The Praedian Records

J.G. Phoenix

Current Projects

Riaz Royals

Yamato 90%
Yorktown 80%
Essex 50%
Cleveland 90%
Blücher 95%
Prinz Eugen 50%
Seydlitz (Redux) 40%
Lützow 80%
Type 34 Destroyer 99%
Type 36 Destroyer (Redux) 50%

Favorites in Fiction

MS-14Jg Gelgoog Jäger

YF-29 Durandal (WIP)

More Books

by | Jun 2, 2022 | , ,

I set aside a little every month for a few book purchases, and for this month I picked up another three.

  • Legacy of the Force #1 Betrayal by Aaron Allston
  • Legacy of the Force #2 Bloodlines by Karen Traviss
  • A Throne of Bones by Vox Day

Star Wars, like so many other megacorp IPs, is basically dead, but for me, it only makes the Legends continuity that much more attractive. That’s not to say everything in Legends is good, but Legends is more to me than just a treasure trove of ‘content’ ranging from okay to fantastic. Legends is the eventuality of a beloved franchise being constantly worked on for decades.

That’s worth delving deep into and trying to understand.

As for a Throne of Bones, I started listening to this gem as an audio book over a year ago, but I’m well out of that phase now. I just can’t listen to stories while I’m doing other things and enjoy it anymore. I don’t even enjoy reading stories off of computer screens or tablets unless it’s manga or something similarly slanted toward the artwork.

For novels, I just really want to have the thing in my hands and not glowing, you know?

At some point I’ll start on these and get back to the blog about them.

Clan Battles 6/1

by | Jun 1, 2022 | ,

Not much to say about this one. I did way more calling today than I probably should have, though, and we got knocked out of the struggle a couple of times. That always happens at the beginning so I’m not too broken up about it.

Again, I am resigned to my fate …

We also had to switch to the main clan’s division to keep playing about an hour before the end. There were some really good, really close wins. Three at the beginning and two at the end.

There was no battleship play from me today. The other Phoenix took care of that, so I was mostly playing Shimakaze and trying to get used to Daring. There were also a couple of Yoshino and Smolensk games in there somewhere.

Anyway, there’s still a lot of ‘Cayman’ season left to go. Hopefully I’ll have a few more ships to choose from by then, like Halland, Yueyang, and maybe another coal ship.

Space Engineers: Faction Designs

by | May 31, 2022 | ,

It’s not just these Kaiser types I’m thinking about. I’ve got several other factions to try and flesh out design-wise.

I’m thinking of sticking with a quasi-Yamato 2199 design for the Space Germans, a more committed one for the Japanese, something vaguely BSG for the Royal Navy, and lastly, something between Gundam and Macross for the Americans. This is still just an idea, but it’s where I’m leaning, currently. I’ve got to make at least one mainstay for each faction before I’m really sure what direction I want to take each of them.

The real problem is going to be the smaller craft, fighters, bombers, etc.

It took me practically half a year to finish the Cosmo Messer …

Anyway, that’s most of what I wanted to mention. A few different designs are coming together and I’ll be posting screenshots in the near future. I’m also chewing on a new idea to help me get some more writing practice in, among other things. I’ve probably been watching Outlands too much.

Gearing Up For June

by | May 30, 2022 | , , , , ,

Current Projects

Lydia’s Golden Treasury

At the rate things are going I should have chapter 2’s first draft finished in June. The editing sessions should start again after that and I should have a good workflow established again.

Artorius and Remnants

Right now I’m in the most boring phase of both of these projects: Plotting. It’s going to be easier with Artorius since I already have the general story and events figured out, it’s just filling in the details, figuring out which characters need the most focus, what the story is really all about at its core, etc.

Remnants is trickier because it’s based on some loose ideas and isn’t quite the adaptation that Artorius is. I did figure out something important, though; the hierarchy of entities this setting and its characters are bound to. While it’s not the focus of the main Remnants story I’m working on, there’s a lot I can do with this setting in the future just based on that hierarchy alone.

I hate to be vague but I don’t like getting into specifics this early. It’s just not a good idea.

The Last Command

I was going to start Dune in June, but I’ve got an overwhelming urge to read The Last Command. Dark Force Rising does a really good job of psyching you up for the next entry, even if you’ve ready both previously.

So even though I don’t normally do it like this, I’ll be reading The Last Command next and then Dune in July. No idea after that. I’ve still got some searching to do.

Space Engineers

If I can’t figure out a good look for the Cosmo Messer thumbnail in a few days, I’ll just make a placeholder. I’ve been held back long enough and that upload needs to get done so I can really start focusing on other things.

Also, the Admiral Hipper’s very close to finished. I just have streamline some things, finally settle on what ships the Hipper is and isn’t going to run, and finish programming all the cockpits with the relevant functions. It’s a lot, but if I knew exactly what I was doing I could knock it all out in about six hours.

Since I don’t know what I’m doing, it’ll take considerably longer than that. Probably a few more weeks. That said, I’m tempted to start working on one of the sister ships. Making major hull and layout changes always helped me get insight into prior designs, so it’s not a bad idea for trying to improve the Hipper. It’s just a bit risky since, like with the Cosmo Messer, the more you fiddle with the design, the more you wind up wanting to make broader and bigger changes. It gets out of hand really quickly.

As a general rule, once I start on a sister ship, I’ll make a rule to not make anymore layout changes to the original. Moving furniture around or rearranging a room is one thing. Moving large components around is basically a refit. No refits.

Closing

That should be it for now. I’ll do a follow up to this post if something else comes to mind.

Clan Battles 5/19

by | May 29, 2022 | ,

Tonight’s CBs went ‘okay’ but they definitely could have gone better. This is the META theorycrafting phase of CBs and it really shows. We definitely had some good games, though.

It’s also a little weird having to call more and more often these days. That’s what I get for always showing up and committing to the time slot.

I’m resigned to my fate

Bourgogne is Back

I used Bourgogne exclusively for the last half of Clan Battles tonight, and I think it was the right choice. Battleship compositions are leaning heavily toward tanking, so we’re seeing a lot of GKs and Kremlins.

The reason I picked Bourgogne over Satsuma (and later Yamato), is because the former can change flanks within a couple of minutes and can quickly finish off DDs or broadside cruisers. Satsuma and Yamato have minor issues with anti-cruiser work and major issues with fighting DDs in general.

Satsuma vs Yamato

I got some hilariously bad Satsuma games tonight (not necessarily losses, just games where my contributions were next to worthless). That’s got me wondering whether Yamato isn’t a better choice than Satsuma. Not just because of the extra gun, either.

To start, Satsuma’s supership ‘gimmick’ is the fire adjustment mechanic. It lowers shell dispersion significantly for a brief window. Sounds great, but I personally can’t stand this consumable. It builds up a charge with each salvo that depletes over time. Even when the charge is full and ready to activate, it will drain to zero instantly if it isn’t used quickly enough. My issue with this is that the neither the build up speed nor the charge ‘holding’ time are very forgiving. It punishes you for not firing constantly, which with a ship that relies on enemies giving broadside, is extremely annoying once you start to notice how it affects your play. It’s best to ignore the mechanic entirely until the stars align.

I’m sure this works out fine in randoms, but in Clan Battles, where every cruiser is keeping a close eye on where the enemy battleship is and angling accordingly, there’s rarely an opportunity to activate the consumable and score good hits with it. Couple this with all the anchored Russian radar cruisers and Satsuma’s tendency to overpen and most games I’m lucky to break 50k damage.

Yamato on the other hand, scores far fewer overpens on the same targets due to having smaller caliber guns and more of them. I’m also using the legendary mod, so Yamato’s dispersion is better than Satsuma’s out of the gate. The ship itself is also smaller, which definitely makes a difference when the occasional Shimakaze or Yueyang sneak close enough for torpedoes.

For now I’m going to keep Satsuma in port and rely on my usual BB picks, Yamato and Bourgogne, but once I figure out this particular supership, I might give her another go. I’ve also got my credits to think about; Satsuma’s not really for earning, just wanton destruction.

M.A.S.S. Builder: Dev Progress and a New Quark

by | May 28, 2022 | ,

Well, my preview plugin isn’t working properly at the moment, so we’ll do this the old fashioned way.

I’ve always been a picky about the proportions of monsters with wings. Nine times out of ten the wings just feel too small compared to the rest of the creature. That may technically be the case with this new quark design, but I still like it. I might just be used to how exaggerated quark proportions tend to be in key areas.

It also helps that this creature doesn’t have a stump for a tail. Who knew you could make ‘Johnny Bravo’ proportions look good on a monster.

Progress Update

Now, to the part of where we talk about the progress of 0.9.0. To tell you frankly, we don’t know when the update is coming out ourselves, but we do have a certain date we’ll not cross. Why is it like this? Are things not going according to plan? Honestly, no, things are still going on as planned and there’s been no hurdles we did not expected, but it’s a workload that’s more than we first estimated.

It’s the multiplayer, isn’t it?

See, developing multiplayer modes mean-

Yep!

See, developing multiplayer modes mean we need to revisit every part of the game and see how are we going to apply it into multiplayer. That means we look at each calculation, each area of development that we’ve done up until 0.8.0, and see how well it will translate into multiplayer. Calculations that were done in client must now be moved to server, things like that. And without knowing, the game has grown to an extreme proportions we did not expect it to be, so it took a lot of time to go over everything. Then we apply everything into the new mode, basically a new game in itself while borrowing assets from the old game. That’s how we ended up with almost 5 months of development without an expected release date yet.
But looking at everything, the time taken there is not wasted, as it provides more time for other parts of our team to work on some other things, like the Quarks being shown here in this week’s WIP. We kindly ask that you give us more time, and if there are still any concerns or question regarding M.A.S.S. Builder’s development, come and talk to our developer representative inside our Discord linked below!

It’s fine, really. They’re keeping us up to date and doing it weekly. Without fail. That’s way more than most dev teams seem inclined to do.

It’s pretty easy for me to be patient, though. Having more on your plate than you have time for definitely helps.

A Good Reminder: Out of Frame

by | May 27, 2022 | , , ,

FEE’s content always feels way more relevant to me than it should be. This video practically sums up what I’m about as a creative.

I don’t know when it happened exactly, but “Showing the world as it is” went from being an explanation for why some art and media are so gritty, to just being a throw away line for depressed, immoral, Malthusian apes and other crazy people to heap tons of demoralizing crap in our faces.

We Know

Trust me, we all know how twisted, myopic, selfish, and jaw droppingly cruel people can be. Cramming that singular idea and nothing else down people’s throats is pushing our collective worldview squarely into the negative, and making us more susceptible to some of the worst, most evil ideas imaginable.

I’ve personally known several people–I’m sure you have, too, people thinking they’ve got some great insight into mankind, casually promoting the widespread destruction of millions of people. You know, the inconvenient, disagreeable people. Whomever they happen to be.

That sounds eerily familiar, doesn’t it?

Look at all of these people.

Each of them is slowly being conditioned to see the others as statistics at best, and an active, existential problem that needs dealing with at worst. That’s where the media is pushing us. It’s past time to turn around.

What To Do?

That other tangent has been brought up a million times by far more adroit people than me; I’m mainly interested in FEE’s suggestion of how to push back against all of that negativity, nihilism, and assorted Malthusian garbage.

It’s been said a lot in recent years, and I’m repeating it here: Make your own media.

That’s the way forward now.

FEE pointed out that it was bad writing that makes morally principled, virtuous, and unshakably upbeat characters boring, and they’re absolutely right. It’s far easier to write a morally gray or detestable character your audience will find interesting than the aforementioned.

The people responsible for modern entertainment in the west are in their element and they’re not coming out of it. That means anyone else with the means and the will all have an opportunity to step up and offer something different.

Thankfully, that movement has been underway for years already.

My Part

I’m also one of those people, but I’m starting out alone, so it’ll be a while before I’ve got enough content and connections to make any sort of meaningful impact on … well, anything. That’s okay. I know who I am and what I’m about. That alone keeps me going.

FEE’s latest video was a good reminder to me of at least part of what I’m trying to do, not to mention some of the reasons why.

Media is getting uglier and uglier, and too often it’s for the sake of morbid curiosity, political activism, or for the sake of ugliness itself. Trying to steer clear of that takes some inner discipline; I’m pretty cynical and worn down myself, so it’s not like this demoralized view of humanity doesn’t resonate with me at all.

It’s just one-sided and demonstrably wrong.

So for my part, I take on the challenge of following my principles while creating anything and everything I can. I want to show the world as it truly is. The Good, the Beautiful, and the True, not this thinly veiled societal sabotage.

On that note, I want to mention Lydia’s Golden Treasury. Chapter 2: The Lyre of Binding, is going to be a very good prelude to The Atoning Mirror, and more and more I’m glad I decided to rearrange the chapters the way I’m doing. Recently, I felt like Enya’s internal struggle in The Atoning Mirror, while foreshadowed, still happened too quickly in the overall story. The new preceding chapter will delve into her past and help bring her desires and goals to the forefront ahead of time.

Enya is one of those morally upright characters FEE mentioned, though she leans sharply toward the goody two-shoes end of the spectrum. It’s important to make her story interesting without putting a gun in her hand or having her physically or figuratively shove someone to their doom. It’s not just her, either. Lydia’s Golden Treasury is full of virtuous people: Lydia, Irving, Haul, Ishmael, etc. They all warrant that same treatment.

Closing

“The Good, the Beautiful, and the True.”

I keep that phrase close to my heart, and I want to check all of those boxes with each story I craft. Won’t be easy. Won’t even necessarily be fun half the time, but I must create. That’s been my drive since I was little, and it’ll be my drive forever. I’m going to get distracted, held back, attacked eventually, and more, but I must create.

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