Hard Light Productions Forums
Archived Boards => The Archive => Blackwater Operations => Topic started by: The Dagger on December 08, 2015, 04:31:20 pm
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The Aaru is a drone conceived by the vasudan engineers to fulfill a variety of tasks at low cost without compromising Vasudan lives. Several variants exist for roles such as a bomb delivery, AWACs support, convoy protection, etc. Although they are quite flexible, most Aaru variants lack subspace capabilities.
This is the Aaru Hunter variant, designed with a seek-and-destroy cooperative AI fitted for roles such as bomb interception, patrolling and protection of mobile low priority targets:
Expect a release of this variant Soon(TM).
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Reminiscent of something from the OTT modpack.
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that looks really good! :yes:
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Those are some awesome polygons!
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The Aaru is a great example of the ideas of bottom-up design that I'd like to explore further in BWO. In the past, we only applied a top-down design approach to our asset development. That is, the designers would say "we want a ship that is X, serves Y story purpose, and serves Z mission\gameplay purpose", and then the artists would work it out, without a lot of creative input outside of the visual realm of design.
In the case of the Aaru HTL version, I took another approach: The low poly model was basically a huge missile, shielded, and with evasive capabilities. It was used in a single mission, and served a very specific purpose. So all I told Dagger was "we have this low poly model, it is used in X way in a certain mission... Go wild with it, carte blanche. If you do something that can potentially be used in other missions, we'll find a way to use it in an interesting way".
And he came up with this. A drone that not only can deploy that shielded "intelligent" missile that we need, but can also fulfill other roles. It will probably have an interesting lore application as well, and being a drone, it also opens up other interesting gameplay possibilities (destroy their control ship. Hack them and turn them against your enemies. Etc) that we intend to explore in mission design.
Personally, I enjoyed seeing how this asset development progressed, since I did my best to take a hands off approach to it, and just allow myself to be surprised by the results.
So I hope you guys enjoy the final result :D
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This is an incredible model!
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Thanks Raven! Your feedback and the freedom you gave me for this were both great.
Designing an "inteligent flying missile" was a big challenge. I had a difficult time having anything missile-looking to look the part as a serious threat, but that's probably just me. So I came out with the idea of using a two-stage system, with a drone deploying the actual warhead. And once the drone was on the table, other variants were a given. If someone was producing these drones they'd surely use them for other tactical niches with some modifications.
And credit were it is due, Hades modelled the guns on this model and I just integrated and textured them.
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Shepard-Commander.
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So nice, i guess we can *beep* them if decided to join with *beep*. But all the models, upgraded and new ones are looking really good! :)
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So nice, i guess we can *beep* them if decided to join with *beep*. But all the models, upgraded and new ones are looking really good! :)
I remember knowing there was a big branching choice, presumably joining the GTVA or the SCP?
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Who knows... who knows...
Edit: In fact, there's 2 major branching points. The idea is that when you play the campaign a second time 70/80% of it will be different, if you wish.