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[Tartiflette]

https://youtu.be/6LwGOUI8tz4

Prototype release: Three missions as an appetizer.

What's that? Well it's my secret project I've been working on for a looooong time. With the next update focusing on sensors, characters and assignments, I figured it's time to show it a bit. It's goal is to liven up the sector by adding quests (pardon me, "missions") and exploration, featuring many unique ships and more scripted encounters. Some of these missions will be solvable peacefully, other less so. Some may be triggered by a random encounter, other will be given to you. Gameplay-wise, expect more events that can directly be influenced by the player, hidden "empty" systems all over the place that can be explored and consequences for your actions that goes beyond earning or loosing some reputation points. But the meaty part of this mod is the Anomalies and the Artifacts.

Anomalies are a class of objects found in the sector (and for all we know everywhere else) that are artificial constructions of unknown origin and purpose. Some seem to be aware of their surrounding, other are mindlessly doing what they were built to do but they share one thing: they do not seems to do anything constructive. What is sure however, is that there are not two identical Anomalies, and their functioning is completely beyond our knowledge.

Unlike the Anomalies, Artifacts are man-made. The product of ground-breaking Domain technology, sometimes learned from the Anomalies. When the gates closed, pure scientific bases lost their purpose and were abandoned, but some remained operational, or their content did. Since those objects are within the reach of our understanding, studying them often yields significant technological advancement or powerful new material. They also include several relic ships that can be captured for your own as they are.

I won't spoil the discovery of any of these, try the missions to discover the first three.
*Note about the missions: Right now, the Seeker itself isn't doing anything. It's a ship that will have a very important work in the campaign, but since the missions are combat-focused it's pretty much useless.*


To allow everyone to learn a bit more about Seeker without ruining the surprise, I'm dividing the updates in three kind:
 - The NO SPOILER section will present things that are either related to the Prototype, or well known in-universe.
 - The MINOR SPOILER section will reveal some of the rewards, or some minor elements indirectly related to the quests.
 - The MAJOR SPOILER section will show some of the minor Anomalies and content directly related to the quests.
The Anomalies and the major Artifacts won't be revealed. Please use spoilers too if you wish to talk about the content of the mod.

NO SPOILER

Spoiler

Crane-class Composite freighter

   In 193, the Valis system went through a succession of uprisings that left the dominant government quite weakened. Dangerously close to bankruptcy, the planet could no longer afford its oversize military fleet. After securing the borders through a diplomatic agreement with the Hegemony against century long exploitation rights for the rich asteroid fields, the government went on to tackle on rebuilding the infrastructure in ruins. The idea was to fund the reconstruction by selling half the ships of the fleet, and keeping only a quarter of them in active duty to maintain the fragile peace. That sale attracted a lot of propositions from rather shady groups from every nearby stars. Worrying to willingly arm pirates, and not eager to further reinforce the local presence of the Hegemony in the system, the sale was postponed until they could have the insurance these weapons would never be used against them. The obvious solution was to disarm them, but then nobody would buy them. These were warships, even removing the mounts wouldn't create much usable cargo space without a serious refit of the interior space.

   The decision was taken to only sell Eagle class cruisers, redesigned as fast, lightly armored freighters to reduce the cost of the modification. The specification document asked to remove all but one turret, but also add two small drone bays in the space emptied from the frontal armament. The launching doors would also be used to load the cargo with great efficiency. This new class of ships was to place itself as an alternative between Mule and Venture class freighters. Fast as a Mule, but with the Cargo space of a Venture, and a drone system to avoid any damage should the ships encounter pirates.

   Sadly, the redesigning took quite some time, and the first conversions didn't go that well. While the Crane class Composite freighter is now a commercial success, the Valis system had to sink deeper under the Hegemony influence to secure reconstruction funds and avoid a total breakdown of the Planet infrastructure. Now the government is but a puppet of the Hegemony, but the system is renowned for its ship refitting industry and talented engineers in converting existing ship models.

TTC Demeter, Farm ship

   In cycle 182, Tri-Tachyon engineer Mark Stanlor discovered a way to fine tune shields emitters so that they could filter the stars dangerous radiations while letting the light pass through. This could finally allow space culture to become a viable solution for non terraformed worlds by preventing the degeneration of the crops.

   At that time, a bottleneck in Paragon class power-plants production left several unfinished hulls taking space dust in shipyards. Nobody know exactly how he managed to get several execs to support his project, but Mark was allowed to buy one of those for one symbolic credit. He then sold back the fortress shield emitter to finance a general reconversion of this hull into a massive mobile space farm. Using several loopholes in private armed ship legislation, he managed to keep 2 of the large turrets mounts, but the rest was removed to accommodate a vast flight deck for shuttle loading. The large central space was floored, closed by a dome on each side, covered with earth, watered, fertilized and connected to a massive environmental system to keep the conditions perfect for the cultures.

   The domes had their own shield system tuned for filtering radiation, but in case of an attack or an asteroid shower, Mark wanted to be able to deploy a normal combat shield. The problem was, both couldn't be activated at the same time. As close to a sun as the ship was expected to sit, the few seconds of exposition during combat shield raising would suffice to burn the crops to a crisp. To avoid that he managed to create a jump-start system that would allow an the shield to raise almost instantly, at the cost of large flux production.

   The ship was named Demeter and launched in 185 for it's test flight. Thanks to it's on-board genetic labs and the ideal conditions for growth, the first harvest occurred 2 months later. It was a tremendous success, the fruits and vegetables where sold in a mater of hours to the greatest restaurants and chefs for more than 100 times the normal price. That's when Mark revealed his true objective: having proven the viability of the concept, the ship was now for all intents and purpose his! And the sudden surge in wealth of the execs that supported his project raised many suspicions on how he managed to negotiate such a generous contract. Then, instead of selling rights to build other farm ships, he jealously kept his prize and now sell high quality product to the most luxurious establishments in the sector.

BHL Titanic VII, Armored passenger cruise liner

  After the terrible battle in the Coral nebula, the Onslaught class HSS Incorruptible managed to get back to the nearest Hegemony base only to discover the damages received were too great for repair. Most of the ship was salvageable but restoring the two arms housing the TPC's would require to effectively cut them off and attach new one. The overall structure would have been be much weaker and the ship was branded non-combat worthy and destined to recycling. Hearing of this, the Black Hole Line company sent an offer for purchasing the demilitarized hull. The Cruise company was seeking to find a second breath by offering more exiting travels close to the most violent stellar phenomenons. The well known sturdiness of the Onslaughts would allow them to make this plan a reality without endangering the life of their passengers.

   The arms and most of the space formerly occupied with weapon was converted in luxurious dining rooms and cabins, pools and tennis court... while the former cramped crew quarters were kept for the new personnel. Another major modification was the removal of two third of the engines: high speed wasn't a requirement and with all the weight gained by removing the armament the main engine was enough. This operation only possible thanks to the high modularity of the core epoch ships allowed to accommodate more storage area and fuel tanks for longer trips.

   The ship was re-branded BHL Titanic VII by the CEO of Black Hole Line, in spite of the opposition of his counselors: the Titanic VI catastrophe was just fading from the collective memory and many employee saw in this name a bad omen. For her's maiden voyage, she is going to offer her passenger an incredible spot to observe a rogue giant plunge into a white dwarf. The ticket have been all sold the first week.

ISS Blitzkrieg, Heavy blockade runner

    This decommissioned Conquest has been bought back by a small fret enterprise without most of it's weapons. After extensive modifications it as been re-purposed into an armored freighter with limited carrier capacity. Now free from the "dead weight" of heavy weaponry, the venerable engines can finally give all their measure, making this ship the fastest capital sized freighter in the sector. And what it can't outrun, the fighters and medium armament left can take care of. With this single ship as their asset, the small freighter enterprise is now a major player, specialized in blockade running and fret contracts in unstable regions.

[close]

Spoiler

Those ships in-game:

[close]

Spoiler

Here's the ASSA Station that will act as the hub for the missions, and maybe some other fancy stuff to justify it's existence. I know it's flat, but it is for a reason so don't worry about that yet.

[close]

Spoiler

Nothing flashy, it's a Target Painter weapon. It can't do much by itself but raise a bit the damage received by the target from other nearby weapons, and double the chances of disabling it's weapons and engines... Although it's main role is actually to help the AI find a better range of engagement, since missile-only ships tend to hug their target and suffer from their explosions.

[close]

Spoiler

I'm writing texts for test missions that try to evoke the context of the quest. It won't make it into the final mod, at least not in that form, but it should give a good feeling of the spirit of Seeker.

Location: Thick nebula near the Great Trenches
Captain's Log, 208.173
 
After a couple of weeks combing the region we finally detected an object yesterday morning. We barely had time to regroup the fleet when it vanished in a flash of high energy particles. The science team is unsure of what it is but that flash rules out the possibility of a ghost signal. However they are assuring me that this cannot be the sister Anomaly of the Bellatrix. The flash may have reached the same energy peak but it's characteristics are nothing alike. In any case we fond something and just need to resume scanning the region to find out where it went.
 
Captain's Log, 208.217
 
What a PAIN it was! Okay so: We spent nearly a month carefully going back and forth a light-week wide cube of space trying to find where the Anomaly jumped without luck. Then we decided to inspect the nearby stars to see if we could find it there. We were observing our 18th one when we detected the exit flash of the anomaly around the companion star a light-month and a half away! A freaking seventeen light-years jump! The energy required for that distance is unfathomable! The team said if it's efficiency is similar to Bellatrix' functioning, it would have required the total energy output of Askonia's star during a full year to power that feat... I'm very worried about trying to capture something that could contain that much energy.
 
Captain's Log, 208.221
 
We found it probably recharging it's energy banks, whatever they are, in close orbit of the companion star. It's way bigger than Bellatrix, and decided to call it Betelgeuse. Now after some careful observation and deliberation, the Science team assure me that it must be more or less out of energy. (Something to do with quark capacitors, exploiting micro-sized fusion reactions, and the maximum amount of energy that can be stored in such volume and mass) Thus it's up to me to decide if we should get it or not. My officers are a divided on the proceeding, but mostly in favor to at least peek a closer look and I can't blame them. That expedition lasted much longer than we anticipated and the crew is restless. Going back empty handed wouldn't be good for morale. Not to mention our finances. We will probably try to reach it on a slow Hohmann transfer while limiting our sensor profile.
 
Captain's Log, 208.234
 
THAT BLOODY THING JUMPED AGAIN!!!!
 
Captain's Log, 208.236
 
... Fortunately it was a shorter jump and we detected the exit flash only a few hours later. That clearly supports the Team's hypothesis that it is out of energy and was recharging. We are now closing in at full speed to get to it before it can jump again. The crew is really nervous now, several fights broke in the last weeks and I had to sentence a few to the brig. The imminent encounters seems to have diverted their energy toward their duties but I'll make sure to remind them we want to capture that thing, if possible...

[close]

MINOR SPOILER

Spoiler

Added the Owl-class SpecOps cruiser. A fast modification of an Eagle-class hull, armed with four medium ballistic hard-points and five small energy turrets (all in hidden mounts). It also has a "Switch mode" ship-system that halve the top speed but deploy two drones armed with Graviton Beams and raise sharply it's maneuverability. This ship will be a reward for one of the quests.

[close]

Spoiler

Now this one I'll let you speculate on it's purpose and role in the mod 

[close]

MAJOR SPOILER

Spoiler

DSS Wolverine, Guardian-class Dreadnought

   While the Onslaught class battleships were designed to be the Fist of the Domain's might, the Guardian-class dreadnoughts were designed to be it's gate-keepers. Quite literally in fact since those gargantuan ships were only deployed to guard strategic hyperspace gates. With all their firepower concentrated in a small frontal cone, they were meant to cork any invasion attempt by raining shells on anything that emerged from the gates. And to avoid any interruption in their strike, they were equipped with an active flux dissipation system. By purging their cooling fluid, they could dramatically increase their dissipation rate for a short duration, reducing flux buildup. Unlike normal venting systems that can take a while at emptying the flux capacitors, that one had a fixed limited time. However any ship caught in the cloud of vapors would see it's own flux capacitors filled. Since the Guardians were supposed to hold their position alone, it wasn't considered an issue.

   Unlike it's smaller cousin, the Guardian blueprints were never updated when shields and missiles became more common. At first because the technology couldn't allow a radius large enough, and then because the production of those colossus ceased due to the availability of better, cheaper designs. Since with an up-to-date load-out they were still able to fill their role, the few existing ones were maintained in active service for centuries.

   When the gates shut, only one Guardian was present in Corvus. It wasn't even meant to: an engine failure during a transit left it stranded in the young sector, without a dry-dock large enough to fit in for repairs. It was waiting for the Domain to send special tugs for weeks when the Collapse occurred. Then the war broke out, and this huge unmovable slab of metal was abandoned, looted and forgotten.

And yes, triple Hellbores!

(for those of you curious, a Firecane is the hypothetical result of a lightning storm in a hurricane that is passing over an oil spill...)

[close]

Spoiler

I can't reveal anything about it without ruining the mission completely but I suppose you don't need me to understand that this thing is dangerous.(click to enlarge)

[close]

Work In Progress:
While the campaign stuff is pretty much waiting Starsector's 0.7 update to start, the work on the Anomalies and Artifacts themselves is progressing satisfyingly. That is, almost 3/4 of them are done and implemented in the game as missions. Of course the Campaign stuff is the lion's share of the work, but worst case scenario you can at least expect a release with random anomalies flying around like the super bounties in the Starsector Plus mod. Hopefully that won't be the case and the API released by Alex is promising to say the least.


CHANGELOG:

Spoiler

Code

V0.1
05/06/2015

Initial prototype release

CONTENT
 - Three missions featuring the ASR Seeker scientific platform, the DCS Lookout Clipper-class Cruiser, the J.W. Gibbs Ubique-class Artifact and the Bone-Breaker Anomaly.
 - Clipper-class Cruiser after restoration
 - Erasmus-class bomber wing

[close]

Thanks to Cycerin that finalized the Teaser's sound and really brought it to the next level.



All the original sprites in this mod are NOT for the taking. The vanilla modified ships however are fine to be kitbashed from.

[Tartiflette]

06/06/2015

Spoiler

https://youtu.be/6LwGOUI8tz4

Prototype release: Three missions as an appetizer.


Require LazyWizard's LazyLib

Compatible with LazyWizard's Version Checker.

What's that? Well it's my secret project I've been working on for a looooong time. With the next update focusing on sensors, characters and assignments, I figured it's time to show it a bit. It's goal is to liven up the sector by adding quests (pardon me, "missions") and exploration, featuring many unique ships and more scripted encounters. Some of these missions will be solvable peacefully, other less so. Some may be triggered by a random encounter, other will be given to you. Gameplay-wise, expect more events that can directly be influenced by the player, hidden "empty" systems all over the place that can be explored and consequences for your actions that goes beyond earning or loosing some reputation points. But the meaty part of this mod is the Anomalies and the Artifacts.

Anomalies are a class of objects found in the sector (and for all we know everywhere else) that are artificial constructions of unknown origin and purpose. Some seem to be aware of their surrounding, other are mindlessly doing what they were built to do but they share one thing: they do not seems to do anything constructive. What is sure however, is that there are not two identical Anomalies, and their functioning is completely beyond our knowledge.

Unlike the Anomalies, Artifacts are man-made. The product of ground-breaking Domain technology, sometimes learned from the Anomalies. When the gates closed, pure scientific bases lost their purpose and were abandoned, but some remained operational, or their content did. Since those objects are within the reach of our understanding, studying them often yields significant technological advancement or powerful new material. They also include several relic ships that can be captured for your own as they are.

I won't spoil the discovery of any of these, try the missions to discover the first three.
*Note about the missions: Right now, the Seeker itself isn't doing anything. It's a ship that will have a very important work in the campaign, but since the missions are combat-focused it's pretty much useless.*

In addition, You may encounter several, often unique, ships like these:

Spoiler

Crane-class Composite freighter

   In 193, the Valis system went through a succession of uprisings that left the dominant government quite weakened. Dangerously close to bankruptcy, the planet could no longer afford its oversize military fleet. After securing the borders through a diplomatic agreement with the Hegemony against century long exploitation rights for the rich asteroid fields, the government went on to tackle on rebuilding the infrastructure in ruins. The idea was to fund the reconstruction by selling half the ships of the fleet, and keeping only a quarter of them in active duty to maintain the fragile peace. That sale attracted a lot of propositions from rather shady groups from every nearby stars. Worrying to willingly arm pirates, and not eager to further reinforce the local presence of the Hegemony in the system, the sale was postponed until they could have the insurance these weapons would never be used against them. The obvious solution was to disarm them, but then nobody would buy them. These were warships, even removing the mounts wouldn't create much usable cargo space without a serious refit of the interior space.

   The decision was taken to only sell Eagle class cruisers, redesigned as fast, lightly armored freighters to reduce the cost of the modification. The specification document asked to remove all but one turret, but also add two small drone bays in the space emptied from the frontal armament. The launching doors would also be used to load the cargo with great efficiency. This new class of ships was to place itself as an alternative between Mule and Venture class freighters. Fast as a Mule, but with the Cargo space of a Venture, and a drone system to avoid any damage should the ships encounter pirates.

   Sadly, the redesigning took quite some time, and the first conversions didn't go that well. While the Crane class Composite freighter is now a commercial success, the Valis system had to sink deeper under the Hegemony influence to secure reconstruction funds and avoid a total breakdown of the Planet infrastructure. Now the government is but a puppet of the Hegemony, but the system is renowned for its ship refitting industry and talented engineers in converting existing ship models.


TTC Demeter, Farm ship

   In cycle 182, Tri-Tachyon engineer Mark Stanlor discovered a way to fine tune shields emitters so that they could filter the stars dangerous radiations while letting the light pass through. This could finally allow space culture to become a viable solution for non terraformed worlds by preventing the degeneration of the crops.

   At that time, a bottleneck in Paragon class power-plants production left several unfinished hulls taking space dust in shipyards. Nobody know exactly how he managed to get several execs to support his project, but Mark was allowed to buy one of those for one symbolic credit. He then sold back the fortress shield emitter to finance a general reconversion of this hull into a massive mobile space farm. Using several loopholes in private armed ship legislation, he managed to keep 2 of the large turrets mounts, but the rest was removed to accommodate a vast flight deck for shuttle loading. The large central space was floored, closed by a dome on each side, covered with earth, watered, fertilized and connected to a massive environmental system to keep the conditions perfect for the cultures.

   The domes had their own shield system tuned for filtering radiation, but in case of an attack or an asteroid shower, Mark wanted to be able to deploy a normal combat shield. The problem was, both couldn't be activated at the same time. As close to a sun as the ship was expected to sit, the few seconds of exposition during combat shield raising would suffice to burn the crops to a crisp. To avoid that he managed to create a jump-start system that would allow an the shield to raise almost instantly, at the cost of large flux production.

   The ship was named Demeter and launched in 185 for it's test flight. Thanks to it's on-board genetic labs and the ideal conditions for growth, the first harvest occurred 2 months later. It was a tremendous success, the fruits and vegetables where sold in a mater of hours to the greatest restaurants and chefs for more than 100 times the normal price. That's when Mark revealed his true objective: having proven the viability of the concept, the ship was now for all intents and purpose his! And the sudden surge in wealth of the execs that supported his project raised many suspicions on how he managed to negotiate such a generous contract. Then, instead of selling rights to build other farm ships, he jealously kept his prize and now sell high quality product to the most luxurious establishments in the sector.


BHL Titanic VII, Armored passenger cruise liner

  After the terrible battle in the Coral nebula, the Onslaught class HSS Incorruptible managed to get back to the nearest Hegemony base only to discover the damages received were too great for repair. Most of the ship was salvageable but restoring the two arms housing the TPC's would require to effectively cut them off and attach new one. The overall structure would have been be much weaker and the ship was branded non-combat worthy and destined to recycling. Hearing of this, the Black Hole Line company sent an offer for purchasing the demilitarized hull. The Cruise company was seeking to find a second breath by offering more exiting travels close to the most violent stellar phenomenons. The well known sturdiness of the Onslaughts would allow them to make this plan a reality without endangering the life of their passengers.

   The arms and most of the space formerly occupied with weapon was converted in luxurious dining rooms and cabins, pools and tennis court... while the former cramped crew quarters were kept for the new personnel. Another major modification was the removal of two third of the engines: high speed wasn't a requirement and with all the weight gained by removing the armament the main engine was enough. This operation only possible thanks to the high modularity of the core epoch ships allowed to accommodate more storage area and fuel tanks for longer trips.

   The ship was re-branded BHL Titanic VII by the CEO of Black Hole Line, in spite of the opposition of his counselors: the Titanic VI catastrophe was just fading from the collective memory and many employee saw in this name a bad omen. For her's maiden voyage, she is going to offer her passenger an incredible spot to observe a rogue giant plunge into a white dwarf. The ticket have been all sold the first week.


ISS Blitzkrieg, Heavy blockade runner

    This decommissioned Conquest has been bought back by a small fret enterprise without most of it's weapons. After extensive modifications it as been re-purposed into an armored freighter with limited carrier capacity. Now free from the "dead weight" of heavy weaponry, the venerable engines can finally give all their measure, making this ship the fastest capital sized freighter in the sector. And what it can't outrun, the fighters and medium armament left can take care of. With this single ship as their asset, the small freighter enterprise is now a major player, specialized in blockade running and fret contracts in unstable regions.

[close]

Now that I'm pretty sure I got everyone's attention, here's the bad news:

I can't do all of that alone.

It's as simple as that, I can make ships and weapons sprites, I can code their ship-systems, some AI and crazy visual effects, I dabble a bit in sound effects... But the campaign layer coding is beyond me! And with the amount of work planned, it's at least a two-man job with me and a real coder. Then the more the merrier and someone able to do good sound effects or write a lot of encounter dialogs would be more than welcome in the team, but I'll gladly accept any kind of help. So if anyone is interested in giving a hand, please do post a comment or PM me, and thank you.

CHANGELOG:

Spoiler

Code

V0.1
05/06/2015

Initial prototype release

CONTENT
 - Three missions featuring the ASR Seeker scientific platform, the DCS Lookout Clipper-class Cruiser, the J.W. Gibbs Ubique-class Artifact and the Bone-Breaker Anomaly.
 - Clipper-class Cruiser after restoration
 - Erasmus-class bomber wing

[close]

Thanks to Cycerin that finalized the Teaser's sound and really brought it to the next level.



All the original sprites in this mod are NOT for the taking. The vanilla modified ships however are fine to be kitbashed from.

[close]

[Sproginator]

Absolutely beautiful!

[Ahne]

Yep, thats amazing!

[Nanao-kun]

Woah~

[Xanderzoo]

Looking forward to future updates!

[Petra the Squishy]

Tart... Are you god?... Or among the gods of this fourm? Cause if you're not. You sure as hell should be one! Damn man!!!

This is making me even more excited for the update! I'm alos enjoying a lot of those sprites, they're pretty good an the lore is nice to read on'em as well~! :3

[FasterThanSleepyfish]

Tartiflette is indeed a modding god. Mad props to ya, Sir! Can't wait for more of this awesomeness to rear its beautiful face. [/drooling]

[CrazyDave]

ooooOOOoooooOOOOoohhHHHhh....

Ill be keeping an eye or three on this mod for sure

[Clockwork Owl]

Where did ya got an extra one Dave?  

I'm really, really looking forward to this.

[ArkAngel]

This looks fantastic. I'll be watching with quite a bit of interest.

[SpaceRiceBowl]

Extremely creative, looks like it'll spice up campaign quite a lot

[Tartiflette]

Thanks everyone for your kind words, and for the feedback on the missions that some sent me.
But do not get your hopes up yet. As I said it's at least a two man job and as of now I only received a single proposition to give me a hand, with a lot of reserves since that person is already quite busy... 

It's way to early to call it a failure, but understand that I'm serious when I say I won't do it alone.

[CrazyDave]

If your looking for someone to do encounter dialog I'm certainly willing to put some work in for you. I would consider myself pretty good at writing and such (I promise my writing isn't as crazy as I may seem... :3) so give me a yell if you'd like me.

I can also do some okayish sound effects (although I'm no pro and dont have a high quality mic). As for coding stuff I'm utterly clueless so I'd be of no help there...

[Ryxsen1421]

Excuse me good sire, I'd like to kidnap CrazyDave for research purposes.