2023 December Update
🕑 Added 2023-12-03 17:14:55 +0000 UTCGreetings everyone!
We raised $651.45 this month, which puts us at $2235.73. That means we reached our Milestone #3 goal! We will start voting on Friday for $2235.73 worth of programming Bounties. I'll have your voting points sorted on Monday.
Since the last update, Serhey has made limited progress on Milestone #2's artwork bounty. A combination of complex requirements, more pressing offline issues, and problems with infrastructure in war-torn rural Ukraine are hampering its progress. We expect the latter to get worse over the winter.
By the guidelines, I should be suspending the FBS until the milestone is complete, but I don't believe most of you would want that, and I don't have an easy way to do that without canceling the FBS entirely.
What I propose, starting with Milestone #4, I will add $1000 in bonus funds for each goal if the artwork is not completed. For example, if Milestone #4's goal is $2000, the community will vote on $3000 worth of bounties instead of $2000 upon meeting the goal. The same with Milestones #5, #6, and #7 until all #2 funds are exhausted or until Serhey finishes the artwork. Work on the funded artwork will continue even if we pay out the Milestone #2 funds via the bonus. I will pay for it out of my pocket.
If the artwork is not completed by Milestone #4, I will suspend artwork bounties indefinitely until Serhey can produce the designs on time.
In addition, I will remit half of the cast voting points for Milestone #2 if the artwork is not completed by Milestone #4. And the remaining half if the artwork is not completed by Milestone #6.
I am sorry for this failure. If there are any objections to the above, please make it known.
Looking forward, Milestone #4 will be another $2,000 goal. If we do not complete the Milestone #2 artwork in time, we'll have $3,000 worth of bounties, but the fundraising goal will remain at $2,000.
Since starting the FBS, I have counted fees toward the milestone goals. However, these fees have made the FBS extremely difficult to justify economically. Starting with Milestone #4, I will no longer count fee payments toward the milestone goal. Only the net will apply to the goals. However, you will still receive voting points based on your contributions before the payment processors charge their fees. This change also makes the FBS more transparent. The number you see on the Patreon page is what reaches our bank accounts each month.
Voting participation has been down in both votes. Some users have accumulated enough votes to cast as much as the bounty amounts on some bounties. I want to remind folks that even if a bounty gets as many voting points as the bounty amount, we are still bound by the Milestone funds limits. We will order "Fully" voted-on bounties by the number of votes, and we skip bounties amounts greater than funds in order of voting, even if the votes outnumber the bounty amount.
Now that I got the organizational stuff out of the way. I am adding more bounties to the system in the next few days. I also have an update for GearCity Classic and GearCity: 2nd Gear in testing, ready for release in the next few days. The GearCity: 2nd Gear update features a few bug fixes I had planned to include with the Milestone #2 release, but I want to get the update out before I start working on new features (and new bugs) for Milestone #3. The update also includes a basic mockup of the Mk2 Vehicle Designer in the Stand Alone Vehicle Designer. This system is not ready or intended for use at this time.
In AeroMogul news, work on the Create a Company system slowed as I noticed that I did not include which "State/Districts/Provence/Oblast/etc." an airport is in. We need this data for the airport filter system. Work on AeroMogul will slow as I set up everything for Milestone #3 voting. During the voting period, I'll be able to get some more work in, but after that, all my attention will be on Milestone #3.
I think that covers everything! Look out for a voting news/update/email on Friday.
Comments
Andrew
In other words I don't think you should be committed that the initial estimates/discounts are etched in stone forever. I remember joining a project at work in 2016 whose estimated completion date was 2014... because it had been estimated that way in 2013. Needless to say we didn't finish it by 2014, and updating the estimate to 2017 would have made more sense.
Andrew
My vote would be to continue on with milestones 3, 4, etc. as planned, while letting milestone 2 be finished when it's going to be finished. It's the first one with the new system, and the first one always takes longer, we've all had offline commitments pop up occasionally, and the infrastructure challenges are outside of your and Serhey's control. We probably shouldn't be putting more art bounties on the backlog before milestone 2 is done, but limited progress is still progress, and we're all aware of the war and likely all aware that Serhey is affected by it. I also don't think it's fair for you to fund that much out of pocket when it is going to get done at some point. You already have discounted a bunch of the bounties and IIRC, 75% of the ones funded in milestone 1 were discounted, often heavily, up to 80%. I wouldn't blame you if you revisited the degree of discount in order to make sure the FBS can continue without being too much of an economic drain, or limited the percentage of chosen bounties that can be heavily discounted. Right now, there is an incentive to vote for those heavily discounted ones, because the same votes goes farther, but I'd rather have the FBS continue another few years than have it stop because we couldn't resist those $1000 bounties that only cost $200, some of which took $2000 worth of work to complete.
