I appreciate the feedback! I’m not exactly sure what is grammatically correct in this case, but I do definitely agree that it’s an awkward passage regardless. I’ll look it over in my next editing pass.
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It’s the first of the month, so that means update time. If you want the in-depth version head over to the tumblr, but here’s the short rundown.
Progress was pretty good this month, still a bit out from being done but getting closer every day. I like the progress I’m making and I like the Chapter so far, though it is mechanically complex and frustrating to keep track of sometimes.
Thanks as always for the continued support and engagement. It means a lot, and I’m excited to keep making this thing with your help! Hope you all are doing well, and have a great February!
I just don’t want to clog the forum up too much, and also add a little incentive to go over to the blog and grow that a bit. Not too hung up on it tho, so if people really want the full thing here I can do that too.
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Out of curiosity, is there a reason you only post the full writeup on tumblr?
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Quality over quantity always. Take as long as you need just make the all the waiting worth it’s while.
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Yeah to leave you in suspense. Just kidding it is to get feed back on all the work the author has done and the patrons help keep the author afloat before the game actually goes public. So it is only fair in my opinion that patrons get early access to new content.
To be fair, the blog isn’t a patreon. I don’t have one of those yet, and if/when I do make one, I suspect there will be other benefits besides early access. I don’t really like the idea of gating early access behind a paywall. That’s not a criticism of people that do that by any means, just for me personally I think I’d like to keep everyone getting new material at the same time.
So the blog is free, you can just click the link and read it, but I am pushing it a little to try and grow it in order to build up a following not directly tied to this forum so that I if/when I do other stuff I can inform people.
Anyway, hope everyone is doing well! I’m gonna get back to writing (definitely not working on a bunch of scenarios where you make the worst possible decisions)
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Can I ask why mining ship mcs can not have a admiral father I get a parent of a high rank wouldn’t just abandon their kid but can’t it be explained as the dad working close by and wanting to keep their kid a secret or something? Don’t mean to over step.
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Not overstepping at all, it’s a good question.
There could certainly be ways to explain it, though it would involving changing some things and adding a couple more variables which I would need to track that make things a little more complicated. Perhaps more significantly though, I just liked having a unique pathway for the miners and non-miners. Earth and Mars born MCs get the Admiral background, while Spacers get the Mining Captain background. The goal is to make each Homeworld and background feel unique and interesting, while also maybe encouraging the player to go back and try a new run.
A long story here, but I promise it’s relevant.
I played Mass Effect 3 back in like 2015 without having played the first two games. If you do that it generates a (pretty awful) generic save for the first two games so you can continue the story even though you didn’t play ME1 and ME2. I did that, I thought the game was alright but not incredible, and didn’t think about it much for a few years.
Then I played Mass Effect 1. Thought it was good. Imported my save and played Mass Effect 2, thought it was really good. Then I considered just stopping there because I had, after all, played ME3 already, but I decided to give it a shot and imported my save.
And it blew my mind.
So much was different. Characters that were dead in my first playthrough were now alive because I saved them in the first game. Entire situations were different because of my decisions. Cutscenes changed. Dialogue changed. The entire plot was different. It was honestly the best gaming experience I ever had because I went in expecting to just rehash a game I’d already played, but instead found an experience that was totally different because of my choices. I know ME3 has a bad rep because of its ending, which is admittedly weak, but for me it might just be my favorite game of all time.
All because of choice and making those choices meaningful.
All this to say, this is why I love interactive fiction so much, and why I want to encourage unique pathways and playthroughs that give you that sense of excitement when you see the game remember your choices. Thing like how dealing with the Tian is significantly easier with a mining background, or talking to the Admiral only if you’re his kid. Moving forward I want every background and upbringing to have things like that, including the Mining Captain.
I guess what I’m saying is I like unique pathways, and that sometimes deliberately closing off a certain option encourages replayability and hopefully, discovery of things you didn’t see the first time. Because that can be some of the best experiences in gaming. Just ask me and my buddy Urdnot Wrex.
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It also explain no admiral will leave there child in a dangerous environment when they can easily have other places to live. In story we know space pirate are common or atleast a real danger so why would a admiral endager there children and not to mention work will require them to live on a planet because most of the instructions are still on planets, since 99 percent of the humanity live on earth and any major population outside Earth are going to be on Mars very few are going to be in space or outer solar system.
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That means you absolutely are
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Can we customize our ships in the future to some extent. Like sacrifice kinetic weapons for more nuclear missiles or lasers. MC can do a very daring scouting missing just before the war and learn about how there ships weapon type and defence.
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I am planning to have some amount of ship customization. The amount of customization however is likely going to be a compromise between what I’d like to see, and what would be viable and reasonable to implement.
Don’t get me wrong, actually adding customization options would be rather easy, and I like the idea of being able to retrofit your ship as you see fit, but I also want to make sure those options actually do something. I don’t want you spending time weighing the pros and cons of a heavy railgun vs. an experimental plasma cannon, only for it to never be utilized or mentioned. I want unique options to feel unique.
So long story short: yes. Probably not a ton of options but some. At least that’s the plan.
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I think there’s also the matter of “customization” being anti-thesis of what standardized military force really is about, and that is making things easier on their logistics and maintenance branch. No one in that branch wants to keep track of dozen of differently “customized” ships each with its own random configuration of equipment their particular captain with delusions of grandeur thought would be the most impressive, that now need to be supplied, and the superiors of said captains ain’t likely to entertain such requests for this very reason.
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This is also a good point. I’m starting to realize that this game has significantly different vibes (for lack of a better word) depending on where you are in the narrative. The Academy section very clearly is inspired by and feels a lot like Ender’s Game. Chapter 3-5 have a much more Star Trek/Mass Effect feel, in that you have your ship, crew, weapons, etc. It’s smaller scale command on board a single ship. And then 5 and beyond is going to be more of a High Command management situation.
Customization fits nicely in that Chapters 3-5 section. After all who doesn’t want to upgrade the Enterprise’s warpcore or give the Normandy some better guns for Garrus to calibrate? That said it does get a little out of hand once you’re in charge of anything more than a single ship, even more so when you get beyond a Flotilla.
Regardless, I’m figuring it out as I go, and you lovely folks, as always, are very helpful in making me think all this through, so I appreciate it!
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We could have one super customised flagship maybe?
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I imagine this could be maybe tackled from a slightly different angle – suppose the MC after gaining enough recognition/promotion to command a larger force, could request specific type of a flagship (like, sniper, brawler, enhanced fleet support and such, in lack of better terms) to better match their preferred style of command…? So, effectively customization but kept somewhat in check since you’d still be getting a fleet designed/certified vessel.
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This is kind of the plan currently. You’ll get a flagship and you’ll be able to customize that somewhat, while the rest of your command stays relatively standard.
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At the end of the day it’s going to be management when one is in height command, that determine the outcome of the war. To mass produce and streamline ships under one command since no one have infinite supply. I can understand that but it’s also true that each captain of a ship or office incharge of a particular large enough force should have some level of independence authority to deal with numerous situation, some level of customisation is not just a personal choice but a necessity at that point. I am not saying to completely customisable ship but some choice like we see in third chapter between getting marine, aircrafts and command of two small ships. It have to be reasonable assumption height command can’t possibly expect it to be like a chess game and able to command so many ships or different situations optimally. Certain level of independence is absolutely necessary in the vastness of space battles.
In the IRL Marines commanders may not have a ton of control over their assigned equipment, but they have broad discretion wrt the organization of their unit. I think it would be quite realistic for the personnel assignment decisions to have a significant impact on stats and ship capabilities.
So far the requests for supporting forces has been credible. We would refer to that as task organization with attachments.
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Hey all, it’s the first of the month so you know what that means.
Unfortunately, February was a pretty slow month for me. A lot of that has to do with the fact that there were a lot of life events that pulled my attention away from writing and got me out of my usual writing habits and schedule. It was nothing serious, everyone is okay, but it required enough attention, time, and energy to greatly reduce the amount of time I spent in front of a screen stringing sentences together.
Still, as I’ve said in the past, less progress is still some progress and we are closer to Chapter 4 than we were a month ago. I’m closing in on the end of the event that dominates this chapter but as anyone who’s written interactive fiction knows, the end always takes the longest because of all the branching. I’d like to say Chapter 4 will be done by the end of next month, but I don’t know that, and I don’t want to promise more than I can deliver. So I’ll just say we’re getting closer.
Anyway, thank you for the patience and understanding. This project is still very much in the works and while I know going months without new content may be frustrating, I appreciate your support and feedback regardless. Always so thankful for this little growing community I have!
Hope you and yours are doing well, and I’ll see you next month!
(Also as a side note, since there wasn’t much progress this month, the Tumblr post for the month is identical to this one, but if you want to go give that a look, here’s the link: Tumblr)
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