[Commander Zane]

Nebulous Shadow as combat music already makes this A1 supar!

[Strygon]

What's new this week?

Hmm, nothing much actually. Well, that's a lie, I did make a new Mainhall image for now.



But most of the additions were on things I cannot reveal yet, or else it'd be a spoiler. It is definitely pretty cool stuff though.

The rest is boring technical stuff, like updated AI tables to make use of sidethrust more often, a few new weapons and effects.

The coming week I will focus primarily on lore and stuff. Expect art of aliens, guns, girls, planets, etc.

[Strygon]

So much for getting any work done on any of the stuff I promised to work on. Blame that on my laptop I took with me having the processing power of a trash can. Couldn't even open a word document without getting overloaded.

Now that I am back on my workstation, I can resume work at full capacity as usual. I apologize sincerely for the slowness.

[Nightmare]

Now that I am back on my workstation, I can resume work at full capacity as usual. I apologize sincerely for the slowness.

You still make more progress on your mod than most entire team right now.

[Strygon]

In the process of work, I've also created a logo for the USDF. Finally something to replace that old ADF logo in your pilot screen.

[Mobius]

Keep up the good work, you're working at a truly steady pace. 

On Discord, I asked whether the logo was a texture or a permanent inscription on the hull - it turns out it's the former. This vastly increases its moddability and allows you to create unique nameplates or even entire new branches of the USDF employing this ship (like Special Forces, who knows). I'm impressed. 

[Strygon]

I didn't even think of that. This does open up some very fascinating possibilities. Since this ship class is supposed to be essentially the pride of each fleet, it oughta make each individual one even more memorable.

[Colonol Dekker]

Like original Nike?

Niiiiiice.

[Strygon]

Now, that I have at least something to show off for this week, I shall present to you another capship.









The USDF Battleship Tokyo II. Second largest ship class the USDF ever put into service. It sports immense firepower with 10 main guns, 12 broadside cannons and 28 Secondary turrets, plus multiple missile batteries and the massive forward beam cannon.

The pride of every fleet, this kind of ship can dominate any battlefield it arrives at.

[Nightmare]

How long did it take you to make that ship?

[Strygon]

Spent the entire day working on it, from model to table.

[Nightmare]

Pretty cool

[Mobius]

Spent the entire day working on it, from model to table.

This is an extraordinary example of dedication to a project. Once again, I'm impressed. 

[Colonol Dekker]

What modelling program do you use?  I'm always keen to see what people work with, especially when it comes to UV mapping.

[Strygon]

I use Blender 2.8 to make my models nowadays. The new interface makes it a lot easier to use. UV Editing has also become easier (though I was never exactly someone who puts a lot of effort into their UVs ever since I started using Substance Painter to texture my ships)

Back then I used to use Wings3D which was a lot less powerful and often exported ships with smoothing problems (which is why you see OCaD's ships have all these weird shines)

[Colonol Dekker]

I'm on 2.90.1 at the moment but might retrograde to 2.8.   I kind of skipped a generation of interface, aka not used blender proper since 2006...

[Strygon]

2.90 is pretty similar to 2.8 in terms of interface (since I both have a steam version and a non-steam version on different versions.... dont ask me why). Its pretty okay to stay on 2.90

[Strygon]

Those big guns now got sounds too!

[Nightmare]

Looks and sounds allright but maybe record the entire firing cycle and not just a cut-off clip next time~

[Strygon]

How about a little lore to spice the world up? Pictured above is Carthage-2, one of the biggest industrial strongholds in Solarian space, famed for the massive shipyards and abundant resources to be mined and refined there.

Located in Vega, it is of course also a key planet of major strategic importance in the Sol-Gliese War. As such, the lower orbital zone is formidably well defended by sensor posts within the ring along with massive sentry networks.



On it's fairly temperate surface, around 2.4 billion people reside in the cities all over the planet. While industry and manufacturing are the largest economic sector here, there has been a decent increase in tourism recently as well, from people in other systems coming to observe the rings or watch new ships get constructed in their harbours.

Colonization began way back in 2189, being one of the first successful colony projects, as a joint effort within the USDF (back then still being known as the Greater Earth Union).