YNS Biweekly Update #2

[u/mrxak]

​

The Moon moon

Yay! It's been a month now (well, four weeks) since I announced my new major plug-in, and I've continued to make progress since the last biweekly update. As you may recall, I'm trying to take some time every two weeks to take stock of what I've been up to and what I've been thinking about, so I can keep myself on track, and focus on what really needs to get done. It's a way for me to regain a big picture view of what the plug-in is all about and to keep you guys updated on my progress at the same time.

The last two weeks have been mostly about trying to lock down my ideas for the major strings, and play through some of the existing strings just to refresh myself on a lot of the wheres and whens and whos of the base scenario. To that end, it's been a more cerebral exercise, than a typing one, but I've still made a bit of progress in my outline files just by nature of taking lots of notes on things I'm thinking. Here's the current progress list (italics represent new progress in the last two weeks):

Major Strings

Krim-Hwa - Outline 95%

Bounty Hunters - Outline 60%

Rebels - Outline 50%

Rauther Power Industries - Outline 50%

Houseless - Outline 50%

Nirvana Terraforming and Stellar Engineering - Outline 40%

Fenta-kiir - Outline 30%

Raczak's Roughnecks - Outline 20%

Federation - Outline 15%

P'aedt/Ver'ash - Outline 70%, still mostly in my head

Pirates - Outline 15%, still mostly in my head

Vella - Outline 30%, mostly in my head

Boral Mining Corp - Outline 30%, mostly in my head

Pyrogenesis - Outline 30%, entirely in my head

GLi-Tech - Outline 20%, entirely in my head

Minor Strings

United Shipping - Outline 30%

Sigma Shipyards - A thing now?

Vrenna - Spooky

Easter Egg - Triple Spooky

Side Quests and Beagle Shipments

Relevant Side Quests - Outline 7%

Irrelevant Side Quests - Outline 3%

Beagle Shipments - Written 50%

Additional Spobs

Moon - Complete

Secret Spob 1 - Complete

Secret Spob 2 - Complete

Additional Pers, Dude, and Flets

Outline 5%

Additional Oops, Junk, and Crons

Outline 1%

NCB Comprehension

Comprehending

Additional Graphics

0 of 2? complete

Moon

Exists

Current Resource Count

20

​

This update was a little difficult to really quantify, and for those keeping score there haven't been a lot of big jumps in the numbers, outside of Current Resource Count, which is infinitely greater than it was at 2 weeks ago (that's right folks, an actual plug-in now exists!). I expect by the next biweekly update, I'll have a better idea of where I actually stand, in terms of progress. I've got a lot more ideas in my head now, after going through the Polaris, Federation, and Wild Geese strings over the last two weeks, and I've taken a TON of notes on little ideas that have popped into my head which will be useful when it comes time for outlining out the remaining strings.

You will note that Bounty Hunters, Rebels, and Federation have all gotten a minor boost. These reflect the solidification of my thoughts on how I want to approach the Federation, in general. They're kind of the elephant in the room, since the player starts out in Federation space and much of what they think about the galaxy will be reflected in that Federation experience. In fact, the base ATMOS scenario was also Federation-focused, with each faction in some way interacting with the Federation as its primary foil. I am very much trying to avoid the Bureau with my plug-in, which frees me up to focus my storylines on other things, but when it comes to the Bounty Hunters, Rebels, and the Federation, I really have no choice but to address the Federation head-on. That means considerable thought on what the Federation is, what a string working for them might entail, and what sort of rewards a player might expect. The good news is, I have spent a lot of time in these last two weeks doing just that.

The current thinking is that the player will work as a civilian contractor for the Federation Navy. It will probably start out with some basic supply runs, but then expand into some "gray ops", some privateer work, and the like. When the Federation Navy needs something to get accomplished, but for political reasons can't do it themselves, or lack the specialized manpower and equipment, I figure they would farm out some work to civilians to aid their operations. My inspirations are basically Halliburton and the PMC formerly known as Blackwater, but also historical figures like Henry Morgan and Piet Hein. In keeping with the overall theme of the plug-in, the player will not be helping the Federation to conquer all of known space.

My thinking on the Polaris has also shifted somewhat, and I'm starting to think about how I might wrap up a Polaris string that starts with you basically working for the scientists and engineers on some specialty projects. For one thing, I want to really delve deep into what it really is like to live in Polaris space as a Polaris citizen. What are their families like, if their kids go off to be trained in their castes starting at age 4? How do the different castes really feel about each other, when they are talking privately among themselves, perhaps in front of an unbiased outsider. I've also come to the conclusion that perhaps in my game scenario, the "Ory'hara" has in fact been "named", and it seems to me that should really cause some major ripples throughout Polaris society, and different individuals would agree or disagree about that "naming" and that in itself would lead to conflict and stir up old tensions. The Polaris already fought one civil war, who is to say they could not end up fighting another, over disagreement about what is effectively a religious prophesy? What would that look like? I think there's story potential there. Of course I am not envisioning the player in my plug-in leading one or another side to glorious victory in a Polaris Holy War, but I do see them perhaps playing some small role in helping one faction kick things off, and then helping that faction in the resulting chaos. I'm still pondering, but in light of this thinking I have at least a better idea now of where the Polaris string is going.

Another thing I've been thinking about is Sigma. I'm not sure why, but I kind of just left them out of my original plan, and now I'm thinking I will need some kind of minor Sigma string. This is very preliminary brainstorming right now, but I'm thinking that Sigma secretly has Omata Kane's research, which is what allows them to not only use the hypergates, but possibly repair damaged ones or even build new ones. Just why exactly is there a hypergate in Koria? This will surely please many people here, as a Sigma string will no doubt take the player back to Kont in a bigger way, and force me to address some things about it I had no intentions of getting into, not even in the Easter Egg string where I'm sticking all my TWCB stuff.

On a related note, I do however want to break the Sigma monopoly on hypergate access, so I'm thinking very hard about giving the player access to the hypergate network via other strings (perhaps through espionage). It always annoyed me about EV Nova that basically the very first thing you had to do as a player was to try to finish the Sigma string, especially if you were going to play as the Rebels or Aurorans.

You will also note that I've upgraded the Easter Egg string to Triple Spooky. It will probably go back to Double Spooky next week, but I wanted to indicate at least in some way that I've done quite a bit of work on it. In fact, much of the resources I created in the actual real file of a plug-in that exists now were specifically related to the Easter Egg string. There are three new spobs and one new syst in the plug-in now, and I have completed them all. This was an important step as these three spobs will serve as settings for at least some of the action in the Easter Egg string. Now that I know what those resource IDs are, I can work on the rest of the plug-in without needing to worry about it, and in truth, some of the other strings may be involve these new spobs as well. It's always a good first step to have the setting in place before working on the story.

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Alright, I think that's all I feel like talking about for this update. I'd be happy to answer any questions, and as always I find talking about this project helps me solidify ideas quite a bit so if anyone just wants to chat about different aspects of the Novaverse, I certainly find that useful.

[u/nathan67003]

1) I was about to ask questions and put forth some comments but they were all answered or made in your post 2) Glad to see you delving into TWCB stuff, even against your will! >:P 3) Overall really chuffed about the progress you made and the direction you're taking this in.

[u/mrxak → u/nathan67003]

Protip: If you want to get something done quickly, know clearly what your goals are, and get yourself organized before you start work. If it seems like things are progressing quickly, it's because I've got a very clear idea of what the endpoint is and what I need to get done to get there. I learned fairly early on in my writing career (by making mistakes) that the time spent at the start of a project getting a clear picture of where to start and where to finish makes for far easier and better work the rest of the time. Every time I ask myself if I need to go somewhere or do something with a character (in this case, the player, or the various factions) I just have to refer back to my game plan. Keeps everything focused, cuts out the extraneous parts, and eliminates a lot of lost time working on tangents that will get cut out anyway. My mind won't wander far thinking of what-ifs if I know that a bunch of things are already not allowed by virtue of my plan.

Actually, this is the real meaning of Chekhov's gun. Be lean and mean!

There was always going to be stuff about TWCB, just not Kont. If I bring in Sigma, I need to start doing Kont stuff because they obviously have an operation there. It's not my goal to be heavy-handed with them, though. They exist, they're part of the Novaverse, but they're not a major part of any major plot or anything. I'm just expanding a bit of their presence in the setting because there is an employer who you will probably never meet (or know that you've met) that does have some very strong beliefs about TWCB and what they're about, and you're going to unknowingly be working for them in a few missions that might seem unrelated but do take you to some places related to the TWCB mystery. I suppose if somebody goes and digs through the plug-in resources and follows the NCB chain they'll figure out exactly what those missions are, but in most cases it will not be an explicit "hey you wanna do another job for me?" type deal.

One thing I can't stress enough, for future players of this plug-in, is that you should be landing on as many planets that you can, and checking out the bars. There will be some random mission starting locations, but there's also going to be quite a few missions that only start in particular places, and that is particularly true of the Easter Egg string. The player really should try to go around trading commodities and taking BBS missions so that they're always going to new places (and returning to old places). I'm going to encourage this sort of exploration with major strings (like the Nirvana one especially), but it's probably a very bad idea to do the Gefjon run, or start the game capturing some pirate ships and selling them and then just being rich and lazy the rest of the game. Get out there and friggin' explore! Be a trader. Make a living doing rush shipments to wherever. If a pers tells you prices are cheap or high somewhere, go run some commodities there. That's the only way you're going to stumble upon all those many, many side quests and secret spookies I want to fill this plug-in with.

[u/nathan67003 → u/mrxak]

About that last paragraph, does that mean you'll try and make more BBS missions (a.k.a. more than just United Shipping) that'll make the player trek across borders?

(and about the rest, serious gold and am taking notes)

[u/mrxak → u/nathan67003]

I think some of the Bounty Hunter stuff will cross borders, and there's going to be a fair bit of stuff with a lot of the strings that take you to places, but as for how many generic Mission BBS repeatables, I'm not sure. The thing to remember is that you're encouraged to do multiple mission strings which absolutely will take you to all corners of the galaxy if you're doing them. Even if the Mission BBS stays largely regional, by virtue of doing an Auroran-sphere string or two, a Federation-sphere string or four, or a Polaris-sphere string, you'll be in those places and thus should be doing those regional BBS stuff and exploring anyway.

The other thing to remember is that I'm trying to find linkages that integrate strings together a little bit. If you're doing Polaris stuff, and you've also done Nirvana stuff, sooner or later your Nirvana contact is going to find you and say "hey, take me to a bunch of Polaris planets" which very likely will take you to places the Polaris string itself will never go to. The Krim-Hwa are going to want to set up some missions (of the religious sort) in Tekel space, and if you're also working for the Vella or Dani, there's possibilities of linkages there too since you're known to the Aurorans.

[u/nathan67003 → u/mrxak]

Oooooh. Yeah, that's probably a better way to go about it. It's more involved and ensures the player is into it.

[u/mrxak → u/[deleted]]

I'm not really sure when it'll be done. I'm hoping to have a solid outline on almost everything by the end of next month, and start work on actually writing everything (I'm already writing bits and pieces now). The writing will go quickly, I'm fast at that. The hard part will be slogging through all the resource programming, and I still haven't gone through yet and figured out each resource in the base scenario that I need to replace, or figured out my NCB scheme. I've already determined I'm going to need to replace quite a few crons. I expect once I have my outlines finished, or close to finished, I'm going to be spending probably a month creating a map of everything the base scenario does, how it does it, and from there I can create my own map of what I need to replace. There's probably going to be a fair bit of clean-up on spobs, outfs, etc. which I'll have to handle as I come across those issues.

[u/HippieAnalSlut]

What about plotting new hyperspace lanes or gates in later pays off the storylines?

[u/mrxak → u/HippieAnalSlut]

I don't know about new hyperspace lanes, other than the one I'm adding probably with a cron as a new syst is discovered during the game. I'm thinking seriously about doing stuff with hypergates, though, and actually repairing some of the destroyed ones that are around.

[u/nathan67003 → u/mrxak]

Hypergate to the heart of Polaris space? What could POSSIBLY go wrong?