Seeing Terrible things inspiring my Games

 i did this analysis before in my other Job when I worked with BPOs. I'm doing the profitability analysis of Ships side by side each other making very Unrealistic assumptions given the dice statistics and each ship is still NEGATIVE. 

I started using USED SHIPS, 100 year old ships, and they are STILL NEGATIVE!!!

also the resell value of the SHIPs are really bad because it assumes OUR economy not an Economy that has 1Trillion Time the resources and access to Material. 

I've seen a BAD biz plan and typically the BAD biz plan is assuming they will SELL 100%. I've seen Call Center Campaign estimates where they assume the client will buy a 300 seat Campaign in 2011 when the economy is when BPOs shrank considerably to only 10 seater campaigns. 

This one doesn't even pass the FIRST EXPENSE: mortgage. Already by Mortgage the ships don't make money. RAW means that every PC that walks out of a bank with a ship is a Sucker. 

One of the most KICK ASS things about Hard Scifi are Economic Assumptions. When your Gross Domestic Product per Capita is on the Scifi Level it looks like China with the HUGE investments on INFRA - increasing productivity (hopefully) and spurring the economy forward (like the US admin spending trillions in Infra for not just Jobs but spurring consumption) Consumption that TRICKY economic concept which is Both Circulatory System of the Economy While being Exploited for Materiality and making people Disposable. 

I can make economic Assumptions - like NO ships prices are MUCH Cheaper as they are subsidized as part of Economic Policy and Strategy. Ships that are older are much Cheaper, comparable to a Car with almost 50% value after 5 years and even 20% Value after 10. 

What does that mean - that's how an Empire Got a lot of Trade - through Subsidy - the way a lot of Economic strategies we enacted - by putting Carrots and Sticks in the right places. Did people exploit it - Hell YEAH! Did it work? No one Knows. What is the End Result: Working and Middle Class PCs can AFFORD ships. 

Given the Prices as of Now SHIPS would be RARE! any Character with an INT or EDU of 5 can figure out its not profitable. Then if its about DEBT TRAPS then the Setting Should be about DEBT TRAPS, but its not about DEBT Traps. Its about entrepreneurship and hard working blokes making money to retire or pass on their ship to a New Crew who will take care of Her. So a Setting Assumption should be SHIPS are Profitable... IF the crew is savvy , frugal, wiley, or cunning. 

Its an OPPORTUNITy. 

My favorite about Cepheus Engine is that the FREE MARKET of Ideas. There is no single source of inspiration and a growing amount of Gamers who are throwing their hat in the ring and giving it a try - Growing the hobby and how we think about it. 

Today I Learned: Stars and Wishes.

8/22/2018 Stars and Wishes

Today I learned about Stars and Wishes technique used to get feedback about the game so that there is an opportunity to develop and grow in the hobby.  I got this from Phil Corpuz, who then learned it from Mathew Arcillia. 

It reminds me at work where we reframed all the weak areas as Opportunities - it sounds like I'm pulling my punches but at the same time I realize people get overloaded as it is and sometimes a framing weak areas as an opportunity is what more people need.

Also, it shifts the mindset in Dwelling in the Fault or Weak Area and Focusing on the ACTIONS that move us toward exploiting the Opportunity (exploit opportunity is a PMBOK term).  

Its harder get to the "Call for Action" or Actionability with just the Intial Mental Shock of the Weak Area. If we assume people are processing the problem then we should factor the Mental Load of the Weak area and the flaw. Moving quickly to the Action and opportunity for Improvement is just the Kind Thing to Do. We don't want to Dwell and Disproportionally fixate on the Weak Area. 

One of the things I realized why Post Session feedback is less done is because of the Time Management habits in previous iterations of the Hobby. That games stop when the GM or Players cannot schedule and we could not Close off any lose ends. Why - that meditation as to how can do we not give each other more opportunities to grow and develop? 

Wishes and requests and not commands. Interesting looking at this as a negative - if you begin thinking that a Wish or an Opportunity to improve or develop is a "reframed weak area" then having a Lot of Wishes area  Negative - which is an unfair view when think about it. Dont we all wish so much for things we love? So I realized that this method is a great way of allowing people to grow in their enjoyment of both the hobby and playing with other people. I think that would be something great over all. 

3rd world biz deals, ship operations

 One of the things people don't really explain about Philippine construction is that gov't tends to expect that after time and materials margins are calculated based on 30%.

If your labor and materials, known factors in the industry, is at 100M (2M usd) then they expect a margin (overhead of the company plus their profit) to be 30M (0.67M usd)

IT is the common exploit to this as materials cannot be standardized. The price of concrete is a known factors, but the price of an Epyc Server with 128 Cores depends. IT sadly is the favorite corruption source for both Gov't and internal company corruption for large corporations who can spend like the govt, having many 20-100M (0.5-2M usd) projects per year. With IT budgets of 100M worth per year.

One of the things I'm going to help with my Cepheus writing is my understanding of 3rd world operations and Biz dealings.

I guess that's my niche. The GM and players who want to see if they can operate their own biz and take on the risks. Get their mortgage approved and be financed to run their logistics operation.

I will not just explain - I will illustrate step by step (bullet form and diagram) the operations process and the risks the way someone who works in QM does so that everyone understands the biz from any level of the company.

Nicco other job is graphic design for IBM, he's the guy who prepares the slides in most presentations. I on the other hand I'm both the IT head, Plant head, and QM head converting obtuse data into Action in a developing world company where the process literacy, MBA, and engineering understanding meets severe challenges. I have to explain how our anecdotes relate to Statistics - in the time when pandemic and epidemic statistics is misunderstood and so much misinformation prevail.

It's the weirdest thing when everyday I try to figure out how to tell a story to manage Anecdotal Bias vs Statistical Analysis - and I love applying it in games.

So we were playing Twilight 2000 last night, and I was playing a GsG9 operator - we discovered we were in a radiation zone and we roleplayed trying to get out of the zone. The new T2K had less gear than the previous versions and looking for indirect evidence of the radiation of the area is down reminded me of how I looked for evidence and proof when I didn't know the criteria - like an IT problem I know the fundamentals and use process of elimination to figure out the problem in tedious techniques.we basically found a town we guess that the rads have gone down a bit.

I enjoy that, in fact I Frame things that way at work and I noticed that my attitude where I'm optimistic helps. Honestly I, like anyone the data is saddening, but I accept it and gratitude and hope helps me understand how it is an opportunity in the long run.

It is the Theory or the Model, against disproving or making sense of the anecdote. If I Believe X out of the Anecdotal evidence then I should look for data contradicting my anecdote in a statistically significant way. The way that the rise in cases of Delta Variant in the Philippines has been leading to anecdotally higher covid incidents in our plant leading to a month of back to back incidents and a string of deaths in my social network.

If you Google covid cases in the Philippines currently we are hitting maximum capacity of our hospitals and if anything happens that leads to me needing a hospital I will be turned away.

Statistics in work, real life, in games, - in games making statistical sense of freight and passengers where when I factor the  the mortgage all the ships are running on losing as much money as their full capacity income. Ships losing 40-150k per month!!!! If in an ideal scenario!!!

Helping a GM or player adjust this and make sense of this given my and niccos background would be an interesting conversation with the reader.

Our feedback or options makes them not just learn how their ship operates to make money, but even the port and the shuttle service, or the trucking service.

As well as tools how to make sense or convert their current campaign In to some basic fiscal sense.

Imagine being able to see Good work, like watching all the episodes on essential craftsman and the various trades and how they sell you good services and work. Seeing that reliable and hard working contractor vs the Mega Corp franchise or mega Corp disposable  freelancer.

To see another layer, they see the NPC and the circumstance of the NPC - that NPC may not be around next year even if they do great work.

I like seeing good work rewarded, even if that's not the way the world works. I like seeing all the people they must have helped even if they only get appreciation in return.

Thankfully even if I over explain, I learned to put it in the designers notes  and not clutter the simple checklist and steps nicco and I would design.

 While I have severe limitations to my science and hard scifi, my strong suit is my way to communicating challenges. 

Baseline Performance - the Apollo and Space Shuttle Programs.

 The Saturn-V is a great sample rocket. 

Its performance and Stats are readily available and its a great baseline since we want our performance to be compared against this Iconic rocket. 

Things that is not in Wikipedia are the following:

1. The Total Volume is 414 Dtons or as big as a Fat Trader except that 90% is Propulsion instead of the 10-20% of a Fat Trader is Fuel. 

1. 	S-IC first stage	S-II second stage	S-IVB third stage	TOTAL
   HEIGHT	42.0 m	24.9 m	17.9 m
   Diameter	10.0 m	10.0 m	6.6 m
   Volume	3,298.7 m^3	1,953.3 m^3	611.0 m^3	5,252.0 kg
   Dtons	233.1 DTON	138.0 DTON	43.2 DTON	371.2 DTON
   Dry Weight	131,000.0 kg	36,000.0 kg	10,000.0 kg	167,000.0 kg
   Total Wt	2,300,000.0 kg	480,000.0 kg	119,000.0 kg	2,780,000.0 kg
   FULL LOAD	2,780,000.0 kg	599,000.0 kg	119,000.0 kg
   Engines	Rocketdyne F-1	Rocketdyne J-2	Rocketdyne J-2
   Number	5	5	1

2. As a Baseline I start modifying the % of propulsion at a given TL. 
2.  the Acceleration which we can get is 1.3Gs

1. Thrust (N)	35,100,000 N	4,900,000 N	1,033,100.0 N
   Accel (m/s^2)	12.63	8.18	8.68
   Accel (G)	1.29	0.83	0.89
   Propulsion	2,169,000.0 kg	444,000.0 kg	109,000.0 kg
   Kg/s	12,910.7 kg	1,156.3 kg	741.5 kg
   Dtons/S	0.912	0.082	0.052
   Burn/Accel(Dton/G)	0.71	0.10	0.06

2. I like how the rocket hovering Illustrated a 1G thrust vs 1G effect = Hovering. 
   
   
   
3. The Context of how its not the Performance of the Rockets that Improved over time but the Reliability. Their Thrust to Mass Ratio was roughly to 70-80. Comparing the 196B  Shuttle Program 1.4B per launched (135 launches, 2 failures and partial failures) vs  49B Apollo Program with 4.7B per Launch. 

	S-IC first stage	S-II second stage	S-IVB third stage	TOTAL
HEIGHT	42.0 m	24.9 m	17.9 m
Diameter	10.0 m	10.0 m	6.6 m
Volume	3,298.7 m^3	1,953.3 m^3	611.0 m^3	5,252.0 kg
Dtons	233.1 DTON	138.0 DTON	43.2 DTON	371.2 DTON
Dry Weight	131,000.0 kg	36,000.0 kg	10,000.0 kg	167,000.0 kg
Total Wt	2,300,000.0 kg	480,000.0 kg	119,000.0 kg	2,780,000.0 kg
FULL LOAD	2,780,000.0 kg	599,000.0 kg	119,000.0 kg
Engines	Rocketdyne F-1	Rocketdyne J-2	Rocketdyne J-2
Number	5	5	1
Target Height	67,000.0 m	175,000.0 m
Delta-V	2121.151079	5262.386471	6538.568824
Burn Time	168	384	147
Thrust (N)	35,100,000 N	4,900,000 N	1,033,100.0 N
Accel (m/s^2)	12.63	8.18	8.68
Accel (G)	1.29	0.83	0.89
Propulsion	2,169,000.0 kg	444,000.0 kg	109,000.0 kg
Kg/s	12,910.7 kg	1,156.3 kg	741.5 kg
Dtons/S	0.912	0.082	0.052
Burn/Accel(Dton/G)	0.71	0.10	0.06
Dtons/S

Some Progress - Ship Analysis

Help people understand how run a ship. Know their costs and how to use the various KPIs.

Make that FUN - its FUN to not be in DEBT!!! Its fun NOT TO STARVE, its FUN not to suffer necessarily. 

Role-playing the Details. At work the heights of Emotion comes from the Risks, Opportunities and Uncertainty. Stability is great - but that's an ideal, learning to live with the Uncertainty - not by giving up and never making plans or studying - but Learning what we can Control and Learning to accept what we cant control, and the opportunity uncertainty may reveal. 

Living Below the Poverty line in Cepheus Engine 30 days x 90Cr = 2700 Cr per month but Salaries are 1,000 Cr for Gunner, Marine, Etc...  But I think its in MGT2E its 1000Cr (Core book p145) That's about 35Cr/ day in MGT2E vs 90-100Cr/day in MGT2E. 

page 76

and

because PC are supposed to be Crossed Trained in everything they all should be at least 5000 Cr./month In the 3rd world Salaries are a sensitive topic. One of the most Unrealistic things in Traveller is the lack of crosstraining - I worked as a graphic designer for Magsaysay Shipping and they asked us to read up on the Seaman manual for Powerpoint presentations, I have friends who did ship thing (as Filipinos were the most common Crewman in the world), I work in IT, I work in Manufacturing, etc... Specialization is a Luxury - its like thinking Every Musician is a Rock star not a struggling performer - Specialist is Rare. I'm a PM, manager, artist, writer, etc... I dont not have the luxury of specialization and many of my more grounded and less privileged peers dont either. 

What does this mean  Crew is cross Trained and since they have Equal duties but different specialties they are roughly the Same salary 4000-6000Cr. I recommend a new Crew start at 4K and set goals to achieve for their 5k level. 

Also note that in a Harder scifi where the Navigator programs the flight because humans cannot react fast enough there are no "Pilots" manual operation of the ship is when the Mult-redundant and distributed ship computers fail this is not something for humans. 

Part of the Book I'm writing is the Economic Analysis of the profitability of the Ships we designed. At least the KEY points - I've listed and read so many Traveller stories that do not make biz sense - particularly the Pricing and the basic budgeting - I grew up with my Dad the Salesman and Dreamer and my mom the Accountant. Balancing the ability to Pursue Opportunities and Objectives with a Grasp of reality has always been a key aspect because I always learn something out of it when I accept the reality. I like knowing I can't afford X or the cost of Doing Y. I like growing by doing this and learning to do things better - Process-Based and Quality based approach. I think its a really great experience - so writing up that the Shipowners will need to get X or else they go into the RED seems like a Need. 

I get it a game can have NO money no way to Keep track if they are fiscally sound or not - but Credits are stakes in a story. Its a powerful tool in creating stakes as well as playing around with stakes and behaviors. My favorite thing about money in games is its Stakes that don't have to be about violence all the time. It can also come in non-cash forms and in kind. 

Dont players want to retire their characters not because the Referee threw cash at their lap but because of their Hustle and eye how to convert an opportunity? 

I agree that the Ship should be Risky - a McDonalds (or any) Franchise has everything Spelled out and Written but its still Risky. A Ship with cost and income analysis is an opportunity for specifics - specifics are the Building Blocks of Context. Context is that layer that allow us to make the Improbable Possible: Pigs can fly because of the context that they are flown regularly as Black Iberico Hammon. Context happens with Details and Specifics - it allows Players and Gms see strange and wonderful things - that Spin Gravity is Like gravity but not - that two contradicting people can be both correct. 

Context is only possible though with a Mindset that is Open to understanding. If you are into Harder scifi or Using Scifi as a Vehicle to explore many parts of Human Experience then yeah Context is something you learn to be cautious about but willing to explore. 

Pdf Outliner for your PDF products or materials

This is so that you can put Outlines in your PDF - I used it for updating my Drivethrupg Mneme Variant combat Rules.

##http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/focal/man1/pdfoutline.1.html 

##Go to https://github.com/eugmes/fntsample and go to Download and click on the release Pages for the latest version https://github.com/eugmes/fntsample/releases download source code 

##Unzip or Extract the source code and open the terminal in the folder

#In Terminal:

$ mkdir build

$ cd build

## Take note of Building and because you will really have to Install the libraries from the following cairo, fontconfig, FreeType2, GLib, Pango, gettext, CMake,  and Unicode blocks.

$ sudo apt install cmake

$ sudo apt-get install fontconfig

$ git clone https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/pango.git

$ sudo apt install pangocairo

$ sudo apt-get install libcairo2-dev

$ sudo apt-get install libpango1.0-dev 

## Check the error code and simply google the errors- select the text and then google the error for the correct library installation command.

## Open this link: https://unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/Blocks.txt Right Click n the page > Save As > Save in same Folder of Build

## make sure blocks.txt is in same folder

$ cmake .. -DUNICODE_BLOCKS=/Blocks.txt

$ make

$ make install

## On terminal type pdfoutline you will be given the format for outline creation found in http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/focal/man1/pdfoutline.1.html  

210805 Variant Combat Rules Outline

##recommend the following use a spreadsheet to separate the Outline columns - Levels and Pages and Outline text. Replace spaces with underscore.