Greetings, Wingnuts and Citizens! Time for the Weekly WCRPG Update.
This past week was another relatively light working week. I spent my time in Chapter 2.3 of the Elegy campaign trying to work through the litany I've had for the past several months - to finish the stats of the Demon's Eye Base, slice the plot some more and begin working on battle maps. With the stats of the Demon's Eye base completed last week, I decided to spend this week beginning work on the battle maps. To that end, I needed to come up with a basic design for a Kilrathi asteroid base. At the beginning of the week, I was under the impression that there was no extant design for such a base; it was a suggestion from CIC member L.I.F. to check with the Saga team for the design of a Kilrathi resource base for CIC member Nomada_Firefox's SOASE project that tipped me off to the contrary. Since Saga uses craft from WC3, I decided to check Kilrathi craft from WC3 on the old CIC ships database. I felt like a real idiot for not checking the ship's database first - all I had to do was visit the page and there it was plain as day. I would up having that problem (not checking the ship's database) twice this week - once looking for an overall layout, and once for the general size of the base (the length stat). My Monday and Tuesday wrapped up in a single sentence...
So on Wednesday I began taking more detailed measurements of the structure using the six "profile" shots available from the ships database. Using the base statistics and my list of desired battle maps, I began assigning areas where internal structures would be located within the structure, and then calculated the scale of each individual perspective image in meters per pixel. Measurements continued on Thursday and Friday, with overall volumes calculated for the dormitory, concourse, hangar and cargo module areas. I've been following a pattern of getting a rough size in meters, recalculating that for demaki (a standard Kilrathi architectural measurement, each equivalent to 4.8 meters), and then rounding the demaki measurement to some multiple of eight. This did result in some rounding but what took place there was well within the margins for error, particularly given the case that I'm making a few things up as I go - the Demon's Eye base is merely based on the asteroid base model, and is intended to be about a third of the size of the base in WC3 (still plenty big). That does mean the hangar and cargo spaces are slightly off, so I'll be making the necessary changes to the base's basic stats later this week. The figures as they're currently listed aren't that far off.
My Plan for this week is to continue work in Chapter 2.3, beginning with the continuation of measurements. Of the desired set of battle maps, I still need to come up with general ideas as to the shape and size of the base's operations center, determine what facilities will be on the main concourse, and work out the overall dimensions of the station's power plant and ore processor areas. Once that's been determined, I can begin making battle maps in earnest, a process that I'm looking forward to. I also intend to continue work on the Chapter's prologue, something that I need to get started considering I've got four scenes planned. I did do some work on dialogue this last week, changing the initial lines of the first scene and working a bit on the dialogue of the fourth scene (the "mission briefing"), but there's still a great deal of work to do overall. Definitely going to be here for a while...
Quick shout out to my big sister, who today turns kesthaidajislakh treok'okko in trep'ntok'treokko by the Kilrathi calendar. Aiy'hravujaq ahki, Kathy ni'ni'lavinihkiga!! H'in ri'as bhahar va ta ni'ko'a'itakav, ri'ni'lavinga maks ni'lininsu'hras!
(And maybe one day I might translate that...)
Well, that's all I've got for this update. The next scheduled update will post to the WCRPG site and CIC forums sometime between 11-14Z on Monday, November 21st. Y'all have a pleasant week.