2013-01-05 USS Rita Contact Report
Ship: USS Rita South Central Flotilla.
Crew: Four members of The Mallory Clan (Eric, Dean, James, Mark), Christian Holmes, and Chad Blankenship
Port of departure: Eric's house (affectionately called Rita). Houston TX. 77006
Stardate: 2013.01.05 Noon to 2013.01.06 Noon. Including breaks for debrief, brownies, Bernies Burger Bus (http://www.berniesburgerbus.com/), the Chocolate Bar (http://www.theoriginalchocolatebar.com/), and sleep cycles.
Eric Mallory reporting.
Crew
Most of this crew are veteran officers. A few more missions and I'll call them "seasoned." This is our first Contact Report (2nd if you count the Team Building Exercise Contact Report). Chad was the only rookie. Christian Drove Comms while Chad Navigated. Then Christian Captained and coached Chad on Science. The rest of the crew rotated. We conducted missions with 4 - 6 crew. When we were 4, we doubled up Science and Comms. We rotated Captains. Helm/Captain and Science/Comms/Captain were the most effective.
Setup
We ran Artemis 1.66 with the ItBLnF mod as provided by Dean Mallory.
Our main display is a 150" projector screen. On previous missions, most of the time we set the main screen to Tactical or LRS. Our Captains find these most useful. We hardly ever used Front/Back/Left/Right. We don't like this. Especially for observers. We want something interesting on the main projector for crew and observers to watch. This time we got two windows running side by side on the projector screen. We put the main/server screen on the left and set it to Tactical or LRS as requested by the Captain. On the right, we ran an Observer client. The Observer client kept something interesting happening on the main screen and also helped us tactically. In the past, when we lost sight of an elite, we were not sure if we destroyed it or if it jumped away. With the Observer client running on the projector screen, we could see if the elite exploded or not. Very helpful.
Helm has a 2-monitor setup. The Helm console running full screen on a landscape monitor. Science and Observer each on half of a portrait screen. I don't know if there would be any issue with a setup like this at an official convention event, but it does wonders for navigating and also helped keep track of elite kills. We ran the rest of the consoles on laptops until one of the laptops we forgot the power cord for ran out of juice. In the end, we had Comms running on an iPad.
Missions
We conducted several scripted missions. We had completed the Hamak Sector previously, and thoroughly enjoyed it. **I took the spoiler out here as I'm not sure how to hide them on this forum. Any suggestions? ** This time, we successfully completed The Waning Dark and enjoyed that one as well. These scripted missions are fantastic. We hope and pray for more of these. It took us several tries (trials?) to succeed at The Trials of Deneb I. Next time we'll try II and III. We also completed Defenders. We're not sure how to determine if the difficulty level affects missions. Most of the rest of the missions caused the server or a console to crash. Please Please Please someone write more scripts, or rewrite existing ones to support 1.66 or 1.7.
We had previously succeeded at level 7, 8, 9, and even 1 level 10 mission. This time we figured we'd go big before we went home and fired up a level 11. Unlimited Sensors. Very Interesting sector. Dreadnaught. Several times, including before we started, we thought we wouldn't make it. We did. Victory at a level 11! I could write a whole Contact Report on that one mission.
What's Next?
Some of this crew are planning another Team Building Exercise on 1/18 in Lafayette, LA, this time aboard the USS Neil A. Armstrong. Look for a Mission Report from Dean Mallory following this event.
We are also planning to attend OwlCon at Rice University in Houston in Feb. We hope the required officials will be present to certify us as a Lucky 7, Super 8, Nasty 9, Tenacious 10, or Yo 11 crew!
In the end, a good time was had by all.
Peace
Er
IC
1st image: Helm's setup
2nd image: The Mallory Clan in action. Note Admiral Mallory in the back on the sofa. Father of four of the clan. Grandfather of 2.
Crew: Four members of The Mallory Clan (Eric, Dean, James, Mark), Christian Holmes, and Chad Blankenship
Port of departure: Eric's house (affectionately called Rita). Houston TX. 77006
Stardate: 2013.01.05 Noon to 2013.01.06 Noon. Including breaks for debrief, brownies, Bernies Burger Bus (http://www.berniesburgerbus.com/), the Chocolate Bar (http://www.theoriginalchocolatebar.com/), and sleep cycles.
Eric Mallory reporting.
Crew
Most of this crew are veteran officers. A few more missions and I'll call them "seasoned." This is our first Contact Report (2nd if you count the Team Building Exercise Contact Report). Chad was the only rookie. Christian Drove Comms while Chad Navigated. Then Christian Captained and coached Chad on Science. The rest of the crew rotated. We conducted missions with 4 - 6 crew. When we were 4, we doubled up Science and Comms. We rotated Captains. Helm/Captain and Science/Comms/Captain were the most effective.
Setup
We ran Artemis 1.66 with the ItBLnF mod as provided by Dean Mallory.
Our main display is a 150" projector screen. On previous missions, most of the time we set the main screen to Tactical or LRS. Our Captains find these most useful. We hardly ever used Front/Back/Left/Right. We don't like this. Especially for observers. We want something interesting on the main projector for crew and observers to watch. This time we got two windows running side by side on the projector screen. We put the main/server screen on the left and set it to Tactical or LRS as requested by the Captain. On the right, we ran an Observer client. The Observer client kept something interesting happening on the main screen and also helped us tactically. In the past, when we lost sight of an elite, we were not sure if we destroyed it or if it jumped away. With the Observer client running on the projector screen, we could see if the elite exploded or not. Very helpful.
Helm has a 2-monitor setup. The Helm console running full screen on a landscape monitor. Science and Observer each on half of a portrait screen. I don't know if there would be any issue with a setup like this at an official convention event, but it does wonders for navigating and also helped keep track of elite kills. We ran the rest of the consoles on laptops until one of the laptops we forgot the power cord for ran out of juice. In the end, we had Comms running on an iPad.
Missions
We conducted several scripted missions. We had completed the Hamak Sector previously, and thoroughly enjoyed it. **I took the spoiler out here as I'm not sure how to hide them on this forum. Any suggestions? ** This time, we successfully completed The Waning Dark and enjoyed that one as well. These scripted missions are fantastic. We hope and pray for more of these. It took us several tries (trials?) to succeed at The Trials of Deneb I. Next time we'll try II and III. We also completed Defenders. We're not sure how to determine if the difficulty level affects missions. Most of the rest of the missions caused the server or a console to crash. Please Please Please someone write more scripts, or rewrite existing ones to support 1.66 or 1.7.
We had previously succeeded at level 7, 8, 9, and even 1 level 10 mission. This time we figured we'd go big before we went home and fired up a level 11. Unlimited Sensors. Very Interesting sector. Dreadnaught. Several times, including before we started, we thought we wouldn't make it. We did. Victory at a level 11! I could write a whole Contact Report on that one mission.
What's Next?
Some of this crew are planning another Team Building Exercise on 1/18 in Lafayette, LA, this time aboard the USS Neil A. Armstrong. Look for a Mission Report from Dean Mallory following this event.
We are also planning to attend OwlCon at Rice University in Houston in Feb. We hope the required officials will be present to certify us as a Lucky 7, Super 8, Nasty 9, Tenacious 10, or Yo 11 crew!
In the end, a good time was had by all.
Peace
Er
IC
1st image: Helm's setup
2nd image: The Mallory Clan in action. Note Admiral Mallory in the back on the sofa. Father of four of the clan. Grandfather of 2.
[Last edited Jan 13, 2013 05:23:18]
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congrats on the level 11 victory. by the way I really do like that setup
To Mankind
And the hope that the war against folly may someday be won, after all
Isaac Asimov
And the hope that the war against folly may someday be won, after all
Isaac Asimov
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