Space Voyager

This is exactly why the last time I bought a camera (15 years ago?) I went for a less prestigious camera just because the abtteries it uses are AA. And those you can get everywhere. Sadly, that camera is now collecting the proverbial dust as the only camera I used in years is the phone camera...

@SV: a meaty subject matter, certainly and how it went overlooked for so long is rather puzzling. 
::
In other not so down-to-earth affairs:
Top-down space action RPG where you pilot your ship through a perilous black hole system, C-Beams is purportedly "coming soon" to the Epic Games store and Steam.

Hi everyone,
I'm Benoit from Studio Gravenoire, a small self-funded French indie studio. We are currently working on Astralis: Dawnblades, a heroic fantasy tactical RPG for PC.
I thought StrategyCore could be a good place to present the game because the community seems naturally interested in turn-based tactics, squad management, long-term progression and games where preparation matters as much as combat.
Steam demo:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4233920/Astralis__Dawnblades/
Astralis: Dawnblades is not an X-COM, Jagged Alliance or Silent Storm clone, but it does share some adjacent interests: managing a group rather than a single hero, preparing before missions, reading enemy danger, and trying to bring your squad back with enough resources to make the next expedition possible.
The basic loop is:
- prepare your mercenary squads at the stronghold;
- recruit and assign characters to different teams;
- equip them and develop their roles;
- choose expeditions on node-based maps;
- fight turn-based tactical battles;
- bring back loot and resources;
- craft, improve and reorganize before leaving again.



What I would especially like feedback on
If anyone here has time to try the demo, the most useful feedback for us would be:
1. Does the squad preparation / expedition / combat / loot-crafting loop make sense quickly?
2. Are battles readable enough for tactical players?
3. Do enemies, skills, buffs/debuffs and danger levels feel clear?
4. Does the expedition structure create interesting risk/reward decisions?
5. Does the stronghold feel useful as part of the strategy layer, or just like a menu hub?
6. At what point did the demo become engaging, or at what point did you lose interest?
There is also an optional system called MATB, which adds a timing layer over combat. It is meant to bring more dynamism for players who want it, while keeping a more classic turn-based pace available when disabled. Feedback on whether that feels useful or distracting is also welcome, but the main thing we want to test here is whether the core tactical/progression loop works.
Quick info:

- Title: Astralis: Dawnblades
- Studio: Studio Gravenoire
- Engine: Godot
- Genre: heroic fantasy tactical RPG
- Platform: PC / Steam
- State: in development
- Demo: available on Steam
- Languages: French, English, Spanish, Italian
- Target release: 2026
Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance to anyone who tries the demo or comments on the presentation. Critical feedback is welcome, especially from players who enjoy tactical and strategy games.
 

Oh, I was imagining full buckets being constantly dragged over them. Lucky for the tables I guess. 

Please, prevent this disaster! 😱
Nice job on the fan guard.
BTW, you said you used a polyurethane lacquer on those desks, right? That seems be holding up insanely good and I'm sure it gets its share of abuse.

I guess now we know where the expression "splitting headache" originates from. 

So it turns out that just renaming the files actually works. I renamed it to rebreath.pck and there we go

It does look like an Aquanaut, true. Man, kudos to you for the dedication to this game after all these decades.

So in the build there is a peculiar folder labelled TDXCOM_0
(Probably means Terror Deep)
This is dated two months before the build, our build dates to November 1994, while this sprite is from September 1994.
Here's the extracted graphics file. (It was also in the archive I put out earlier)
TDXCOM_0.rar
This appears to be an extremely early Aquanaut.
There is this early mockup, this is one of the earliest TFTD screenshots and clearly isn't actual gameplay but just sprites and tilesets put together to make a promotional screenshot. The Aquanauts there not only resemble the Ufopedia entry for Aquaplastic armor, but also are VERY similar to this unused sprite.

 
I went ahead and tried to put the pieces together to showcase it. As you can see it is very similar.


(I am sure I didn't put it together 100% correctly as I feel like a piece is missing, but you get the gist of it.)
This is almost certainly the very first Aquanaut they made, and while the final Aquanaut is based on the X-Com 1 Soldier sprite, these sprites were completely unique and different.

I have extracted all the graphics from these two builds. Leftovers from UFO look a bit odd since they are using the TFTD palette. 
This is truly a fascinating look into the development of TFTD.
The strings are also fascinating. Sadly no Shark at all. But here is an item list:
Dart Gun Dart Clip Jet Harpoon Harpoon Clip Gas Cannon GC-AP Bolts GC-HE Bolts GC-Phosphorous Bolts Hydro-Jet Cannon HJ-AP Ammo HJ-HE Ammo HJ-I Ammo Torpedo Launcher Small Torpedo Large Torpedo Phosphor Torpedo Gauss Pistol Gauss Rifle Heavy Gauss Magna-Blast Grenade Dye Grenade Particle Disturbance Grenade Magna-Pack Explosive Thermal Imager Medi-Kit Psi-Amp Thermal Tazer Sonic Cannon Cannon Power Clip Sonic-Blasta Rifle Blasta Power Clip Sonic Pistol Pistol Power Clip Disrupter Pulse Launcher Disrupter Ammo Thermal Shock Launcher Thermal Shock Bomb Sonic Pulser Zrbite Molecular Control Implant 1 Aquatoid Corpse Gill Man Corpse Lobster Man Corpse Tasoth Corpse Calcinite Corpse Deep One Corpse Bio-Drone Corpse Tentaculat Corpse Triscene Corpse Hallucinoid Corpse Xarquid Corpse  
A bunch of items have different names.
tftdtestdisk_extracted.7z

But that's why its axis is tilted! 😁

Yeah I am also using my Caspian for DW3 :3
 
I do hope we get proper new content soon though. Colonization was fun at first, but it got stale quickly due to the limitations.
Operations don't seem too interesting...Really hoping for something nice in the future.
An actual Guardian hybrid ship would be epic.
 

Personally I love the lore surrounding the Guardian Precursors, so I am kitted out in Guardian stuff.
I used to fly an exploration Alliance Chieftain, but I switched out to a Mandalay briefly, and then to a Caspian.
The Caspian has a lower jump range than the Mandy, but I can bring my Guardian SLF fighters.
 
Did my best to make it look like a Guardian hybrid ship :3
 
 

Huh this looks interesting, thank you for making me aware of it. I'll try it!

Hello, I am a lifelong X-Com fan and a prototype researcher.
 
So of course I was surprised to find that TFTD has a demo with a lot of early content.
I've made an article on TCRF documenting all the differences I could find. Check it out
https://tcrf.net/Proto:X-COM:_Terror_from_the_Deep

BLOODY HELL that's cold. Some 30 years ago I'd say "It does happen" but since then I've not seen temperatures this low in Slovenia...

Happy New Year from Ostrogothia too.
To see this place is still alive is a site for sore eyes! 😁

@SV: saving the world, starting with your wallet! 😉 And when your computer is still able to travel to the future and hack Skynet not all is lost.
Still, beware - motherboard longevity is definitely not infinite - components like capacitors degrade over time. Don't let it get to the point of... liquid metal. 🫣😝

Man, I almost forgot that all that masonry and bucket repair (in another thread) is just a facade, hiding the insanity of an interstellar war from the general public.  
I like to be back in action, thank you! Glad to be of an actual use with recorded kills.

Wow, these cracks must have been forming since the last ice age!  
I mean, definitely a long time - or the mortar was complete crap. The wall defnitely would crumble soon-ish, so high time for some zombification.

With all the practical work being done, you manage to notice the beauty in the frame. Not that I'd ever think of accusing you of not seeing the beauty of plants, but still.

Plastic bonding really is a problem, any ammount of oil will prevent it (the temperatures are not high enough to burn it off). I guess that is why people use the wire armature across the seam. 

Probably true, though it seemed easy enough to be worth trying.  

Just stumbled upon this... If you, instead of physics, choose chemistry...
The article says that styrofoam in acetone is a good glue and in gasoline it is a sealant. 
Now, styrofoam is an inflated polystyrene, so IMO in both cases you get more or less plastic (after the solvent evaporates), but as a sealant this should work.

LOL!!!
Damn, Z, superb job! I mean ok, I'm sure a well paid mechanic that does this for a living for 20 years could do better but DAMN I sure couldn't! As my friend says: "Too good for your skill level!".