The Sojourn
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Nexus the Jupiter Incident and it's Influence on The Sojourn.
🕑 Added 2021-02-16 22:01:01 +0000 UTCHello Patrons!
As I suspect a few of you may have already realized, one of the major influences for ship design and space combat in The Sojourn is the deeply underappreciated 2004 PC game 'Nexus The Jupiter Incident'.
Though much of Nexus's story takes place in a more futuristic setting with shields and energy weapons, it begins in a 22nd century Sol System that sits at pretty much exactly the level of realism i've always wanted for The Sojourn.
Ships in Nexus operate within a largely newtonian flight model using powerful correctional thrusters and maneuvering deliberately in combat, but it doesn't fully embrace the hard sci-fi style of The Expanse where ships are essentially water balloons armed with hypodermic needles. Ships in Nexus and now in The Sojourn can take and endure hits and armor is a relevant part of warfare. Combat also takes place over somewhat contracted distances and at far slower speeds than is conventional for hard science fiction.
Though you command the futuristic 'Angelwing' for most of the Nexus story, the first three missions have you controlling a wonderfully grounded near-future space warship, the Stiletto Class Corvette.
Art by Theo Bouvier
The Stiletto is one of my favorite sci-fi designs of all time, and it's criminally unknown and underappreciated by sci-fi fans. I wanted to shine a light on it by making it's beautiful and practical design into the primary inspiration for Centrum Assembly warships in The Sojourn.
The most distinctive feature of the Stiletto is it's forward facing retrograde drive cones. These cones are not low-yield maneuvering jets but full sized torch drives in the same style as the ship's main engines. These allow the corvette to decelerate into combat without having to invert the whole ship to bring the main engines to bear. This allows the ship's weapons and armor to be oriented in a more tactically valuable way at the outbreak of combat.
Tripathia Class Third-Rate Ship of the Line by Azzeco
It was a happy accident that this unique style of forward and aft main engines lent itself remarkably well to the Age of Sail themes I had hoped to build in to The Sojourn. Most specifically the provided a practical application for what used to be called Chase Armament, meaning the forward and aft mounted cannons or carronades of a historical warship, that were fewer in number than broadside weapons but could be used to continue firing at a hostile vessel while in pursuit, or to fire back at a pursuing enemy whilst in retreat yourself.
"Vétéran" by Michel Bouquet
If you're a fan of space strategy games or just good ship design and you've not already checked out Nexus, I'd strongly recommend picking it up. It's often available for tiny sums of money on Steam and such, and by modern standards it's hardly graphically demanding (Though still looks great).
Many thanks to Mithis Entertainment for capturing my imagination with their game when I was younger. It's a tragedy they were never given the sequel they deserved.
Fair winds everyone,
- Dan
Comments
Andrhengl
I loved Nexus The Jupiter Incident . Came out at about the same time as Homeworld 1 and it's expansion, another favorite, but I always liked Nexus more because of its Physics model which was full 3D not 2+1D as was Homeworld. And I also loved the Stiletto. Thought the Tripathia looked familiar. I was so disappointed when they moved to artificial gravity with the gravity axis , perpendicular to the longitudinal axis, after the first 3 missions.
Dirk
I love the feel of the Age of Sail applied to ships in the Sojourn. I will have to check out Nexus. I loved the Expanse and how they handled ships, and I am (so far) appreciating how the Sojourn has compromised between hard science, manageable but variable tactics, and story telling.
