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Enjoy the new forums!​

Travis O'Dell: Creative Director at Far Frontier Studios said: As we work towards a more polished and cohesive experience for the user, we realized that we must start from ground zero, and that was our branding. We want to focus on our gameplay experience and let the design merely be an accent to that – putting the player first. The symbology and simplicity of this design lend itself well in our eyes to this mission and communicating our overall goals for the project. Click to expand...







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(Locked, Group, Faction, Open)

(the more players mine a mineral, the fewer yields and the amount you'll get)

Fuschi Industries

Genomics Laboratories

Woo! What a month it has been. Please take your precious cup of Joe, take a seat and sit back because we have a tremendous amount of delicious information for your brain to take in and process. The team has been working endlessly, genuinely working all-nighters so often it practically became a standard behind the curtains, to get everything done on time for the development blog. I'm talking; an upgraded forum software, a new game logo, improved character models, two new level designs, new user interfaces and much more!It is pretty arduous to miss (lol), but we have upgraded the entire forum to Xenforo's latest version. You are sure to expect improved performance, functionality, and stability. They have worked this version back from the ground up, and it's in a much better state now than it was before, as I'm certain you will experience yourself. We are still very much performing small tweaks here and there to improve the look and feel, so for the coming few days; you will notice some subtle adjustments.Along with this update, we have also chosen to restructure and improve the overall appearance of the current, and future, development blogs. Hope you like it!As you've all noticed by now, we've completely reworked our game logo to rightly resemble the core foundation and beliefs we stand for — it cannot be ignored nor would we ever want to. We chose the Norse Valknut symbol because of its underlying meaning. We firmly believe we are capable of setting forth a better, more polished version of the game we all used to love and cherish, hence the rebirth and cycles of reincarnation idea behind it. We like it; we hope you do, too.As always, @BioXide has been working around the clock, nothing new there, but whatnew is the fact we've completed our Vortex Network's UI and that it is ready for implementation. Take a look!For the past month, we have been extremely busy designing and writing our deployable system. It has taken more time than expected, but it's because we are building the system to be very expandable in the future. The deployable system supports different kinds of deployables; from mining rigs to furniture and many other planned deployables. Right now, the focus is the mining rig since we want to give our players the option to be able to mine passively, which was a feature heavily requested by the community.Once you place a deployable on the world, you'll be able to interact with them by pressing E — if you're the owner, you can set the security rules of the deployablewhich dictates who is able to use your deployable. Deployables can be hacked, stolen and destroyed as well. The mining rig, once deployed, will grab the mineral information from the world and display all minerals that you can mine in the drop-down selection. Each mineral has a density value which slowly decays over time. Mining Rigs will require a fuel cell to operate, once inserted, you'll be able to start mining after which the mining rig extracts minerals every 30 seconds, while at the same time reducing the fuel cell charge. The amount received is randomized using the density algorithm.The mining rig mines at a slower pace than the mining tool, but it doesn't require having to shoot or be near resource nodes to receive minerals.Deployables can be produced the same way as other items, once you have a deployable on your inventory, using it will bring up a visual placement (similar to other open world games with building systems built in) where you can decide where to place the deployable, you'll be able to rotate it as well by pressing the key associated with that action. Players have a deployable manager that acts as the high-level overseer of deployables, keeping count of player deployables, deciding the placement rules, offering to save & load functionality with them as well.While working on the mining rigs, we had to write an entirely new mineral algorithm whilst implementing feedback we gathered from the previous eco-test. That took quite some time as I had to go through all of the previous code and remove most of it to make sure the new algorithm actually works. I completely re-did the way you receive minerals from nodes, the yields and added the density algorithm. Mining is definitively more enjoyable now and we still need to add the mining implant – all of this is still a heavy work in progress and we can't wait to test all of this with the community.Posted below are some early previews of Lower Union City and Union City Spaceport. We aim to have the first pass of lighting, and art assets to start populating the levels with, ready for the next development update. Also, keep in mind that everything you see in the pictures below is subject to change and is not yet permanent. We are very much still experimenting with the fog values.We may or may not have drawn inspiration from the Altered Carbon series. No comment.Below are an improved version of Khimarra's characters along with a couple of environmental artwork pieces. Kudos to Manlosa and Sef Deka! Absolutely nailed it!Below is an artwork created by Manlosa, portraying the prison colony on Mars.There are many commentators who claim that the social, economic and political changes of the last century have led to a 'Rebirth of Mankind.' Some organizations such as the transhumanist terrorist group Followers of Eternity have taken this literally and seek to create a 'New Mankind' while others understand this as a more allegorical rebirth.What no one can debate is that three corporations made the Union what it is today. While many among the base citizenry of the Union would claim that it is the so-called Big Three, Avalon Enterprises, North Star Mining, and the Oda Zaibatsu, that have had the most influence on the modern Union. They are of course wrong.The first most influential corporation of the last one hundred years is Fuschi Industries. Founded in 2085 in Union City, the leading directors were key in supplying the early Corporate Militias that secured the cities borders and eventually pacified the local region to the extent that the Union itself could be founded. In the post-2098 Union, Fuschi Industries became one of the TDC's preferred contractors supplying a variety of aerospace options including the iconic Léiniǎo (Thunderbird) Air/Space Interceptor that although retired from active service still delights crowds at any airshow. The successes of their aerospace frames allowed Fuschi to have an active and advanced research center (operated in conjunction with the Union City University) this paid off for Fuschi in 2109 when Dr. Simon Cheung created what is now known as Quantum Abridgement Theory.While it took until 2121 before Fuschi and Dr. Cheung were able to properly develop the first prototype Fuschi-Cheung Drive the ability to break the light barrier and achieve practicable interstellar travel is truly the first step in the so-called 'Rebirth of Mankind'. This ability to break the bonds of our solar system and to venture beyond allowed humanity to settle on other worlds, necessitating several vital political and social changes in the 2130s.Fuschi caused another stir in 2150 when after years of mainly focusing on more efficient FTL Drives and on the building of interstellar craft for both government and civilian usage they unveiled the Quantum Abridgement Ansible capable of sending electronic data nearly instantaneously across vast distances. Combined with the Ansible Fuschi released a series of molecular disassembler/assembler pads that most people refer to as Quantum Gates. These 'gates' could break down a person into an electronic signal and then reassemble them. The near instantaneous travel that this allowed (at first between New Terra and Union City but the network is growing rapidly) played a significant role in the series of political reforms that occurred in 2156.Founded in 2132, Genomics originally focused on the creation of designer babies for the Founder class, however, in 2153 they utilized the new Quantum Abridgement Ansible technology to develop what they called 'Practical Immortality.' While human cloning had long been viable but until Fuschi proved that it was practical to transfer human consciousness into a digital format, and then to recover it, anyone considered immortality to be a reasonable life goal.Almost overnight, Genomics shifted from a genetic modification provider to the most important insurer in the Union. With a Genomics Re-Life Insurance (TM) package, those who could afford it were no longer paying for peace of mind for their relatives; they were paying for life itself. While certain neurological degenerative diseases can still prevent people from taking advantage of Re-Life technology immortality (at least for those who can afford it) has fundamentally changed how humanity sees itself, and has led to social, economic and political stresses that not only led directly to the political reforms of four years ago but still affect all of us today, and are likely to in the future..........Of course, the changes wrought by the innovations of these two companies pale in comparison to those thrust upon mankind by the third of the Corporations of Rebirth......- Extract from Corporations of the Rebirth by Prof Carroll Yang WestIt is called Far Frontier Studios and is the official development studio behind Mankind Reborn.We would also like to mention that Far Frontier Studios had a video call with an Epic Games representative as they had noticed Mankind Reborn via the YouTube videos we have been throwing online. It was an exciting meeting where both sides addressed vital topics regarding the game's development. We cannot go into too much detail, but it is safe to assume that the future of Mankind Reborn is most definitely looking bright.After that, we attended an Unreal Engine 4 conference in Portland called UnrealPDX a few days ago where we followed up with the Epic Games representative as mentioned above. The game was briefly shown to a crowd of people who ended up being quite enthusiastic.The images are quite large, so feel free to check them out here.This is all primarily due to the undying support we have received from our community the past year or so — I know I've said this before, but we cannot stress this enough. When we first started developing the game, in no way or scenario had we ever imagined it blowing up so quickly as it did. The staff team grew from just one person to three.. then eight.. right up to a total of nineteen motivated members giving their best every single day, along with a Discord server nearly hitting the 1,000 member mark. The project is snowballing, and we are glad you are with us to enjoy the journey!As always, thank you for the time and have a good one!