Chapter Four news and stuff

Sorry for being a bit quiet the past few days but this absolutely charming fan dropped by. She was -so- interested in the lore! How did my spaceships work, how many marines did they carry, how was the power plant designed etc etc. In the end I just gave her my notes which seemed to please her. 

So much so in fact we ended up talking for an age all about me! I confess to being quite flattered - although I'm not quite sure why what school I went to mattered or indeed why she wanted to know so much. Anyhoo! *

Chapter Four

So I've all the plot scenes mapped out from my main file and I'm looking at 23 scenes for this chapter on top of any extra's, so slightly bigger than Chapter Three so approx six weeks work again. Could be tight for the end of the August but let's see what I can do as unlike for Three I'm not starting cold after a hiatus, nor will I be re-rendering etc. Another advantage I have is that of the two complex pieces of code I need, (Chris' scene and Sarah's VR) that's already locked down to an extent so I won't be losing time head scratching on how to do things.

My plan of work is to get these both done first and out to testers to see both what they think and whether they can break them - after that the rest is fairly straightforward and with a lot of Chris already rendered I'm tee'd up quite nicely for this I think.

Techy stuff

The image compression seems to work which would reduce the file size of One to Three from the current 2GB to around 600mb. Given the amount of content we've still to come this is a godsend as heaven knows how big the final file would be otherwise. I can't see any image loss myself but I'll put a few compressed pictures up for you to see  so you can judge yourself.

I also need to work on a patch mechanism (thankfully there seems to be plenty around that I can just take and drop in) so that any odd little bugs we get in future we can deal with without having to download the whole thing again. Speaking of bugs and whatnot, you'll be pleased to hear the tester base is now five as opposed to one so *crosses fingers* that should be an end to glitches going forward anyway. Still. Always handy to be able to patch stuff as needed, no?

Delivery

I've been following your thoughts on that in this post but at the mo, I'm happy to still keep quiet on this for a little longer although my compliments on some well thought out points from all views.

Polls

Bar a last minute rally it appears as though it's Lt McGruder for this chapters Bored Pilot. So Semper Fi it is! *this could well be a fun one!*

As to this chapters Scarlet Pirate it also looks rather likely that our heroine will be off with her rescuer *coughs* from the last edition. Not sure what Miss Davis will make of that!

Oh, my thanks also for everyone who took the time to let me know about the Babe/Bobe useage (why did that sound rude?). It was useful context for me but rest assured there will be equal content for both still.

Separate post coming up on other matters a little later today.

* my apologies if you can't see the header image on your device as none of that will make any sense!