(Teaser) Upcoming Modular Starborn Guardian mod
Working mod title is
The Starborn Journey
Let me preface by saying I really enjoy the Starborn and their part in the story and universe of Starfield. I also really love the Guardian as a concept. However the execution was...to my mind, lackluster. It felt small and incomplete.
Which is why I began with remaking and implementing the cut Starborn furniture in my mod; The Starborn Aesthetic.
https://www.nexusmods.com/starfield/mods/11926
In the process of making this mod, I ended up looking at the Guardian interior in blender, because there is that railing in the main chamber that just comes to a sheared off edge, which I thought looked bad.
Fast forward many many months, and I am neck deep in converting the Guardian into a fully modular ship, with a brand new interior mesh made from scratch (so no fragments, or errors, or inconsistencies)
I am posting about this project now because I was able to successfully test the modular ship in game and confirmed that all the appropriate animations are functional, which was the last major hurdle of this project.
What this mod will do;
Adds a new ship, the Starborn Wanderer, able to be purchased from a special vendor on a Starborn Landing Pad, which can only be built if you have gone through Unity.
The Wanderer is 100% modular. Every ship module can be removed, replaced, and upgraded, including weapons (4 total weapon types included at release), shields, reactors, engines, fuel, cargo, grav drive, scan jammer, and the special Crimson Fleet tech for their quest.
The interior was remade, from scratch, by me, to fix some of the issues I had with the vanilla interior. To most people, it will seem nearly identical, however I expanded the lower rooms by a little, and the upper rooms by a fair bit more. The railing that got this ball rolling is now seamlessly extruded from the other wall elements.
All module upgrades will be tiered by level, as opposed to number of times through Unity. The basic ship will be tuned to level 30, however the first upgrade wont be available until level 50, then 75, then 100 for the final upgrade.
A brand new Landing Pad will be included, with new meshes made from scratch to match the style of the Guardian.
I will be merging my furniture mod into this mod to offer people a) fewer mods to load and b) a pre-decorated option for those who aren't feeling creative.
There will be a special furnishing that will essentially add 2 "habs" to the ship. Because nothing looks good clinging to the outside of the Guardian, these "habs" will actually be hidden. They will exist in discreet, interior cells separate from the ship itself. I will leave the specifics a mystery for now, as I have plans to make this more interesting than it sounds. The furnishing will simply add a means of teleporting to those cells.
I intend to make several variations on some of the modules. The engines and the ring, mainly. The wings, while cool and deserving of variations, are *very* complex, and I am a bit loathe to prod them at this time.
The engines now have actual light/flame what have you, coming from them.
The weapons actually fire from their location on the ship
The Grav Drive is now open and visible when *inside* the ship. What used to be a featureless disc, is now an elevated skylight with Grav Drive magnets rotating slowly inside it. The Armillary will display, if you choose, inside this space.
There will be small plinths elsewhere in the interior for the Armillary console and the decorator console, removing them from the top of the pilot seat.
Lighting in the interior will be fixed to be more neutral, fewer red and orange lights in weird places.
I have an enormous amount of work left to do, and I am likely still 2 months or more away from release, but I wanted to let people know that this is in the works, fairly far along, and it is being made by someone who prizes thoroughness and perfection.
My to do list grows ever longer, it feels like, but I am also zeroing in on the last handful of things that need to be done.
At this stage of development, i am very eager for feedback, ideas, suggestions, you name it. I don't want to expand the scope of this project any further than it has already expanded (it was originally just some chairs and tables, remember) But I am happy to hear anything folks want to ask about/suggest.
