Joint Fleet Command Update – November 2022: The “du Lac didn’t do a project, honest” edition

Welcome to the JFC report for the month that was November! It is I, du Lac, taking over the writing duties from Ehestri since it’s entirely my fault that there’s a substantial hunky chunk o’ stuff to report on this month.

Halloween Writing Winner (better late than never!)

So, first of all, apologies to the entrants for the delay in this announcement.

We had a good number of entries and I’m proud to announce that Alex S. won with their submission – Jess. Jess O’Lee died many, many times of which I am proud.

IFS3 …

So, a few months back, we were thinking about what we needed to do as a trio, and we decided to take a bit, work out a roadmap of projects, then do them. I then decided to ignore all that, shoved a fresh copy of wordpress into our staging environment and built IFS3. Here’s the launch announcement and deep-dive for you to catch up on what’s new (stories! chapters! run your game from IFS!), what’s different (everything!), and what it means (a lot!).

Honestly, we’re quite excited about the possibilities this new system can bring to the fleet, to the point where I’ve been banging ideas into the Fleet Council like goals in the World Cup. Unlike Harry Kane, I’ve not managed to yeet one into polar orbit yet (obligatory sad face comment about bloody penalties) and be told to shut up. Expect some announcements soon on what mad ideas have fell out of mine, and the FC’s brains.

In another miraculous event, not unlike managing to find train to Manchester that’s not cancelled, the database is back into life, call it version 1 of IFS3’s super-spiffy spunky approach to our collective brain gathering. If you’re a GM and up, you can add stuff to it now from your menu!

Boring yet important stuff

1 – Rules and Things

We’ve also done some really boring, yet important stuff like go through all the constitution, handbook and rules to make sure they’re all up to date and reflective of our current language; you wouldn’t believe how many times we referred to CO’s, Sims, TFCO’s in it. They’re all under the handy Resources menu up the top there, just to the right of where this text probably is unless you’re a paid up member of the ultrawide or 4k master race. Or you’re reading this on a phone in which case it’s <– that way!

We’re also working through some of our existing content, and where it’s a long read (like this one), adding a Table of Contents (like the one at the top) so you can read the bits you need to read without doomscroll. How nice of us!

2 – Monthly Reports

We’ve now scrapped the requirement for GM’s to submit detailed monthly reports. Rather, we’re asking for you to submit your SPM activity on this ‘ere form and use the rest of your time to keep your IFS game page updated, submit news for the front page and socials, and the like.

Games? We has them!

We’ve had 3 new GM applicants this month! We’re still going through the processes with them and working on their game concepts so when they’re ready to launch we’ll do a separate announcement about them.

If you want to turn your idea into gaming here’s the GM application form

Meanwhile, those ideas I was talking about earlier? Hmm … what could they be …

New Ships? We has them too!

Over the last month we’ve introduced the Obena and Reliant class starships into the fleet. They’re now available for their respective ranks to switch to, providing people are eligible.

As per previous conversations on this matter, we’re keeping a close eye on the new TV shows and selectively adding content from them where we feel it won’t disrupt the balance of our universe too much. So sadly, you probably won’t see a Protostar from Prodigy, but you do have a vehicle replicator

Round Table Discussions

We held our first round table discussion – The IFS Deep Dive – this past week. It was a slight departure from our previous sessions, now they’re open to everyone who’s an active player on one of our games and we’re also using the rather cool forum format Discord have rolled out. We had over 100 comments on the thread which was amazing! We’re going to be hosting more of these in the New Year, so keep an eye open for them.

That’s it for this month! I can’t promise that now I’ve opened my brain again you won’t get more of these!

On behalf of Ehestri, Sepandiyar and du Lac
du Lac

Oh, one final thing …

Can’t leave without a song of the month can I? Enjoy!
(technically it’s Novembers review, but in December so I can put this one on to celebrate Spiceworld’s 25th anniversary)