Ardent Seas is a real time strategy game focusing primarily on Naval combat. The game takes place on an alter-Earth, called Tenorra, an Earth-like planet that is larger and has a bigger Ocean coverage than Earth. The gameplay focuses on the acquisition of Metals and Hydrocarbons, and the destruction of the enemy Command Ship.
Ardent Seas takes place on the planet of Tenorra, colonized centuries ago, and recovering from a dark age. The leading powers in the world are Tenorran Defense Navy, the Naval branch of the Tenorran Defense Union, and the Coalition Navy, part of Coalition of Populist Socialist Nations - CPSN - which are in a cold war-like situation with eachother, with occasional battles happening near their borders. The Tenorran Defense Union is named after the planet itself – Tenorra, which is intended to mean „Not really Earth“, it is a Union of several highly advanced states across 3 continents, and in many regards similar to both the EU and the USA. The CPSN is a loose coalition of countries in the two southern continents, and are on a technological level comparable to the early 1990s, but with flatscreens and smartphones, with very powerful industries – in some ways comparable to present day China.
Tenorra is under siege by an Armada of Drones, the purpose of which is the total destruction of any civilization they find, set upon the Galaxy as a final act of retribution against a rivaling civilization they were losing against.
The player is represented by and starts with a single unit, the Flagship, the ultimate goal of the game is the destruction of all enemy Flagships. A player automatically loses if his Flagship is destroyed.The game features two primary and three secondary resources. The primary resources are Metal and Hydrocarbons, these are later converted into Construction Materials, Ammunition, and Fuel. Ships require Construction Materials to be built, and Ammunition and Fuel to operate.
Ardent Seas will feature a single player campaign, an original soundtrack, three unique factions each with over 20 units, large and diverse maps, with high tactical depth, customizable units and various gameplay modes.
Sneak peek of a coming update, and feature: Unit customization.
You will be able to set the colors used by the patterns, as well as which patterns are used, the size of the pattern, and the color of the white stripes.
Should be interesting, looks like nice work so far. As a small note it would be good if units distributed their fire along the entire hull rather than just target the centre.
Next little update, the KA52N Naval Warfare Helicopter of the Tenorran Defense Navy - also the closest thing to a real vehicle you're going to find in the game.
It's armed with twin 40mm chemically assisted railguns and 4 air launched torpedo missiles.
The weapons of the Helicopter all work, as does its movement for the most part. The Corvette's anti-submarine turrets still fire at ships, but that'll change once the Attack Sub is implemented.
Let's start with the important stuff first, shall we?
The game is now no longer called Naval Games. The name is Ardent Seas now. Naval Games was only the Development Title, to be used until we had a final name after all. Remember to update your bookmark if you have one, as the URL is now Indiedb.com
More things. The Command Ships' class final name is Flagships, everything else about them remains the same. The class of ships used to capture Islands is now called Command Ship, as those names are all much more fitting than the previous ones.
Next up, we have some storyline changes. Tenorra is its own planet now. It's located several hundred lightyears from Earth, and was colonized quite catastrophically some centuries ago, resulting in a kind of dark age, during which all resources were spent on agriculture, and building up basic infrastructure, losing a lot of tech in the process. The different factions on the Planet have largely recovered, and are a few years ahead of where we are in real life, and some extras. The rest of the storyline remains unchanged.
Little things. The Destroyer is getting an additional set of weapons, two swiveling quad Torpedo Launchers, quite devastating, but inaccurate and of short range.
The KA52N is going to be moved to the CPSN, or replaced completely in face of the storyline changes. The TDN's air force will almost completely consist of VTOLs.
The Shields of the ICES units are getting an interesting mechanic. The more units shoot at the shields, the more resistant the shields become, dealing less and less damage the more fire is received by them, capping off at a reduction of about 75%. The shields however still lose HP, and will deplete eventually.
Also, Unity have updated their licensing. *All* engine-features are now available in the free version. Among other things this means we don't need to overdraft our bank accounts quite as much as before
And now, for the media-part of this media update!
First of all, some renders. The first two are self explanatory. The third image is the TDN Resupply Vessel, which replenishes nearby units with Ammunition and Fuel. The 4th image is the Port structure, with the command ship to scale. This port structure acts as control hub for the Islands.
I've finished redesigning the Fast Attack Craft, also I've redesigned the Turret - turrets and units are handled as separate entities. The new turret is a 40mm Autocannon, the previous one was a 5" naval gun. It can fire at everything, and does decent damage.
Begone is the old water, the new one actually has waves!
The water will require some work on the shader still, it’s not quite what we want yet. Aircraft work for the most part, hey fly, fire, and explode nicely. Can’t land yet though. Added several new ships, and gave the Fast Attack Craft another makeover, textured the Resupply Vessel, and the TDN’s Airforce is almost complete, only missing an attack helicopter of sorts, to attack ground installations.
Now, for those new units I mentioned. First off, the Fast Battleship
The Fast Battleship is specialized for long range combat. Fast Battleships sacrifice armor in favor of greater speed and mobility. The greatly reduced reliance on chemical propellants also allows for a lighter citadel design, since the main guns don’t require propellant, allowing for smaller powder magazines. Its Mjolnir missiles are very powerful against large and capital ships, but are likely to miss smaller, more agile vessels like the Hydrofoil and the Fast Attack Craft.
Strong Against: Medium Vessels, Large Vessels, Capital Ships
Weak Against: Submarines, Aircraft, Small Vessels
Next up, the Hydrofoil
The Hydrofoil’s primary purpose is that of a scout, as well as Air Defense. It has very little armor, but is very fast since it’s propelled by 4 turbojets in 2 swiveling pods in the back of the craft.
Default Armament:
1 RAM Anti-Aircraft Missile Launcher
1 6-cell Multi-Purpose Vertical Launch System
Strong Against: Aircraft
Weak Against: Small Vessels, Medium Vessels, Submarines
And lastly, the Supersonic Missile Frigate
Long Range anti-ship artillery. The Supersonic missiles the Frigate fires have very poor tracking, as such they are not very useful against small ships, as they are likely to miss. They’re best used against Medium, Large and Capital ships. Very weak armor, but it’s one of the fastest TDN units. Has a Helipad that can support a single Helicopter or VTOL.
Strong Against: Medium Vessels, Large Vessels, Capital Ships
Weak Against: Aircraft, Small Vessels, Submarines
Furthermore, from Left to Right, we have the Strike Fighter, Tactical Bomber and Air Superiority Fighter:
That’s it for the units, but not for the update.
I have added several new effects, mostly weapon effects, but also others, like ship trails, jet exhausts and wingtip vortexes, some of these effects can already be seen above, the remainder are in the next load of screenshots:
The Ravagers fill the role of the bad guys in Ardent Seas, but are they really bad? They have no consciousness, they just do as they are programmed: Seek and destroy foreign technology. Because of their alien nature, they're going to differ in some fundamental ways from the Tenorran Defense Navy and the Coalition. Unlike them, they do not depend on Islands what so ever, whereas both the TDN and CPSN have to capture islands to gain access to higher tier units.
Furthermore, the Ravagers don't use fuel or ammunition, their ships get everything they need from the Sea below. That doesn't apply to their aircraft though, which are just as dependent on energy and ammunition as the other two are dependent on fuel and ammunition.
Instead of Fuel, the Ravagers require Bandwidth. To increase the bandwidth, you have to upgrade the Flagship, that can be done a few times, and after that build Auxiliary Command Ships, which in turn can also be upgraded to further increase the bandwidth. Bandwidth works very much like power in other RTS games, if the limit is exceeded, ships shut down. They can however disable ships to bring the usage back down within the current limit.
Ravager ships are fast and lethal, and are protected by powerful shields, but their firing range is limited and their have weak armor. The shields and weak armor are both a weakness and strength of this faction. Shields aren't quite as good as armor, but unlike armor, they will regenerate on their own. Additionally, shields attenuate damage based on how much damage they're receiving, which makes them very, very good at taking on superior numbers.
They also build a bit differently. Their Flagship can produce every unit they have, sort of. Their units are built in the Mothership high above, and dropped from Space right next to the Flagship. They're inactive for a brief moment while they power up, and are extremely vulnerable during that time, as their shields are inactive.
Harvesting also works differently. While the Coalition and the Navy both harvest resources with specialized units, the Ravager Flagship also acts as harvester, firing a mining beam into the water, and a transport beam up to the Mothership. This means that Ravager players are likely to fortify themselves around resource deposits.
Would you like to know more?
Now that we have the formalities out of the way, let's get down to business!
So far, we have three Ravager units: The 'Reaver' frigate, the 'Breacher' destroyer and the 'Banshee' drone.
And we're going to start with the Reaver of course.
The Reaver is a light, fast attack vessel, and one of the earliest available in the game. It's armed with two dual liquid metal cannon turrets, and two "Swarmer" missile launchers mounted in its shoulders, each firing 6 missiles. The Reaver can eject its shields, causing a localized EMP burst that disables any units nearby, but leaves it unprotected, meaning that if there are any units outside of the blast zone nearby, the Reaver firing the EMP will likely die very quickly.
All in all, it's built to harass the enemy, with great speed and decent armament and protection.
Next up, the Breacher.
Fast, but otherwise very unlike the Reaver, the Breacher is more of a general combat unit. Its armament consists of 3 dual liquid metal beam turrets, and 3 Swarmer launch bays, each firing 8 missiles. In addition to that, it has 4 twin water cutter cannon turrets, two on the top front of the hull, and two under the tail prongs, for close range defensive purposes. It's faster than any other ship of its size class, though still slower than the smaller Reaver. Its firepower is primarily focused forward. Its shields regenerate faster than those of other ships. It can carry a single combat drone, and comes with a "Banshee" by default.
It's a great general purpose ship, able to deal with many threats on its own, but it will struggle with long range sniping units and heavier units than itself.
And now the aforementioned Banshee.
The Banshee is a fast fighter-bomber drone, able to deal with most aerial threats quite easily, but it can't do much against heaver units, particularly large and capital ships. It's armed with a single 8-shot Swarmer launcher, with another 16 missiles in storage. Like all Ravager units, it has weak armor and powerful shields. Unlike other Ravager units however, it has to rearm and recharge at its carrying ship periodically.
Overall, it's great to take the skies, but not well suited for any other jobs.
And now, back down to Earth.
Or not? There are news about the TDN too.
They have a new unit, the HAL-33-10 High Altitude Laser.
Basically an aerial area denial weapon. The HAL is armed with two anti-aircraft laser turrets firing Green beams, and two anti-missile lasers, firing Red beams. It's very much capable of dealing with larger numbers of hostile aircraft, if it stays out of their range. It's very fast, but isn't the most well armored aircraft around.
It differs from other TDN aircraft, in that it can only be built and deployed from Airfields on Islands.
If you need to protect a fleet from enemy air forces, this is the unit you want.
But wait, there's more!
You already know these next two units. Nothing too big has changed about them, but I think they deserve a proper introduction, too, and have received some extra artistic love. Future news updates are going to include proper introductions to already existing units, until every one is covered.
The Fast Attack Craft.
A fast hit-and-run unit with weak armor, but good firepower. Unlike most TDN units, the Fast Attack Craft doesn’t have very long range. It's armed with 2 forward facing Light Anti-Ship Missile Launchers, a 40mm Autocannon turret in the front, that can fire at surface and air targets alike, two 30mm point defense cannons, that too can fire at everything but have less range than the 40mm gun, and lastly a SeaRAM CIWS turret.
A good early game harasser, and still good at supporting larger ships later in the game.
And the Corvette
The Corvette is an agile electronic warfare and scout ship, lacking armor, but undetectable on Radar. It has a Helipad that can support one helicopter or VTOL. Additionally, it’s designed to combat submarines. It's one of the most gratuitously armed ships of its size. 12 Anti-Submarine missile tubes, 4 Anti-Submarine grenade launchers, a 75mm burst-firing autocannon turret, a SeaRAM CIWS, 2 30mm Point-Defense Weapons, 2 EMP cannons, and 2 Electric Smoke Grenade launchers, fired through a special ability, that create a lingering EMP effect in the target area.
Although it's a small ship, it's not available until very late into the game, being a high tier unit. It's also an area-denial weapon, being able to lock down entire areas with its electric smoke and EMP cannons, while simultaneously deterring any submarine movement nearby.
But wait, there's even more!
Part of the UI works, and has a set theme now, the TDN have a faction logo, info on the way tech levels/tiers work, a demonstration of the unit customization, and a load of screenshots. Also, the Battleship has received several Quad AA-Guns.
The UI is seen in the screenshots below, and doesn't really require all that much explanation. Resources are displayed in the upper right corner, abilities and buildable units are in the bottom right corner, with a unit type selector above, and attached to the left of that, we have unit stances, waypoints, etc.
This is the TDN logo:
The 6 stars represent the 6 nations part of the Tenorran Defense Union: Atlanta, Bretania, Euras, Helena, Latania and Norsia.
Next, the tech system.
Players start at Tech 1, with a collection of units available to them, and more that can be researched. To advance, Tech upgrades are purchased on the Flagship, each unlocking more units, and making more available to research, up to Tech 4, which unlocks Capital ships, like the Supercarrier.
