Wing Commander RPG

"All work and no play makes Jack a Dull Boy All work and no play makes Jack a Dull Boy All work and no play makes Jack a dull...

oh Kerbals...run along and play Danny."

How The Shining could have ended had poor Jack remembered to take a break now and then. Don't let this happen to you.
 
Greetings, Wingnuts and Citizens! Time for the Weekly WCRPG Update.

This past week was another relatively light working week. I spent my time in Chapter 2.3 of the Elegy campaign trying to work through the litany I've had for the past several months - to finish the stats of the Demon's Eye Base, slice the plot some more and begin working on battle maps. With the stats of the Demon's Eye base completed last week, I decided to spend this week beginning work on the battle maps. To that end, I needed to come up with a basic design for a Kilrathi asteroid base. At the beginning of the week, I was under the impression that there was no extant design for such a base; it was a suggestion from CIC member L.I.F. to check with the Saga team for the design of a Kilrathi resource base for CIC member Nomada_Firefox's SOASE project that tipped me off to the contrary. Since Saga uses craft from WC3, I decided to check Kilrathi craft from WC3 on the old CIC ships database. I felt like a real idiot for not checking the ship's database first - all I had to do was visit the page and there it was plain as day. I would up having that problem (not checking the ship's database) twice this week - once looking for an overall layout, and once for the general size of the base (the length stat). My Monday and Tuesday wrapped up in a single sentence...

So on Wednesday I began taking more detailed measurements of the structure using the six "profile" shots available from the ships database. Using the base statistics and my list of desired battle maps, I began assigning areas where internal structures would be located within the structure, and then calculated the scale of each individual perspective image in meters per pixel. Measurements continued on Thursday and Friday, with overall volumes calculated for the dormitory, concourse, hangar and cargo module areas. I've been following a pattern of getting a rough size in meters, recalculating that for demaki (a standard Kilrathi architectural measurement, each equivalent to 4.8 meters), and then rounding the demaki measurement to some multiple of eight. This did result in some rounding but what took place there was well within the margins for error, particularly given the case that I'm making a few things up as I go - the Demon's Eye base is merely based on the asteroid base model, and is intended to be about a third of the size of the base in WC3 (still plenty big). That does mean the hangar and cargo spaces are slightly off, so I'll be making the necessary changes to the base's basic stats later this week. The figures as they're currently listed aren't that far off.

My Plan for this week is to continue work in Chapter 2.3, beginning with the continuation of measurements. Of the desired set of battle maps, I still need to come up with general ideas as to the shape and size of the base's operations center, determine what facilities will be on the main concourse, and work out the overall dimensions of the station's power plant and ore processor areas. Once that's been determined, I can begin making battle maps in earnest, a process that I'm looking forward to. I also intend to continue work on the Chapter's prologue, something that I need to get started considering I've got four scenes planned. I did do some work on dialogue this last week, changing the initial lines of the first scene and working a bit on the dialogue of the fourth scene (the "mission briefing"), but there's still a great deal of work to do overall. Definitely going to be here for a while...

Quick shout out to my big sister, who today turns kesthaidajislakh treok'okko in trep'ntok'treokko by the Kilrathi calendar. Aiy'hravujaq ahki, Kathy ni'ni'lavinihkiga!! H'in ri'as bhahar va ta ni'ko'a'itakav, ri'ni'lavinga maks ni'lin'insu'hras!

(And maybe one day I might translate that...)

Well, that's all I've got for this update. The next scheduled update will post to the WCRPG site and CIC forums sometime between 11-14Z on Monday, November 21st. Y'all have a pleasant week.
 
Greetings, Wingnuts and Citizens! Time for the Weekly WCRPG Update. For y'all in the States, I hope y'all had a pleasant Thanksgiving holiday this past week.

It's been a couple of weeks since the previous update, and I have to admit that I have once again been playing more KSP than I probably should have been (on the plus side, I've got a pretty awesome refinery/refueling station system set up around Kerbin's moon at this point and I've got a pretty good manual ILS system set up - including marker buoys out in the water, a first for me). What work I've been done on Elegy these last couple of weeks has been limited mainly to work on the dialogue in the prologue of Chapter 2.3 and making additional notes regarding the scenes I've been working on in the prologue. Some substantial work took place on the dialogue of the first scene this past Monday, and on Tuesday I was able to complete the dialogue in that scene to a sufficient degree to call it good and done. My notes for the second scene proved to be sufficient enough to knock out the dialogue in that scene as well. I spent the afternoon on Tuesday making general measurements for the ore processor and power plant areas of the Demon's Eye Base, which pretty much wraps up the preliminary work that needs to be done before I can begin making battle maps for the mission in Chapter 2.3. I'm still leaning towards the mission being mainly a reconnaissance run, where members of the group "case the joint" and perform a little sabotage before Ni'Rakh arrives, with the final climatic encounter including a space battle. I finished out the week with work on the dialogue of the third scene, where Bloodeye has an encounter with a drunken human pirate that springs the rest of the Chapter into action.

My Plan for this past week is to continue work in Chapter 2.3. With preliminary work done on external measurements of the base, I need to begin determining specific features of the internal architecture for the fifteen specific areas I've identified within the base. Even if I don't use all fifteen areas for Chapter 2.3, having that work done could save me some time in future Chapters if I decide to use them later on. I'll also still continue work on dialogue, and it might behoove me to begin working on narrative for the first two scenes of the prologue as well. I probably should start splitting my efforts like I did in Chapter 2.2, working on the prologue and epilogue during my lunch break while working on the mission portion during my afternoon break, with the hope being to avoid getting burned-out on any one thing. I may also begin translation work of the first few scenes of the prologue when I can finish them up, though I imagine that the translation work in the Chapter is still quite a long ways off. I do have my overnight shifts coming up in a week or two, and those are usually productive times for me, so I'm hopeful that I will be able to report more substantial progress to y'all some time before the end of the year.

Well, that's all I've got for this update. The next scheduled update will post to the WCRPG site and CIC forums sometime between 11-14Z on Monday, December 5th. Y'all have a pleasant week.
 
Greetings, Wingnuts and Citizens! Time for the Weekly WCRPG Update.

Not a whole lot to report to y'all this past week; if I we weren't getting ready to head into the end of the year, I might've considered skipping the update this week. I spent pretty much the entire week working on dialogue in the four scenes of the prologue in Chapter 2.3 of the Elegy campaign, with work focused primarily on the fourth scene this past week. I've been reorganizing the dialogue in that scene a fair amount, looking for an optimal way of ordering things around so that it flows logically and covers all the topics I want to talk about. Originally, I had things where there was no opposition to the idea of the group checking out the status of the Demon's Eye base based solely on a rumor, but it occurred to me that the scene would work better if somebody pointed out that it was a bad idea and made Bloodeye justify the action. It's required yet another set of re-writes but ultimately I think it will make the scene all the more believable. I've also been working on the previous scene, where Bloodeye hears the rumor that sets up the fourth scene. I'm basically just formulating the text of the drunken Terran pirate that tells Bloodeye about Demon's Eye, and I'm trying to figure out the best way of conveying Bloodeye's emotional state during the conversation (aggravated and wanting to pull himself out of the conversation, but finding himself unable to). I did go ahead and move some notes from the third scene to the fourth largely because the Chapter's structure has changed a little since I wrote those notes, and I'm hoping I'll still be able to include the elements discussed in those notes to the fourth scene. Some of them may have to wait until the prologue of Chapter 2.4 - which is doable, since at the moment I have very little in terms of what I want to go there.

My Plan for this week is to continue plugging on in Chapter 2.3. I may be further along with the dialogue than I think I am at the moment and I can foresee me completing my efforts there during the coming week. If that happens, I'll turn my attention to narrative and while I don't think it's particularly likely, I will begin the translation effort if I make it that far. I may also take some time to work on battle maps; I have no progress to report there despite it being on my radar for this past calendar year. My overnight shifts for the semester begin this week and working on battle maps have helped me make it through the last few, so I may find myself working on them during the next few days. I don't know if I'll work on the maps for Demon's Eye or proceed to the maps for the Drayman-II that will be featured in Chapter 2.4; either would be progress, of course.

Well, that's all I've got for this update. The next scheduled update will post to the WCRPG site and CIC forums sometime between 11-14Z on Monday, December 12th. Y'all have a pleasant week.
 
Skipping my WCRPG Update this week on account of a very busy weekend. Will try to have one next week at the normal bat-time/channel.
 
Greetings, Wingnuts and Citizens! Time for the Weekly WCRPG Update.

It's been two weeks since my last update, and to be wholly honest I'm embarrassed with how little I've managed to accomplish during that time. I wound up spending my overnights playing KSP - though in all fairness, it proved to be a pretty good way to keep awake. It also means that I was playing when I could've been working on Elegy...

My focus was still largely on completing the dialogue of the four scenes in the prologue of Chapter 2.3 these past two weeks. With work on the first two scenes finished, I began the period with work on the third scene and got to the point where I was comfortable calling the dialogue in that scene ready to go on December 6th. I anticipate having some fun with Bloodeye's inner monologue when it comes time to work on the narrative of that scene, given that I wrote the Terran pirate with whom he has a conversation as a pretty reprehensible person. I moved some notes around on the 7th and added notes for the first scene narrative, and also wrote down an idea I had for the chapter's epilogue. I also made a quick change to the dialogue in the third scene before moving on to the fourth scene. I already had some work done in that scene so work went by fairly quickly; by the end of the day on the 9th, I was ready to call the fourth scene dialogue finished. I'm not entirely sure I like how the fourth scene ends, but I'll go with it for the time being; I made the attempt to tie in the end of the conversation of the fourth scene with the conversation in the second scene and I think it works, but I may change my mind when I finally get into writing the narrative in earnest there. Meanwhile, work has commenced on the narrative of the first scene. I do have things set up at the moment where Bloodeye finishes that scene thoroughly perturbed at Ratharin Sa'guk (the administrator of the pirate base where the group is at at the beginning of the Chapter), and I don't know if that's going to work or not. I think it's going to have to - I just have to make sure Ratharin really winds up cheesing him off...

My Plan for the coming weeks is to continue work on the narrative in Chapter 2.3. I do need to get started in earnest on the actual mission itself - I have my idea for what I want to do, but as yet I don't have a clear idea as to how I want to do it. I will probably be looking for some advice from some fellow roleplayers in the near future. Push comes to shove and I get the narrative done without beginning work on the mission, I'll begin work on the epilogue. I've had some ideas for what to do with the Chapter transitions later on with Elegy and I need to get them written down before I forget about them. I've also been working lately on making a working board version of TacOps; that's taken up a couple of my days this past week. What I've got is working pretty well so far; at least it's letting me play the game with my eldest son, who has recently taken an interest in the game. I don't anticipate getting much work done these coming weeks given the upcoming holidays, but I'm sure I'll get something done during the period...

Well, that's all I've got for this update. Due to the upcoming Christmas and New Years Holiday, this will be the last update for 2016; the next scheduled update will post to the WCRPG site and CIC forums sometime between 11-14Z on Monday, January 9th, 2017. I wish all y'all a very Merry Chrismas, a Happy New Year and a pleasant holiday season. See y'all in three weeks.
 
Vidmaster said:
I still dream of an interactive novel-like EXE / App / HTML-script or something letting you play these things solo.
Click to expand...

I was going to reply with "that sort of thing would be cool; wish I had the expertise to do something like that", but in my Facebook feed this morning I learned about something called Roll20 that looks very interesting. Might have to do some more research on it...
 
Greetings, Wingnuts and Citizens! It's time for the first Weekly WCRPG Update of 2017.

First up this week: I apparently owe you all an apology - I failed to write an update last Monday (January 9th), which is when I said I would during the last update. Having not approached the project very much over the course of this past month, I for some reason thought that yesterday was the day that I said I would resume updates. That one's pretty much entirely on me, though in fairness none of y'all asked me about it this past week either...

I won't say anything about missing the update yesterday - I slept in for the holiday, so what can y'all expect, right?

For having been a month since the last update, I don't have a lot to report to y'all. I have made exactly no progress with Chapter 2.3 since the last update on account of having a pretty serious case of writer's block, which I have yet to get out of. In the meantime, though, I did try to get some work done on other portions of the campaign. On December 19th, I decided to go ahead and drop in an encounter template for Chapter 2.4, where the Demon's Eye Pack undergoes their first operation to capture a Drayman-II-class transport belonging to Bronte Corporation with the intent of getting food. I was able to come up with the main "five rooms" of the Chapter that day, defining the goals of each encounter and coming up with ideas for what will happen at each point. Since the goal of Chapter 2.4 is pretty straight-forward, the encounters damn near wrote themselves (if only). Which is good, since at the time I had little idea what I wanted to write about in the Chapter's prologue and epilogue. I did come up with some ideas for things to go there and dropped them into the template on December 20th before calling it quits for the holiday break.

I discovered a continuity error when I came back to work on January 3rd while working on some of the ideas I'd had for Chapter 2.4's prologue: I refered to Halas Hodge as the Governor of the Border Worlds in Chapter 2.0, but after taking another look at what I had written in Chapter 6.0, Hodge is supposed to be the Chancellor of the Border Worlds Council (i.e. head of the Border Worlds Legislature, not the Chief of State). I decided to go ahead and substitute the correct name of the Governor (Bendt Guildenstern) into Chapter 2.0, which turned out to be much easier to do than to re-write everything to make Hodge the Governor. "Guildenstern", a Danish surname, has a meaning of "golden star", which in Kilrathi is bhuj'qith; substituting the name was therefore pretty easy. Despite having found this error on January 3rd, events in real life kept me from making the change until this past Monday. I also worked briefly on the narrative and dialogue in both Chapter 2.3 and 3.4. Finally, since I didn't seem to be making much progress in either Chapter 2.3 or 2.4, this past Tuesday I dropped in a template into Chapter 3.5, entitled Nislanbhak. This Chapter is unique in it is the first of several planned "non-plot" missions, the idea of which is to help lengthen the campaign if people desire without necessarily having to be played or be at all relevant to the plot. I haven't completely decided how I want to structure the non-plot portions of the campaign; I had the idea that I might not want to include any storyline with them, but rather just present a synopsis of events immediately prior to the mission and come up with some potential outcomes. My progress so far with that Chapter, aside from dropping in the template, is selecting a world for the setting. I do have a notion of what I want to do for the plot twist at the end, but as usual nothing has been set in stone at this early juncture.

My Plan for this week - I really don't know. Technically, I've got three different portions of the game in progress now: Chapter 2.3, Chapter 2.4 and Chapter 3.5. In Chapter 2.3, I've got ideas for the story but no idea how the mission will go. In Chapter 2.4, I've got a pretty solid mission idea but it's missing key pieces, and there are some problems with prologue and epilogue. And in Chapter 3.5, I basically just have the template. It may be that this week I'll try to work on the plot in Chapter 2.3; assuming I make any progress there, I'll try to get the epilogue hammered out so I have an idea where Chapter 2.4 will start. I'm hoping things in RL will settle down soon; my log shows a lot of time lost there these past several months. I do know that I have one major event going on later this week which will eat into my time to work, but hopefully that'll be it for a while and I can finally get back to work on <u>Elegy</u> in earnest. And maybe regain my focus as well...three things at once is ridiculous...

Well, that's all I've got for this update. The next scheduled update will post to the WCRPG site and CIC forums sometime between 11-14Z on Monday, January 23rd. Y'all have a pleasant week.
 
No one worries when you take a break Capi. On the contrary, it's a bit of a relief to see you skip a week and rest a bit.

Kudos on keeping up the pace but, being honest here, as a certain vampire once said:

rest-is-good-for-the-blood.png


We'll see ya next week.
 
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