earnings update December and January

Earnings from November will be issued by dtrpg by jan 1, which let's me afford the help for 4 more ships. Of course since I also work on these ships my costs are not factored in the savings. 

If we earn more I can afford to hire one of my OJTs to help me with the character generator JS for the people who bought mneme variant combat. 

If we earn even more I can hire more of my OJTs to help me with the 3d printing for ships, space stations and combat miniatures. 1inch or 25mm scale. 

I need to warn about +400usd per month to be able to hire someone per month to part time this. Thankfully Philippine taxes won't tax me until I make over 5,000 usd in a year for this.

Space stations collection - the spin gravity stations nicco and I will make will be included in the World Generator. A geometry node to make Mega stations - stations of 1M dtons will be important. World generator will need a material that will simulate city lights eventually and something to detail the maps. 

I wonder if we can run the maps generated through the AI to make more realistic terrain?

OpenAI and 130k Tokens from 32k tokens: GPT4 Turbo

I am fortunate I live in the age of AI, and despite being from a developing world country can afford the subscription of OpenAI. It’s really powerful, editing my books will be much easier - particularly as I quiz the AI about how clear I convey a mechanic or a system. Learning programming is much easier since I can ask the annoying amount of questions I tend to ask. 

I dont know how to make money with the Software I will make for Game in the Brain Mneme Cepheus Engine, except creating a zip file of the files and giving instructions how to run the index.html. I plan to make a Private Branch, since I’m not someone who can guarantee support. I right now have access to a few Students who are looking for a side gig who can probably make Mneme World Generator in Dynamic HTML tables in javascript. That’s something I can delegate - since system generation is not as interactive as Character Generation. 

While I am making the HTML, css, and JS character generator - and the array of 3D printable characters for Mneme Variant Combat - I wonder if I can make Mneme Ship Generator in Blender or Godot. My understanding of geometry nodes is improving - its just that as I’m approaching my goal I tend to learn a lot about it and if you’ve seen my Track record I make an MVP that will lead incrementally to a more ambitious outcome. 

I had to make Mneme Space Combat before I have a chance to make this sellable. A foundation of compatible tools so that people can transition to Hard-Sci-Fi easily

Mneme Space Combat will evolve to a Ship Generator Game, for download and running on various platforms (Since GODOT allows for phone, desktop etc..). An ENVIRONMENT system is a milestone to FUND - where people can drive their ships around a star system. The Environment system will import Mneme World Generator Information to generate a System. Mneme Variant Combat is the Character Engine - where PCs are managed, at first in a 3D sandbox. 

The strategic GOAL behind CC-BY-SA is that enough Assets will be created that this Augmented reality Game engine can be used to play (10 years from now). If you know my IT projects - and my Open Repair slant you will learn that if Possible we will make this Localy run: meaning buyers can choose whose servers run the game - Linode, Azure, Google etc… that way if they are like me, in the Philippines playing with someone in the USA - we can select a server with lower latency. No Lock-in. 

Roblox for Adults lolz. but radically Open Source. If I had a platform - I will take notes from STEAM and limit my scope to convenience of experience to allow winners - low barrier for entry BUT the winners are the most convenient and best user experience. 

At work - I have open source projects teaching students and clients how to be self sufficient and in my Gaming hobby with Creative Common products - allowing clients to be self sufficient and even come out with their own books and materials.   

 

Optimized the Files - from 0.8-1.2GB to 40-300mb, CC-BY-SA 4.0 Awareness

 

Only Two more Ships to go. Hope to have it done over the weekend. 

Kitbash Credits (where we got the free stuff from)

• AD-98
• ADICUS
• Cgbaddour
• Hohoangdanh2015
• i-d-spasic
• kokoalmasry85
• noedge-sup
• Ozne000
• renderpeople
• tariq-10286
• Tikodev
• Trigger3d

Planet picture from Nasa & U.s, Geological Survey (Public Domain)

What will introduce new people to Sci-fi TRPGs like Traveller/Cepheus Engine?

 In MechWarrior Online, I maintain a channel with my team called tier5MWOplayer, and one of the most awkward conversations is around people asking to join our team—my team is also my TRPG group and my Airsoft group. Reflecting back on my experience and recalling my 12-year-old son’s experience making friends, I largely forgot about the many people who don't have a friend group to play and hang out with. When I look back at the people who ask to join games, and of course how playing often with a certain group of people in the intimate game of TRPGs can form strong bonds of friendship—which is the same for other games like MWO and other online games—it makes me reconsider my initial hypothesis that some Critical Role meme will get people into the hobby. My thesis is now finding people who are emotionally available to have new friends and their interests align—even if it’s just virtual time.

I was hoping that Game in the Brain and its open-source nature will make an impact, as I’ve clarified that the assets and material are Creative Commons Attribution and Share Alike 4.0—but unfortunately, it will only help someone who doesn’t have the time and effort to make 3D assets or artists to make their own works. Basically, it will help other up-and-coming artists and writers who want to start out. Publishing my earnings and knowing my break-even point already give away my costs—seeing me market and peddle my wares also shows the work that goes into getting mind space for people to consider getting our product.

I want to grow the hobby, but at my position, having more people give it a try and find a game system to write for and tell stories with is probably my contribution. I love the support though—but as I slowly add on to these projects and experiment, I won't know what 2-3 years of me and Nicco constantly adding to the books people already bought will do. What will spending 2020-2030 developing Game in the Brain as our abilities decline as we turn 50? Already, I am getting used to not being able to see clearly since my progressive glasses cost 160 USD/8,000 PHP a year. The months it takes for me to recover from something and the additional months to get back to where I was with compromises to my abilities compared to last year. By the time I’ll be 50, I probably will have spent 7,000-10,000 USD on material for Mneme and GITB, far from breaking even. But that 7-10k USD investment will have yielded software for character generators, world generators, 3D character builders, etc., all open source and creative commons. And probably, my audience, who are my peers and close to my age, will be in a different life circumstance.

There should be enough material for someone to make a detailed novel in hard sci-fi, or Nicco and I will start writing hard sci-fi adventures as we can generate worlds and scenes in 3D, and have people understand the concepts since the 3D assets are there to be manipulated. Is that growing, or just us changing?

Success is earning 10,000 USD a year (30,000 USD total from 2021 to 2030) and spending it all to grow and pay for services—and of course, being the one to dictate the spending—make science more accessible and imagine and game a future where automation improves the quality of life for all. Success is me and Nicco earning enough to train a new batch of OJTs in 3D, GODOT, writing, science communication, and developing game engines—and they go off and do their own sustainable passion project with skills that are cutting-edge for the Philippines. That my open Sci-Fi document has a wiki and an AI to help track changes for continuity and consistency.

That’s the unlikely but at least non-zero chance of happening by trying. I guess I am like my gambling grandfather and dad—except I don’t gamble with the future of my kids.

Can't Draw Painstaking Details anymore - 3D models is the way to Go.

In Adventure, where we played ourselves in the Genre of Isekai in college (in 2000) I played the Illusionist. If I could manipulate perception the things I would do - which would be an interesting character: the Scientific honest-faced Illusionist. 

I can draw, but I can't draw the painstaking details needed to do a hard scifi. Particularly the way the body moves in a space suit that tries to be realistic. This means I will be focusing not on drawing but in modeling bodies and faces and rigging them.  

Created with Dalle3

2-Parsec and Mneme Variant Combat will be re-aligned.

2-Parsec (Or Parsecs from Sol Series)

 an Adventure where I populate the nearby star systems to Earth and produce a 3D star map of these worlds and Create worlds using Mneme World Generator - I and Nicco will model and create 3D models of the Characters and NPCs. basically a rigged (meaning a Posable and Animatable model) of the NPCs. 

Enough assets that If I had the money I can probably Animate a Scene and make a broke-budget Sci-Fi show. Thankfully I've covered the other side of this equation: A supply of young 3D animators who need a project. 

Mneme Variant Combat 

I will apply the same skills but make 3D printable combat figures and 3D Assets. People will buy it because - not only do we fix the rules in a way that it a sustainable update cycle. 

Versions

I dont like the business model of creating a New Version to make more money. I'll try to stick to continuously improving Mneme and GITB products until we reach platinum (which is never - this is never going to be mainstream). I'll try to re-invest all the money back into improvements - improvements I get to decide how to apply our limited resources on. 

If Platinum is achieved - with how far I can make money go in the Philippines (as we have a minimum wage here of 1.5usd/hour and 1usd/hour in the provinces; I love bragging how much money I save and earn my company ) I can probably have the power to bring in more talent who will develop under us to hopefully found something better than us. 

Lets see if this can work. 

Radio Drama. 

With the VTuber Tech, AI-voices and Gamers who can do accents and impersonations: When am I going to see a Radio Drama with Vtuber Avatar animations running characters and AI voice changers and a Virtual projected Backdrop of the Scenes. 

Dalle3

How many Ships in a System… Human Development Index

Dalle generated this when i asked it to create an image based on my article

When we Jump into a System, or even before that - we look at the Context “How many ships are here? “ 

 These should depend on the following factors (typically measured by a governing body or large sponsors of trade and available to the  PC)

How much Trade?  Which is determined by The Size of the Economy and its Needs (What does it trade with and for. The Size of the Economy - measured in GDP, abstracted for the game, is based on the Key indicators of  HDI, Population, and Technology Level. The size of the economy determines Gov’t size, Size of the largest Entities and Organizations. Note that in Mneme World Generator has a d66 Cultural Table that throws a curveball to Economic Aspects - a bit of Weirdness and Irrationality or Hyper-rationality.  

 In Mneme World Generator and the World building tools looks at Human Development Index to understand the human condition. Just because people have a good HDI it doesnt mean people are Happy - Development means there is a Problem that needs solving - a group of people (that can be the majority or minority) that is underserved. The Philippines has pretty low HDI but always reports as “Happy” which is a frustration for me and something I understand as a Filipino. Happy to survive? Happy with the unfair status quo? Happy because we have no responsibility in building the future or fixing injustice? Happy cause we benefit off injustice? 

I wonder why HDI is not covered in Games much, but when I think of Social Status - I think of HDI as an essential measure - the way a Numerator needs a Divisor for context. HDI is a usuful measure - and the HDI of the PRESENT day world helps put context to what society we are looking at - as well as Economy. 

Development is in the metric of HDI - It can come to represent Change. and With Scarcity being ever present then an unchanging, relative to others, is something to measure - and its context is to be used to look at the world and our circumstance and those of others. 

In a Fantasy Medieval World or in the Worlds with Clones or Artificially born sepient slaves: What is their HDI like? Or Anarchist egaletarian communes, or Coprorate Distopian Megacities? How much education and opportunities come into their life, how stable are the various stages of their life, and how much of people who make the “best choices” society expects, still come up short. Then the outliers, how much are the PCs outliers and how relevant are they in the settings history and narrrative? Do they shape the narrative of a society or theirs is a story just for them? 

VSCodium and Github - for the TRPGamers who will automate

So I made a tutorial - after probably 20 recording - how to set this up. I couldnt have done it with ChatGPT4 helping me research the errors (copy paste the errors) to figure out what went wrong.  

Its the Age of AI - where the AI is going to help us leave the comfort of our core disciplines and branch out. Gaming it the hobby of exploring the world with a curious and playful mindset - allowing us to take on challenges undaunted. 

note my age and those older than me who do still attempt to learn skills outside their discipline. Still we can't do this full time. Playing with Code is about 4-5 weeks in a year and I forget so much - if feels like a dream. AFter this long holiday I will probably be doing Network (Pfsense) Problems - note that I'm primarily a project manager - organizing work and trying to make small wins (as compared to an operations manager who tries to create a sustainable cycle if they were mindful of the literature of what operations managing does) 

I really hate how market forces try to squeeze the life out of people - i dont like having so many to juggle that I sometimes feel like I lose myself and forget chunks of me - but thats the demands unless we change the system (obviously a systems nerd - found in world builders )