Cast your mind back to the distant past... the early 2000s. Freespace modding was in its infancy. Mods were much rare, modders were rarer. If you wanted a ship in your mission, you had [V]s stuff and not much else. If you wanted a Terran station in your mission, you used the Arcadia. That was it. For a still developing FREDder who wanted to tell smaller-scale stories, around civilians and backwater outposts, that just wasn't good enough. My hands were tied.
There was, however, hope on the horizon. The Blackwater Operations campaign had posted some pictures of something I desperately wanted - a small station. And not just a small station. A fricken gorgeous one:
(http://ce.hard-light.net/bwo/images/screenshots/bwo_screen02.jpg)
(http://ce.hard-light.net/bwo/images/screenshots/bwo_screen01.jpg)
Now, I know that to 2016 eyes, that's... pretty ordinary. But at the time, it was something special - it was a unique asset with design and texturing that, to the untrained eye, was basically retail quality - and at the time, that was about as high a compliment as you could give. This was one of a very small number of assets that I was desperate for (another was the GVB Menhit (http://scroll.hard-light.net/website/techdb/menhit.jpg) from Scroll). I must have looked as these pictures dozens of times, just imagining the kinds of missions I could make once BWO came out, and I knew that that wouldn't be far off. After all, the assets were already done, right?
So, obviously, time passed, and things changed. Mods started to become more plentiful but, apart from Axem's amazing Asteria, small stations didn't. I gradually learned to mod, and eventually got tired of waiting for other people, so I started building and releasing my own small stations, but I never quite forgot the Ceres. It was, in a matter of speaking, the inspiration, the big fish, the one that got away. Even after all the engine improvements, high poly limits, rejection of tilemapping - all the changes notwithstanding, I never quite took off my nostalgia goggles for the Ceres. So it was with a degree of excitement and trepidation that I agreed to take on the challenge of modernizing the Ceres when Raven asked me to, about eighteen months ago.
He mentioned that the station was supposed to be modular, and had two very different roles in the campaign, so I knew that I had to make at least two variants. I did up a basic mesh and put all the different greebles I wanted to use on it, textured it, then stripped away the ones I didn't need for each type. Progress was very stop-start, as it often is with me, but eventually I got to a point where I was happy with the results I had, and it was time to let it out into the wild. It was always the agreement that I would on;y build the HTL on the condition that it be released upon completion, rather than with the cmapign proper. So, without further ado, I present two HTL Ceres class stations.
(http://i.imgur.com/TQc9BQu.jpg)
(http://imgur.com/M9ucBtV.jpg)
(http://imgur.com/PE5tm7h.jpg)
(http://imgur.com/lVcYemM.jpg)
When the first Shivan threat had receded following the destruction of the Lucifer, the full extent of the damage to GTA and GVN fleets as well as military and civilian installations became apparent. Wishing to return Allied systems to economic and military security, every effort was made to rebuild what the Shivans had destroyed as rapidly as possible. It was at this time that the GTI Ceres was conceived. Though a relatively small installation, Alliance technicians still found it possible to cram the same vital equipment into the Ceres that larger stations had held - though the result was a less than comfortable existence for the crew. Over fifty Ceres-class installations were built during the reconstruction, tailored to roles as varied as storage, habitation or laboratory space due to the modular, all-purpose nature of the Ceres frame. In time, these small bases were replaced by grander installations. Despite this, the Ceres remains popular with civilians, as distant outposts or as a low-profile base of operations within Alliance space.
DOWNLOAD: https://www.mediafire.com/?8e56ek81pm38izb
Enjoy!