Hello all to the first news concerning the latest developments of the Legacy version of Aftermath.
As many know, Aftermath has now spread to other games with Bridge Commander being the second game to feature an Aftermath mod. What has happened to the Legacy project? Well it has not been canned. It has come in for a major image overhaul and a complete change in direction. First change is a new logo and slight name change for Aftermath (title changed to Star Trek: Aftermath).
Aftermath has grown significantly since it first began over 2 years ago. It saw many releases which continued to push the boundaries of Legacy modding with each incarnation. However 2009 saw changes to Aftermath that almost destroyed the core foundations which it initially set forward: it started to lose its identity. Gone were the darker aspects of Aftermath in favor of canon values. This was a key factor in the massive change that is to come for Aftermath. Everything that made Aftermath in the past is being ripped out.
Aftermath is making a drastic shift away from canon. Whereas many mods stick to canon, Aftermath will no longer be going down that path. In its place will be a heavily stylized combat engine that further stands out Aftermath from all other Legacy modding offerings. Combat would be best described as hectic, knife-edged, war like combat engine. Aftermath is being prepped for war. The entire artillery engine (thats your phasers, disrupters and torpedoes) is coming in for a massive overhaul for a new artillery system. The new system will see various weaponry on display to add new dimensions to the combat engine. Also a new dimension to the combat engine is physics will be applied to the artillery...
The combat engine is not the only aspect that is being changed. The graphics engine has already been overhauled. Currently in its 8th build, the new graphics engine sees a new lighting engine, new performance benchmarks (the first for Legacy), revised entry level requirements, enhanced shadow engine and much more. All these changes come together seamlessly and freeing up system resources to improve the performance capabilities of the Legacy engine. Again, Aftermath is not going for a canon look or feel, its going for its own identity.
Environments will also see a massive change too. All previous maps in Death Match will be removed. That means all maps made right up until the last add-on pack will not be featured in the new Aftermath release. All Stock Co-op Wave and Death Match maps will be removed too. Aftermath will get its own unique map set for its next release. The Aftermath image will be consistent right through every aspect of the game. However all the old maps will not be lost in oblivion, they will be made available in seperate 'booster packs' and be made available separately throughout 2009.
Ships are also being changed. Every ship will have its textures changed to suit a much darker image. In a way, you could say Aftermath is an alternate reality to the normal canon way of ST (in the same fashion as the Mirror Universe). All races are getting a visual make-over to a more warlike persona. Klingons, Romulans and more will all have a war like look to their ships. Plus you will also see some new ships and races...
More changes that are happening is the new AI engine which has bee touched upon in the 3.0 announcement. Also a new interface is being designed for the new image. The new interface will be shown at a later date. There are also new and unique features that will appear in Aftermath. These new features will not be seen outside of Aftermath. What these features are will be revealed at a much later date. There are big surprises coming...
And on a final note, Aftermath will be released sometime in 2010. Apart from the booster packs being filtered out for the remainder of 2009, there will be no new Aftermath material released this year. Also Aftermath wont be following a numeric designation for its releases. The working title for the main release next year is called Aftermath 2010 (previous working title was 3.0). It will have a different title when released next year. This same idea is being applied to the BC Aftermath project (no numeric releases).
There are many more changes in store...
Best of luck to you. I'm very interested to see how this all turns out.