Thunderstone
Note: Thunderstone is still heavily under construction and thus much of what is said here is more of a roadmap than a list of actual features. As it exists now, Thunderstone is an extremely under-construction preview and is not recommended for non-testing purposes.
| Maintainer(s) | Aethaeryn |
| Factions | Human Troopers, Elvish Mystics, Dwarvish Guardians, Orcish Raiders, Shaxthals |
| Current Version(s) | Preview 2 or SVN |
| Wesnoth Version(s) | 1.7.2 or SVN |
| Forum Thread | N/A |
| Unit Trees | SVN unit tree |
| Status | {{{status}}} |
A post-post-apocalyptic world where fantasy and science fiction collide, Thunderstone is the far future of Wesnoth's world Irdya. The core of the Thunderstone add-on will be an era, consisting of five all-new factions - Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and the Shaxthals (the Biomechanicals from Invasion from the Unknown). The add-on also introduces new terrains, the electric damage type, new weaponry and a new attack range, vehicles, and special units. Altogether, Thunderstone hopes to be the core for scenarios and campaigns based in the far future of the world Wesnoth.
Story
Thunderstone is set in the future, long after the "apocalypse" wiped out much of the world. In the years following Under the Burning Suns and Invasion from the Unknown, the remnants of civilization have come in contact with high technology. Combined with over a hundred years of stability, a new era of innovation has made this rebuilding world far more advanced than before. In this age of mixed magic and science, the first powerful spacecraft have been developed and the elves, dwarves, humans, and orcs of the world of Irdya have ended their isolation from the galaxy at large...
New Features
Terrains
Thunderstone introduces new sets of terrain on top of the traditional Wesnoth terrains. The two major terrain sets are Uninhabited and Space. Space is the void between the heavenly bodies. Only spacecraft, robotic or semi-robotic creatures that do not need to breathe oxygen, and creatures shielded and given oxygen with a specialized suit can travel through space. Uninhabited is a similar environment except on a planet or moon, one hostile to most living creatures. The major difference is that only fliers can travel in Space while any machine small enough to enter the atmosphere (all except the biggest spaceships) can travel on or directly above Uninhabited terrain.
Electric Damage Type
Thunderstone also introduces a new damage type called "Electric." Electric is similar to fire, but is usually produced from high-tech weapons. Electric's main specialty is that it does extra damage against high-tech machinery such as vehicles, thus making it an effective counter for otherwise powerful units.
Weaponry and Ranges
Thunderstone introduces many new weapons of a higher technology level than standard Wesnoth, including guns. It also introduces a new attack range, long ranged, that is mostly used in spaceships and other weaponry capable of much higher range than bows or most guns, such as sniper rifles. Because of long ranged's rarity, it usually provides no retaliation to the attacker which is a key strategic advantage.
Guns are portable machines that shoot projectiles at people and have replaced the bow as the ranged weapons of choice. Thunderstone is the dawn of the space-traveling age for the sentient races of Irdya, so guns vary from bullets to bursts of harmful electricity. Unlike bows, the rapid-fire capability of guns enables many guns span two ranges. For example, a shotgun is able to be used in both melee in ranged. Other guns can be used as blunt objects close up to still do melee damage. All standard guns that can be shot in melee have the first strike ability there, while those that are not shot do not have first strike.
Despite the abandonment of the bow for the gun, some close-ranged weapons are still used. These varied objects are not necessarily disadvantaged because they are usually unanticipated.
Vehicles
Each faction in Thunderstone will have several vehicles. Most vehicles are so powerful and expensive that they are recruited at level 2 or higher. Vehicles are not living and thus are unpoisonable, undrainable, and unplaugeable. Vehicles can be flying or ground-based, and tend to be stronger than infantry. Their superiority comes with major weaknesses: electric-based attacks, and high prices and upkeep. In addition to the recruitable flying vehicles, there are also unrecruitable spaceships that are much stronger, but can only travel in space terrain. These units are non-standard and much rarer than the normal vehicles.
Five All-New Factions
Human Troopers
Humans are still the jack-of-all-trades race. Balancing magic and science, humans are generalists who adapt to novelty more effectively than the other races of Irdya. Their technical strength area is computers and miniaturization. They, more than the other speaking peoples, tend to win by luring opponents into fatal mistakes.
Elvish Mystics
Elves are still in touch with nature and in the years of peace they have greatly enhanced their magical skills. Elves focus heavily on this magic, rejecting technologies which they find disharmonious, and excel at biology and medicine. Much of their technology is magically-enhanced. Tactically, elves focus on mobility and precision fire.
Dwarvish Guardians
The dwarves are the master technologists and builders of Irdya, especially in the areas of power, weapons, propulsion, and large-scale engineering. They remain intensely conservative, and their technology is ultra-reliable even if it lacks the finesse and efficiency of human or elven work.
Orcish Raiders
Orcs have stolen most of what they have from the more civilized species, but focus mostly on war. Their technology tends towards the crude, overpowered hack, and is notoriously (and sometimes comically) unreliable. The flip side of this is that in any environment that doesn't outright kill them, orcs are less helpless without their tech than the other speaking peoples.
Shaxthals (Biomechs)
Main article: Shaxthals
The Shaxthals are an ancient race created by the original inhabitants of Irdya. These combinations of bioengineering and magic were made to aid in a war, but they soon became out-of-control. They were defeated, however, and only revived recently under the Chaos Empire. When the Chaos Empire was destroyed, the Shaxthals became free to do what they do best - kill.
Add-ons
By the time Thunderstone 1.0 is released, the project will be published on the add-ons server using multiple add-ons.
Thunderstone Era will be the core add-on for the Thunderstone project and will provide the units, terrain, and other files necessary for every other Thunderstone-based add-on. This will be the only add-on necessary to play normal multiplayer.
Thunderstone Campaigns will contain main campaigns for the Thunderstone project (including the title campaign, Thunderstone). These campaigns will be considered canon with Thunderstone's storyline and will be good examples of what Thunderstone offers. All of these campaigns will require and feature the core era.
Thunderstone: Strike Force will be a non-linear multiplayer RPG campaign with a worldmap. It will be designed for three players on the same team, where each player controls up to three units. Its "worldmap" is space, with multiple planets and destinations that can be visited, possibly more than once. The players will experience the same Thunderstone universe but from a different perspective.
Versions
When released on the add-ons server, Thunderstone will use a versioning system that is designed to help users of the era. The version will be contain three numbers (e.g. 0.1.1). The first one indicates stability, so 1.x.x will be a balanced and "complete" version while 0.x.x is still under construction. The second number indicates incompatible releases, which means that a Wesnoth client using 0.1.0 and one using 0.2.0 will run a risk of getting out-of-sync (OOS) errors in multiplayer. Content such as mappacks or campaigns for Thunderstone might also contain features not found in previous versions, and therefore it is always recommended to update when a new incompatible release is released. The third number indicates compatible releases. This means that content for Thunderstone and MP games using Thunderstone will still work with each other. If 0.1.1 is released, it would update the art of 0.1.0.
Major Release Roadmap: What is needed for...?
0.0.1.x (Alpha)
- Placeholder, draft, or complete base frames for every faction's units (higher levels can still share placeholder with lower levels);
- WML for every faction's units to the point of non-buggy playing (balance not guaranteed).
0.0.5.x (Beta)
- Base frames for every faction's units (none shared, but draft and placeholders allowed);
- Beginning of balancing;
- Extra features (terrains, items, non-factional units, etc.) for everything planned (draft and placeholders allowed, new submissions always welcome).
Release 0.1.x
- Base frames for every faction's units (placeholders discouraged);
- Balanced factions to the point of somewhat fair multiplayer;
- Majority of extra features (terrains, items, non-factional units) working and not buggy;
- Additional add-on content (mostly campaign) releases begin.
Release 1.0
- Complete base frames, most basic animations;
- Balanced factions (as best as possible);
- Extra features (terrains, items, non-factional units, etc.);
- Completed, and also at 1.0, core content (campaigns and other official Thunderstone add-ons).
Release 2.0 (or 3.0?)
- On par with, or close to, Default in terms of art and animations, WML and balance, and contents (campaigns, and other official add-ons), etc.
Subversion
Thunderstone also uses Subversion (SVN) to coordinate work between the released versions. You can browse the Thunderstone SVN repository to see the latest draft of Thunderstone. Thunderstone is part of Wesnoth UMC Dev, which hosts the project's SVN. You can download Thunderstone with the command:
svn co https://wesnoth-umc-dev.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/wesnoth-umc-dev/trunk/Thunderstone Thunderstone
Please note that Thunderstone, like all add-ons, goes in data/add-ons/ in the Wesnoth userdata directory. Also note that Thunderstone is still heavily under construction so the SVN is merely a preview instead of a full era. SVN tends to be unstable and is generally not compatible with a release of Thunderstone on the add-ons server, so use it with caution.
Coordination
If you would like to help with Thunderstone, you can coordinate on the wesnoth-umc-dev IRC channel (for real-time chat and to keep updated on the SVN revisions) and in our forum threads for general discussion and art.
IRC Channel
#wesnoth-thunderstone (freenode.net)
Forum Threads
A forum thread for general discussion will be released as soon as Thunderstone is officially published on the add-ons server. Until then, IRC is a suitable place for communication.
Wiki Pages
Thunderstone art is used to keep track of what art is needed and what art is done.