I was told a month ago to finish my Shattered Stars project, and here I am.
I've decided to do a small demo first before committing to a full project.
When I started Shattered Stars some nearly four years ago, I originally thought of the idea of alien races waging an interstellar war, with Earth getting caught in the middle. Before the development commenced, I was playing around with the ideas. Originally, the races, the Galactic Rim Worlds and the Authority are the only warring factions. But I decided to reserve them for my future project, so I changed them to FreeSpace 2's, but one.
I wanted to create a big, stand-alone mod in the vein of Blue Planet and Inferno, without the requirement of FreeSpace 2 Retail. Originally, it was meant to be a mod in the style of Dimensional Eclipse. However, as time goes on, it grew into an original project, and then grew into something I reserved for my future project that doesn't involve FSOpen. Therefore, I retooled the mod and included all Shivan models into it. I felt inspired by Trimuthi, a campaign that allows players to play as the Shivans.
And, the demo, entitled Act 0, takes place thousands of years into the future, following the events of Blue Planet in FS2's timeline and approximately around the time of the events of the Mortal Engines Quartet began, specifically when the first book (which is adapted into a film) began. It is set in the remote regions of our galaxy, taken over by the Shivans long ago. In this demo, you play as the Shivans.
This WIP screenshot shows two Shivan fighters engaging an enemy capital ship. Admittedly, the Shivans were always my favourite, and so does the Unknown Intellectual Mechanised Species (UIMS). You may remember the UIMS as the enemy faction from Galaxian 3, but different somehow and I'm not explaining any further at the moment. There's a chance the Vishnans may appear in the demo, but I have no details.
I plan to release the standalone demo sometime this December.
Update #1: This campaign that comes with this mod is now called: "Shattered Stars: A Deepness Within". It is a demo and constitutes Act 0. Subsequent campaigns will be structured as Acts, much like Blue Planet: War In Heaven, with titles.
Update #2: This is now a development/discussion thread for Shattered Stars. The demo, which is to be released next week, is called the "Teaser Demo."
Update #3: The "Teaser Demo" was a botched release. Act 1 is now underway. See post.