Nomads Development Diaries

[Exotic_Retard]

Hello everyone,

Last week we talked about the world borders, and today we are looking at a concept for the mass extractors. 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.



Mass Extractor
During todays stream we explored on what mass extractors might look like. They are a rather complicated unit, which give us both plenty of constraints and just as many opportunities. The unit comes in three tech levels, and needs both upgrade animations, as well as a mining animation.

The idea we are looking at here is a fairly minimal structure, with a bare bones set up. It has three mining drills which move up and down when the mex is active, which is pretty simple so far. To let it support upgrades, there is a hangar on one side, with the mining rigs attached to a rail. The upgrade animation will involve the hangar building a mining drill, which will then slide out along the rail and unpack into position.

This led to quite some limitations, and was a little bit of a challenge to make sure all the parts can actually fit inside the hangar on the side, and that they will slide along properly. You can see a few attempts at side sketches trying to work out how the drills will attach to the rail, and also some stuff to counterbalance the drills on the other side. Taking a purely functional approach here was difficult, but also pretty fun and hopefully will result in an interesting unit.

Surprise scribble
This wasnt really anything, just a quick drawing for fun. I started out by drawing some sort of building shape, but then after adding an eye to it, it became more of a robot head. After that I messed around with its methods of locomotion, thinking that maybe it could hover around or be on wheels.

Things like this dont serve a direct purpose, but they do get ideas going, and could lead somewhere interesting. Where might this one lead us? We dont know. Can you think of something?

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 mass extractor concepts, and this week we are continuing the theme and looking at some storage buildings. 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.



Possible distruption to Diaries next week.

There has been quite a queue of posts for whats new all of a sudden, and since none of them are being combined, and all of them need to be posted, Nomads might need a bit of delaying, from sunday next week to tuesday next week. This isnt a super organised effort however so who knows what will actually happen, but being warned for possible disruptions is a good idea.

Mass and Energy Storage
Storages are quite interesting buildings since they are rather dynamic, with the building also being a visual indicator for your storage levels. They need to have a large part of the building moving around, and showing clearly what is going on. This means we can really go for that idea and make some stuff going on.


This is a different concept, which might be for either mass or energy storage. Right now we arent making a difference between them, and just seeing where the ideas develop before locking them in, and adjusting to make them more suited for their roles. This idea features three sliders that are diagonal, which is a potentially nice move since when viewed from above its more obvious if its full.

Marlos Models
As always, marlo jumps in with his models out of nowhere and shows what these sketches might look like in a more salient fashion. This immediately helps us make a design review, and move onto the next iteration.



Here you can see that the model above isnt too inspiring, which clearly shows the flaws in the design, so the next iteration is to try a tower like design, where the rising area is a very prominent part of the unit, which should hopefully make it more dynamic.



And we also got a couple of other ideas for the storages, this one is a bit more traditional, with the stored elements being arranged similar to the seraphim version.



The Nomads Coffee Machine
Marlo decided to have a little fun and convert the storage into a coffee machine. Its great. 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!

[vongratz]

I loved the coffe machine , but much more the T2 amphibious missile launcher , that fires from the bottom of the sea . This unit means new tactics, strategies , good criativity, together with diversity , the magic word !!!

[Exotic_Retard]

Hello everyone,

Last week we talked about mass storages, and this week we are looking at building kits. 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.



Delayed Post
As promised last week, this post is coming out a bit later than usual. Hopefully things will be back to normal next week, but there may yet be more posts in the posting queue. Things arent too organised and so its a bit hard to say whether nomads might have to be shifted again.

Kits
You may be wondering: what is a kit? Just to confuse you, its not what is on the top image, that is a top secret teaser we are posting just for you to guess at.

A kit, also known as a kit of parts is just that - a collection of model parts that you can then use to create a model. Sometimes they are sold online, but in this case we are talking about making our very own for Nomads. Here is the above top secret model broken into its component pieces. There arent that many of them:


The reason why is pretty simple - consistency. One of the most important things for a faction is to have units that have a consistent style. This is quite difficult without also making the models generic, and so it would take a long time working on each model to bring it to the same theme as the rest.

One way to make units look consistent is to make sure they have similar details. A circle shape thats got one type of detail looks more similar to a square shape than the same circle with a different type of detail. Check out this somewhat crude comparison:



Using kits will help us add a few details to our units that will make them share components, and in doing so look similar to each other. Its important to not overuse kits since then it may become obvious that parts are being reused and the units start to look a lot less creative. What we are concentrating on is the use of recognizable parts - those which add character to a model - which would be used once or twice per unit as small but visible details, that let us have loads of varying shapes, while still looking uniform.



Hopefully these measures will help us make models with even higher quality, faster. We will see.

Marlos Models
At this rate, we might have to make this a weekly section at the bottom of each post. This is a good thing. Once again Marlo slammed out a couple of models from nowhere. Check them out.



Here he just went and made a range finder, presumably inspired by some of the work on radars.



And then another one. These ones in particular are unlikely to make it into the mod, but they are already creating new ideas for what will, and so doing a pretty important job as a result.

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,

The last post we showed you some building kits, and today we will be showing you some explosions. 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.



RKs Explosions
The short news is that RKs explosions now supports Nomads! The mod is available for download from the mod vault right now, and also check out RKs forum thread.

Meanwhile, enjoy these screenshots of Nomads units being blown up:


The idea here is that Nomads use plasma as their power sources, so when their stuff gets destroyed clouds of the plasma are released, rather than having smoke or fire.





These effects can still do with plenty of work, and some things such as effects for experimentals havent been done yet. Also RK is going to be working on making weapon effects and other such stuff for Nomads as well, so stay tuned for that.

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,

The last post we mentioned RKs Nomads support, and today we will cover project organisation, and gunships. 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.



Artists wanted
The picture above isnt planned to be inside the playable game, but it is a part planned Nomads stuff. We will leave it for you to guess what it is. (with some research you can find out)

With that out of the way, if you are interested in drawing stuff like that, we are looking for people who can draw concepts for nomads to look for some more ideas, and in general to have fun drawing/painting. If thats you, drop by and we can have a chat.

Nomads To-Do List
Ajack has taken a little time to help set up this rather nice list of things that need doing for nomads models. We have been asked a few times as to whats left, and now we have a single place for all Nomads related info. We also plan to try moving some of the documentation and story to this, so stay tuned on that front. In the meantime, enjoy both a nice image:



And the interactive version below, where you can see what stage every unit is at:
https://share.clickup.com/b/h/5-10558774-2/3e8701dc24a9cee

Lastly, we have a list that covers everything above, as well as non-model related stuff such as explosions, the campaign, and more:
https://share.clickup.com/l/h/4-4394431-1/4940a6e661aa97d

Hopefully that should give you an idea of what stages various parts of the mod are at, and also where you can jump in to help. In short though: help is needed everywhere.

Gunship sketch models
Thanks to Redmelevolence, we have some very early sketch models for the Nomads gunships, for all three tech levels:



These are the first few models that are using the building kit mentioned a couple of weeks back, and as its developed further, things should come along even faster.
The advantage of using kits is that you can churn out models really quickly, and in the right style since everything is made out of nomads parts. These ones in particular took a couple of hours and already look quite detailed.

That said, these are still very early models and we can expect that there will be quite a long road ahead for them before they are done.



Here is another view of the T2/3 gunships. The models already look pretty convincing, but being made out of kits makes them pretty messy and inefficient. While that is being worked on we can also expect the design to change a little to make them a bit more unique looking, and in general add a bit more polish.

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,

The last post we mentioned project organisation, and today we will talk about 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.



Artists (still) wanted
Last week we mentioned that we are looking for artists and modellers, and this week we are letting you know again. We already got a couple of prospective contributors from the previous post, but as always more are needed. If you can draw or know things about 3d modelling, then this may be for you. We have quite a number of concepts that need drawing, developing, with fan art also welcome. If that sounds like something you are interested in, give us a ping on the discord.

Today is Monday
There has been a bit of a queue this weekend in posting news, and so we decided to wait until Monday to post, to avoid upsetting people too much. There is rather little organisation going on on that front so we can either post in each others faces or check before we post. Next week hopefully things will clear up and the post can be on time again.

Artillery boat
This is the mostly finished model of the artillery boat, which is planned to be added to deal with anti air and ground targets for the Nomads. The T1 frigate will also get a few changes to make them work together, such as having its anti air removed. The model itself is now almost ready for being finalized, it just needs a couple of tweaks, and then it will be optimised for the game, unwrapped, and textured. Check it out:



Currently the model doesnt have any team colours, which are going to be added at the texture stage, so everything looks rather grey. At this point we dont add any of those designs, aside from really basic indications of what is going to be what, such as the glowing faces, and which faces will be dark and which will be light.



The overall idea for T1 nomads units is that they are pretty bare bones. As such we looked at having a sort of sled-like quality to the boat, where its bridge is minimised to the point of being non existent. You can check how low its profile is above the rest of the boat. We made it progressively lower every iteration, and it now has an interesting quality to it as a result.



The boat also features space-craft style engines on the rear and sides, to help give it that spacefaring look. One of the ideas behond nomads navy is that the ship designs were very hastily converted to work in the water from existing spacefaring blueprints, so things like engines and such are modified to work in the water instead of designing a new navy from scratch.

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 post we showed you the T1 artillery boat, and this week gamenders, mass extractors, and a mystery picture. 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.



Even more artists wanted
Following our previous advert, we got a couple of great guys contributing to the mod, but we need many more than just one or two. The last post got covered up almost instantly so most people missed the follow up, so here it is again: If you can draw or make 3D models, and are interested in making something for a project, then talk to us in the discord server. We will be glad to have you, as well as provide you with tools and top secrets.

Also, we thought it might be interesting to put up a top secret picture up there with no explanation of what it might be. Can you guess what it is? The answer will be covered in next weeks post!

Disruptions to Diary postings
So in the past week there has been quite a bunch of stuff going on with news posts, a whole new promo councillor appearing, and nomads getting shoved aside to make way, which led to one post getting delayed and then the next one cancelled entirely, finally with this one getting delayed as well. Hopefully things will calm down a bit and we can resume our scheduled sunday posts again. We will have to see.

Surprise game ender
Well, its not quite a surprise to us, since the Nomads have been missing one for a while now so we had shared some ideas for one a while back and decided on something that has a pretty unique flavour to it - a game ender factory. Unfortunately after that the idea sat around for quite a while with no development on that end, which ended quite suddenly when Utter asked me for a drawing of it:



I quickly threw together the first idea that was floating around and put it on, not really expecting much.



By the next day there was already a sketch model up. This still has quite some work to do but it was very surprising that it was there at all. I thought that there would be more time to get some more concrete ideas together, so i really quickly rushed out some more, after thinking that there might be a lost opportunity with the more traditional dry dock approach to the model.



None of those really turned out that well since they were done so fast, but we will see where that might lead us in the future.

Mass Extractor Models
Armaster has been working away at the mass extractor models. Since those can upgrade into each other we start with the T3 version and work our way down. So far this is still very early stages for the model, with just the basic idea nailed down. Check out the pretty pictures:







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 post we talked about Nomads structures and have you a mystery picture, this week we explain what it is, and show some more model work on the side. 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.



Artists still wanted
If you can draw or make models, the mod needs your help. We run on contributors wanting to work, and there is only a handful of people working on it right now. If you are interested in helping out, you can make a huge difference, so ask around on the discord server if that sounds like you.

Power generators, Mass-fabs, and other structures
So, last week we posted a picture with no rhyme or reason, and this week we get to explain it! Clockwork has been hard at work making all sorts of neat models and animations for Nomads buildings, and what you saw there was an early try at the T3 Pgen, here it is again:



That said, its most likely no longer going to be used, instead being taken apart and added to the building kit, since it looks pretty cool but doesnt quite show that its a power generator at a glance. Here are some of the earlier models and things explored. Can you guess which is which?





Here is a closeup of one of the buildings, this one is a try at the T2 mass fabricator, which is meeting a similar fate to the T3 pgen above - repurposing into building parts. This may seem like the model isnt successful if its not going into the mod, but since the style is pretty inkeeping it gets to be reused later, and serves as a style guide for future models, meaning that it is still very useful on its own.



Here is a more updated version of the T2 power generator, or at least a candidate for it. Currently there is a little debate on whether it is more suited to being a mass fabricator or not. Which role do you think it suits most?



And finally here is another mass fabricator concept which resulted in this fantastic animation - instead of having fabricators, the nomads could have landing pads that recieve materials from space. Its a great idea, but can also provide some of its own issues in terms of visual effects - this model is currently very small so the pods would be hard to make out. Additionally there is the issue of where the pods should appear, since you cant have them actually coming from space, as that would cover the screen with tiny pods falling. We are currently exploring other options for how mass fabricators could look like, with this being one of them. Perhaps this particular model might find use somewhere else, as part of a larger scale building or maybe even a campaign objective.

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 post we showed you some building models, and this week we are going to talk about the T2 Destroyer, and some decisions behind its design process. 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.



Artists still wanted
This may be the last chance for you to see this! (reason below) So if you are interested in helping out with the mods development, join the discord and ask questions.

The Last Dev diary before the news hub?
So, it just so happens that in a few days time there should be a wonderful new way of viewing the news, which makes this post one of the last posts to show up before the transition. It also means that the future of Nomads dev diaries is a little uncertain. The nature of the new news hub will mean that we might be moving away from posts and towards little bits of info, such as tips and tricks. There is still some scope for dev diaries, but it may be reduced, or even made obsolete. In any case, interesting times await.

Update to the T2 destroyer
So Marlo has been busy working on all sorts of models, and among them is the destroyer, whose design has just been finalised and is now moving to the cleanup stage, where it will get some slight tweaks and optimisations before being UV unwrapped, and textured. There is still plenty of work to do, with the unit being somewhere past the halfway point in its development.



As the model was being worked on, there were ongoing discussions with Apofenas - who is in charge of balancing the faction - as to what role it should have, with weapons being added and removed up until last week. For example, there were going to be some torpedo defenses on the sides of the ship, however they were removed entirely in the end to make the unit more specialised, and rely on support units such as the planned EMP boat to provide that functionality. You can see what the defenses would have looked like below:



This was quite an interesting process as we are having to design many units at once in order to make sure they will work with each other later, as opposed to working on them one at a time. Additionally there are other considerations as well, such as the transition between old and new units - if we replace a unit that has different weapons on it, it will affect the balance of the faction and will need to have that taken into account until the other units are replaced. For reasons like this we may have to wait until multiple units are done and release them together, which is what we are considering for the Artillery boat and the T1 Frigate replacement, which are designed to work in tandem.

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!