Firestorm Armada: Beta kommt

The global pandemic caused the greatest disruption to the studio since Wayland Games founded us in 2016. It wasn’t just our products and services from China and the United States that were affected. To protect our staff, our in house development and manufacturing facilities were closed for many months, including our fantastic state of the art resin and plastic injection departments as well as the studio itself. This caused us to rework our plans for the year quite drastically. We lost six months, but completely shutting down certain projects has actually caused a knock on effect which has disrupted things well into next year. In order to get things on track we have to look at our production schedule and consider what is important to develop and what needs to wait for a year or two before we can deliver it properly. So we looked at Firestorm and knew that there was no way it would be:

Yes, I know it’s a cheap shot putting something like that in an article like this. While some games will have to enter an extended period of ‘Development Hell’ being removed from our current release schedule (Planetfall and Uncharted Seas) and others will see themselves looking at delays into late 2021 and beyond (Lost World Exodus and Armoured Clash) as we open up space in the schedule to make certain we can support Dystopian Wars and Firestorm Armada in the right way.

I’m delighted to confirm (again) that the Firestorm Armada Beta will launch on Wednesday the 9th September 2020.

The Beta will run along similar lines to the successful Dystopian Wars Beta Test. Full details of how to get involved will be revealed in the coming weeks along with all the latest Firestorm news here at the Black Ocean – The Official Firestorm Armada Community Group. Not only will you be able to share your Beta Test discussions, but also you’ll find a wealth of sneak peeks, concept art and background material as the game takes shape. Find it all here.

Zuletzt gab es außerdem noch einmal eine Menge Previewbilder zu Schiffen und dem Universum:

For the Ba’Kash of the Kreel Clan, life in the Frenzy is especially unforgiving. Living at the hardscrabble end of Ba’Kashi society, those of the Kreel Clan are considered the most brutal and destructive. Though this might be considered an advantageous trait in Reavers, in reality, it has always appeared to be to the Kreel’s detriment. All too often a prized prey-craft will be annihilated rather than disabled for the Kreel to later rend them.

Preferring heavy maulers, large cruiser sized vessels rarely employed by other Clans, the Kreel focus more on unrelenting attack than the corralling and encircling tactics that most of the other clans employ. Kreel Clanships have more in common with other faction’s dreadnoughts than with the clanships of their kin.

In Reaver culture, the expression „Do not be of Kreel“ serves as both rebuke and warning to other Ba’Kash. It implies that someone is desperate for something but might waste the opportunity given. It can also mean that a Ba’Kash is behaving without thinking through the consequences. Or simply just being undesirable.

The Kreel Clan know too well of their reputation and the great cost that their behaviour brings them. But the Kreel see such hardships as the fire in which the hardiest and most dangerous Ba’kashi are forged. For the Kreel, to discard desperately needed resources is a symbol of endurance and fortitude. The Kreel are adept hunters and often bring down formidable opponents that other clans would hesitate at engaging. The Kreel do all this, but only take the bare minimum they need to continue, annihilating the rest so that no other can grow fat on their spoils. For the Kreel, life is one of pain. But such pain is simply weakness leaving the body.

Oroshan is deeply conservative and tradition-bound, even for a Veydreth world. The vessels from those venerable shipwrights speak of an earlier time when the Veydreth were exploring the galaxy and settling colonies on what would become known as the daughterworlds. In the thousands of years since, the Veydreth have developed many refinements in both technology and fabrication. But for the Veydreth of Oroshan, such refinements are unnecessary and speak to an arrogance of the young, desperately trying to change what has stood the test of time. They dismiss the accomplishments of even the most prosperous of the daughterworlds, Teythsis. While the magnificent shipyards of Teythsis have been producing starships for over a thousand years, such accomplished designs are seen as little more than a passing fad for the elders of Oroshan.

A hardy species adapted for hunting in low light, the Ba’Kash are further augmented to prosper in the brutality of the Frenzy. From a young age, their skin is void-hardened to protect them from the extremes of temperature they encounter while hunting in the black ocean of space. Inertia harnesses allow them to move freely in null-gravity while pulmonary implants ensure they are able to survive in vacuum for over hour. Once they enter a target vessel, Ba’Kash can breathe in a variety of otherwise poisonous atmospheres, able to then use their olfactory barbels to locate prey even in absolute darkness. Nutrient and blood filtration blesses them with the ability to ingest and glean sustenance from a wide range of organic materials or mineral deposits. The Ba’Kash are supremely adapted for the life of a reaver in the Storm Zone and beyond.

The three species of Sorylians are all that remains of over a dozen unique variants on their genetic code. Sorylians of all forms tend to be careful and precise in their movements.

At well over two metres tall, the towering Kon Avarr tend to be found in more manual and physical roles such as construction, defence and competitive sport.

The Skvarr (believed to be largely the original Sorylian species template) are drawn more often to political, corporate, artistic and creative roles.

The diminutive Slivarr, standing at just over a metre and a half in height, are often found in the more technical, corporate or strategic positions in their society.

So much was lost during the Genewars. The early Skvarr have taken advantage of this to ensure that common wisdom holds that it is they that were closest to the original Sorylian template. The Skvarr are a passionate people, able to express themselves in surprisingly moving poetry and art that their gruff exterior belies.
The legacy of that war means that the Skvarr are incapable of having children naturally and must rely on incubator-grown infants for their offspring. The Gene-Oath taken by the three species means that engineering of Sorylian DNA is now forbidden. Any research or study beyond very limited medical fields has meant that science and technology must be employed to find solutions for genetic damage rather than fixing the damage for future generations.

The Kon Avarr are the most intimidating of the Sorylians. Certainly more of the Kon Avarr find themselves in the Sorylian infantry divisions and as engineering or construction roles where their formidable strength and resistance make them ideally suited., as if by design.
Unlike the other Sorylians, female Kon Avarr are able to bear live young. This gives these giants a gentler more nurturing side to their culture. The deep baritone lullabies of Kon Avarr father’s to their unborn and sleeping children are a cultural touchstone for the entire race.

Behind every successful Kon Avarr or Skvarr is a Slivarr advisor, administrator, architect, diplomat or scientist. Slivarr males are sterile and their species lacks a sense of aesthetics. These two points have shaped Slivarr culture into one that prides itself on discipline and analysis. Of the Sorylians, it is the Slivarr who remain the most focused on data and logic. They do not become angered easily, not do they lose themselves to follies of prideful ambition. The Slivarr are the glue that holds the Congress together.

You do not get to decide on your service to society. Evey civilian applying for Federal Service undertakes a series of aptitude tests that identify how you would best serve the Federation. A very small percentage are earmarked for the Fleet Academy to be trained as junior Fleet Officers. Should an individual elect to remain in the service beyond their mandated three years, they can rise in the ranks rapidly to one day command a starship of their own.
Dindrenzi Fleet Officers are invariably brave and disciplined men and women. The burden of command and operations weighs heavily on their shoulders, all too aware of the consequences of failing in their duty. This concern is usually not for themselves but a profound sense of disgrace and personal failure should they be found wanting when the Federation needs them most.

Lacking the gene-therapies and cutting edge technology of the Scions, Federation Pioneers are still formidable adversaries. Trained in zero-g combat and close-quarter fighting, the Pioneers are deployed on a hundred fronts across the Storm Zone in six-trooper units known as Nyx. A Pioneer is a citizen that has chosen to remain in the Federation military beyond the three-years minimum service to obtain citizenship. A pioneer has chosen to dedicate themselves to a further seventeen years of service to the Federation.
Completing multiple tours of combat patrols, fleet defence and security assignments, a Pioneer can then leave and move into one of a dozen reserved occupations that the Federation only makes available to career citizens such as police, high judicial and politics.

Interstellar conflict is a necessary aspect of the competition between rivals for limited resources and territory. Success in this area is the application of the right strategy employed at the right moment resourced by the right assets. Zenian Technologies ensures its Aquistor Fleet Operations division is highly motivated in this extremely competitive market.
Zenian Technologies makes use of a wide variety of cutting edge weapons and defence experiences and treats even a bitter defeat as a worthwhile exercise if valuable field0-testing data is gleaned. It is Aquistor Fleet Operations who ensures that such defeats are rare and something can always be gain. After all, they have a reputation to maintain. And a dividend to earn.

Technological advancement is at a snail’s pace in peacetime but can make leaps and bounds in times of crisis and war. The Emerging Technologies division takes advantage of every new world acquired, every new species and biodome sampled and every alien artefact obtained.
Rather than allow such novelties to languish in a museum, zoological preserve or academic study, the executives of the Emerging Technologies division ensure that every molecule is mapped, manipulated, extracted and analysed for any conceivable application to benefit themselves, the division Zenian Technologies, the Terran Directorate and all humanity. In that order.

It was on the rocky labyrinthine world of Aziza that the pseudo-arachnid species called the Relthoza evolved to teem in their billions. Standing on four legs to more than twice the height of a man, the Relthoza were ingenious tool-builders. Their four manipulator arms are able to act independently on a task giving them the ability to achieve incredible feats of artistry and engineering. Their small but powerful wings allow them to hop short distances and give rise to multi-levelled terraces as an architectural signature of Relthozan design.

Relthozan society, social structures, rituals and philosophies before the coming of Unity, are utterly irrelevant to the species now. The Unity is the ultimate expression of the Relthozan mastery of nanotechnology and their legacy as an unaugmented species. In the early days of the spread of the Unity control, a chain of networked nanomachines was injected into the cortex of each Relthozan, almost instantly making small changes to brain chemistry and conditioning the recipient to become more pliable. The absorption of the collective knowledge and experiences of ten billion Relthoza allowed the Unity to truly become greater than its individual parts. The personalities and consciousness of the Relthoza were gone. Future generations of Relthoza were born already prepared for acting as hosts, known as Ergata. There could be no undoing of what had passed. There are no Relthoza to break free of the Unity. All is in harmony and at peace.

Quelle: Warcradle