[TC][WIP] FTL:Incursion

[Kieve]

They thought they'd won. The Federation watched with relief as the Rebel Flagship came apart under the cruiser's firepower. Despite being outmanned, outgunned, and hunted relentlessly across the galaxy, they'd stood their ground and destroyed the most powerful vessel in the Rebel fleet. But it wasn't enough...

Twenty years have passed. The Rebel fleets took their toll on the Federation, claiming victory despite the loss of their flagship. The remnants of the Federation have scattered, all but wiped out in the bloody conflict. Humans dominate the galaxy - the other species have been marginalized, subjugated, or exterminated.

That is, until the Incursion.

Current Status:

• Incursor "Archon" standalone beta (v.09c)
  Lacks proper gibs and interior images. Weaponry included for demo purposes and does not indicate final armaments.
  
• UI Overhaul 20% Complete
  This may be postponed due to elements in Advanced Edition requiring a rework.
• Events 0% Complete
  Some theorywork completed and storyline has been roughly mapped out, but no actual events have been written as of yet.
• Ships 10% Complete
  Plans have been mapped out for all Incursor player ships, however other player ships and enemies have not yet been determined.

So this whole project kinda snowballed into something much bigger than what I expected... I plan on releasing stand-alone bits as they're ready, probably the Incursor Cruiser pictured above, a GUI overhaul to follow, and more as it becomes available.

I've also produced several new music tracks, which can be heard on Soundcloud:
Soundcloud Link
Or individually on YouTube:

• Incursor Theme
• Incursor Planetfall
• Nebula Wastes
• Nebula Warfare
• Shameful Legacy
• Grim Horizon
• We Can Be Redeemed
• Demiurge
• Supernova
• A Light Extinguished
• Slow Burn
• Hard Burn
• Nebula Grit
• Nebula Grime
• The Endgame
• In the Shadow of the Eclipse
• Behind the Blackened Sun

[thashepherd]

Beautiful, I love the cell-shaded look and clean palette. Are you developing in some special program that adds the cross hatches?

[alextfish]

I'd imagine that's just a standard "grid" as in Photoshop, GIMP, etc.

Looks good.

[Kieve]

I'd imagine that's just a standard "grid" as in Photoshop, GIMP, etc.

Looks good.

Close - not a standard grid, but a photoshop layer sized to the 35x35 rooms FTL uses. This way, I know exactly how much "interior" space I'll have to work with and can get a sense of room layout while there's still room to change things around. One of the issues I ran into with the Obsidian was that I'd drawn the ship first, then had to squeeze rooms in wherever they'd most likely fit.

[UltraMantis]

Great looking ship. Makes me think of Lyran from Starfleet Command. I think it was Lyran ships that had forward facing 'arms'.

[doomeater54]

looks really good

[shark]

Looks amazing.

a hint though: i think i "figured out" how they made those cool gibs. Their gibs look like actual parts while mine look just like i cut a picture in pieces (which i did). they did that too, but they used a trick, i think.

the trick is to multi-layer the ship. since i never really drew one myself, i couldn't really do it in the making. i just used images. But if you multilayer the ship, say in three layers; the parts will look like parts once the overlays are gone if you catch what i mean.

ship.png

What i mean is that you should make individual parts whole, then by stacking layers you overlay them to look like this. this will waste more time but the gibs will look like parts broke on the weldings, not like we cut a paper in pieces and let it float in the space. If you look at the default ships closer, you will see that they seem to have depth, especially when destroyed. I have not seen this behaviour with any custom ships yet.

I think you're artsy enough to try out this idea, might as well be the first one to nail it too

[thomas93]

Are you going to make special weapons?

[Kieve]

*snip*

Thanks for the hint, but yeah, I kinda already knew that. Gibs 1-6 (or 1-4 in enemy ship cases) are layered on in that order, with 1 being the top and 4/6 at the bottom layer. The only difference is the pale red aura each piece gets (not sure why, artistic decision on dev's part I suppose).

If you look at the default ships closer, you will see that they seem to have depth, especially when destroyed. I have not seen this behaviour with any custom ships yet.

Go blow up the Obsidian sometime. I put more work into the gib wreckage than the "finished" image in some cases. Pretty sure I was already "the first one to nail it," in that regard.

@thomas93:
Of course. Still deciding on what, but I'm leaning towards some kind of mass-driver or gauss rifle.

If anyone's got suggestions on what ship to 'replace' to make this playable in the hangar, I'm open to ideas. I've been mulling over the idea of making it slug-based, but Zoltan has potential too. Trouble is, the Engi-B is the only ship I know that's both relatively easy to unlock and something almost nobody will miss if replaced.

[Kieve]

Progress!


Still needs gibs, floor/layout, shield, and some armaments though.