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Star Trek Enterprise: Temporal Cold War - Christmas Media Update

The development of the mod is going on slowly but steadily with most of the basic modelling and mapping tasks being done for the teaser demo currently in the works. At the moment, besides revamping some of the level props and character models, our dedicated modelling team is focusing on the remaining unfinished non-player characters. The mappers on the other hand are either optimizing the current versions of our beta maps or are busy planning the last remaining one that has not been produced yet. Thus, while there is only a handful of new content in these areas whose quality is worthy for a media release, our situation is fairly good in these areas of development.

On the other hand, there is much more to be done on the animating, voice acting and coding front. Cpangrace is very busy working on the weapon and character animations required for the teaser-demo, while the voice actors diligently keep recording their lines from the demo script. Coding is however still the most problemful area of development. Even though one of our former coders (Graham alias Rickenbacker) has found time and returned to help us out a little in solving the awaiting programming tasks, we are still looking for additional assistance. So if you are an experienced coder who possesses a deep understanding of C++ and/or Source coding, and would like to help us out, do not hesitate to apply today in our Recruitment section!

Media

In this media release, we have a couple of work-in-progress game elements, two wallpapers and a music compilation to show off. Let's start the media presentation with the WIP stuff!

The first picture on the left showcases some of the most recent texturing work of CaptainSource, featuring some custom ceremonial banners of the Star Trek universe: the Starfleet banner (decorating the walls of Starfleet Command in San Francisco), the Enterprise insignia (used during the decommissional ceremony of the NX-01 Enterprise) and the Starfleet Mission Control logo. These instances of textile-texturing (LOL) are planned to be used only in some minor cutscenes, still we hope that they will also help us in achieving a more diversified level environment than what our previously released level screenshots would suggest.

On the right, you can see a work-in-progress demo NPC: a Vulcan engineer who will have a much greater role in the upcoming demo than what its designation would suggest... The NPC was designed by Flanker, and is currently produced by TripTucker.

Since our last Media Release, Flanker however has worked not only on character models but also on a couple of mod-related wallpapers to be used by our supporters for decorating their desktop.

The first of these features Starbase 3, one of the newest designs of Flanker, along with our Y-Type freighter, the Kurt-class support tug, the ECS Kobayashi Maru, and two Amarillo-class cruisers designed by Masao Okazaki. These cruisers are actually not part of the mod, but Mr. Okazaki gave permission to use them in the wallpaper - so who knows, maybe he will also let us use them in the mod too...
The wallpaper is available in 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x800, 1280x960 and 1440x900 resolutions.

The second picture however features one of the key events of the main mod: the discovery of the destroyed UES Zagreb and the derelict ECS Kobayashi Maru by the NX-01 Enterprise in 2156. Just like the previous image (not counting of course Mr. Okazaki's design), this wallpaper also features our actual ship models. However, this one is available only in 1440x900.

Finally, we also have something to present you from the audio department. Basstronix was busy to produce you a mix from the mod's current soundtrack, featuring both normal level background music and more dynamic combat tracks in a little-more-than two minutes long MP3 file. You can grab it here.

Publicity news

Three of our members (namely, Cpangrace, Croesus and Flanker) had the pleasure last weekend to participate in the HL2 webradio "Podcast 17" where they were roundly interviewed by the show's hosts, Phillip and William. You can check the interview out on the podcast's official website here . Kudos to the staff of Podcast17, we are very grateful for the invitation and wish them all the best!

Conclusion

An acknowledgement is however due not only for the aforesaid pair of radio hosts, but also to our community who tirelessly follow our project since its inception. We have received lots of encouragement, suggestions and constructive criticism from this community both in our forum and on the rest of the websites/portals/message boards where our news materials are frequently featured. We would like to thank you all the attention you have been giving us - hopefully, we can release a palpable evidence of our work soon enough to prove how important our community is for us.

In this spirit, we wish all our readers/members/supporters a very happy Christmas and a very successful New Year!

LightSpeed Design Studios PR Department Out.

This Media Release brought to you by LightSpeed Design Studios, in association with Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems and Irkutsk Semiconductor Ltd.

Recruitment

Enterprise: Temporal Cold War is right now looking for talented modders to fill the positions below:

CODER:
We are looking for talented coders who are experienced in Source-coding and/or single-player scripting. The applicant MUST be able to work as a team member, with a willingness to produce the work assigned within a reasonable time frame.

MAPPER:
We are also looking for experienced mappers who are able to produce quality maps that are optimized without leaks. Knowledge of how to create realistic lighting effects and single-player coding events within the map is a great advantage.
The applicant MUST be able to work as a team member, with a willingness to produce the work assigned within a reasonable time frame.

In both cases, knowledge of the Star Trek universe is a great plus, though it is not a requirement.

Apply today! The United Earth Starfleet Needs YOU!

Star Trek: Enterprise - Temporal Cold War
Media Release 21

A public newsletter in the middle of June and a Media Release teaser three weeks ago - besides the occasional chit-chat in the public sections of the forum these aforesaid media reports were the only sign of our activity since Media Update 20 had been released. Lots of things have happened during this period, good and bad alike; now we tell and show you our current milestones.

Ladies and Gentleman, the subspace signal entitled "Media Release 21" is hereby decoded!

Development Report
Reg. number: UE-SF-4312-ETCW

1. First the good news...

Heaps of work have been done in all the major areas of development since the last Media Release. Our dedicated team members are unsparing in their efforts to move the modification out of its current internal alpha state and make it look like an actual, playable computer game. Hopefully, after you have read through this Media Release, you will be able to affirm that they are on the right track.

Now, let us show you the major improvements of the past four months...

Our modellers were diligent as usual and produced a great number of starships, character models and level props since the previous Media Update. Let's showcase the vessels first!

The first starship below might be familiar to those readers who receive our newsletter (or regularly visit our main website

). The vessel is the Kumari-class battle cruiser, probably the most widespread warship in service of the Andorian Imperial Guard. The class is equipped with four particle cannons (and ten torpedo launchers on models built after 2155), duranium hull plating, an engine capable of accelerating the vessel well beyond warp 5 and an advanced shield generator. This impressive list of specifications proves that the class rightly composes the backbone of the Andorian Fleet.

The vessel has been modelled by Abs (who sadly can not help us out anymore) and textured by CaptainSource, as usual.

The second starship is also a warship; a Bird-of-Prey belonging to the Romulan Star Empire. For more than a century, the species that founded this large and powerful empire proved to be a real mystery to the United Earth Government (and later the United Federation of Planets) as neither humans nor their allies have known anything about the Romulans, including their looks. This fact becomes even more peculiar if we consider that the Coalition of Planets (consisting of the Andorians, Tellarites, Vulcans and Humans) had even waged war with the aggressor Romulan Star Empire in the middle of the 22nd century.
The mystery of the species was eventually solved in 2266 when a Starfleet vessel could establish visual contact the first time with the crew of a Romulan ship.

Although the designation "Bird-of-Prey" has been in use for centuries in human terminology to label Romulan warships, the name first came to be used in the middle of the 22nd century, when the United Earth vessel Enterprise encountered with the first known variant of the class. The "Bird-of-Prey" excelled the NX-class starships in every way; its advanced weaponry and experimental cloaking device made it a fearful enemy to the Coalition of Planets during the Earth-Romulan War.

The model has been built by our talented and resident modeller, TripTucker, and has been textured by CaptainSource.

Since March, our modelling crew has been strenuously working on new character models to be able to populate our maps as soon as possible. The results of their work can be seen below.

On the left, a screenshot of our custom Enterprise-crewmembers can be seen. Of course we are planning to make more than just ten models, so expect more to come. All of them are FacePoser-ready actors, and as such, they are ready to be choreographed for specific parts in the mod; from crucial storyline characters to extras in the background to give the maps life. On the right, you can see a picture which was already featured in our last newsletter (and on the main websites front page), the first screenshot of the Enterprise crew, who are already being set into choreographed scenes, in the maps, who have been superbly voiced by our talented voice acting crew.

The following two screenshots showcase four members of an organization that played a pivotal role during the Xindi-mission in 2154, and who became a permanent part of the NX-01 crew following the mission's successful completion. They are the M.A.C.O.s, the operatives of a special military contingent of the United Earth Military Forces. Even though their organization is not part of Starfleet, Starfleet Command accepted Captain Jonathan Archer's recommendation in 2155 and transferred a detachment of M.A.C.O. troops to every existing Starfleet vessel to serve as additional protection.

Usually, M.A.C.Os are deployed either when a precise surgical strike must be performed against enemy forces or when the escort of Starfleet personnel require additional protection on away missions. 2156 onwards, they became a constant participant of the aforesaid away missions and Starfleet assault squads.

On the left you can see the first commanding officer of the M.A.C.O. detachment stationed aboard Enterprise, Major Joss Hayes. On the right, a trio of M.A.C.O. troops can be seen.

Besides starships and character models, the team has also been busy in creating additional level prop to fill our existing levels with portable and (some) usable objects. A selection of these can be seen below.

First of all, engineering equipment. The left shot shows a corridor section on Deck-E which was under minor maintenance when the picture was made. It features an equipment case, various engineering tools and an enginner who cannot be seen as he is spending his coffee break in the Mess Hall.

On the right, you can see the injector housing of the Warp Core. As its name implies, its role is to house the injectors (equipment pivotal to the undisturbed operation of Enterprise's warp drive). The reason why the housing did not contain any injectors when the picture was made is unknown, but probably the engineers were in the middle of replacing them (or they have been stolen by Romulan spies - I mean the injectors, not the engineers).

The next pair of pictures showcases some additional decorative elements.
The left picture shows the clean and arranged desktop of Captain Jonathan Archer, while the right screenshot features a large pile of standard-issue Starfleet containers. No one knows what these containers actually contain, but they look really nice. And besides, they can create a nice labyrinth for hide-and-seek if they are embarked to the cargo bay without any logical arrangement.

All the abovementioned objects have been created by CaptainSource and TripTucker.

Our resident mappers, HerbieZ and LordHorusNL did their best to enhance all our existing maps and populate them with our custom NPCs. Hopefully, all of you will like the results. Let me show you some screenshots about all our current maps in the works.

1. The Bridge

2. Mess Hall

3. Sickbay

4. The transporter and minor repairs on a corridor

5. Jefferies Tubes (standard Starfleet maintenance shafts) on Deck-E

6. Dry Dock (pay attention to the improved lightning effects)

All the levels have been (and still being) mapped by HerbieZ and LordHorusNL.

Cpangrace, our new and talented animator is busy in creating new custom animations for our NPCs while CaptainSource has started experimenting with FacePoser to be able to create the most important scripted sequences and scenes of the upcoming demo. Our crew of talented voice actors are also working very hard and record their lines every time when their schedule permit.

To demonstrate the talent of the animating and voice-acting crew, CaptainSource created the following featurette, starring our talented Croesus as Captain Archer. Besides voice acting work, the video also demonstrates the fully-functional FacePoser-compatible 3D facial muscles of our custom NPCs in action. Enjoy!

If you don't want to download this top-quality video, but would rather watch it over the Internet, click here:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/star-trek-ent ... tcw/videos

2. And now, the bad news...

As you can see from the media above we are still working very hard on our modification. However, development takes a lot of time (almost all of our free time, to be more precise) and to make things worse, several crewmembers have left our team in the last couple of months creating thus a small core developer team - probably smaller than the one required to complete this project.

The departing crewmembers include Abs (modeller of the Andorian cruiser), ManaT, Rickenbacker (our two talented coders), Shadow (designer of the new HUD) and Stavaas (a member of our mapping crew). They were unfortunately unable to continue working on the mod for one reason or another. We thank them their dedication and all the hard work they have done. A very special thanks goes to ManaT, who (among others) wrote and implemented a fully functional Zero-G environment to our modification.

Currently, we are looking for several experienced developers in the areas of mapping and coding.

The would-be mappers who apply for the position must be able to produce quality maps that are optimized without leaks. Knowledge of how to create realistic lighting effects and single-player coding events within the map is a great advantage.

Just as I wrote above, we are also in need of experienced coders. The applicants must possess a deep and thorough knowledge of Source-coding.

Besides these, we are also looking for a person who is confident in the usage of the Source Particle System Tool. This tool would allow us to create all the custom effects required for our maps currently in production - from console explosions to sand- and snowstorms.

Knowledge of the Star Trek universe is a great plus for all the applicants, though it is not a requirement.

This help-wanted section above concludes our 21st Media Update.
We would like to thank you for your continuing interest and your votes that constantly keep us in the Top20 list of Half-Life 2 modifications. Keep up the good work! We guarantee that we will... :wink:

^{Media Update 20}

^{Almost two months have passed since the release of the previous Media Update - two months, full of work and challenges in the development. We haven't rested on our laurels, and to prove this, we have decided to bring you probably the largest media update ever released for the mod. Without further ado, let us show you what we have progressed in the last two months.

Updated forum:

As you can see, our forum has undergone a major revamp. The engine has been updated by CaptainSource, so now we are using PhPBB 3.0 instead of 2.0. We hope that you will like the new (still work-in-progress) design and the extra functions that come with this version.

Weapon models:

We have a couple of weapons to showcase this month. On the left you can see the standard-issue Andorian Pistol, the regular sidearm used by the units of the Andorian Imperial Guard. On the right, you can see a pair of Klingon Disruptors, and a couple of D’K Tahgs, the most widespread melee weapon among Klingon soldiers in the 2150s.}

^{The weapons were modelled by our talented TripTucker, and textured by the versatile CaptainSource.}^{Character models:}

^{Progress has been slow but steady on the character models. We have decided to showcase two of the Enterprise's senior officers. You can see Captain Archer on the left, and Commander Charles "Trip" Tucker on the right. They were created by Gregory O'Connor and CaptainSource.}

^{Ship models:}

^{Two new ships have reached an almost final build in the devteam's shipyards. :lol:

The first of them is the UES Intrepid, the first ship of the Intrepid-class. Some of our members probably recognize her, as she has already made her first appearance in our most recent newsletter. This small but rather agile starship is primarily used for defensive purposes, since her relatively elementary warp drive makes her unfit for longer deep-space travels.

As such, they are primarily deployed in the vicinity of Human colonies, and carry out patrolling missions.

The class is armed with particle beam weapons and has two spatial torpedo launchers. Because of her agility and moderate weaponry, several vessels are in service also in the United Earth Stellar Navy besides Starfleet.

The vessel was modelled by Flanker and TripTucker, and was textured by CaptainSource.}

^{The second vessel is the ECS Kobayashi Maru, a Class III neutronic fuel carrier. During the Earth-Romulan Wars, vessels like the Kobayashi Maru were a frequent constituent of human freighter convoys, as the transport of deuterium to the front lines for UES and UESN forces became the primary assigment of the Earth Cargo Service.

The homeport of the vessel is Amber, Tau Ceti IV, and is captained by Kojiro Vance.

Although the ship's name is part of the Star Trek universe, her design is not. The ship was worked out by our talented Flanker, and was realized by TripTucker and CaptainSource.}

^{Map Screenshots:

Our talented mappers (HerbieZ and LordHorusNL) have continued working on our current playable map, Launchbay. Several bugs and glitches have been fixed, and many new areas have been added to the current version. You can see some montages below.}

^{The Drydock-map was also tweaked a bit. The results can be seen on the montage below:}

^{Videos:

It's been a long time since we released a video, so we decided to make up one to show you the current state of our character animations and rigging:}^{http://www.youtube.com/v/35mCkUg9xSs}^{A better version can be downloaded here:}^{http://team.enterprise-tcw.com/video/TheRightStuff_6Char.avi}^{Requests:

As you can see, we have done a lot of work since January. We intend to keep up this level of activity, but without additional help it's gonna be hard. Real Life is making the development increasingly harder, as work, school or other errands take our free time away from the mod.

Therefore, the following posts are now open, and await fulfilment:

a.) Mapper: We are looking for experienced mappers, who know how to make a single-player level vivid and really atmospheric. Knowledge of Star Trek: Enterprise is a plus, but not required. ;)

b.) Animator: We have a vacant position for character/creature animators. The reason for this is that all of the character models used in the mod are completely custom-built, and as such, there are several changes that are needed to be made to some of the stock animations of HL2, with new ones created. These include (among others) the NPCs' weapon handling, the movement of the alien characters, equipment usage and character mannerisms.

c.) Character Animator Assistant: We are looking for developers who are either experienced in using Face Poser, or are very willing to learn quickly how to use it on an advanced level.

d.) Hammer Coder: We are looking for a coder who is confident in single-player level scripting.

For application, just start a new topic in our recruitment section, and post a portfolio! We hope to see you there.}