign the correct pagination yet but that'll happen as the rest of the proofreading work progresses. Meanwhile, I have another completely finished Chapter of the game; two down and twelve to go.
I had two other pieces of work crop up in relation to the game this past week. Last week I'd made a note to check the wording of the Dodge Skill in Chapter 3.2 versus its final game function. I did find a discrepancy, so I corrected the text; this happened just before that Chapter's final proofread. I also got a message from CMDBob on Friday letting me know that the gun stats I had on the Hellcat-V in Chapter 6.3 weren't entirely correct; I went ahead and added some "variant" notes to its entry because A) the gun stats for Hellcats change based on what source material is used and B) it kept me from having to go find every instance of Hellcats in the game and fixing errors.
I can't report much additional work on Vespus this week, though I did come up with an idea for the first mission and I think I've come up with a good way of figuring out the mission tree. I'm kinda surprised no one has yet commented on the first mission idea, to be honest...
I've pretty well returned to my earlier proofreading plan at this point: finish Chapter ten, then to Two and on from there. Given that I was able to finish up about half of Chapter Three while I was using my tablet, that'll be the next Chapter in the pipe followed by Chapter Four. Going that route will also help with my pagination efforts. 10.2.7 is my principle concern right now; 2.3 and 2.4 are liable to also be doosies given their overall lengths.
Proofeading of the final draft is 31.82% complete (35/110 pages complete) as of this morning.
capi3101
Admiral
Good Monday, Wingnuts and Citizens! Time for this week's WCRPG Update.
Week six was a rough one. I got a lot accomplished, but not so much in terms of actual proofreading. Started this week off in Chapter 10.2.7 (Creature Creation) and I have to report that as of this morning I'm still there, though I am getting reasonably close to the end of it; in terms of the procedure on that page I'm up to the example portion of Step Eight, which is when you compose the remainder of the description for sapient races. The last five steps are pretty short, so I hope to get it wrapped up soon (today is conceivable but it may depend on if the weather holds out long enough for me to get in a full day at work). I did find a little bit of extra time at home this past week and I used it to knock out Chapters 2.1, 2.2, 4.0 and 4.1. I suppose that lets me report that I did get some proofreading finished this week (and ups my page tally past the one-third-complete mark) but I can't help but wonder if I should've used the time to work on 10.2.7 instead...
I did get a fair amount done in terms of post-proofreading work this week. On Monday, I determined a method in MS Word for reducing the amount of extra space that was cropping up in tables and implemented corrective measures on the game's finished sections so far (not many of these were needed except for the completed parts of Chapter Ten); this was a major development given the sheer number of tables in WCRPG. On Tuesday I was able to set up the TOC with the formatting I wanted; it's finished now except for pagination data, which of course I won't have in its entirety until the rest of the game has been collated. I figure that as Chapters are finished up, though, I can go ahead and add what information I have. The same method will come in handy when it comes time to put in the Index. I spent the next couple of days performing the final formatting and beginning the collation process on Chapters Two, Four and Ten. I am very concerned with the fact that Chapter Ten is already almost 100 pages long and I haven't collated it past 10.2.6; it may mean that I'll have to reduce my principle text font size again (Lulu won't allow anything over 800 pages long and I'm sure I'll be pushing things the way they are already).
I'm still stuck on Vespus; I'm thinking I may have to put it on the backburner for now and work on it when I can, although it was a pretty damn good thing I did work on it this past week. On Friday, while thinking about the mechanics of the first mission (a "gawdawful capship missile escort mission", as I've put it) I came to realize I'd left out pretty much all of the rules I'd intended to add to the game on all types of ordnance (rules on optimal/maximum firing ranges, spoofing rules, and - most importantly in this case - shooting down heavy ordnance). This was a major oversight on my part, and you can believe that I'll be adding these rules to the game as soon as I possibly can. I did take some time to type up some preliminary notes on Saturday but I probably won't be uploading any formal rule changes to the affected chapters until after proofreading work on 10.2.7 is finished. I'm just glad I caught this now, before I'd proofread the Vehicle, Capital Ship and Combat chapters - otherwise the game might've gone to print with a major mechanic missing...
My work plan has changed a little bit. After I finish 10.2.7 and get the ordnance rules in, I intend to get Chapters Three and Four together. They're both half-done already as it is and I'm confident I can knock them out quickly. After that I think I'm going to go ahead and get the "x.0" pages out of the way (the introductory sections to each Chapter) to help set up the final collation process. I've found with the Chapters I've done so far that having everything set up in advance really saves a serious amount of time. Then it's back to Chapter Two and the race profiles.
Proofeading of the final draft is 35.45% complete (39/110 pages complete) as of this morning.
Week six was a rough one. I got a lot accomplished, but not so much in terms of actual proofreading. Started this week off in Chapter 10.2.7 (Creature Creation) and I have to report that as of this morning I'm still there, though I am getting reasonably close to the end of it; in terms of the procedure on that page I'm up to the example portion of Step Eight, which is when you compose the remainder of the description for sapient races. The last five steps are pretty short, so I hope to get it wrapped up soon (today is conceivable but it may depend on if the weather holds out long enough for me to get in a full day at work). I did find a little bit of extra time at home this past week and I used it to knock out Chapters 2.1, 2.2, 4.0 and 4.1. I suppose that lets me report that I did get some proofreading finished this week (and ups my page tally past the one-third-complete mark) but I can't help but wonder if I should've used the time to work on 10.2.7 instead...
I did get a fair amount done in terms of post-proofreading work this week. On Monday, I determined a method in MS Word for reducing the amount of extra space that was cropping up in tables and implemented corrective measures on the game's finished sections so far (not many of these were needed except for the completed parts of Chapter Ten); this was a major development given the sheer number of tables in WCRPG. On Tuesday I was able to set up the TOC with the formatting I wanted; it's finished now except for pagination data, which of course I won't have in its entirety until the rest of the game has been collated. I figure that as Chapters are finished up, though, I can go ahead and add what information I have. The same method will come in handy when it comes time to put in the Index. I spent the next couple of days performing the final formatting and beginning the collation process on Chapters Two, Four and Ten. I am very concerned with the fact that Chapter Ten is already almost 100 pages long and I haven't collated it past 10.2.6; it may mean that I'll have to reduce my principle text font size again (Lulu won't allow anything over 800 pages long and I'm sure I'll be pushing things the way they are already).
I'm still stuck on Vespus; I'm thinking I may have to put it on the backburner for now and work on it when I can, although it was a pretty damn good thing I did work on it this past week. On Friday, while thinking about the mechanics of the first mission (a "gawdawful capship missile escort mission", as I've put it) I came to realize I'd left out pretty much all of the rules I'd intended to add to the game on all types of ordnance (rules on optimal/maximum firing ranges, spoofing rules, and - most importantly in this case - shooting down heavy ordnance). This was a major oversight on my part, and you can believe that I'll be adding these rules to the game as soon as I possibly can. I did take some time to type up some preliminary notes on Saturday but I probably won't be uploading any formal rule changes to the affected chapters until after proofreading work on 10.2.7 is finished. I'm just glad I caught this now, before I'd proofread the Vehicle, Capital Ship and Combat chapters - otherwise the game might've gone to print with a major mechanic missing...
My work plan has changed a little bit. After I finish 10.2.7 and get the ordnance rules in, I intend to get Chapters Three and Four together. They're both half-done already as it is and I'm confident I can knock them out quickly. After that I think I'm going to go ahead and get the "x.0" pages out of the way (the introductory sections to each Chapter) to help set up the final collation process. I've found with the Chapters I've done so far that having everything set up in advance really saves a serious amount of time. Then it's back to Chapter Two and the race profiles.
Proofeading of the final draft is 35.45% complete (39/110 pages complete) as of this morning.
capi3101
Admiral
I need to get a clean shot of a ship (doesn't matter which) from Privateer 2. This'll be for WCRPG's front cover; see, there's a craft from each one of the other games in it at the moment (the Dralthis/Hornets from WC1, Broadsword from WC2, a Dralthi-IV that I'm hoping everybody will mistake for a Dralthi-III from Armada, Perry Naval Base from P1, an Excalibur from WC3, the Bearcat from WC4 and a Vampire from Prophecy). I don't have a P2 ship on there at the moment because the images I couldn't find aren't both particularly "clean" and in color. If anybody has any nice shots of P2 ships and could shoot them my way, that'd be awful helpful.
Whistler
Vice Admiral
I have the game ready to load and screen cap on a moments notice. Any particular craft you prefer?
capi3101
Admiral
I guess if I have to pick one, I'd say the Faldari Mk-I (or whichever one it is that appears on the cover of the cluebook; pretty sure that's the Faldari but not 100%). Any fighter will do, though. Aspect-wise, I'd prefer the forward ventral starboard; again, though, any angle will work.
capi3101
Admiral
Good Monday, Wingnuts and Citizens! Time for this week's WCRPG Update.
Week seven was surprisingly productive, despite losing half the day on Monday (because of the weather) and pretty much the entire day on Wednesday (sorta). I can report today that I have reached the double nickle - 55 total pages finished as of this week (with sixteen of them completed just this week alone). The week got started off in 10.2.7; as I'd hoped, I was finally able to finish it up after last week's update. In the process, thanks to the various example sections in that Chapter, I was able to pick up 2.2.3 (the Firekkan profile page) largely as a freebie. Tuesday was spent adding the rules for ordnance. This involved a series of changes to Chapters 6.2.3, 7.2.2, 9.3, 9.4 and 9.5; basically, I changed things to where missiles could be spoofed by countermeasure pods and torpedoes/capship missiles were treated as vehicles in their own right (and thus they could be shot down). I also got proofreading complete on Chapters 3.0 and 4.2. Wednesday was the day I sorta lost; I still managed to complete chapter 4.3 late in the day, bringing the proofreading of Chapter Four to a close. Thursday was the big day, when I worked on and completed the remaining x.0 chapters (5.0, 6.0, 7.0, 8.0, 9.0 and 12.0). For good measure, I also got Appendix Two's limited amount of text proofread on Thursday. Friday I reviewed the record sheets and completed proofreading of Chapters 3.8 through 3.10. I would've finished up 3.7 were it not for an issue that cropped up with the Strategy Skill; I was able to iron that out and I finished the proofreading of 3.7 on Saturday. I was also able to get the record sheets for Appendix two re-sized to match the rest of the text on Saturday; unfortunately the sheets are already in PDF format so I won't be able to assemble the final version of Appendix Two until I have pagination data for it (which won't be until late in the whole process).
I was able to keep up with the post-proofreading work this past week; all of the aforementioned completed chapters this week have been successfully converted to Word with final formatting and collation work having taken place as much as possible. The completion of all sections of Chapters Four and Ten allowed me to complete their collation; they just need pagination data to complete at this point (bringing the total number of "completed" Chapters to four). I do have enough information to begin determining how long the game is to this point; so far I'm up to 229 pages (with 175 pages as the final count in Chapter Ten alone). That's a bit concerning considering how large the remaining chapters are as compared to what's been done so far. For reference, my last RPG weighed in at 744 pages total, so I'm already a third of the way to that benchmark. It may simply mean I have to shrink the main portion of the text down in size by a point or two (as I mentioned last week, I guess). Hopefully I can avoid that, but as a test I did print out pages in the smaller font size and it's still quite readable, so whatever happens will happen. I should also probably mention that, with the completion of the x.0 chapters, I have begun the final collation process for all sections of the game. Chapter Three is the next most complete Chapter; it's three sections away from being done as of this morning and I anticipate finishing it up early next week.
As I mentioned earlier, I sorta lost the entire day on Wednesday. I was part of a group that toured the libraries at the OU-Tulsa campus and Tulsa University that day; it was a two-hour long road trip both ways, and without any wi-fi on the turnpike I definitely wasn't going to get any proofreading work done. So I decided instead to work on Vespus (using good old-fashioned paper and pencil). I can report that a substantial amount of work was done that day; big thing is that I came away with a mission tree I'm finally satisfied with and a working mechanic for progression through it. It does mean that Vespus will be sort of a Saga campaign the way things have been planned, but I still think I've got a working campaign overall. The next step is going to be to determine mission specifics - what forces will be present where and such, someting I'm happy to say I've got a good handle on so far. I'm hopeful I'll have more time in the near future to work on Vespus and keep some of the momentum I built up this week going.
I received a request on Wednesday from Sinclair at CIC to build a combat demo for WCRPG. I haven't started work on it just yet; I am hoping to be able to customize my response for his player group, so I've asked some questions about the era they're playing in, what they'd like to see, what they're used to and so forth. I haven't gotten a response as yet. I'll probably post the demo publicly; I think it'll wind up being a good playtest of the combat system and I'd definitely be able to benefit from y'all's feedback. So I'll be working on that as well in the next couple of weeks. I'm thinking about possibly setting up the same scenario with the various potential forms of combat.
The work plan's moving along. My immediate goals are to finish up Chapter Three and then head back to Chapter Two. 2.3 should be the next major page I have to proofread, and it's liable to be a doozie. After Chapter Two's done I can go ahead and put in the proper pagination data for the game up through the end of Chapter Four, at which point I'll probably head straight into Chapter Five. I'm liable to move straight on through the game from there unless I can think of a good reason to deviate (for some reason I have this feeling that most of Chapter Twelve would go by fast).
Proofeading of the final draft is 50.00% complete (55/110 pages complete) as of this morning.
Week seven was surprisingly productive, despite losing half the day on Monday (because of the weather) and pretty much the entire day on Wednesday (sorta). I can report today that I have reached the double nickle - 55 total pages finished as of this week (with sixteen of them completed just this week alone). The week got started off in 10.2.7; as I'd hoped, I was finally able to finish it up after last week's update. In the process, thanks to the various example sections in that Chapter, I was able to pick up 2.2.3 (the Firekkan profile page) largely as a freebie. Tuesday was spent adding the rules for ordnance. This involved a series of changes to Chapters 6.2.3, 7.2.2, 9.3, 9.4 and 9.5; basically, I changed things to where missiles could be spoofed by countermeasure pods and torpedoes/capship missiles were treated as vehicles in their own right (and thus they could be shot down). I also got proofreading complete on Chapters 3.0 and 4.2. Wednesday was the day I sorta lost; I still managed to complete chapter 4.3 late in the day, bringing the proofreading of Chapter Four to a close. Thursday was the big day, when I worked on and completed the remaining x.0 chapters (5.0, 6.0, 7.0, 8.0, 9.0 and 12.0). For good measure, I also got Appendix Two's limited amount of text proofread on Thursday. Friday I reviewed the record sheets and completed proofreading of Chapters 3.8 through 3.10. I would've finished up 3.7 were it not for an issue that cropped up with the Strategy Skill; I was able to iron that out and I finished the proofreading of 3.7 on Saturday. I was also able to get the record sheets for Appendix two re-sized to match the rest of the text on Saturday; unfortunately the sheets are already in PDF format so I won't be able to assemble the final version of Appendix Two until I have pagination data for it (which won't be until late in the whole process).
I was able to keep up with the post-proofreading work this past week; all of the aforementioned completed chapters this week have been successfully converted to Word with final formatting and collation work having taken place as much as possible. The completion of all sections of Chapters Four and Ten allowed me to complete their collation; they just need pagination data to complete at this point (bringing the total number of "completed" Chapters to four). I do have enough information to begin determining how long the game is to this point; so far I'm up to 229 pages (with 175 pages as the final count in Chapter Ten alone). That's a bit concerning considering how large the remaining chapters are as compared to what's been done so far. For reference, my last RPG weighed in at 744 pages total, so I'm already a third of the way to that benchmark. It may simply mean I have to shrink the main portion of the text down in size by a point or two (as I mentioned last week, I guess). Hopefully I can avoid that, but as a test I did print out pages in the smaller font size and it's still quite readable, so whatever happens will happen. I should also probably mention that, with the completion of the x.0 chapters, I have begun the final collation process for all sections of the game. Chapter Three is the next most complete Chapter; it's three sections away from being done as of this morning and I anticipate finishing it up early next week.
As I mentioned earlier, I sorta lost the entire day on Wednesday. I was part of a group that toured the libraries at the OU-Tulsa campus and Tulsa University that day; it was a two-hour long road trip both ways, and without any wi-fi on the turnpike I definitely wasn't going to get any proofreading work done. So I decided instead to work on Vespus (using good old-fashioned paper and pencil). I can report that a substantial amount of work was done that day; big thing is that I came away with a mission tree I'm finally satisfied with and a working mechanic for progression through it. It does mean that Vespus will be sort of a Saga campaign the way things have been planned, but I still think I've got a working campaign overall. The next step is going to be to determine mission specifics - what forces will be present where and such, someting I'm happy to say I've got a good handle on so far. I'm hopeful I'll have more time in the near future to work on Vespus and keep some of the momentum I built up this week going.
I received a request on Wednesday from Sinclair at CIC to build a combat demo for WCRPG. I haven't started work on it just yet; I am hoping to be able to customize my response for his player group, so I've asked some questions about the era they're playing in, what they'd like to see, what they're used to and so forth. I haven't gotten a response as yet. I'll probably post the demo publicly; I think it'll wind up being a good playtest of the combat system and I'd definitely be able to benefit from y'all's feedback. So I'll be working on that as well in the next couple of weeks. I'm thinking about possibly setting up the same scenario with the various potential forms of combat.
The work plan's moving along. My immediate goals are to finish up Chapter Three and then head back to Chapter Two. 2.3 should be the next major page I have to proofread, and it's liable to be a doozie. After Chapter Two's done I can go ahead and put in the proper pagination data for the game up through the end of Chapter Four, at which point I'll probably head straight into Chapter Five. I'm liable to move straight on through the game from there unless I can think of a good reason to deviate (for some reason I have this feeling that most of Chapter Twelve would go by fast).
Proofeading of the final draft is 50.00% complete (55/110 pages complete) as of this morning.
capi3101
Admiral
Good Monday, Wingnuts and Citizens! Time for this week's WCRPG Update.
Week eight was another productive week. I completed another sixteen pages, which darn near moved me up to the two-thirds mark. I'm trying hard not to get too excited about this because I know that I'm effectively leaving the longer pages for last - things such as the vehicle catalogs and creation rules, the combat rules and the Who's Who. I expect the rate of completion to drop off sharply after next week. On the other hand, if I'm totally wrong about this, I really wouldn't mind...
After completing the remaining sections of Chapter Three on Monday, I moved right on into the race profiles, starting with Terrans. The Kilrathi and Double Helix were completed on Tuesday, the Varni, Wu and Mopoks were all done on Wednesday, Thursday saw the completion of the Dolosians, Dioscuri, Oasians and Haggarin, and Friday saw the completion of the Haggans, Jarma and Steltek. I can report as of this morning that I have only two species left to go through, the Mantu and the Nephilim. I was also able to keep up with the corresponding post-proofreading work. Chapter Two is up to about 45 pages so far, but the two remaining pages after the race profiles fall into the "long" category, so I expect that number to increase substantially before the end. The completion of the remaining sections of Chapter Three allowed me to finish its collation; its final page count was eighteen, bringing the final definite page total to 247 pages. I had a friend suggest to me a method for estimating the final count of pages; I tried out his idea on Saturday and I didn't particularly like the results; it remains yet to be seen if it's as useful a method as I think it probably is (the final estimate of the length of Chapter Two using his method turned out to be 157 pages). Other things that happened this week were an adjustment of the function of the Collapsible Sections accessory in Chapter 6.2.3 (to match how I'd been using it to this point) and another change to the function of the Strategy Skill (I'm pretty sure I've crossed the finish line on that one this time...).
Vespus saw a fair amount of activity this week, starting with the creation of its page up on the wiki and the addition of my notes to that page. I've also been working with Whistler on adding the first character to the campaign, who will be acting as TCS Bhopal's wing commander. I've been thrilled that this work's been going on; it's the level of interest I was hoping to generate with WCRPG in general, and the end result of the work the two of us are doing will be the most complete and detailed character that's been generated for WCRPG to date (to my knowledge anyway; I really don't know how many of y'all out there are playing the game). I'm hoping to begin work on the specifics of missions next week.
Still no word from Sinclair on his preferences for the combat demo. I may have to punt on this one (by which I mean ask for input from the community), but rest assured that I will be doing something along these lines in the near future.
The work plan's still moving along. My immediate goals are to finish up the remaining race profiles. I'm thinking that I'd like to keep some of the momentum I've got going and I know it's going to come to a screeching halt when I hit the next big page (i.e. Chapter 2.3), so I'm thinking this week I'm going to try to isolate and finish as many of the remaining small sections of the game as I can. That's probably going to mean moving on into Chapter Five as soon as the race profiles are done. I think I can also knock down 6.1, 6.2.2 and 7.1 fairly easily and I've got a good feeling about 8.3-8.5. After that, who knows: I still think most of Chapter Twelve would go down quickly. It has been suggested to me that I try to make WCRPG an offering for the upcoming Free RPG Day (June 15th this year); given that I'd have to have the game to the press by May 15th to have it ready in time and that's only 64 days off at this point, I doubt that will happen. You never know, though...
Proofeading of the final draft is 64.55% complete as of this morning with 39 pages remaining.
Week eight was another productive week. I completed another sixteen pages, which darn near moved me up to the two-thirds mark. I'm trying hard not to get too excited about this because I know that I'm effectively leaving the longer pages for last - things such as the vehicle catalogs and creation rules, the combat rules and the Who's Who. I expect the rate of completion to drop off sharply after next week. On the other hand, if I'm totally wrong about this, I really wouldn't mind...
After completing the remaining sections of Chapter Three on Monday, I moved right on into the race profiles, starting with Terrans. The Kilrathi and Double Helix were completed on Tuesday, the Varni, Wu and Mopoks were all done on Wednesday, Thursday saw the completion of the Dolosians, Dioscuri, Oasians and Haggarin, and Friday saw the completion of the Haggans, Jarma and Steltek. I can report as of this morning that I have only two species left to go through, the Mantu and the Nephilim. I was also able to keep up with the corresponding post-proofreading work. Chapter Two is up to about 45 pages so far, but the two remaining pages after the race profiles fall into the "long" category, so I expect that number to increase substantially before the end. The completion of the remaining sections of Chapter Three allowed me to finish its collation; its final page count was eighteen, bringing the final definite page total to 247 pages. I had a friend suggest to me a method for estimating the final count of pages; I tried out his idea on Saturday and I didn't particularly like the results; it remains yet to be seen if it's as useful a method as I think it probably is (the final estimate of the length of Chapter Two using his method turned out to be 157 pages). Other things that happened this week were an adjustment of the function of the Collapsible Sections accessory in Chapter 6.2.3 (to match how I'd been using it to this point) and another change to the function of the Strategy Skill (I'm pretty sure I've crossed the finish line on that one this time...).
Vespus saw a fair amount of activity this week, starting with the creation of its page up on the wiki and the addition of my notes to that page. I've also been working with Whistler on adding the first character to the campaign, who will be acting as TCS Bhopal's wing commander. I've been thrilled that this work's been going on; it's the level of interest I was hoping to generate with WCRPG in general, and the end result of the work the two of us are doing will be the most complete and detailed character that's been generated for WCRPG to date (to my knowledge anyway; I really don't know how many of y'all out there are playing the game). I'm hoping to begin work on the specifics of missions next week.
Still no word from Sinclair on his preferences for the combat demo. I may have to punt on this one (by which I mean ask for input from the community), but rest assured that I will be doing something along these lines in the near future.
The work plan's still moving along. My immediate goals are to finish up the remaining race profiles. I'm thinking that I'd like to keep some of the momentum I've got going and I know it's going to come to a screeching halt when I hit the next big page (i.e. Chapter 2.3), so I'm thinking this week I'm going to try to isolate and finish as many of the remaining small sections of the game as I can. That's probably going to mean moving on into Chapter Five as soon as the race profiles are done. I think I can also knock down 6.1, 6.2.2 and 7.1 fairly easily and I've got a good feeling about 8.3-8.5. After that, who knows: I still think most of Chapter Twelve would go down quickly. It has been suggested to me that I try to make WCRPG an offering for the upcoming Free RPG Day (June 15th this year); given that I'd have to have the game to the press by May 15th to have it ready in time and that's only 64 days off at this point, I doubt that will happen. You never know, though...
Proofeading of the final draft is 64.55% complete as of this morning with 39 pages remaining.
capi3101
Admiral
Good Monday, Wingnuts and Citizens! Time for this week's WCRPG Update.
Week nine was productive, but rough; that's pretty much my own fault, though. I decided last weekend that I would like to go ahead and have WCRPG ready for Free RPG Day this year, which meant that for the first time in the project's history, I have a hard deadline: May 15th. Next thing I did was get estimates of how much work was left using the method my friend suggested the week before. The results were sobering: at the rate at which I was completing work, I could expect to finish the proofreading by the end of June. The bright lining there is that the method I used assumed I'd actually have to read an equivalent amount of text - it ignored the fact that there were some chapters in the game whose content was mostly data and which I already knew to be correct. So that's where I wound up this week - knocking those chapters out. And it was a hell of a week: fourteen pages were completed, pushing me up past the three-quarters mark. My estimated completion date as of Saturday night had moved all the way up to May 6th (knock on wood). And while y'all are praying, y'all can hope my estimate of the game's final size is also way off; otherwise I'm going to have to investigate making the game a two-volume set, which I flat out DON'T want to do.
So on Monday after I got my estimations, I hit the smallest pages that were left, which turned out to be Chapters 2.2.15 and 2.2.16 (the Mantu and Nephilim profiles), Chapter 6.1 (Basic Rules regarding Vehicles), Chapter 6.2.2 (Vehicle Users) and Chapter 9.5 (Mixed-Scale Combat). Chapters 5.5 (Commodities), 7.1 (Basic Rules regarding Capital Ships) and 7.2.1 (Capital Ship Chassis) went down on Tuesday with work commencing on Chapter 6.4 (the Non-Canonical Vehicle Catalog). On Wednesday, I performed some serious kludge-coding work to verify that there were no duplications, errors or omissions in the Skill Sets of the Archetype tables in Chapter 2.4 (by kludge-coding, I mean that I was using a brute force solution; no way that code can be re-used for any other purpose). That effort proved to be a complete success and as a result I was able to knock out Chapter 2.4 - the second largest single section of the entire game - in a single day and leaving 2.3 as the last bit of work to do in Chapter Two as of this morning. Wednesday through Friday saw efforts to button up the vehicle and capital ship catalogs; 6.4 was finished on Thursday, with the other three catalog Chapters reaching completion on Friday. Finally, Saturday saw the completion of Chapter 8.5 (Navigational Data). I did let the post-proofreading work fall by the wayside this week unfortunately; I did get 2.2.15 and 2.2.16 converted, formatted and collated with the rest of Chapter Two, and 2.4 was converted and formatted on Friday. It's awaiting the completion of 2.3 before it can be collated; it did teach me that the really time consuming part of working with the heavy table sections is going to be formatting the tables (I shudder when I think on the amount of work that is going to be required when it comes time to do the Who's Who). I also can foresee tables being a pain in my ass with one of my re-sizing scenarios; I'm still hoping I don't have to implement that particular plan, which I'll remain vague about for the time being. Corrective work occurred in the craft catalogs to add more usage to the "X" rating and to update all heavy ordnance occurrences for the recent changes made in Chapter 9.5. Cloaked HD ratings were also added for ships so equipped. Finally, I made a minor change to the rules for spoofing in Chapter 9.3.
No work on Vespus this week, unfortunately. If you can't tell why, you haven't read the last couple of paragraphs. Once I can get the required workload for WCRPG eased up a bit more, though, I can pick it back up; with luck, that will be soon. Missions are still next on the game plan there.
Thursday, after having still not heard from Sinclair on his preferences, I decided to open up plans for a combat demo to the WC community. Whistler has, once again, been helping me to get that set up and I'm actually hoping to have enough time to put an initial demo together sometime next week. I decided to go ahead and start off with the second simplest form of combat you can use in WCRPG, which is a gridless, Final Fantasy-I/Dragon Warrior-esque format and probably what most folks are used to when they think of RPGs. We'll be modelling the third mission from WC2, when Blair and Shadow have to escort a pair of Broadswords on a strike against a Fralthra.
So, my whole work plan was pretty well wrecked this last week, on account of the smaller sections of the game not being where I thought they were. I think I need to return to the original plan now and hit Chapter 2.3. Estimates say it'll take two full days to complete, but so be it; I finish that one up and I've got Chapter Two done, and can even get it, Chapter Three and Chapter Four through the pagination process. I may or may not move into Chapter Five afterwards; the estimate says that the rest of that chapter will take another five full days to complete in its entirety, but I know that three of the four sections are, once again, mainly tables. I've pretty well knocked out all the data chapters at this point, so we'll have to see how the rest of it goes.
Proofeading of the final draft is 77.27% complete as of this morning with 25 sub-Chapters remaining.
Week nine was productive, but rough; that's pretty much my own fault, though. I decided last weekend that I would like to go ahead and have WCRPG ready for Free RPG Day this year, which meant that for the first time in the project's history, I have a hard deadline: May 15th. Next thing I did was get estimates of how much work was left using the method my friend suggested the week before. The results were sobering: at the rate at which I was completing work, I could expect to finish the proofreading by the end of June. The bright lining there is that the method I used assumed I'd actually have to read an equivalent amount of text - it ignored the fact that there were some chapters in the game whose content was mostly data and which I already knew to be correct. So that's where I wound up this week - knocking those chapters out. And it was a hell of a week: fourteen pages were completed, pushing me up past the three-quarters mark. My estimated completion date as of Saturday night had moved all the way up to May 6th (knock on wood). And while y'all are praying, y'all can hope my estimate of the game's final size is also way off; otherwise I'm going to have to investigate making the game a two-volume set, which I flat out DON'T want to do.
So on Monday after I got my estimations, I hit the smallest pages that were left, which turned out to be Chapters 2.2.15 and 2.2.16 (the Mantu and Nephilim profiles), Chapter 6.1 (Basic Rules regarding Vehicles), Chapter 6.2.2 (Vehicle Users) and Chapter 9.5 (Mixed-Scale Combat). Chapters 5.5 (Commodities), 7.1 (Basic Rules regarding Capital Ships) and 7.2.1 (Capital Ship Chassis) went down on Tuesday with work commencing on Chapter 6.4 (the Non-Canonical Vehicle Catalog). On Wednesday, I performed some serious kludge-coding work to verify that there were no duplications, errors or omissions in the Skill Sets of the Archetype tables in Chapter 2.4 (by kludge-coding, I mean that I was using a brute force solution; no way that code can be re-used for any other purpose). That effort proved to be a complete success and as a result I was able to knock out Chapter 2.4 - the second largest single section of the entire game - in a single day and leaving 2.3 as the last bit of work to do in Chapter Two as of this morning. Wednesday through Friday saw efforts to button up the vehicle and capital ship catalogs; 6.4 was finished on Thursday, with the other three catalog Chapters reaching completion on Friday. Finally, Saturday saw the completion of Chapter 8.5 (Navigational Data). I did let the post-proofreading work fall by the wayside this week unfortunately; I did get 2.2.15 and 2.2.16 converted, formatted and collated with the rest of Chapter Two, and 2.4 was converted and formatted on Friday. It's awaiting the completion of 2.3 before it can be collated; it did teach me that the really time consuming part of working with the heavy table sections is going to be formatting the tables (I shudder when I think on the amount of work that is going to be required when it comes time to do the Who's Who). I also can foresee tables being a pain in my ass with one of my re-sizing scenarios; I'm still hoping I don't have to implement that particular plan, which I'll remain vague about for the time being. Corrective work occurred in the craft catalogs to add more usage to the "X" rating and to update all heavy ordnance occurrences for the recent changes made in Chapter 9.5. Cloaked HD ratings were also added for ships so equipped. Finally, I made a minor change to the rules for spoofing in Chapter 9.3.
No work on Vespus this week, unfortunately. If you can't tell why, you haven't read the last couple of paragraphs. Once I can get the required workload for WCRPG eased up a bit more, though, I can pick it back up; with luck, that will be soon. Missions are still next on the game plan there.
Thursday, after having still not heard from Sinclair on his preferences, I decided to open up plans for a combat demo to the WC community. Whistler has, once again, been helping me to get that set up and I'm actually hoping to have enough time to put an initial demo together sometime next week. I decided to go ahead and start off with the second simplest form of combat you can use in WCRPG, which is a gridless, Final Fantasy-I/Dragon Warrior-esque format and probably what most folks are used to when they think of RPGs. We'll be modelling the third mission from WC2, when Blair and Shadow have to escort a pair of Broadswords on a strike against a Fralthra.
So, my whole work plan was pretty well wrecked this last week, on account of the smaller sections of the game not being where I thought they were. I think I need to return to the original plan now and hit Chapter 2.3. Estimates say it'll take two full days to complete, but so be it; I finish that one up and I've got Chapter Two done, and can even get it, Chapter Three and Chapter Four through the pagination process. I may or may not move into Chapter Five afterwards; the estimate says that the rest of that chapter will take another five full days to complete in its entirety, but I know that three of the four sections are, once again, mainly tables. I've pretty well knocked out all the data chapters at this point, so we'll have to see how the rest of it goes.
Proofeading of the final draft is 77.27% complete as of this morning with 25 sub-Chapters remaining.
capi3101
Admiral
Good Monday, Wingnuts and Citizens! Time for this week's WCRPG Update.
Week ten, I finally hit the wall; it was a productive week even though the numbers don't show it. Monday I completed work I had started last weekend on the Bestiary in Chapter 12.4, the last of the major data chapters left in the game. With that done, I went ahead and jumped into Chapter 2.3, the character creation rules and the last section remaining of Chapter Two. Proofreading work on that Chapter continued until late in the day on Wednesday; meantime, I got Chapters 6.1 and 7.1 converted, formatted and collated and Chapter 12.4 converted to Word format. I promptly performed the post-proofreading work on 2.3 as soon as proofreading was completed, and after collating it with the remainder of Chapter Two I tacked on Chapter 2.4 (which was prepped up last week) to the collation, finishing out Chapter Two. This let me immediately turn around and perform the pagination work on Chapters Two, Three and Four and set up the pagination for Chapter Five. My focus then turned to Chapter Five; I was able to get Chapter 5.3 finished before the day ended on Wednesday and started work on Chapter 5.1 first thing Thursday morning. Unfortunately, it turned out that 5.1 needed a lot of work; it took me until Friday afternoon to finally get it finished. Hoping to knock out another relatively small chapter, I went to Chapter 8.1 next and finished it up on Saturday. While all this was going on, I was able to convert and format Chapters 5.3, 5.5 and 12.4; they'll be ready for collation when the time comes. I've also got Chapter 8.5 converted to Word, though I still need to finish up its formatting work. Only five completed sub-chapters this week and I still haven't caught up with the post-proofreading work.
Things still haven't settled down enough for me to pick up work on Vespus again; hopefully soon. Missions are still next on the game plan there. This past week I ran the scenario I mentioned in last week's update for the combat demo twice. I'm really glad I did this now instead of later; the demo has shown the need for several tweaks to the current combat engine. I'll be making those before I attempt anything formal as far as a combat demo goes (really, I should probably get Chapter Nine proofread first, and I probably need to go through Chapter 6.2.3 and 7.2.2 sooner rather than later).
The grand master plan at this point is to finish up Chapter Five and get into Chapter Six. The estimate for finishing up Chapter Five is a little over three days at this point, so I'll likely finish it up this coming week (provided 5.4 doesn't throw a wrench into the works); Chapter Six's estimate after that is about five days. I am starting to think of strategies for handling Chapter 12.2; as big as it is, it has to be done sometime and I'm wondering if in fact it isn't a data chapter (albeit a freakin' huge one; trimming it is my last resort for shortening the game if it comes down to it). I did come across a couple of typos when I was looking at a few of the tables this last week, so I'm thinking I might be able to handle those with a piece of code like I did with Chapter 2.4. If I can get it knocked out, it'll go a long way towards finishing up the game as a whole. I am estimating a completion date of May 8th as of this week; hopefully that doesn't get much worse (with d-day set for the 15th). An extra week would still give me plenty of time to finish up the cover design and make any last minute changes to any of the formatting necessary...
Proofreading of the final draft is 81.82% complete as of this morning with 20 sub-Chapters remaining.
Week ten, I finally hit the wall; it was a productive week even though the numbers don't show it. Monday I completed work I had started last weekend on the Bestiary in Chapter 12.4, the last of the major data chapters left in the game. With that done, I went ahead and jumped into Chapter 2.3, the character creation rules and the last section remaining of Chapter Two. Proofreading work on that Chapter continued until late in the day on Wednesday; meantime, I got Chapters 6.1 and 7.1 converted, formatted and collated and Chapter 12.4 converted to Word format. I promptly performed the post-proofreading work on 2.3 as soon as proofreading was completed, and after collating it with the remainder of Chapter Two I tacked on Chapter 2.4 (which was prepped up last week) to the collation, finishing out Chapter Two. This let me immediately turn around and perform the pagination work on Chapters Two, Three and Four and set up the pagination for Chapter Five. My focus then turned to Chapter Five; I was able to get Chapter 5.3 finished before the day ended on Wednesday and started work on Chapter 5.1 first thing Thursday morning. Unfortunately, it turned out that 5.1 needed a lot of work; it took me until Friday afternoon to finally get it finished. Hoping to knock out another relatively small chapter, I went to Chapter 8.1 next and finished it up on Saturday. While all this was going on, I was able to convert and format Chapters 5.3, 5.5 and 12.4; they'll be ready for collation when the time comes. I've also got Chapter 8.5 converted to Word, though I still need to finish up its formatting work. Only five completed sub-chapters this week and I still haven't caught up with the post-proofreading work.
Things still haven't settled down enough for me to pick up work on Vespus again; hopefully soon. Missions are still next on the game plan there. This past week I ran the scenario I mentioned in last week's update for the combat demo twice. I'm really glad I did this now instead of later; the demo has shown the need for several tweaks to the current combat engine. I'll be making those before I attempt anything formal as far as a combat demo goes (really, I should probably get Chapter Nine proofread first, and I probably need to go through Chapter 6.2.3 and 7.2.2 sooner rather than later).
The grand master plan at this point is to finish up Chapter Five and get into Chapter Six. The estimate for finishing up Chapter Five is a little over three days at this point, so I'll likely finish it up this coming week (provided 5.4 doesn't throw a wrench into the works); Chapter Six's estimate after that is about five days. I am starting to think of strategies for handling Chapter 12.2; as big as it is, it has to be done sometime and I'm wondering if in fact it isn't a data chapter (albeit a freakin' huge one; trimming it is my last resort for shortening the game if it comes down to it). I did come across a couple of typos when I was looking at a few of the tables this last week, so I'm thinking I might be able to handle those with a piece of code like I did with Chapter 2.4. If I can get it knocked out, it'll go a long way towards finishing up the game as a whole. I am estimating a completion date of May 8th as of this week; hopefully that doesn't get much worse (with d-day set for the 15th). An extra week would still give me plenty of time to finish up the cover design and make any last minute changes to any of the formatting necessary...
Proofreading of the final draft is 81.82% complete as of this morning with 20 sub-Chapters remaining.
capi3101
Admiral
Good Monday, Wingnuts and Citizens! Time for this week's WCRPG Update.
Week eleven...well, I don't know whether it was productive or not. I had made all my plans for what I intended to get done this past week, put them up in the last update and promptly changed them (which is getting to be a bad habit). As those of you who follow these updates are no doubt aware, I took some time a couple of weeks ago to estimate just how much work was left to be done. As part of that effort, I estimated how long it would take in working days to complete each remaining section. Since then, there's been one section of the game that's been staring me in the face: Chapter 12.2, the Who's Who. My initial estimate was that it would take three full weeks just to complete that one section. Since then, I've been trying to challenge that notion; I've felt that it was in fact a big data section, all of which so far have taken far less time to complete than originally estimated. It was causing me a big mental block, so this week I decided to tackle it. I spent the entire week - four working days; I lost Friday - on that one Chapter. As of this morning I can report that it is indeed a data section (albeit a huge one) and that I've finished it up to Captain Eisen's profile in the WC4 section, about three-quarters of it. I anticipate finishing it up early this week. I have been able to verify the tables as error-free and correct and so the remaining challenge is the preamble text to each character profile - text that becomes sparse once I get into the Privateer 2 section. As far as post-proofreading work goes, I was able to get mostly caught up. On Wednesday, I delved into the wonderful world of macros in MS Word and was able to develop a good, working script; at this point, I can get completed sections converted to the correct formatting with a single keystroke. I still have to do some pre-processing and I now have to run the final spell-check after formatting is in place, but it's a small price to pay for shaving a lot of time and effort off the whole process. The only section requiring any additional post-proofreading work as of this morning is Chapter 9.5 and that's only because I want to make absolutely sure I'm done making tweaks from the combat demo before I call it said and done.
Speaking of the combat demo, I ran the third iteration of it on Monday and a fourth on Thursday; on Thursday, the Confed forces finally won. Additional tweaks from the testing included changes to the ITTS accessory, rules for rapid-fire weaponry, adjusted rules for Antimatter Guns and additional effects to Flak Guns that make them more attractive to use against fighters. We did get a torpedo shot down and a couple of weapons jams going on, so i'm well satisfied with the rules at this point. I'm still exploring ways to put friendly-fire scenarios back in; they were taken out with the last adjustment of the critical miss rules). I think I know how I'm going to do it and I'll be making those changes in the near future. No work on Vespus again this week; since I'm happy with the combat demo at this point, I'm hoping to be able to pick it up next week - it's going to depend on how quickly I can finish 12.2, I think.
I did make one other change this week, this one to the game's credits. Because my normal playtester basically told me he wanted nothing to do with WCRPG (he's more anxiously awaiting the commencement of work in earnest on my next RPG, the jerk) and because Whistler has been of a great deal of assistance to me these last few weeks, I decided on Tuesday to go ahead and add his name to the credits under principal playtesting. Thank you greatly for your help so far, Whistler; if I have your name spelled wrong in the credits or if you'd prefer I use your CIC handle, please let me know.
Alright: grand master plan at this point is to finish up Chapter 12.2, then swing back to Chapter Five and get into Chapter Six. Not much of the plan has changed this week from last, but since I didn't finish anything this week my completion estimate has been slowly worsening over time; at this point the estimates say I've eaten up any spare time I might've had up to this point. I anticipate this changing early next week back to the comfortable margin I have had up to this point; once again, it's going to depend on how fast I can finish up 12.2. Keep your fingers crossed.
Proofreading of the final draft remains at 81.82% complete as of this morning with 20 sub-Chapters remaining.
Week eleven...well, I don't know whether it was productive or not. I had made all my plans for what I intended to get done this past week, put them up in the last update and promptly changed them (which is getting to be a bad habit). As those of you who follow these updates are no doubt aware, I took some time a couple of weeks ago to estimate just how much work was left to be done. As part of that effort, I estimated how long it would take in working days to complete each remaining section. Since then, there's been one section of the game that's been staring me in the face: Chapter 12.2, the Who's Who. My initial estimate was that it would take three full weeks just to complete that one section. Since then, I've been trying to challenge that notion; I've felt that it was in fact a big data section, all of which so far have taken far less time to complete than originally estimated. It was causing me a big mental block, so this week I decided to tackle it. I spent the entire week - four working days; I lost Friday - on that one Chapter. As of this morning I can report that it is indeed a data section (albeit a huge one) and that I've finished it up to Captain Eisen's profile in the WC4 section, about three-quarters of it. I anticipate finishing it up early this week. I have been able to verify the tables as error-free and correct and so the remaining challenge is the preamble text to each character profile - text that becomes sparse once I get into the Privateer 2 section. As far as post-proofreading work goes, I was able to get mostly caught up. On Wednesday, I delved into the wonderful world of macros in MS Word and was able to develop a good, working script; at this point, I can get completed sections converted to the correct formatting with a single keystroke. I still have to do some pre-processing and I now have to run the final spell-check after formatting is in place, but it's a small price to pay for shaving a lot of time and effort off the whole process. The only section requiring any additional post-proofreading work as of this morning is Chapter 9.5 and that's only because I want to make absolutely sure I'm done making tweaks from the combat demo before I call it said and done.
Speaking of the combat demo, I ran the third iteration of it on Monday and a fourth on Thursday; on Thursday, the Confed forces finally won. Additional tweaks from the testing included changes to the ITTS accessory, rules for rapid-fire weaponry, adjusted rules for Antimatter Guns and additional effects to Flak Guns that make them more attractive to use against fighters. We did get a torpedo shot down and a couple of weapons jams going on, so i'm well satisfied with the rules at this point. I'm still exploring ways to put friendly-fire scenarios back in; they were taken out with the last adjustment of the critical miss rules). I think I know how I'm going to do it and I'll be making those changes in the near future. No work on Vespus again this week; since I'm happy with the combat demo at this point, I'm hoping to be able to pick it up next week - it's going to depend on how quickly I can finish 12.2, I think.
I did make one other change this week, this one to the game's credits. Because my normal playtester basically told me he wanted nothing to do with WCRPG (he's more anxiously awaiting the commencement of work in earnest on my next RPG, the jerk) and because Whistler has been of a great deal of assistance to me these last few weeks, I decided on Tuesday to go ahead and add his name to the credits under principal playtesting. Thank you greatly for your help so far, Whistler; if I have your name spelled wrong in the credits or if you'd prefer I use your CIC handle, please let me know.
Alright: grand master plan at this point is to finish up Chapter 12.2, then swing back to Chapter Five and get into Chapter Six. Not much of the plan has changed this week from last, but since I didn't finish anything this week my completion estimate has been slowly worsening over time; at this point the estimates say I've eaten up any spare time I might've had up to this point. I anticipate this changing early next week back to the comfortable margin I have had up to this point; once again, it's going to depend on how fast I can finish up 12.2. Keep your fingers crossed.
Proofreading of the final draft remains at 81.82% complete as of this morning with 20 sub-Chapters remaining.
Whistler
Vice Admiral
I'm humbled. I'm a bit modest when it comes to accepting recognition so bear with me a bit (although I thought my part rather minor
). Since my name IS up there as an official play-tester, I guess I better start doing some more play-testing 
. IMHO your work and progress with getting this gem up and running is down-right epic, considering the sheer volume of data.I find the most challenging about game-mastering these battles is calculating component damage (great at math but terrible at algebra). I'm used to old friends and foes alike different takes on dice warfare so keeping up isn't a stretch, however WCRPG is a new system for me so of course it takes some adaptation on my part. As soon as you've given the green light on finalizing chapter 9 I'll start putting together various scenarios using the Who's Who and vehicle chapters and see what kind of trouble I can stir up in the galaxy. Unless of course you have something specific in mind.
If you can add my CIC handle in-between the name that'd be my one tweak I'd ask for.
On a personal note... YOU SPELLED MY NAME RIGHT!!!(Caps intended). You have no idea how many times I have to correct people, documents, paperwork, bills, etc...and they all misspell my last name. It's really not that hard, "Risko" read like Risk-o. Yes, even when I type it and email it to someone they seem to feel a need to correct my spelling?
You wouldn't believe the incredible and even somewhat creative ways it has been both deliberately and mistakenly printed.Rant over, back on topic:
I stopped at chapter five, pending your warnings about proofreading, then I'll continue when you're close to just the last chapters. Happy macroing!