I'm a little behind on my update this month (which I'm guessing only really matters to me).

Sprint Recap

For May I wanted:

• Add some strategic consequences to tactical damage
• Create a loot table that can be used to for various reward systems like missions
• Address a few technical debt issues

Sprint Results

Honestly not great. First of all I spent a lot more time playing Civ6 than I thought I would. Maybe I was feeling more burnt out than I thought I was, or maybe Civ just pokes the right part of my brain too well. The other thing that happened is that my back started misbehaving, or more precisely one of my ribs. It results in enough pain that I can't really do something like write code so if it happens after I'm done with work, I usually lose that weekday evening that has been my main available time to work. I've been in to see a chiropractor (hence how I know it's a rib problem) and it seems likely that it's something that can be resolved with just some time.

I made some progress on my loot table implementation. I've started down a route of trying to make the loot tables to be a sub-class of the transaction system I built last year. The only real difference is that a loot table doesn't (generally) have cost associated with it. Which is a fine limitation for a subclass. Plus all the new output types I would make for a loot table (ones that support randomization) would be just as valid in a regular transaction. I've slowly been working my way through getting one hooked up to support the mission rewards.

The thing I did finish was the lasting consequences when ships take damage in tactical. I added some tracking so that when they go back into tactical from strategy the ship's starting HP is based on how much damage they've taken previously (sort of). I settled on a tiered approach for the damage tracking. So the strategic version of the starship tracks an overall damage state (not directly based on an HP value) like Undamaged, Medium Damage, Crippled. And we'll say that those states refer to the tactical version of the starship staring combat with 100, 50 and 10 percent (respectively) of its max HP. Then at the end of combat, based on the current HP I chose a new state for the strategic starship. So (with these numbers) if the starship had between 100% & 50% HP, it would be Undamaged. Between 50% &10%, it would be Medium Damaged. And Between 10% & 0, Crippled. I included a mechanism so that mid-tactical repairs could not bump you up a state. If you started in the Medium Damage state, the only valid options at the end of tactical are to move down to worse states. So even if you repaired your HP back to full, you would remain in the Medium Damaged state. The other way you could game it a little is if you can land on 51%, then for the next battle you'd be rounded back up to 100% since you'd be classified as Undamaged. Ultimately I think I'm okay with that a few reasons. First my actual implementation has more than three states so the rounding up is much less pronounced than this example. Second, I think it gives some good flavor around damage control that to some degree the ship can repair itself in the field, but eventually there are somethings that just can't be done without a shipyard. Third I think there could be some good design space with characters or equipment or events that allow playing with the normal rules for tactical repairs.

I added to my backlog a task for a strategy system that can fully/incrementally repair a ship back to full health. I had hoped to work on that during the June Sprint, but that plan hasn't really worked out.

I didn't do anything related to any of technical debt that I wanted to address.

June '20 Goals

Somewhat sadly just finishing up my goals from May, including some stretch goals to address some technical debt items. Obviously since this update is coming in a little bit later than my normal schedule, this is already underway.

I also want to take some time to read a book I got recently Large-Scale C++ Volume I: Process and Architecture. So far it's a bit of setup and review but I'm expecting it to get better. I really liked his previous book Large-Scale C++ Software Design which may sound similar but (as described in the intro to Process and Architecture) it covers a more.

Games

Fate Grand Order

Civ 6 - I just couldn't put it down, I kept starting new games as soon as I finished the previous one. The new Frontier Pass content didn't help, I wanted to try out at least one of the new civs. Still working through a Gran Columbia military victory.

XCom Chimera Squad - Finished it. Probably won't replay it, but that's not really a surprise. I don't really replay the XCom games (and I'm not one to go out of my way hunting for achievements).