A Eulogy to Dozerfleet Main
As the until-recent Dozerfleet Main was reaching its end-of-life as a tower, a difficult decision was reached: it was to retire the old dinosaur of a unit. The current Dozerfleet Portable, a Dell Latitude 5490 purchased off of Amazon, is also operating as Dozerfleet Main at the moment. The tower that was until recently Dozerfleet Main was a modified Dell Inspiron 3650 from 2017, with the main hard drive changed over to a 1TB solid state drive, and the original hard drive turned into a backup data drive known as "Ivan's Vault."
The external backup hard drive formerly known as "Dozimax" has inherited the title of "Ivan's Vault." Its sister, "Dozerfleet Backup," has now been re-christened as "Ivan's Vault 2."
The former Dozerfleet Main tower had been modified further since its original purchase, to contain an extra 8 GB of DDR3 RAM, thus putting it at 16 GB total. This made it an absolute powerhouse of a machine. However, it was still unable to run a lot of higher-end software, due to its graphics card limitations. Its elaborate Dell design made it nearly impossible to update the graphics for this device, dooming its future of ever being the advanced gaming machine desired.
Enter Bezzyca
The former Dozerfleet Main has since been given a new life as Bezzyca, a children's art and office learning station running on Kubuntu.
It now has all the basics for three children it's being donated to in order to learn their way around open source software, Linux, Gimp, Krita, and LibreOffice. To learn the ins and outs of the software world in a somewhat-safe environment with minimal parental control oversight, but also allowing them to brainstorm ideas any time of the year - away from the prying eyes of school admins, who might otherwise want to scrutinize their every move.
It also encourages them to get their own USB drives and learn their way around private ownership - something difficult to instill as a value in children when they are dependent on clouds and ChromeBooks.
Adapting to software obsolescence
However, the next stage forward in Dozerfleet progress has come at other costs besides simply donating old hardware. In the time it has taken to come this far, key bits of software that Dozerfleet once relied on have now started to become obsolete. Most notably: Microsoft Access and Microsoft Publisher.
Old Microsoft Access content will be the tricky part, as all that table data must now be converted to LibreOffice Calc. This will require a joint effort between Dozerfleet Portable and Dozerfleet Mega Portable (the Surface Go 2 Tablet). The Microsoft account associated with both doesn't recall Office 2019 being installed on Mega Portable. Therefore, there's no option to go back and reinstall Office 2019 for Portable. Likewise, there's no recollection in the online account of the purchase of Office 2016, which was what was running on Old Main.
Worse, Office 2021 was renamed to Offline Microsoft 365 2021, to create even more confusion for those who just want to run a forever license. Turns out, Microsoft wants 2021 to be the last of these offline-runable office apps. Beyond that, they offer only their online subscription model - a perfect reason to want to switch to LibreOffice for most tasks!
But here's the real kicker: Microsoft 365 2021 does not include Access or Publisher!!!
These relics being gone mean that only Office 2019, running on Mega Portable, can still open these files. And that means that several Dozerfleet works now need to be reformatted.
As mentioned above, a slow-moving conversion can happen to transform the Access documents for use in LibreOffice Calc. However, Publisher documents will need to be re-assessed for long-term retention. Those not deemed worth it, will be discarded. Then, there are those which do have long-term retention value. Alas, they now have to be converted.
From Microsoft to Affinity
The following key documents will need reformatting to Affinity Publisher:
Public
- Every Ape and His Brother lyrics
- The Horrorday Gang: What's Your Straggele Codename?
- Volkonir 2008
- The Official Handbook to The Sims 4: Oughties Big Rapid Living Stuff
- The Official Handbook to The Sims 4: Into the Future Conversions Stuff
- Ciem: Inferno: The Inmates of Madison Juvenile Correctional Facility
- Ciem: Inferno: The Staff of Madison Juvenile Correctional Facility
- Blood Over Water: Dirty Laundry
Private
- A Very Anarteq Tour of the Soo Itinerary
- Arionna Davis' Ciem Info Packet Series (when she initially showed interest in 2019 in portraying Candi Flippo on the wiki, though that arrangement never materialized.)
- Blood Over Water Relational Chart
- Blood Over Water Charts
- Business Card
- Folder Tabs
- C.O.W.
- Old credits for Ciem 2 (2009)
- Old Stationery Voyagers data
- Resume files
Out of that list, the Ciem: Inferno tie-in books won't change much. Meagan Amez's timeline will be re-examined per her expanded role. Otherwise, those books should be the same. Purge-Flare: Stickin' It to Pencil will likely also be re-formatted using Affinity Publisher. It was originally made in Microsoft Word 2016, using a mix of text captions and screenshots edited from a playthrough of GTA V on the PS4.
More changes to Blood Over Water lore
The biggest changes will be to Blood Over Water: Dirty Laundry and Volkonir 2008. With the photos provided, it's plausible that Volkonir 2008 could now be mostly made as an AI-enhanced photocomic. Only the bare minimum content from The Sims 4, such as the Golden Lion Knight armor, Selshon, and the Gwirdons would necessarily have to be machinomic-generated. Everything else could either come from photos or from Krea AI.
In spite of all the readiness for Blood Over Water to be done up in The Sims 4, it could become an AI comic instead of a Sims machinomic. The need to completely re-make Dirty Laundry from the ground up justifies this change, as all the Sims photos can now be swapped out with AI to better match its mock-tabloid format. New photos from the 2024 Sorbet / Blood Over Water / Volkonir Big Rapids Farewell Tour also allow for coverage of regions that were impossible to cover when the first edition of Dirty Laundry was released.
AI: The Future of Dozerfleet Comics?
If Dirty Laundry is re-released as AI, and Blood Over Water's remake is also made AI, then Sorbet will likewise take a hybrid Sims / AI approach. Sims only for elements and scenes that can't be made with AI, and the use of AI and photos for everything else.
This will produce the following results:
| Comics by pending format | ||
| Title | Visual style | Media format |
| Anarteq: Top of the World | Cartoon | AI comic |
| Anarteq: Top of the World Story Pack | Cartoon + Game | Abridged AI comic + Sims 3 mods + Sims 4 mods + InZoi recipes + a House Flipper 2 tour |
| Blood Over Water: Dirty Laundry, 2nd Edition | Live Action | AI mock tabloid |
| Blood Over Water | Cartoon | AI machinomic (with Sims and photograph references) |
| Sorbet | Cartoon | AI machinomic (with Sims and photograph references) |
| Volkonir 2008 | Live Action | AI machinomic (with Sims and photograph references) |
| Corando's "Don't Lose Hope" | Machinomic | Sims 4 machinomic |
| Path of the Ming-Cho | Cartoon | AI comic |
| Ciem / Anarteq: Kahoopiliana | Cartoon | AI comic |
| Sniperbadger: Fall of the Critter Resistance | Cartoon | AI comic |
| Nemara: Ward of the Upper Peninsula | Cartoon | AI comic |
Handbooks to finish
Work on these comics will resume after the handbooks are finished for Anarteq: Top of the World Story Pack. As well as for the following packs at Dozerfleet Labs still awaiting handbooks:
| DzMD Handbooks to be Made | ||
| Title | Game | Inception Year |
| A Tour of The Gerosha Chronicles | House Flipper 2 | 2025 |
| The Blood Over Water Character Recipe Book | InZoi | 2024 |
| The Ciem: Inferno Character Recipe Book | InZoi | 2024 |
| The Ciem: Ash Cloud Character Recipe Book | InZoi | 2024 |
| The Ciem: Caldera Character Recipe Book | InZoi | 2024 |
| The Anarteq: Guardian of the Soo Character Recipe Book | InZoi | 2024 |
| The Anarteq: Tropic Mercenary Character Recipe Book | InZoi | 2024 |
| The Anarteq: Envoy to Lough Melvin Character Recipe Book | InZoi | 2024 |
| The Corando Character Recipe Book | InZoi | 2024 |
| The Extirpon Trilogy Character Recipe Book | InZoi | 2024 |
| The Navyrope Duology Character Recipe Book | InZoi | 2024 |
| The Horrorday Gang Character Recipe Book | InZoi | 2024 |
| The Path of the Ming-Cho Character Recipe Book | InZoi | 2024 |
| The Phaemer Village Peacekeepers Character Recipe Book | InZoi | 2024 |
| The Pilltar Character Recipe Book | InZoi | 2024 |
| The Sodality Character Recipe Book | InZoi | 2024 |
| The Swappernetters Character Recipe Book | InZoi | 2024 |
| The Gray Champion: Modern Legends Character Recipe Book | InZoi | 2024 |
| The Horrorday Gang Character Recipe Book | InZoi | 2024 |
| The Volkonir Character Recipe Book | InZoi | 2024 |
| Anarteq: Guardian of the Soo Story Pack | The Sims 4 | 2024 |
| Anarteq: Tropic Mercenary Story Pack | The Sims 4 | 2024 |
| Anarteq: Envoy to Lough Melvin Story Pack | The Sims 4 | 2024 |
| Ciem: Inferno Story Pack | The Sims 4 | 2024 |
| Ciem: Ash Cloud Story Pack | The Sims 4 | 2024 |
| Ciem: Caldera Story Pack | The Sims 4 | 2024 |
| Swappernetters: Frontliner Story Pack | The Sims 4 | 2020 |
| Swappernetters: Chrome Kite Story Pack | The Sims 4 | 2020 |
| Swappernetters: Supporting Cast Story Pack | The Sims 4 | 2020 |
| Swappernetters: Screwworms and Other Villains Story Pack | The Sims 4 | 2020 |
| Sodality: Instigation Story Pack | The Sims 4 | 2020 |
| Sodality: Adaptation and Determination Story Pack | The Sims 4 | 2024 |
| The Horrorday Gang Story Pack | The Sims 4 | 2020 |
Completion of these handbooks, and of the comics aforementioned, will beget work opening up for the for-profit novels across the Megaverse.
Percolation Encyclopedia's uncertain future
Another work, this one with an uncertain future, is Percolation: The Complete Encyclopedia of Crossover Gerosha and Dozerfleet Crossovers. It was drafted at a time when Miraheze underwent a change of leadership, and was in danger of being shut down. That threat has passed. The artwork contained inside the encyclopedia has since become obsolete. To make matters worse, the work itself was all made in Microsoft Publisher, and then never finished. So it would need a massive overhaul to be added to Affinity Publisher, and be scaled down of unnecessary features.
Progress has started coming. But alas, some things needed to be sacrificed in the process.
