Space Race 1969 - Comments and Remarks

[TMaekler (OP)]

Hi there,

so here it is - my first "Trans Newtonian" Adventure. I hope you will have fun reading it. However, since I don't have much time, things will dripple in slowly. But I will try as best as I can. Feel free to send me comments, hints, ideas - everything this story inspires you to.

Torsten

[Castinar]

Enjoyed reading the setup and opening stages. . . . especially the re-worked history!  Keep it up --- I'm looking forward to more!

[TMaekler (OP)]

Thanks  . I'll try to make it as interesting as possible... .

[Garfunkel]

Well that's a surprise! I thought you had your hands full with just the growing number of humans

[TMaekler (OP)]

No, it basically took so long because I set up the complete alien race, combined with a bunch of work I am actually on. So next update might take same duration, but I'll see how it goes.

[rorror]

Will be reading

[TMaekler (OP)]

For anyone interested, the economic reorganization spoken of in the recent update involves a change in my Excel-Sheet with which I try to manage the different empires. I had worked out a first layout but it was too complicated and imprecise. So I redid the sheet to better cope with many empires. It is "easy" to deal with one Empire inside of Aurora (not ideal but ok); but it becomes unmanageable when trying to keep at the top of several empires and not let them plunge into chaos. I hope this sheet will help me further on.

National Overview (over all Planets and Colonies)


Planetary Values for one Nations Colony


In case you wonder what "Ressources B/S" is: since the nations needed more Duranium as well as a way to fund their industry (because Income wasn't high enough) I had set up the "United Nations" as an inofficial trading partner for the TN Elements. You can see "Buy" and "Sell" colums in the second picture. I had set up fictional prices for each Element and tried to get enough money to the nations as well as enough Duranium. But as I said, my first sheet did not tell me HOW much Duranium and Money was needed exactly. So I had to find a way to show me so I can manage the buying and selling (so that in the Future no Nation needs to suffer from debt again; well as long as it does not fit the story... ).

There is a "fictional" 25% Limit as to how much a nation can produce income through this system; as you can see the US will be under this limit in 1975 - however they had to reduce the maximum use of their industry to 50%. So it will slow them down for a while... (as well as the others).

[TMaekler (OP)]

Some more background information: I timed the last turn of 1975. It took this chunk of time to manage the whole year:
a) Playing it inside Aurora 4x: roughly 8 hours
b) Extracting the Data and Nation development planning: 2.5 hours
c) Writing the Story: 3 hours (was a bit short this time)
d) Fighting the small incident in Lacaille: 6 hours

Will be interesting to see how much C# Aurora will speed up this process... .

[TMaekler (OP)]

As some of you might have guessed, part of the story development is based upon real (and not so real) events which happened in real human and earth history. Most of the peoples names are taken from real (and some from fictional) characters. Just google them as well as some of the events. It is interesting and surprising what history reveals when you try to make up a fake human history based upon real events... .

[TMaekler (OP)]

So far what do you like in this story and what not? Do you think it is crap or brilliant? Feedback welcome 

[TCD]

It's interesting, and I like the historical figures, but I have to say that for me I find that multi-voice narratives with these multi-nation starts can become very hard to follow. I think I'd prefer you to pick a nation to focus on and just write from their POV.

But then again, I'm the kind of reader who hates it when a book jumps from one characters perspective to another. Wheel of Time drove me nuts! Clearly other people must disagree or authors wouldn't keep doing it.

[83athom]

But then again, I'm the kind of reader who hates it when a book jumps from one characters perspective to another. Wheel of Time drove me nuts! Clearly other people must disagree or authors wouldn't keep doing it.

I agree for the most part, however my favorite books seem to be the ones that manage a balance. One where most of the book is focused on the "main" character but a chapter/section of a chapter may branch off to sub-character (like a secondary character, the enemy, a spy, or a common foot-soldier) which expands the story without taking the focus off the main character. Occasionally the chapter may lead to the death of said sub-character who was just introduced that chapter or a few chapters ago but seemed irrelevant at the time. David Webber seems to be really good at that kind of stuff.

Back on point. While you do seem to be doing just fine in the story telling, try to stick to a single side of what can be seen while stil keeping track of hat can't bee seen (possibly done in spy reports or something like that). Occasionally you should swap the viewpoint to a different side every so often, but only at vital turning points in the story. Say that the US and USSR each have a system bordering one another. Aliens attack the US system, but stops there. The US keeps the existence of the aliens very top secret but prepare and send their fleet for "training and maneuvering". The viewpoint shifts to the USSR intelligence agency and military deciding what to do about the massive US fleet heading near one of their systems, fully loaded with strategic weaponry. They then decide to send their own fleet on a preemptive strike against a major US base, sparking the US-USSR war. Something along those lines.

[entropino]

I think it's quite good, I like that the continuous developments keep you wondering what will happen next and how the powers react to it and each other. (USSR meets aliens for example) I have no problem with the perspective switching around.   

[TMaekler (OP)]

Thanks for the advice and tips. Will look to it that the stories become easier to follow (jumping back and forth is "easy" if you have the birds eyes overview but that can make you loose the reader because he does not have that overarching perspective). Actually I am testing some of the game mechanics so don't expect a soon update - but it will come eventually.