Thank you for the Patronage, Week 47 sales Nov 20-27 2022

 

• We've been slowing down and it seems burnout is setting in. December is a month work hardly gets done. So many social commitments. If this keeps up, Jan is when 2-Parsec will release. 
• Hope we finish the text at least, because I will have to start editing it. Then art. 

Mneme tech Levels - Rockets in different eras.

The tech in the 1960s could have allowed for intrastellar civilization - IF - the opportunity cost was better than every other option. The world was very unequal then, and any history documentary about NASA discussed all the other priorities the US gov't had at the time and the compromises. 

Getting the Stats of these rockets and using them as a baseline for Cepheus Engine TL6-8 (or Mneme TL6 to 14  Drives). 

My brain dont work good after work these days. Stress is preventing me from understanding things. 

1. I may have watched this video about 10x in the past 3 years. This and Mike Aben's video
2. 
   

   
   

3. so many people can do the math. Its embarassing I cant. Also so many people who can do the math is the age of my friends (people in their 50s). So I feel like I have to keep up.

1. Log of (Full Mass / Empty mass) * ISP 

2. Thrust / (Thrust / ISP) - combining Rockets Delta V

4. 

The baseline for CE TL 6 Mneme TL7 (1980s)

https://www.simplerockets.com/c/wMldVI/Saturn-V-for-RSS

https://www.simplerockets.com/c/TK867k/Saturn-V 

The baseline for CE TL 6.5 Mneme TL8 (1980s) 

https://www.simplerockets.com/c/1sy55t/Space-Shuttle-Atlantis-Auto-Orbit 

https://www.simplerockets.com/c/Q3R73p/Buran-Energia 

The baseline for CE TL 6.5 Mneme TL8 (2000s) 

https://www.simplerockets.com/c/nG8Ay1/Soyuz-Fully-Fixed

The baseline for CE TL 7 or Mneme TL9 (2000s)  

https://www.simplerockets.com/c/0Y4PZ5/SpaceX-Falcon-Heavy-block-5 

The baseline for CE TL 8 Mneme TL10 (2100s)

https://www.simplerockets.com/c/aS2IBp/TWR-Fixed-KSP-2-Metallic-Hydrogen-Spacecraft

Thank you for the patronage! Sales Report Week 46 Nov 13 to 19 2022

 Thank you for your patronage!

Status Report: 2-Parsec 

• Characters 4 out of 9 character have art and write up.  
• Map of 2 out of 3 systems are done. 
• Write-ups for 2 out of 3 systems are done.  
• (NEW; Setback) Variant Combat Rules Equipment Chapter will be included -
• Character Detailing Challenges - i have to make a better easier to use Equipment Spreadsheet. 
• A lot of equipment will need to be included and the basic information. 
• First Draft for my Edit and Review by Nov 25. Give me first week of December to edit it (Nov 28-Dec 2). 
• Dec 5-16 Ia nd Nicco will be making the Space Stations and Renderings by this time. 
• Assembling the File:
• Booklet of 3 Systems 
• PDF 
• Doc file
• Character Portraits for 9 NPCs in PSD, and Jpg files. 
• 3 Maps PSD files and jpg files
• Diagram of adventures. 
• 3 Space stations files and the Planets (non-scaled distances; the space stations will not be scaled against the planets)  
• The target has moved to 3rd Week of  December. 

Set Backs

• December Obligations will leave me and nicco spent. 
• New responsibilities at work. 
• Helping friends set up their ERpnext in their family biz and teaching a new batch of Students to set up ERpnext. Erps in CE TL8 (TL7 in Mneme) are the software in the ship that takes care of ALL the business analytics in the game. Anything about the Finances, Logistics, and operations of a Ship will be in the Ships ERP.  Any activity recorded in the ERP is converted to COST ops and income impact - so players can design what is best for their business. 

DUE Deliverables

• Fixing the Position Calculations of Mneme World Builder Spreadsheet 
• (Due Jan) Reaction Drive Spreadsheet (in order to create a Reaction Drive plug in) 
• Methlox, Hydrolox, Metalic Hydrogen, and RP-1  Calculations 
• Delta-V and Rocket Equations calculation. (having Pecier check my math is a BIG deal in the confidence of putting out the product). 
• (Due Feb) Realistic Space Travel rules by Pecier Decierdo - Gamification of travel. We discovered a way to make the calculation of Space Travel a bit more realistic
• - if you play Children of a Dead Earth or Kerbal or Simple rockets, we'll make the concepts a bit more accessible. It will change how Travel Time is calculated in the Game. So much so that its a very different mental paradigm. The benefit is you're thinking in orbital mechanics - and your storytelling for your hard Scifi adventure has developed. also you can give us feedback and we will talk to Pecier to figure out more diagrams and explanations since we can animate it in Blender to explain. 
  
  
  
• (Due Feb) Realistic Planetary position rules by Pecier Decierdo 

Game in the Brain Equipment in cepheus engine challenges

My problems with making a book about equipment is for Cepheus engine is Character rigging - this is creating the animation Skeleton of a Vacc suit, power armor, and any humanoid form.

This is one of my weaknesses because rigging is one of the most time consuming activities taking 3-7 man days in blender.

Even if I buy a rigged model, posing it is my other problem. I've not successfully posed a rigged model as of late.

Nicco and I can kitbash various models working off a template. Once the processes are made - which is a lot of trial and error - it should be more predictable per model. Of course getting reimbursed for the trial and error research is the hard sell. 

Our promise which allows us to charge more is, you get the models for your games and rendering. The way I can quickly render something from Daniel Grove's kits - buyers can render scenes from our products for their game.

 Also the feedback mechanism between equipment Purely described in the theater of the mind vs having A model to tweak is different.

The GM or player opening blender or the image file and zooming into the parts is a very different experience from just the picture.

With procedural terrain, cities, underground facilities (dungeons) etc...

Especially when we already figured out we can make all the internals for maps with our kitbash kit.

You can rerender the maps with tweaks. Also becuase all the maps are modular 3d components it will speedup up our workflow.

-

I tend to mention this a lot - I work in a family biz of construction and manufacturing and I'm migrating the family biz to freecad. As a 2d and 3d artist the workflow improvements in 3d is a big deal. My understanding of freecad carries over to blender and the reverse works as well. Blender feeds into my freecad. 

I predict that it will take 8 weeks of about 1-2 hours of trial and error per week while making time for the other products will get us to being able to make Vacc Suits and Armor models. Unlike our other products - this is going to be very difficult to use without some intermediate-level blender knowledge in animation.  So for most people who buy the product its a detailed inspection of the model and probably changing the lighting and scenes of the poses they render. 

I dont think this will translate a lot in sales. No one ever bought Traveller equipment catalogue and said - It would be so cool if not just there was a Picture, but a 3d model So i can see what the heck this is supposed to look like in the comments. 

Of course Game in the Brain, Mneme, is like - Oh that's going o be us. We will be the guys you can comment "I need to see a model of X" what are you talking about here. And nicco and I will model it bit by bit. 

I think the theater of the mind is working with constraints, like in IT, we re-work the assumptions and ask can this be better. Of course working with new tools will require new Skills and that FRUSTRATING learning curve and the need for someone who can answer questions and guide. Game in the Brain has to be able to GIVE new tools and teach how to use them, supporting the users.  

We analyze what drives the story forward - how much is the immersion lost or managed with the tools? 

Trial and Error of making a product.

When you work back my costs, you realize GITB is expensive to make - and I will break even if I sell ~500 per product only royalties. Yeah - good products take work and trial and error - financing the Trial and Error so that I can spread it over a number of sales is my prerogative. (I have to recoup about 2k USD of investments). Currently, my odds of breaking even is low. 

Trial and error is really part of the cost - nothing is perfect, but they can be better and better over time. Trial and error is a cost no one wants to pay for, but its a necessary part of a developing products - making better and better products. 

If you're a fan of AGILE, QMS, and incremental improvements. I gues you'd appreciate how Open source changes the power dynamics. 

Accountability is in my sales (People like the product enough to pay money for it) and Open Sourcing everything I can open source. You know you're paying the BEST value for trial and error - with transparency and the ability to make a better product because we release the material in its RAW components (that we have the rights to release).

Excited after 2-Parsec Text and Spreadsheets are DONE. Nicco and I can do the FUN TASK of making the Models - Underground SPIN gravity and Spin gravity and OG habitats and stations. Just making a TON of art is going to be frustrating as we relearn blender systems we forgot (Rigging, Animation,) and learning more Geometry Nodes. PROCEDURALLY generated underground and Spin Gravity Stations that is MAPS ready for VTT!!! 

Oh yeah! GITB wants it that you buy our Products and you can make a book of your own. Basically all the Cepheus Engine and other Scifi TRPG game designers may find our products useful if not a BIG help. Not just for the tools but if some partner products are made (where I find and train a student to make more like stuff) they can hire my former students to help them make a higher level of products. 

 Open source makes sure you get the best value - as anyone can compete. one day African and Indian creators will probably be creating more amazing things than us, and I look forward to Enjoy playing games more than making them. 

Using Daniel Grove's Kitbash 

Thank you for your Patronage! Nov 5 to 12 Week 45 Sales

Status Report

• Its low because I wasn't out peddling, going FB group to MeWe group making the product visible. I plan to do that more when I have a production line ready. 
• Target for 2-Parsecs is December 3rd week. (as of what I see right now) 
• Shifting to Microsoft Word, slight delay since Libreoffice had problems.
• First Draft for everything is done, layouting right now.
• Researching the Workflow for Modeling Underground Structures.  
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iV9wnvpQ1U Backface culling - the Tunnel's normals dont render when viewed from outside. So you will always see the Inside of the Tunnel, but while inside the tunnel you cannot view out. 
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsfrYa5iAy4 checking out Pipe Geometry nodes, for tunnels, replacing the assets with "scifi"tunnels. 
• There is going to be so many underground structures I probably need to model a boring machine that builds structures as it goes. Underground with Spin gravity. Its like being in a car slightly accelerating - gravity of the spin keeps your feet down on the ground, but like being in a vehicle slightly accelerating you can feel a perpendicular force. We need to design a production line for me an Nicco to build as much as possible and to make it Roll20/VTT friendly.

major set back, but minor delay - cannot use libreoffice writer switching to Microsoft word

We use flowchart drawings alot in game In the brain so I learned libreoffice writer cannot save and even breaks the layout.

We originally wrote it in Google docs, then later Microsoft word for layouting. But this time I wanted it made start to finish in libreoffice writer. I used to do this for really layouts gurps material for my games. I basically took gurps lite, all the rules I was going to use and character templates and fit it in 100 pages so players all had everything they needed (personal use only). 

Of course what I did was not sharable because it's gurps. But I wanted to that for cepheus engine and prototyped it with the latest product - tentatively called 2-parsecs. 

I download the file from Google drive and every time I open it the format changes 😢😢😢. Basically I don't save it and open it and close and open and close and it opens looking different. 

Libreoffice writer 7.3.

I wanted that our products used open source stuff that anyone can download and use. I was working in Ubuntu 22.04, blender, gimp etc...

Luckily my friend left his windows pc with me and effectively it was "mine" in all intents and purposes - which he mentioned but I felt guilty using 😅. I'm part of my wife's ms office 365 family plan and finally turned it on after so long.

I was using only openoffice, libreoffice, and Google docs since 2005 so this is a big setback for me.

I plan to do desktop recordings of the error and reporting it.

When nicco told me of the error we had a session we intentionally spent the night breaking it - replicating the error and discovered so much - the order of objects kept changing - grouping doesn't help and I can't select groups. Copying a square with text makes into a frame and frames cannot be grouped and they suffer from the reorder bug.

Market Analysis: This is fun If I have data, and someone who can focus on Products

Had a discussion with someone who was interested in my Feedback about Product design. And one of the key things I discussed was - Benchmarking. Comparison and Differentiation. Of course there is a TON of other concepts that needs to be unloaded like LEAN and all the Due Dilligence skills... but Market Research and Analysis - what is the product you are making? 

I'll be getting by Biz Admin: marketing Students at the end of November. I got a partnership with the school (National University, Philippines) where I teach them to use Sales and CRM module of ERPNext and create CASE STUDIES using ERPs to examine Companies who are performing a certain way - demonstrating trade-offs. 

The goal is market research AND deciding on a Marketing Campaign. And using the data of a CRM and Sales module to better design a marketing campaign. 

Anyway If I had the 400-500usd, I'd have a student with Python Scripting to pull data and Biz Admin student - and I would BUILD a way to collect data from Drive thru RPg to examine all my competitors with easily searchable information. Particularly the performance of their products because its possible for me to guess how much it costs to make them Each Book and their Profitability. 

The goal is to learn their SWOT, and to Differentiate Game in the Brain to be better and with AGILE development create products that will TEST the theory/thesis of what will sell and develop the body of knowledge that will make a better product. and like louis rossman kinda SHow how we did it. 

One of the things you Learn about Open Source is that - the Guys who will take open source and make it their own are RARE - but the people who will appreciate its accessibility is everyone else.  Now these guys who MAKE a better product now - they become their own "Control" in the experiment that is marketing. They tell us a lot about the market through their success of failure and WE learn. 

If you read the comments in Louis Rossman videos most of the comments is appreciating what he does, making things accessible and removes the Veil the "Mystery" of how these things are made. But the thing is - the guys who comment saying they started being repair oriented and open repair are very rare. but their contribution to a community is HUGE. 

Being a springboard to make people make their TRPG or setting because our models, Libre office files, etc... are available just like Jason "Flyn" Kemp did will grow the hobby more - making more tools that Add to Cepheus Engine will result in better things for the hobby. 

Learning Something new: Metallic Gas Giants cannot have Terrestrial worlds exist along side it

Right now discussing with Pecier Decierdo about work on polishing the Mneme World Generator.

I have to make some tweaks but I have to set that aside in the future, and part of the budget. 

Which is awesome because Pecier's specialty is Planetary Systems. His math is much better than mine so even he can check my calculations/spreadsheets that will be used with Delta V Budget (ships have a delta-V budget set of stats to determine Travel Time) and Rocket equations (Complicates the Delta-V calculation because ship gets lighter as it burns). 

One of the PERKS of a completely open source setting and book is that, the mechanics he will help create to make Space Travel Fun and Gamified he can take to use for his own purposes as a Science Educator. I on the other hand get to publish it as part of GITB's Books and Others can use it as well - spreading Science literacy. 

I lose nothing working with an OPEN source system anyone can COPY, because I can copy an improvement of the system. the End User - the Gamers have the tools they need and the freedom to innovate. 








What I'm confident about when it comes to the Book and future Material: My Experience with Non-Zero sum and Zero-Sum situations. Where people always are not acting in their best interest. To get to where I am where I always deal with Win-Win is an OCEAN of experience with self-harming and short-sighted systems and understanding how they came to be. 

The reason I do a lot of Teaching and Training is that people only use the "BEST METHODS THEY KNOW" if they knew any better than they would be doing something else. and thus often the task is educating End Users. 

Today I had the strangest set of Experiences: people misunderstanding some fundamental Processes - like automation means NO ONE IS CHECKING. no no no... Automation in a system automates all the prerequisites that are needed to Make a Decision - as well as the ACTIONS (setting into motion) that will occur after a decision is made.  

Upon detecting that I have to save the person FACE by saying, lets discuss this fundamental principle that you were given training about which we documented, which I explained 2 other times - but now it has come to my attention that fundamentally they don't understand how the Time and Motion of Decisioins in relation to the INFORMATION to make a decision. 

Some people don't know that we make a decision NEAR instantly once information is at hand - is the color red/blue/yellow, did he lie, did he don the task. etc... all of this are IMMEDIATELY judged once we have the red/blue/yellow in front of us, the contradicting statement or confirming evidence, the outcome of the action - AUTOMATION makes this information accessible. 

I have to educate people about some things I take forgranted often - and colors me - it makes me wonder if I'm going crazy - why is something so fundamental is misundertood and how it affect their life. 

I know from my experience - decisions are near instantaneous - its the Information Gathering that is tedious and time-consuming. That bidding and procurement can take WEEKS several tries etc... 

The example above is to illustrate my experience with problems and that I don't mind getting into it. I just go elected (out of default) as a director of our Home Owners Association. Everyone is telling me how dysfunctional these things ARE and when Interviewing stakeholders the amount of basic Operational Literacy - how to conduct a SPRINT or TOOLBOX meeting - how to pay down technical debt, What is a workaround, and what is a corrective action, etc... 

I am fascinated by how people don't understand that Confrontation doesn't mean Violence, that without Engaging with Stakeholders and the problem there is no Corrective Action. that the Delaying tactic of AVOIDANCE is the culture - avoid all the problems until the problem affects "Me" - WTF is that kind of Childish BULLSHIT.  anyway again - WORK IS TOO INSPIRING for the material of dysfunction, now I will be part of a homeowners association and I will see other Dysfunctional organizations in Action.

You cannot help but love your TRPG group or your Team when you see people bicker, self-harm the organization, exploit each other. Holy shit look at how those people harm those people lolz - its so weird - People, in general, are made to not think as much as possible and asking them to stop to think triggers anxiety and fear. You have to use fast-talk. distract them with more important things or their mental exploits (like flattery and ego). You can imagine my GM's voice in my head "Justin make your roll..." 😅😅😅

Thank you for your Patronage! Week 44 report (October 31 to Nov 4)

Stakeholder updates 

1. Justin Tasks
1. Fix the Zones and Position mechanics.  Target Nov 12
2. Make the new mechanics reflected in the Libreoffice of Mneme World Generator. Nov 18
3. If I finish above on time: Proceed for Reaction Drive Project - Delta V Budget, Rocket Equation,   RP-1 (Kerolox), Methalox, Hydrolox, and Metalic Hydrogen fuels. 
2. Nicco Tasks. 
1. Finishing 1 system for our System Template. Target in Nov 12. (3 weeks running, we try to make it 1 system in 1 week - note the amount of deliverables per system: Maps, renders, models, NPCs, etc...) We ran into a Setback as we discovered Alpha Centauri system is a triple star system. 
1. all 3 systems are targeted by Dec first week. That means after this first system, we will build the Production system and then standardize and eliminate the low value stuff and Waste/Muda. 
2. Libreoffice version of Mneme World Generator. (low priority)

Main goals are Produciton of 1 week of work 1 system with all the details from nicco. Then my editing hopefully 1 week then off to nicco for polishing and changes. then with a total throughput of 2 weeks but these are OVERLAPPING. AFter the first template we should be at production. 


This is a better week than last. 
4-5 MWG per week, that means 5 weeks to Silver. At current rate. Once these 3 systems come in that's 13usd for the MWG for anyone buying after Silver (which will slow down our growth)... but hopefully. 

Honestly the price of a system is going up as we are learning more about the costs and setbacks. BUT of course its job to invest in tools and techniques that will drive down the cost and pass the savings to stakeholders so that when they look at Game in the Brain products - This PRODUCT saves me 4-6 hours a week of adventure and world building preparation - because we give you models, Libre office, PSD files, etc... 

The goal is that Reaction Drives, the MASS BASED Ship Design and the 3d Models of Hard Scifi Cepheus TL7 to Late TL8 ships will make people go - "I get a bunch of ships of 13usd I can render for my game and maps of layouts etc...  when most products are 20-30usd"  

One of our challenges is JUPITER system - the 100 Moons of Jupiter and the intensive Heka Trillion Credit Economy of Jupiter in 2500 where the Ice Giants are the cheaper sources of Metalic Hydrogen and the New Frontier - but Jupiter with its 300 years of INfrastructure is the "Giant" the biggest Developed Economy in Sol. How do you price detailing 100 moons, dozens of Ships, procedurally generating Habitats etc...  

Jovian Politics shaping Sol systems and Identity the way America shaped the world 500 years prior, or the Romans 2500 years prior.  

I would love to Model Mega Structures of Vacuum Airship Cities on Neptune and Uranus. Ships in near constant Dark as so little light from the sun reaches these cities. Cities RIDING the tides and currents of ice and gas. this being the "FRONTIER" world cheaper metallic hydrogen with new techniques of collecting them and PRODUCING them. 

Universe Sandbox - how to upload Ubox files of Mneme's Star Systems

 So I made a tutorial of how to upload the ubox files that will come with our Products. As well demoing Universe Sandbox, which is what I just learned to be 30usd for US but only 12usd here in the Philippines. So basically it means its not a small price. Anyway we plan to make Blender files of the stars  

If Nicco and I will model the nearby stars from Wikipedia and Universe Sandbox

proof of concept how we can Link each with distances. 

From Wikipedia

List of Nearest Stars

We will keep things simple at first, using Stellagama's Free Nearby Stars but we will add more details and new systems. if you watched the video, the research that will go into making a system and the creation of the material will probably put the price at about 5usd per system to break even at about 50 sales. 

Excited to getting back into modeling Hard Scifi Ships (this is a 2km long asteroid for scale). I need to build a lot of space ship tools and spreadsheets as well as a production line 

T

Blender Conference 2022 and Open Source Direction

Collaboration

So the Blender Conference discusses the new features of blender, Blender being a critical feature that is making Mneme World Generator Sell. If not for the Blender files for Planets I would not get any visibility for our product. 

Blender means that Game in the Brain will include the SHIPS, the Space Stations, the Habitats, and the Files we used to Create the ART and Scenes for Game in the Brain products. You get the LibreOffice files so you can edit the material to tailor it to your game, you get the Blender files to TAILOR the material to your game. It costs nothing more for us to make the buyers of our product have the files*.

Collaboration - this is a STRANGE thing in an TRPG - its what you do in TRPGs but in its making, there is not much collaboration. So I've been generous with my Technical Feedback, its not yielded anything. No one wants feedback it seems, even if the feedback is meant to either : increase the value of the product OR make it easier (usually buying down technical debt). 

I am an ERPNext, Blender, FreeCAD etc... advocate. I train people in this migrating the family biz to its traditional low computer literacy mindset to having a High Collaboration set up. It is strange when I encounter Low Trust environments and cultures - given that I come from the Philippines which has an incredibly corrupt gov't and very low trust culture for good reason.  

Collaboration Problems

1. Collaboration means, standards and methods. Nicco and I will be using Libreoffice and creating a set of Standards Templates for the products and will update these based on the feedback and our stress testing the products ourselves. There is a STYLE GUIDE for most publishing, but each writer fills in details that they deem important and I watch Seth Skorkowsky fill in missing details that can be Standardized. No one has gone "Man Seths approach should be SOP, there should be a checklist to see if NPCs push the story forward, there is a way for the PCs get the next clue even if they fail, the Game Writer should think through how this can play out..." Ok ok.... that's just me. We'll apply it to GITB 😅😅😅
   
2. Open and Communicative. Posting not just to SHOW off the work, but use the Market as Quality inspection - check if it hits the mark. are we here for "attaboys?" or we're here I want to know how to make this better in a way I can either LEARN to do or capable of doing. 
   
3. Learn and Learn FAST. I will always say Open Source are the fastest learners and where REAL world changing improvements happen (most innovation is exploiting a loophole and the weaker party - its not really improvement or fixing problems. Learning and Changing FAST is not comfy, its shocking and disturbing. Its understanding that - this will be obsolete soon. That means seeing people Tackle PROBLEMS of the product more and more. 

Anyway that's my take - I mean we will be the change we want in the world. We will price to break even and grow, and you will watch me reinvest sit all here for the next product. And I will make mistakes, some of that money will not be enough for the other things we need to build to make a good standard process and I will figure out a way to make it DIY here. 

Its easy to collaborate with us, as nicco gets some more help and I set up standards,we can expect certain things (Quality management) from collaboration and outcomes. 

Blender Apps

We may not need to go to GODOT to make the ship builder, it may just be a Blender App. The BIGGEST pro is just learning Python instead of GODOT's own language. 

*will they use it to make their OWN material in DrivethruRPG: YES WE HOPE SO! (I would hope they share the credit). We attribute to the artists who taught us, whose tutorials helped us make our products, I hope we get the same credit for the products we made.  

By Game in the Brain and you have to tools to tailor your game. You have the tools to make a new product! 

Uploaded the Google Slide/Impress File to 24-Career Cards

 All the buyers should be getting this. This should help you edit the Careers for your Games.