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I need to spend a few days going back and doing cleanup of earlier chapters, so no new posts until late next week. One way or another, I'm going to decide the fate of Queen Aussie and Warheads Et Cetera this weekend. Until I change it again.

Based on my math, I'm less than six months away from finishing this book. Yay!

Thank you, both.

One of the nice things about editing over the existing chapter is that those who haven't reviewed it yet will still receive points for doing so. The advantage of reposting is that everyone receives points and your posted work reappears on everyone's home page.

If you repost, increment the version number for the new chapter, and hide the previous version, unless you want reviewers to see both. You can also delete the previous version, but then you lose all of the reviews associated with it (I think).

Any potential problem with free points is entirely "localized". If I give you free points and you grow to expect them every time, then I haven't managed your expectations. No one besides you and me is affected. People who can't or don't want to give extra credit, aren't affected by what I do with my points.

It's like telling me I can't give my son a $20 allowance for chores because other kids in his class get nothing for doing chores.

I yield to the lady with 2013 points.

My compulsive disorder would drive me to shoot for 4000. :-)

Does anyone have an opinion as to whether Warheads Et Cetera and Queen Aussie are working in the story?

Unlike Mama's Little Shipping, which came alive in the second half of v2 (mostly because of Mama), I don't have a good idea yet of where to go with Warheads Et Cetera. It was supposed to be my dressed up name for ACME, a running gag. However, without the ACME name, it simply isn't funny. I'm strongly considering changing it back to Acme, Inc. so that the joke is obvious. Currently Warheads Et Cetera was founded by the Professor, and there is evidence that he is sending instructions back in time on what tech to build to corner the market on all tech (much like Mama ships everything in the story).

I have a final scene in mind for Queen Aussie at the end of the book that is the payoff for her presence, but I'm not getting the mileage out of her that I had hoped for throughout the rest of the story. One idea I'm considering is having her run Warheads Et Cetera, causing chaos throughout the story to generate profits off war material sales. I set her up in the prologue as having overloaded her safeguards against homicide, so it's possible. I don't know how to slip her into that role, though, since she can't appear physically until her final scene. It would all have to be done through news stories (in epigraphs). I have yet to figure out a way to do that, though. Perhaps she founds Acme, Inc. after ejecting from the Almighty in the prologue...

Thoughts?

Apparently the sci-fi standard is ion thrusters. So be it.

K et al, do you consider the terms hangar and docking bay as synonymous? I'm curious how you picture them. I'm trying to decide which term to use throughout the book. The picture I'm trying to convey is that of the bay into which the Millenium Falcon was pulled inside the first Death Star. Essentially a large area full of small ship(s), personnel, etc. with a force field to keep air from bleeding into space.

My latest chapter, Starfighter Battle, is up. This is a cleaned up version of the same chapter from v2. I leveraged battle chess to divide the battle into 2 rounds of starfighter combat, including some use of wingmen. My purpose for the first round is to knock out three pilots right away, leaving Christian to join the second round, for a total of five ships, which is the actual number I need for the chapter. That avoids the reader having to keep track of eight ships at once.

For this draft of the chapter, Joseph (the POV character) can tell how damaged other starfighters are based on the glow from their thrusters and cockpit. For example, if the glow from the thrusters drops considerably, then Joseph knows the ship has sustained significant (simulated) damage. Ditto if he sees cockpit lights cutting in and out. If both go out completely, that means the ship has been effectively destroyed for the duration of the exercise.

K suggested having Joseph see the status of every other ship on his instrument panel, rather then relying on the visual cues from the thrusters and cockpit lighting. Please let me know if you think seeing the status would add to the scene. I think I would still need to mention the visual cues, so I'm not sure I need a status panel, but it might be more realistic.

I could do that, but I wanted a way to tell what was going on with both friendly and enemy ships, so I went with thruster exhaust and lighting in the cockpit. Both can drop, indicating a problem. Also, the cockpit light flickering indicates the ship's power may be cutting in and out. When the exhaust and cockpit lighting go out completely, it means the ship has been "destroyed". I'll consider using status bars for all ships in the mock combat.

The real problem is Joseph diverting power from shields to speed up the ship. For that, I think plasma may be my best bet. I still need to research that some more later today when I'm awake.

Help needed again.

I seem to have written myself into a corner. I have starfighters with thrusters that give off visible exhaust. One way Joseph can tell if the fighters in his squadron are functioning optimally or have been damaged is by noticing the amount of visible exhaust coming from the fighters. For example, if a fighter is hit by weapons fire and its exhaust drops off considerably, then it's sustained significant damage. Doing this avoids all of the fighter pilots having to constantly give their operational status in the middle of the battle. Now, if there is visible exhaust, then there has to be a propellant being burned. So far so good.

The problem arises when Joseph wants to speed up his fighter beyond ordinary limits by diverting power from his shields to increase thrust, leaving his ship unshielded and exposed to serious damage, which is a must for the scene to work. Thing is, as far as I understand this, he doesn't really need more power, but more thrust, which means burning more propellant. I don't really see a need for a great deal of diverted power just to burn more propellant.

Thoughts?

Thanks
Dirk