Todays update is pretty routine. Further expansion and refinement of those things already in the game. However I have news to accompany this update. As of yesterday I am now, technically, unemployed. I have my staffing agency looking for new work and I myself with be doing groundwork on this front as well. Until then though I am back to working on Frontiers Reach full time! While it was interesting working at a major corporation, I experienced many of the negative stereotypes I expected to experience and have experienced at previous jobs. Which killed any desire I had to remain working there. The manipulation. Not talking about critical issues. Dancing and tip toeing around peoples feelings and egos. Irrational behavior based entirely off of misconceptions about what other people have said. The list goes on. I have absolutely zero interest in dealing with such things. But enough of my complaining.... We have updates to cover and a game to keep building. Level Set Dressing - The past month I got started on set dressing the planetary levels with towns and villages. Some levels even got some new environmental features. This effort has been primarily focused around planetary levels so far but will eventually be extended to space levels.



New Starfighter - Last month was apparently Starship September, so I ran through a new design process with the community to create the Yankowics EF-18 Kruk. It's an agile, but lightly armed and armored electronic warfare platform. In terms of gameplay balance this means it has the highest radar range of anything in the game right now.
[previewyoutube=uadEgsO1iww;full][/previewyoutube] [previewyoutube=UUEqvjAWF9g;full][/previewyoutube] Experimentation with AI Generated Imagery - This past week, I took some time to look at AI generated imagery. I'm hesitant to consider it art in the way I consider the work of Rembrandt or da Vinci to be art. But I do find it to be an outstanding tool for idea generation. In this, I find a tool that is perfect for communicating better with existing artists. While none of the images you will see below are images I would consider for final products, they are great resources for handing to a character artist. This is what we would call a Moodboard. A collection of images that best describe an idea without actually creating it. Leaving things open to interpretation and extrapolation on the part of the artist who is tasked with using it. This should bring out the best of both worlds.