StarControl Forums
Thanks for the progress report. I was legit laughing at the new alien concept, having to deal with this new species quite literally every day walking down the streets of Chicago; they often travel on the wrong side of the sidewalk not paying any attention to where they're going because they're looking backwards at their host bodies.
And holy cow, terrific flagship concept ideas. Probably no coincidence that it is reminiscent of the modular layout of the Precursor flagship. Also, the idea of articulated and organic features on starships is something I dreamt of seeing in Star Control decades ago and it is really wonderful to see it coming to fruition.
Looking forward to checking out the editor soon.
Mukay ship looks great! Weapon B looks the best to me. I dig the weapon effect and colors - the go so well with the ship.
The purple planet landing picture reminds me of Funkatron from Toejam & Earl. Not saying it's good or bad, just reminiscent.
Thank you for stating that the player ship will be highly customizable. I don't like some of the art pieces (spinning cores and such) but I love many others, like those triangular attachments. Now that you say we can pick and choose, I'm very happy!
Is the yellow boat a Tywom? Can you please explain how it's not a Chmrrr (sp?) knock-off? 3 orbitals is highly familiar. I know we'll find out in time, but it's really messing with my ability to digest that ship when it looks so similar to something you said we'd never see in this game.
The Ipod alien is cute. Is it too over-the-top, or shall we expect more things like this. I don't necessarily mind, but I want to know if tongue in cheek will be a big part of SC, or just an occasional laugh.
All in all, I'm so hopeful and excited. You guys are putting out some great ideas. It's hard to judge it without more context, but I like the style and am already seeing some consistency in the art style, be it a planet, ship, or alien - which is great! You seem to know what you're doing (I was right! 
).
I love the new PDA aliens. In the story, it would be cool if you don't reveal that the PDA is controlling them until later on, maybe coming across a group of "free" aliens from the race hiding out on a planet somewhere and make it a side quest to "free" them from their PDA enslavement which makes them all really bored and miserable with short attention spans if you do, but are wiling to help you without enslaving humanity.
With the lander, would it be possible to have destructible environments when mining? I would like to see a mining laser that can destroy rocks and slightly lower terrain for small amounts of low quality minerals at low levels and can destroy entire mountains or even entire planets for higher quality minerals at higher levels.
The organic ship looks pretty good. Maybe give it a special attack where it ejects its stomach similar to an octopus to envelop another ship at close range and ability to heal over time. Maybe have the ships be a race of creatures that are either sentient themselves or are controlled by another race like the way humans controlled horses.
I like the idea of a customizeable base ship. Maybe add some features that can create a bit of strategy like loading a laser that is too big will weigh your ship down making it slower and suck up its energy faster than a medium laser would, etc kind of like the original Star Control II. Of course, make it all upgradeable with new techs reducing the weight or energy consumption, etc. Possibly even add very powerful, unique, hard to get components around as major rewards to quests or hidden in some places.
The art style looks pretty cool with planets having very unique, distinct features, but very similar to the "No Man's Sky" type of style that is present on their trailers. I can see people comparing it to that or Spore which may or may not be what you want.
I wanna liberate those poor limp eyed puddle stompers. :'(
Is "Magellan" the in-game flagship name or just a placeholder? 
I love Mukay concept ship and I'd love to explore giant mushroom planets. 
I love the customization of Magellan. 
It would be even better if you could plop upgrades on the outside of the ships body to make it asymmetric.
Ooh, if it is named Magellan, that would be great!!! Famous explorer, and the name of the nearest galaxy. (Dwarf)
"While we expect 95% of players to only play the game single player in the story mode and maybe some Super Melee against the AI, the remaining 5% will be able to play the game multiplayer putting their ship designs up against other players."
This makes it seem pretty clear that they don't expect to try and make a successful online game out of this... No space hockey for me. Kang is a sad panda:-(
The direction for the single player game looks great so far and I'm sure I will enjoy the single player game a lot. I like this look for Star Control.
What can I say....
1) New alien is nice. I still think that you should reconsider staying away from humanoid aliens. Anyways, this i-slave looks nice or ZZZ-device - connecting people or... hmmm... aliens .
Just a side note. 20 years or so ago i read a science fiction novel about a human exploration vessel that encountered some unknown space craft. When the humans boarded it - it turned out that the vessel had been packed with various animals from around the galaxy (zoo or cattle transportation ship). But the twist was - the aliens had disguised themselves as one of the animal species and locked themselves in cages so that humans would not detect them. They broke equipment, furniture and etc. of the vessel in order to make detection of their appearance more complicated. It took humans some time to figure out that the aliens were actually two symbiotic species working together as one.
2) If planet exploration starts to play a bigger role in SC then you should also think about more upgrades/customization type of things for the lander.
+ make sure that you have some creatures that are super-rare and can be called bosses or something. like VUX beast or Arrakis sandworm or Shrike from Hyperion saga
+ Why are we talking just creatures - what about some berserk robots roaming around or even ground units for some aliens or some aliens in exoskeleton suits - like Orz marines on the ground
+ more goodies on the surface - outposts, ruins, crashed ships, landed ships, inter-dimensional rifts, cities, artifacts, modules to upgrade vessel/lander, logs, starmaps, planetary maps
+ why not have in addition to weather hazards and earthquakes a planet that is hit by meteroshowers or solar flares? (like earthquakes in old SC but just things falling from the sky)
+ I hope that devs are implementing several layers of space in SC - like Normal/hyper space - quasi space - ultraspace - whatever space, like underground maps in HOMM3 or Age of Wonders.
+ Such layer can be extended to planets too... why not.
+ Like through a rift the lander goes to the past-future of the planet (even though that it cannot take - off from it - seems like a cool idea).
3) Mukay vessel is awesome. Nothing else to add. ME Reapers turned good :))) + Guys, please, introduce some classic UFO ships - saucers - triangles this kind of stuff, at least for some race... We need arilou in some form
4) Flagship. Nice... nice, esp. if one can fit "alien modules" on the flagship. Like a hybrid between earth cruisers and shadow vessels in Babylon 5.
5) While we expect 95% of players to only play the game single player in the story mode - yeah!!! I like this way of thinking.
6) Cannot comment re the editor as long as I do not actually see and use it but - make sure that it supports several input languages besides English + I hope that it allows one to attach voice-overs, animations and etc.
7) Art style - I love it. Nothing else to add. Make sure you use SC2 type of backgrounds for the solar systems exploration Those colorful mystic dots (stars) from SC2 give me creeps
8) It is already April 09 in my timezone, so i hope to see April update in 21 days latest :))))))
I fully support any and all ships with tentacles. Yes please. ABSOLUTELY MORE MORE MOOOAR. I mean, some biological ships could be cool too. Actually, scratch could, can we please get at least one bio-ship? 
Exploration being expanded is definitely a good direction, and can I say the new alien is adorable on multiple levels?
I like the concept drawings for the mothership. I agree with those saying you should go wild with the difference in appearance it will have based on which modules/upgrades you choose to use. It would be very cool if you wound up with a very different looking ship based on how equipped it.
The PDA alien is a great example of the kinds of aliens I would expect to see in a new SC game, so I would say you appear to be going in the right direction with the aliens with this species.
I can't tell much about what the lander game will be like based on the concept art shown, but I do like that it looks to be more arcade game-like that a like an FPS game.
And like I've said before, the general direction of the "cartonny" art is exactly how I would envision a modern Star Control. I play a lot of games, but I never played Spore. While it was touted as some kind of amazingly original thing, it was actually based on a very old exercise in a form of simulation design called "scientific modeling" that I had practically memorized so I instantly recognized it as a "candyland" version of that old exercise and was never really interested in it. But I don't think it matters if it looks a little like Spore, it looks a little like Looney Toons as well, which I am guessing is the actual inspiration for both.
I just wanted to put down, for the record so to speak, so that later I can say "called it":
That March Wallpaper, with the yellow space ships flying in front of a brown planet. That middle ship. It looks like a giant space throne. *Somebody* will be sitting in it. You heard it here first...
I'm not gonna call them zapsats, but...
I'm not gonna call them zapsats, but...
Obviously drones for the queen bee that sits on the space throne
Just my opinion:
1. The alien with the dreadlocks is cool. I want one of the PDA's. I see a neat storyline involving the separation of the alien and it's PDA. Could be a cool faction war kinda like Yehat.
2. I reserve opinion on the planet exploration until I see a demo.
3. Mukay ship is neat. I think the B firing picture is the best.
4. Kick ass on the modular design of the ship I love the idea you can retro fit different tech to make it unique.
5. The editor is cool and reminds me of a game builder I saw a while back.
6. Planet art (see 2.)
I look forward to continued progress.
Browsing back through last month's vault update, you can see the first concept art for this Tywom ship and you'll notice that the three zapsats are stored neatly in the seating area...
BTW, does this thing remind anyone else of Corbin's flying taxi from The Fifth Element?
This is the point where this thread goes back on track..I hope.
Apparently the Tywom ship is associated with something your fanbase knows and likes, even if it's unintentional. The Mukay also. The iLien too. It's nice to see things that are familiar but different. However, that means we need some unfamiliar and different too, lest this become a satire or spoof game, without meaning to.
I really do look forward to some other concept ideas, be they ships, aliens, or races. They don't even have to be final, but is there a chance, Stardock, that we could see some more ideas?
^ I agree, we need aliens like Orz, Melnorme and Slylandro. Completely alien to our human natures (physical and psychological).
Agreed, maybe even make some antimatter or even dark matter lifeforms.
Come on!!! We need Arilou too! Or Mantis aliens or reptilians or greys!!! We need the damn UFOs!!!!
Devs, can you share the following information:
How many aliens do you plan to include in the plain vanilla game?
This is the first update that, albeit short and late (lol), really blew me away. I mean... every single page had something I loved on it. Something I truly loved and truly made me a believer that Stardock is on the right track. It's quirky, it's fun, while also dealing with serious issues. That's my favorite kind of stories to tell! Serious stuff, but in a fun way.... like Kingsman if anyone's seen it!
So, for starters, This Month's New Alien is PERFECT! I mean, rather than a rectangular iPhone looking thing, I think there are more imaginative designs out there for an alien's Digital Assistant... but that's the only minor gripe I can even come up with. This design nails the spirit of Star Control more than any others. What a serious, awful issue to have civilization-wide! Yet, it's goofy and fun, just like we want. And most importantly - the VISUAL DESIGN OF THIS ALIEN REFLECTS THEIR PURPOSE/ISSUES. They're slothy. They LOOK brain-dead. Their whole body is droopy. They've got...maybe bottled vitamins and minerals to keep the host alive. It's very dark, very desolate... yet in an incredibly upbeat and funny way. It draws parallels to the Dnyarri or more importantly, the Utwig. That civ was on the verge of mass-suicide - but in a funny way!!! How did Accolade do that?! How could mass suicide of an entire race be so hilarious! Yet, they pulled it off - and even better, Stardock pulled this off as well. Kudos. Kudos. Excellent work.
The Surface(s) of the World(s) - wrap these up in one, despite being spread out in the PDF - These are gorgeous. They are varied and unique, with BIG, visually pleasing and crazy FEATURES on the world. That's beautiful. If anyone remembers the Mass Effect rover... those planets were filled with a whole lotta nothin'. I remember them just being gradual hills and mountains with no real FORM. I was also playing Red Faction: Guerrilla and the environments were just a whoooooole lotta nothing. Grades and unformed slopes with no real purpose. That's where you guys nailed it on these designs. Each thing is not just a lump or grade or rock - they have PURPOSE and MEANING for each one of those craters, rock bridges over weird lakes, jagged crags jutting up out of lava. This is what we need to see. I feel like it's going to be impossible to keep the environments of each planet so varied and purposeful, but if you guys pull it off? Wow... just, wow.
As for the editor... I guess we'll see!
But nice work on this update, I'm duly impressed.
Agreed! That would be awesome!
Especially the anti-matter aliens. The first time you meet one and send an away-team, they shake hands and explode, causing a terrible PR nightmare.
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