Behold! The Warbird!

I just finished touching up this bad boy — The Warbird, one of the tougher enforcer ships in the GraviStar fleet.

The Warbird is heavily armed and designed to be a serious battlefield threat. Its weapons and systems include four primary beam weapons, six torpedo launchers, eight topside turrets with predictive targeting, and a complement of Bulldog missile fighters. It also carries hyperspace engines that allow it to jump directly onto the battlefield in an instant.

What makes the Warbird particularly dangerous is that it isn’t simply a machine. The ship is a living entity, controlled by a massive organic brain that gives its weapons systems the ability to anticipate and track enemy movement. That brain is actually visible on the ship — and ultimately becomes the primary target players must destroy to kill the monster.

The main art pass is now complete and ready for implementation.

Building one of these boss ships requires more than simply creating a finished exterior model. We also create separate clean and damaged sections around each turret location. When a player destroys one of the Warbird’s turrets, part of the surrounding ship is destroyed along with it, progressively tearing the vessel apart during the battle.

Next we’ll get all of its weapons installed, hook up the damage states, add its Bulldog fighters, and build out the behaviors that turn all of those individual pieces into a functioning in-game boss encounter.

Then it’s time to move on to the Valkyrie. 🙂