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To all SSC Station occupants

Thank you for the donations over the past year (2024), it is much appreciated. I am still trying to figure out how to migrate the forums to another community software (probably phpbb) but in the meantime I have updated the forum software to the latest version. SSC has been around a while so their is some very long time members here still using the site, thanks for making SSC home and sorry I haven't been as vocal as I should be in the forums I will try to improve my posting frequency.

Thank you again to all of the members that do take the time to donate a little, it helps keep this station functioning on the outer reaches of space.

-D1-

Mutos jumping in, bringing Hoshikaze 2250 into SSC !

(@mutos)
Active Member

Hi all,

 

 

I'm Mutos, an IT admin during the day, writer and gamedev in a universe-writing community on my hobbies ! We at Hoshikaze 2250 are a group of very creative people who write a Sci-Fi universe in a collective and trans-media way. We've founded an association, of which I'm currently the president.

 

What does it means ? We're a dozain or so authors working around a wiki, that's for the collective. And we develop our universe on such things as a wiki encyclopedia, short stories, novels, a paperback RPG, a boardgame prototype, an Elite-like and EV-like video game named "Stars of Call", some paintings and a comics project under way, and other things may emerge soon, like 3D printed models. So that's for the trans-media. Our project is written in French, but the videogame is in English and we hope to be able one day to translate everything else...

 

The Hoshikaze universe is a future history where, from alternate '80s where space exploration was not stalled like in reality, By year 2250 (hence the title) mankind has encountered a dizain species, who share a known universe of several hundred inhabited systems out of 3-4 thousands explored ones.

 

Space travel is everywhere, as should be in a Space-Opera setting. Ships accelerate on course with warp drives in normal space, maneuver with conventional plasma verniers and use naturally occuring jump tunnels to travel between stars.

 

All species except a few have flown up to space by themselves. They share a few similarities but are vastly different in their views over life, so first encounters were often, let's say full of action... Over time, everyone has found their place and they now share more or less peacefuly this immense known space. There are some conflicts, a few of whom could escalate into more global wars. But so far, no species is either dominant or destitute and the geo-political map is quite complex, far from any good vs evil manicheism.

 

And there's the Spacers ! A bunch of people from all species, joined together by the fact of living their life in space, the most dangerous environment known. When all that stands between you and the void is your ship's hull and the hope that, in cas of something happenning, other ships around will try hard to come and rescue you, this creates a culture of cooperation and boasts mutual understanding, even between very different cultures from very different species.

 

With States governing the planets and common routes, the Spacers reign in pass-through systems statebound ships traverse but don't stop in, asteroids fields, gas planet rings, backwater colonies and outposts, and so on. They are a bunch of freedom-lovers, ready to give help to another Spacer. They make also good smugglers and even pirates, most of them would disable a ship, strip it of its valuable and launch themselves the message capsules for rescuers to come. Of course, there is also a dark side, with misfits and killers and psychopaths, but globally, even scoundrels abide by the Spacers' unwritten laws of mutual help.

 

Globally, Hoshikaze 2250 is about a realistic, harsh, final-frontier-type environnment, which drives, requires and even forces very different people to cooperate. In writing it, we wanted to instill an optimistic view, that co-op can overcome even the hardest environments. I hope we succeeded...

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Topic starter Posted : June 13, 2014 22:21
Cody
 Cody
(@cody)
Noble Member

Welcome to SSC, Mutos.

ReplyQuote
Posted : June 14, 2014 03:15
(@pinback)
99 Star General

Welcome to the forums Mutos

 

Just wondering if you guys had looked at doing a mod of Pioneer instead of a total conversion of NAEV or is the best fit for your ideas.

ReplyQuote
Posted : June 14, 2014 21:59
(@mutos)
Active Member

Hi all,

 

 

Thanks for the welcome !

 

I don't know Pioneer, but I'll be glad to discover it ^-^ Since 2004, we tried a number of engines and when finally we found NAEV, it was the best fit for what we're doing just now : building the universe, ships, factions and history.

 

One day we'll go 3D and we'll ned another engine, we're thinking about Vega Strike. But for now no choice is made, because there is still a long way before we can do that.

 

Mainly, we'll need true 3D artists rather than drafting ships on DoGA, and a true team of developers rather than being one coder o the team : just me.  In fact, we're mainly scenarists and 2D illustrators, so we're going to recruit. And as we're still an amateur team making no money, only very dedicated people who fall in love with the Hoshikaze 2250 universe come to us.

 

That may change, though, because we're in contact with publishers and just published ou first novel, so we may climb a few steps in the next years towards professional level...

ReplyQuote
Topic starter Posted : June 15, 2014 19:18
auryx
(@auryx)
Estimable Member

Hi Mutos,

 

Wait.....are you the guy who ran the very first space sim forum I was a member of?!? The Hoshikaze Space Simulations Development forum? 😀

 

If so, thanks, I have many happy memories of participating in that forum! I was wondering if you would turn up here on Space Sim Central one day. Nice to know that Stars of Call is still going strong - I can remember you talking about it back in the old forum.

 

Welcome again to SSC!

 

auryx

You look good through a crosshair.

ReplyQuote
Posted : June 16, 2014 12:09
(@mutos)
Active Member

HI auryx,

 

 

Yes, that was it ! Sorry the foum has plummetted so long ago, posts began to be scarcer and finally spam overcome us... And yes, I already talked about it. It was the years when we made the Stellar System Editor, 2003-2004 or something like that. I'm glad you liked the experience ^-^

 

So cool to find you back there, but what could I expect but finding spacegames-loving old friends there ? :preved:

ReplyQuote
Topic starter Posted : June 16, 2014 18:59
(@mutos)
Active Member

Hi all,

Still post necromancing ^-^

It's been 11 years, but I'm glad to say that, as of January 2025, Hoshikaze 2250 is still alive and kicking, and has extended far beyond what it was in 2014 ^-^

  • We've now published 3 novels at Rivière Blanche, a well-known French sci-fi publishing house, 1 comics book at YIL, have a double-novel-book set for May 2025, and a 6th novel in writing, no deadline yet set ;
  • We also have well advanced on our Stars Of Call (aka SoC) videogame as a NAEV TC. Dev has beeen stalled since, because of lack of developpers time, but it's still downloadable and playable, althogh incomplete story-wise, and serves us as a reference map for the hyperspace-jumps network ;
  • We also have published a Discovery Kit for our Pen-and-Paper RPG and now try to bring to speed the project of a full P&P RPG sourcebook, if possible with licence for the Chaosium BRPS ;
  • Years ago (2012-2014), we made and extensively play-tested 2 successive prototypes of a Cooperative Board Game with a RPG flair, but never found the time to complete the 3rd generation prototype. Recently, when partaking at Utopiales 2024, our stand was neighbor with Tolkraft, an indie game designer who published a game along converging lines, but in a wet navy setting, so this subproject could shortly be restarted, should we reach a partnership...
  • We do around 10-15 IRL Conventions each year, where we sell our books and goodies, and we've earned a reputation in the French Sci-Fi Fandom, which helps with gathering resources for the development ;
  • We still have to translate any of our works (except SoC, which is already English-native) into English, which would greatly help the project to gain traction, because of the sheer size of the English-speaking fandom relative to the French-speaking one...

As for SoC (after all, we're here at SpaceSimCentral ^-^), we've lately been playing with the idea to use Pioneer for a 3D iteration, hence my presence here. A few tests have showed it would be possible and Pioneer fits quite well with the Hoshikaze 2250 universe and SoC look-and-feel we want. The main roadblocks preventing us from going this way are :

  • Main issue is the same than w/ the NAEV TC : lack of developpers and time, we all have full-time jobs and develop Hoshikaze as hobby, we're currently more oriented towards writing. Anyways, we're mainly writers and 2D illustrators, having at most in the team 3 amateur devs w/o much available time, no true pro dev and no 3D artist ;
  • Lack of pioneer TCing knowledge, for instance, we couldn't find anywhere a tuto on TCing Pioneer. We're trying some tracks, the most promising being, as we had done with NAEV : erasing all but the Sol system, then adding our own systems.
  • One important question is how we'll be able to build hundreds of stellar systems : will it be entirely by hand-writting JSON, or if there is a Pioneer-related stellar system editor, or even is it possible to develop one (this 3rd option getting blocked by lack of dev/time, cf. issue #1)... (Yeeeessss, found a Pioneer systems editor, check link !)
  • Can Pioneer disable extra random systems generation, as we want to include only our own hyperspace jump network ? In a future iteration, generating far away systems could do, but for now it's not something we want ;
  • Is Pioneer able to manage interstellar navigation in a wormhole jump-tunnels network instead of the default distance-based, free hyperspace jump approach ? In short, we want a Vorkosigan-like astrogation instead of being Alliance-Union-like...

But as the Hoshikaze 2250 project is here for the long run, I know one day we'll overcome these issues ! It may take months, years or even decades, but we have a philosophy of setting stone after stone, building our multi-media, univers-oriented project one step at a time. Also, we work on several subprojects at once, as time and skill of each team member allows... Subprojects may stall and restart years after, that's not a problem... Current focus is on writing and 2d-illustrating, but it could shift back to SoC in the future...

So if you want to know more and even if you want to help us ^-^, just jump to https:/hoshikaze.net !

This post was modified 3 weeks ago 10 times by Mutos
ReplyQuote
Topic starter Posted : January 18, 2025 14:20
(@pinback)
99 Star General

Great to see you are still going strong.

ReplyQuote
Posted : January 19, 2025 12:28