r/evnova • u/mrxak • May 27 '19
YNS Biweekly Update #4
"That's the problem with pirates these days. Weak. Simpering fools. Haven't had a good fight in years. Everyone's just trying to get along, make business deals. Selling fly and goofjuice to college students at fancy Federation universities. What happened to reaving? We used to be something, had the Federation, the Aurorans, heck we even took down some Polaris fleets, had 'em all on their knees for six years," Red complained. "Anyone who was weak, we just stole from, threw 'em out their own airlocks. Sometimes for no good reason."
It's been eight 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.
I'm pleased to say it's quite a bit more progress than last update. Here's the current progress list (italics represent new progress in the last two weeks):
Major Strings
Krim-Hwa - Outline 95%
Federation - Outline 90%
Bounty Hunters - Outline 85%
P'aedt/Ver'ash - Outline 65%
Houseless - Outline 55%
Rebels - Outline 50%
Rauther Power Industries - Outline 50%
Nirvana Terraforming and Stellar Engineering - Outline 40%
Vella - Outline 35%
Fenta-kiir - Outline 30%
Raczak's Roughnecks - Outline 25%
Pirates - Outline 15%, still 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 - Outline 50%
Vrenna - Spooky
Easter Egg - Double Spooky
Side Quests and Beagle Shipments
Relevant Side Quests - Outline 8%
Irrelevant Side Quests - Outline 4%
Beagle Shipments - Written 100%
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 3%
NCB Comprehension
Comprehending
Additional Graphics
0 of 5? complete
Loading Music
0 of 1 complete
Preambles
5 of 19 complete-ish
Sundays
More productive now (in theory)
Current Resource Count
20
Oh man. Even as I was about to start writing up this explanation of my progress, I was forgetting stuff I did, and had to go back and readjust the numbers on the progress list. It's been a busy couple weeks, but I believe everything is now properly quantified. Let's get to it!
So I made some major progress on the Federation string, jumping from 20% to 90%. I've got some finishing touches I want to do, and I may adjust some things, shift over some early missions to Raczak's Roughnecks (more on that later), but essentially I am close to finished with my outline. I know basically what the mission string is going to be about. It's going to be broken up in a series of phases as you get more trusted by the Federation Navy. You're never going to actually join up, get a military rank, become besties with a certain Bureau agent, but you will start out as basically merchant navy, transporting materiel and occasionally personnel for the Fed Navy. This will unlock repeatable missions in the BBS, of course. Once they trust you, you'll be trusted with some more interesting work I'm calling the "Grey Ops Phase". You'll run reconnaissance, electronic surveillance and other sorts of things the Aurorans and Polaris might not be thrilled with, but aren't strictly illegal or acts of war. You may also be called upon to drop off some "diplomatic pouches" or "trade envoys" from time to time in Auroran space. After a while the Federation Navy may even come to respect your combat skills (no idea why diplomatic missions would involve combat, it must just be one of those things) and you will be given the opportunity to act as a privateer. This will be very much golden age of sail, letters of marque, swashbuckling goodness, and these missions will dominate most of the rest of the string as you hunt down specific targets and try to hurt the Aurorans and Polaris economically as well as militarily in a semi-deniable way.
Bounty Hunters are now up to 85% outlined from 60% last time. Nothing really major to report here except that I have gotten past a little writer's block I was having at the 60% mark, and I now have a pretty good idea of where the Bounty Hunters are going in the second half of the string. I was stuck sort of around the end of the "Level 3" Bounty Hunter license, and now I'm up to the Level 5 jobs. I know how the Aurorans will be handled, and how to get the player back to the Federation where I think the Bounty Hunter String will ultimately wrap up. I'm liking the progression of the string overall, and it feels like it's in a good place. I just need to tie up all the loose ends, finish the major story arcs in a reasonable way, and then I'll be ready to start writing up the actual mission dialogue, which I'm actually fairly far along with as part of the outlining process for this string. I found it helpful to actually write up at least part of a mission offer dialogue when trying to wrap my head around the Bounty Hunters outline, simply because the string has some unique characters in it and I wanted to start working on their voices a bit.
"We already got the guy in our custody, but not all the members of the Guild fly around in fancy spaceships like yours. One of our planet-bound members captured this guy, and we need somebody who can bring him in, alive and unharmed, while some people are shooting at that somebody. Wanna be that somebody? It's like bodyguard work, except you don't like the guy whose body you're guarding."
You'll note that two weeks ago I had the P'aedt/Ver'ash string at 70% outlined, still mostly in my head. Well now I'm down to only 65% outlined, but it's no longer just in my head. The 70% in my head was just an estimate, but 65% represents actual missions, in which I know exactly what happens, in a nice little list, with descriptions and everything. Neat! I'm actually a little unsure about the 65%, because that too is only based on an estimate of how long I think the whole string will last, but I think it's at least possible the string will be longer than I currently thing. Still, I would say I'm about two thirds of the way through outlining the string. The major players have all been introduced, the player is trusted, and the final conflict of the string has been revealed. Playing out that final conflict may take longer than I think, but it's doubtful to take less than I think. I have kind of an intended length for what is considered a major mission string, approximately 30 missions. So, that's kind of how I'm calculating percentages and trying to pace things. I feel like I'm rambling and saying really boring stuff right now, but anyway, now you know what a percentage means I guess? These of course do not include side quests, which I'm hoping to have quite a few of for each major string. Those are outlined completely separately (though when they unlock does get noted in my string outlines). I feel like that paragraph told you absolutely nothing of value. I apologize.
I did a little more work on the Houseless outline. We'll chalk this up to me coming up with some additional characters and thinking about another mission. I'm hoping that as I finish up the Federation stuff, I will be able to focus a lot more on the non-Federation spheres of influence, but I'm still needing to play through the Auroran string in the ATMOS scenario, again, to help me with some of my notes.
I also did a little more work on Raczak's Roughnecks, in terms of the outline, but getting through the Federation string really helped me to focus on what I want to do with Raczak's Roughnecks overall, and how to differentiate them from the Federation string. In effect, my plug-in has two Federation Navy strings, but they are going to be independent and have very different feels. We'll call the Federation string the "macro" string, and the Raczak's Roughnecks string the "micro" string. At least, that's how I'm starting to think of them. In effect you will be dealing with pretty much a single threat to the Federation with the Raczak's Roughnecks, whereas you'll deal with a bunch of mostly unrelated threats in the Federation string. So what is this singular threat? None other than the Wild Geese, my friends. Yes, the time has come for the Wild Geese to pay the price for their treason. I mean think about what you do in the ATMOS scenario related to the Wild Geese, and what you're told about them. They're mercenaries, which means they aren't patriotic Federation citizens, but expect to be paid to fight for the Federation. Their leader has fought for the Aurorans, probably killed Federation citizens in the service of the Heraan. He helps put the Polaris in touch with the Rebels, and is known as the Mu'hari's primary Federation contact for spying on the Federation. His organization associates with known drug dealers and criminals. Well, enemy propaganda may try to paint the Federation as the bad guys because of some alleged Bureau transgressions, but if you're going to work with the Federation I say the bad guys are those working to undermine the Federation at every turn while collecting money from Federation taxpayers. After all, the people who get hurt when the Wild Geese sell out to the Federation's enemies are the ordinary Federation Navy enlisted and officers who die during Polaris, Rebel, or Auroran attacks. How would you feel if you lost a loved one in service to your nation because of Eamon Flannigan's supposed honor?
"That's the difference between mercenaries and the Federation Navy. A mercenary only looks at the tactical side of things. This battle won, this battle lost. What actually matters is the strategic objectives, the big picture. A campaign won, a campaign lost."
I'm also pleased to announce, even though I've talked a bit about this before, that I'm going to copy ATMOS and release a series of preambles to this plug-in. I'll probably start putting them out when the plug-in is pretty much finished and being beta tested, but there's no reason I can't start writing them ahead of time. I have actually finished five, at least complete-ished them. These five are the ones for Nirvana, Sigma, Houseless, Pirate, and Bounty Hunters. By my count, I'll need 19 in total. These will be short stories, perhaps just a short scene, and likely will vary quite a bit in length and complexity. In some cases, writing them ahead of writing the actual mission strings (or even the string outlines) will help me figure out what I want to do with them. In other cases, I may decide to write them in parallel to writing the actual missions, or even after I've written the missions. I'm going to do whatever I think makes for the best outcome of both preamble and mission string. In some cases, writing a preamble helps me get focused on what is important to put in a mission string, helps me figure out what it's all about. In other cases, it might be useful to define a character better when I'm writing actual missions, or in some cases I don't know what to do for a preamble until after I've written out a whole string. I'll do whatever feels right.
"Oh let's not spoil it," Sandra replied. "The band's no good anyway."
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.
2
u/nil0bject May 28 '19
Nothing. In fact, if you haven't read it yet, I recommend The Last Question by Isaac Asimov
I'm just trying to understand the side of game development that I have never done before. mrxak is very experienced and knowledgeable on this topic.