Latest News

2018 Halloween Video Happy Halloween, Ship of Heroes supporters!  The arrival of Halloween kicks off the holiday season for many of us, and Halloween will be one of the three confirmed special event periods aboard the Justice.  Last year we showed off the Dark Magic Blast powerset for Halloween, and this year we’re going to demo two mechanics we plan to have after the launch of the game. Trick or Treat Returns! [...]

Day and Night in Apotheosis City This video shows off the current state of the game map, especially the new day/night cycle effects on the look of the city.  In order to give you the best sense of just how good this change looks in-game, we’ve sped up the total day/night cycle from 3 hours to about four minutes.  It’s important to note that we are still working with the key parameters of the cycle, including how dark is too dark at [...]

Civilians and Cars Video Hi everybody!  In this video Dr. Strikewell takes a little jog through the Arch Park in the center of Apotheosis City, and shows us how immersive an MMO can be once there are civilians walking around and cars driving along the streets.  This video takes place in the morning, highlighting the warm colors of sunrise aboard the FHS Justice. Dawn in the Arch Park section of Apotheosis City. [...]

Civilians and Cars One of the key goals in any game is immersion in the story.  One facet of immersion in an MMO is allowing significant numbers of players to be one the screen at the same time.  But the players are not the only people in the universe – we also need to populate the FHS Justice with civilian NPCs and cars to make a believable city of the future aboard a generation ship on the outskirts of the Human Federation.  This newsletter [...]

Hero Profile: Meltdown Art-Photo Close-up of Meltdown Meltdown is a half-human hero who was born on the planet Karschk to a human mother and a Vais father; the planet's population is a 20-80 mix of humans and Vais.  Like humans, Vais only gain superpowers through Unobtanium exposure – and neither of Meltdown's parents had powers.  The Vais are mostly friendly to humans, but their domestic culture is hostile to commerce, and suspicious of businesses; despite that, Meltdown succeeded as a small [...]

The Limits of Nanites "I never worry about nanites; they have an innate weakness to massive fireballs. Then again, so do most things..." -Meltdown Nanites are tiny robots, too small to see, that are programmed to work together and complete various tasks.  Nanotechnology is a well-established field in the 25th century, and is used for many purposes.  However, Nanites do have weaknesses.  They are slow-moving on a human scale, and very energy-inefficient; it is almost always cheaper to build objects like lampposts and [...]