Hey all,

so a couple of people have commented to me recently that they’re struggling to keep up with reading all of the posts on the board. So I just want to make sure that everyone is aware of this:

I do NOT expect you to have read every single post, or even every single thread.

As we all know, the Levi is a very busy ship, maybe a little too busy for some of you. And I hugely appreciate you all sticking with it and making such fantastic contributions. But I also want this to be fun and not stressful. Now I know we’re no longer an X-Fleet ship, but there are definitely still some aspects of the Levi that are experimental (how we’re running ‘sims’ for one). Which means that not everything we try out is going to work. The FPT/MPT/SPT speeds were implemented as a way to hopefully help out those of you who don’t post daily, although I realise that every sim we have running at the moment is MPT, lol. But if this isn’t working, or you have ideas for something that might work better, then please tell me. If I get no feedback at all then I have no idea what’s working and what isn’t.

Originally, the ‘rule’ (although in the words of Jack Sparrow, they’re all more guidelines than rules) was that only one ‘LS’ (long story) sim would run at any one time, with maybe one or two additional ‘ST’ (short tale) sims alongside for the faster posters. The only reason we have two LS sims running concurrently right now, is that the Trickster sim is only involving a handful of specific people at this point. The nature of us being a ‘self-simming’ environment, however, means that none of these sims are ‘main’ sims or ‘side’ sims, none of them have more importance than any other. It is entirely up to you as a player where you get involved. At a minimum, I’d recommend that you join in with the current ‘LS’ sim (so right now, that would be ‘Six Hours from Evil’) but if you can’t see anywhere to get involved in that one then either ask myself or Sam, or jump into one of the other threads instead (right now you’d have ‘Unforeseen Breach’ or ‘Festival of Frights’ to choose from).

I’ll say again: If you are not currently involved in a thread then I do not expect you to stay on top of reading it. If you want a summary at any time, on anything at all, then please just ask me and I will give you a blurb version of each story so far. If there are other ways that we can help you to keep on top of things as well then please just let me know. I already try to summarise all of the main sims in the monthly fleet report. At one time, myself and Jennifer were writing a monthly thread called “Sausage and Scuttlebutt” that was intended as a lighthearted, IC summary of the current events (and if you did find that one useful and you’d like to see us continue it then please tell us!). And then Jake has, so far, provided at least one ‘Keeping up with the Leviathans’ OOC summary. Any and all of these things can be repeated if you found them useful. Or again, if you have other, better ideas, then I would absolutely love to hear them.

Right now I am working hard to get at least one JO in each department. I realise it’s a lot of pressure when a single player has to carry a whole department by themselves (especially medical, since everyone wants check-ins). If I succeed in doing that, then you might be able to divide things up between you so that one person doesn’t feel pressured to be in every thread at the same time. And for now, if you need an NE to help out a little then tell me and either I, or one of the other faster posters, will be happy to make one.

At the end of the day, this is your ship and I want it to work for you, and for you to enjoy posting on it (not feel trepidation every time you open the board!) So please, please feed back to me on what is working and what isn’t, what you’d like to see more of, less of, anything at all! I can be contacted by email or discord, or you can leave a comment on this thread and we can discuss it as a crew. Whatever works best for you.

Thanks for reading!

• Sharon