LEGION: Microspace

QUOTE (Bomb @ Apr 29 2009, 05:18 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

)That's the one. Thanks. With a bit of creative wrangling, they could be an elite special ops unit/wing of any of the other groups, most notably the M-Trons, as I think it would be a bit too restrictive to say they are their own race who just happens to only inhabit frozen worlds. Sort of a hard way to build an empire..:) I love how all of their ships come with skis for landing.

Actually, it can be quite a good way to build an empire, if the frozen-world people have unique attributes or technologies that let them thrive on worlds on which no one else can succeed. If you can do that, you can establish beachheads in systems already inhabited by others and then either coexist or attack. Consider the hydrogen breathers of Uplift, or the Western Lapita peoples.

To be honest, guys, I was really hoping to make all-original ships for this (I was not lucky enough to have these particular sets you speak of). But maybe after this I'll try my hand at a plug using some more established LEGO Themes. It could even be a community project!

Lesse...the sets I know of are...

Exploriens (My absolute favorite, by the way - their command ship was somewhat what I based the Omega -Class Battlecruisers on)
Spyrius (They's bad - I only ever got their small robot, didn't get the larger ones)
Space Police (Another bunch of guys whom I got most of the sets for - there's one or two that I didn't (the Space Mediator, their command ship, is what got me into the big ships™ craze))
Blacktron (The original of the themes, they were branded as renegades once the Space Police hit the scene - never had any sets of theirs - never owned any of their sets)
Futuron (Whom the Space Police Protected - also never got their sets)
Ice Planet 2002 (Their ship and base were so damn awesome-looking, but I never got the chance to get either of them - all I got was a vehicle called Ice-Sat V)
UFO (Only got their command ship - the one that looks like the bastard offspring between an X-Wing and a stereotypical flying saucer)
Insectoids (Only got their crawler - I never knew they had a mobile base, though)

Anyway, sorry for the de-rail.

QUOTE (Ianator @ Apr 29 2009, 07:24 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

To be honest, guys, I was really hoping to make all-original ships for this (I was not lucky enough to have these particular sets you speak of). But maybe after this I'll try my hand at a plug using some more established LEGO Themes. It could even be a community project!

That makes sense. Trying to be faithful to a pre-existing source can sometimes really slow down a project (gee, now how would I know that?). Still, you might look into at least using color schemes from the sets. That could make it easier to later integrate materials from 'em -- such as landing pics, perhaps.

EDIT: Speaking of color schemes, have you given any thought to how you're going to do ship explosions? I'm thinking of the way that ship bits fly off when ships die in Polycon (see the RLEs in the "Polycon Core 3" file), and how the Sorhal biological ships have their own govt-specific "death" RLE. It would be really cool to see Lego ships throw out pieces, especially if their colors reflected the colors of the ships.

This post has been edited by Dr. Trowel : 30 April 2009 - 11:13 AM

Hmm... I suppose it would depend on how many explosion slots are open. I don't have the Nova Bible on me right at the moment, but isn't there a set range of rles that the boom resource can load from? I can't recall how big that is.

Max explosion types is set at 64.

I have put some thought into the explosions, and I've got some ideas for explosion sounds as well that probably involve taking regular explosions and overlaying the sound of bricks being dumped from their tub onto the table. (What I'd love to do is to make "bricky"-sounding effects like those in, say, WorldBuilder)

Well, it would be tricky to create, but you could great a good death explosion of a bunch of bricks flying apart on top of that sound effect. If you created a couple of different explosions depending on gov't color, I think that would be pretty neat.

I like it! You'd have to have several different explosions per gov actually, since you'd need one for the little sparks that precede the explosion (and accompany the "big bang" if you check the box) and one for the big one itself, then you'd probably want a small, medium, and large final explosion. But still, I think that would be great! Little bricks fly every which way, followed by the ship being lost in a huge explosion of colorful fun!

This post has been edited by Archon : 30 April 2009 - 05:19 PM

I haven't had much chance to work on this over the week as I'd been busy with another project of which I am not a small part, and I seem to have lost the momentum built up so far. Worry not - I do not plan to drop this! Even barring the fact that this is a LEGO plugin for Escape Velocity , it is also a lesson in time management that has been long coming.

I'll try to convert the Scoutship into newscale by Thursday.

Oh wow. I totally fail at time management.

Well, my aforementioned other project (combined with my squirrel-chasing) has placed this on the back burner for now. I managed to get one more ship done, probably going to be the local equivalent of Nova's Valkyrie...

If anyone would like to keep this project going (and it would be a shame if there isn't), please do send me a PM - It'd be nice if this would turn out as a community project. Feel free to ask me about what else I'm working on as well, but I'm hesitant to advertise it here as it's still in the very early stages.

Are the enigmatic faction's ships going to be made out of lego technic pieces, with maybe some rotating parts?

And stop squirrel-chasing, we all like this too much.

Maybe. I was thinking of something not unlike these.

So, organic and asymmetrical?

If so, I approve.

I have returned once again, bearing news from the future!

I am still heavily involved in my other project (those of you familiar with a certain aspect of The Internet Hate Machine - emphasis on Machine, hint hint - may have heard a thing or two about it), but my mind continues to return to this wonderful thing. I've put together a few more ships, but I still need to work out the background for most of them. Here's the only one ready to go:

Packed with sensors in its wings (and room for plenty more in its extremely long nose), the Scoutship has above-average shields and an obscenely long FTL range for a ship of its size. Unfortunately, the more sensitive detectors are easily dulled by thick plating, requiring a special armor that is light in both weight and protection, and Scion's neutral standing between the Alliance and Confederation makes them hesitant to roll out vessels with more than a pair of Ion Guns for defense.

Next, I have an idea dealing with the customizing of new ships: what if you could buy a bare hull and purchase upgrades in the Outfitters? You could purchase an Alliance Raider frame, equip it with an LSE-2700S Impulse Drive (which has higher acceleration but less energy capacity and shield regen than the standard 2500A), an Ordinance outfit structure (which exchanges gun hardpoints for cargo space, which can also be used to hold ammo) and Ferro-Fibrous Armor (lightweight and durable, but very expensive) to create a fighter-sized blockade runner. I think this would really fit in with the whole building theme that comes with LEGO in general.

Finally, I'm taking this moment to officially declare LEGION open for employment! While I'll roll this out sooner or later, your help can bring it towards the 'sooner' side of things! Writers, shipwrights, plugin makers - all with some time on his hands and some LEGO on the brain! Contact me via PM or YIM if you can contribute.