Navalism 4 Status

[Guinness]

What may turn into a periodic update:

1. Rules: I know that players are eager for a ruleset. This process has been slowed of late by real-world time and effort issues. I'm returning to the ATL overnight tomorrow night after a week away doing professional development*, and my forthcoming week isn't looking all that promising, but I'm personally committed to at least arriving at a deadline by the end of next week to when we'll publish the "Beta" draft of the ruleset. I originally hoped to do that piecemeal, but I've realized that approach won't work. We need to clean up the entire ruleset so that it makes sense in totality.**

2. Nationbuilding: I believe this task is actually coming along quite well, maybe too well, since it's now out in front of where we are with the rules to the point where I think it might even need to be set aside until we have rules.

3. Governance: N4 governance is very much ad-hoc at this moment. I've gleaned from what I've read here that we maybe need to formalize it in a way that the membership at large can provide input and a measure of assent before we press forward. I think it's optimal to do that after the beta of the rules is up.

4. Website: As I think most have noticed, Maddox isn't terribly active around here right now. He and Leo own the website and domain name, but I've been doing the administration work to keep it running for quite some time. When we start N4 it likely makes sense to transition ownership of the forum and it's operations to those who are active, which likely means me.*** I just wanted to make everyone aware that a transition is likely in the future, so it's not a surprise. I've been R&Ding a little on that front about what a new website would look like, but the current most likely case is copying this one to new hosting, then upgrading it to SMF 2.0. The version of the forum software we're on now has been end-of-lifed, so sometime in the future there will no longer be security updates for it, so we'll need to update sometime soon.

This thread is as good as any to comment on where we are and how we're doing. I'd like very much to keep the status and "meta" commenting on N4 here, and not in the various world-building threads, etc.

Finally, thank you all for your continued patience. For me personally, the last 12-18 months have been both the most rewarding personally and professionally for me of my entire life, and also the busiest and most terrifying. Navalism necessarily has to take a back seat at times, but after literally scratching out free time to do anything but work and be a parent, I feel like I'm finding equilibrium again. I want to thank Charles' efforts in filling various mod-vacuums, and MikeTR and P3D's self-started efforts to try to arrange something for us to play when it was clear that N3 was starting to fizzle out.


* If you want to know anything or everything about lean technical operations strategies and "DevOps" I'm now full of all sorts of useful information.

** What's really interesting is how much this effort is like developing a software product. See previous footnote.

*** Because scary as it is, I do this stuff for a living.

[snip]

if you need someone to scribe things for getting a "beta" draft of the rules out, I would be more then happy to help.

[Logi]

I'm working on fixing up my version of ballistics, so it can be run as an app. So I suppose there'll soon be a tool for you guys to find out your penetration, range, etc. Not the most precise, but it's easy to use. (Unfortunately, I busy writing tons of other code so this may take a bit of time.)

Like Snip, I could help out with the "beta" draft of the rules.

[Carthaginian]

I am working a lot of late- stupid staffing department- but I'll offer my help where I can.

[ctwaterman]

Some of the Problem is the person with the most time on my hands was the one person least involved in the Economics and New Rules developement.  Once P3D and Miketr started quoting various Historic works on the Economics of WW1 and how these could be applied to create a ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz   Sorry it happened again just talking about it....

But once they started on a final product or the Outline for the Beta I could understand what they were trying to do and say again so that has to be a good sign right.... ???  :-[

[Guinness]

Rules update: we're talking details of the research system, and equations for tax rates, so we must be close! :)

[Carthaginian]

Huzzah!
Can't wait to get the party started again.
Thanks for all the work you guys are doing... and here's to another great run.

[Sachmle]

Yippee!! Tax calculations!! Oh, wait..that's boring...poor Charles. Someone should wake him up, I think he's drooling on the maps. ;)

[ctwaterman]

Hey who put a big lake of slime in the middle of the North American South west  ???

[TexanCowboy]

Just as long as it's in the Mexican part, I approve.

[Carthaginian]

Any progress on those draft rules, guys?
Anything that any of us can do to help out?

[ctwaterman]

Hey stop pushing... step away from the pine tar, pitch forks, and hey what do you think your doing with that rail and those feathers.... ;D

Honestly were making some progress.... But the putting it together into an understandable format that is going to take awhile.   Lets not get into to much of a hurry here .

Hey I said no Pitchforks that implied no torches either..... 8)

[TexanCowboy]

No goober rounds?

http://www.schlockmercenary.com:8080/2002-09-24

[Carthaginian]

Honestly were making some progress.... But the putting it together into an understandable format that is going to take awhile.

Rail... feathers... tar? I have NO IEDA what you're talking about *hides the chicken carcasses and roofing materials*

Seriously- any format is preferable to nothing. At least give an overview of what is figured out... not the rules but a brief summary: perhaps even a checklist showing what is and isn't decided, or a list showing what percent 'complete' each various item of interest might be.

Specifically that I'm interested in- what tonnage figure will we be using for building ships (light, standard, normal) and roughly how many tons will you get to start out? That will at least let us start out on our fleets in a serious fashion while we wait on the more technical items.

[Desertfox]

Tar and feather is so 18th century... *hides Beiber tape*