OK Folks. Big release coming up. After this next release, Nomads will officially be version 1.0, and development will slow for a while as I work on other Starsector projects, such as the ship editor, and the Star Control II mod. So, it had to be something suitably awesome, to capstone this whole faction.
The Roadrunner: It's equipped with unmatched speed (for a destroyer), but it pays a hefty price for all that horsepower. It makes every conceivable tradeoff in order to cram a cruiser-sized engine into a destroyer chassis, and the engine is from three generations of ship technologies past, but it's effective. The Roadrunner can catch damn-near anything. When it does catch up to its target, it can bring to bear a pair of Gamma Pulse EMP turrets, a new medium turret that dishes out a hefty amount of EMP damage (and some regular energy damage as well), which is ideal for disabling engines. It is also worth mentioning that it can deploy a pair of
Damselfly tug drones (2x) that can provide a passive speed boost as well, but the speed boost is lost if they are destroyed (of course).
The ship is currently playable but is undergoing a few rounds of balance testing etc, and I'm also working on the visual effects for the visual drone tow line, and the effect I'm calling the "V24 Thunderdome Musclecar Engine FX" which animates the piston-like structures on the beastlike engine, varying the animation speed according to the ship's speed.
I anticipate this release to drop tomorrow or the next day. I'm super excited about it! In order to test this ship I've also added a new mission I'm calling
Killing Blow in which you try to rack up as many convoy freighter kills as possible before they escape
