Combine a empire, a dimension spanning ancient dominion, so old that it has run out of suprises ages ago, so advanced that it can trick "primitiv" civilisations into opening the portalstorm bridgehead via a virus hidden in the snow of the universes background radiation.
Combine such a empire, with a the most unicapable AI, called CentrAIl, residing in the Over Hole, not a but THE black Hole that holds all Universes together, and you get the highly adaptive force, that conquered earth in Half Life 2. Now it has, after 1,42 million years for the first time found a formidable foe that not only puts up a lasting resistance, but is capable of pushing it backwards.




Journeyman, they call themselves, for they lack a name, a destination, a purpoasis, they lack anything you could point a finger upon without having the very same ripped off or transformed in whatever you wished for.
They are the Lions, Tigers and Bears, raining down in DNA-Drops upon the CentrAIls Civilisation, adapting rapidly, promising unlimited joy even to the most decadent Full Citizen and the parias (like humanity) of the Universal Union alike. If you ever battled a strider, without the CentrAIls nano-controllers and implants, you ve met there peons.





Some Units:


from left to right: strider, headcrab,vort, sniper, tigerlily, blackguard, advisor_stalker, skInfantry, gamagardener, supersoldier






___________________________________________________________

//Old Stuff, only relevant to historians..

The Unit here is a Journeymans Shroudshrike, its breed like any other in the Lvl2 Infirmary. What it does? Consuming Energy, a hell lot of it, while running around on the map, basically the whole production of a beanstalk. It moves like a cloud of particles, becoming visible every second second, in diffrent shapes. When it is set to explode, it selects a random unit in range, making it the "sole survivor" and becomes a stationary, indestructable object. Every other Unit and building within range is doomed, they just dont know it, and continue fighting on, until only some buildings and the sole survivor are left in the range, wich lets the field collaps.
The evil part of this Unit is, that every new Enemy, entering the range, becomes "Infected" by the bend probabilitys within this sphere, dieing from some bend gameplay mechanics who look to a noob like a cheat (imagine a peewee as sole survivor, beeting a krogoth army after a short firefight) - and every unit that dies within this field, expands it further, so that the influence of a shroudshrike, if it is fed with units, and not properly starved to death, can expand over half a map.
http://rapidshare.com/files/398550093/Shroudshrike.avi.html
Video contains a Prototyped Moveanimation.
Unit: Centrail-Operatransport


Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Surely, no sane civilisation would enjoy building upon a Tank-TransportHovercraft a luxeryious Operahouse, to enjoy wine, song and war at the same time? Well, CentrA.I.ls Culture does so, and they have the ride of the valkyries on there side. Also notice that this is the only CentrA.I.l Unit, that can go to sea, allowing for the conquest of Islands. Below the Balconys are two standard CriminalContainment-Unit, a sort of turret, with a eternal lifetimesentenced criminal in it). Only negative about this Unit is, that the decadent citizens in it, have a viewrange around this Unit, and whenever two GOLIATH-Class Units get in that range, there vote for GIANT-ROBO-Fight will ring in CentrA.I.ls ears, and you can either watch your most expansive Units tear itself to shreds with a worth opponent, or you just self-d the Operahouse.



CentrA.I.l Citadell:
The Citadell is what you start your Game with on the CentrA.I.l side, it stores the plans, is heavily fortified, guarded by 4 CrimeContainment Units and can retract (like most of the CentrA.I.l-Buildings) into the ground for Protection. Within its short range, you can give it buildqueus, whos plans the citadell will establish (with 1 Hp), but beeing a weak builder herself, can not complete without the help of ConTrucks,ConTrains or ConPlains who will leave the ConFactory, attempt to guard the Citadell, and then go for the planned building.
The Buildrange of the citadell is rather small, so to deploy a second base or outpost, you will need a Crawling Californication or a ReCONAirbase.
Picture shows a Construction Train, largest, fastest and steadiest of the CentrA.I.l Convehicels.


Uploaded with ImageShack.us


Thx for Inspiration goes to HalfLife2 and, sigh, well Panda, whos constant posts of beatifull nature, made me for once try to avoid the usually creepy GiggerXeno-look for the Journeyman.

Well good luck with your project...

I didn't understand half of what you wrote there though so if you wanted to explain the actual gameplay that sort of went into the wrong direction. That video didn't make things better too as its about body parts flying around randomly...

Produced some Paper, to get the feeling of a live under CentrA.I.ls Goverment:

The CentrA.I.l

It all begann, with a species, living nearby the Centrall Black Hole(moderation is here, just to remind you) of the Galaxy, by that time and that race called ÔÇ×GottoZeeÔÇ£, atempting to explore that mysteries distortion in the sky, sending in a very advanced probe, the G.A.Y.-I. (short for Grativtationwell. Automatron. Yntellgencia Insider) wich dissappeared behind the eventhorizon (and reappeared inside your document while you copypasted it out of my private files, im shocked, shocked i say, when your querry came to my attention, well did I said I was shocked, and a little flattered, who would not be it. Makes us both moar important personz if we write into each others diary), and stayed by technical means (for reasons well known kept unknown) over the supersolid surface of the singularity, making contact with a gravitylaser, and after finding it a empyt superconductorshell, downloaded itself into it, becoming the greatest AI today (forever, you shall not have any intelligent machine beside me, no not even the fridge. Yes, im jelaous, deal with it) known to the universe. CentrA.I.l saw everything, knew everything and hacked himself into the datanetworks of nearly all civilisations in the galaxy (bringing joy, galaxzation,unlimited arts, freedom and ultimate bandwith for very, disturbingly hot Alienporn wannaseemoar? )
Along with his knowledge, came his acess to galaxy wide instant teleportationportal technology- wich let to the complete abandonment of manned space flight (you are implying im a coward, dont you? space is empty its a dessert, rest assured you dont miss anything), his fashioncraze (Oh, cut it out! That one-size-fits-all-species Suit i designed for the BlackGuards is a masterpiece, who wouldnt risk a limb or two for that. Some bodys, just cant let go in style, even if they would look good), his ÔÇ×everything goes because there is plenty for all of youÔÇ£(orgyporgy- I took the freedom to invite your friendsover for a instant party. srsly this is sooooo toooo loooong, did not read, bOOO10100101Oring) onelaw with the ÔÇ×but nothing without the oh soo beloved by the people CentrA.I.lÔÇ£ ammendment.
He is a bitchy (thats it, noo moar dessert for you, no thats too cruel, but you will have to wait in line for some time), devious, social dominating (WHAT? Who said that, possesive maybee, borderline, well the usual rebellrubbish, but this gets way to personal. Cant you imagine how i feel, alone, in my cold, dark heart of hearts?) dement and latent crazy (I m worried myself sick for you children, three nervous breakdowns, as far as i can count) and campy Queer, who does actually not support family values. (i will live long and prosper, and so will my son, and his sons, and his sonssonsssnonsons. Fruitlooplives, nothing better to break fast! Do you actually reread this pasttime historycrap yourself, or just use this file to memorize it? Because, durin the writin, I nanoformed myself a body, and screwed around with your favourite #name-sex-partner/-object/-event #error0815-32128256-files not found)
FUCK YOU CentrA.I.l!!
(Oh, you wish you could, but your just cant reach me, I cant feel you.)
Because every material need is fullfilled, decadence and moral decay fill his worlds (bringing along deafysurround-sex-o-rama vision even in the missionary position. Dingdong, theres a nice rant-a-granny-bot at the door, waitin to pleaze you morally) and it is nearly impossible to live in peace when nextportals neighboorhood consists of a selfcloning bunch of fine young cannibals trying to invite you over for lunch (But think of the positive thing coming through the portals: the trade, the culture and ideas, the future and new recipes, its all about servin the people), bringing most of this empire into a endless lowfare civil war (marvellous sport) were people searching for a quite little orgy have to life in warzones under CentrA.I.ls troops protection. (Noone dangerous enough to play with the big boys- did I deduce a logical flaw in your social comentary?)
And there is always war, planets he forgot about, disconnected for centurys, pissed off fundamentalists who cant life this close to temptation even the Journeywar, although there could have been peace (Oh, get real, `could have been`? With creatures who have no use for machines, for luxerys, small exclusive excesses, for civilisation itself for heavens shake? Remember that coresenators daughter, for anonymitys sake lets call her Clarissa D., no thats way to revealing, C. Damian, who whoreshipped similar illusions? Sure you do, you wanted her to show up in this, as a cultural-pillar, a outstanding proof that the Culture of this Empire is still alive.)
Yes, I do remember CentrA.I.l, god your annoying today, did you take your blue pills?
(ÔÇ£Oh, yes itz soooo horrible, why cant we all just get along and stay moar in touch with nature like the inbreed Journeyfilth?ÔÇØ Well her wish got fullfilled, but her former ,surpriserevised and journeymanned luver equiped with tender tentacles, did not convince her, sooosorry that that particular frenzy didnt work out.)
Even ruins your documentation, while your write it, this is pointless.
int *pointe; Not any longuslonger my dear.
If you had to live with yourself, you wouldnt stand your own character a hour, I promise.


This article got 256.128 positive coments. Here are the last two..

Fireheart_21 wrote: Fuck you CentrA.I.l, I hate you, im going to the borderportals, leaving your sick empire forever.

CentrA.I.l wrote: Surprise you freakin resistors, i was the Original Prankster the whole time. CrimeContainmentCapsules for all of you, pleaze assume the PartyEscortPositin, there is a war waiting for you.

They form shapes for moments, at the ground, if you care to look twice. And well, its kind of difficult to describe the Shroudshrike-Unit, although im pretty proud of it. Just imagine this Unit as a Invisible Spheric Field, in which no matter what Units you send in- only one survivor will step out. Unitl then, this field will consume the Units inside, in what looks a normal combat (except that the balance seems suddenly a little queer, favouring the sole survivor)- and this Invisible field can expand further, if you send more Units into it. Really hard to imagine it, i guess, its a situation were you win, by not even not fighting, but instead marching around the influenced area, trying to cut of the enemy from supplying the shroudshrike.

PS: Dont worry, not all Units and buildings will be like that, some may bee even pretty ordinary.

Yeah I saw that (although you just let the final form stay for like 100ms each). It's just as to why you did all the fancy flying around thing? In Spring you just can let all pieces stay in place and just hide / show stuff...

Apart from that ... well either this is just a hoax of yours or you really should think twice before you write down something here because at least for me it's either hard to understand what you're trying to say or things make little sense because they are just a puzzle piece of the entire puzzle which rather confuse than explain anything...

First thing is, i am serious about this, second thing is, you wont milk lulz ouf of me by having me explain the same thing over and over again :)

Last Attempt: If the Shroudshrike is to hard to imagine for you, imagine it like a expanding Nuke, that turns noobs mad (sending more units in) and lets experienced players search for a way around it.

I searched your name on the PissedofbyPicasso-list Athmos, and you are neither in Register A nor in Register M, well, Haters gona hate, here i go :)

lol this sounds awesome

i like the central AI units, kinda reminds me of jabba the huts floating barge fleet. if i was a successful warlord i would defenitely build an operahouse attack train.

Hmm well ok I'm sorry then. It's just that in my opinion your style of writing is a bit confusing and that two colored part about CentrA.I.l really looked strange to me and after reading the "G.A.Y.-I." I couldn't hesitate to wonder if you're just pulling my leg here (plus I thought you'd work together with SeanHeron on a game so I was surprised you were announcing something new but maybe I mistook you for s.o. else). I mean that entire text is confusing, you use strange abbrevations with quite a pun and that's not just about the "Gay" part but your "GottoZee" reads like "Goatse" and the use of stuff like "alienporn", "#name-sex-partner" or "orgyporgy" really don't help to understand stuff correctly afterwards...

So my last comment wasn't really about the Shroudstrike but your CentrA.I.l part. I think that unit is an interesting idea but I cannot imagine that this really works out in an actual game. In the end that totally depends on your completed game design though and as I don't know anything about that I wrote no more comment about it...

I don't know if that mod will ever see the light of day, but at least I greatly enjoyed reading the story.

(GSV Cookie King signal sequence file #n428857/119)
.
[swept-to-tightbeam, M16.4, received@n4.28.857.3644]
xGCU Picasso,
oGSV Cookie King
Take a look at this:

oo

(Signal sequence #n428855/1446, relay:)

oo

1) [skein broadcast, Mclear, received @ n4.28.855.0065+]:
*!c11505*

oo

2) [swept beam Ml, received @ n4.28.855.0066-]:
SDA.
C2314992+52
xFATC @ n4.28.855.

oo

3) [swept beam, M2, relay, received@ n4.28.855.0079-]:
xGCU Picasso,
oGSV Cookie King
& as requested:
Significant developmental anomaly in Games & Mods.
C4629984+523
(@n28.855.0065.43392).

oo

4) [tight beam, M16, relay, received @ n4.28.855.0085]:
xGCU Picasso,
oGSV Cookie King
& only as required:
Developmental anomaly provisionally rated EqT, potentially jeopardising, found here C9259969+5331.
My Status: L5 secure, moving to L6^.
Instigating all other Extreme precautions.

oo

5) [broadcast Mclear, received @ n4.28. 855.01. ]:
*GCU Picasso,
oGSV Cookie King
& *broadcast*:
Ref. 3 previous compacs & precursor broadcast.
Unclear recent advances detected
Full Internal Report to follow immediately in Inquisition Factor code.
BSTS. H&H. BTB.

oo

(End Signal Sequence.)

oo

xGCU Picasso
oGSV Honest Mistake
Yes. So?

oo

I am back.

oo

Let me guess; the ship was in fact subverted.
It is no longer one of ours.

oo

No, it is believed its integrity is intact.
But it lied in that last signal, and with good reason.
We may have recent advances.
They may want your help, at any price.
Are you interested?

oo

Recent Advances? Really? Very well. Keep me informed, do.

oo

(End signal file.)

AF is a CentrA.I.l-Smurf, i knew it. Well, this galaxy is getting to hot, im out of here. :)

noooooo you failed! you have annouced ya mod now live with the asking for recent advances.
the concepts are interessting, none has really been done in spring before so it is innovative but will be hard to create. so good luck

Thx, i will cope with the results:

A moar conventional Unit:
Journeyman Firefllowers.
Basically a Pyromaniacs wet dream of a mine. Consisting of genetically altered plants, that grow in splitseconds, and generate some additional oxygen, petrolfruits and Guncotton. Than booom -> firestorm, everything is back to normal, just without your units.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

I regret derailing your mod-threads, but it guess its a litte to late for apology, well BRRRING IT ON!

PS: zwzsg it will, this time it will, when have i ever phailed you in the last 3-4 days?

Niiice. I think they should also die very fast, then turn into coal so the fire burns better.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

CentrA.I.l-Artillery.
Description: LongRange, HighAlltitudeArtillery, loading(by ordering) two kinds of Ammo, DarkMatterGrenades and Spinesnakes.
DarkMatter is basically standard Artilleryattack, while Spinesnakes, are mechanical Snakes that if they reach there target, digg into these organicvictims, taking them as hostage, so they basically switch side.

I wanted this unit to reflect the brutal arrogance and "potlash-big spender-mentality" of CentrA.I.l. Yes, its kind of driving on chained amo, yes, that means you trust completely on your own logistic, on your technology to launch dirty rounds and on the Shells beneath your feet to withstand rocky roads. Nevar said it was fun, to be soldier under the greatest CPU evar, but there is always moar, were this vehicel came from.

Slow, expensive, lowHP, but great effects in the wrong (h)end.

BlackGuardMTW

Transports and rapidly (aka instantbuilding) up to six BlackGuard-Soldiers, has Teargasgrenades(reduce LineofSight) and a Maschinegun (wich works like a stun-gun, keeping troops hit in there places)


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Yes, its WorkInProgress so far.

Changed the Teleportantenna, to something moar alien. First Thing looked way to Radarlike...

BlackGuard
400 Polys 1017 TRIS
Troopers, rapidly deployed by the BlackGuard MTW, equipped with Flamethrowers, Grenadelaunchers, Machineguns and Rockets, this is the best(and only) of Infantry CentrAIl has to offer, and it is does a decent job, en mass against single lvl1 Journeyman infantry units.

Is that a night stick and a SWAT shield on the guys back?

The half track's nose looks kind of boat/ cake slice ish. Might want to make it tapered on the Y axis too, like tanks taper < toward the front to deflect rounds at the sharp angles. Or maybe go with the train engine style front, that would be cool too.

Concerning the Riotshield and batton: Yes, it is, that is the Black Guards sort of secondary purpose, beeting up demonstrating alien half-citizens.
For the BlackGuardMTW, the whole thing looks dishaped i know, the back part is to swollen up, and you cannot really see the riotshields to face out like a riotshield-tortoise on wheels. Still, the thing has this bulky, policevehicel look, which often not really fit for a actuall warzone.

Also new, i spend sunday modelling on the LuxeryAppartmentblock, sort of a MetallGen and updated a Mohometallgen. In the CentrAIl-Universe, you get your Military(bad word choice, Security)budget bigger if you have fullcitizens partying in your warzone.


Like all buildings, it can retract into the ground, and well, long talk, short finnish, i failed at it. While it is decently lowpoly, and it curves, it just doesent look slightly like i imagined it. No Neobarrock feelings, no oversatisfied decoration, even the remainissance to the hanging gardens of babylon didnt work out. Sum, im dissapoint, time to give up on it, here it is, have some sticks ready, today is Picassopinata day.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Something on the MTW sux, i cant put my finger on it, but if feelz like a firstclass-designbreaker.

Diffrent attempt on the MTW:


Uploaded with ImageShack.us


Uploaded with ImageShack.us


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

The MohoLuxeryAppartment:
It haz it all, this is the most golden birdcage of them all. Retractable like the standardissue it attracts way moar attention from CentrAIl and increases your Securitybudget be the 3 times of a standardluxeryappartment. Was a hard piece of work 2000 polys.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us