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LTFC - June 2017 - Station Edition

#1
Take part in the discussion --> here
Only submissions in this thread, please.

Heyaa!

Welcome to the 16th edition of the Limit Theory Fan Contest! This month will be about "Stations". It doesn't necessarily have to focus completely on stations, but it must openly feature the topic in some form. Be a little creative, and I'm sure you can come up with something awesome. :) Everyone can make as many admissions as they like, but only one can be the "official" admission by which you are judged.

This contest will have 3 prizes for the top three submissions, and each entrant can only win one prize. If there are less than six entrants, only two prizes will be given out. If there are less than four entrants, only one prize will be awarded. If there are less than two entrants, no prizes will be given. Selected prizes will be taken from the pool, and winners can choose between them. First place gets first pick.


The objective: Create art about Limit Theory.
This could be in written form as a story, lore, or a detailed idea for a mod. It could be visual like a gif, photoshop or video. Or even audio - anyone up for a bit of stand-up about Limit Theory? These are just a few ideas off the top of my head, but I'm sure you guys can think of a lot more. It is fine to use other games' assets in your submissions, as long as your work is your own.
Rule of thumb: "Does it spotlight Limit Theory?"


In addition to the prizes, Josh has asked me to add that he is willing to hold a thirty-minute one-on-one conversation with the first place winner, if they feel so inclined. Otherwise, the second place winner will be given the option, and then the third, etc. This is purely an add-on prize; you will still receive a game prize as well. :)
Prize pool: Depending on the number of submissions, two to four prizes will be randomly selected from the pool for the winners to choose from. The remaining prizes will be held over for next month. This gives all winners prizes to choose between, with the first place winner having first pick between them all. This should ensure everyone gets something they enjoy. The prize that is not chosen gets returned to the pool for the next month, and the pool is refilled to six items, randomly chosen from a list. If an item is declined by the last-place winner two months in a row, it is removed from the pool to keep things fresh.


The rules:
  • The artwork needs to be about Limit Theory per the objective.
  • Everybody is free to enter but can only submit one entry to the contest. You are free to change or replace your submission for as long as the contest is open.
  • If you have submitted more than one work, you need to be very clear about which one you're entering. If there is any doubt, the latest entry in the forum thread will be judged.
  • You cannot submit something you've already submitted to a previous LTFC. Submitting things you plan to (or have) submitted to other non-LT contests is discouraged.
  • All contest submissions have to be made as a reply to this thread.
  • Submitting a prize does not exclude you from having a submission scored.
  • Judges are not barred from making a submission themselves, but their submissions can't earn prizes. If they would like their submissions to earn prizes, they cannot act as a judge for that month.
  • The contest will be open to new submissions until Tuesday, July 4th, 23:59 GMT.
  • Discussion about this contest or submissions can happen here.
  • Any prizes are yours to do whatever you want with them. You can even give the prize to someone else if you'd like, and they don't have to be from this forum.
Note: if you're using another site to host content, make sure the title and comment displays that it's part of a contest submission. This is to avoid future Googlers from becoming confused when looking for official content.


Judging:
Our panel of three judges will evaluate the submissions based on the following criteria:
  • Originality: 30%
  • Aesthetic: 25%
  • Details: 10%
  • X factor: 20%
  • Realism according to the LT universe: 15%
And most importantly: Have fun! :thumbup:
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Re: LTFC - June 2017 - Station Edition

#3
I was waiting for sooooo long for this LTFC Topic!

Here is my entry at low resolution for the mobile customers, but honestly, I strongly suggest the high resolution, but reasonably sized (1.8Mb) version for readability, or the unreasonably sized png version for readability and sharpness (12.6 Mb):
Spoiler:      SHOW
Image

I modelled this station in the last year over several months during the second great silence of LTFC (sept 16 - Feb 17) and presented already a view in this non-LTFC thread, and show the view here for your convenience:
Spoiler:      SHOW
Image

The aim was to have the functionality in focus and make something that while still "sic-fi" would be something actual engineers would built as the form and design are dictated by the function - as opposed to most stations as displayed in diverse Sci-Fi pictures and LT-videos that are looking cool, but seem to be designed by art majors. The only "design" part is also dictated by function: a tourist trap :twisted:
This is why making the blueprint/promotional picture was conceptually easy - the whole explanations were already present in my mind while modelling. It did require quite some (luckily low-res) renders, tough, as well as (thanks HS for the tip!) finding a way to "render" a wireframe view.
I hope to see you all visiting Telcontar Station!

PS: The 800000000 polygons are for the view from within the biospheres and are due to all the trees. It brought my computer to its knees.
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Re: LTFC - June 2017 - Station Edition

#4
Ala Station

Constructed in the late 28th century, Ala Station was built to oversee terraforming of the planet Ala, a cold but benign world with a thin atmosphere and a surface covered in a thin layer of water ice. Its orbital companion, Rusalka, was rejected for terraforming: Despite its climate being relatively clement before any adjustments, Rusalka plays host to a vast number of microorganisms, many of which wreak havoc with human physiology. To make it habitable it would have to be rendered inhabitable to the native life first, so Ala was ultimately the more viable option.

With the collapse of Terran authority in 2840, terraforming of Ala fell by the wayside as various warlords and self-proclaimed authorities squabbled over the surrounding systems. However, as the station was fully constructed and operational, it remained active, providing a safe and independent port for all that might visit.

Being located in a relatively sparsely populated area of space, the builders of Ala Station made sure that it was self sufficient in both supplies and defence. Six X-65 'Purifier' beam cannons, capable of burning through a capital ship within seconds provide enough firepower for any would-be attacker to think twice. It also has facilities to dock and refit sixteen destroyers or equivalent sized vessels, four cruisers or starliners and two capital ships. It also carries 112 fighter craft for local defence.

Image

And the stupidly high resolution version, of course!
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Re: LTFC - June 2017 - Station Edition

#5
Old thing of mine, model by me, textures and rendering from a good friend of mine (cuz i suck at texturing)

AEGIS planetary shield generator orbital station.
Part of a planet spanning network many of those stations project a very dense and durable shield to protect a whole planet from hostile influences.
The stations themself lack the size to contain their own power supply and are supplied by high power transfer beams from matched ground stations.
Image
Last edited by Cornflakes_91 on Tue Jul 04, 2017 3:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: LTFC - June 2017 - Station Edition

#7
Monthly Station Contest

Hello and welcome to our monthly contest of our show 'amazing station design' by Baccara-Station-Constructions.
This months theme is 'Hidden Stations'. We wanted to see station using good design and their surroundings to stay undetected to everyone passing through the system.
From all entries we received we're now presenting the best five of them.
The price for winning will be a newly build freighter from the Sira-Merchant-Faction, which has a better engine than most other freighters while still being able to carry the same amount of cargo.

And before we're start, we have to inform you that information on the following stations will be limited.
Not only because we're no longer unnecessarily endanger our ships unlike last months, where we lost two of them visiting the "Most Hazardous Stations".
But also because these station are meant to be hidden so the details their factions gave us are often restricted.

Without further ado, let's get right to it.

1st entry:
Spoiler:      SHOW
Starting with our first candidate, which we will refer to as the Cold Relay.
It's a station design to emit almost no signals and being basically invisible on the radar. The station is outfitted with modern anti-wave emittern, which decrease the emission-radiation from the core and disguise it as space radiation.
When we were inspecting said station, Turuncu-GS, the faction owning it, didn't tell us its exact location at first and challenging us to find it, so we tried our best only to be told that we flew past it multiple times.
The closest we got was only 3 starmiles away! That's less than our weapon-range!
It's probably easier finding this station relying solely on vision, though the system itself is pretty dark thanks to its small star, making it difficult to spot.

Turuncu-GS then told us that they use it mostly as an information relay capable of communication and detecting system-wide ship movement.
It also gets used for emergency repair and refuelling, but ships rarely dock because their radar visibility, even when the core is offline, is often still bigger than the one of the station.

2nd entry:
Spoiler:      SHOW
Our second contestant would normally be a station we wouldn't be able to talk about without giving away its position, but it's faction, which wants to stay anonymous, discontinued the station and submitted it as an entry.
We visited it only a couple of days before its decommission. To our surprise it's located at the biggest trading hub system of the Kannella-galaxy, where thousands of ships travel through every day!
The faction told us they rented three storage containers at one of the station. They installed spying-equipment in these to scan the cargo of big transporters moving through the system.

We wouldn't have called such an installation a station but rather a spying module, but after looking at it closer we started to see how ingenious the design was.
One of the containers acted as the central unit with its database-computer querying the public system network about the state and travel route of each individual transporter while the other two scanned their cargo, which often is not specified in said network.
Then every couple of days someone would dock with the central container to allegedly exchange cargo while obtaining the scanned information.
The faction would then use this information to predict rising and falling prices of materials and products in certain systems and investing in the stock market.
We're going to refer to this station as Non-Suspicious Containers.

3rd entry:
Spoiler:      SHOW
The data about our third submission will solely be based on our communication with its faction Reng-Roda. They didn't allow us to inspect the station, which is fine, since the information they sent us is detailed enough.
The station itself has, similar to our first contestant, low visibility on radar. However it's the biggest station of our entries and is able to refill and repair up to Dreadnought-class ships.
Running a mock-up of this station in a simulation based on the information we got showed us the range you would detect it at is about 15 starmiles.
While this distance is far less than what most station have as detection-range it's certainly would not be to difficult to find it. So how does is stay hidden was our question?

The station is equipped with four long-range ion-laser cannons.
These cannons have an incredible range of 22 starmiles and shoot everyone who's getting to close to the station and disabling their ships. These ships then get either captured and sold or scrapped for supplies.
Thus we're naming this station Sniper Base.

4th entry:
Spoiler:      SHOW
Our fourth entry is a station used by a faction during an active war. Because of that we weren't able to inspect it in person, but we got quiet some details about the station. It's hidden in a ion-cloud which gets charged by the local star and has a lot of electrical discharges and lightnings in it.
Flying through such a storm requires precautions to make sure your ship doesn't get disabled. And most shield generator will fail thanks to these intense lightnings.

Said ion-cloud is located deep within enemy territory and the station helps to coordinate and organize strikes on enemy resupply ships. But hiding the station in there was only half of the truth on how it wasn't found yet.
To further make sure the enemy won't spot the station it has no active core. The sole supply of energy for the station comes from the local lightnings hitting the station making it able to operate for a short time.
The faction told us that this station might be the decisive factor for the war, because the enemy faction gets pushed back because most of their resupply vessel don't reached the front line.
We're calling it the Lightning Station.

5th entry:
Spoiler:      SHOW
The last candidate will be named Just an Asteroid. Like the name suggests it's an asteroid station which looks like a real one.
Its owning faction, Bibrurek-Mining, told us it's being used a temporary storage, where miners deposit rare materials before they get transported out of the system with an armed escort. The station also keeps all the miners in the system connected and warns them of pirates appearing.

We were very surprised inspecting the station. If the faction didn't told us this asteroid is hiding a station we would have mistaken it as a random rock.
The only thing we were able to scan was that the station was indeed storing rare metal. But the faction managed to reinforced the natural material to hide all of the structure within so they're unable to be detected by normal scans.
We also were unable to find the docking port. It's a well hidden entry, where a special design 'mini-ship' transfers the cargo between the station and the miners and transporters.

And don't forget the fact that you're normally don't even know which of these many rocks in this system even holds the base.

These are our five final contestants.
Don't forget to vote for the station you think should win and have a chance to get a free cargo-drone capable of delivering system-wide, having enough cargo-space for your everyday needs, custom build by Baccara-Station-Constructions.

Just log in the public general network and use this link to leave your vote now!

We're going to announce our winner next week. And with that thanks for watching and until next week. Goodbye!
Post

Re: LTFC - June 2017 - Station Edition

#8
And now, for the results of the June 2017 "Station" competition!

This month, we have three prizewinners. The available prizes are:
  • Super Hexagon
  • Mirror's Edge
  • Superhot
  • Medal of Honor
The first place winner is: CSE, for his entry Telcontar Station - with a score of 88.33!!

Second and third place go to:
  • HowSerendipitous with a score of 86.33 for his entry Ala Station!
  • Lyyrae with a score of 80 for his entry Monthly Station Contest!

The runner ups are (in order of submission):
Comments of the judges in order of submission*:
Catsu:
  • It took me a bit to realize what I was looking at - largely because you specified Jupiter, I think. It's very nice, though! It could perhaps use a bit more detail, but I'm impressed! The atmosphere in this piece is incredible. Well done!
  • It looks atmospheric to the point of making me doubt whether it's a screenshot. It certainly ticks all the boxes when it comes to being LT-like. The station itself doesn't look particularly interesting, though.
  • Even though the station model itself is fairly basic, the atmosphere and nice rendering of the "ice" asteroid make this a really neat image.

CSE:
  • The designing of this really shines, and the amount of detail in it is really awesome. The only minus I see is a couple of typos in the advertisement.
  • It looks like a space station designed by an engineer indeed; mad respect for that. The level of detail is quite awesome. However, I liked the render of the station much more than the advertisement page, as it suffers from that terrible, depression-inducing blue monotone-ish background.
  • The amount of detail on this piece is astonishing. If we're able to design stations with anywhere near this level of detail in LT, I will be overjoyed. Impressive work!

HowSerendipitous:
  • Wow, those greebles... :shock: So many! So much! Even the windows are nicely textured. I wouldn't be surprised if the render time was obscene. Very lovely work! Excellent station design as well. I feel like this entry wasn't particularly "original", however.
  • That's how stations should look in LT. Very Freelancer-like, but with much more detail. One small thing related to the description: if you have a celestial body that's an "orbital companion" to another body infested with bacteria that are wholly and universally incompatible with humans, it'd mean that at least some form those same microorganisms is likely to exist on its companion body thanks to exchange of material induced by the asteroid impacts.
  • Another great entry with a ton of detail to discover in the high-res version. The only thing I'd do different personally is the coloring - a more metallic looking color might look better than the somewhat plastic primary coloring.

Cornflakes:
  • A nice middle ground between form and function, it's good-looking but too symmetrical to be very interesting. A solid entry, but not the catchiest one around.
  • Simple, perhaps, but it has an undeniable charm. I like knowing that it's actually just one part of a huge orbital array. The glow is a nice touch, too, though I would've liked to perhaps seen some evidence of the shield itself.
  • A simple but neat-looking model, which is made better by good rendering and lighting. The added lore gives it a nice finishing touch.

0111Narwhalz:
  • The design is nice, and clearly inspired by what we've seen in LT so far, but the lack of details doesn't help it to stand out. Using noise as texture generally doesn't pay out; using either wire-frame, proper texturing or manually painted flat projections is always catchier and better-looking.
  • I like the design of the station itself, but the rendering does not let it shine here, sadly. If it was a hardware limitation, I feel it could have been turned into a strength (e.g making the image look like it was made by a probe with a noisy camera or something).
  • This looks like an iRay render. It might not be, but I'm sure it uses the same idea: scatter millions of specks of light and average them out. I think there's a bit too much smoothing going on with the base model, unfortunately. Cool design, though!

Lyyrae:
  • An entry that's very different from the others, it does a good job of showing the sort of R&D and different, specialised designs we'll hopefully be able to see in LT (at least to some degree!). We got five stations for the price of one :D The word 'starmile' is just plain silly, though, and there are some minor mistakes that make it less enjoyable to read.
  • This is a fun idea to get the audience to interact with your entry! That's very clever and creative. I can't stress how interesting I found that. Imagining the different stations was fun, too. Excellent execution!
  • I love the idea behind this written submission - a contest entry about a context! The poll was a nice icing on the cake. Sadly, I had to dock a couple points due to frequent grammatical errors - maybe have someone proofread your writing if English isn't your first language?
*(comments on each are in random order to keep judges anonymous, and I may have edited a few comments slightly to further this)


A detailed overview of all scores can be found here.


Prizes will be handled in the comments thread. Congratulations to the winners, and thank you to the other judges and everyone that participated!
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