The Exacting Takes Off

First off, I would like to thank everyone who has commented on, favorited or even simply viewed the Exacting Class Starfighter. Since it was posted in August, the Exacting has been viewed nearly 1600 times, a number that is constantly increasing - only my Essential Guide comes even close to this - and the comments have been nothing but approving and intellectual. It makes me feel like a professional artist. Thank you, guys!

So many of you may be wondering, what has come of it? Why haven't I attempted anything else in its stead? As it so happens, one of those viewers was game developer David Wessman. He was working on a multiplayer space combat game based on hard science, and was hard pressed to find resources to support such realism. Atomic Rockets was the greatest source of information, and about August the Exacting was first featured on the website under Realistic Designs (I should note that Winchell Chung considers the starfighter to be impractical at best, so his featuring of my design at all is a great honor). He contacted about featuring the ship in the game, and while I was loathe to give up the design (I have plans for it), what I got was a much sweeter offer - aid them in development, providing new awesome but realistic designs and helping them with the research needed to come up with more. I leapt at the chance, and that's what I've been working on for the past few months.

Yes, you heard me, that drawing got me a job, working along David Wessman and Jack Mamais (the minds behind Tie Fighter and Crysis if you don't recognize them), and now, I'm ready to show part of my work:

Welcome to Starfighter Inc.


If you want the full scoop, go over to the Kickstarter page; Coray Siefert's done a better job of explaining it than I could. There's very little work of mine right there - most of that is concept art and footage from before I arrived, and we're refining these for more plausible and realistic versions - but I have represented them in other places, such as Ars Technica and Escapist (and since the cat's out of the bag I might as well say it: I am Zach Hajj). I even got interviewed there, and got a picture of mine featured!

Now, word of warning guys - it's nowhere near finished. It's going to be at least a year till anybody can play this, and while I'm quite willing to talk about it, there are some questions I just can't answer. What I can assure you is that once it comes out, so long as I'm on the team, it'll be an experience unlike any other. KSP players, you don't need combat mods anymore, we've got something better.

I must give thanks to NyrathWiz of Atomic Rockets, whose website continues to be an invaluable asset for development of the game, and whose appreciation is what brought me to the company's attention in the first place (I'm trying to convince the team to feature solar moth drive and cascade vane thrusters). I must also thank Malicious-Monkey, whose favorite list provided some good references for the art team. I also thank space-commander, not because of what he's done for the game, but because he's continued to feature my interview on his journal page.