Kickstarter - Consortium

Originally Posted by Yme
A slow start to their campaign it seems. I'll chip in, but I fear they wont make it.

Yeah, they've successfully kept the secret for the first couple of days.

Originally Posted by GhanBuriGhan
Realism. Read again: It's an airplane, and the time is 30 years from now in the alternate Universe.

Read again. It can go to the moon.

But not with the airplane, I assume

Originally Posted by GhanBuriGhan
But not with the airplane, I assume

Yes with that.

Zenlil is one of five such Consortium vessels, and is the ultimate in air superiority. A massive jumbo jet that’s powered by fusion batteries and capable of taking missions in orbit or even as far as the Artemis-1 Moon Colony.

Hmm, Ok. I admit defeat. Jumbo spaceship is silly.

Originally Posted by GhanBuriGhan
Hmm, Ok. I admit defeat. Jumbo spaceship is silly.

The space shuttle looked like am airplane too. Any spaceship that wish to fly in the atmosphere needs wings until anti-gravity tech is discovered. It look silly because people are used to more futuristic spaceship look, but in term of tech level it's not.

Actually, this is why older space ships were imagined as "flying saucers", that design can fly in the atmosphere, because the "ring" act like a wing. See the Avrocar.

Basically, their choice was space capable airship or flying saucer!

Originally Posted by azarhal
The space shuttle looked like am airplane too. Any spaceship that wish to fly in the atmosphere needs wings until anti-gravity tech is discovered. It look silly because people are used to more futuristic spaceship look, but in term of tech level it's not.

Actually, this is why older space ships were imagined as "flying saucers", that design can fly in the atmosphere, because the "ring" act like a wing. See the Avrocar.

Basically, their choice was space capable airship or flying saucer!

Yeah I guess something that looks exactly like a jumbo jet or a flying saucer were the only choices. It's not like they could have gone with something that looks more like a space shuttle or say any of these five dozen iterations of conceptual designs for reusable space-planes that don't look like 747s.

I like it and i'll consider backing it. One question: why is everything so blue in the future?

Originally Posted by jhwisner
Yeah I guess something that looks exactly like a jumbo jet or a flying saucer were the only choices. It's not like they could have gone with something that looks more like a space shuttle or say any of these five dozen iterations of conceptual designs for reusable space-planes that don't look like 747s.

Some of the images in that search are space jets…

Oh and the Consortium doesn't look like a Boeing 747. The shape is based on the Airbus a380.

Originally Posted by GhanBuriGhan
Hmm, Ok. I admit defeat. Jumbo spaceship is silly.

Almost as silly as the Space Battleship Yamato in Star Blazers.

all this c&c…
looks like mass effect.

Seems solid enough, although I can't say I'm a fan of the visual style. They're not going to reach $200k though.

Originally Posted by azarhal
Some of the images in that search are space jets…

One is an image of the "xenu spaceplane" from a site mocking Scientology and other doesn't look anything like nearly as much like a jumbo jet someone slapped fusion engines on. Of those two it looks more like the "Xenu spaceplane" which doesn't exactly help the case that the design here isn't very silly. Of all the images though the one serious one that looks most like a traditional commercial jet (probably because its a very very early concept image for a proposed small luxury craft) would be one of the least exciting images in that list.

Considering the semi-military purpose described in the material, the look of something like the EU Skylon or USMC "Hot Eagle" projects early concept art would have provided far better inspiration.





Of those two the Skylon might make the most sense. Unlike a jumbo jet such as the a380 (or any jumbo jet), the Skylon actually looks as though it is designed from the ground up for a dual upper-atmosphere and space role (the areodynamics are reminiscent of the blackbird).

Originally Posted by JDR13
Seems solid enough, although I can't say I'm a fan of the visual style. They're not going to reach $200k though.

yeah the visuals are too generic and plain, if you're gonna have a cartoonish look at least make it a bit more stylish. Looks too much like a kids game or something, looks cheap. They have to remember who the backers are, they're grown ups.

As we've seen many times before, visuals has a _great_ impact on how successful a kickstarter will turn out.

I too am not a fan of the visual style, but the game world looks compelling and that's good enough for me. I'm in. I'll bump up when they have a reasonalble hard copy pleged amount.

We're really glad you guys noticed us, we made a mistake by announcing the I.P AND launching a Kickstarter at the same time. We could have easily done the former a month earlier, it would have saved us a ton of pain.

I had a moment and wanted to address the discussion about ZENLIL.

First off - there is a reason that practical airplane design hasn't fundamentally changed in the last 60 years….the overall shape and design is simply the most efficient across the board, especially if you consider that ZENLIL is also a transport. It is only 30 years in the future, and we wanted ZENLIL to feel familiar to people. CONSORTIUM isn't a far-flung sci-fi fantasy with ships flying around the universe. Instead, we want it to feel contemporary, but at the same time futuristic and wondrous. All that said, ZENLIL has a wing cage, not a wing box, and it's engines can be charged by absorbing the electrical energy of storms, allowing it to stay in the air indefinitely…

Secondly - ZENLIL *IS* space capable, HOWEVER there is an entirely separate component that is required. A massive "space shield" is designed to attach to the front of ZENLIL, covering engines, wings, etc with heat shields. It also makes the whole vessel more aerodynamic and provides maneuvering thrusters and rockets that allow it to break out of Earth's atmosphere and even propel itself to the moon. The entire interior is designed to be Zero G friendly as well, and there are airlocks all over the place to prevent catastrophic decompression in case of hull breach.

Cheers everyone!! We're working hard on some additional press to try and get a spike happening next week, but anything you guys are able to do to help spread the word, we would truly appreciate it!

-Greg @ iDGi