Steltek Physiology

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I was just wondering what I'm looking at here. Sort of reminds me of a jellyfish but does this Steltek thing have eyes or a mouth. It's just hard to tell looking at it this way.
 

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you're actually using art like that in WCU spirit? you know....that aspect of the open source philosophy 'quick throw something together for the sake of having something!' is a large part of why i can't stand open source....
 
6and7eighths said:
Which should be the single only source of information taken into consideration as far as adding extra stuff to a game that tries to be 'Privateer improved' goes.
 
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Check the 'Privateer Fax' document -- that's not a drawing of a Steltek... its the failed manual artist's response to a request for a drawing of a "trading with an alien black marketeer".
 
We cant even be sure what we see on the comm-screen is actually a steltek and not som logo thingie like the capship transmissions in WCP/SO...
 
Dyret said:
We cant even be sure what we see on the comm-screen is actually a steltek and not som logo thingie like the capship transmissions in WCP/SO...

Privateer was made several years before that standard was established.

IIRC, the Steltek pulsates as it talks.
 
Eder said:
Which should be the single only source of information taken into consideration as far as adding extra stuff to a game that tries to be 'Privateer improved' goes.
Far be it from me to suggest that concept art upon which final in-game content is based should have any bearing at all. Didn't we already have this discussion about Perry's hangar bay just a few weeks ago?

Whether it's a Steltek or a miscelaneous alien black marketeer, it was obviously important enough at some stage of development to warrant multiple pieces of art depicting it. I'd assume it's the former, or was a candidate to be so at some point, but that's just my natural inclination against making things up right out of the blue to fill gaps. It could be a Double Helix for all I know, and that would probably work just as well.

There's something very important underlying the Steltek's implementation in Privateer, though, something that remake projects should keep in mind... the Steltek are mysterious aliens from the core of the galaxy, and it would undermine that to put the player in such a position that the obviously intentional shroud of mystery is lifted.
 
What I'm saying is that unused Privateer concept art makes for better additions to a Privateer-inspired game than stuff people pull out of their asses. Not sure if you misunderstood my first post or thought I was being sarcastic or whatever.

(And I'm not talking specifically about that alien... I'm just saying it's ridiculous to make up stuff just for the sake of making stuff up (ie: Steltek ships) when you've got a source of "additional material" for Privateer that's much more relevant and which influenced Priv's development at least at some point (ie: the unused stuff in those docs)).

6and7eighths said:
Whether it's a Steltek or a miscelaneous alien black marketeer, it was obviously important enough at some stage of development to warrant multiple pieces of art depicting it. I'd assume it's the former, or was a candidate to be so at some point, but that's just my natural inclination against making things up right out of the blue to fill gaps.
Your inclination *against* making things up consists of *assuming* that something which one of the Priv docs says is an orange is actually an apple instead? :p
 
You're right, I did think you were being sarcastic in your first post. My apologies.

Wing Commander is full of contradictions, though, as we're regularly told that an apple can be an orange and a Gladius can be a Raptor. ;) My only point was that it's consistant with what little we do know (that being Burrows' referring to the Steltek scout as a bug, admittedly flimsy), and that playing fast and loose with established content is still infinitely better than making things up.
 
6and7eighths said:
My only point was that it's consistant with what little we do know (that being Burrows' referring to the Steltek scout as a bug, admittedly flimsy)...
Hehe... well, your sarcasm meter looks like it's way off indeed - personally, I'd always take anything Burrows says with a grain of salt. ;)
 
Well, re the Steltek fighter... I started from the broken fighter shown inside the derelict in Privateer

https://www.wcnews.com/ships/images/p1fighterthumb.gif

that's the best I could do to make something that would look somewhat similar. I keep telling people I'm not an artist ^^; if anyone wants to do a better job at it...

Basically 3d art wise I'm trying to learn as I go. I try to be clear of NIH-syndrome and so will gladly throw away any of my work if anything better comes along :) I have a few times already.


And I think that the "pulsating thing" we see is actually a steltek face, or mouth, or compatible.



Re throwing things together: for example, WCU will have a few Nephilim ships in it even though they won't ever spawn, but the flight model and graphics etc. will be there. This is done in case someone wants to write a plot involving a Nephilim scout party. I didn't even like WCP, but it's a remote possibility that one might meet a few of those bugs after all.

(I really hoped that Prophecy WOULD be against the Stelteks, for the record... oh well).
 
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Whether it's a Steltek or a miscelaneous alien black marketeer, it was obviously important enough at some stage of development to warrant multiple pieces of art depicting it. I'd assume it's the former, or was a candidate to be so at some point, but that's just my natural inclination against making things up right out of the blue to fill gaps. It could be a Double Helix for all I know, and that would probably work just as well.

Well, the thing about the manual art is that while it's very cool for us it was *specifically* rejected by Origin... and it was done by someone who wasn't part of the Privateer project. Looking at some of the documents we have scanned is pretty interesting, because you can follow the development of a manual with Claw Marks style art from the original proposal, through hiring an artist in New York to do it to recieving his samples to paying his cancel fee. If you look at his first 'reaction' to the art list, it's full of notations asking what the different ships and Wing-specific terms are... and as best I can tell his 'alien' is based entirely on the fact that the one line description said something about trading with aliens and he expanded from that (he has a little note about that in there somewhere). It's certainly not an attempt to draw a Steltek -- he wouldn't know what a Steltek (or a Double Helix) was.

(I really hoped that Prophecy WOULD be against the Stelteks, for the record... oh well).

The problem with all the fanfic about fighting evil Stelteks is that its very nature destroys the single thing that makes the Steltek in any way remarkable -- the idea that they became so advanced that they decided to give up their weapons alltogether.
 
Someone might have found a Steltek drone factory, tried to reactivate it, and lost control of it. (I like this second one better, because then someone would have to go try to find the REAL stelteks to get their help in clean up the mess).


by the way: due to a bug that I can't be bothered to fix without adding a lot of special clauses, a direct hit from a Phase Transit Cannon will blow up the steltek drone even when it's supposed to be invincible. :)
 
Someone might have found a Steltek drone factory, tried to reactivate it, and lost control of it. (I like this second one better, because then someone would have to go try to find the REAL stelteks to get their help in clean up the mess).

Well, that's certainly... the same story as Privateer.

by the way: due to a bug that I can't be bothered to fix without adding a lot of special clauses, a direct hit from a Phase Transit Cannon will blow up the steltek drone even when it's supposed to be invincible.

There were never more than six ships mounting Phase Transit Cannons anyway.
 
The AI won't even attempt to fire the PTC at anything smaller than a dorkathi... this said, IF a PTC shot is fired AND the steltek drone happens to fly in its path, it's toast.


I redid the steltek fighter so that it looks more like in the (only) image we have of it. This is suppsoed to be an operational fighter, btw.




http://www.spiritplumber.com/priv_remake/renders/stelint2.jpg (constructive criticism begged for ^-^ )


And yeah, it's very much a close plot to Privateer. This said, what if you had someone (dunno, the player's rival maybe) gain control of a drone, or a group of drones? Some guy who wants to cut off a few systems from the rest of the universe and make his own little empire in there?
 
spiritplumber said:
And yeah, it's very much a close plot to Privateer. This said, what if you had someone (dunno, the player's rival maybe) gain control of a drone, or a group of drones? Some guy who wants to cut off a few systems from the rest of the universe and make his own little empire in there?

That sounds horrible. People keep ignoring that by their very nature, Steltek stuff should be exceptionally rare. Every fan project loosely based on Privateer tries to pile on the Steltek crap, and they shouldn't even be using it at all.
 
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