Texas O'Malley's BBQ and Beer : News discussions

[Makahlua]

Or how to give our news that little bit of side step all good Texas politicos are known for

Some disorganized thoughts:

How often do we want to throw reports out there? Especially in the beginning, there won't be much 'cept "we made a base!" or "we found more ocean!" I think probably once every 10 turns to start (excepting for our special planetfall edition which would be our first five turns or so) and cut down to five later, not counting blow by blow of wars and special events like first contacts & Brotherhood Pacts being signed. And of course there's always room for editorials when the other factions rev their propaganda machines up *cough*Hive and UoP*cough*

And I need to find some good counter propaganda, maybe WW2 recruitment posters....*runs off to look for a bit*

And! How much are we going to reveal map/location-wise? Carefully edited charts? Something like this, released say every 25 turns or so? (even though I really need to texture the land and ocean better)

[FlameFlash]

I don't think we should do any maps, general or otherwise personally... though our own breed of propaganda would be good... though if your maps are as generic as the one above, there's certainly going to be no harm whatsoever as to posting it.

[Hercules]

I don't think we should do either the real maps or a carefully edited version, except within this forum as you have already done, so successfully.

However I think we should give serious consideration to a mis-information map, that we somehow leak to others. Your maps give no indication of location in terms of co-ordinates or year.
So say you started your own SP playing the pirates and got to a position where there were 3 bases in unpromising territory (well maybe an odd special) and with a continent in mermaid distance.
That might confuse matters. Especially if it was your generic map style as above. But a completely false map would confuse up until we start to make serious contact.

If our landing news edition described events but minimised the close riches at hand, and emphasised the hardships, that would be good. The struggle to find a HQ through the fungus. The shortage and search for nutrients. Credible but not the full shilling.

Take for example the Hive landing news report. They encountered just one monolith. I don't think so, but a nice piece of mis direction.

[Makahlua]

Here's my log for the post-landing Shipping News; we Pirates are too worried about surviing to put on a fancy paper like Pravda just yet Other Cap'ns logs of the landing would be great if anyone wishes to add on I'll start a new pirate game in a bit to generate our misinformation maps from shortly After I write my Aquaculture & Landlubbers article for the Uni Tribune

edited: #1 attached Tribune article #2 attached fake maps

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Seraph's Log, 2102. .....whatever the hell day it is, these short Chironian days are messing with me head...:

Well now that the ordeal adventure is settling into a more or less orderly exploration, well as orderly as can be expected from this motley lot, eh? I figure I should write my own version of it, considerin' Morgan's not around to turn it into a holo-of-the-week...I'll miss their l3wt fine-crafted goods, but not that shlock they called Morgan Holovision....I'm gettin' off topic already.....right the landing. Now I don't have t'tell ye, the seas can be pretty nasty when Neptune gets his back up about somethin' but after that ride down....let's just say I'll be treating any future pilots we get -real- nicely. 'Specially after seeing the fireworks show two pods colliding made *shiver* Bless the poor souls, to have come all this way, only to become the beginnings of a ring around Chiron...a sad day *raises a shot of tequila to the lost*

Well things got better after the waves from our landing splash died down (and that landlubber of a navigator stopped being sea-sick..) We were lucky enough to land in a nice stretch of middlin' deep ocean, though there was nary anythin' else to be seen nearby. I transferred over to the flagship where we all met in th' chartroom and Cap'n John laid out his plan for ship movements. The shallow water to the east turned out t'be a small archipelago, unfortunately half covered with that damn pink fungus (don't get me started about all the trouble we've had sailing through that garbage - kelp beds will seem a breeze after that....bilge..) One bright side is it had a very interestin' monolith perched on th' end of one isle - I was right all along, we aren't alone in the universe! Tho whomever left this was long gone...anyhow, after the obvious gawking got done, the fleet fanned out to discover a few more scraggly isles poking out of th' sea, thankfully minus the pink fluff. We were also happy to discover a patch of nutrient rich waters; 'twill be great for kelp and out fish stocks, maybe with the land near I can get some rice & soybeans goin' and get us some sushi for variety. Fish and kelp soup gets old after a while... Note to self: don't forget to look for an arid area for the agave plants! I'm gonna run low on Cuervo eventually... We also found a mineral outcropping on a small isle, now at least we can build some more ships at a decent rate once we get a base started in that area.

Could be better, could be worse....at least we're not orbiting Chiron...and on that note, I think I'll sign off and go rustle up some limes and ice and maybe that cute bosun to go with this tequila...

*end log*
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Aquaculture & Landlubbers : Yes you can be friends!

Now I know the lot of you are thinking "But how can Aquaculture be of any help to me? We don't even have Foils -or- knowledge of Centauri Ecology yet!" You can rest your worries right here, mate - even with what floats you can jury-rig together, the Chironian seas can still help you; our techniques were developed on Earth, but still apply to this strange new world. Most shallow shelves like you lot have on your shores harbour the perfect beds for raising some of the fish stocks brought down from the Unity - salmon for example can be dispersed opn a shelf with access to a river; halibut closer out to the deeper shelf edge waters. The shallowest shore waters should be plenty deep for crabs, lobsters and all sorts of shellfish such as clams; if you're lucky enough to have
a large lake or small land-locked sea, just about any type of fish that used to be farmed on Earth can be released to run wild in them. And trust an amateur gourmet - free ranging your fish stick really will improve the flavor; no need for that processed 'fish
sticks' of yore!

When foils become available to ye, the sea can also provide those 'daily essentials' the nutritionists harp on - in the form of kelp! Now I'll grant ye, even the most die-hard old hands can get tired of it; but with the ample farms land-based faction can harness, kelp can be just an occasional nautical flare to your meals or even dried ground and mixed into your daily bread for added nutrition. Just check your datalinks for Japanese cuisine if you don't believe kelp can be a nutritious as wella s tasty and elegant addition you your meals. You can even conserve energy by having sushimi or sushi; little or no cooking required - just fresh ingredients and a sharp knife! Speaking of energy even the modest sized tidal harnesses than can be built close to shore can add a few minicred to your energy intake and over time that will really add up. Just take precaution not to do your early harnesses & fish farms too close to each other - a school can damage the delicate harness fins too easily

Good luck out there!

Brought to you by the PEACE council for Aqua Promotion. Need help putting these ideas to work? Simply send us a databurst and enclose 5 microcred to cover transmission costs, and we will send you blueprints of the same rigs we're using -right now- at our very own bases!
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[Hercules]

I was going to caution about using the word Neptune but events have overtaken things.

I say go ahead and publish and use of course the lower map.
Nice work. I don't mean to be a pain, but can those fish species survive OK in Planet oceans.

[Hercules]

Maybe the Salmon and Halibut etc have received Sea Lurk genes to help.

Or does that only happen after we discover gene splicing.

[Makahlua]

Well they never tell us much about the oacens, unlike Dee's mini-papers on Planet soil - but I imagine if we can drink it, then fish can use it

[Atlantian]

Just out of curiousity, how do you take a screen shot? Never had a reason to before, but I might sometime in the future.

[Makahlua]

I usually just open paint shop pro and then SMAC/X and do the alt-tab/print screen dance. be sure to save as soon as you paste into the graphics program, otherwise when you exit AC later it might look funky. Windows no likie 8bit color sometimes

[Atlantian]

I dont have paint shop pro .

[Makahlua]

Doesn't have to be that specifically; any graphics editing program should work. ImagoWEB is a fre//sharre one I used to use & PSP has a 60 day trial. You should be able to find either on downloads.com

[Hercules]

Seraph Maki. As you are a wizard at graphics, do you think you could produce/ reproduce minature pirate flag icons, that would load easily and that we could attach to our individual posts. A kinda of pirate clan emblem.

Identifiable as a pirate flag but not overwhelming, to be located, I suppose, in the signature area.

here's an url on pirate flags for starters

www.westcoastmutineers.com/flags.htm

[Googlie]

Newspaper Title

Hmmm - Shipping News doesn't sound at all piratey - more like Lloyd's of London, in fact, or Janes - All the World's Ships

Current Affairs isn't much better - sounds like BBC or CNN

You need a thread to come up with a better name, to do battle in the war of propaganda - Blackbeard's Log or Parrot Talk or The Screech, or something along those lines

G (observing the frenetic activity among the other factions as they ratchet up their propaganda)

[Atlantian]

Here is a few ideas for the newspaper title:
Piracy Times
Crows Nest
The Captains Study
Fish Stories
The Privateer
The Fish Net

Or my personal favorite:
Scuttlebutt
(Slang: Gossip; rumor.
Nautical:
A drinking fountain on a ship.
A cask on a ship used to hold the day's supply of drinking water.)

[Googlie]

Not pushing any agenda, but screech is also a potent rum in eastern Canada

See: http://www.durham.net/~kburt/ScreechStory.html

So it (Screechtalk - or whatever) would double as the parrot talking and/or the rum talking

(I like Scuttlebutt too - of course, I don't have a vote as I'm not a parrot-carrying eyepatch-wearing fully fledged Pirate)

G

[Makahlua]

Scuttlebutt? I love it!

Here's a flag in two sizes:

[johndmuller]

That's pretty cool .

How do you think it would look if the Skull & Crossbones CrossedSwords were the main body and the Central star of the Pirate symbol were sparkling out of each eye (maybe a little larger than those eyeholes)?

[Hercules]

Scuttlebutt is good.

But regardless, I also like Shipping News. Some of us pirates have a refined side and it is intended to understated. That's how pirates succeed by getting in close range.

The pirate skull and cross swords graphic is excellent. Can it be reduced a further 50% or to a size smaller but still identifiable. I wouldn't like to clog up the postings.

[FlameFlash]

Love the big version! The smaller versions seem to rob something from the spirit... or maybe the color...

[Hercules]

There is an other issue which could do with a bit of discussion and it is that raised by Cusp BB. As we plan to rotate the player who actually plays the turn, it is a good idea to have the pirate name in the game screen as something like Captain Hook.

I was thinking almost along the same lines but whoever we chose we would often make reference to this character (a pirate clan overlord?) but no one would actually meet him.

Like a pirate might report that Cap'N xxxxx had waited for two days at Margaritaville. We'd just missed him but he left these orders, instructions and requests.

Just a thought.

Anyhow let's have some name suggestions for our mysterious Captain.

Cusp BB has suggested Captain Hook

Here's one. Captain Skull

[johndmuller]

I did a search with "famous pirates" and got a lot of substantive hits with hardly any irrelevant stuff.

Good stuff

[FlameFlash]

You know... I hate the fact that we're not updated via email in this area...

I like the idea of Parrot Squaks personally...

[Atlantian]

The flag is nice.
Lets hold a vote in a new thread for the name of our news paper.

[Hercules]

Atlantian: Well do that. If you not familiar with how to do so. Experiment.

Make it a single vote initially to see how we fare. Tradition has it we give voters the option of abstain or xenbanana also., but with the ThePlagueRat's predisposition to bananas we might need to change that to Xenofruit (your choice)

[Hercules]

Experimenting with semiphore. Watch this space.

[Hercules]

Thankfully most of that awful binary stuff has stopped.

Anyway in RL my postponed 3 week trip to China is back on. I will be away from the 14th June until the 6th July.

I will of course be actively posting apart from between those dates.

This has less effect on this team game except for my Mod duties and that I can't be the next Cap'n Hook.

[Googlie]

[Googlie]

[Googlie]

[Googlie]