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[Sabaton]

That onslaught is excellent material for a spooky quest when the game will allow them.

[Takion Kasukedo]

My best guess is that Onslaught is part of a new faction pack that's virus or horror themed.

It sure does look like it.

[kazi]

Looks amazing HELMUT! Can't wait to see more. Did I mention that the old scourge was one of my all time favorite factions to fight against? Because I cant wait to fight against those guys.

Also looks good celestis, hope to see more from you like that one.

[celestis]

Thanks, kazi!
Here's another one:

Thinking about making a faction of these.

[HELMUT]

Haven't planned to make more of those meaty-ships. But as people seems to like them, maybe then? Probably will have to rework the last Onslaught though, too symmetrical.

Thinking about making a faction of these.

You definitely should, those are awesome.

[Ahne]

You definitely should, those are awesome.

I agree 100%. Would love to see a whole faction of those style ships.

[Zudgemud]

Thanks, kazi!
Here's another one:

Thinking about making a faction of these.

Do it, they look great.

[SafariJohn]

Hey guys, I have finally got around to trying my hand at creating sprites (and finishing them).


These fighters and bombers are produced by the Roider Union, an alliance of asteroid miners and other refugees formed in the aftermath of the Tri-Tachyon Corporation's withdrawal from several remote regions of the Orion-Perseus Abyss. Centered on the asteroid fortress Monitor Station 14, the alliance shows no signs of falling apart several decades later. In their war against several pirate lords they couldn't produce more than civilian ships and the most basic of weapons, so they put together designs made up of civilian systems and weapons to fill in gaps in their arsenal. Since then, they've been unable to get ahold of military grade weapon or ship blueprints, so they've refined their early designs and created new ones. They still hold a grudge against Tri-Tachyon for abandoning them to the pirates.

They focus on carriers and ballistics, with most of their ships being inferior to standard military designs. Their fighters and bombers are actually about even with standard designs.


First up, two variants of the same basic fighter, one painted red and the other yellow to match the color of their weapons. Both come in groups of three. Okay, I lied, the colors are a coincidence. They're actually painted the colors they are because the red ones go faster and the yellow ones create bigger explosions.


The Auger Interceptor


"Although only equipped with Mining Lasers, the Auger's durability and large engines place it as a solid interceptor.

"Augers are sometimes found in mining fleets pulling double duty as miner and escort."


The Auger II Heavy Fighter


"An upgunned version of the Auger interceptor, this heavy fighter trades speed and lasers for numerous Swarmers and a surprisingly effective Light Mortar."


Next are the Roider Union's heavy strikecraft. They come in groups of two.

The Dozer Bomber


"Fast and armed with four Harpoon-class missiles, the Dozer packs a punch. Its engines take up most of its internal space, leaving it fragile and otherwise unarmed."

(The only one of the four to use a custom weapon, a Harpoon MRM (Single) with double ammo called Harpoon MRM (Double).)


The Grinder Assault Bomber


"Originally envisioned as a large torpedo bomber, catastrophic failures in over half the prototypes lead to a complete redesign. Even larger than before, the Grinder now mounts a full-sized Mining Blaster and the flux system to use it.

"Grinders are sometimes found in mining fleets pulling double duty as miner and escort."



And finally, as a cheaply-done bonus, a Roider Union Tarsus


Other than having a Roider paint scheme, it has a small missile turret added. Its Ordnance Points and all other stats remain the same. Also, I'M ADDING A MISSILE SLOT TO A TARSUS! I'M DOING IT! NO ONE CAN STOP ME! AHHAHAHA!


Ahem, once I get around to figuring out how to create a mod, I'll implement this faction for you all to play with. I want to at least get a Roider cruiser and capital ship put together, since I already have basic sketches of them.

On that note, for a real bonus here are some of my original Roider Union sketches from at least five years ago. Left to right, top to bottom: Light Cruiser (side profile), Battleship, Fighters, Heavy Bomber, Bombers.

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And here is a sketch developing the fighter from a year or so ago. I have no recollection what "wh" has to do with anything whatsoever, I think the "&"s were me practicing my cursive, and bonus points to you if you can answer that question off-hand.

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[star_sektor]

 don't know if this changed anything but-

[attachment deleted by admin]

[FasterThanSleepyfish]

don't know if this changed anything but-

Spoiler

[close]

Heh, hey man, treat this as a way to learn and grow!

As far as the general sprite design goes (this is not art technique!), I would say that it's a bit unbalanced if you're aiming for the vanilla starsector vibe. Uh, god, this is tough to explain, but in my opinion, the different components of the sprite give it a lot of character. You've already got two with the grey part and the orange part, here, which is great, but they aren't together in a solid seeming way. It's totally fine for frigates to be delicate, but I would say it could use just a little more "grey" section in some places to make it seem more logical and solid!

For the technique, I would say that it needs a bit more variation in it. It's currently looks flat honestly, like few solid plates of armor that have no inner workings to protect, such as crew tubes, flux lines and other such greebles. This is where depth and more liberal shading comes in, which will make your ship appear to pop out like the rest of the SS ships. I can only speculate it's a bit flat because you were scared to use such drastic tones while working up close on the fine details. Sometimes you just gotta compare your ships to others in a large spritesheet though, as taking a step back and comparing your work to say, a lasher, might help you with shading. [Edit:] Oh, and your lightsource is wrong! I believe it is ahead and slightly forward, only then shifted to the left side if you're dealing with two-pixel wide areas like girders/weapon barrels.

You're doing fine though, really. And granted, some of the stuff I may have said might not make sense, but I blame the 3:00am, so apologies in advance.

[celestis]

@star_sektor, I really like the progression since previous version. But I'd rather add a bit (actually not a bit, a lot) of shadows. This will help to make the details (which you already have) look more volumetric. Or just recolor the detail lines for more contrast. It is a matter of your personal style, of course, but this is how most vanilla ships look.

[HELMUT]

@HartLord, the idea is there but there's still a lot of work to be done. First is the non-harmonious straight lines in your fighters, add the very flat look on top of that and they aren't very interesting to look at. Perhaps that's just my personal point of view but i'm not really fan of the flying triangle thing.

Here's what i tried with your fighter.



Probably darkened a tad too much the sprite but the idea is here. I just wanted to break the original shape by removing some pixels here and there. Also felt like the cockpit was pretty huge so i reduced it a tiny bit.

I'm not that impressed by the Tarsus either. Technically, it's a carbon-copy of the original with one more mount. The only thing that changed is the grey-ish color-scheme that washed out all the details from the original. If you're using Photoshop (if not, you should) you can paint on another layer then change its type to "color" so you can keep the paint-scheme and the details.

Overall, i think the first thing would be to rework the shape for some of your ships. While i'm sure they looked cool in your mind when you draw them 5 years ago, they feel a bit underwhelming right now.


@sektor, personally i preferred the old one, closer to Starsector's aesthetic. For the new one, as celestis said, the details and volumes aren't obvious enough.



In the third one, i reinforced the contrast of the details so that they are more apparent, probably not enough but that's to show the idea.

[SafariJohn]

I agree that they all definitely still need work.

@HartLord, the idea is there but there's still a lot of work to be done. First is the non-harmonious straight lines in your fighters, add the very flat look on top of that and they aren't very interesting to look at. Perhaps that's just my personal point of view but i'm not really fan of the flying triangle thing.

Here's what i tried with your fighter.



Probably darkened a tad too much the sprite but the idea is here. I just wanted to break the original shape by removing some pixels here and there. Also felt like the cockpit was pretty huge so i reduced it a tiny bit.

Nice shading, I knew mine was weak and that looks a lot better.

I like what you did with the wings, but I think I prefer the front of the hull like it was. Here's a quick edit of your version to show what I mean.



Both Augers have the same health and armor and, lore-wise, are made from less efficient civilian parts, so they should be a bit bulky.

I'm not sure what the bit on the back in the center is supposed to be besides interesting, but I like it. The cockpits are too large, I agree. I had noticed but hadn't gotten around to fixing them, but the size you have it at seems to be about where it should be.

Also, thanks for emphasizing that indent towards the tips of the engines, it wasn't actually supposed to be there in the original. That's what I get for not checking on a variety of backgrounds.

I'm not that impressed by the Tarsus either. Technically, it's a carbon-copy of the original with one more mount. The only thing that changed is the grey-ish color-scheme that washed out all the details from the original. If you're using Photoshop (if not, you should) you can paint on another layer then change its type to "color" so you can keep the paint-scheme and the details.

Don't be impressed by the Tarsus. It is awful. I've just been using GIMP since I haven't been doing any sort of thing I might call art until now, so the way I changed the color was by setting the pencil to 50% opacity and changing all the pixels I wanted one at a time. Washed out indeed.

I'll look into getting Photoshop in a day or two.

While i'm sure they looked cool in your mind when you draw them 5 years ago, they feel a bit underwhelming right now.

Heh. No, they were just the best I could draw. I'm not much better now, so I'm amazed I managed to make half-way decent sprites.

[star_sektor]

I just can't seem to reproduce the color on the honourable Asd...

[Thaago]

@Hartlord
Just as a quick note, you can do all the business with layers you want with GIMP - its the same procedure even (new transparent layer, click on the "Mode" tab which should be "Normal" by default, scroll almost all the way down the list to "Color" and then paint away). Get photoshop if you want as I've heard it has some neat features that GIMP lacks, but if you don't want to shell out then you don't need to for this.