I think it's time to do a progress report
I've been attempting to do some portraits with zero artistic experience that wasn't ship painting. They look clumsy compared to vanilla's portraits but they work, I think.
I have also acquired other original portraits from other sources, and a couple more might be on the way. The second portrait here is a minor quest spoiler, more below.
A couple new ships have been added to the arsenal so far, both are carriers. Dedicated carriers are boring so I don't have any plans for something with more than three decks at this point. An additional common light destroyer and light cruiser are probably going to end up getting into the next release.
The mode codebase has had serious revision and refactoring since I last posted a mod beta, including some new tech I want to show off. First is a standalone polygonal partical rendering system which I will probably use for new effects when I get around to overhauling Neutrino, and put it in its own standalone library mod along with some other shared goodies.
The entire drone launch and pattern system has been reworked under the hood to be modular. The system gui has also been updated to be fully abstracted, which fixes issues introduced by the new ship system stat changes.
Faction-unique weapons are also in the works, including but not limited to:
-Hardlux Beamcannon - medium energy mount, rotary beam that does hardlux energy damage at 700 range
-Helsing Flak Rifle - small ballistic mount, a long range proximity frag weapon designed to snipe fighters, excellent when massed, very compatible with IPDAI
-Cascade Accelerator - large energy mount, efficient energy plasma blaster that fires 60 bursts of projectiles, low damage against armour but high sustained damage and EMP
-Thrall Rocket Launcher - small missile mount, launches fast and maneuverable kinetic rockets that are strong against frigates. Uses an accurate guided missile AI.
A campaign questline is in the works, featuring loot, bar fights, spooks, a unique ship, [REDACTED], actual [REDACTED] and some [VERY REDACTED] for good measure.
This post probably covers the important stuff but there is still a lot of work and polish to do, and I might get around to posting more teasers.
