Another week has passed, another WIP update is here to show you the things we’re working on for M.A.S.S. Builder 0.9.0 update. This time, it’s more spotlight on the upcoming Quarks. As we’ve mentioned in previous WIP update, the newer Quarks will feature more details and will bring on some different…
Between the enemy with a wind tunnel for a face and this slog turned t-rex, I actually think this is the weirder one. Most quarks are quad-limbed, so this creature stands out for that alone. It’s jaw is also significantly larger than it appears at a glance. Depending on the final scale, this thing could probably eat a M.A.S.S. outright.
Well, Halo finally got here yesterday. That’s right around the time of month these books usually show up. I’ll be starting on that one either tonight or tomorrow. It really comes down to how much energy I have.
It feels like ‘gone are the days’ when sleep left me feeling well rested.
One other thing to note, I’ve decided to use the exact building process I used on the latest iteration of the Admiral Hipper on the Prinz Heinrich. In short, I’m rebuilding the entire ship from scratch. It won’t be easy, and it’s going to take a while, long enough that the Hipper will probably be done well, WELL in advance, but it’s necessary.
I learned a lot renovating and experimenting with that original D-37, but ultimately the hull form is what’s holding me back. The Timberwolf will always have a special place in my heart, and I’ll probably use a couple of variants of it for other things, but the Heinrich needs two things to really shine now: a modless interior, and a new hull form.
This does mean that my passages mod experiment also ends here. As much as I like this mod, it is missing a few passage variants that make it worth going all in for a ship design, at least in my case. Now that I’ve got a better grasp of interior layouts, I’m having a much easier time without them.
That should do it for now. Let’s see what Vermillion has for us tomorrow.
Whether to start Remnants proper or Artorius first. That’s a problem I’ve been mulling over for weeks now. I’m not sure why exactly, but after watching this very interesting video from FEE, I’ve made my decision.
After briefly touching on the war in Ukraine he gets to the areas I’m more personally interested in.
Deeper Truths
One of the most appealing things about storytelling is that the best stories put an irrefutable truth right there for all to see, if they want to see it. It’s not something you have to be told directly, it’s just there, woven throughout the setting and the story being told. Anyone who says that’s easy to pull off hasn’t tried it, or isn’t being honest.
There’s also something to be said for letting the meaning behind a story imbue itself to a degree. Deliberately injecting commentary and themes into every aspect of a story can backfire. It’s the difference between Hayao Miyazaki’s work and all of the didactic crap we’re starting to get numb to.
So Which One?
I’m going to pull the trigger on both of these. I wasn’t sure which one to focus on first because I assumed I wouldn’t have time to work on both concurrently, and that trying would lead to an unhelpful amount of cross pollination in the stories. I’m starting to think that worry is a bit overblown, though. Doesn’t cross pollination from a single author just amount to that author’s signature style of storytelling? Their core message? I can think of worse things to embrace, and I’ve got bigger problems to worry about besides.
Also, I’ve never really been able to work on single projects with complete and total focus for very long. Even with Lydia’s Golden Treasury, I was making a lot more progress on that when I had other things I could write when my inspiration wavered, usually Fleeing Victory.
Remnants and Artorius can serve each other in the same way, so I’m going to work on both.
Remnants of the Elders
Remnants, RotE for short, is about Gods, Angels, and Men. This is also the one that’s been subtly torturing me for the past six or so months, as it’s much easier to sort out the lore and why certain things are the way they are. That’s in contrast to Praedia or Aeon, where things are different enough from the real world that I have to do an absurd amount of research to make sure even minor details actually work.
Whatever you imagine when reading ‘Gods, Angels, and Men’ is probably somewhere on point. The Remnants story I’ve outlined isn’t about particulars in folklore, religion, or history. This is one of those cases where I’m leaning more heavily on my own lived experiences, and why FEE’s video on Miyazaki’s films convinced me to pull the trigger on the series.
Artorius
Artorius actually has two sets of protagonists, but the second set is kind of a spinoff that covers the ‘front lines’ of some major historical events in Aeon’s setting. In the long run, the second set might be more important, but I’d like to write the first set first since there is some story overlap and direct interaction in places.
Artorius is a (set of) stories about ‘Villains.’ It’s no less broad in meaning than Remnants and its stories about Gods, Angels, and Men, but since the inspiration for Artorius had a such a profound effect on me, the stories will be more about particulars and the psychological impact of what happens to these people.
This is one that might work well as a visual novel, with alternate routes and the like, but I don’t have the art skills (yet) to pull that off all by myself. The current plan is to just write everything down, and then see what new forms it can take on.
Lydia’s Golden Treasury
I’ll keep working on this story no matter what else is going on. It’s just going to take longer due to two chapters being merged and a new one being inserted near the beginning.
The way I work on Fleeing Victory these days means it’s not much of a ‘companion project’ for LGT anymore, so I’m going to try to roll this in with Remnants and Artorius. Like I’ve been trying to say for a while now, focusing too heavily on one thing rarely works out for me; I get stuck and can’t move forward for months. That’s actually happening with LGT right now. Having a project where I’m not currently stuck on something helps me work out problems by taking a step back while still being able to work on something. It’s not a perfect process but it beats stagnation.
The Man from Ceres
I haven’t forgotten about this one, but conceptually it’s going to need a little more time in the oven. I have the basic ideas in place, but the main story needs more meat on the bones before I can really start writing anything. I’ll probably save this one for after one of the aforementioned projects is finished.
The Man from Ceres is going to be a great story, so I want to make sure the foundation is strong and build up from there.
Closing
So that’s the update for my writing projects. Three projects, one for each setting: Zion (Remnants), Aeon (Artorius), and Praedia (Lydia’s Golden Treasury). That’s fitting, and I actually didn’t plan for that. I’ll have more information up once things have picked up.
We were more than an hour into waiting before enough people showed, and by that point I was ready to try to take a nap. It didn’t work too well, but I missed CBs for today. I could use a break anyway. I haven’t missed a CB (showing up at least) for as long as I can remember.
That’s about it for now. I’ll try to get some updates for ongoing projects posted tomorrow.
I only woke up a couple of hours ago, so I’m going to keep this one pretty brief.
Some of the experiments I ran on Prinz Heinrich have been fully implemented on the Admiral Hipper, chief among them being subgrids. Despite how many it’s using, the ship is still stable. There is some trouble I’m having, though, and not the kind of trouble I want to deal with this late in a build.
It’s not a problem with Hipper, but with Heinrich. As close as the ship is to being ‘finished’, compared to the Hipper, it’s just not holding up anymore. My skills are improving and it’s really starting to show between these two ships.
Heinrich casts only a meager shadowJust wait until the rest of the Hipper class shows up
Even the bridge designs are worlds apart.
Heinrich’s bridge with a sloped lcds modHipper’s bridge; no modded lcds needed
Now it has to be said here that as a part of the Heinrich’s lore, it’s one of the oldest hulls in the fleet that’s still in active service. I don’t mind the ship looking ‘worse’ than the newer designs. What’s bothering me more is the difference in overall style. I’m calling the current Hipper the ‘Admiral Hipper II‘ because it’s the second version. The older one was coming along well enough and it was more in line with the Heinrich, but along with only being able to carry its fighters externally, it had a few other flaws I just couldn’t tolerate in the end.
The Admiral Hipper II takes her design cues from Star Blazers ships, making her bulkier, more rounded, and a lot more modular. The Prinz Heinrich is a 10 times now modified D-37 Timberwolf. She’s also built around a specific mod that I no longer use.
All of this rambling to say that I’m not sure if I should try to finish the Heinrich as is or do another overhaul. The Cosmo Messer’s going up on the workshop as soon as I figure out how that works, but I can’t say I’d be thrilled to see the Heinrich on there in anything near the state she’s in now.
I have to give this some more thought, but right now I’m really hoping I can come up with some improvements to the exterior to give the ship a less ‘slapped together’ look.
