March 29, 2024, 10:08:40

Author Topic: Two Mod Ideas  (Read 5842 times)

Offline Keldane

  • Specialist
  • *
  • Posts: 73
  • Karma: 0
    • View Profile
    • http://
Two Mod Ideas
« on: January 19, 2010, 01:02:06 »
As the title suggests, I have ideas for two mods for Nexus. They both have challenges, and I certainly don't have the technical knowledge necessary to create them myself.

The first is a Dead Space mod. I loved the setting in Dead Space, and the appearance of the ships was pretty cool. There were also sequences in the game where you got a bit of a feel for the sorts of weaponry they have available, which suggested a few intriguing possibilities to me. The downsides to this idea, as I see them, are as follows:
1. The game only presents the design of four ships. More would have to be extrapolated from the designs presented in order to get enough to make the mod worthwhile.
2. The ships shown aren't shown in a manner that would make modeling them easy (I would think). If one could extract the models directly, that wouldn't be as big a deal, assuming they were in a format Nexus could handle.

The second idea is a mod based on the browser game OGame, in which players colonize planets, build up space fleets, and wage war on one another in an attempt to become the highest ranked player (or be a part of the highest ranked alliance) on their server. There are no different races, so it's really up to the players to determine which technologies they get first, how fast they advance, etc. The problems I see with this are as follows:
1. As a browser game, there aren't really any 3d representations of the ships to work from. There is a promotional video available on the main site, and its scope is limited.
2. With only one race, variety may become an issue.
3. Six of the fourteen total ship designs are civilian in nature, and not really suited to combat (fine for objective purposes, though).
4. Of the eight combat-oriented ships, the largest is realistically only useful as a battle station. The remaining seven are two fighter class, two cruiser class, and three capital class designs.

By discussing these here, I'm hoping to get some opinions on them from the other forum regulars, mostly about whether or not they think either of these mods are doable and worth pursuing. Of the two, I think the second idea is likely the easiest to achieve, while the first would be more visually appealing to me (based on ship designs, that is). Thoughts?

Offline Arparso

  • Administrator
  • Lieutenant
  • *****
  • Posts: 558
  • Karma: 14
  • I can see you...
    • View Profile
    • http://arparso.de/nexus
(No subject)
« Reply #1 on: January 21, 2010, 22:37:17 »
Good ideas, although these mods would involve lots of work. Especially the Dead Space one, as you'd have to invent everything basically from scratch. There's only one combat vessel briefly to be seen in the game before... well, you probably know what happened to that ship. Anyway, you'd need good 2d and 3d artists to even come close to Dead Space's art direction ... and such a team will be hard to assemble considering Nexus' relatively small fanbase.

I can't really comment on Ogame, though, since I never played it. You may have some 2d art available as reference but you still need someone to create the 3d models and texture them. I'm not a modeller, so I can't really help.

Offline Keldane

  • Specialist
  • *
  • Posts: 73
  • Karma: 0
    • View Profile
    • http://
(No subject)
« Reply #2 on: January 22, 2010, 22:10:05 »
For the Dead Space one, I have been able to find one piece of concept art that showed all four ships present in the game next to one another, so some degree of scale is available. You are correct, though, Arparso - other than the destroyer, everything would need to be designed from scratch based on the general appearance of the ships already present.

Concerning OGame, there are still images of every ship. I find it difficult, though, to get a proper sense of scale. I mentioned the video on the main page that shows 3d models of the ships in action, and after watching it several times, I'm still having issues identifying which ship is meant to be which class (other than the light fighter that the camera is attached to throughout the entire video, and the massive planet killer at the end).

Hmm... Perhaps I should just stick to my Full Thrust mod for the time being...

Offline Keldane

  • Specialist
  • *
  • Posts: 73
  • Karma: 0
    • View Profile
    • http://
(No subject)
« Reply #3 on: January 25, 2010, 01:13:08 »
I had a dream last night, which may have yielded a decent battleship design for a Dead Space mod: A hybrid of a Terran Battlecruiser from Starcraft, and the USG Ishimura. It had the hammerhead front of the Battlecruiser, as well as the narrow neck. Three of the tall, curving 'ribs' seen on the Ishimura sat along the rear half of the narrow neck, and the back end was a larger version of the USM Valor (the military destroyer) with the Battlecruiser's 'wings' sticking out the sides.

Now, to build up some modeling skill...