Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak - prequel from ex-Relic devs

[Wirdschowerdn]

http://www.desertsofkharak.com




https://af.gog.com/game/homeworld_deserts_of_kharak?as=1649904300

Spoiler

I swear I'm spending more money on kickstarter projects these days than anything else...

 

[Tzaero]

I reckon after the amount of incline in RPGs next we'll see quite an incline in strategy games.

Or not.....

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

Long March Industries (LMI) is a ruthless interstellar megacorporation that owns all rights to LM-27, a mysterious and hostile desert planet littered with the buried wrecks of ancient starships. LMI oversees a galactic gold-rush as prospectors and fortune seekers converge on LM-27 in search of the untold riches buried in its burning sands. In this persistent multiplayer game, players command a fleet of massive vehicles as they explore, salvage and fight for fortune and survival in the world’s first planetary-scale social strategy game.

Fuck them, fuck them in the asshole. And I was about to sign up for the beta.

 

[potatojohn]

Derelict starships in a desert literally makes no sense whatsoever. If a spaceship's propulsion fails, it's stuck in orbit, it won't just fall onto a planet. And if it did somehow enter uncontrolled reentry, it would disintegrate in the atmosphere.

 

[Hellraiser]

I see the homeworld artist is also behind this or at least they're imitating his style

Derelict starships in a desert literally makes no sense whatsoever. If a spaceship's propulsion fails, it's stuck in orbit, it won't just fall onto a planet. And if it did somehow enter uncontrolled reentry, it would disintegrate in the atmosphere.

Depends how long it has been stuck there and on what orbit. Planets are not perfect spheres, there are variations in gravitational pull which do affect orbits, also atmospheric drag affects objects a lot further out than people think. You also have to take into consideration the pull of other bodies which does change orbits, tidal effects are why Phobos will eventually crash into Mars. The ISS needs to get regular boosts of a few dozen delta-v per year to keep its orbit (which is why missions need to be often enough), even Hubble which is on a higher orbit needs them although less frequently. All satellites have some sort of propulsion to allow orbital station-keeping, ion engines getting popular lately. This is pretty much the limiting factor on how long satellites can operate.

Even with no atmosphere decay happens, a lot of the debris/spent stages from the apollo missions which were in orbit eventually crashed into the moon. A low altitude lunar orbit is indeed risky because the Moon has mass concentrations beneath its maria which will cause the orbit to shift over time. That's ignoring the part that in the game they probably didn't crash there by complete accident but someone or something made them which is implied.

I can agree with you about the re-entry, although I can see it surviving re-entry if it is designed to do that in the first place. The issue is how does such a large object survive the impact mostly intact. Even with lower than earth's gravity the velocity should be sufficient to smash it to bits or into one jumbled ball of junk. Rule of plot, the plot demands it so it happens.

 

[DraQ]

Derelict starships in a desert literally makes no sense whatsoever. If a spaceship's propulsion fails, it's stuck in orbit, it won't just fall onto a planet. And if it did somehow enter uncontrolled reentry, it would disintegrate in the atmosphere.

It depends on a starship and its propulsion.

Our current space technology is basically tinfoil and it's powered by simply burning shit (ok, the shit here is actually hydrogen or at least kerosene, it's burned in pure oxygen, and there is a lot of hard engineering involved, but in the end you still fly on an oversized zippo).

If you had bigger and more sturdy chassis and honest, high thrust fusion drive, or at least nuke rocket allowing you to use somthing heavier than tinfoil, you might try to deorbit and survive reentry even in something not really designed to do so by just firing your drive a lot. Landing in something not designed to land would be rough, but in a large enough ship (a lot of stuff to take a hit between you and first the hot and unforgiving plasma sheath, then hard and unforgiving ground) you might survive if you had enough thrust to actually decrease your velocity. Ship would be a wreck, but not a crater.

We can't do that with current tech because we don't have remass (which in our case is also fuel) to spare and simply have to aerobrake, then glide or parachute to safety.

Of course, there is also the matter that derelict starship in a desert was part of Homeworld's premise (not a critical one, though, it would be easily changeable without affecting story) and Homeworld was awesome.

 

[Runciter]

Derelict starships in a desert literally makes no sense whatsoever. If a spaceship's propulsion fails, it's stuck in orbit, it won't just fall onto a planet. And if it did somehow enter uncontrolled reentry, it would disintegrate in the atmosphere.

Not saying it isn't derp, but you can say it's derp without being a smartass.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_decay

 

[potatojohn]

You can boost your orbit with RCS. If RCS is out there's no way you're successfully reentering.

But we're also talking about the short term. In the long term you'd call your spaceship insurance company to fix your engines.

 

[Diablo169]

It's ok guys, it's the Homeworld devs. They couldn't possibly fuck this up could they

For us at Blackbird, platform requirements were nebulous. We wanted to launch on social networks like Facebook, and then move onto mobile platforms including iPhone and Android, but tablets looked pretty good too, and a standalone PC build for Steam distribution also made sense. Consoles were a possibility in the future, depending on the success of the game.

 

[Lightknight]

It's ok guys, it's the Homeworld guys. They couldn't possibly fuck this up could they

Well, Homeworld was rather mediocre, so...

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

It's ok guys, it's the Homeworld guys. They couldn't possibly fuck this up could they

Well, Homeworld was rather mediocre, so...

 

[kaizoku]

May they fail and repent for their sins.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Fuck them, fuck them in the asshole. And I was about to sign up for the beta.

Maybe you'd like to apply for a job instead?
http://blackbirdinteractive.com/jobs/
Monetization designer sounds intriguing.

 

[Hellraiser]

Monetization designer?

 

[evdk]

I guess the Age of Strategy Incline is yet to come

 

[hiver]

Isnt this how you started in Homeworld? You found a crashed/buried derelict of a space ship in the desert? Then built your own?

persistent multiplayer game

go suck alien acid dongs

 

[DeepOcean]

Did they started this before or after the kickstarter mania started?

 

[DraQ]

Well, Homeworld was rather mediocre, so...

Lecę ci wpierdolić.

 

[Jashiin]

"Multiplayer"

 

[Lightknight]

Себе впердоль, фашистская морда.

 

[Ulminati]

Fuck them, fuck them in the asshole. And I was about to sign up for the beta.

Maybe you'd like to apply for a job instead?
http://blackbirdinteractive.com/jobs/
Monetization designer sounds intriguing.

Sent them my CV

 

[Stokowski]

Damn, thought it was a sequel to Hardwar.

 

[KoolNoodles]

Well at least they got Edward James Perlman to do some of the VA.

 

[DwarvenFood]

 

[Destroid]

Visual style is nice, but that script was pretty terrible. I don't imagine anything good will come from “the world’s first planetary-scale social strategy game.”