I saw that, it's impressive, but I foresee a game involving lots of very misty temples with sparse architectureThat's pretty much something im looking for as well.
You should take a look at the guys down at Project Offset perhaps?
That worked pretty well for TI, at least until about 6 months ago when RL stuff happened :/ Ah well.do note, though, that sometimes its better to base the small details of a species off it's visual representation, as opposed to vise versa.Indeed, I'd personally prefer people choosing what they do rather than have it allocated. Basically, the more people feel free to operate and use their own creativeness, the faster and better the work will be. For example, whilst the story might include a name/social structure of a race, it would be the modeller that decides what their ships/pilots etc look like, that way they are not having anything forced upon them.
=D I'M SO THERE! ^_^Oy, Grug. Meetup thread, Hard Light, Go!
)) and a desire to make them unique. Other elements played a part as well of course. I've been using generic tiled textures (3-5 dependent on model). with a templated map for certain key sections (namely when getting the required level of detail would require creating a new tilable map/s for fairly small areas; a bit like the people that use that white-glow Orion texture 'just' for fighterbay, and then dock### just for the bay doors, etc, as I used to)Personally, I've been working on two alien species at the moment. The only stumbling block is trying to figure out how to texture the capital ships.
Exactly what I was thinking, actually. I know it'll be ages till we can actually spare the time to do proper work, certainly would have to be well into next year, but the planning stage is relatively simple - it should be just typing and doodles.I'm into it, though I think planning is about as far as it'll probably get while every one of us is as tied up as we are, but it can't be bad to get some elementals esablished - though that might be easier in a realtime environment (IRC or summat), at least to get the core ideas sorted.
[Edit]To be more clear, there're a lot of fundamental decisions that need to be made before the universe gets going.
- Tech level (Low Like SAAB, Medium like B5, High like ST/SW, or a fusion of the above like FS).
I prefer low, myself. I think it's more visually interesting to sit in a fairly rickety space-faring version (not literally) of a spitfire than something clean and efficient.
- What sort of FTL will there be? Is it gate based (Like FS2's nodes) or free roaming like ST's warp drive, or a fusion of both, Like SAABs semi random wormholes. Will there be FTL at all (It's not as neccesary as it'd seem - set it far enough into the future and populate Sol with colonies on mars, Gas Giant moons. space stations, Oort Bodie mining complexes - it can be done without FTL).
I personally like the idea of short range FTL combined with jumpgates (if there is any long range FTL between systems), specifically where capships are the only intra system jumping ships, with fighters having to be carried onboard. For one thing, I think constraining travel in that way allows for interesting defense missions and also makes for interesting ships; as they have to carry not just supplies but transports, fighters, etc from battle to battle.
I also like the idea where we have a campaign where only short range FTL is possible, but the competing sides are actually fighting to access/reach an experimental inter-system ship that disappeared 5/10/etc years ago and has returned in a mysterious Event Horizon stylee
- Do they have energy weapons, or is it primarily bullets and bombs?
I prefer bullets, bombs, with energy weapons used as 'special case' type things. Like as simple mining (or comms, ala I-War 2) lasers rather than default weaponry. Or perhaps where capships carry a load of tracer type turrets and one or 2 heavy beam weapons that do the actual killing.
I think old-style weaponry can/should feel more 'visceral'. I'd especially like pouring tonnes of the stuff, WW2 style.
- Is it set in the distant future, where Earth has dozens, or hundreds of colonies. or the near future, where nations are still separate and Mars is the place to be.I prefer near future; specifically either at the stage where combat is on or around earth atmosphere, or where combat takes place around the likes of Mars and the asteroid belt. I think Sol is a far better setting than a generic system; in any case, I'd rather have a limited range of settings than a large number of fairly indistinct regions
- Presence/Number of Alien races
My personal preference is to have none. Failing that, I would prefer the idea to a mechanical Berserker type race.
- Is humanity Unified (ala Fs1, ST) or Divided (If so, how - there's a huge difference between the divisions in, say Firefly and FS2)
My preference is divided within planetary lines, specifically the likes of Earth versus Mars and the outer planets. I also like the old cold-war in space type idea (such as EU vs US vs Russia & China) used for Starlancer, largely because it allows for interesting use of national identity. Although the variety and number of factions would raise quanity issues.
Also, I like idea where divisions between whatever human groups there are, are not a clear good-vs-evil one; whether that means both sides are dystopic or utopic. I particularly like the idea of having a et of paraller campaigns where you can play either side
There's tonnes more to work over too - I'm in the process of defining a universe ATM myself, and I know what's required. Obviously, 2 heads (or 3, or 4 or whatever) are better than 1, but it'd be very hard to keep it unified if these sorts of fundamental questions aren't answered early on, and since there are compelling story related pros and cons to go with almost every option, it's the sort of thing that can't easily be hashed out at the time scale of forum posts.
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