Stella Artis Mod - A OSS Fast RTS

[Lopess]

4 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

There are not many images of what exists.

https://github.com/0ADMods/stella_artis/tree/master/simulation/templates/structures/terran

bunker, civic-center, engineering_bay, planetary_fortress, refinery, supply_depot.

[Lion.Kanzen]

I will leave as a confirmed image that for current date, that we only have the templates (XML files).

 

Does this mean that we still do not have conceptual designs for the buildings?

[Radiotraining]

okay, this sounds like something very fun to do!

[Radiotraining]

maybe some of the first aspects to cover are a bit of lore behind. At least some general ideas.

And maybe, for each civ, a series of basic characteristics that can define their aesthetic:

If we take simply terrans as a benchmark, what would be their characteristics?

- refined, high tech, representative of some sort of global order? (Starcraft)

or :

- a dirty, rusty, imperialistic power? (GDI in C&C in Tiberian Wars)

 

I think is important to associate a series of clearly defined connotation for each civ, so it can be easy to identify them and also develop a coherent design

[Lopess]

39 minutes ago, Radiotraining said:

maybe some of the first aspects to cover are a bit of lore behind. At least some general ideas.

And maybe, for each civ, a series of basic characteristics that can define their aesthetic:

If we take simply terrans as a benchmark, what would be their characteristics?

- refined, high tech, representative of some sort of global order? (Starcraft)

or :

- a dirty, rusty, imperialistic power? (GDI in C&C in Tiberian Wars)

 

I think is important to associate a series of clearly defined connotation for each civ, so it can be easy to identify them and also develop a coherent design

 

I see Humans in StarCraft more as adaptable to different scenarios, their technology was below Protons, for example. I like the medieval and decadent view of humans in WarHammer 40k they are not heroes or villains, they are halfway through technology.

 

Something that we can consider is that our species is very expansiva and adapts to different environments using technology, something I would like to call the discourse and that currently we can see a trend of the fusion of technology in our bodies as well as the possibility of genetic changes controlled in our bodies. If we are going to strangle this in the distant future, I can imagine super soldiers (men and women) on battlefields on distant planets and satellites. Perhaps the growing distance between human colonies prevents direct communication between them, making them independent governments across the universe, but they all nurture an ideal of union between humans when we are attacked by alien beings (of course, when this does not prevent conflicts between humans continue to exist).

(I hope google translate isn't getting in the way.)

 

Something I have on my computer lacks texture and refinement.

Edited November 24, 2021 by Lopess
fix.

[Radiotraining]

4 minutes ago, Lopess said:

Something that we can consider is that our species is very Spanish

I don't know if it was google translate, but I love the definition of our species as "very Spanish"

That makes me think, for some lore, that we may take inspiration from the colonization of America to represent both humans and native populations of other planets

 

Quote

I can imagine super soldiers (men and women) on battlefields on distant planets and satellites. Perhaps the growing distance between human colonies prevents direct communication between them, making them independent governments across the universe

Maybe this could be the basis for a "X" civilization of highly developed human fused with cyborg elements that have gone rogue and separated from the more - vanilla - terran civilization. It could be an interesting element of conflict.

 

Quote

Something I have on my computer lacks texture and refinement.

YEAAAAH!! Looking pretty cool!!

[Lopess]

6 minutes ago, Radiotraining said:

I don't know if it was google translate, but I love the definition of our species as "very Spanish"

Definitely not hahaha, in this case and in Portuguese "expansiva" = expansive, I don't understand why this translation was done like that.

Edited November 24, 2021 by Lopess

[Lion.Kanzen]

16 minutes ago, Radiotraining said:

I don't know if it was google translate, but I love the definition of our species as "very Spanish"

That makes me think, for some lore, that we may take inspiration from the colonization of America to represent both humans and native populations of other planets

 

always in these lords one faction takes over the world and the united nations and unites the humans.

sometimes it is inside the planet, sometimes when they have already explored mars.

in the case of SC the lore are prisoner ships that crashed in another world.

Quote

 

"The universe never gave us a chance, but we're still alive and kicking. We got tossed to the far end of the galaxy, dropped smack dab between two ugly alien armies, and we're not all dead yet? Tell me that don't say something about us. We're too dumb to die. A smart species would've given up ages ago."

- Redell Quinton(src)

 

https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Terran

Quote

The terrans (or humans) are a young species with psionic potential. The terrans of the Koprulu sector descend from the survivors of a disastrous 23rd century colonization mission from Earth by Doran Routhe.[1] Compared to the protoss and zerg, the terrans are highly factionalized and endure frequent wars amongst themselves in addition to the more recent conflicts with their alien neighbors. Nevertheless, terrans stand as one of the three dominant species of the galaxy.[2]

if that is the case, the earth must have looked like Europe in the Renaissance age.

there are probably many factions from the united nations to entrepreneurs with space projects.

Unlike Sc, I would not be so positive about the history and I would focus the exploration many centuries later.

half a millennium later?

[Radiotraining]

Btw : is there anyone appointed to write the lore behind this mod? Are there already some ideas or it's all up to be created from scratch? 

[Stan`]

I can appoint someone. My goal was just to provide a fast paced, space themed, RTS mod which could work as an alternative to starcraft Ideally a mix of all the things previously mentionned.

 

[Radiotraining]

Yeah, I was reading a bit through the thread. I'm very down with that!

I could also write down some rough ideas for world building. Not that I have some at the moment, but I can think of something. 

3 minutes ago, Stan` said:

I can appoint someone.

Unless you have already some people in mind for the mission!  that would be fine as well.

From what I've seen nobody is claiming paternity over the project, so it really just needs a push to get the ball rolling and break from the initial uncertainty

[Lopess]

1 hour ago, Radiotraining said:

Yeah, I was reading a bit through the thread. I'm very down with that!

I could also write down some rough ideas for world building. Not that I have some at the moment, but I can think of something. 

Unless you have already some people in mind for the mission!  that would be fine as well.

From what I've seen nobody is claiming paternity over the project, so it really just needs a push to get the ball rolling and break from the initial uncertainty

I made myself a commitment not to make any big commitments to new mods (I have a lot to do in real life) but I'll be here very excited to help. (I have some nonsense on the computer).

[Radiotraining]

Okay guys!

I was talking a bit with @Lopess these days to understand if there's interest to continue elaborating ideas for this mod. Surely it would be a great pretext to experiment the full potential of pyrogenesis engine. I don't know if @Stan` you're also still interested about it, at least to supervise it with your experience, or if you're definitely too busy at this moment. Maybe with Lopess we can kickstart some little progress anyway.

 

So, I thought that the initial step to move things further would have been to come up with a loose storyline that could cover a bit the setting of this new mod, the new civs, how they developed and it can give a backbone structure for future work.

So thinking about this, I wrote a (very dumb) short story to explain how all the races have come in contact with each others:

 

Some ideas for a background storyline:

YEAR : 2121 (far, but not too far)

After a third world war that has consumed the planet, the human race has finally found a compromise for global peace, creating a new overarching power to keep stability: the EGO, Earth Global Organization. It all goes well for years until one day an alien civilization finally makes contact with the earth. Some communication is established between human and aliens and, after an initial conflict, the two parts finally come together. Thanks to the contact with the aliens, the humans enter in possession of new knowledge and resources that make space travel quick and affordable.

This is especially possible due to a new energy source, the "dark matter". The collaboration with aliens makes possible a new age of space travel and colonization for the human race and they quickly manage to establish a colony on Mars to source the new resources.
On Mars and on the following planets, the humans discover a new league of materials, the ADIUM, a metal elastic but resistant that can be mined from space or meteorites and can be modeled to create almost anything.

Once on Mars, the EGO take control of the entire operations of colonization and estraction, and secretly start to experiment with the alien collaborators. Finally they manage to merge the DNA of humans and aliens and create a new superhuman breed in their crazy experiments, the SHU (Short for Superhumans, lame I know). Quickly the SHU becomes dominant on the new planets, cutting ties with their human progenitors on the earth and try to dominate everyone else.

Meanwhile, the aliens discover the crazy experiments that had been secretly conducted by humans and they break the collaboration with them and declare hostility to humans.

---------------

So with this backstory, at the end, we have:

CIVS:

- EGO (Terrans) try to reconquest their lost colonies.

- Reptilians (Zergs) an alien-organic species (haven't found a good naming yet)

- SHU (Protoss) a superhuman, highly advanced race that is combination a humans and aliens + mecha features

RESOURCES:
- dark matter (energy)
- Adium (metal)

SCENARIOS:

- Earth: destroyed and a bit apocalyptic because of the terran wars and alien presence

- Mars: space colony

- Alien planet: where the aliens came from. The planet is all organic

- Some other planet, highly technological, where the SHU had been experimented  

 

 

Inspirations: Starcraft (ofc), Warhammer, Gears of War, Final Fantasy Spirit Within, C&C

 

Edited December 2, 2021 by Radiotraining

[Lion.Kanzen]

10 minutes ago, Radiotraining said:

2121 (far, but not too far)

for me it is very soon.

[Radiotraining]

14 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

for me it is very soon.

yeah right I just picked a random year honestly ahahahaha we can push it later a bit

Anyway one of the reasons why I thought to have it not so far it's because I remembered of this game, Gears of War, which had quite a cool setting. In that case the aliens are those invading the earth and I kinda liked the possibility to develop also that kind of scenario, since we are at it (just my idea).

But at the same time we would have room also to imagine space travel and stuff like that

 

Edited December 2, 2021 by Radiotraining

[Lopess]

 I feel that on this one I agree with Lion.Kanzen, maybe 2500? That would give us a few centuries of living with the aliens. Aliens could own mercenary units of other species (like Imperium Tau), we could make a dichotomy between humans and new humans > one based their technologies and improvements on robotics and little and non-evasive geetic improvements while the other is more based on improvement extreme genetics without caring too much about ethical values (imagine here biological weapons and bloody humanoid giants (like minotauros made in mythological mod)  

Edited December 2, 2021 by Lopess

[Radiotraining]

sure!! Let's go with 2500 if everyone prefers!

We can also change things in the story, eh! The idea was to run with something that everyone can agree upon, so we can "freeze" some features that can be translated into the game. Things like the name or characteristics of the races, the year, locations etc..

I've seen a lot of different ideas also in this thread, but nothing that was decisive, so I just wanted to cover this aspect so nobody will have doubts in the future on what we want to do. I think it's an important step to get the project going

[maroder]

my thoughts (just as inspiration I quite like your ideas) :

On 02/12/2021 at 5:26 PM, Radiotraining said:

After a third world war that has consumed the planet the inevitable ecological collapse of the earth, the surviving human race population has finally found was forced to find a compromise for global peace, creating a new overarching power to keep stability... It all goes well for years and the humans learn to adapt to their post apocalyptic home planet until one day an alien civilization finally makes contact with the earth. Due to the vastly different nature of their existence and the human tendency to be hostile towards everything that is unknown, there soon starts a never ending series of skirmishes around the the resources and space left on earth.  the two parts finally come together. Thanks to the contact with the aliens captured technology from the aliens, the humans enter in possession of new knowledge and resources that make space travel quick and affordable.

 

 

[Radiotraining]

8 minutes ago, maroder said:

my thoughts (just as inspiration I quite like your ideas) :

AWESOME!!! This is the perfect kind of collaboration!!

Thanks so much for providing other inputs! Very, very appreciated!

I was kinda satisfied by the idea of our "protoss" being the fusion of human and aliens, it worked well as justification. But hey! I find the idea of an ancient civilization quite interesting as well. It opens the door for an interesting work of concept art around it.

The rest sounds all very good! I also like the idea of an ecological collapse as backdrop of the story. Let's wait and see if others have some other ideas and, in case, I'll write up a "clean" version so we can go with it!

[maroder]

Lol. I was inspired by this idea:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft

But it seems there is already a (quite recent) RTS doing exactly that:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Goo

 

[Lopess]

 

For me, we can accept this as a good start. A good thing would be the initial names of the three factions, as well as their core gameplay.

[maroder]

1 hour ago, Radiotraining said:

It opens the door for an interesting work of concept art around it

That was my thought process. Would make it easy to give every faction a completely unique look. One classic human, one super organic and one all tech and robots.

16 minutes ago, Lopess said:

initial names

For names I'm unfortunately not that creative. I would stick to humans, mechas (for the robots or the alien-human-robot hybrids) and to give it the special 0ad flavor, maybe just Gaia for the aliens.

And yes gameplay ideas would be good to have

[Lopess]

20 minutes ago, maroder said:

That was my thought process. Would make it easy to give every faction a completely unique look. One classic human, one super organic and one all tech and robots.

For names I'm unfortunately not that creative. I would stick to humans, mechas (for the robots or the alien-human-robot hybrids) and to give it the special 0ad flavor, maybe just Gaia for the aliens.

And yes gameplay ideas would be good to have

Maybe something more elaborate, something that the public can understand in the general lines of the faction but sounds like real names, we have good names in "pop culture" we could create modifications of those names. Perhaps names related to the planet or "constellation of origin" (from a human perspective).

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 hour ago, maroder said:

Earth Global Organization

Earth federation 

But world peace is utopian.

4 there would be human Factions.

 

The successor of the united nations.

Made up of Europe and Latin America.

 

The second sub faction is Eurasia (Similar to Orwell's novel

Russia China and India with the rest of the Asian nations.

The URA. (United Republics of Asia)

The third is Africa.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Union

There is an equivalent current organization.

And the fourth is The new Common Wealth Nations successor to the Fives Eyes.

United States, Australia, United Kingdom, New Zealand and Canada.

 

Each faction colonized the space on their own.After discovering the Organic race they partially joined forces To create 

 

World Federalist Union. (There was a movement with that name, before the united nations)

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Federalist_Movement

Edited December 2, 2021 by Lion.Kanzen

[Radiotraining]

41 minutes ago, Lopess said:

For me, we can accept this as a good start. A good thing would be the initial names of the three factions, as well as their core gameplay.

Good one!

Terrans : I like EGO (Earth Global Organization) as an acronym for a terran organization. And also it's kinda existentialist at the same time. An interesting combination!

Protoss: I came up with SHU, as lame shorthand for Superhuman. But we can just switch it to SHA (like, "shaman"), which has some atavic, since it must be an ancient civ with probably some mystical characteristics. I mean it came out randomly but we can just stick with it without going too far!

Zergs: no idea, honestly. In a movie, District 9, the aliens were called "prawns" ahaha I find it funny and interesting. Maybe their name could be unknown so they can have another spregiative surname given by humans? idk.. something that sounds like insects