Nomads Development Diaries

[Exotic_Retard]

Hello everyone,

A couple weeks back we about Nomads in 2020, and if you havent yet read it, read it now. This week we are going to be continuing on naval units from last week, and a little about the twists and turns during the development process.

As always, this content you can spy ahead in the Nomads Development Discord, so if you want to get the exclusive info before everyone else, chat to the devs, ask questions or even contribute, you can do that here.



Not T1 Frigate
Nomads development usually has unexpected things happening, and this is another one of them. The picture above is an out-of-nowhere masterpiece from Tag_Utter, who has been with us for a while, occasionally contributing fantastic models like that. The issue however is, that the sketch, which was seen in last weeks diary, was intended for a T1 frigate, and Utters model looks more like T4 unit. This is actually fine, and partly even intended. The concept sketches are not prescribed to units in particular so we have more leeway for situations like this one, where we will now be looking at converting the model into a T3 battleship, or possibly a T2 unit of some kind.

Here you can see the sketch and another image of the model:




In any case, this is still a pretty early model, which needs quite a lot of adjustments and tweaks to make it really like a nomads unit, and to make sure that it has the right poly count, the right weapons, and things like that.

T1 Frigate
With the T1 frigate concept being moved to T3, there is now a need to replace it. So, here is the replacement. This one was done this morning, during a stream. Development streams are something we are experimenting with, and most likely we will continue with them. Be sure to check out the streams that are going to be coming more often in the future. For now its just me (Exotic_Retard) but it might be a more team effort later on.



So far, the stream test was a sucess, since we immediately got a quick model out of it:



While I was still drawing, Armaster started making. As a result we have this early model of the frigate, which again after some more work will turn into one of the naval units for the Nomads.





And thats it for now! If you want to see top secret stuff, join the discord server where you can chat to the devs, ask questions, spy on the process and get all the exclusive goodies and more! Also feel free to leave feedback either on the forum thread or in the discord. Remember, feedback is very important!

Lastly, we are always looking for more contributors, so if you are interested in creating things, whether thats code, 2d art, models, music or anything else, do get in touch! We also provide all the resources and guidance needed, so don't worry if you think you are missing any skills, we will be glad to see you!

[Exotic_Retard]

Hello everyone,

A couple weeks back we about Nomads in 2020, and if you havent yet read it, read it now. This week we are talking about an unexpected flood of contributions! The best kind of unexpected.

As always, this content you can spy ahead in the Nomads Development Discord, so if you want to get the exclusive info before everyone else, chat to the devs, ask questions or even contribute, you can do that here.



New dev stream and new models
So last week we mentioned that we were testing new ways of reaching out and showing off our work. One of the things we are trying out is streaming development. Amazingly, this has already led to some suprise contributions, making the streams very successful indeed even after a couple of low quality sessions. Over time stream quality will increase and we should be seeing even more contributors. You can check out the stream recordings here.

These were intended to simply start a conversation about development, but what happened instead is that a whole pile of models were being made for fun or otherwise as a result. Check these out:


We start off with Utters fantastic battleship model, which has made some great progress since last time, especially with the barrels on the turret. The unit is looking better and better with each version.


And this model is from Marlo, who decided to start modelling one day and after some pointers has arrived at this. No spoilers just yet, but you might be able to guess what this could end up being after its finished.



And last but absolutely not least, there was a practical flood of various models from Clockwork, who came practically out of nowhere and started producing top quality work! This was after the last stream, and we can expect fantastic things in the future, like the nomads world border above. He just started looking at sketches and making models all over the place. Take a look:




Intel probe and other code fixes

Lastly, it is worth talking a little bit about the intel probe code. This was a very old ability for nomads, and as such the code behind it is also very old. Thanks to the efforts of Thrax37, one of our newest contributors, the code has been cleaned up, and bugs with it were fixed, including one fairly serious bug which reset the cooldown timers in some situations! Furthermore, Thrax37 has gone onto working on other issues, so we can expect to see great things from them in the future! Good job!


And thats it for now! If you want to see top secret stuff, join the discord server where you can chat to the devs, ask questions, spy on the process and get all the exclusive goodies and more! Also feel free to leave feedback either on the forum thread or in the discord. Remember, feedback is very important!

Lastly, we are always looking for more contributors, so if you are interested in creating things, whether thats code, 2d art, models, music or anything else, do get in touch! We also provide all the resources and guidance needed, so don't worry if you think you are missing any skills, we will be glad to see you!

[Exotic_Retard]

Hello everyone,

A few weeks back we about Nomads in 2020, and if you havent yet read it, read it now. Today we are talking about even more models, and showing you a couple of sketches. Additionally, Development Streams Are Available.

As always, this content you can spy ahead in the Nomads Development Discord, so if you want to get the exclusive info before everyone else, chat to the devs, ask questions or even contribute, you can do that here.



T3 Amphibious Tank
The T3 light tank for nomads is currently a hover tank. This isnt working out that well for it, and so we are planning on making it go along the sea floor instead. This means that it needs a new model for that to work, and here is what we have come up with so far.



This particular model has been quite a bit of trouble, having gone through several iterations already, and none of them being quite good enough. This last one seems to be promising though, so we might end up with it looking like this, or not. Time will tell. The idea for this model was to focus a little bit on what makes it amphibious and turn that into the characteristic of the unit. In other words, we are going to have a fantastic submerging animation. We expect everyone to be amazed when it emerges out of the water onto the shore and unpacks its turret to shoot at their enemies, so stay tuned.

Also, there is a recording of the making of these two scribbles, enjoy:
https://youtu.be/4kPgnRaApm0

And here you can see some of the older designs that didnt make it. There are a lot more than just those, one day when the unit is finished we might post a complete list, but for now its a secret!





Many More Models
Continuing his crusade from last week, Marlo has been very busy drowning everyone in his work, so its only fair to show some of it off to you guys. Not everything here is going to get into the mod eventually, but some of it is, and they are all nice to look at, so enjoy.







And thats it for now! If you want to see top secret stuff, join the discord server where you can chat to the devs, ask questions, spy on the process and get all the exclusive goodies and more! Also feel free to leave feedback either on the forum thread or in the discord. Remember, feedback is very important!

Lastly, we are always looking for more contributors, so if you are interested in creating things, whether thats code, 2d art, models, music or anything else, do get in touch! We also provide all the resources and guidance needed, so don't worry if you think you are missing any skills, we will be glad to see you!

[Exotic_Retard]

Hello everyone,

A few weeks back we about Nomads in 2020, and if you havent yet read it, read it now. Today we are talking about a couple of difficult models, and some of our advances in the code. Lastly, check out our development streams.

As always, this content you can spy ahead in the Nomads Development Discord, so if you want to get the exclusive info before everyone else, chat to the devs, ask questions or even contribute, you can do that here.



Static Anti Air
Previously, we have worked on the models for the anti air and point defence turrets. These would end up as secondary weapons on various units, as well as T1 static defenses. One longstanding issue was that there was no base to these, so thats what we have been working on.





T3 Amphibious Tank Model
Since last weeks sketch, we have got a nice little model from Marlo. Its pretty simple so far and has a long way to go, but it might be finally a tank concept that might get finished. We will see what the future holds, as always. Meanwhile you can have a look at the model and the sketch its based on.








Lots of Refactoring
Recently we have been working pretty hard on cleaning up the code for the mod. The existing code base has been rather old and had many fixes on top of fixes on top of fixes. This led to it being pretty bloated, laggy and hard to maintain. So throughout the last year or so we have been fixing it as we went along. In the past week or so thanks to speed quite a lot of stuff got fixed. Here is what was done so far:
- A bunch of one line functions has been replaced, making the game run a little bit faster overall
- The building beam effects of all nomads units were rewritten, making the code a lot smaller, and a whole lot faster. We previously fixed a similar bug which we fixed by reducing the effects of these beams, but now things should be even faster, so thats great.
- Quite a lot of files got cleaned up, with random lines removed, random file imports, old useless code deleted. Again, things should become faster thanks to that.

Theres more coming in that department as usual, so great job speed! Be sure to thank him when you see him as well.

And thats it for now! If you want to see top secret stuff, join the discord server where you can chat to the devs, ask questions, spy on the process and get all the exclusive goodies and more! Also feel free to leave feedback either on the forum thread or in the discord. Remember, feedback is very important!

Lastly, we are always looking for more contributors, so if you are interested in creating things, whether thats code, 2d art, models, music or anything else, do get in touch! We also provide all the resources and guidance needed, so don't worry if you think you are missing any skills, we will be glad to see you!

[Exotic_Retard]

Hello everyone,

Last week we released our first nomads patch this year, featuring the t1 tank model! And this week we will be going through yet another turn in the t2 amphibious tank models development. Lastly, check out our development streams.

As always, this content you can spy ahead in the Nomads Development Discord, so if you want to get the exclusive info before everyone else, chat to the devs, ask questions or even contribute, you can do that here.



T2 Amphibious Tank
If you have been keeping up with the development diaries, you may notice that this is definitely not the first time we are visting this unit. And its likely not the last time either. This started with a miscommunication between the developers, where we accidentally ended up with a design for a hover tank, which you can see below.



When we needed one that would go along the seabed so the result of that was a quickly thrown together design that in hindisght was not the most inspired being a little bit too simple. Marlo had a good go at it, but since the idea wasnt that great the model was pretty hard for him to get right. We parked it for a while at this stage to see what might come up later. You can see both the sketch and his models with some markups below.




And in the end something did come up. Its the image right at the top of this post! The above model was actually just a random marlo model. He seems to be good at those, with his models bringing new ideas to the table quite a lot recently, which is all in all rather great. And now we are planning to appropriate the model into the new t2 hover tank. Being an amphibious unit, it needs to be distinctive in its apparent function, which might be a bit of a challenge. Its pop-up elements should help with that.

You can see just how much has changed, but perhaps also a couple of similarities. Is this the last time we will be visiting this unit? Not likely. We will be sure to keep you updated. But so far this does seem to be one of the more convoluted development cycles for our units. Shows just how much time goes into each unit, and the kinds of adventures we go on during their development.


And thats it for now! If you want to see top secret stuff, join the discord server where you can chat to the devs, ask questions, spy on the process and get all the exclusive goodies and more! Also feel free to leave feedback either on the forum thread or in the discord. Remember, feedback is very important!

Lastly, we are always looking for more contributors, so if you are interested in creating things, whether thats code, 2d art, models, music or anything else, do get in touch! We also provide all the resources and guidance needed, so don't worry if you think you are missing any skills, we will be glad to see you!

[Exotic_Retard]

Hello everyone,

Last week we talked about the T2 amphibious tank, and this week we will be talking about a new unit for the Nomads. The T1 Artillery Boat! Lastly, check out our development streams.

As always, this content you can spy ahead in the Nomads Development Discord, so if you want to get the exclusive info before everyone else, chat to the devs, ask questions or even contribute, you can do that here.



T1 Artillery boat
If you have been paying close attention to previous diaries, you may have seen this before; this is going to be a new unit for the Nomads. They are going to have a special navy setup, rather than having just the frigate, they will also have an anti air boat. Similar to how their T1 mobile artillery works, this ship is armed with all purpose missiles, which can fire at ground units too with unguided missiles, acting as artillery. The frigate itself will also get a redo, and wont have any anti air capabilities.
Marlo was working on this unit a while back, and now its entering the next phase of its development - cleaning up.


This sounds like a quick job, but its much more involved than that. Before a model gets put into the mod it needs to have every single vertex in it just right, and taking things from nearly there to perfect is quite a step. In this case it needed remodelling the whole thing one part at a time, and we are not yet done, either!



Check out the differences between this image and the image above. There arent that many visible, but the model has been remade almost from scratch. It has also been simplified, and a had few things removed since they are going to end up added back in during the cleanup, or even later with textures.

There are a few mistakes visible in the model. Can you find some? This stage is when all that gets resolved, but also when the design of the model is refined into its final version, such as working out exactly how the front of the bridge is done.

In some cases this part of the process can take longer than making the model itself. Check out some of these peculiarities that will need to be fixed:


The bit behind the bridge has some overlapping geometry, and some stuff poking out.



Here is a part of the body clipping through the engine on its side, which will reqiure a remodel of the side details to make the engine fit snugly to the ship.



And here is a gap between the body and the cameras on the side, meaning these are floating!



And thats it for now! If you want to see top secret stuff, join the discord server where you can chat to the devs, ask questions, spy on the process and get all the exclusive goodies and more! Also feel free to leave feedback either on the forum thread or in the discord. Remember, feedback is very important!

Lastly, we are always looking for more contributors, so if you are interested in creating things, whether thats code, 2d art, models, music or anything else, do get in touch! We also provide all the resources and guidance needed, so don't worry if you think you are missing any skills, we will be glad to see you!

[FunkOff]

Is the frigate going to have a torpedo weapon to attack subsurface targets? Or will Nomads have 3 t1 ships like aeon?

[Apofenas]

Is the frigate going to have a torpedo weapon to attack subsurface targets? Or will Nomads have 3 t1 ships like aeon?

Nomads are going to have 3 t1 ships. T1 sub, Frigate with no aa and TMD as secondary ability and AA/Artillery boat - something like aeon Shard but with missiles as secondary ability (more like naval version of nomad t1 maa/arty).

[Exotic_Retard]

Hello everyone,

Last week we talked about the T1 Artillery boat, and this week we will be covering Air staging. Check it out. Lastly, check out our development streams.

As always, this content you can spy ahead in the Nomads Development Discord, so if you want to get the exclusive info before everyone else, chat to the devs, ask questions or even contribute, you can do that here.



The Hangar
The Nomads really like their space stuff, and we thought it would make for a refreshing change to make the air staging facility a little more exciting. So instead of just anything the nomads might get a hangar. We are still working on the practical tests since we arent sure what would work best yet, but the model concept is going to be more enclosed than the typical air staging.

Instead of approaching from the top, the aircraft would go inside the structure and dock there instead. There are quite a few possibilities with gameplay that would need to be tested. Here are some ideas we are looking at:
1.it works just like regular air staging - this is the safe route
2.instead of just docking, the aircraft will go inside fully, just like in an aircraft carrier. these aircraft would then be hidden and untargetable, giving an interesting faction advantage to the nomads.

What would you like to see? Leave your comments in our discord.



Right now the model is still in its sketch stage, and you can see some explorations of the shape above. The last iteration is in the middle left, and could feature animated opening doors to accept larger aircraft from the top as they come in, while smaller ones enter through the sides.

Lastly, this design idea might end up as a different unit. There is some scope to make this the air factory instead, or even have both air staging and the air factory look similar.

Surprise Legs
Now, before you get too excited, none of these models are planned to make it into the mod, but recently Redmelevolence had quite some fun taking existing nomads parts and combining them into wonderful and weird new things. You will notice, all of them have legs. Check these out:



This one is a 4 leg gun emplacement, possibly for artillery or anti air use.



This one has 6 legs, and is using both acu and beamer parts.



And here is another picture of the same thing from a different angle.



Lastly we have this rather beefy looking mech. This one sparked interesting ideas for both ACU and SCU models, but nothing concrete.
And just to be clear again, none of these are planned to make it into the mod itself, they were just for fun.
All of these units have been made from existing nomads models. Can you recognize which bits are from where?


And thats it for now! If you want to see top secret stuff, join the discord server where you can chat to the devs, ask questions, spy on the process and get all the exclusive goodies and more! Also feel free to leave feedback either on the forum thread or in the discord. Remember, feedback is very important!

Lastly, we are always looking for more contributors, so if you are interested in creating things, whether thats code, 2d art, models, music or anything else, do get in touch! We also provide all the resources and guidance needed, so don't worry if you think you are missing any skills, we will be glad to see you!

[Exotic_Retard]

Hello everyone,

Last week we talked about Air staging, and this week we will be talking about the world borders. Lastly, check out our development streams.

As always, this content you can spy ahead in the Nomads Development Discord, so if you want to get the exclusive info before everyone else, chat to the devs, ask questions or even contribute, you can do that here.



World Borders

So, it might not be clear what a world border is. Check out the image below for an explanation. Its the thing that appears around the map so you arent staring into blackness.



What you see here is a quick test to make sure our model is going to work in game. There is quite a lot of stuff going on here, even though it doesnt look like much. For example, we are taking a different approach to texturing and polygons, which means that we can expect to have a lot more details to play with than the other factions borders. To make things more clear, the model in the game has around 6000 vertices, while the UEF world border has about 35000. So we are at a fraction of the complexity, which we will be increasing back up to the same level, but ending up with a lot more details in our world borders.

the downside of this approach is that our texture resolutions will be lower in some areas of the model. This is a manageable problem though, and by using clever methods we can really make the most of things without impacting game performance.



For instance, we can place most of the details in the centre of the model, since the edges of the model are rarely visible, and when they are, they are often obscured by fog, so texture density doesnt matter much over there.

Lastly, just earlier today Utter has made a great contribution to the model by adding some extra details to it, which are shown in green.



A thing to bear in mind is that this is a version thats not the same as the ingame screenshots, so there are other things that are not green, but also different. Maybe you can spot some differences with that version from here.

Lastly, note that this is still a work in progress, but when we are done we can expect to have the best world borders ever, and with no performance impact. Incidentally, the black plane bug is fixed with these borders, so if they are finished soon you can play on those maps without anything breaking.

And thats it for now! If you want to see top secret stuff, join the discord server where you can chat to the devs, ask questions, spy on the process and get all the exclusive goodies and more! Also feel free to leave feedback either on the forum thread or in the discord. Remember, feedback is very important!

Lastly, we are always looking for more contributors, so if you are interested in creating things, whether thats code, 2d art, models, music or anything else, do get in touch! We also provide all the resources and guidance needed, so don't worry if you think you are missing any skills, we will be glad to see you!