This weekend is my plan for tossing that one up on the workshop. I just have to get a presentation format down and resist–for as long as I can–the urge to make any more changes or do any more upgrades. It’s time to call this one and put it out there for scrutiny.
Fleeing Victory Chapter Two
I don’t know when this one became so difficult to write. I think Remnants and Artorius are finally starting to take over in my mind. It might not be a bad idea to start getting some content written for those so I can relieve some of the ‘creative pressure’ they’re exerting. Barring that, I may just have to rehash some of my older story ideas and tweak them to fit FV. It’s a pantser series so it’s flexible enough for that.
In short: this is hard.
World of Warships: Scharnhorst
I hate it when I take the initiative, don’t get myself blown out of the water early game, secure map control in mid, and we still lose. I did eventually sink, as German battleships are wont to do in the end, but look at these!
We would have won if we either killed the Gneisenau in A cap and taken it back, or taken C cap since the enemy Colorado sailed off to another game and only came back to give the Gneisenau fire support. Our Mahan and Belfast went after the Gneisenau right after I got sunk by the Colorado, the Mahan exchanged torpedoes with the former, both of them exploded, then Belfast secured A and went to B to try and fight the Colorado. The Belfast also promptly exploded.
We should have split to take A and C simultaneously, and kudos to the Belfast and Mahan for playing so well up to that point, but I got beached torpedoing the Fiji and gunning out the Myoko (if you’ve seen my Graf Spee video you know I’m prone to beaching during sudden torpedo rushes), which left me open to the Colorado as I was backing out to get moving again.
I guess what I’m saying is both approaches could have worked but we banked too much on ‘Plan A.’ The Colorado not coming back to contest B cap in time, and expecting the Mahan to take out the Gneisenau and survive, neither of those panned out, so they had us beat on points and time. There was nothing left to do but have a one on one.
Closing
That’s all I’ve got for now. Today hasn’t been very productive. Mostly just putting the finishing touches on the Cosmo Messer, doing some reading, and some brainstorming. Things have to get rolling this weekend, though.
It took a few nights but I finally saved up enough free xp to research the Preussen and it was xp well spent. I love this ship. Wargaming said they were swapping out the G.K. for a ship that was more in line with the other tech tree German battleships and Preussen not only fits right in, she’s the best iteration of the 8 gun German battleship design.
Granted she’s got no torpedoes like the Tirpitz and Pommern, but gameplay-wise, those are both premium versions of the Bismarck and F.D.G. respectively, so it makes sense. In that same vein, the Preussen and G.K. are just variants of each other.
Anyway, that was a fun Clan Battles session. I only played Preussen in the last two games, so better to think of it as a treat at the end. She’s going right up there with my other favorites: Yamato, Shikishima, Bourgogne, and Schlieffen.
I’ve read/listened to this one twice already, but it’s a good length and an even better story. My new hardcover’s on the way so that will be the book for March. While I don’t plan on having monthly goals for ZAP content for the time being, I like the ‘book a month’ approach and will keep that one going.
Space Engineers
For March I’ll be finishing up the Cosmo Messer and the Prinz Heinrich, though I don’t expect the latter to be finished until close to April.
The Cosmo Messer just needs some testing now and that’s about it. The look is right, the number of thrusters is acceptable for the ‘first iteration,’ and the scripts it uses are working fine. So here’s hoping it’s a good first upload for the workshop.
Lydia’s Golden Treasury
I wanted to start on the editing sessions again but it’s going to be tricky with Chapter 2 no longer being the Atoning Mirror. I think it might be better in the long term to have the first draft for that done first, so I’ll try to get that figured out ASAP. If I’m lucky I might even be able to churn the whole thing out this month.
If I’m lucky.
Fleeing Victory
FV2 should be done this week. As such it’s one of my weekly goals for now. More on that later.
Next ZAP Project
I’m still deciding but I’ve narrowed it down to either a Remnants story or an Artorius story. I’m so unsure with these it could conceivably come down to a coin toss. That’s better than going into April completely unprepared, though.
So that’s it, Remnants or Artorius.
That’s all for tonight, but it’s going to be a busy few weeks.
Finally I’m escaping from this awful month. Time to brace for March and beyond, right?
It was pretty much a bust after all, but let’s review February anyway.
Lydia’s Golden Treasury Chapter 5 and 6 1st Draft
Lydia’s Golden Treasury Editing Sessions: Chapter 2
Fleeing Victory: FV2
Read 1 novel
There hasn’t been any progress on the drafts or the editing sessions to speak of. Normally I spend the last week and a half figuring out the chapters and then writing and touching them up. For February I spent nearly all of that time trying to fix the site and I’m still not finished. I’m not proud of it but it is what it is.
Next is FV2. That’s a similar story but easier to rectify. The chapters are a lot smaller than LGT so I only need a couple of days of serious focus to crank them out. Unfortunately it’s the end of February and I’m not going to be able to finish part one in just a few hours.
That just leaves The Virtues of War. That I did manage to finish, but it’s a novel so that was never in doubt. At least I don’t think it was. I’ll give it a 7.5 out of 10 for now.
As for how I’m going to handle things going forward. I think it’s time to start using a few mental hacks to keep myself on track.
Here’s something I cooked up just prior to writing this post:
For me, visual progress indicators serve as both positive and negative feedback. On the one hand, being further along than I expect is motivating. On the other hand, being behind schedule gives me a sense of urgency every time I’m reminded. It might not work forever, but in the short term, it should help me get adjusted.
This isn’t just for the listed projects either. Once I figure out how I want to ‘show progress’ on those, I’ll be doing these for elements of LGT, FV, and any other ZAP content.
Another thing I’m going to be doing is breaking these goals down into weeklies and possibly dailies. It’s not hard to post everyday so I’ll save the smaller things for that.
As for presentation, I haven’t a clue. These are all woes for March so I’ll post more about it tomorrow or the day after.
Well, Clan Battles went alright, though there were definitely some frustrating matches in between the steamrolls and hard fought victories.
I’ve got to clear out some old recordings soon but I’ll review them first to see if there’s anything worth keeping and using in video clips.
Drone Testing
I did some more testing on the Messer conversion today. It looks like there’s just one problem standing between me and actually having fully functioning Cosmo Messer drones. That problem is how the drones decide which dock they want to use. Half the time they’ll pick the closest dock and half the time they’ll pick the other one.
The Hipper’s design pretty much prohibits building docks in a line. It’s either 2 fighters side by side or just one, and right now I’m leaning toward the latter. Admiral Hipper was never meant to be reliant on drones, I just liked the idea of having one or two available.
I’m still not planning to use the E models as the base for the drone models, but they work well enough for testing.
Sort of …
This is what happens when the wrong docks get picked. The drones either come in way too fast and slam into each other or just decide to relax and cuddle.
Anyway, the last thing I wanted to mention is that my Space Engineers projects feel like a pretty good source of material for the blog, so I’ll be putting more effort into that, as well. That includes trying to pick up C# and making adjustments to in-game scripts.
I’ll try to post any useful info I learn about that and building techniques here going forward.
