Ship Building Update - World Builder outline.

 progress update for an ORBITAL shipbuilding system: there needs to have some WORLDS to launch from and land into. Ill make this a Small paid booklet for Feb or March 2022. It will come with Blender Files for the Planet Building and Spreadsheets for speedy creation. 

Once the World Builder is set up - I can go back to the ships because the Star Ports and the Infra will depend on the Worlds. From TL6 Ports to TL8 Ports that's about probably 200 years of human tech development. I'll just throw in the world builder free with the Ship Builder Book. 

Tentative Outline

1. Step 1- Roll World Type 2d6 (Column) and Mass 2d6 (Row)

1. Around 7-8 different types worlds.

1. Gas Giant

2. Asteroid Group

3. Ice Planet

4. Terrestrial Planet. Assumes 0.1 earth masses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega-Earth, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-Earth 

1. Ocean Planet

2. Dense Atmosphere Planet 

3. Terrestrial Planet

4. Note that Radius and Gravity will be determined after. The Planet Types (Density) + Mass determine a range of Radius and thus Gravity.

2. Step 3- Roll Habitability relative to humans.

1. roll 2d6 but check a table for habitability; gas giants are not included in this roll. 

2. World Types - a table of the habitable planets

3. Rows indicate level of habitability. 

1. First is the Habitable Zone. 0-5 is outlier of the habitable zone. 5+ is In the Habitable Zone. Some planets like Iceworlds cannot be in the habitable zone. 

2. This really measures the biosphere and will determine the Placement.

4. These can be 2-4 pages, each holding 2-3 columns.

3. Step 4 (2 rolls) - Roll for Stars. Classification 4d6-4 (0-20). Roll for Magnitude (Brightness). 

1. Type,  Stellar classification - Wikipedia spectral type (OB-AFGK-M). 0 for OB, and 20 for KM. 1-19 is spread out proportionally equally. 

2. Mass

3. and Absolute magnitude - Wikipedia

4. Tables of Outcomes. Class, Mass,

5. For Calculation: Magnitude (Energy Output determining the Habitable Zone, Snow Line).

4. Step 5 - Roll for additional Major Points of Interest.

1. the Mass of the Star determines how many points key points. With dwarf planets and planetoids barely being detected. Basically what TL7 and TL8 Sensors can detect jumping into this system. 

2. The closer to the median the more points of interest. 

5. Step 6. Rolling the other Worlds based on Point of Interest.  

1. You get a different table for World Type because this is not focused on habitability and being within the goldilocks zone. Circumstellar habitable zone - Wikipedia 

6. Step 7:  People Universal World Profile - Traveller 

1. Special infra Like Outposts, HQ, etc... (adds a TL 9 outpost)

2. Roll Technology Level. TL5+ (TL 5.1-9.2)

1. TL6 + (5d6/7 rounded) 

3. Roll Starport. 

4. Roll Population

5. Roll Gov’t and Law level.

6. Roll Economic Factors: Resources and Condition (Developing, Emerging, and Developed Status).

Drawbacks and Problems that will hopefully be Tackled in the Future.

1. More Accurate Planetary Description.
1. Planet's Age, History, and Notable aspects.
2.  
2. Sector and Subsector TABLE. Stars are the common population of a Sector or Subsector, the Promiximty of a Sector to a Dark-matter, Giant/Hyperstar, Black hole, etc... all influence a sector and would be great world-building - but unnecessary.
3. City/Community Builder is needed. Additional Details.
4. Ideally, a Blender Workflow to make Planets Procedurally

Spreadsheets and Blender files is a weird add on to TRPG books. It assumes the GM can use it or knows someone (freelancer or player) who can use it to make more detailed materials. The spreadsheet though if it can make the process faster is always good. If the GM just opens the sheet and can start making Content with it, that's great for the GM and the Game.

Working on a QUick Chapter 12 update for a Ship Building

Challenges is I dont need to improve the World Generation by Much. Chapter 12 of CE improvements I need to make are the following:

1) World Types - roll for the World Type  (2D6-2)

Terrestrial (Silica/Rock worlds), Ocean/Ice (Not to be confused with Ocean covered, where liquids make up the mantle), Gass Dwarves/Giants,  and Rare world on a 1/36 (not representative of rare worlds). 

In billions of years gravity makes stuff into a sphere, the densest elements sink to the center, 

The basic Write up for each world type and its role in the Economy and what it would be like on the surface - a if this is the PRIMARY world then it tends to be for X purpose. Gas Giants as a primary world is for its gas mining, Ice worlds are for the frozen volatiles it keeps, Desert worlds its relative habitability if its atmosphere is near 1atm, etc.... 

IMPACT on ORBITAL launches and landings. ICE worlds, Gas Giants/Dwarves, Terrestrial Worlds, etc... 

 

2) Roll for the Size of the World - this determines the radius, gravity, and significance in the system. That MASS is the major driver for a system. Mass determines how much of the orbit is clear of asteroids, how massive the planet has become, the complexity of planets composition, the  asteroids it intercepts, etc... gravity reminds me of Like-to-Like magic. 

3) Human Habitability determiens how much infra exists in the World already if the world is naturally inhospitable or how far from earth like it is if there is within the same terrestrial category. 

Write up for Habitability per World Type as well as the provisions and infra needed. 

no more hydrography, nor atmospherics, type and mass kinda determines these early on. 

Stuff I couldnt fit in: 

1) Stellar Mass and Type. this determines the orbits, goldilox zones, the distance of Gas giants, total mass of asteroid zones. 

2) More detailed world building beyond Mass, Type, and Habitability. I'm making this for the ORBITAL aspect of the Shipbuilding booklet. Its necessary that all the planets that are DIFFERENT are different. 

SCOPE AKA WORK

1) the write up of the planets 20 hours. key details being "What do PCs encounter in this world" not just the Mono Climate zones of earth. 

2) A spreadsheet that calculates the Radius based on the Density of a Planet type. Earth is pretty dense at 5.5 metric tons per cubic meter = 5.5g/cm^3 (benchmarks are <1 for gasses, water is 1, 2-4 for rocks/silica, 7 for iron, T/mT) . estimate is 20 hours.

On hiatus because of the many end of the year work wrap up. Hope to resume after Jan 8 2022. 

2-3 hour games: Players help each other and the GM

This is a part of an ongoing reflection of running games when you have very little time left because of real life. 

Games are primarily a conversation, particularly the player narrating something that engages them strongly. Placing their character in a situation they are strongly conflicted about: it is not just something they like but something where their character has stakes and but their character's personality (人物性格）and history/background (来历). 

This means that in a 2 hour session, the GM has to set up something that will get the Player to engage and narrate. 

If you've tried to control meetings and realize topics tend to be uncontrollable in scope. Meetings with substance that cannot fit in an email are 1.5-2 hours long.  We talk about concepts as dense as world-building and character history and motivation in most Biz Analysis meetings. 

So how do we prepare for such games? Again the principle of a PLAN tells us if we are need to change what we are doing means we write down the inputs, actions/processes, and outcomes we intend.  So we write down our plan for each player and ideally arrange that in a MAP or Diagram. 

On the diagram we map the 3 phases of the adventure (expectations/set up, the conflict/violation of expectation, and the outcomes that pay-off the players). 

A box/process (in chinese process can be translated as 经验，经过，to go through is easily confused with the concept of experience) we name this our PCs/Players and place them working backwards from their outcome to conflict and what input or expectations will trigger a particular experience in the player. 

 Keeping it Simple. 

Just write the Hook or the Outcomes for the Players and their Characters. Someone wants to feel heroic and tough, someone who wants to feel smart, someone who wants to feel charming, etc... know what each player wants to feel to get them into the adventure. 

Then helping them get there. This doesnt have to JUST be the GM - get the players to psycho-analyze each other, this also helps the GM by making the players already know some of the plan to get another players pay-off and helping it along. The Players all help each other get to their character's pay off, not just the GM. 

GMing with a strong improvisation and trying to buy in a PLAYER is a lot of emotional labor, the GM has to arrange it that other Players help in the emotional labor. It is incredibly wasteful (inefficient) when the GM buys in each player - like he or she is performing some service - its the group and all the other players playing along and getting everyones characters into position AS well as helping the GM pivot or improvise when the conditions change.   

Lets not just have fun, lets help each other figure out how to have fun. 

Specific Actions: 

1. Give the GM feedback on their observations what would make another Player enjoy the game. 
2. Give the GM options how a scene will play out and its consequences that push the story towards the GMs intent. 
3. Perform Actions that help other Characters enjoy the game more: ask them for aid, give the Character a reason to help or participate. 
4. Tailor a scene or situation (framing) it favorably to the target player. 
5. its ok to be transparent that the GM is trying to get them to THIS conflict or scene, how we get there. 
6. Hangout just preparing for the game, earlier or after session to help make the future games better. 

reiterating Admin Skills in games no. 8

Basically I have Admin that grants an Advantage to other peoples rolls by using Quality Management and various Logic principles. Its funny when in Games people dont know how Management is supposed to work - they see it as someone to ORDER other people around - they doesnt grant bonuses to rolls. 

Duude Admin is kick ass, support character like a BARD but in real life. Also jack of all trades, any task can be better organized even if the task is entirely unfamiliar. Have uncertanity - then you will have trial and error, but can trial and error be optimized: HELL YEAH! admin

A lot of IT is trial and error, especially in Developing World conditions. Trial and Error have best practices found in PRoject Management (PMBOK). PMBOK is under Admin. Heck the simplest HACK Admin performs is REQUIREMENTS MANAGEMENT (under Quality Management) - ensuring what is the minimum requirement and optimizing resources (Resource Optimization and Critical Path/Chain are under PMBOK and QM and under engineering). 

DO X, and Requirements Management negotiates what is the mininum cost to quality of X, to perform more tasks or free up more resources. There is always scarcity and QM/Admin optimizes this. Who'd thunk that a Skill in Organization is great in a world of constant Entropy? 

How does it affect me in the real world: example would be the Data Protection Act, the equivalent of the EU's Data protection act here in the Philippines. I have to scrounge for resources and propose a business case: business case how this makes us Better Off in a tangble manner. SO MUCH of business is making an action's utility higher as to break even or even thrive. right now I'm determining budget and business case, relying on data to get stakeholders to grant me resources. ideally using the forces of self interest. 

In Game its not supposed to be "Game Breaking" Admin is near useless without Resources, the other PCs with special skills. even PCs without useful skills COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE prevents bottlenecking - when one PC is devided between many critical tasks (using the skill you discover what is still the optimal arrangement despite not being able to allocate that most skilled PC as well as map what skills are needed to avoid this bottleneck). 

NICHE PROTECTION is not needed in a Game that considers Admin - characters with overlapping skills can not only be used as redundancy but to INCREASE the yield or outcome of a particular Competency area. A GROUP of hackers, thieves, fighters etc... will be optimized to do more than ONE skilled person can do until we hit diminishing returns. 

Does a GM need to be an MBA or Engineer to do this? HELL NO! every minmaxing munchkin is already studied in the basic principles of Resource Otpimizaton and Management Sciences. Being a gamer is already a start as we can measure and monitor, and it is just applying fundamentals in a higher level do we start using these at higher levels. 

Reflection on Arcane and Notes on Storytelling

After getting out the Arcane Haze, how do I make a scene as emotionally involved without violence or a fight? 

scene: 

Kessler Syndrom - a cascading debris field in Low earth Orbit. This can happen when too much material is destroyed and enters LEO. 

the Crew is scrambling to survive this and the cast of heroes are making sacrifices and rolling the dice. 

foreshadowed flaws and complications are payed off in this scene where our PCs are going to decide what they are going to do. 

its where the Saints falter, and the sinners have a change of heart. The thing is when we look at a story board analysis - we decide if this is a story with mary sues or with mortal flawed characters. Here it would be awesome if the GM was a great speaker or narrator, BUT since its just a bunch of friends playing it doesn't require a mat mercer - it just need a bunch of friends telling a great story.  

the sub-scenes play out, PC to PC as they play out each major decision. Each scene setting up the next character and complicates the payout/payoff. GM wise this is really hard in a technical game - because the stakes are tied to an understanding of the world. 

For example the debris field of a gigaton structure can shred and destroy everything in LEO. the audience needs to know the options of escape and what else is at stake - habitats, travellers being caught up, etc... Same goes for a Solar Storm, or Radiation Storm. 

The GM and Players this would be hard - it would be easier in a writing team to iterate given a time budget and storyboard. Although the GM and Players can PRESS PAUSE and ask them how would this look as a Cool scene? Its having to give an answer immediately that makes things not work as well.

Arcane Season 1 (Spoilers)

I really like the detail and animation, I can notice that Jinx nose is painted on the 3d model as compared to Ekko. I wish my set up could play it higher resolutions - some youtube videos are playing it higher than my firefox browser. 

the powder vs ekko scene is strangely my favorite. I know there was more exchanges in the other fights. but watching the Enemy music video where ekko and powder always playing together being very close seems to make it the most emotionally heavy fight. 

I like the formula in the Analysis - setup-pay-off but the pay-off is also another setup by complicating it. You can plot that tension curve as part of an outline and iterate over and over to get the emotional elements right and consistent. 

I like in the last third they were doing more "slow" to emphasize the speeding up (check out the Studio Mihoyo Henkai cinematics  videos youtube: Honkai Impact 3rd Animation - Final Lesson '; you can find a lot of the videos in their channel) 

I found the earlier fights too fast. 

The closest to making something like this at one individual level is storyboarding. The analysis and the planning that goes in the scene typically is broken down backwards with the key emotional notes identified then the GM working back - it can be asking the player what is this character about and whats at stake and the dice outcomes. 

I just remember when I used to story board back when I was an artist. Its here were you make the "every frame a painting" kind of decision. Some scenes don't translate well, some do. The team doesn't have time to go back - because it may need to go back and edit everything. Note this is a Mixed Media 2d + 3d - they cannot redo a shot at a different angle. Continuity means having to reshoot a LOT if an idea doesn't work out. 

Being patient - slow progress

 With the Expanse ending I really should hurry up. The Cepheus ship generation system that makes harder scifi ship got side tracked -  I realized I cannot emphasize the differences between Orbital (surface to orbit) if I didn't make Worlds that emphasized these. So ships designed to carry a payload to orbit vs ships that travel intrastellar space.   Given my age, another barrier for entry is that this complexity needed to be simpler through a simple Google appscript that generated the world on click (main world vs other worlds)  People pay not just for the inspiration but the tools to make it accessible. A regular traveller gamer with the same tools need to take only FUN hour or less to learn the difference and the transition (a youtube video that walks through the entire toolset will come later on).   The actions that make the person aware of the assumptions of the different system need to defined. Reminds me of migrating our accounting system to periodic to perpetual - and a new software - a different world where things work differently but is much easier After the learning curve.

 

My main barriers these days 

1) are my week nights being reduced as we prepare for easing of lockdown - getting new Gov't ID, fixing stuff in the house, things for the kids. My son's filipino studies have been interrupting my work, as it takes me an hour to build him an Anki deck.

2) work has picked up as we are now transitioning TO erpnext. This is a project that I'm documenting so that small business can adopt it. I'm now juggling students, ojts, and laying the ground work that we migrate some systems by end of year And by next year at Feb we have OJTS I can train. 

I need to study google cloud, cloud sigma, and Alicloud on Feb -  and this is making me anxious.

 

nicco is pretty much building all the 3d assets for all the art. Enough to get the idea across but I will hand over the other tasks to him when I get too busy.

I have on the drawing board the outline of the world building appscript. I didn't realize that I have to plan out every script and where I'm going to get the other scripts (from learn Google spreadsheets channel and which videos). 

I need the plan because when I get into the weeds I end up going in circles. Also it is to process my anxiety and uncertainty. I always am optimistic only to realize I forgot some key things.

This past week's I've been busy with family matters. When I work on this I'm conflicted when I don't spend more time with the kids. I want the book out but I don't want it at the expense of hanging out with my kids.

Bankrolling all this with my own money -  instead of buying any other thing for recreation I just invest more on this. It helps that it's self funded. I'm lucky I can afford to set aside funds for this. 

 

 

 

Javascript Appscript for my Stellar System generator

 Sword and Cepheus Character Sheet that Links to DISCORD REDDIT.

PorterPirate sheet is the biggest progress I've had with Javascript Studies. 

Basically right now I'm trying to make Stellar System Generator because I need to populate the Sytems where ROCKETS are going to take cargo and passengers to ORBIT. 

One of my Problems is my Exploding Dice requirement which is 1D6!/2 

I need to be able to RUN it. I need to Automate the Stellar System Creation even if it could be a TAD more realistic like GURPS Space. 

My policy would be: Don't make a system as Complicated as GURPS Spaces system generator if your not going to Automate it. Automate it and ideally Comment the shit out of it to help people Modify it. Comment it like I'm trying to explain it to me when I was 11. 

Below is using the Browser's Console to execute the Dice roller I learned from Programming with Mosh. 

This is the Grasshopper.app I use to test it out. My problem with the Android version is that I cannot type stuff in. It prevents me from tying up Math in Android.  I tried studying this with my Son but he got board and I need Exercises that really made me apply it to GAMES immediately. 

my google Doc of Notes on Javascript Studies

My Milestone here is to make my Stellar System Generator - a modified version of CE's World generation. Enough that I can higher a freelancer to make a more elaborate version and people can learn to code with it. 

Now that I've learned how these Editors Work I can hopefully have an easier time learning Python as well in the future. 

1. Stellar System Generator Sheet (First it has to be Sound enough that it can be implemented as a Software, this is my experience as the IT head and Quality management System head of the company - It sounds reasonable until implemented and this is how I check if it is reasonable)
1. Worse case scenario i can hire a freelancer to help me with the Sheet but I think I can do it all. 
2. Write it out in GDOC
3. Make a Ship Generator Sheet.
4. Write it out in GDOC 
5. Then Generate the Common Ships. 
1. Included are basic ship assets. 
6. Then Blender Model the 3D Assets.
7. Nicco can polish the art and the text. 
1. While I finally scratch that ITCH of a CE (MNEME variant) character generator I always wanted to make.  

I imagine a Simple Browser Tab open for the GM to Randomly Roll of the Many Procedural Tables in CE. 
"Oh crap I need an NPC" 

"Oh crap I need a Patron"

"Oh crap I need a Complication in Orbit" 

"Oh crap they just killed the BBG, I need another one" 

"Oh crap the side job was too easy." 
"Oh crap I have nothing prepared."

One of the things I realized is that make it EASY but have a Procedural Generator for a Complication to generate.