News

Star Fleet Saturday; a little closer to Saturday this week than is usually the case ...

Japanese artist marsanno21 has done some more illustrations based on Star Fleet recently, including on based on quite a memorable scene from the show.

You can find him on twitter:
https://twitter.com/marsanno21

I have a collection of his images here as well:
https://xbomber.co.uk/?dir=Star+Fleet%2FFan+Work+-+Artworks%2Fmarsanno21

Mission-Specific
 - Level 16 (final level) substantially progressed:
	- Space fortress reactor 90% finished
	- High security area
	- Cargo block exchange (graphics upgraded, pictured)
	- Drone storage hall
	- Deathballs on rails
	- Space environment and transition to fortress exterior improved
	- Cruise missile vapour trail fixed and engine glow added
	- Energy net behaviour and textures improved
	- Eye laser emplacement graphics improved

 - Level 15 - Battlecruiser damage indication improved

Engine
 - Messages subsystem - fixes and improvements
 - Terrain and ground-object handling improved
 - Object ordering
 - Scorekeeping improved
 - Enemy weapons improved, including smart laser
 - Music engine improved

Briefings
 - GUI improved; colour matches HUD of selected player ship
 - L16 briefing images added

Menu
 - various fixes, including updater

Star Fleet Saturday!

I found a couple more scans of the manga that featured in Gekkan Shonen Jump, uploaded by MTJMTJ02.
Don't ask me though why Shiro is dressed like a medieval knight in one of the images.
Apparently, the artist wasn't able to see the show before producing the manga and didn't have much info to work with.

Twitter user nami_happy also uploaded a photo of all the Televi-kun issues that featured instalments of their separate X Bomber manga.

The space fortress reactor is nearly finished and quite cool.

I suddenly had to do a lot of work on the xbomber.co.uk site.
I upgraded the SFXB forum, and it now needs PHP 7.
Unfortunately, PHP7 helpfully has all the MySQL functions removed.
The re-working of the website is reasonably far along.
I should have the forum running alongside the website again within the next several days.

I promised a new X-Bomber version at the end of the month but I don't think I'm going to make that.
Once the PHP situation is fixed, I'll finish the gun ports/missile launchers for the reactor.
After that, I'll do a playtest and tidy up what's there before uploading the first new version in well over 2 years.

Here's a little story, ready for Star Fleet Saturday ...

Shinichi Wakasa posted some photos on twitter of the matte painting of the EDF Moonbase lunar city which was done by Rikuo Mikami; one of the show's directors.
Presumably, he also did the paintings of the EDF headquarters on earth.

From what I understand, this painting was hanging in some company's staff canteen until one of Shinichi's friends, working there, recognised it, notified him and Shinichi bought it.

Anyway, the point is that not everything from the show's production was destroyed when the studio burned to the ground, shortly after the show was made.

Here's a further update on X-Bomber the Game ...
L16 - Space environment and transition to fortress exterior improved
 - Cruise missile vapour trail fixed and engine glow added
 - Energy net behaviour and textures improved
 - 'Eye' laser emplacement graphics improved
 - Work on main reactor started
Engine - fixed chatter glitches
Briefing - GUI improved

Well, that's the end of another working week, and that means that it is nearly time for Star Fleet Saturday ...

Here's a fabulous illustration of Dai-X (who appears to have undergone a pleasing makeover).
This is the work of two artists: Riccardo Pieruccini, who produced the lineart, and Daniele Rudoni; the colourist.

I think I first found this on instagram but I see that Riccardo has his own facebook entry about the artwork:
https://www.facebook.com/ruggine610/photos/a.1491530487525396/2644817265530040/?type=3&theater

X-Bomber Update Wednesday ...
 - Level 16 - High security area
 - Level 15 - Battlecruiser damage indication improved
 - Messages subsystem - fixes and improvements
 - Updater - fixes and improvements
 - Game engine terrain and ground-object handling improved
 - Mission briefing - improved
 - Scorekeeping improved

I started work on the "high-security area" of X-Bomber's last level, where the mission-critical VIP is imprisoned.
This is what the huge mid-level boss is guarding.

This will be a more complex and even better-defended version of the Alliance base that you encounter in levels 3 and 11.
I went back to the *Giant Sketchbook of X-Bomber the Game* to see if I'd drawn a layout for this version, but apparently I hadn't.

So, I mapped it out with a sharpie on some graphing paper.
This version will have twice as much everything; shield generators, turrets, beam cannons and missile launchers.

For the *Easter Weekend Star Fleet Saturday*, following on from ... *Good Friday*, we at least need something pretty decent ...

Now, Masami Watanabe was not messing about when he created this double-page illustration for the February 1981 edition of Televi-Kun magazine.

This was uploaded by twitter user; sousai_h ...  
Can't believe I'd never seen this image until the other week.

Please don't hesitate to get in touch. I'll be glad to hear from you and I'll reply as quickly as I can.

Email me at:
... or contact me via the SFXB Forum contact page.

Profiles: SFXB Forum