Dacy

*claps* Very cool, starting to get the feel for both of these characters, and the story they may share. I like how you’ve been able to incorporate descriptions as part of the story, not something separate, such as: Marilyn is an ordinary looking blonde girl, about as wholesome looking as they come. You put it where it is naturally, as part of her roommate’s reaction to her. Of course, this reads much better than a sentence just for description that doesn’t advance the story at the same time. Nice job 😊. And Marilyn’s problem is intriguing, not sure I’ve encountered another character with that sort of problem. Points for originality! -Dacy

Well, I hope you get them to work! I can't even imagine trying to edit a base now, without the controls. *shudder* -Dacy

Well, thank you any and all who've read it. 🙂 I appreciate it greatly. Yeah, brain blip on the credit thing. Dunno where my brain was, when I find it, I'll give it what-for. -Dacy

@KingofMonkeys, I may make a toon on Torchbearer just to come see that base! Looks awesome. @humanowl, your base is Freakolicious. You've captured the essence of all that is Freakshow. Such an amazing conglomeration of talent here!! Great work! I'm in awe. -Dacy

*blush*, um, yeah, @RialVestro, those computer towers, that'd be me...I meant to mention it to you. I had to add a doorway to the room I put to be able to place things for the waterfall, and so I had to disguise the opening. Glad you like it..I was going to try and delete it and see if the editor would leave the stuff anyway (sometimes it will), but it was late and I forgot. So good, I don't have to delete it. 🙂 -Dacy

Whoops. My apologies, @Midnight Blue Mage, I should have checked on who said that. Memory is unreliable, at least for some of us! 😊 And yeah, I do a lot in bases, so yeah, pulled from the wrong mix. Speaking of memory, mine feels like it’s failing, for I also honestly cannot recall more people referencing having read the story, not that I doubt that CR is accurate. I will have to go back and see. I’m sad I wouldn’t remember. @Christopher Robin, CWCID? I’m sorry, I am unfamiliar with this acronym. -Dacy

Thank you! I hope they help. 😊 -Dacy

Hey, @iynx, really intriguing concept and compelling beginning to your story. @QueenBethari, well, that does flesh out the relationship a bit...now I need to know why Marilyn didn't just take one good look at Annabel and say, "Oh HELL no!" and let her hare off on her own. I was reminded of the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, when they ran into a cult of people who idealized vampires and wanted to be them. Well, they did get to meet some...up close...but the most they became was dinner. Personally, I never understood the fascination; from Marilyn's "wholesome" vantage, I see no reason why she'd go anywhere near someone so wrapped up in the occult she wanted to become a vampire, relative or not, unless she's trying to somehow convince her that vampires are blood sucking demons, not something to be emulated. If this is the conflict you are developing your plot around, should be an interesting ride. I liked the artwork! And rewriting isn't a flashback, this could be where the story starts. Rewriting is just part of the process. 🙂 @FireBrandi....wow, just wow, and a bit overwhelming. This from the person who linked a 70 page novelette... Have you thought about making any of this into a cohesive, like, book? One link to rule them all, so to speak. Maybe we a few supporting links for artwork. Anyway, I had a difficult time getting anyone to read mine (I'm up to two known readers, lol), and @BlackBlade made a good suggestion I followed, to post some teasers. I confess, I am more likely to read something if it's cohesive, than if I have to follow a lot of different links to try and keep following the story. That's a lotta writing. Good job writing so much, that takes dedication! 🙂 -Dacy

😄 Thanks, Healix! Thanks Blackblade! Maybe people should post passcodes and servers, in case someone wants to visit. 🙂 @Vanguardstitch, that shot looking up at the rocket and launcher through the ceiling, that is way cool. It wasn't clear, did you do this base? If so, nice job! -Dacy

Well, every character has to have some flaws to be realistic. Obviously, we are not seeing a great side of Annabel right now, at least from the viewpoint expressed. We need to see more of a virtuous side of Annabel. But I not only need to see why Annabel appeals to Marilyn, but why Marilyn appeals Annabel. You can show this in interactions and in thoughts that one person has about the other. My thought right now is that perhaps Marilyn, and being the more cautious and prudent of the two, appeals to Annabel because at some level, Annabel knows she needs more of this. By the same token, perhaps Marilyn lives a little bit vicariously through Annabel’s impulsivity. At this point, I don’t really have enough to like either character; I’m waiting to see if there is perhaps a reason Annabel thinks she should be a hero. For all I know, she should be! We have a natural division for heroes for a reason. Maybe Marilyn is just a wet blanket. Maybe Annabel is the one who puts up with Marilyn, not the other way around. So far, we have a third person centric POV, so we’ve only gotten Marilyn’s side of the story. I don’t know whether I can trust this point of view yet or not. Maybe Marilyn has a skewed point of view. So you could go either way with that. You can make it a third person alternating central point of view, or simply demonstrate the character you wish to show in Annabel, and let us draw our own conclusions about Marilyn’s viewpoint. They could be friends. They could be roommates in a boarding school. They could even be relatives or even sisters. Maybe Maryland and Annabel are the daughters of adults who are friends, and they were just kind of thrown together. There are so many reasons for them to be together, they don’t necessarily have to be friends, even. My first suggestion would be to write a backstory or at least have one firmly in your head for each of your two characters. Give them foundation so you have a better clarity on who they are and how they will act in a given situation. This way, you can develop the whole person, not just a situation two people are in. Hopefully that makes sense to you. One thing that you’ve done here already though, is set up a wonderful potential for growth for both of these characters. Since plot is driven through change and often thru character growth, you have opened up a lot of possibilities. -Dacy

Wow, I’m glad Annabel isn’t my kid!! At some point, I’m hoping to see more of why this relationship exits. They do not seem to be naturally compatible; in fact, I would think that Annabel would drive Marilyn crazy, and possibly vice versa. Keep up the good work!! -Dacy

Well, that answers the question, @WanderingAries! Thanks 🙂 So, the answer is, a feature! Not a bug. And the original command was /editbase 3, but the editor just goes with that command for higher numbers, too. However, I do note that in the post on the titan network, which I've never before visited, tbh, they did not mention that it's a command that will work in ANY base, whereas, the other commands will only work in YOUR base. So, learned something. Thanks, @WanderingAries! -Dacy

Okay. My standard approach to doors is to F5 them to "floor", then move/manipulate them where I want them to go. Sometimes it matters which door, also; I think one or two of them already orient to attach to the floor. But anyway. There are three axes (plural of axis), and so three controls to turn an item. Alt usually turns it from side to side (if you rotate the item, sometimes the controls won't seem to control the same movement. They do, but you changed the orientation of the item, so it looks different). ctrl/alt is another, and shift/alt is the third. Now, which one controls rotation from top to bottom, and which one tilts it in a cartwheel often depends on which direction the item comes out of the editor facing, but generally, I find that shift/alt will control rotation when you want to lay something flat. However, I just tried it on the COT door, which is the door I suspect you used (which indeed does come out of the editor attached to the floor) , since it is really the only door that is just door, and not frame; that door lays flat with the ctrl/alt keys. Once you have the door rotated to the final position you want, now you can move it with your mouse, either into the wall the desired amount, or if laying it flat, sink it with shift. It's good to turn off your grid for this, because the grid affects how things sink as well as how things move in the base, so it might sink too far or not far enough if you have the grid on. Changing the attachment and using the manipulation keys should mean you never have to use other items to place things correctly. Unless they are NPCs. Those guys are usually impossible to target after you place them, so you have to get them positioned before you click to place them, which could be a whole video topic, really. Yes, and long ago, we had to do just this. Now, however, check out fluid fx at the back of the editor tabs; it has several waterfalls. And yes, many fx seem to go on and on, you must account for this when placing them. I hope this clears things up! -Dacy

Genius!! I love the banner idea, and thematic color coding!! -Dacy

Added some new links. -Dacy

Cool, CR! Yes, other countries are very good at making sure their students have at least one other language. Here, not so much, but I come from a fairly literate family, and my older brother was born in Germany, and is fluent in at least three other languages that I know of. My mother spoke German, but French more fluently; she was also passable in Italian, as she was a classical singer, and many many operas and other singing materials are in Italian, of course! I was passable in Spanish for a while, but have lost much without practice, and the same with German. I got lazy because my sister majored in that, and she could always translate if need be, but honestly, Germans are the hardest people to practice on! Maybe it's that way in most European countries, I do not know. The French, they will let you continue on...they may laugh at you, but they want you to speak -their- language, whereas, the Germans, if you so much as mispronounce a syllable, they pounce and immediately switch to English, they are very eager to practice! I do not have personal experience with the French, but I've heard stories, heh. Myself, the only language other than English I am fluent is is Sign Language (with passable ASL). (Those are two different things). I always admire those who are able to speak several languages. Frisian, huh? I confess to not being very familiar with that language or the country it originates from. When I hear "Frisian", my first thought is of the beautiful horse made famous by the movie "Ladyhawke", and seen in positively every medieval movie after that (and some non-Medieval, like Wonder Woman), whether or not it was historically accurate. Hint: it wasn't. (I'm a horse geek. Big time.) Well, having an English Professor as a father is definitely a secret weapon in learning English well! I would bet it's likely you were speaking English and Italian as a child, which can explain your proficiency (the brain myelinizes the neural connections for language by age 5, so, if you'd been exposed to it enough, you had the foundation for learning more, more easily, than someone who did not have that). Me too!! Oh, just some notes for those that are still reading this post, and have read my story: that city I mentioned, the one in Central America that was destroyed, that was a real place, and they really don't know what happened to it. It went from what amounted to a bustling metropolis for the period, to...nobody there, no obvious reason why. I knew if I looked I'd find something like that...Central America has had a really interesting history. Trick and Solomon are both characters invented by my husband, and if I were to write more here, I might follow Solomon from the end of this book, because the heroine who is about to be created is one of my favorites of my husband's creations (but her story is totally unrelated to anything that happened in this story). Kinda weird writing characters I didn't invent (Fire Onyx and Starchilde were also characters of people we really did run with, and I cleared all character interactions with them to make sure they stayed true to their creator's vision of who they were.) The story would probably have run a bit differently if I'd had control over Trick! lol. But it taught me a lot about writing a character according to who that character was, not who I wanted him/her to be, or what I'd prefer happened in the plot. Sometimes, the characters tell YOU what they want to do, not the other way around. Sigh. Up too late again. -Dacy

I don't know how to size pictures here, either, @BlackBlade. Some people post 1-3 and then post a link to a gallery, maybe on Imgur. And, nice work! 🙂 Just finished a base for someone, thought I would share, The person I did it for gave permission, and is really, quite happy to show it off. 🙂 Powergirls-9367 Take the quick video tour! -Dacy

Yes, I've been busy, I had all of the videos planned out, laid out, and I've been unable to do anything about it! So, here is the next video, a look at some building materials for the outside of buildings in a base, and where to find them in the editor. (I mean, really, isn't that really the biggest part of the trick sometimes?) -Dacy

Thanks, @QueenBethari!!! Sooo sweet, and I know what you mean about putting your soul out there, and I will be happy to read yours, too. 🙂 That's awesome!! Thank you for your very kind words! -Dacy

Thanks so much, @EmmySky! Yeah, the "window thing" was a demo of one thing that's possible, but it was also demonstrating possibilities. When you're looking to place quite a few objects perhaps just behind a wall so they show in front of the wall, or any time you're working with an array of items and you want them to line up, it's a good method, and I've edited with it and without it, and with it is so much easier and faster! I use the disabled feature on anglesnap to get the lowest possible degree. 1% is not much of an angle, but it's more than the disabled option gives you. You can also set the anglesnap to .1, .2, .5, whatever you wish, as I've shown, but I don't see a lot of difference between that and disabled, so I usually just use "disabled" unless even that is too much. The larger the object, of course, the greater the difference between the two sides you angle, so with large objects like I was working with, it's important to get the smallest degree of angle possible. I get what you are saying about "don't understand it yet", it was probably the last control I learned to use. I didn't appreciate it at all, and would routinely turn it to "disabled" when editing because I didn't understand what it was doing, so thought, better to turn it off. Now I use it all the time, and it does make editing easier, but conceptually, it's one of the harder controls to appreciate, I think. The roads can't meld quite as completely as some items do because they -are- at slightly different angles, and that makes a difference, as I showed you in the garden wall demo. So, if you don't like that bit of difference, I guess don't meld them. 🙂 I prefer it to the edge showing, or the flicker, when I'm trying to get a more consistent road color, but there are trade offs with the editor, unfortunately. Thanks so much for the feedback!! -Dacy

Thanks... I think? --------------- I think my word choice was awkward here, although I struggled with it; just didn't come out right, I meant, your skills are very high, and no matter what your profession, you could obviously be the aforementioned author or teacher, or an editor, or copy editor, or all of the above. So "at the least" does not mean copy editors are a low end profession, it means you seem to have the potential for all that and so much more, not to mention your creative talents (which again points back to the word choice, "at the least", because being a copy editor would not be using your creative genius). But all of that is rather long winded, so I settled for "at the least". Which doesn't sound nearly as good, I freely admit. 🙂 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think I'm almost literally floating, here. What a compliment! You made my year and then some! Thank you so much. 😄 If this were a book, likely this quote would be just inside the front cover. 🙂 You are not a native speaker? *Mind blown* May I ask, what language is native for you? Kudos to both you and whatever excellent teachers you had in English! It's a language with so many exceptions to its rules, even its natives often don't use it correctly. But, that is what happens when the nation that birthed it was the focus of conquest by so many other nations; so we have German, French, Latin, and Danish all in there, each with its own set of rules that influenced parts of speech and spelling. Some rules stayed, some were supplanted, and throw in a bit of the original languages in Celtic and Gaelic, you get a hybrid with words and rules going every which way, and a propensity for picking up words from anywhere. Most of us who speak and write well had advantages such as parents who were also quite literate. We learned our vocabularies and grammar because we were soaked in it from early on, but to have to have learned later on when the brain is not nearly as receptive to language, and to have done so so well...that is immensely impressive. -Dacy

I didn’t. 😏 I’m making new ones. Oh, and, I wanted to ask anyone who watches the advanced techniques: was it actually helpful? Clear? At times I wasn’t sure I was explaining it well. Or that the things I was doing had been obvious techniques to everyone but me. 😝 -Dacy

Two videos to post, more soon. I’m making up for lost time. -Dacy

In the other picture of the spaceship bridge, there’s no clickable box visible. The object box is still outside of the object it’s behind, but it’s invisible. But that’s from the back of the storage unit, not the side. I have not discovered a way to make a storage unit clickable from the side without having some box exposed. Sorry I didn’t understand your earlier question.

Very cool! 😎 -Dacy