Bravo Fleet
Welcome to 2402/2025, Bravo Fleet!
It has become quite the tradition for me to roll in the New Year with a Roadmap of where Bravo Fleet is heading in the foreseeable future. But this also serves a dual purpose: it allows me, as Bravo Fleet Commanding Officer, to transparently relay to you, the membership, the plans of the leaders of Bravo Fleet. I believe this level of transparency is critical to the organization’s health, and I would also like to think that it helps us keep our promise to deliver. Last year’s 2024 Roadmap was pretty simple and I’d like to think we delivered, so lets recap:
What We’ve Accomplished
- Bravo Fleet Management System (BFMS) — The lifeblood of Bravo Fleet is, without a doubt, BFMS. And the two people who give that life are JonM and Mamof. We wouldn’t have come this far in 2024 without them, so a huge shout-out to them. Over 2024, they completed 4 major releases and 1 minor release! To start the year, they released v3.0.0 which was a significant overhaul of performance and data optimizations as well as “front-ending” many of the WordPress style back end pages which came in the minor release update v3.0.1.
- Fleet Assets — The second major update to BFMS brought Fleet Assets in v3.1.0. Fleet Assets has been a game changer for Bravo Fleet and has been a great success from all feedback thus far. It equaled the playing field for Commands, gave full transparency for people to make informed decisions about their path through Bravo Fleet, and continues to reward people for spending their time with us!
- Collaborative Writing — The third major update to BFMS brought Cross-Command and Squadron Missions in v3.2. This allowed people to write collaboratively with others like never before using their own Commands to cross-write missions together. It turned the page on the Fleet as a sandbox. I’ve often said that in the past 5 years or so, we have very much thought of Bravo Fleet as one big D&D style campaign where it is our responsibility to create the setting, but you, the members, play the game. Being able to collaboratively write together like this just helped up the sandbox to the next level.
- Events — We completed the Labyrinth Fleet Action over the summer which explored the response to the chaotic opening of Underspace tunnels all over the galaxy, and then in the fall we completed The Devil to Pay Campaign which explored the surge in black market trade of dangerous technologies by the Orion Syndicate.
What We Expect for 2025
Competition System Overhaul
One of the bigger updates coming early in 2025 will be an overhaul of the competition system in BFMS. This will include native support for ribbon races, native support for comment races, the ability to publish entries (or opt-out) at the conclusion of a competition, the ability to submit stories directly to a competition, competitions will now automatically nominate placement awards upon competition closing, and many more improvements! I won’t get too into the details because that is the love and labor of the Engineering Office to show off when the time is right. However, this update to BFMS is currently in quality testing with our BFMS Testers as I type this, so expect this update to be right around the corner!
Join Process Revamp
At some point this year, we are looking at a revamp of the join process. Right now it’s pretty straightforward, but in the future ,we are looking for it to be a little more interactive and RPG-like in building your first primary character. Of course, you’ll always be able to create more and even change your primary character. However, we want to have a certain experience and ambiance in Bravo Fleet and we feel strongly that begins with joining. Additionally, we’re looking at building in more adaptable and native joining into a true round robin for each new join into each task force with the additional ability that if you are recruited by someone when you join, you end up in the same unit as your friend! This is likely down the road later in the year, but I think it’s worth mentioning because how someone first joins and interacts with Bravo Fleet is a huge reason to stick around.
Gaming Stability
Gaming has come a long way over 2024. First under the leadership of Starbuck and now Annex, we have seen a massive expansion in Supported Games. We’ve also seen massive improvements in gaming support in BFMS in the v3.3 update. For 2025, the goal is to continue to have and build core games for members to engage in. The goal to facilitate that this year is to lean really heavily into having the Security Office host very regular gaming events and a consistent variety of different events. The hope for 2025 is to sustain the gains that 2024 brought.
Staffing Quality of Life Updates
While this is more an update for staff to look forward to over 2025, it is worth adding as it is a big part of the vision for this year. Look for more low touch or automated systems within BFMS similar to the recent gaming update/overhaul and ribbon updates that the Engineering Office finished. Right now on the docket, these are primarily under OCS such as award and promotion nomination/remand/deny options, the aforementioned competition overhaul, transfer system update, and a large automation of the lower rank promotions (the “checkbox” ranks). These will make life much easier for Dave and his crew as well as for Task Force staff!
Potential Faction Support
There has been a dream of mine for a while now that Bravo Fleet branches out beyond Starfleet. This idea, “Factions”, has been something that the staff has talked about off and on for quite literally five years now. This may be the year we begin dabbling in the prospect. I won’t get too into the weeds, but the idea of being able to be a Klingon captain or a commander in the Romulan Republic is an interesting one. We are currently thinking about a phased approach to gauge interest and then work from there. But just know if this is something you are interested in, we have been thinking about it!
New Academy Programs
The Bravo Fleet Academy is looking to add two new programs this year, specifically the Task Unit Leadership and Writing Collaboration Program. Both will be integral to long-term success in Bravo Fleet when it comes to interacting with others at higher levels. The Task Unit Leadership Program will help prepare people who may be looking to move into leadership in Bravo Fleet, and would certainly help anyone looking to move up to do so by having this program under their belt. The Writing Collaboration Program is an extension of all the writing collaboration capabilities built into BFMS in 2024, and will hopefully assist people in becoming better writers when collaborating with others and telling great, fascinating stories!
Wiki Updates
The Science Office has plans for Wiki updates this coming year which includes the creation of Campaign articles for all previous campaigns, updating the timeline with links to relevant event articles, better linking across the board, putting together a best practices wiki article for people to reference, use of a standard date format on pages, and finally exploring the ability for a SSO between BFMS and the Wiki (similar to the Academy!).
Events
Cath recently released a report which details a lot of our event plans for 2025. The tl;dr is that we are currently planning several events including a Fleet Action in Q2, a new “Shore Leave” event in Q3, and a Campaign in Q4 called “The Frontier”. In addition to these writing-based events, we are also formulating the early workings of a new, fun, low-commitment, team-based (but not task force based!), non-writing event likely sometime in Q3. Stay tuned for more information on that as we progress through the year, but we’re hoping to turn it into a yearly event which people will look forward to.