S-23 "Prophet" Tactical Reconnaisance Armour

[Max_Caine]

My inspiration for the X-23 “Prophet” Tactical Reconnaissance Armour came about after I watched the troops participating in a particularly grisly game where each would put on the helmet of a Harridan in turn and attempt to tag another solider. After berating them (which reminds me, please find attached disciplinary note #546: mockery of a superior officer) and retrieving a valuable research specimen it struck me how Harridan armour would be useful if adapted to the human form.

The primary feature of the Prophet is its helmet. Four small, high-power, high-definition cameras (my staff humorously refers to them as “lipstick” cameras) are installed where a visor or viewport would normally sit. A shielded laser rangefinder is mounted in the forehead. The body armour is made from the same processes we make Wolf armour from and is coated in a thin film which is sensitive to air pressure, humidity, temperature and a variety of other atmospheric and environmental conditions. The combined data feeds from these instruments are fed to a highly sophisticated data/image analysis system which provides a composite video feed from the data sources. This video is then holographically superimposed on the eye, creating a 3-dimensional image as close to what a human would experience naturally as possible.

The benefit of all this technical wizardry is a massively expanded and enhanced field of vision. The user of a Prophet has an independently rotatable 180 degree field of vision relative to the position of the head. A selective zoom function allows some or all of the environment to be magnified, granting the user a longer range of vision. The image analysis system then identifies points of interest – such as potential threats or hard cover and notifies the user via customisable overlays. The system also develops and continually updates a real-time map of the surrounding environment. As an additional benefit we have installed a powerful high-gain antenna in the back of the Prophet, meaning it can share its information both with Control and its squadmates in the field.

The information gathering abilities of the Prophet come at a price. The suit is expensive and difficult to make – as an example, the lenses of the cameras are custom-made and even the smallest defect means hours of grinding and polishing are wasted. Another problem that arose during development was the processing requirements. While human-derived versions of alien electronics reduced the processing footprint, the unit needed to handle all the inputs is the size and weight of a large housebrick, and that’s without power and cooling factored in. We discovered a way of integrating the circuitry into the Prophet’s armour as a substrate, spreading the size and weight over the surface of the armour and using the superconductor web as a source of cooling and power transportation. Combined with an alenium battery inserted in the back, this dealt with the power, weight and cooling problems but it means that the superconductor web takes on a constant load, degrading its antiplasma capabilities. The best defence a Prophet has is its extended senses – so use them, Commander!

Roll of Credits

Project lead/Coding/Crazed madman: Maxilmillian Caine

Armour design and Paperdoll: JSleezy

Model Design: Ibrahim Chaffardet

Animation: Dan Long (Indie Animation Studios)

Post animation corrections: Ibahim Chaffardet & Conor Doyle

History

The project began back in January, when at the time the spirit of mischief seized me and said "do the most ambitious and difficult project you can do!". At the time I was unhappy that only Sebillians unlocked a new item, so I looked at other things that could be unlocked by completing the appropriate alien research. Harridans came to me and I said "why not do an armour based on Harridans?". So after asking Chris if it was alright to use Xenonaut assets (thanks Chris!) I approached JSleezy about an armour design. He was very excited to do it and he made one damn fine suit of armour if I say so myself.

After that, I thought this was how things were going to pan out:

• Find animator
  
• Find out what animator wants form modeller, find modeller
  
• Get model made
  
• Get animations made
  
• Render
  
• Post process
  
• Spritesheet stuffing
  
• Code and test

Instead, this is how it turned out

• Find animator
  
• Arrange time when animator who is in wildly different timezone can speak to me
  
• Arrange modeller (curtosy of Dan)
  
• Make model
  
• Approve model
  
• Make animations
  
• Find problems
  
• Fix problems
  
• Find more problems
  
• Fix more problems
  
• Find yet MORE problems
  
• Run out of money to fix problems
  
• Project fallow while resources rebuild
  
• Fix problems
  
• Find EVEN MORE problems
  
• Go mad
  
• Find bloke who had been fixing problems now has a steady gig, no longer available to fix problems
  
• Replace monitor
  
• Spend best part of month looking for new animator to fix problems
  
• New animator points out problems I didn't even know existed

So, I am still having problems with some of the animations, and they are being fixed. Quite a few animations as it turns out, but I still have 15 animations which I am currently at the rendering stage. Provided nothing else happens, I should be able to release the first weapon/armour by mid-month in July, and as I gain experience in post processing and spritesheet stuffing, this should pick up in pace. See you then!

Edited June 27, 2014 by Max_Caine

[TacticalDragon]

Awesome, great desing

Very clean models

Congrat

[kabill]

Looks fantastic. Can't wait to see it finished.

[Max_Caine]

The plan is when I get this all done I'm not going to let all my hard-earned skills and newly developed contacts in the animation industry go to waste. I'm going to make other armours. Probably an end-game armour, and an exoskeleton-style of armour based on the Andron. But I'm going to get this done first.

[Sentelin]

Yeah I remember been existed about this project when you "announced" that you are working on something "big".But I though that you abandoned that idea,since months had passed....I am glad that isn't the case and this looks fantastic,can't wait to see it finished.

Edited June 27, 2014 by Sentelin

[Max_Caine]

It was stuck in a phase for over three months (the animations were done at the start of March) where problems kept cropping up with the animations, so I couldn't progress until everything was to a reasonable standard. I've learnt some very hard lessons about animation.

[KevinHann]

Max, this is an enormous project and I admire the time, effort and without a doubt money you threw on it. You also need to be commended for the precise wording of the description as you've captured the voice flawlessly.

Do you have a complete list of basic stats in mind for the armor, or that's TBA?

[TacticalDragon]

In which tier will you put this armor? Funtionality is the most important thing, gives any stats?

[ventuswings]

You should write "animator diary" when all's done and over with so you can share your valuable experience (horror stories)!

Thank you very much for what must be quite an investment.

[skaianDestiny]

Hahaha! I finally see what you and Jsleezy have collaborated on. Looks fantastic, can't wait to see the final product.

I assume this will be in the Wolf/Buzzard armor tier, functioning as a poor man's Sentinel with the 360 view.

Edited June 28, 2014 by skaianDestiny

[Max_Caine]

I can't sleep, despite my best efforts, so I'm off to play some calming music. Before I do that, I'll answer TD and KevinHann's questions.

I do have stats for it, although these were v21 stats with a v21 build timeline. Back in January, you could get Harridans early in Corvettes, so I imagined at the time it would have Buzzard armour stats with a 180 cone angle, and a 21 tile range. Given that even then Harridans only had a 20 tile range, the Prophet would outrange everything else!

Now that we've gotten to v1.07 and 0.21 CE, Harridans have been pushed back to Landing craft which means they compete with Predators and their value isn't quite as good, seeing as you have to first capture a Harridan. I'm considering the following:

Vanilla:

kinetic, energy, incendiary: 38, chemical: 30 (helmet and rebreather). Range 22, coneangle 180

So, you still go with Wolf (or Predator) for breaching UFOs because they have the better armour (and you'll already have built them), but in the open maps you'd go with a combination of Buzzards and Prophets. The Prophets do the spotting, the Buzzards do the popping.

CE:

reflex boost: 20

To simulate the benefit of an advanced tactical computer highlighting targets and other points of interest, I think a significant reflex boost would be suitible. What would be awesome is if Solver could work out a way to integrate things like the Sebillian's ignore smoke ability, or if I could set the night vision multiplier separately for Prophets, as Prophets, like Harridans are really all about advanced vision.

EDIT: Forgot the build costs. I had originally set a build cost of $90,000. I wanted Prophets to be fairly unique, but now I think a cost of perhaps $40,000, 6 alloys, 1 alenium, and 60 man-hours. I think the time spent building a Prophet should be the biggest factor.

Edited June 28, 2014 by Max_Caine

[KevinHann]

Would you consider a possible psi-defense would be in line with your concept?

As this is a mid-game tech I'd suggest something in the lines of "successful mind control turned into panic" so that your soldier would still suffer a serious penalty but the certain death of a squad member would be spared. I think this would get close to balanced counter measure for MC and thus make a lot of people happy.

Of course Solver would have to say if it would be possible as it's slightly different than just providing X% Bravery bonus - but that doesn't in any way negate the random nature of MC which is the issue in a nutshell.

EDIT: Sorry to hear of your sleep problems. 4:20 am here, just finished dealing with a couple wasp nests over my front door. Helluva way to spend the night!

Edited June 28, 2014 by KevinHann

[TacticalDragon]

And the techtree?

[Jsleezy]

Can't wait to play with that bad boy when it's done!

[LtcWalker]

You said you would probably do an end-game armor. Maybe you could work together with electric to make an armor that you get out of one of the two ships he wants to introduce. It would add quite a bunch of stuff to his mod.

[Ragnarok]

Thats impressive !

[Chris]

I'm impressed by your devotion, Max. That's a ludicrous amount of work to have done.

A couple of bits of advice - I'd get a modeller to look at the texturing and render settings of that model. The armour plates on the model are too shiny and as there's no lighting system in the game I think you probably want flat matt colour instead (it'll look odd when they rotate on the spot otherwise). That'll stop the helmet and shoulderpads from looking like they've been varnished too - in Maya I'd use a Lambert shader on them instead of what is currently being used.

Secondly, I'd also find a modeller and pay them to redo the texture on the model. Jsleezy has done some amazing artwork there so it's a bit of a shame that the textures on the model don't match it colour-wise. I don't think it would cost a great deal or take that long to get the textures updated but it'd dramatically increase the final quality of the mod.

[blackwolf]

omg this is beyond words! toooooootally amaaaaaazing A_______________A,

btw if you are thinking on a mecha armor baddass suit i guess youre going to use the colossus armor that are "already in the game" right? (the corpse and the inventory image are already done so at least is a small step) i read somewhere on the forum that the unit was partially done but they have several problem with the size and cliping stuff so they scratched the concept

[Max_Caine]

No, I'm not going to do the Colossus as Chris already said the model they had looked silly for a 1-tile model. I'd like to do an endgame armour that requires a singularity core to power, so you have more reason to take on Battleships. I'm thinking less hulking monstrosity and more refined, even elegant armour. I'd like to do something along the lines of an advanced form of anti-gravity generator which bends gravity to its will, creating a "gravatic sheath" around the operator, although how the hell I'm going to make the science seem even semi-plausible I don't know.

Thank-you Chris. You did say at the time it would be really difficult, and I underestimated just how difficult it would be, or what the delays would be like. What I'll do is find a modeller and get those changes made. At the same time, I will keep rendering out one full scene so I can get some practice with sprite stuffing and peeps have something to play with.

EDIT: TD, I forgot you! In answer to your question I want it to be an unlock after you get Harridan Analysis.

Edited June 28, 2014 by Max_Caine

[blackwolf]

hmmm i know (by him work) a very good talented modeller in another forum....im not sure if he would ever agree to mod into another game than fallout new vegas/TES:Skyrim , but i use all the stuff he did from scratch and is amazing, he probably will reject the offer.....but it does not hurt trying.....right?

[Jacek]

Cant wait to see..

Also could you maybe implement to the game cut off content like Colosuss power armor ?

There is no problem to make in in 4 title like a tank ?

[Max_Caine]

There's tremendous difficulty in making a 4-tile suit of armour. For a start, it wouldn't be a suit of armour - it'd be a vehicle, as the game only identifies vehicles and aliens as multi-tile sprites. I've already looked into making 4-tile vehicles and the game doesn't really like it. And I'm honestly not keen making Predator armour mk II.

Edited June 28, 2014 by Max_Caine

[Jacek]

Ok

so what about a Mech/landmate like in the new X-com within enemy? - it could be in the vehicle sheet.. not make any difference for me..

Love to see that content

Best

[blackwolf]

i think the devs tried once...but was also scraped..if you look on the vehicles folder you'll found a TERRAPIN image (quite resembling one of those mech robots in xcom EW)

[Max_Caine]

In terms of resources making a vehicle is an easier prospect than making a solider, but it's still a large commitment even when modellers and animators give you their indie rates. I'll consider it, but I would only seriously consider committing the resources to such a project if it did something significantly different to current vehicles and was tactically benefical in a way current vehicles aren't.