[karajorma]

No doubt the quiet from the Diaspora team has caused some people to believe the project is dead or sleeping. That's not actually true. Work has been continuing (albeit slowly) internally. I think it's time we told you what's been going on.

Firstly and most importantly things have been very quiet on the art and modelling side. For this reason we've decided to temporarily halt work on End of Line. That campaign was simply too ambitious to make unless we can get some more modellers on board. While we have a lot of new assets already made and working in game, we still lack a few things we'd need to make that campaign and waiting for them would result in further long delays. Fortunately though we do have a back up plan.

Diaspora Release 2 will now be a campaign called Worthy of Survival which will follow the story of a Valkyrie class Battlestar during the fall of the colonies. FREDding on the campaign is already underway (with yours truly currently set to do all the missions). I'm going to keep the exact plot line under wraps but you can expect a non-linear campaign in which the players actions have a large effect on the eventual outcome of the story (even more so than in Diaspora R1 or Beyond the Red Line). I can show you a drawing of the commander of the Valkyrie-class Battlestar which will be your home for the campaign though.



When will Worthy of Survival be finished?

There's no way for us to know. It depends on how busy individual members of the team are with their real lives. The fact that we're already at the mission design stage is a good thing though. FREDding is a long-winded task but it usually proceeds much faster for us than modelling.

What new ships will be in it?

You can expect to see the Valkyrie class battlestar, several new ships from the rag tag fleet and a couple of Cylon assets you've never seen before.

Is this the end of the line for End of Line?

Nope. If we can get the models we need for it, we'll still be making that campaign. If anyone is interested in helping us with that, check the team recruitment post here.

Can you show us some screenshots?

Of course.








The new Cylon assets you are looking at are the comms array from Razor and the Acolyte, one of StarSlayer's creations (like the Theseus) which has been modelled by Newman. You saw a teaser of it in the End of Line poster but this is the first time we're releasing shots that show a little bit more of what the ship looks like. You'll be seeing more of it in a later blog posts most likely.

[Master_Drow]

Oh hell yeah, I'm getting excited!

[Crashdown117]

  Now that's good news! Finally shooting some toasters again - someday soon at least. And also: NON-LINEAR  Sounds like some nights are gonna be wasted on this. Oh well, sleep is for the weak.

EDIT: One more question: Does this pic mean that we actually get to see that guy in the campaigns briefing and debriefing cutscenes? Or did you just create it, because you could do it?

[Dain]

Exciting stuff!

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Great to hear, been looking forward to more Diaspora!

[kedrednael]

Awesome news! thanks!

[deathspeed]

I think I just peed a little.

[Luis Dias]

Wait, I never left a message of how hyped I was in here?

How the frak did that slide??!?

I'M HYPED!

[Snarks]

Does this mean the CO will be referred to by name and play a more active role on this campaign? Also, hurray! The Diaspora team has only the highest standards for their products. You guys are something else!

[karajorma]

Yes. the idea is that not only will the CO and other non-pilot characters play a bigger role in the plot but that the players actions during the mission will affect what decisions those character make during the campaign. In other words, you won't be given a choice like (attack the cylons, stay with the fleet) but instead your choice between those two will affect decisions characters like Commander Corbulo have to make in later missions.

[mightyjoe83]

This looks Great, is this going to be a separate install or will it be added to into the current Diaspora?

[Gray]

Most likely an additional VP file, installed via Installer since quite a number of assets came with R1.
I doubt the Devs would bundle all the already released files into a separate download.

[Echelon9]

We're still working through those technical details.

One relevant consideration is that aside from the packaged content (art, missions, models, lore) the new release will utilise an updated fs2open engine. I'm particularly keen on talking about this aspect over the coming period, as I'm a coder adding features and improving the existing fs2open engine on OS X and Linux.

[Frak_Tastic]

We're still working through those technical details.

According to my source in the president's office, PO2 Dualla is pretty conversant on technical details.

[karajorma]

Yeah, at some point I'll be putting a dev blog together on the new mission design tools available in R2 that we didn't have in R1. It will probably be of more interest to those who have tried writing missions for Diaspora than anyone else but they should like it.

[Fish]

Fantastic - good to see this project's got some life in it yet!

[Thunder39]

Suggestion: Is there any way you can build into the game the option of commanding the Battlestar as part of the Campaign? Instead of Viper Combat the player can make decisions of the Battestar Commander to include giving commands to the bridge staff from the POV of the Commander.   There are some older Star Trek games out there that give the experience this perspective.  I think this would be very cool for this genre.  Just my two cents. Thanks for the taking on the challenge of continuing this project! 

[CapnQwerty]

While you could probably work up a system in the mission editor to let the player give basic orders to cap ships from their fighter, what you're asking for isn't really possible without a lot of extra work. You'd basically have to build a whole new game, if it's even possible at all in this engine.

There are mods for RTSs like Homeworld 2 and Nexus: The Jupiter Incident that let you command Battlestars that way, but your specific request would need a mod for a game like the Star Trek one you mentioned.

[General Battuta]

Mostly agreed. It's possible to have fun capship command missions in FSO, but they wouldn't work the way you're probably imagining.

[X3N0-Life-Form]

It's been done few times already, there's a lua script that gives the player controle over their turret's targets. It's usually used in conjunction with some sorts of special abilities activated using multiplayer keys (alt+x, 1, 2, 3, 4), and changing how the ship perform when manipulating the energy transfer system (more power to guns = fire faster, things like that).

It's not on the level of say, Nexus, Bridge Commander, Klingon Academy, or even Homeworld, given that you basically need to hammer the engine into submission, but it is doable with a bit of work to make it fun.

There's also a RTS script framework lying around, although as far as I know, it hasn't been used in any released campaign yet.