What's up, RMers?

[Kain Nobel]

I'm updating sprites and getting my Big Ticket items list ready. These are things that I've already been working on, but I need to schedule proper time to give them full work.

Big ticket items usually consist of vehicles and machinery; as such, I have 4 cars, a truck, a semi and a helicopter all works in progress. Somehow I lost the motorcycle and bicycle sprites, so I'll add those to the list (maybe I'll find them again, I know I made some...) They have a checklist for interior and exterior details to work on and feature some animated and semi-functional components too. If I don't get to them in Q42023 they'll be on the 2024 schedule. Then I have the heavy mechanized units list, which are sometimes passive environmental set pieces and other times are active in map, battle or other arenas of the game. Honorable mention to the wheelchair and walker crowd, their items will need to be made too.

I'm going to attempt a layered and templated approach to vehicles. Give them pieces like a character sprite. Different wheels, headlights, tailights, etc = different makes and models. Most things have semi-transparent windows to view a character, some don't. Some will feature all 4 directions, most won't (trying to be conservative about resources, since I'll be creating/using a TON one way or another.) If I have 20 base vehicles (not counting re-colors or other variants), only 4 of them will have a smooth turn. I'm thinking maybe a couple will turn right (North) while traveling left (West). No left turns. Most vehicles will be travelling left/right or parked. Some will travel north/south. Meh, nobody wants to hear about all that, it's just something I need to plan for.

The next thing is in the 2023 schedule and is already half done, but it'll wind up being one of my most complex and involved items on the mechanized units checklist (it's an entire tileset for the submarine). Most things from it don't ever get reused, except maybe flooring and wall tiles, so it's the most unique resource of the project (horonable mention of the freight train. I have no space ship planned (yet) but will be doing an airship which might reuse from the sub.) Also, it'll probably be one of the few maps where you can't visit the whole thing and the bottom floors probably won't even be available to the player (except maybe for a cutscene or something). Anywho...

Request : Taking movie recommendations. I need to watch some movies involving submarines and other mechanized goodies. If you know some good ones, let me know and thanks!

Declassified : Nuclear Submarine Layout, F3


Pictured : Submarine interior concept. Scale 1 pixel = 1 32x32 tile.

From top to bottom.

• Cabin : The main cabin, where all the steering and communicating on a big screen with foreign, domestic, military, government and possibly interstellar officials happen.
  
• Living Quarters : Living quarters for crew. This living quarters is for all the head honchos, the peons actually sleep below.
  
• Missile Room : Room with missiles. These things can lock onto interstellar objects as well as planetary targets, but are mainly for Gaia based warfare (sadly).
  
• Reactor Room : A bunch of nuclear reactors, plus some [classified] R&D.
  
• Engine Room : The engine room also has some quarters for [top secret] R&D.
  

Ignore the fact that the cabin chamber is painted red; it's what I'm working on and I have nothing to say about it. Well, it's a little Star Trek inspired, but I can't say much more.

I believe most of this map will be explorable, but the bottom floors will be very limited accessible and used for the purpose of dungeon and/or cutscene. The top floor will be boss fight then eventually one of the few mobile HQ for the heroes once they kick some ass and take over. That's probably when the bottom floors will be fully unlocked and you can just loot and talk to your converted recruits (whom were disillusioned with the old regime, of course, because that's how that trope plays out.)
 
Declassified : Engine Room (Work in Progress)

The engine room in the very back (bottom) is planned to consist of 19x60 tiles of animated machinery; an engine, rotating axel, full sized mainframe computer stations for the troops to manage, drip-friendly plated flooring, pipes, gears, chutes in tight spaces for personnel to access, etc.

Early work on the Engine room. I'm crossing my fingers it turns out good once it's done. I don't really know what all I want to do with it, but I'll try to add an explorable element to this giant set piece. The engine itself is probably way too silly, so that may or may not be incorporated into the final design. Obviously, this is low detail but it'll eventually be fully colorized and texturized with some shiny, greasy, grimy and sometimes a little rusty metal. Hoping to give much of this an animated element, whether it's a fuzzy computer screen attached, some little gadgetry with blinking lights, steam coming from a pipe, maybe an oil drip somewhere, etc...

Maybe I'll throw a glowing crystal on it and power it with Chaos Emeralds hahaha o.o Meh.




Declassified : Nuclear Warhead Room, F3

This ugly screenshot shows the scale of the missiles. An unauthorized civilian gained access to this chamber and took unauthorized photographs and leaked them to the internet. That's OK, he's in a hole now so no threat to national security, HOORAH!!!



It's very rare for the Myran Ministry of Defense to allow the publication of photographic materials related to military technology, so it is a privilege for me to be able to share these with you all. Let those bastards in the Chilkaid intelligence community know this is all outdated tech, what we have now blows this out of the water, and WE'RE COMING FOR REVENGE MOFOS hahaha! Let's commence the war games!

(It's the year 20XX, nuclear technology is laughably ancient and unnecessarily for the proper conduct of kinetic warfare. We don't mess with nuclear anymore, we got GREEN ENERGY (souls) and it is a very high precision weapon with minimal fallout! [citation needed])

WIP : Attack Helicopter


This ugly thing will eventually be a fully featured helicopter. I have no idea why there are two naked people in there, but it should comfortably fit 8 troops + a pilot and co-pilot once it's done.

Declassified : Old Reactor



I don't know how I feel about them authorizing the declassification of this piece, but here is our nuclear reactor and the silly missile. The MREG194 was manufactured by PRAGMA International and these were actually decommissioned back in 1984. Either way, they're making a comeback due to lack of GREEN ENERGY. That's OK, we'll re-up soon enough on our precious renewable resource, just gotta crack some skulls.

This is just a tileset test, seeing how well it potentially all goes together. Obviously, the layout of the reactor room will be more like the one in the mini-map above.

New Trap : Spinning Blade

I'll have to finish this sprite and program the event. Good grief. BTW watch your limbs, everything about these dungeons are designed to cause fatal bodily harm. Even the double bladed variant will be passable, but you have to be very quick and careful. In most cases, it helps to travel the direction the blade is spinning. But I'll be throwing the player a curveball, they'll have to travel against the blade a couple times. Of course, yes, it is avoidable so good luck Chuck! Yeah, I can be pretty cruel sometimes...