As you probably know, Ivan Soloviov, our animator, the guy we worked with for 14 years, died on Sep 5 after being ill for months. It's a hard thing to deal with, so I didn't post any updates since his death (it just didn't seem important). Ivan handled animations, creatures, and everything that goes onto the character model, from weapons and armor to facial hair. The armor system is a lot more complex than the one in AoD which had only body armor and helmets. In Colony Ship we have boots & leggings, combat vests, jackets and coats, armguards, helmets, goggles, and breathing masks. When Ivan got ill, our progress in these two high-visibility areas had slowed down to a crawl and what we expected to wrap up in early 2019 was pushed back over and over again. We’re making progress now but we’re way off schedule, of course.
What’s done: vests, boots & leggings, armguards, helmets, goggles, respirators, weapons; energy armor, implants, most ranged and melee animations for male characters.
What’s not done: combat stimulants, jackets and coats (we have the “prototypes” that have been much improved and optimized; so we need to make variations which is relatively easy but like everything else it takes time), female animations (won’t take long once all male animations are done), and hair styles. Jackets are being work on right now; should be done by the end of the month.
We have enough to start beta testing the combat demo and this time around we fully expect to finish the rest in 2-3 months. We will start the first round in mid Jan (closed beta with new participants added each week) with public release around mid or end of Feb. Better late than never and all that.
