Space Opera X

As a quick aside; I mentioned Space Opera X below. I have a lot of material here under the old name for that, Ad Astra. I have a wiki too. And my other blog, which I actually never really figured out how to make distinct from this one, so I didn't do much with it, has some additional material. In fact, most of the most up to date stuff is buried in blog posts there.

This is a terrible way to organize setting material. It took me a few minutes, looking in several places, before I could find the name that I renamed the Carrick Grand Marches to; I had almost started to wonder if I remembered that wrong and I made no change to the name at all! (I had. I just had to find it.)

Because playing SWTOR always makes me hanker for more Space Opera X, I want to make some blog updates, but I don't want to make them here on this blog. I want to add setting data sheets to the wiki. I want to update the wiki with the latest from the blog. But I like the format of blogging. My blogging is often terrible to read, terrible even for me to reread, but it serves as a useful stream of consciousness brainstorming activity, so I like making updates on the blog.

I think I'll keep using my other blog for that. Ironically, although it's called Dark Fantasy Gamer X, it's really evolved into the Space Opera X blog, for all intents and purposes, and Dark Fantasy X is come back home to this blog.

As another aside, I'm struck by how often I create similar looking outfits for different characters using similar elements. I have a lot of Mandalorian style helmets on the green Havoc Squad Officer breastplate, for instance, and lots of Infamous Bounty Hunter coats making up winter outfits, and I like the Winter Outlaw in general, even for outfits that are lighter than Hoth and Ilum, for instance. Those are just a couple of examples, but given that I like what I like, I find that on looking at my characters, I don't have as much variety of look as I would think. Maybe this isn't a bad thing, because I do like what I like and I don't want to end up with looks that I don't like, even if the alternative is looks that are repetitive. But I'm tinkering just a bit with some of these too, and where I find that I've overused certain elements, I'm changing them out in situations where they don't look quite as good as they do somewhere else where I'm also already using them.

This also has some tie to Space Opera X, because I sometimes use the outfit builder to create archetypal characters or character looks that I can use in Space Opera X, especially with the various gunfighters (I don't have anything that's quite the same as a lightsaber in Space Opera X, so I can't use the Jedi and Sith to get quite the right look.)

Here's, for example, a few pictures I took a while ago of Luukke on Ossus showing off the "prosperous free trader" look; one that I think could be representative of a small-time businessman who makes his living as a spacer transporting freight from places of supply to places of demand. Many such independent businessmen will barely eke by; making just enough to stay ahead of creditors, and to refuel and resupply their ships for their next run without actually ever getting ahead. This guy, on the other hand, has been a bit more savvy than most and done well for himself.