When I first started Shattered Stars more than three years ago, I wanted to create a non-FSR campaign. It turned out, it grew into an original total-conversion project that doesn't require the retail FreeSpace 2 and even its MediaVPs to run. As a result, it became more ambitious and more complex than FSR.
The previous iterations had a non-original setting, namely the 2012 Total Recall movie universe, which made it a technically non-original project. They also had varying FreeSpace models as placeholders.
In addition, based on my experience with scifi and games are limited in numbers (4 seasons of Battlestar Galactica + 8 Star Wars movies + Wing Commander + X-Wing + FreeSpace), this project lacks in originality, given there are games that cast player as a non-human character in the alien race, such as the Homeworld series and House of the Dying Sun.
I know making a project like Shattered Stars (now renamed to something I don't reveal in this post, and this name is now a yet-to-be-developed Ancient-Shivan War reboot), which is different than Wing Commander, X-Wing, and FreeSpace won't be easy, as it's going to be a challenge. I wanted to make a space combat sim I never played, with an unprecedented scale of realism. I wanted to make an original total-conversion project that's not anime-based. In a way, it's described as FreeSpace on steroids. I can't risk roping people into the project.
This is why I'm making a non-FSR and non-TC project mod and I'm putting the TC on hold, just like I did with FSR. I'm doing away with voice-acting. Just like the previous iterations of SS, however, it is set in the same universe as the 2012 Total Recall film, and it may overlap with the FreeSpace/Blue Planet universe in some way. It's not a spinoff of SS, but it's an alternate reality mod what if the Vasudans and the Shivans wage war earlier after its first contact, even before the beginning of the Terran-Vasudan War.
Also, it should be noted that I used to have worked on Happy New Year, on asked by Woutersmits. This campaign is impossible to realize for a number of reasons. Now I'm updating one of the older SCP mods to support MediaVPs 2014, the Revenge, as Woutersmits provided, and doing a Star Wars campaign.
As for this campaign itself, it requires Blue Planet to run. I plan to release it sequentially, just like you did for the past decade. I'm putting this on fast track, but I do not wish to rush as this takes time.
More updates will be posted here.